A fear appeal approach to web-based sexual offender community notification

Community notification aims to warn the public when reintegrating sexual offenders represent a significant risk to public safety. However, anxiety and powerlessness are often unintentional side-effects of notification. Fear appeals are persuasive messages that arouse fear of a threat and may include recommended actions for avoiding the threat. This research applied a fear appeal theory, the Extended Parallel Processing Model (EPPM), to community notification web pages. Study 1, a systematic review of existing community notification web pages, informed the development of a “traditional” web page vignette for Study 2. Study 2 compared the traditional web page format to a “high efficacy” web page intervention, which comprised educational information on avoiding sexual victimization. The EPPM predicted positive correlations between fear and perceived threat (hypothesis 1), fear and behavioural intentions (hypothesis 2), and perceived efficacy and intentions to adopt victimization prevention behaviours (hypothesis 4) as well as negative correlations between perceived efficacy and maladaptive fear control responses (hypothesis 3). The intervention group was predicted to have higher perceived threat, higher perceived efficacy, be less likely to adopt fear control responses, and more likely to endorse behavioural intentions than the control group (hypothesis 5). Female participants were hypothesized to have higher fear, perceived threat, fear control responses, and behavioural intentions and lower perceived efficacy than male participants (hypothesis 6). The results provide preliminary support for the EPPM’s ability to explain reactions to receiving a community notification. Hypotheses 1, 2, and 4 were fully supported and hypothesis 6 was partially supported as females displayed higher fear, perceived threat, and behavioural intentions; however, the intervention was ineffective in producing differences between the intervention and control groups (hypothesis 5). Exploratory regression analyses found gender, education level, previous victimization, parental status, and locus of control were related to the EPPM’s variables. Future research should examine the impact of different educational materials and delivery systems (such as interpersonal sources, media, and web-based multi-media) to further examine the application of the EPPM to web-based sexual offender community notification and determine whether it is possible to increase adaptive responses to receiving a community notification by providing educational information

Prevalence of human papillomavirus and Helicobacter pylori in esophageal and gastroesophageal junction cancer biopsies from a case-control study in Ethiopia

peer reviewe

Detection of a large spectrum of viral infections in conjunctival premalignant and malignant lesions.

To study the interaction between HIV and other carcinogenic infections in conjunctival squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), we evaluated the presence of a broad spectrum of human viruses in conjunctiva specimens. Beta Human papillomavirus (HPV; n = 46), gamma HPV (n = 52), polyomaviruses (n = 12) and herpes viruses (n = 3) was determined in DNA extracted from 67 neoplastic and 55 non-neoplastic conjunctival tissues of HIV-positive and HIV negative subjects by Luminex-based assays. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) was also used to further characterize the presence of cutaneous HPVs. Detection of beta-2 HPV infections was associated with the risk of neoplasia (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 3.0; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.3-6.8), regardless of HIV status (HIV positive, aOR 2.6, 95% CI 0.9-7.7; HIV negative, aOR 3.5, 95% CI 0.9-14.4). EBV was strongly associated with the risk of neoplasia (aOR 12.0, 95% CI 4.3-33.5; P < .01) mainly in HIV individuals (HIV positive, aOR 57.5; 95% CI: 10.1-327.1; HIV negative aOR 2.6; 95% CI: 0.2-34.7). NGS allowed to identify 13 putative novel HPVs in cases and controls. Our findings suggest a role of beta HPV types and EBV, in conjunctival SCC. However, additional studies of viral expression in tumor tissue are required to confirm the causal association

Oral Infection by Mucosal and Cutaneous Human Papillomaviruses in the Men Who Have Sex with Men from the OHMAR Study

Both mucosal and cutaneous Human Papillomaviruses (HPVs) can be detected in the oral cavity, but investigations regarding the epidemiology of cutaneous HPVs at this site are scarce. We assessed mucosal (alpha) and cutaneous (beta and gamma) HPV infection in oral samples of HIV-infected and uninfected men who have sex with men (MSM). Oral rinse-and-gargles were collected from 310 MSM. Alpha HPVs were detected using the Linear Array, whereas beta and gamma HPVs were detected using multiplex PCR and Luminex technology. An amplicon-based next-generation sequencing (NGS) protocol was applied to a subset of samples collected from 30 HIV-uninfected and 30 HIV-infected MSM. Beta HPVs were significantly more common than alpha types (53.8% vs. 23.9% for HIV-infected subjects, p &lt; 0.0001; 50.3% vs. 17.1% for HIV-uninfected subjects, p &lt; 0.0001). Gamma HPVs were also frequently detected (30.8% and 25.9% in HIV-infected and uninfected MSM, respectively). NGS produced 2,620,725 reads representative of 146 known HPVs (16 alpha-PVs, 53 beta-PVs, 76 gamma-PVs, one unclassified) and eight putative new HPVs, taxonomically assigned to the beta genus. The oral cavity contains a wide spectrum of HPVs, with beta types representing the predominant genus. The prevalence of beta and gamma HPVs is high even in immunorestored HIV-infected individuals. NGS confirmed the abundance of cutaneous HPVs and identified some putative novel beta HPVs. This study confirms that cutaneous HPVs are frequently present at mucosal sites and highlights that their pathological role deserves further investigation since it may not be limited to skin lesions

2-Cyanoazetidines and Azetidinium Ions: Scaffolds for Molecular Diversity

Ring strain in azetidines and azetidinium ions can be efficiently used to promote ring-expansion and ring-opening reactions, and this renders these four-membered heterocycles ideal scaffolds for diversity oriented synthesis. This microreview focuses on 2-cyanoazetidines, which are easily prepared from β-amino alcohols through a ring-closing reaction involving C–C bond formation. The azetidines can be readily expanded to five- to eight-membered nitrogen heterocycles after suitable functionalization and/or activation. Alternatively, N-alkylated derivatives, namely, azetidinium ions, are easily prepared and displayed rich reactivity as new electrophilic building blocks and as sources of nitrogen ylides.SCOPUS: re.jFLWINinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe