Low Health Literacy and HPV Vaccine Uptake of African American and Hispanic American Women

Cervical cancer incidence in the United States has declined for the past 40 years, yet the odds of developing cervical cancer is much higher among marginalized women, particularly African American and Hispanic American women. Although preventable through vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV) prior to infection, uptake and completion rates of the vaccine among African American and Hispanic American women are low. The purpose of the study was to determine if a significant relationship existed between the health literacy levels of African American and Hispanic American women, ages 18-26, and the low HPV vaccination uptake. The integrated behavioral model, which identifies factors antecedent to behavioral intention, as well as the motivating variables, was the theoretical framework. Secondary data from the 2015 National Health Interview Survey were used to examine the relationships among the variables of interest. A logistic regression (n = 2093) showed that health literacy is a strong determinant of HPV vaccine behavior intention, and that there was a significant relationship between health literacy and HPV vaccine initiation. Health literacy mediated the relationships between the motivating variables and the vaccine uptake, and completely mediated the relationship between ethnicity and HPV vaccine uptake. Health literacy did not independently predict the vaccine initiation. The findings from this study might (a) provide public health practitioners with enough information to guide health promotion activities to increase the vaccination coverage to the level expected in Healthy People 2020, (b) save economic resources through cancer prevention, and (c) improve lives by curbing the excess deaths among racial minority women

Tax Morale and its Drivers: Empirical Evidence from Ghana

Using the binary logistic regression model, this study analyzes the statistical relationships between tax morale and its drivers as developed by the World Values Survey (WVS) on 1,552 respondents in Ghana between 2010 and 2014. The findings show that age has a significant positive relationship with tax morale, whereas participation in national-level elections also has a significant positive relationship with tax morale. Secondary education and above have a positive relationship with tax morale, but the relationship is negative below secondary education. One's employment status has a positive but insignificant relationship with tax morale, but income factors have a negative relationship. Confidence in government and parliament has a positive but insignificant relationship with tax morale. Finally, preference for the redistribution of wealth has a significant positive relationship with tax morale, while trust in others has an insignificant positive relationship with tax morale. The study provides country-specific drivers of tax morale (with expanded variables) and their relationships with tax morale in direct response to a suggestion by Daude, Gutiérrez, & Melguizo in their study in 2012 and as an improvement upon a similar study conducted in Ghana by Ibrahim, Musah, & Abdul-Hanan in 2015

The Relationship between Bank Deposits and Macroeconomic Variables in Ghana: A Co-Integration Approach

This study examined the linkages between macroeconomic variables and how those relationships affect the total deposits of Ghanaian banks. The macroeconomic variables included in this study were Inflation (I), Monetary Policy Rate (MPR), Gross International Reserve (GIR), Public Debt (PD), Gross Domestic Product (GDP), GSE All share Index (GASI), Rate of change in Total Money Supply (M2+), deposits in the banking sector (TD). The study employed monthly data over the period (2015–2020); obtained from the Bank of Ghana monthly time series database. The data were analyzed using Gretl. The cointegration technique was employed in this study to gauge the long-term and short-term responsiveness of the connections. The ADF results indicated that the study variables were non-stationary. The econometric analysis suggested that the study variables, inflation (I), Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Public Debt level (PD), and Total Deposits (TD) in banks operating in Ghana, exhibited a significant positive long-run cointegration relationship. This suggested that the identified variables play a crucial role in explaining the fluctuations in total deposit levels within the Ghanaian banking industry. Bank deposit is strongly exogenous and moves to restore equilibrium through several short-run partial adjustments in the short-run. Also, in the short-run, only the GSE All-share index (GASI) significantly influenced bank deposits, but not in the long-run. In the long run, the relationship was still positive but insignificant

Application of large format tissue processing in the histology laboratory

In clinical, research and veterinary laboratories of North America, large format histology has more recently been improved with newer equipment and better methodology. Large tissue specimens are frequently sliced in the grossing room and processed in multiple smaller, standard size tissue cassettes. Justifiably, submitting more blocks inherently lends itself to a greater confidence in the accuracy of the diagnosis, yet guidelines for tissue sampling often suggest taking fewer samples. For example, large tumor specimen protocols recommend taking one standard-sized tissue block for each cm diameter of tumor. However, cancers are the culmination of many complex changes in cell metabolism and often appear dissimilar at different tissue locations. As these changes have an uncertain behavior, many other tissue samples are often taken from areas that appear to have either a variable texture or color. Consequently, at microscopy, the complete tissue sample may need to be reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle as the stained sections are frequently presented over many slides. This problem has easily been overcome by using large format cassettes since the entire cross-section of the tissue sample can often be viewed on a single slide. Because these cassettes can effectively hold up to 10 times the volume of conventional standard size cassettes, they are a more efficient way of assessing large areas of tissue samples. This system is easily adapted for all tissue types and has become the established method for assessing large tissue samples in many laboratory settings

Herding Behavior of Ghana Stock Market Participants: A Daily Analysis

This study investigates the herding behavior of Ghana stock market participants and its impact on stock returns. Using panel data of 38 equities listed on the Ghana stock market, the data spans from 2011 to 2019. Fixed effect model was used for all estimations. Overall, the study results failed to indicate evidence of herding behavior in the Ghana stock market. This result further indicates that at low levels, the market participants herd but at higher levels, there is the absence of herding behavior. In bull market conditions, market participants act in unison only at high levels. The result validates the assumption of the rational asset pricing model

Standardizing HER2 immunohistochemistry assessment: calibration of color and intensity variation in whole slide imaging caused by staining and scanning

Abstract In the evaluation of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) immunohistochemistry (IHC) — one of the standard biomarkers for breast cancer— visual assessment is laborious and subjective. Image analysis using whole slide image (WSI) could produce more consistent results; however, color variability in WSIs due to the choice of stain and scanning processes may impact image analysis. We therefore developed a calibration protocol to diminish the staining and scanning variations of WSI using two calibrator slides. The IHC calibrator slide (IHC-CS) contains peptide-coated microbeads with different concentrations. The color distribution obtained from the WSI of stained IHC-CS reflects the staining process and scanner characteristics. A color chart slide (CCS) is also useful for calibrating the color variation due to the scanner. The results of the automated HER2 assessment were compared to confirm the effectiveness of two calibration slides. The IHC-CS and HER2 breast cancer cases were stained on different days. All stained slides and CCS were digitized by two different WSI scanners. Results revealed 100% concordance between automated evaluation and the pathologist’s assessment with both the scanner and staining calibration. The proposed method may enable consistent evaluation of HER2

Development of Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of Micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) in Pathology

BACKGROUNDAND GOAL: Micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) is an emerging technology in the biomedical field and enables us to analyze 3D structures non-destructively and observe these structures in various directions, thus enabling innovation in this area of pathology. However, application of micro-CT for medicine has just started and optimization per purpose has not yet been done. The purpose of this study is to 1) demonstrate the potential utility of micro-CT in pathology; 2) optimize micro-CT imaging technology and develop a standard operating protocol and; 3) investigate whether micro-CT incurs any radiation damage to pathological tissue samples. MATERIAL AND METHODS:The samples of fresh tissue, formalin fixed tissue and formalin fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue blocks were scanned using a custom-built Nikon Metrology micro-CT system with a variety of parameters then evaluated with histology correlation in detail. Radiation damage to tissue samples was also evaluated. Through our study, we have established the scanning protocol and workflow for each type of sample. RESULTS:For fresh/fixed tissue, the house made polystyrene foam container was most ideal and the scanning time for fresh tissue was six minutes at as shortest, in which it is possible to detect neoplastic lesions in the tissue. In case of FFPE blocks, 10 -17 hours scanned images