Doctors’ recognition and management of melanoma patients’ risk: an Australian population-based study

Background Guidelines recommend that health professionals identify and manage individuals at high risk of developing melanoma, but there is limited population-based evidence demonstrating real-world practices. Objective A population-based, observational study was conducted in the state of New South Wales, Australia to determine doctors’ knowledge of melanoma patients’ risk and to identify factors associated with better identification and clinical management. Methods Data were analysed for 1889 patients with invasive, localised melanoma in the Melanoma Patterns of Care study. This study collected data on all melanoma diagnoses notified to the state’s cancer registry during a 12-month period from 2006 to 2007, as well as questionnaire data from the doctors involved in their care. Results Three-quarters (74%) of patients had doctors who were aware of their risk factor status with respect to personal and family history of melanoma and the presence of many moles. Doctors working in general practice, skin cancer clinics and dermatology settings had better knowledge of patients’ risk factors than plastic surgeons. Doctors were 15% more likely to know the family history of younger melanoma patients (<40 years) than of those ≥80 years (95% confidence interval 4–26%). Early detection-related follow-up advice was more likely to be given to younger patients, by doctors aware of their patients’ risk status, by doctors practising in plastic surgery, dermatology and skin cancer clinic settings, and by female doctors. Conclusion Both patient-related and doctor-related factors were associated with doctors’ recognition and management of melanoma patients’ risk and could be the focus of strategies for improving care

Household welfare impacts of an agricultural innovation platform in Uganda

Open Access Journal; Published online: 08 Jul 2020Technical approaches to food production are important to the food security of growing populations in developing countries. However, strategic investments in research and farm‐level adoption require greater coherence in agricultural, societal, and local policies. The Agricultural Innovation System (AIS) and formation of the Cassava Innovation Platform (CIP) in Uganda were designed to stimulate interactions between researchers and farmers, leading to the development of improved cassava varieties through participatory plant breeding (PPB) and participatory variety selection (PVS). Moreover, the establishment of a community‐based commercialized seed system called Cassava Seed Entrepreneurship (CSE) has made an important contribution to the rapid multiplication and dissemination of clean planting materials in Uganda. The impact of CIP participation on rural household welfare was measured by household consumption expenditure per capita. The Endogenous Switching Regression (ESR) model was applied to data from a formal household survey conducted in the eastern, northern, and mid‐western regions of Uganda. The education, farm size, livestock size, access to credit, cost of cassava planting materials, access to extension service, access to training, and social group membership are significantly associated with CIP participation. CIP participation resulted in a 47.4% increase in household consumption expenditure. This important evidence highlights the need to promote agricultural innovation platform for improving rural livelihoods. Moreover, CIP participation has impact heterogeneity within the participant group that is conditional on household characteristics such as the gender of the household head, pointing to the need to tailor specific interventions and target specific groups within farm households

Interferometric Bell-state preparation using femtosecond-pulse-pumped Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion

We present theoretical and experimental study of preparing maximally entangled two-photon polarization states, or Bell states, using femtosecond pulse pumped spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC). First, we show how the inherent distinguishability in femtosecond pulse pumped type-II SPDC can be removed by using an interferometric technique without spectral and amplitude post-selection. We then analyze the recently introduced Bell state preparation scheme using type-I SPDC. Theoretically, both methods offer the same results, however, type-I SPDC provides experimentally superior methods of preparing Bell states in femtosecond pulse pumped SPDC. Such a pulsed source of highly entangled photon pairs is useful in quantum communications, quantum cryptography, quantum teleportation, etc.Comment: 11 pages, two-column format, to appear in PR

Recent experimental results in sub- and near-barrier heavy ion fusion reactions

Recent advances obtained in the field of near and sub-barrier heavy-ion fusion reactions are reviewed. Emphasis is given to the results obtained in the last decade, and focus will be mainly on the experimental work performed concerning the influence of transfer channels on fusion cross sections and the hindrance phenomenon far below the barrier. Indeed, early data of sub-barrier fusion taught us that cross sections may strongly depend on the low-energy collective modes of the colliding nuclei, and, possibly, on couplings to transfer channels. The coupled-channels (CC) model has been quite successful in the interpretation of the experimental evidences. Fusion barrier distributions often yield the fingerprint of the relevant coupled channels. Recent results obtained by using radioactive beams are reported. At deep sub-barrier energies, the slope of the excitation function in a semi-logarithmic plot keeps increasing in many cases and standard CC calculations over-predict the cross sections. This was named a hindrance phenomenon, and its physical origin is still a matter of debate. Recent theoretical developments suggest that this effect, at least partially, may be a consequence of the Pauli exclusion principle. The hindrance may have far-reaching consequences in astrophysics where fusion of light systems determines stellar evolution during the carbon and oxygen burning stages, and yields important information for exotic reactions that take place in the inner crust of accreting neutron stars.Comment: 40 pages, 63 figures, review paper accepted for EPJ

The Effect of PrEP Use Disclosure on Adherence in a Cohort of Adolescent Girls and Young Women in South Africa

Effective strategies to support PrEP adherence among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) are needed. We examined PrEP use disclosure and its effect on adherence among 200 AGYW ages 16–25 initiating PrEP in South Africa to help inform these strategies. We estimated the relative prevalence of high adherence (intracellular tenofovir-diphosphate concentration ≥ 700 fmol/punch) 3- and 6-months after PrEP initiation among those who disclosed vs. did not disclose their PrEP use, both overall and by age. Most AGYW disclosed to a parent (58%), partner (58%), or friend (81%) by month 6. We did not observe a strong effect of disclosure on adherence overall; however, among younger AGYW (≤ 18 years), those who disclosed to a parent were 6.8 times as likely to have high adherence at month 6 than those who did not (95% CI 1.02, 45.56). More work is needed to understand parents’ roles as allies and identify ways peers and partners can motivate PrEP use for AGYW

Inferring Deleterious-Mutation Parameters in Natural Daphnia Populations

Deng and Lynch (1, 2) proposed to characterize deleterious genomic mutations from changes in the mean and genetic variance of fitness traits upon selfing in outcrossing populations. Such observations can be readily acquired in cyclical parthenogens. Selfing and life-table experiments were performed for two such Daphnia populations. A significant inbreeding depression and an increase of genetic variance for all traits analyzed were observed. Deng and Lynch's (2) procedures were employed to estimate the genomic mutation rate (U), mean dominance coefficient ( [Image: see text] ), mean selection coefficient ( [Image: see text] ), and scaled genomic mutational variance ( [Image: see text] ). On average, [Image: see text] , [Image: see text] , [Image: see text] and [Image: see text] (^ indicates an estimate) are 0.84, 0.30, 0.14 and 4.6E-4 respectively. For the true values, the [Image: see text] and [Image: see text] are lower bounds, and [Image: see text] and [Image: see text] upper bounds

Magnetohydrodynamic Waves in an Asymmetric Magnetic Slab

Analytical models of solar atmospheric magnetic structures have been crucial for our understanding of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave behaviour and in the development of the field of solar magneto-seismology. Here, an analytical approach is used to derive the dispersion relation for MHD waves in a magnetic slab of homogeneous plasma enclosed on its two sides by non-magnetic, semi-infinite plasma with different densities and temperatures. This generalises the classic magnetic slab model, which is symmetric about the slab. The dispersion relation, unlike that governing a symmetric slab, cannot be decoupled into the well-known sausage and kink modes, i.e. the modes have mixed properties. The eigenmodes of an asymmetric magnetic slab are better labelled as quasi-sausage and quasi-kink modes. Given that the solar atmosphere is highly inhomogeneous, this has implications for MHD mode identification in a range of solar structures. A parametric analysis of how the mode properties (in particular the phase speed, eigenfrequencies, and amplitudes) vary in terms of the introduced asymmetry is conducted. In particular, avoided crossings occur between quasi-sausage and quasi-kink surface modes, allowing modes to adopt different properties for different parameters in the external region