Implementation of the Power to Prevent Diabetes Prevention Educational Curriculum Into Rural African American Communities: A Feasibility Study

The purpose of this study was to describe the feasibility of using a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach to implement the Power to Prevent (P2P) diabetes prevention education curriculum in rural African American (AA) settings

Analyzing the Relationship between Dose and Geometric Agreement Metrics for Auto-Contouring in Head and Neck Normal Tissues

This study aimed to determine the relationship between geometric and dosimetric agreement metrics in head and neck (H&N) cancer radiotherapy plans. A total 287 plans were retrospectively analyzed, comparing auto-contoured and clinically used contours using a Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), surface DSC (sDSC), and Hausdorff distance (HD). Organs-at-risk (OARs) with ≥200 cGy dose differences from the clinical contour in terms of Dmax (D0.01cc) and Dmean were further examined against proximity to the planning target volume (PTV). A secondary set of 91 plans from multiple institutions validated these findings. For 4995 contour pairs across 19 OARs, 90% had a DSC, sDSC, and HD of at least 0.75, 0.86, and less than 7.65 mm, respectively. Dosimetrically, the absolute difference between the two contour sets was \u3c200 cGy for 95% of OARs in terms of Dmax and 96% in terms of Dmean. In total, 97% of OARs exhibiting significant dose differences between the clinically edited contour and auto-contour were within 2.5 cm PTV regardless of geometric agreement. There was an approximately linear trend between geometric agreement and identifying at least 200 cGy dose differences, with higher geometric agreement corresponding to a lower fraction of cases being identified. Analysis of the secondary dataset validated these findings. Geometric indices are approximate indicators of contour quality and identify contours exhibiting significant dosimetric discordance. For a small subset of OARs within 2.5 cm of the PTV, geometric agreement metrics can be misleading in terms of contour quality

Deep Learning-Based Dose Prediction for Automated, Individualized Quality Assurance of Head and Neck Radiation Therapy Plans

PURPOSE: This study aimed to use deep learning-based dose prediction to assess head and neck (HN) plan quality and identify suboptimal plans. METHODS AND MATERIALS: A total of 245 volumetric modulated arc therapy HN plans were created using RapidPlan knowledge-based planning (KBP). A subset of 112 high-quality plans was selected under the supervision of an HN radiation oncologist. We trained a 3D Dense Dilated U-Net architecture to predict 3-dimensional dose distributions using 3-fold cross-validation on 90 plans. Model inputs included computed tomography images, target prescriptions, and contours for targets and organs at risk (OARs). The model\u27s performance was assessed on the remaining 22 test plans. We then tested the application of the dose prediction model for automated review of plan quality. Dose distributions were predicted on 14 clinical plans. The predicted versus clinical OAR dose metrics were compared to flag OARs with suboptimal normal tissue sparing using a 2 Gy dose difference or 3% dose-volume threshold. OAR flags were compared with manual flags by 3 HN radiation oncologists. RESULTS: The predicted dose distributions were of comparable quality to the KBP plans. The differences between the predicted and KBP-planned D CONCLUSIONS: Deep learning can predict high-quality dose distributions, which can be used as comparative dose distributions for automated, individualized assessment of HN plan quality

Revisiting the Other Side of Eden (ROSE) – rural domestic violence project report

The former Eden District, roughly corresponding to the geographic area of the Eden Valley, is a significantly rural area with the lowest population density in England. The ONS notes that significant rurality may be an obstacle to accessing specialist services (ONS 2011) a concern that persists today (ONS 2023). Published over 20 years ago, ‘The Other Side of Eden’ (TOSE) uncovered the complexity of the situation relating to domestic violence (DV) in the area (King & Warbrick 2001). The findings of this report were meant to serve local organisations, members of the Eden Forum Against Domestic Violence - to improve the provisions for victims/survivors (Rouncefield, 2012). The original research carried out by academics at St Martin’s college, a University of Cumbria legacy institution, found that the wide dispersal of the community in the rural area of Eden District and sporadic public transport further limited access to key services, including those who could assist victims of domestic violence. At the same time, the close community bonds in small villages often worked against those wishing to escape domestic violence, making it harder to leave. Finally, the original research uncovered deficits in training and knowledge around DV amongst key service providers, including police. Over the past six years, Criminology staff and students have used the former Eden District case as a basis for ongoing tracking of changes to the findings of the report, under the umbrella of ‘ROSE – Revisiting the Other Side of Eden’. The aim of the project was to understand the dimensions of rural domestic violence. Some of the objectives included tracking the changes that have taken place since TOSE research took place, assessing the current provisions and barriers against the findings of the original report. We also hoped to identify areas of focus which were not present in the previous research, attending to the concept of ‘rurality’ in both its geographical and social aspects. By making ROSE a pedagogic tool in the classroom, this ‘close to home’, rural crime-oriented project on domestic violence and abuse was also aimed at empowering future justice advocates through action responses to teaching on DV&A (McQueeny, 2016). A strand of the work involved a rolling review of literature, with a thought experiment in applying it to the local, Cumbrian reality based on students’ experiences and knowledge. The successive student cohorts also undertook waves of documentary and mapping research, based on their interests or current conditions

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts

Critical choices : the United Nations, networks, and the future of global governance

French version available in IDRC Digital Library: Choix cruciaux : les Nations Unies, les réseaux et l'avenir de la gouvernance mondial