Selling lottery products to minors: factors affecting retailer compliance

Illegal gambling by adolescent minors has become a major issue in many societies and lottery gambling is often considered a "gateway" to gambling more generally among this age group. The purpose of this study was to identify the influencing factors that affect retailer compliance concerning the selling of lottery products to minors. The research team received the original data (i) directly from the sales agents of the Austrian Lotteries after their responsible gambling training of the retailer in 2014/2015 (Round 1: n = 5032), (ii) directly from a third-party agency carrying out test purchases (i.e., "mystery shopping") in 2014 (Round 2: n = 1421), and (iii) retailers’ responses to their attitudes to youth protection issues (through direct interface with the research team) in 2015 (Round 3: n = 4516). The data from a total of 1036 participants who had taken part in all three rounds was analyzed in the present study. Results showed that in 13.1% of mystery shopping checks (n = 1421), lottery products were sold to a test purchaser under the age of 16 years. The analysis also showed that the older the test purchaser, the greater the likelihood that a lottery product was sold. Under-age lottery sales to girls were over three times more prevalent than sales to boys. Finally, the analysis showed that the higher the number of responsible gambling training sessions completed in the past and the more positive the attitude towards mystery shopping, the higher the compliance rate not to sell a lottery product to young mystery shoppers. Recommendations to increase compliance and raise the awareness among retailers are presented

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty

Lack of effective communication between communities and hospitals in Uganda: a qualitative exploration of missing links

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Community members are stakeholders in hospitals and have a right to participate in the improvement of quality of services rendered to them. Their views are important because they reflect the perspectives of the general public. This study explored how communities that live around hospitals pass on their views to and receive feedback from the hospitals' management and administration.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study was conducted in eight hospitals and the communities around them. Four of the hospitals were from three districts from eastern Uganda and another four from two districts from western Uganda. Eight key informant interviews (KIIs) were conducted with medical superintendents of the hospitals. A member from each of three hospital management boards was also interviewed. Eight focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with health workers from the hospitals. Another eight FGDs (four with men and four with women) were conducted with communities within a five km radius around the hospitals. Four of the FGDs (two with men and two with women) were done in western Uganda and the other four in eastern Uganda. The focus of the KIIs and FGDs was exploring how hospitals communicated with the communities around them. Analysis was by manifest content analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Whereas health unit management committees were supposed to have community representatives, the representatives never received views from the community nor gave them any feed back from the hospitals. Messages through the mass media like radio were seen to be non specific for action. Views sent through suggestion boxes were seen as individual needs rather than community concerns. Some community members perceived they would be harassed if they complained and had reached a state of resignation preferring instead to endure the problems quietly.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>There is still lack of effective communication between the communities and the hospitals that serve them in Uganda. This deprives the communities of the right to participate in the improvement of the services they receive, to assume their position as stakeholders. Various avenues could be instituted including using associations in communities, rapid appraisal methods and community meetings.</p

Inhibition of Neuroblastoma Tumor Growth by Targeted Delivery of MicroRNA-34a Using Anti-Disialoganglioside GD2 Coated Nanoparticles

Neuroblastoma is one of the most challenging malignancies of childhood, being associated with the highest death rate in paediatric oncology, underlining the need for novel therapeutic approaches. Typically, patients with high risk disease undergo an initial remission in response to treatment, followed by disease recurrence that has become refractory to further treatment. Here, we demonstrate the first silica nanoparticle-based targeted delivery of a tumor suppressive, pro-apoptotic microRNA, miR-34a, to neuroblastoma tumors in a murine orthotopic xenograft model. These tumors express high levels of the cell surface antigen disialoganglioside GD2 (GD(2)), providing a target for tumor-specific delivery.Nanoparticles encapsulating miR-34a and conjugated to a GD(2) antibody facilitated tumor-specific delivery following systemic administration into tumor bearing mice, resulted in significantly decreased tumor growth, increased apoptosis and a reduction in vascularisation. We further demonstrate a novel, multi-step molecular mechanism by which miR-34a leads to increased levels of the tissue inhibitor metallopeptidase 2 precursor (TIMP2) protein, accounting for the highly reduced vascularisation noted in miR-34a-treated tumors.These novel findings highlight the potential of anti-GD(2)-nanoparticle-mediated targeted delivery of miR-34a for both the treatment of GD(2)-expressing tumors, and as a basic discovery tool for elucidating biological effects of novel miRNAs on tumor growth

Population‐based cohort study of outcomes following cholecystectomy for benign gallbladder diseases

Background The aim was to describe the management of benign gallbladder disease and identify characteristics associated with all‐cause 30‐day readmissions and complications in a prospective population‐based cohort. Methods Data were collected on consecutive patients undergoing cholecystectomy in acute UK and Irish hospitals between 1 March and 1 May 2014. Potential explanatory variables influencing all‐cause 30‐day readmissions and complications were analysed by means of multilevel, multivariable logistic regression modelling using a two‐level hierarchical structure with patients (level 1) nested within hospitals (level 2). Results Data were collected on 8909 patients undergoing cholecystectomy from 167 hospitals. Some 1451 cholecystectomies (16·3 per cent) were performed as an emergency, 4165 (46·8 per cent) as elective operations, and 3293 patients (37·0 per cent) had had at least one previous emergency admission, but had surgery on a delayed basis. The readmission and complication rates at 30 days were 7·1 per cent (633 of 8909) and 10·8 per cent (962 of 8909) respectively. Both readmissions and complications were independently associated with increasing ASA fitness grade, duration of surgery, and increasing numbers of emergency admissions with gallbladder disease before cholecystectomy. No identifiable hospital characteristics were linked to readmissions and complications. Conclusion Readmissions and complications following cholecystectomy are common and associated with patient and disease characteristics

QCD and strongly coupled gauge theories : challenges and perspectives

We highlight the progress, current status, and open challenges of QCD-driven physics, in theory and in experiment. We discuss how the strong interaction is intimately connected to a broad sweep of physical problems, in settings ranging from astrophysics and cosmology to strongly coupled, complex systems in particle and condensed-matter physics, as well as to searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. We also discuss how success in describing the strong interaction impacts other fields, and, in turn, how such subjects can impact studies of the strong interaction. In the course of the work we offer a perspective on the many research streams which flow into and out of QCD, as well as a vision for future developments.Peer reviewe

Search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with tau leptons in √s=13 TeV collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with at least two hadronically decaying tau leptons is presented. The analysis uses a dataset of pp collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb−1, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 13TeV.Nosignificant deviation from the expected Standard Model background is observed. Limits are derived in scenarios of ˜χ+1 ˜χ−1 pair production and of ˜χ±1 ˜χ02 and ˜χ+1 ˜χ−1 production in simplified models where the neutralinos and charginos decay solely via intermediate left-handed staus and tau sneutrinos, and the mass of the ˜ τL state is set to be halfway between the masses of the ˜χ±1 and the ˜χ01. Chargino masses up to 630 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level in the scenario of direct production of ˜χ+1 ˜χ−1 for a massless ˜χ01. Common ˜χ±1 and ˜χ02 masses up to 760 GeV are excluded in the case of production of ˜χ±1 ˜χ02 and ˜χ+1 ˜χ−1 assuming a massless ˜χ01. Exclusion limits for additional benchmark scenarios with large and small mass-splitting between the ˜χ±1 and the ˜χ01 are also studied by varying the ˜ τL mass between the masses of the ˜χ±1 and the ˜χ01

Measurement of differential cross sections and W + /W − cross-section ratios for W boson production in association with jets at √s =8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a measurement of the W boson production cross section and the W + /W − cross-section ratio, both in association with jets, in proton--proton collisions at s √ =8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is performed in final states containing one electron and missing transverse momentum using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb −1 . Differential cross sections for events with one or two jets are presented for a range of observables, including jet transverse momenta and rapidities, the scalar sum of transverse momenta of the visible particles and the missing transverse momentum in the event, and the transverse momentum of the W boson. For a subset of the observables, the differential cross sections of positively and negatively charged W bosons are measured separately. In the cross-section ratio of W + /W − the dominant systematic uncertainties cancel out, improving the measurement precision by up to a factor of nine. The observables and ratios selected for this paper provide valuable input for the up quark, down quark, and gluon parton distribution functions of the proto

Measurement of the cross section for inclusive isolated-photon production in pp collisions at √s=13TeV using the ATLAS detector

Inclusive isolated-photon production in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13TeVis studied with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using a data set with an integrated luminosity of 3.2fb−1. The cross section is measured as a function of the photon transverse energy above 125GeVin different regions of photon pseudorapidity. Next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD and Monte Carlo event-generator predictions are compared to the cross-section measurements and provide an adequate description of the data

Study of ordered hadron chains with the ATLAS detector

The analysis of the momentum difference between charged hadrons in high-energy proton-proton collisions is performed in order to study coherent particle production. The observed correlation pattern agrees with a model of a helical QCD string fragmenting into a chain of ground-state hadrons. A threshold momentum difference in the production of adjacent pairs of charged hadrons is observed, in agreement with model predictions. The presence of low-mass hadron chains also explains the emergence of charge-combination-dependent two-particle correlations commonly attributed to Bose-Einstein interference. The data sample consists of 190 μb−1 of minimum-bias events collected with proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy √s=7 TeV in the early low-luminosity data taking with the ATLAS detector at the LHC