Robust interferometer for the routing of light beams carrying orbital angular momentum

We have developed an interferometer requiring only minimal angular alignment for the routing of beams carrying orbital angular momentum. The Mach–Zehnder interferometer contains a Dove prism in each arm where each has a mirror plane around which the transverse phase profile is inverted. One consequence of the inversions is that the interferometer needs no alignment. Instead the interferometer defines a unique axis about which the input beam must be coupled. Experimental results are presented for the fringe contrast, reaching a maximum value of 93±1%

The impact of changing attitudes, norms, and self-efficacy on health-related intentions and behavior: a meta-analysis

Objective: Several health behavior theories converge on the hypothesis that attitudes, norms, and self-efficacy are important determinants of intentions and behavior. Yet inferences regarding the relation between these cognitions and intention or behavior rest largely on correlational data that preclude causal inferences. To determine whether changing attitudes, norms, or self-efficacy leads to changes in intentions and behavior, investigators need to randomly assign participants to a treatment that significantly increases the respective cognition relative to a control condition, and test for differences in subsequent intentions or behavior. The present review analyzed findings from 204 experimental tests that met these criteria. Methods: Studies were located using computerized searches and informal sources and meta-analyzed using STATA Version 11. Results: Experimentally induced changes in attitudes, norms, and self-efficacy all led to medium-sized changes in intention (d+ = .48, .49, and .51, respectively), and engendered small to medium-sized changes in behavior (attitudes-d+ = .38; norms-d+ = .36; self-efficacy-d+ = .47). These effect sizes generally were not qualified by the moderator variables examined (e.g., study quality, theoretical basis of the intervention, methodological characteristics, features of the targeted behavior), although effects were larger for interventions designed to increase (vs. decrease) behavioral performance. Conclusion: The present review lends novel, experimental support for key predictions from health behavior theories, and demonstrates that interventions that modify attitudes, norms, and self-efficacy are effective in promoting health behavior change

Experiential Learning Through Participatory Action Research in an Interdisciplinary Leadership Training Program

Background: Experience in multidisciplinary collaboration among healthcare providers, leaders in public health, and educators is essential to effectively address the diverse needs of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) and their families. Purpose: We describe three participatory action research (PAR) projects from an interdisciplinary training program, which used experiential learning to enhance leadership competencies and promote inclusive services. Trainees report their leadership growth as providers and advocates for children with I/DD using experiential learning through PAR. Approach: Trainees discuss their engagement with organizations serving children with I/DD and ways that experiential learning supported leadership skill development, commitment to inclusive person- and family-centered practices, and contributions to disability advocacy and support programs. Conclusion: PAR is a beneficial experiential learning approach to foster interdisciplinary collaboration through inclusive community engagement. Related training programs may adopt a similar approach to build leadership skills among professionals in health care, public health, and education, and promote optimal health outcomes for children with I/DD

Bringing positional processes back in: occupational gender segregation in ‘non-academic’ work

This article highlights that organisations mask a 'gendered substructure' and a 'positional substructure', and reinforces the importance of (re)incorporating the effects of positional processes as an analytical concern in current analysis of occupational segregation. Drawing on the concept of 'inequality regimes', we use the case of 'non-academic' workers in Scottish higher education institutions as the context in which to explore how gendered and positional processes may be perpetuating occupational gender segregation ─ focusing on finance, registry, security and cleaning staff. Our findings show how embedded gendered and positional processes are reinforcing occupational gender segregation in many areas of non-academic work. We reveal that some gendered processes are position-sensitive and that stereotyped language use and related biases impact the progression and treatment of workers at the 'bottom' ─ and the compounding effects on women. We show that positions within organisational opportunity structures cannot merely be read off grading hierarchies and argue that any analysis of positional substructures necessitates uncovering the potential existence of multiple organisational hierarchies and other forms of positional advantage/disadvantage, whilst recognising that positional substructures are not static

Leptin: A Metabolic Signal for the Differentiation of Pituitary Cells

Pituitary cell function is impacted by metabolic states and therefore must receive signals that inform them about nutritional status or adiposity. A primary signal from adipocytes is leptin, which recent studies have shown regulates most pituitary cell types. Subsets of all pituitary cell types express leptin receptors and leptin has been shown to exert transcriptional control through classical JAK/STAT pathways. Recent studies show that leptin also signals through post-transcriptional pathways that involve the translational regulatory protein Musashi. Mechanistically, post-transcriptional control would permit rapid cellular regulation of critical pre-existing pituitary transcripts as energy states change. The chapter will review evidence for transcriptional and/or post-transcriptional regulation of leptin targets (including Gnrhr, activin, Fshb, Gh, Ghrhr, and Pou11f1) and the consequences of the loss of leptin signaling to gonadotrope and somatotrope functions

Investigating the effects of age-related spatial structuring on the transmission of a tick-borne virus in a colonially breeding host

Higher pathogen and parasite transmission is considered a universal cost of colonial breeding due to the physical proximity of colony members. However, this has rarely been tested in natural colonies, which are structured entities, whose members interact with a subset of individuals and differ in their infection histories. We use a population of common guillemots, Uria aalge, infected by a tick-borne virus, Great Island virus, to explore how age-related spatial structuring can influence the infection costs borne by different members of a breeding colony. Previous work has shown that the per-susceptible risk of infection (force of infection) is different for prebreeding (immature) and breeding (adult) guillemots which occupy different areas of the colony. We developed a mathematical model which showed that this difference in infection risk can only be maintained if mixing between these age groups is low. To estimate mixing between age groups, we recorded the movements of 63 individually recognizable, prebreeding guillemots in four different parts of a major colony in the North Sea during the breeding season. Prebreeding guillemots infrequently entered breeding areas (in only 26% of watches), though with marked differences in frequency of entry among individuals and more entries toward the end of the breeding season. Once entered, the proportion of time spent in breeding areas by prebreeding guillemots also varied between different parts of the colony. Our data and model predictions indicate low levels of age-group mixing, limiting exposure of breeding guillemots to infection. However, they also suggest that prebreeding guillemots have the potential to play an important role in driving infection dynamics. This highlights the sensitivity of breeding colonies to changes in the behavior of their members—a subject of particular importance in the context of global environmental change

Understanding the transmission dynamics of Leishmania donovani to provide robust evidence for interventions to eliminate visceral leishmaniasis in Bihar, India.

Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) is a neglected vector-borne disease. In India, it is transmitted to humans by Leishmania donovani-infected Phlebotomus argentipes sand flies. In 2005, VL was targeted for elimination by the governments of India, Nepal and Bangladesh by 2015. The elimination strategy consists of rapid case detection, treatment of VL cases and vector control using indoor residual spraying (IRS). However, to achieve sustained elimination of VL, an appropriate post elimination surveillance programme should be designed, and crucial knowledge gaps in vector bionomics, human infection and transmission need to be addressed. This review examines the outstanding knowledge gaps, specifically in the context of Bihar State, India.The knowledge gaps in vector bionomics that will be of immediate benefit to current control operations include better estimates of human biting rates and natural infection rates of P. argentipes, with L. donovani, and how these vary spatially, temporally and in response to IRS. The relative importance of indoor and outdoor transmission, and how P. argentipes disperse, are also unknown. With respect to human transmission it is important to use a range of diagnostic tools to distinguish individuals in endemic communities into those who: 1) are to going to progress to clinical VL, 2) are immune/refractory to infection and 3) have had past exposure to sand flies.It is crucial to keep in mind that close to elimination, and post-elimination, VL cases will become infrequent, so it is vital to define what the surveillance programme should target and how it should be designed to prevent resurgence. Therefore, a better understanding of the transmission dynamics of VL, in particular of how rates of infection in humans and sand flies vary as functions of each other, is required to guide VL elimination efforts and ensure sustained elimination in the Indian subcontinent. By collecting contemporary entomological and human data in the same geographical locations, more precise epidemiological models can be produced. The suite of data collected can also be used to inform the national programme if supplementary vector control tools, in addition to IRS, are required to address the issues of people sleeping outside

Prevalence and correlates of frailty in an older rural African population:findings from the HAALSI cohort study

Background: Frailty is a key predictor of death and dependency, yet little is known about frailty in sub-Saharan Africa despite rapid population ageing. We describe the prevalence and correlates of phenotypic frailty using data from the Health and Aging in Africa: Longitudinal Studies of an INDEPTH Community cohort. Methods: We analysed data from rural South Africans aged 40 and over. We used low grip strength, slow gait speed, low body mass index, and combinations of self-reported exhaustion, decline in health, low physical activity and high self-reported sedentariness to derive nine variants of a phenotypic frailty score. Each frailty category was compared with self-reported health, subjective wellbeing, impairment in activities of daily living and the presence of multimorbidity. Cox regression analyses were used to compare subsequent all-cause mortality for non-frail (score 0), pre-frail (score 1–2) and frail participants (score 3+). Results: Five thousand fifty nine individuals (mean age 61.7 years, 2714 female) were included in the analyses. The nine frailty score variants yielded a range of frailty prevalences (5.4% to 13.2%). For all variants, rates were higher in women than in men, and rose steeply with age. Frailty was associated with worse subjective wellbeing, and worse self-reported health. Both prefrailty and frailty were associated with a higher risk of death during a mean 17 month follow up for all score variants (hazard ratios 1.29 to 2.41 for pre-frail vs non-frail; hazard ratios 2.65 to 8.91 for frail vs non-frail). Conclusions: Phenotypic frailty could be measured in this older South African population, and was associated with worse health, wellbeing and earlier death

Genetic diversity of Leishmania amazonensis strains isolated in northeastern Brazil as revealed by DNA sequencing, PCR-based analyses and molecular karyotyping

Abstract\ud \ud \ud \ud Background\ud \ud Leishmania (Leishmania) amazonensis infection in man results in a clinical spectrum of disease manifestations ranging from cutaneous to mucosal or visceral involvement. In the present study, we have investigated the genetic variability of 18 L. amazonensis strains isolated in northeastern Brazil from patients with different clinical manifestations of leishmaniasis. Parasite DNA was analyzed by sequencing of the ITS flanking the 5.8 S subunit of the ribosomal RNA genes, by RAPD and SSR-PCR and by PFGE followed by hybridization with gene-specific probes.\ud \ud \ud \ud Results\ud \ud ITS sequencing and PCR-based methods revealed genetic heterogeneity among the L. amazonensis isolates examined and molecular karyotyping also showed variation in the chromosome size of different isolates. Unrooted genetic trees separated strains into different groups.\ud \ud \ud \ud Conclusion\ud \ud These results indicate that L. amazonensis strains isolated from leishmaniasis patients from northeastern Brazil are genetically diverse, however, no correlation between genetic polymorphism and phenotype were found.We thank Lucile FloeterWinter for critical reading of the manuscript and Artur T.L. de Queiroz for initial help with phylogenetic analysis. This work is supported by grants from CNPq, FAPESB and PAPES/FIOCRUZ. J.P.C. de Oliveira was supported by a CNPq fellowship; C.I.O. and F.M.C.F were supported by a FAPESB fellowship. AAC, AB, and CIO are senior investigators from CNPq. AB is a senior investigator for Instituto de Investigação em Imunologia (iii).We thank Lucile Floeter-Winter for critical reading of the manuscript and Artur T.L. de Queiroz for initial help with phylogenetic analysis. This work is supported by grants from CNPq, FAPESB and PAPES/FIOCRUZ. J.P.C. de Oliveira was supported by a CNPq fellowship; C.I.O. and F.M.C.F were supported by a FAPESB fellowship. AAC, AB, and CIO are senior investigators from CNPq. AB is a senior investigator for Instituto de Investigação em Imunologia (iii)

Designing an intervention to help people with colorectal adenomas reduce their intake of red and processed meat and increase their levels of physical activity: a qualitative study

Background: most cases of colorectal cancer (CRC) arise from adenomatous polyps and malignant potential is greatest in high risk adenomas. There is convincing observational evidence that red and processed meat increase the risk of CRC and that higher levels of physical activity reduce the risk. However, no definitive randomised trial has demonstrated the benefit of behaviour change on reducing polyp recurrence and no consistent advice is currently offered to minimise patient risk. This qualitative study aimed to assess patients' preferences for dietary and physical activity interventions and ensure their appropriate and acceptable delivery to inform a feasibility trial.Methods: patients aged 60-74 included in the National Health Service Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (NHSBCSP) were selected from a patient tracking database. After a positive faecal occult blood test (FOBt), all had been diagnosed with an intermediate or high risk adenoma (I/HRA) at colonoscopy between April 2008 and April 2010. Interested patients and their partners were invited to attend a focus group or interview in July 2010. A topic guide, informed by the objectives of the study, was used. A thematic analysis was conducted in which transcripts were examined to ensure that all occurrences of each theme had been accounted for and compared.Results: two main themes emerged from the focus groups: a) experiences of having polyps and b) changing behaviour. Participants had not associated polyp removal with colorectal cancer and most did not remember being given any information or advice relating to this at the time. Heterogeneity of existing diet and physical activity levels was noted. There was a lack of readiness to change behaviour in many people in the target population.Conclusion: this study has demonstrated the difficulties involved in developing interventions to change dietary and physical activity behaviour in this population. The need to tailor the intervention to individuals, the lack of knowledge about the aetiology of colon cancer and the lack of motivation to change behaviour are critical factors