Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination Status Among University Freshmen in Hawai‘i

Purpose/Background: The HPV vaccine provides immunity against nine HPV strains that cause cancer and genital warts. It is recommended for 11 to 12 year olds, and catch-up immunization is recommended for females 13 to 26 years old and males 13 to 21 years old. College students represent an important population for HPV vaccination due to their increased risk for HPV infection. Despite the benefits of the HPV vaccine, its coverage rates are low in Hawaii. Hawai‘i is the home of two large universities on two islands that are representative of Hawai‘i’s populations, including Native Hawaiians, Filipinos, and Pacific Islanders. The purpose of this study was to assess the current HPV and HPV vaccine knowledge, barriers and beliefs among incoming Freshmen university students at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. Materials & Methods: In 2016, 200 University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM) and University of Hawai‘i at Hilo (UHH) Freshmen students responded to a survey that assessed their knowledge and awareness of HPV, the HPV vaccine, their current vaccination status, and barriers and motivators to vaccination. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize each survey variable first for all students and then separately for each campus. Results: Overall 76% of Freshmen from both campuses heard of the HPV vaccine and 54% reported hearing it from their health care provider. Only 28% UHM and 23% UHH Freshmen students have received partial (1-2 shots) or completed doses of the HPV vaccine. For those who received the vaccine, 45% reported that they were told by their parent and 43% were told by their doctor. For the 147 students who did not receive the vaccine, 28% reported that they are still not sure to get it and 20% need more information. Their main reasons for not receiving the HPV vaccine were: their doctor did not mention the vaccine to him/her (44%), he/she never knew about the vaccine (18%), and they don\u27t know enough about the vaccine (17%). Discussion/Conclusion: Although the HPV vaccine has been available for 13 years, young adults remain unvaccinated. Freshmen students reported that they are informed about the vaccine, but were not vaccinated because of the lack of parental and/or healthcare provider recommendation. With no active education campaigns in Hawaii promoting the HPV vaccine at college campuses, a first step to increasing vaccination rates is to develop a health education campaign to inform students of the HPV vaccine and its availability at campus clinics and neighboring pharmacies

Relativistic theory of the double photoionization of helium-like atoms

A fully relativistic calculation of the double photoionization of helium-like atoms is presented. The approach is based on the partial-wave representation of the Dirac continuum states and accounts for the retardation in the electron-electron interaction as well as the higher-order multipoles of the absorbed photon. The electron-electron interaction is taken into account to the leading order of perturbation theory. The relativistic effects are shown to become prominent already for the medium-Z ions, changing the shape and the asymptotic behaviour of the photon energy dependence of the ratio of the double-to-single photoionization cross section

Introducing creativity techniques and software apps to the care of people with dementia

This poster reports research to introduce creative problem solving techniques and software to the care for people with dementia in residential homes

Contemporary Guarani Shamanisms: “Traditional Medicine” and Discourses of Native Identity in Brazil

The psychoactive substance known as ayahuasca has long been identified with Amazonian shamanism and traditional medicine. Over the last two decades its use has spread outside this region to urban populations in different parts of the world. This paper examines the adoption of the ritual use of the beverage by the Guarani Indians along the southern coast of Brazil. We argue that this process is related to the growing politics of identity of Brazilian indigenous peoples as well as to public policies that promote cultural diversity. In the case analyzed here, the adoption of ayahuasca is articulated with an ongoing cultural revitalization in activities related to shamanism, health and education and with the specific desires and actions of the leading family in one Guarani village

Non-locality of Foldy-Wouthuysen and related transformations for the Dirac equation

Non-localities of Foldy-Wouthuysen and related transformations, which are used to separate positive and negative energy states in the Dirac equation, are investigated. Second moments of functional kernels generated by the transformations are calculated, the transformed functions and their variances are computed. It is shown that all the transformed quantities are smeared in the coordinate space by the amount comparable to the Compton wavelength $\lambda_c=\hbar/mc$.Comment: 7 pages, two figure

Virtual light-by-light scattering and the g factor of a bound electron

The contribution of the light-by-light diagram to the g factor of electron and muon bound in Coulomb field is obtained. For electron in a ground state, our results are in good agreement with the results of other authors obtained numerically for large Z. For relatively small Z our results have essentially higher accuracy as compared to the previous ones. For muonic atoms, the contribution is obtained for the first time with the high accuracy in whole region of Z.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, RevTe

Spin-orbit induced interference in polygon-structures

We investigate the spin-orbit induced spin-interference pattern of ballistic electrons travelling along any regular polygon. It is found that the spin-interference depends strongly on the Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit constants as well as on the sidelength and alignment of the polygon. We derive the analytical formulae for the limiting cases of either zero Dresselhaus or zero Rashba spin-orbit coupling, including the result obtained for a circle. We calculate the nonzero Dresselhaus and Rashba case numerically for the square, triangle, hexagon, and circle and discuss the observability of the spin-interference which can potentially be used to measure the Rashba and Dresselhaus coefficients.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure

Retrieval of mass and sizes of particles in sandstorms using two MODIS IR bands: A case study of april 7 2001 sandstorm in China

A thermal infrared remote sensing retrieval method developed by Wen and Rose [1994], which retrieves particle sizes, optical depth, and total masses of silicate particles in the volcanic cloud, was applied to an April 07, 2001 sandstorm over northern China, using MODIS. Results indicate that the area of the dust cloud observed was 1.34 million km2, the mean particle radius of the dust was 1.44 μm, and the mean optical depth at 11 μm was 0.79. The mean burden of dust was approximately 4.8 tons/km2 and the main portion of the dust storm on April 07, 2001 contained 6.5 million tons of dust. The results are supported by both independent remote sensing data (TOMS) and in-situ data for a similar event in 1998. This paper demonstrates that Wen and Rose’s retrieval method could be successfully applied to past and future sandstorm events using IR channels of AVHRR, GOES or MODIS