Aseptic fluid transfer system

A method and means is provided, which permits the transfer of fluids between separate detached containers, in a manner which preserves the sterility of the fluids during and after their transfer

Age and Gender Differences in Social Network Composition and Social Support Among Older Rural South Africans: Findings From the HAALSI Study

OBJECTIVES: Drawing on the “Health and Aging in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH community in South Africa” (HAALSI) baseline survey, we present data on older adults’ social networks and receipt of social support in rural South Africa. We examine how age and gender differences in social network characteristics matched with patterns predicted by theories of choice- and constraint-based network contraction in older adults. METHOD: We used regression analysis on data for 5,059 South African adults aged 40 and older. RESULTS: Older respondents reported fewer important social contacts and less frequent communication than their middle-aged peers, largely due to fewer nonkin connections. Network size difference between older and younger respondents was greater for women than for men. These gender and age differences were explicable by much higher levels of widowhood among older women compared to younger women and older men. There was no evidence for employment-related network contraction or selective retention of emotionally supportive ties. DISCUSSION: Marriage-related structural constraints impacted on older women’s social networks in rural South Africa, but did not explain choice-based network contraction. These findings suggest that many older women in rural Africa, a growing population, may have an unmet need for social support

Co-enrolment of participants into multiple cancer trials: benefits and challenges

Opportunities to enter patients into more than one clinical trial are not routinely considered in cancer research and experiences with co-enrolment are rarely reported. Potential benefits of allowing appropriate co-enrolment have been identified in other settings but there is a lack of evidence base or guidance to inform these decisions in oncology. Here, we discuss the benefits and challenges associated with co-enrolment based on experiences in the Add-Aspirin trial – a large, multicentre trial recruiting across a number of tumour types, where opportunities to co-enrol patients have been proactively explored and managed. The potential benefits of co-enrolment include: improving recruitment feasibility; increased opportunities for patients to participate in trials; and collection of robust data on combinations of interventions, which will ensure the ongoing relevance of individual trials and provide more cohesive evidence to guide the management of future patients. There are a number of perceived barriers to co-enrolment in terms of scientific, safety and ethical issues, which warrant consideration on a trial-by-trial basis. In many cases, any potential effect on the results of the trials will be negligible – limited by a number of factors, including the overlap in trial cohorts. Participant representatives stress the importance of autonomy to decide about trial enrolment, providing a compelling argument for offering co-enrolment where there are multiple trials that are relevant to a patient and no concerns regarding safety or the integrity of the trials. A number of measures are proposed for managing and monitoring co-enrolment. Ensuring acceptability to (potential) participants is paramount. Opportunities to enter patients into more than one cancer trial should be considered more routinely. Where planned and managed appropriately, co-enrolment can offer a number of benefits in terms of both scientific value and efficiency of study conduct, and will increase the opportunities for patients to participate in, and benefit from, clinical research

Social contact, social support, and cognitive health in a population-based study of middle-aged and older men and women in rural South Africa

BACKGROUND: Several theories seek to explain how social connections and cognitive function are interconnected in older age. These include that social interaction protects against cognitive decline, that cognitive decline leads to shedding of social connections and that cognitive decline leads to increased instrumental support. We investigated how patterns of social contact, social support and cognitive health in rural South Africa fit with these three theories. METHOD: We used data from the baseline of "Health and Aging in Africa: a Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH community in South Africa" (HAALSI), a population-based study of 5059 individuals aged ≥ 40 years. We evaluated how a range of egocentric social connectedness measures varied by respondents' cognitive function. RESULTS: We found that respondents with lower cognitive function had smaller, denser social networks that were more local and more kin-based than their peers. Lower cognitive function was associated with receipt of less social support generally, but this difference was stronger for emotional and informational support than for financial and physical support. Impairment was associated with greater differences among those aged 40-59 and those with any (versus no) educational attainment. CONCLUSIONS: The patterns we found suggest that cognitively impaired older adults in this setting rely on their core social networks for support, and that theories relating to social connectedness and cognitive function developed in higher-income and higher-education settings may also apply in lower-resource settings elsewhere

Using Specialist Screening Practitioners (SSPs) to increase uptake of the Bowel Scope (Flexible Sigmoidoscopy) Screening Programme: a study protocol for a feasibility single stage phase II trial

The NHS Bowel Scope Screening (BSS) programme offers men and women aged 55 years a once-only flexible sigmoidoscopy (FS), a test that can help reduce colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence and mortality. However, the benefits of BSS are contingent on uptake. This NIHR funded single-stage phase II trial will test the feasibility of using Patient Navigation (PN), an intervention that offers support to patients to overcome barriers to healthcare, to increase BSS uptake within a socially deprived area of England

Fast Label Extraction in the CDAWG

The compact directed acyclic word graph (CDAWG) of a string $T$ of length $n$ takes space proportional just to the number $e$ of right extensions of the maximal repeats of $T$, and it is thus an appealing index for highly repetitive datasets, like collections of genomes from similar species, in which $e$ grows significantly more slowly than $n$. We reduce from $O(m\log{\log{n}})$ to $O(m)$ the time needed to count the number of occurrences of a pattern of length $m$, using an existing data structure that takes an amount of space proportional to the size of the CDAWG. This implies a reduction from $O(m\log{\log{n}}+\mathtt{occ})$ to $O(m+\mathtt{occ})$ in the time needed to locate all the $\mathtt{occ}$ occurrences of the pattern. We also reduce from $O(k\log{\log{n}})$ to $O(k)$ the time needed to read the $k$ characters of the label of an edge of the suffix tree of $T$, and we reduce from $O(m\log{\log{n}})$ to $O(m)$ the time needed to compute the matching statistics between a query of length $m$ and $T$, using an existing representation of the suffix tree based on the CDAWG. All such improvements derive from extracting the label of a vertex or of an arc of the CDAWG using a straight-line program induced by the reversed CDAWG.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure. In proceedings of the 24th International Symposium on String Processing and Information Retrieval (SPIRE 2017). arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1705.0864

Mothering alone: cross-national comparisons of later-life disability and health among women who were single mothers

Background: Single motherhood is associated with poorer health, but whether this association varies between countries is not known. We examine associations between single motherhood and poor later-life health in the US, England and 13 European countries. Methods: Data came from 25,125 women aged 50+ who participated in the US Health and Retirement Study, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, and Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. We tested whether single motherhood at ages 16-49 was associated with increased risk of limitations with activities of daily living (ADL), instrumental ADL (IADL) and fair/poor self-rated health in later life. Results: 33% of American mothers had experienced single motherhood before age 50, versus 22% in England, 38% in Scandinavia, 22% in Western Europe and 10% in Southern Europe. Single mothers had higher risk of poorer health and disability in later life than married mothers, but associations varied between countries. For example, risk ratios for ADL limitations were 1.51 (95% CI 1.29, 1.98) in England, 1.50 (1.10, 2.05) in Scandinavia and 1.27 (1.17, 1.40) in the US, versus 1.09 (0.80, 1.47) in Western Europe, 1.13 (0.80, 1.60) in Southern Europe, and 0.93 (0.66, 1.31) in Eastern Europe. Women who were single mothers before age 20, for 8+ years, or resulting from divorce or non-marital childbearing, were at particular risk. Conclusion: Single motherhood during early- or mid-adulthood is associated with poorer health in later life. Risks were greatest in England, the US, and Scandinavia. Both selection and causation mechanisms might explain between-country variation