Work-related psychological health among clergywomen in Australia

Drawing on the classic model of balanced affect, the Francis Burnout Inventory conceptualises good work-related psychological health among clergy in terms of negative affect being balanced by positive affect. This paper sets out to explore the relationship between work-related psychological health and psychological type (as assessed by the Francis Psychological-Type Scales) among a sample of 212 Australian clergywomen who completed the National Church Life Survey Form L in 2006. The data supported the internal consistency reliability of the Francis Burnout Inventory and Francis Psychological-Type Scales and found that work-related psychological health was positively related to extraversion and sensing

Second primary cancer risk - the impact of applying different definitions of multiple primaries: results from a retrospective population-based cancer registry study

Background: There is evidence that cancer survivors are at increased risk of second primary cancers. Changes in the prevalence of risk factors and diagnostic techniques may have affected more recent risks.<p></p> Methods: We examined the incidence of second primary cancer among adults in the West of Scotland, UK, diagnosed with cancer between 2000 and 2004 (n = 57,393). We used National Cancer Institute Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results and International Agency for Research on Cancer definitions of multiple primary cancers and estimated indirectly standardised incidence ratios (SIR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI).<p></p> Results: There was a high incidence of cancer during the first 60 days following diagnosis (SIR = 2.36, 95% CI = 2.12 to 2.63). When this period was excluded the risk was not raised, but it was high for some patient groups; in particular women aged <50 years with breast cancer (SIR = 2.13, 95% CI = 1.58 to 2.78), patients with bladder (SIR = 1.41, 95% CI = 1.19 to 1.67) and head & neck (SIR = 1.93, 95% CI = 1.67 to 2.21) cancer. Head & neck cancer patients had increased risks of lung cancer (SIR = 3.75, 95% CI = 3.01 to 4.62), oesophageal (SIR = 4.62, 95% CI = 2.73 to 7.29) and other head & neck tumours (SIR = 6.10, 95% CI = 4.17 to 8.61). Patients with bladder cancer had raised risks of lung (SIR = 2.18, 95% CI = 1.62 to 2.88) and prostate (SIR = 2.41, 95% CI = 1.72 to 3.30) cancer.<p></p> Conclusions: Relative risks of second primary cancers may be smaller than previously reported. Premenopausal women with breast cancer and patients with malignant melanomas, bladder and head & neck cancers may benefit from increased surveillance and advice to avoid known risk factors

Happiness matters : exploring the linkages between personality, personal happiness, and work-related psychological health among priests and sisters in Italy

This study responds to the challenge posed by Rossetti’s work to explore the antecedents and consequences of individual differences in happiness among priests and religious sisters. The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire was completed together with measures of personality and work-related psychological health by 95 priests and 61 religious sisters. Overall the data demonstrated high levels of personal happiness among priests and religious sisters, but also significant signs of vulnerability. Personality provided significant prediction of individual differences in both personal happiness and work-related psychological health. However, personal happiness provided additional protection against work-related emotional exhaustion and additional enhancement of work-related satisfaction. These findings suggest that acknowledging and affirming personal happiness may enhance the work-related psychological health of Catholic priests and religious sisters

Allele-specific miRNA-binding analysis identifies candidate target genes for breast cancer risk

Most breast cancer (BC) risk-associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms (raSNPs) identified in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are believed to cis-regulate the expression of genes. We hypothesise that cis-regulatory variants contributing to disease risk may be affecting microRNA (miRNA) genes and/or miRNA binding. To test this, we adapted two miRNA-binding prediction algorithms-TargetScan and miRanda-to perform allele-specific queries, and integrated differential allelic expression (DAE) and expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) data, to query 150 genome-wide significant ( P≤5×10-8 ) raSNPs, plus proxies. We found that no raSNP mapped to a miRNA gene, suggesting that altered miRNA targeting is an unlikely mechanism involved in BC risk. Also, 11.5% (6 out of 52) raSNPs located in 3'-untranslated regions of putative miRNA target genes were predicted to alter miRNA::mRNA (messenger RNA) pair binding stability in five candidate target genes. Of these, we propose RNF115, at locus 1q21.1, as a strong novel target gene associated with BC risk, and reinforce the role of miRNA-mediated cis-regulation at locus 19p13.11. We believe that integrating allele-specific querying in miRNA-binding prediction, and data supporting cis-regulation of expression, improves the identification of candidate target genes in BC risk, as well as in other common cancers and complex diseases.Funding Agency Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology CRESC ALGARVE 2020 European Union (EU) 303745 Maratona da Saude Award DL 57/2016/CP1361/CT0042 SFRH/BPD/99502/2014 CBMR-UID/BIM/04773/2013 POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Survival of non-Western first generations immigrants with stomach cancer in North East Netherlands

Background: Isolated groups, such as first generation non-Western immigrants, are at risk for suboptimal utilisation of the health care system resulting in a worse outcome. Methods: From 1989 to 2007, all patients with stomach cancer were selected from the Comprehensive Cancer Centre North-East cancer registry. Associations between country of birth and patient, tumour and treatment characteristics were determined using χ2 analysis. Relative survival analysis was used to estimate relative excess risk of dying according to country of birth (non-Western vs Western). Results: After adjusting for confounding factors (patient, tumour and treatment related), the risk of dying was lower for first generation non-Western immigrants (relative excess risk 0.55, 95% confidence interval 0.43–0.70) compared with Western patients. Conclusion: Although the better survival of first generation non-Western immigrants with stomach cancer remains unexplained, it argues against accessibility problems within the Dutch health care syste

Variational Methods for Biomolecular Modeling

Structure, function and dynamics of many biomolecular systems can be characterized by the energetic variational principle and the corresponding systems of partial differential equations (PDEs). This principle allows us to focus on the identification of essential energetic components, the optimal parametrization of energies, and the efficient computational implementation of energy variation or minimization. Given the fact that complex biomolecular systems are structurally non-uniform and their interactions occur through contact interfaces, their free energies are associated with various interfaces as well, such as solute-solvent interface, molecular binding interface, lipid domain interface, and membrane surfaces. This fact motivates the inclusion of interface geometry, particular its curvatures, to the parametrization of free energies. Applications of such interface geometry based energetic variational principles are illustrated through three concrete topics: the multiscale modeling of biomolecular electrostatics and solvation that includes the curvature energy of the molecular surface, the formation of microdomains on lipid membrane due to the geometric and molecular mechanics at the lipid interface, and the mean curvature driven protein localization on membrane surfaces. By further implicitly representing the interface using a phase field function over the entire domain, one can simulate the dynamics of the interface and the corresponding energy variation by evolving the phase field function, achieving significant reduction of the number of degrees of freedom and computational complexity. Strategies for improving the efficiency of computational implementations and for extending applications to coarse-graining or multiscale molecular simulations are outlined.Comment: 36 page

Consistency and accuracy of diagnostic cancer codes generated by automated registration: comparison with manual registration

BACKGROUND: Automated procedures are increasingly used in cancer registration, and it is important that the data produced are systematically checked for consistency and accuracy. We evaluated an automated procedure for cancer registration adopted by the Lombardy Cancer Registry in 1997, comparing automatically-generated diagnostic codes with those produced manually over one year (1997). METHODS: The automatically generated cancer cases were produced by Open Registry algorithms. For manual registration, trained staff consulted clinical records, pathology reports and death certificates. The social security code, present and checked in both databases in all cases, was used to match the files in the automatic and manual databases. The cancer cases generated by the two methods were compared by manual revision. RESULTS: The automated procedure generated 5027 cases: 2959 (59%) were accepted automatically and 2068 (41%) were flagged for manual checking. Among the cases accepted automatically, discrepancies in data items (surname, first name, sex and date of birth) constituted 8.5% of cases, and discrepancies in the first three digits of the ICD-9 code constituted 1.6%. Among flagged cases, cancers of female genital tract, hematopoietic system, metastatic and ill-defined sites, and oropharynx predominated. The usual reasons were use of specific vs. generic codes, presence of multiple primaries, and use of extranodal vs. nodal codes for lymphomas. The percentage of automatically accepted cases ranged from 83% for breast and thyroid cancers to 13% for metastatic and ill-defined cancer sites. CONCLUSION: Since 59% of cases were accepted automatically and contained relatively few, mostly trivial discrepancies, the automatic procedure is efficient for routine case generation effectively cutting the workload required for routine case checking by this amount. Among cases not accepted automatically, discrepancies were mainly due to variations in coding practice

Prognostic utility of the breast cancer index and comparison to Adjuvant! Online in a clinical case series of early breast cancer

Introduction\ud Breast Cancer Index (BCI) combines two independent biomarkers, HOXB13:IL17BR (H:I) and the 5-gene molecular grade index (MGI), that assess estrogen-mediated signalling and tumor grade, respectively. BCI stratifies early-stage estrogen-receptor positive (ER+), lymph-node negative (LN-) breast cancer patients into three risk groups and provides a continuous assessment of individual risk of distant recurrence. Objectives of the current study were to validate BCI in a clinical case series and to compare the prognostic utility of BCI and Adjuvant!Online (AO).\ud \ud Methods\ud Tumor samples from 265 ER+LN- tamoxifen-treated patients were identified from a single academic institution's cancer research registry. The BCI assay was performed and scores were assigned based on a pre-determined risk model. Risk was assessed by BCI and AO and correlated to clinical outcomes in the patient cohort.\ud \ud Results\ud BCI was a significant predictor of outcome in a cohort of 265 ER+LN- patients (median age: 56-y; median follow-up: 10.3-y), treated with adjuvant tamoxifen alone or tamoxifen with chemotherapy (32%). BCI categorized 55%, 21%, and 24% of patients as low, intermediate and high-risk, respectively. The 10-year rates of distant recurrence were 6.6%, 12.1% and 31.9% and of breast cancer-specific mortality were 3.8%, 3.6% and 22.1% in low, intermediate, and high-risk groups, respectively. In a multivariate analysis including clinicopathological factors, BCI was a significant predictor of distant recurrence (HR for 5-unit increase = 5.32 [CI 2.18-13.01; P = 0.0002]) and breast cancer-specific mortality (HR for a 5-unit increase = 9.60 [CI 3.20-28.80; P < 0.0001]). AO was significantly associated with risk of recurrence. In a separate multivariate analysis, both BCI and AO were significantly predictive of outcome. In a time-dependent (10-y) ROC curve accuracy analysis of recurrence risk, the addition of BCI+AO increased predictive accuracy in all patients from 66% (AO only) to 76% (AO+BCI) and in tamoxifen-only treated patients from 65% to 81%.\ud \ud Conclusions\ud This study validates the prognostic performance of BCI in ER+LN- patients. In this characteristically low-risk cohort, BCI classified high versus low-risk groups with ~5-fold difference in 10-year risk of distant recurrence and breast cancer-specific death. BCI and AO are independent predictors with BCI having additive utility beyond standard of care parameters that are encompassed in AO

The expression of hyperpolarization activated cyclic nucleotide gated (HCN) channels in the rat ovary are dependent on the type of cell and the reproductive age of the animal: a laboratory investigation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that levels of hyperpolarization activated cyclic nucleotide gated channels 1 to 4 (HCN1-4) are linked to the reproductive age of the ovary.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Young, adult, and reproductively aged ovaries were collected from Sprague-Dawley rats. RT-PCR and western blot analysis of ovaries was performed to investigate the presence of mRNA and total protein for HCN1-4. Immunohistochemistry with semiquantitative H score analysis was performed using whole ovarian histologic sections.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>RT-PCR analysis showed the presence of mRNA for HCN1-4. Western blot analysis revealed HCN1-3 proteins in all ages of ovarian tissues. Immunohistochemistry with H score analysis demonstrated distinct age-related changes in patterns of HCN1-3 in the oocytes, granulosa cells, theca cells, and corpora lutea. HCN4 was present only in the oocytes, with declining levels during the reproduction lifespan.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The evidence presented here demonstrates cell-type and developmental age patterns of HCN1-4 channel expression in rat ovaries. Based on this, we hypothesize that HCN channels have functional significance in rat ovaries and may have changing roles in reproductive aging.</p

Second primary cancers among 109 000 cases of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

An analysis of other primary cancers in individuals with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) can help to elucidate this cancer aetiology. In all, 109 451 first primary NHL were included in a pooled analysis of 13 cancer registries. The observed numbers of second cancers were compared to the expected numbers derived from the age-, sex-, calendar period- and registry-specific incidence rates. We also calculated the standardised incidence ratios for NHL as a second primary after other cancers. There was a 47% (95% confidence interval 43–51%) overall increase in the risk of a primary cancer after NHL. A strongly significant (P<0.001) increase was observed for cancers of the lip, tongue, oropharynx*, stomach, small intestine, colon*, liver, nasal cavity*, lung, soft tissues*, skin melanoma*, nonmelanoma skin*, bladder*, kidney*, thyroid*, Hodgkin's lymphoma*, lymphoid leukaemia* and myeloid leukaemia. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma as a second primary was increased after cancers marked with an asterisk. Patterns of risk indicate a treatment effect for lung, bladder, stomach, Hodgkin's lymphoma and myeloid leukaemia. Common risk factors may be involved for cancers of the lung, bladder, nasal cavity and for soft tissues, such as pesticides. Bidirectional effects for several cancer sites of potential viral origin argue strongly for a role for immune suppression in NHL