Parental consent for newborn screening: a discrete choice experiment

Background: Parental consent is very commonly assumed for newborn bloodspot screening (NBS) in most Canadian provincial screening programs. This falls short of usual norms, and evidence suggests that some parents would prefer an explicit process. This study was designed to inform improvements in NBS consent processes. Objectives: (1) To examine parents’ past experiences with, and attitudes towards, NBS consent processes in Canada. (2) To quantify parents’ preferences towards specific attributes of the NBS consent process, and identify characteristics of subgroups with different preference patterns. Method: A cross-sectional survey that included a discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted to capture information on participants’ past experiences with and preferences for NBS consent processes. DCE data were analyzed using conditional logit and latent class (LC) regression models. Results: The sample comprised 715 participants. As an overall group, respondents preferred to have NBS information provided late in pregnancy, for consent not to be assumed by providers, and for the consent decision to always be recorded. Three classes of participants with different underlying preference patterns were identified in the sample. Conclusion: If NBS programs wish to better meet parents’ preferenes, the results indicate specific aspects of the consent process that could be targeted for further examination.

Morphology tailoring and temperature sensitivity control of waist cross-linked micelles and evaluation of their application as intelligent drug carriers

A novel type of waist cross-linked micelle (WCM) was developed as an intelligent drug carrier via the self-assembly guiding free radical polymerization of an amphiphilic oligomer: octadecyl, polyethylene glycol butenedioates (O-B-EGs). By changing the concentration of O-B-EG reaction solution, WCMs with monolayer, compound and vesicle-like morphologies were obtained. These WCMs showed controllable temperature responsive properties. DLS and UV-vis analyses indicate that the critical temperatures at which WCMs show an abrupt change in particle size evidently increases with the increase in the molecular weight of the PEG chains. Direct switching of the release of pyrene in WCMs is also realized by a slight change of temperature. Pyrene is released rapidly at the temperatures around the critical temperature of the WCMs, but a further increase in temperature shuts down the release of pyrene. More importantly, these WCMs exhibit reversible and rapid pyrene releasing-absorbing behavior. We suggest that these excellent properties endow WCMs with great potential in drug encapsulation and controlled releaseNational Natural Science Foundation of China [50873082, 30700020]; Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education [20070384047]; Scientific and Technical Project of Fujian Province of China [2009J1009

The Effect of Shear Sliding of Vertical Contraction Joints on Seismic Response of High Arch Dams with Fine Finite Element Model

The contraction joints of arch dams with and without shear keys are simplified to be with no-slip condition and with relative sliding condition, respectively. Based on the Lagrange multiplier method, a contact model considering the manner of independent cantilever dead load type with no-slip condition and relative sliding condition is proposed to model the nonlinearities of vertical contraction joins, which is special to the nonlinear analysis of arch dams considering the manner of dead load type. Different from the conventional Gauss iterative method, the strategy of the alternating iterative solution of normal force and tangential force is employed. The parallelization based on overlapping domain decomposition method (ODDM) and explicit message passing using distributed memory parallel computers is employed to improve the computational efficiency. An existing high arch dam with fine finite element model is analyzed to investigate the effect of shear sliding of vertical joints on seismic response of the arch dam. The result shows that the values of maximum principal tensile stress under relative sliding condition are significantly greater than those under no-slip condition

Supplementary Material from Synthesis of 11-Oxygenated Androgens in Peripheral Tissue Revealed by Enzyme Gene Expression and LC-MS/MS Quantification

<p>Supplementary Material from Synthesis of 11-Oxygenated Androgens in Peripheral Tissue Revealed by Enzyme Gene Expression and LC-MS/MS Quantification</p&gt