Obstetrician-Gynecologists’ Knowledge of Health Disparities and Barriers among American Indian/Alaska Native Women in Washington State

Background: Health disparities between American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) women and other races/ethnicities have long been noted. Obstetricians-Gynecologists (Ob-Gyn) play a significant role in well-woman care and are often the first and most frequent point of medical contact for women, particularly among minority and low-income women. Objective: This study aimed to assess Ob-Gyns’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices related to health disparities among AI/AN women. Method: A self-administered questionnaire, consisting of questions about knowledge, beliefs, and practices of health disparities among AI/AN women, was mailed to 722 members of The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) practicing in the state of Washington in September 2013-February 2014. Results: The majority of respondents were knowledgeable about numerous health care disparities among non-pregnant AI/AN women, while slightly fewer were aware of disparities among pregnant AI/AN patients. Ob-Gyns reported low confidence in their training and knowledge of AI/AN culture and health disparities, but high confidence in their ability to treat AI/AN patients. Participants reported dissatisfaction with their AI/AN patients’ breastfeeding rates. Conclusion: Ob-Gyn knowledge of health disparities among AI/AN women is adequate. In spite of this, barriers to quality care are still present and increased identification and implementation of effective resources is needed

Increased focal adhesion kinase- and urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor-associated cell signaling in endothelial cells exposed to asbestos.

Exposure of low-passage endothelial cells in culture to nonlethal amounts of asbestos, but not refractory ceramic fiber-1, increases cell motility and gene expression. These changes may be initiated by the fibers mimicking matrix proteins as ligands for receptors on the cell surface. In the present study, 1- to 3-hr exposures of endothelial cells to 5 mg/cm2 of chrysotile asbestos caused marked cell elongation and motility. However, little morphological change was seen when chrysotile was added to cells pretreated with either mannosamine to prevent assembly of glycophosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored receptors or with herbimycin A to inhibit tyrosine kinase activity. Affinity purification of GPI-anchored urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) from chrysotile-exposed cells demonstrated that asbestos altered the profile of proteins and phosphoproteins complexed with this receptor. Tyrosine kinase activities in the complexes were also increased by asbestos. Immunoprecipitations with selective monoclonal antibodies demonstrated that both chrysotile and crocidolite asbestos increase kinase activities associated with p60 Src or p120 focal adhesion kinase (FAK). Further, chrysotile also changed the profile of proteins and phosphoproteins associated with FAK in intact cells. These data suggest that asbestos initiates endothelial cell phenotypic change through interactions with uPAR-containing complexes and that this change is mediated through tyrosine kinase cascades

Familial Dilated Cardiomyopathy of Young Portuguese Water Dogs

A novel dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in 12 related Portuguese Water Dogs was identified by retrospective analysis of postmortem and biopsy case records. Male and female puppies born to clinically healthy parents typically died at 13 (± 7.3) weeks of age (range, 2–32 weeks) because of congestive heart failure. Puppies died suddenly without previous signs or with mild depression followed by clinical signs of congestive heart failure 1–5 days before death. There was no sex predilection. The hearts were enlarged and rounded, with marked left ventricular and atrial dilation. No other significant structural cardiac defects were noted. The histologic changes in the myocardium were diffuse and characterized by myofibers of irregular sizes separated by an edematous interstitium. The myofibers had multifocal swollen, cleared segments often involving perinuclear areas that contained granular, phosphotungstic-acid-hematoxylin-positive material consistent with mitochondria. There was loss of the cross-striation pattern, and intercalated discs were difficult to identify. There was no evidence of concurrent myocardial fibrosis; rare chronic inflammatory infiltrates were noted in one dog. Noncardiac skeletal muscles were not affected. The underlying cause is unknown. From the pedigree analysis, an autosomal recessive pattern of inheritance is suspected. Based on the histologic findings, this DCM is most likely due to an underlying molecular (biochemical or structural) defect. The early onset and rapid progression of the disease makes this a clinically distinctive form of canine DCM

Retrofit 2050:Critical challenges for urban transitions

Scaling up retrofit presents a number of critical challenges for the transition to urban sustainability. Drawing together insights from the EPSRC Retrofit 2050 project this briefing sets out key success factors that need to be in place to deliver sustainable futures for UK cities

Recent Advances in High Density Area Array Interconnect Bonding for 3D Integration

The demand for more complex and multifunctional micro systems with enhanced performance characteristics for military applications is driving the electronics industry toward the use of best-of-breed materials and device technologies. Threedimensional (3-D) integration provides a way to build complex microsystems through bonding and interconnection of individually optimized device layers without compromising system performance and fabrication yield. Bonding of device layers can be achieved through polymer bonding or metal-metal interconnect bonding with a number of metalmetal systems. RTI has been investigating and characterizing Cu-Cu and CulSn-Cu processes for high density area array imaging applications, demonstrating high yield bonding between sub-I5 11m pads on large area array configurations. This paper will review recent advances in the development of high yield, large area array metal-metal interconnects which enable 3-D integration of heterogeneous materials (e.g. HgCdTe with silicon) and heterogeneous fabrication processes (e.g. infrared emitters or microbolometers with ICs) for imaging and scene projector applications

Coexistence of glassy antiferromagnetism and giant magnetoresistance (GMR) in Fe/Cr multilayer structures

Using temperature-dependent magnetoresistance and magnetization measurements on Fe/Cr multilayers that exhibit pronounced giant magnetoresistance (GMR), we have found evidence for the presence of a glassy antiferromagnetic (GAF) phase. This phase reflects the influence of interlayer exchange coupling (IEC) at low temperature (T < 140K) and is characterized by a field-independent glassy transition temperature, Tg, together with irreversible behavior having logarithmic time dependence below a "de Almeida and Thouless" (AT) critical field line. At room temperature, where the GMR effect is still robust, IEC plays only a minor role, and it is the random potential variations acting on the magnetic domains that are responsible for the antiparallel interlayer domain alignment.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Water formation at low temperatures by surface O2 hydrogenation II: the reaction network

Water is abundantly present in the Universe. It is the main component of interstellar ice mantles and a key ingredient for life. Water in space is mainly formed through surface reactions. Three formation routes have been proposed in the past: hydrogenation of surface O, O2, and O3. In a previous paper [Ioppolo et al., Astrophys. J., 2008, 686, 1474] we discussed an unexpected non-standard zeroth-order H2O2 production behaviour in O2 hydrogenation experiments, which suggests that the proposed reaction network is not complete, and that the reaction channels are probably more interconnected than previously thought. In this paper we aim to derive the full reaction scheme for O2 surface hydrogenation and to constrain the rates of the individual reactions. This is achieved through simultaneous H-atom and O2 deposition under ultra-high vacuum conditions for astronomically relevant temperatures. Different H/O2 ratios are used to trace different stages in the hydrogenation network. The chemical changes in the forming ice are followed by means of reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS). New reaction paths are revealed as compared to previous experiments. Several reaction steps prove to be much more efficient (H + O2) or less efficient (H + OH and H2 + OH) than originally thought. These are the main conclusions of this work and the extended network concluded here will have profound implications for models that describe the formation of water in space.Comment: 1 page, 1 figur

Top production at the Tevatron/LHC and nonstandard, strongly interacting spin one particles

In this note, we consider possible constraints from $t \bar t$ production on the gauge bosons of theories with an extended strong interaction sector such as axigluons or flavour universal colorons. Such constraints are found to be competitive with those obtained from the dijet data. The current $t \bar t$ data from the Tevatron rule out axigluon masses ($m_A$) up to 900 GeV and 850 GeV at 2 $\sigma$ and 4 $\sigma$ levels respectively. For the case of flavour universal colorons the data rule out a mass ($m_C$) below 800 GeV (780 GeV) at the $2 (4) \sigma$ level and also the mass range between 900 GeV to 2.1 TeV at 2 $\sigma$ level, for $\cot \xi = 1$, where $\xi$ is the mixing angle. For $\cot \xi =2$ on the other hand, the excluded range is m_C \lsim 950 (920) GeV and m_C \gsim 1.02 (1.15 \lsim m_C \lsim 1.8) TeV at $2 \sigma$ ($4 \sigma$) level. We point out that for higher axigluon/coloron masses, even for the dijet channel, the limits on the coloron mass, for $\cot \xi = 1$, may be different than those for the axigluon. We also compute the expected forward-backward asymmetry for the case of the axigluons which would allow it to be discriminated against the SM as also the colorons. We further find that at the LHC, the signal should be visible in the $t \bar t$ invariant mass spectrum for a wide range of axigluon and coloron masses that are still allowed. We point out how top polarisation may be used to further discriminate the axigluon and coloron case from the SM as well as from each other.Comment: 15 pages, uses LaTex, six figures. To appear in Physics Letters B. Reference to and discussion on the forward-backward asymmetry expected even in the SM, adde

The effect of reducing geometry complexity on energy simulation results

Accuracy and time are metrics inherently associated with the design process and the energy performance simulation of buildings. The accurate representation of the building is an essential requirement for energy analysis, which comes with the expense of time; however, this is in contrast with the need to minimise the simulation time in order to make it compatible with design times. This is a particularly interesting aspect in the case of complex geometries, which are often simplified for use in building energy performance simulation. The effects of this simplification on the accuracy of simulation results are not usually reported. This paper explored these effects through a systematic analysis of several test cases. The results indicate that the use of orthogonal prisms as simplified surrogates for buildings with complex shapes presents a worst-case scenario that should be avoided where possible. A significant reduction of geometry complexity by at least 50% can also be achieved with negligible effects on simulation results, while minimising the time requirements. Accuracy, however, deteriorates rapidly below a critical threshold