Patients' preferences for the management of non-metastatic prostate cancer: discrete choice experiment

Objective To establish which attributes of conservative treatments for prostate cancer are most important to men. Design Discrete choice experiment. Setting Two London hospitals. Participants 129 men with non-metastatic prostate cancer, mean age 70 years; 69 of 118 (58%) with T stage 1 or 2 cancer at diagnosis. Main outcome measures Men's preferences for, and trade-offs between, the attributes of diarrhoea, hot flushes, ability to maintain an erection, breast swelling or tenderness, physical energy, sex drive, life expectancy, and out of pocket expenses. Results The men's responses to changes in attributes were all statistically significant. When asked to assume a starting life expectancy of five years, the men were willing to make trade-offs between life expectancy and side effects. On average, they were most willing to give up life expectancy to avoid limitations in physical energy (mean three months) and least willing to trade life expectancy to avoid hot flushes (mean 0.6 months to move from a moderate to mild level or from mild to none). Conclusions Men with prostate cancer are willing to participate in a relatively complex exercise that weighs up the advantages and disadvantages of various conservative treatments for their condition. They were willing to trade off some life expectancy to be relieved of the burden of troublesome side effects such as limitations in physical energy

The StarScan plate measuring machine: overview and calibrations

The StarScan machine at the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) completed measuring photographic astrograph plates to allow determination of proper motions for the USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC) program. All applicable 1940 AGK2 plates, about 2200 Hamburg Zone Astrograph plates, 900 Black Birch (USNO Twin Astrograph) plates, and 300 Lick Astrograph plates have been measured. StarScan comprises of a CCD camera, telecentric lens, air-bearing granite table, stepper motor screws, and Heidenhain scales to operate in a step-stare mode. The repeatability of StarScan measures is about 0.2 micrometer. The CCD mapping as well as the global table coordinate system has been calibrated using a special dot calibration plate and the overall accuracy of StarScan x,y data is derived to be 0.5 micrometer. Application to real photographic plate data shows that position information of at least 0.65 micrometer accuracy can be extracted from course grain 103a-type emulsion astrometric plates. Transformations between "direct" and "reverse" measures of fine grain emulsion plate measures are obtained on the 0.3 micrometer level per well exposed stellar image and coordinate, which is at the limit of the StarScan machine.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures, accepted for PAS

An Increase of the Character Function of Self-Directedness Is Centrally Involved in Symptom Reduction during Remission from Major Depression

Background. Studies with the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) in depressive disorders have shown changes (Δ) of the character of Self-Directedness (SD) and the temperament of Harm Avoidance (HA). The central question of this study is which of these two changes is most proximally related to the production of depressive symptoms. Methods. The start and endpoint data from a two-year followup of 58 depressed patients were reanalyzed. We used the ΔHA and ΔSD scores as well as the Δ scores on three dimensions of psychopathology, called Emotional Dysregulation (ED), Retardation (RET), and Anxiety (ANX). The presence of the main relation between personality and psychopathology was tested in all patients and in four subcategories. The data were analyzed by MANCOVA and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Results. ΔHA and ΔSD correlated negatively, and only ΔSD was related (negatively) to ΔED. This pattern was found in all subcategories. SEM showed ΔHA and ΔSD had an ambiguous causal interrelationship, while ΔSD, ΔRET, and ΔANX had unidirectional effects on ΔED. Conclusion. The results correspond with a central pathogenetic role for a state-related deficit at the character level in depression. This may have important consequences for investigations of endophenotypes and clinical treatment

Mag het een onsje meer zijn? : een studie naar de Duitse varkensvleeskolom

De Duitse varkensvleesindustrie is van groot en toenemend belang voor de Nederlandse varkenshouderijkolom. Om de primaire varkenshouders goed te kunnen adviseren heeft Rabobank opdracht gegeven om een analyse te laten uitvoeren van deze markt. Op basis van deze analyse zijn aanbevelingen opgesteld voor Nederlandse zeugenhouders en vleesvarkenhouders om de huidige goede positie te handhaven of te verbetere

The Stellar Composition of the Star Formation Region CMa R1. II. Spectroscopic and Photometric Observations of 9 Young Stars

We present new high and low resolution spectroscopic and photometric data of nine members of the young association CMa R1. All the stars have circumstellar dust at some distance as could be expected from their association with reflection nebulosity. Four stars (HD 52721, HD 53367, LkHalpha 220 and LkHalpha 218) show Halpha emission and we argue that they are Herbig Be stars with discs. Our photometric and spectroscopic observations on these stars reveal new characteristics of their variability. We present first interpretations of the variability of HD 52721, HD 53367 and the two LkHalpha stars in terms of a partially eclipsing binary, a magnetic activity cycle and circumstellar dust variations, respectively. The remaining five stars show no clear indications of Halpha emission in their spectra, although their spectral types and ages are comparable with those of HD 52721 and HD 53367. This indicates that the presence of a disc around a star in CMa R1 may depend on the environment of the star. In particular we find that all Halpha emission stars are located at or outside the arc-shaped border of the H II region, which suggests that the stars inside the arc have lost their discs through evaporation by UV photons from nearby O stars, or from the nearby (< 25 pc) supernova, about 1 Myr ago.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, accepted by MNRA

Investigating the Effect of a Visual Search Task for Simulator-Based Driver Training

Novice drivers tend to direct their gaze to the road ahead and not scan the environment properly. This study investigated the training effectiveness of a visual search task in a driving simulator, aimed at increasing young drivers\u27 spread of visual search. Two groups of inexperienced drivers were instructed to drive as accurately as possible in the center of the right lane in a self-paced driving task of four 6-min sessions in a rural environment. While driving, one group performed a visual search task, consisting of detecting and fixating on visual stimuli in the peripheral area. The stimuli were purple dots that faded in slowly and disappeared when fixated by the participant. After training, both groups drove a transfer session in an urban environment, in which various hazardous situations occurred. Results showed that both groups improved their lane keeping performance, whereas the training group became more proficient in the visual search task. However, in the transfer session no group differences were detected. In conclusion, despite improvements in visual search performance during a relatively short training period, the visual search training did not detectibly influence the spread of visual search of novice drivers during a post training transfer session

Retrieval methods of effective cloud cover from the GOME instrument: an intercomparison

The radiative scattering by clouds leads to errors in the retrieval of column densities and concentration profiles of atmospheric trace gas species from satellites. Moreover, the presence of clouds changes the UV actinic flux and the photo-dissociation rates of various species significantly. The Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) instrument on the ERS-2 satellite, principally designed to retrieve trace gases in the atmosphere, is also capable of detecting clouds. Four cloud fraction retrieval methods for GOME data that have been developed are discussed in this paper (the Initial Cloud Fitting Algorithm, the PMD Cloud Recognition Algorithm, the Optical Cloud Recognition Algorithm (an in-house version and the official implementation) and the Fast Retrieval Scheme for Clouds from the Oxygen A-band). Their results of cloud fraction retrieval are compared to each-other and also to synoptic surface observations. It is shown that all studied retrieval methods calculate an effective cloud fraction that is related to a cloud with a high optical thickness. Generally, we found ICFA to produce the lowest cloud fractions, followed by our in-house OCRA implementation, FRESCO, PC2K and finally the official OCRA implementation along four processed tracks (+2%, +10%, +15% and +25% compared to ICFA respectively). Synoptical surface observations gave the highest absolute cloud fraction when compared with individual PMD sub-pixels of roughly the same size

Retrieval methods of effective cloud cover for the GOME instrument: an intercomparison

International audienceThe radiative scattering by clouds leads to errors in the retrieval of column densities and concentration profiles of atmospheric trace gas species from satellites. Moreover, the presence of clouds changes the UV actinic flux and the photo-dissociation rates of various species significantly. The Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) instrument on the ERS-2 satellite, principally designed to retrieve trace gases in the atmosphere is also capable of detecting clouds. Four cloud fraction retrieval methods for GOME data that have been developed are discussed in this paper (the Initial Cloud Fitting Algorithm, the PMD Cloud Retrieval Algorithm, the Optical Cloud Recognition Algorithm and the Fast Retrieval Scheme for Cloud Observables). Their results of cloud fraction retrieval are compared to each-other and also to synoptic surface observations. It is shown that all studied retrieval methods calculate an effective cloud fraction that is related to a cloud with a high optical thickness. Generally, we found ICFA to produce the lowest cloud fractions, followed by OCRA, then FRESCO and PC2K along four processed tracks (+2%, +10% and +15% compared to ICFA respectively). Synoptical surface observations gave the highest absolute cloud fraction when compared with individual PMD sub-pixels of roughly the same size