Contraceptive Utilization Among New Exotic Dancers: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background Female exotic dancers are a population at high risk of unintended pregnancy. The objective of this study is to describe the reproductive health needs and contraceptive utilization of exotic dancers. Methods New exotic dancers (\u3c 6 months dancing) from 26 clubs in Baltimore City/County completed a one-time survey. Results Of 117 participants, 96 (82%) had current contraceptive need. The mean age was 24 years, and 55% were black. Sex work (45%), alcohol use disorder (73%), illicit (44%; e.g., heroin, crack, cocaine), and injection drug use (8%) were common. The majority (66%) reported contraception use in the prior 6 months. Condoms were reported by 46% whereas 45% reported non-barrier methods, most commonly hormonal injection. Consistent condom use was rare (3%), and only 11% used a long-acting reversible method. Conclusions Despite their unique reproductive health vulnerabilities, female exotic dancers have unmet contraceptive needs. Targeted harm reduction strategies are needed to fill this gap

HEJ 2.2: W boson pairs and Higgs boson plus jet production at high energies

We present version 2.2 of the High Energy Jets (HEJ) Monte Carlo event generator for hadronic scattering processes at high energies. The new version adds support for two further processes of central phenomenological interest, namely the production of a W boson pair with equal charge together with two or more jets and the production of a Higgs boson with at least one jet. Furthermore, a new prediction for charged lepton pair production with high jet multiplicities is provided in the high-energy limit. The accuracy of HEJ 2.2 can be increased further through an enhanced interface to standard predictions based on conventional perturbation theory. We describe all improvements and provide extensive usage examples. HEJ 2.2 can be obtained from https://hej.hepforge.org.Comment: 29 pages, 2 figures and many code listing

Vulnerable newborn types: Analysis of population-based registries for 165 million births in 23 countries, 2000-2021.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the prevalence of novel newborn types among 165 million live births in 23 countries from 2000 to 2021. DESIGN: Population-based, multi-country analysis. SETTING: National data systems in 23 middle- and high-income countries. POPULATION: Liveborn infants. METHODS: Country teams with high-quality data were invited to be part of the Vulnerable Newborn Measurement Collaboration. We classified live births by six newborn types based on gestational age information (preterm 90th centile) for gestational age, according to INTERGROWTH-21st standards. We considered small newborn types of any combination of preterm or SGA, and term + LGA was considered large. Time trends were analysed using 3-year moving averages for small and large types. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Prevalence of six newborn types. RESULTS: We analysed 165 017 419 live births and the median prevalence of small types was 11.7% - highest in Malaysia (26%) and Qatar (15.7%). Overall, 18.1% of newborns were large (term + LGA) and was highest in Estonia 28.8% and Denmark 25.9%. Time trends of small and large infants were relatively stable in most countries. CONCLUSIONS: The distribution of newborn types varies across the 23 middle- and high-income countries. Small newborn types were highest in west Asian countries and large types were highest in Europe. To better understand the global patterns of these novel newborn types, more information is needed, especially from low- and middle-income countries

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Predictors of delinquency in adolescent girls

Rising arrest rates among girls suggest that there may be gender differences in terms of risk factors for antisocial behavior. The present study examines whether peer rejection and negative life events significantly predict symptoms of conduct disorder, dysthymia and major depression in boys and girls. The interaction between gender and peer rejection and negative life events is also examined. Finally, the association between early conduct symptoms and later depressive symptoms is explored for boys and girls. A small but significant effect was found for peer rejection predicting dysthymic symptoms for girls. Implications for future research and for prevention and intervention are discussed

Predictors of delinquency in adolescent girls

Rising arrest rates among girls suggest that there may be gender differences in terms of risk factors for antisocial behavior. The present study examines whether peer rejection and negative life events significantly predict symptoms of conduct disorder, dysthymia and major depression in boys and girls. The interaction between gender and peer rejection and negative life events is also examined. Finally, the association between early conduct symptoms and later depressive symptoms is explored for boys and girls. A small but significant effect was found for peer rejection predicting dysthymic symptoms for girls. Implications for future research and for prevention and intervention are discussed

Logarithmic corrections to the QCD component of same-sign W-pair production for vector boson scattering studies

We present the results of the first calculation of the logarithmic corrections to the QCD contribution to same-sign $W$-pair production, $pp\to e^\pm \nu_e \mu^\pm \nu_\mu jj$, for same-sign charged leptons. This includes all leading logarithmic contributions which scale as $\alpha_W^4 \alpha_s^{2+k}\log^k(\hat s/p_\perp^2)$. This process is important for the study of electroweak couplings and hence the QCD contributions are usually suppressed through a choice of Vector Boson Scattering (VBS) cuts. These select regions of phase space where logarithms in $\hat s/p_\perp^2$ are enhanced. While the logarithmic corrections lead to a small change for the cross sections, several distributions relevant for experimental studies are affected more significantly.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures v2: Matches published version (Dec 2021

Logarithmic corrections to the QCD component of same-sign W-pair production for VBS studies

We present the results of the first calculation of the logarithmic corrections to the QCD contribution to same-sign $W$-pair production, $pp\to e^\pm \nu_e \mu^\pm \nu_\mu jj$, for same-sign charged leptons. This includes all leading logarithmic contributions which scale as $\alpha_W^4 \alpha_s^{2+k}\log^k(\hat s/p_\perp^2)$. This process is important for the study of electroweak couplings and hence the QCD contributions are usually suppressed through a choice of Vector Boson Scattering (VBS) cuts. These select regions of phase space where logarithms in $\hat s/p_\perp^2$ are enhanced. While the logarithmic corrections lead to a small change for the cross sections, several distributions relevant for experimental studies are affected more significantly

Naphthalene flanked diketopyrrolopyrrole: a new conjugated building block with hexyl or octyl alkyl side chains for electropolymerization studies and its biosensor applications

Diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) is one of the most fascinating organic dyes, and has gained significant attention in the organic electronic community in recent times. Due to their outstanding semiconducting properties, DPP-based small molecules and polymers can be used as active semiconductor thin films for various high performance electronic devices. However, although several flanking groups attached to the DPP backbone have been reported in the literature for DPP molecules, there is little study about the effect of fused rings flanked on both sides of the DPP core. Recently our group reported for the first time a naphthalene-flanked DPP as a new DPP family member. In this work, we have performed electropolymerization studies on a newly synthesized naphthalene flanked DPP core with two alkyl chains, hexyl (H-DPPN) and octyl (O-DPPN), as conjugated monomers. Electrochemical studies have been carried out on glassy carbon (GC) and indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes by using repetitive cyclic voltammetry (CV) as the deposition technique for up to 50 cycles. The concentration of H-DPPN and O-DPPN solution in dichloromethane was found to be a key parameter when optimizing conditions for obtaining an electropolymerised thin film, although other parameters such as the electrolyte, potential range, number of cycles, and the nature of the electrode all play a role in successful thin film formation. The electropolymerized thin films were characterised using UV-Vis spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photon spectroscopy (XPS) and surface profilometry. We found that each monomer produced different film morphologies on glassy carbon and ITO electrodes. We believe that electropolymerized poly(H-DPPN) and poly(O-DPPN) thin film electrodes could be used for various applications such as studying redox reactions and bio-sensing