Mammography stages of change in middle-aged women with schizophrenia: An exploratory analysis

BACKGROUND: Health care providers and educators who seek to create health promotion programs and individualized comprehensive care plans for women with schizophrenia are hindered by the lack of data to guide their efforts. PURPOSE: This study tested the hypothesis that women with schizophrenia adhere to mammography screening guidelines at the same rate as other same-age women. The study also investigated the validity of the Health Belief (HB) and Stages of Change (SOC) models for breast cancer screening among women with schizophrenia. METHODS: Socio-demographic and clinical variables, as well as knowledge, attitudes, and barriers were assessed as a function of stage of change related to breast cancer screening in 46 women with schizophrenia. RESULTS: Women with schizophrenia were statistically less likely to be adherent to the screening recommendations than those without schizophrenia. Some support was found for the validity of the HB and SOC models for breast cancer screening in women with schizophrenia. Women in the Precontemplation stage had significantly higher negative attitude scores compared to Contemplation and Action/Maintenance stages (59.7, 45.7, and 43.2, respectively), and there was a trend for more barriers in the Precontemplation group (4.6, 2.6, 2.7 respectively). CONCLUSION: Given the small sample size, further research on the rates of breast cancer screening in women with schizophrenia is warranted. Nonetheless, these data suggest that providers who care for women with schizophrenia may need to make take additional measures to ensure that this population receives appropriate screening so as to not put them at greater risk for a late-stage diagnosis of breast cancer. Furthermore, these pilot data suggest that HB and SOC theory-based interventions may be valid for increasing mammography rates in women with schizophrenia

Mortality from gastrointestinal congenital anomalies at 264 hospitals in 74 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study

Background: Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of mortality in children younger than 5 years globally. Many gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are fatal without timely access to neonatal surgical care, but few studies have been done on these conditions in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared outcomes of the seven most common gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries globally, and identified factors associated with mortality. // Methods: We did a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients younger than 16 years, presenting to hospital for the first time with oesophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia, gastroschisis, exomphalos, anorectal malformation, and Hirschsprung's disease. Recruitment was of consecutive patients for a minimum of 1 month between October, 2018, and April, 2019. We collected data on patient demographics, clinical status, interventions, and outcomes using the REDCap platform. Patients were followed up for 30 days after primary intervention, or 30 days after admission if they did not receive an intervention. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality for all conditions combined and each condition individually, stratified by country income status. We did a complete case analysis. // Findings: We included 3849 patients with 3975 study conditions (560 with oesophageal atresia, 448 with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, 681 with intestinal atresia, 453 with gastroschisis, 325 with exomphalos, 991 with anorectal malformation, and 517 with Hirschsprung's disease) from 264 hospitals (89 in high-income countries, 166 in middle-income countries, and nine in low-income countries) in 74 countries. Of the 3849 patients, 2231 (58·0%) were male. Median gestational age at birth was 38 weeks (IQR 36–39) and median bodyweight at presentation was 2·8 kg (2·3–3·3). Mortality among all patients was 37 (39·8%) of 93 in low-income countries, 583 (20·4%) of 2860 in middle-income countries, and 50 (5·6%) of 896 in high-income countries (p<0·0001 between all country income groups). Gastroschisis had the greatest difference in mortality between country income strata (nine [90·0%] of ten in low-income countries, 97 [31·9%] of 304 in middle-income countries, and two [1·4%] of 139 in high-income countries; p≤0·0001 between all country income groups). Factors significantly associated with higher mortality for all patients combined included country income status (low-income vs high-income countries, risk ratio 2·78 [95% CI 1·88–4·11], p<0·0001; middle-income vs high-income countries, 2·11 [1·59–2·79], p<0·0001), sepsis at presentation (1·20 [1·04–1·40], p=0·016), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score at primary intervention (ASA 4–5 vs ASA 1–2, 1·82 [1·40–2·35], p<0·0001; ASA 3 vs ASA 1–2, 1·58, [1·30–1·92], p<0·0001]), surgical safety checklist not used (1·39 [1·02–1·90], p=0·035), and ventilation or parenteral nutrition unavailable when needed (ventilation 1·96, [1·41–2·71], p=0·0001; parenteral nutrition 1·35, [1·05–1·74], p=0·018). Administration of parenteral nutrition (0·61, [0·47–0·79], p=0·0002) and use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (0·65 [0·50–0·86], p=0·0024) or percutaneous central line (0·69 [0·48–1·00], p=0·049) were associated with lower mortality. // Interpretation: Unacceptable differences in mortality exist for gastrointestinal congenital anomalies between low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries. Improving access to quality neonatal surgical care in LMICs will be vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of ending preventable deaths in neonates and children younger than 5 years by 2030

Identification and reconstruction of low-energy electrons in the ProtoDUNE-SP detector

Measurements of electrons from $\nu_e$ interactions are crucial for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) neutrino oscillation program, as well as searches for physics beyond the standard model, supernova neutrino detection, and solar neutrino measurements. This article describes the selection and reconstruction of low-energy (Michel) electrons in the ProtoDUNE-SP detector. ProtoDUNE-SP is one of the prototypes for the DUNE far detector, built and operated at CERN as a charged particle test beam experiment. A sample of low-energy electrons produced by the decay of cosmic muons is selected with a purity of 95%. This sample is used to calibrate the low-energy electron energy scale with two techniques. An electron energy calibration based on a cosmic ray muon sample uses calibration constants derived from measured and simulated cosmic ray muon events. Another calibration technique makes use of the theoretically well-understood Michel electron energy spectrum to convert reconstructed charge to electron energy. In addition, the effects of detector response to low-energy electron energy scale and its resolution including readout electronics threshold effects are quantified. Finally, the relation between the theoretical and reconstructed low-energy electron energy spectrum is derived and the energy resolution is characterized. The low-energy electron selection presented here accounts for about 75% of the total electron deposited energy. After the addition of lost energy using a Monte Carlo simulation, the energy resolution improves from about 40% to 25% at 50~MeV. These results are used to validate the expected capabilities of the DUNE far detector to reconstruct low-energy electrons.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figure

Impact of cross-section uncertainties on supernova neutrino spectral parameter fitting in the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment

A primary goal of the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is to measure the $\mathcal{O}(10)$ MeV neutrinos produced by a Galactic core-collapse supernova if one should occur during the lifetime of the experiment. The liquid-argon-based detectors planned for DUNE are expected to be uniquely sensitive to the $\nu_e$ component of the supernova flux, enabling a wide variety of physics and astrophysics measurements. A key requirement for a correct interpretation of these measurements is a good understanding of the energy-dependent total cross section $\sigma(E_\nu)$ for charged-current $\nu_e$ absorption on argon. In the context of a simulated extraction of supernova $\nu_e$ spectral parameters from a toy analysis, we investigate the impact of $\sigma(E_\nu)$ modeling uncertainties on DUNE's supernova neutrino physics sensitivity for the first time. We find that the currently large theoretical uncertainties on $\sigma(E_\nu)$ must be substantially reduced before the $\nu_e$ flux parameters can be extracted reliably: in the absence of external constraints, a measurement of the integrated neutrino luminosity with less than 10\% bias with DUNE requires $\sigma(E_\nu)$ to be known to about 5%. The neutrino spectral shape parameters can be known to better than 10% for a 20% uncertainty on the cross-section scale, although they will be sensitive to uncertainties on the shape of $\sigma(E_\nu)$. A direct measurement of low-energy $\nu_e$-argon scattering would be invaluable for improving the theoretical precision to the needed level.Comment: 25 pages, 21 figure

Recent Advances on the Multiplex Molecular Detection of Plant Viruses and Viroids

[EN] Plant viruses are still one of the main contributors to economic losses in agriculture. It has been estimated that plant viruses can cause as much as 50 billion euros loss worldwide, per year. This situation may be worsened by recent climate change events and the associated changes in disease epidemiology. Reliable and early detection methods are still one of the main and most effective actions to develop control strategies for plant viral diseases. During the last years, considerable progress has been made to develop tools with high specificity and low detection limits for use in the detection of these plant pathogens. Time and cost reductions have been some of the main objectives pursued during the last few years as these increase their feasibility for routine use. Among other strategies, these objectives can be achieved by the simultaneous detection and (or) identification of several viruses in a single assay. Nucleic acid-based detection techniques are especially suitable for this purpose. Polyvalent detection has allowed the detection of multiple plant viruses at the genus level. Multiplexing RT polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been optimized for the simultaneous detection of more than 10 plant viruses/viroids. In this short review, we provide an update on the progress made during the last decade on techniques such as multiplex PCR, polyvalent PCR, non-isotopic molecular hybridization techniques, real-time PCR, and array technologies to allow simultaneous detection of multiple plant viruses. Also, the potential and benefits of the powerful new technique of deep sequencing/next-generation sequencing are described.This work was funded by grant BIO2017-88321-R from the Spanish Direccion General de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnica (DGICYT) and the Prometeo Program GV2014/010 from the Generalitat Valenciana.Pallás Benet, V.; Sanchez Navarro, JÁ.; James, D. (2018). Recent Advances on the Multiplex Molecular Detection of Plant Viruses and Viroids. Frontiers in Microbiology. 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.02087S

Highly-parallelized simulation of a pixelated LArTPC on a GPU

The rapid development of general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) is allowing the implementation of highly-parallelized Monte Carlo simulation chains for particle physics experiments. This technique is particularly suitable for the simulation of a pixelated charge readout for time projection chambers, given the large number of channels that this technology employs. Here we present the first implementation of a full microphysical simulator of a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) equipped with light readout and pixelated charge readout, developed for the DUNE Near Detector. The software is implemented with an end-to-end set of GPU-optimized algorithms. The algorithms have been written in Python and translated into CUDA kernels using Numba, a just-in-time compiler for a subset of Python and NumPy instructions. The GPU implementation achieves a speed up of four orders of magnitude compared with the equivalent CPU version. The simulation of the current induced on 10^3 pixels takes around 1 ms on the GPU, compared with approximately 10 s on the CPU. The results of the simulation are compared against data from a pixel-readout LArTPC prototype

End-to-middle-to-end solution for IMS media plane security

IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) is becoming the prevailing candidate for managing future mobile multimedia communications, including critical communications such as public safety, emergency professionals and corporate networks. IMSsecurity and privacy has gained much attention in the few last years. The review of recent IMS security activities stresses the inclusion of intermediate nodes in the media path of secured communications as an open issue. This paper presents an end-to-middle-to-end solution which enables the usage of IMS media plane elements such as recorders, transcoders and novel cross-ciphering functions in a secure way. The proposed solution, which is fully compliant with IMS, includes the network architecture, the signaling plane for session signaling and key management, and the media-plane security characteristics. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed solution can provide media interoperability (both transcoding and cross-ciphering) with a costof 17 % overhead to a standard IMS call setup in the signaling plane

Enhancing Network Management via NFV, MEC, Cloud Computing and Cognitive Features: The “5G ESSENCE” Modern Architectural Approach

Part 2: 5G-PINEInternational audienceThe paper work presents the essential architectural approach that has been proposed in the framework of the modern “5G-ESSENCE” EU-funded project, intending to develop a suitable ecosystem for serving real-life use cases associated to vertical industries and built on the pillars of network functions virtualisation (NFV), mobile-edge computing (MEC) capabilities, cognitive network management and appropriate use of small cells. Apart from identifying innovative features and options for enabling service deployment, the work focuses on the fundamental 5G ESSENCE-based architecture with description of the corresponding modules and their capabilities. The current approach comes as a mature continuity of previous efforts and/or related findings in the 5G-PPP context (mainly from the SESAME research project), but it purely concentrates upon providing tools for a robust and agile network management