Pregnant women's and policymakers' preferences for the expansion of noninvasive prenatal screening: A discrete choice experiment approach study.

Background And Aims: Quantitative approaches for eliciting preferences for new interventions are mostly conducted by patients and rarely by policymakers. This study aimed to quantify the preferences of pregnant women and policymakers regarding the addition of a new test to prenatal screening programs for detecting chromosomal abnormalities.

Methods: A discrete choice experiment was conducted to measure the respondents' preferences for a new prenatal test.

Occupational Health and Well-being Questionnaire (OHWQ): an instrument to assess psychosocial risk and protective factors in the workplace.

Objectives: Psychosocial stressors at work have been identified as significant risk factors for several mental and physical health problems. These stressors must be compensated by psychosocial resources to prevent or reduce adverse effects on health. Questionnaires measuring these stressors and resources already exist, but none integrate digital stress, ethical culture, and psychosocial safety climate; factors that are increasingly linked to workers' health.

Effect of Yttrium-90 transarterial radioembolization in patients with non-surgical hepatocellular carcinoma: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Recently, the use of Yttrium-90 transarterial radioembolization in non-surgical hepatocellular carcinoma was suggested but the evidence supporting its use is unclear.

Methods: We searched Medline, Embase, Web of Science and Cochrane CENTRAL from inception up to April 14, 2020 for randomized controlled trials comparing Y90-TARE to standard of care in non-surgical HCC patients. Our primary outcome was overall survival (OS).

Latitudinal drivers of oyster mortality: deciphering host, pathogen and environmental risk factors.

Diseases pose an ongoing threat to aquaculture, fisheries and conservation of marine species, and determination of risk factors of disease is crucial for management. Our objective was to decipher the effects of host, pathogen and environmental factors on disease-induced mortality of Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) across a latitudinal gradient. We deployed young and adult oysters at 13 sites in France and we monitored survival, pathogens and environmental parameters.

Fine-scale temporal dynamics of herpes virus and vibrios in seawater during a polymicrobial infection in the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas.

The Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas is currently being impacted by a polymicrobial disease that involves early viral infection by ostreid herpesvirus-1 (OsHV-1) followed by a secondary bacterial infection leading to death. A widely used method of inducing infection consists of placing specific pathogen-free oysters ('recipients') in cohabitation in the laboratory with diseased oysters that were naturally infected in the field ('donors'). With this method, we evaluated the temporal dynamics of pathogen release in seawater and the cohabitation time necessary for disease transmission and expression.

Determination of risk factors for herpesvirus outbreak in oysters using a broad-scale spatial epidemiology framework.

Marine diseases have major impacts on ecosystems and economic consequences for aquaculture and fisheries. Understanding origin, spread and risk factors of disease is crucial for management, but data in the ocean are limited compared to the terrestrial environment. Here we investigated how the marine environment drives the spread of viral disease outbreak affecting The Pacific oyster worldwide by using a spatial epidemiology framework.

The Library of Integrated Network-Based Cellular Signatures NIH Program: System-Level Cataloging of Human Cells Response to Perturbations.

The Library of Integrated Network-Based Cellular Signatures (LINCS) is an NIH Common Fund program that catalogs how human cells globally respond to chemical, genetic, and disease perturbations. Resources generated by LINCS include experimental and computational methods, visualization tools, molecular and imaging data, and signatures. By assembling an integrated picture of the range of responses of human cells exposed to many perturbations, the LINCS program aims to better understand human disease and to advance the development of new therapies.

Intraspecific genetic admixture and the morphological diversification of an estuarine fish population complex.

The North-east American Rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax) is composed of two glacial races first identified through the spatial distribution of two distinct mtDNA lineages. Contemporary breeding populations of smelt in the St. Lawrence estuary comprise contrasting mixtures of both lineages, suggesting that the two races came into secondary contact in this estuary.

System-level factors as predictors of adherence to clinical appointment schedules in antiretroviral therapy in Cambodia.

Adherence to clinical appointment schedules by patients on antiretroviral therapy (ART) is necessary for the prevention of medication interruptions, viral rebound, and the development of drug resistance. An observational study conducted in 2010, Enablers and Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy in Cambodia, sought to identify factors that predict on-time clinical appointment attendance by patients on ART. Clinical data, including appointment attendance across five consecutive visits, were collected from hospital records on a random sample of ART patients at government referral hospitals (RHs) in Battambang Province, Cambodia.

Spatial and temporal dynamics of mass mortalities in oysters is influenced by energetic reserves and food quality.

Although spatial studies of diseases on land have a long history, far fewer have been made on aquatic diseases. Here, we present the first large-scale, high-resolution spatial and temporal representation of a mass mortality phenomenon cause by the Ostreid herpesvirus (OsHV-1) that has affected oysters (Crassostrea gigas) every year since 2008, in relation to their energetic reserves and the quality of their food. Disease mortality was investigated in healthy oysters deployed at 106 locations in the Thau Mediterranean lagoon before the start of the epizootic in spring 2011.

Transverse pressure distributions in a simple model ear canal occluded by a hearing aid test fixture.

The sound field in a model ear canal with a hearing aid test fixture has been investigated experimentally and theoretically. Large transverse variations of sound pressure level, as much as 20 dB at 8 kHz, were found across the inner face of the hearing aid. Variations are greatest near the outlet port of the receiver and the vent port.

Temperature-mediated relationship between western flower thrips (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) and chrysanthemum.

Modeling the effect of temperature on the sustainability of insect-plant interactions requires assessment of both insect and plant performance. We examined the effect of temperature on western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande), a generalist herbivore with a high reproductive rate, and chrysanthemum inflorescences, a high quality but relatively fixed, ephemeral resource for thrips population growth. We hypothesized that different thrips versus plant responses to temperature result in significant statistical interaction of temperature with thrips abundance and flower damage attributes over time.

Comparison of an analytic horn equation approach and a boundary element method for the calculation of sound fields in the human ear canal.

The sound field inside a model human ear canal has been computed, to show both longitudinal variations along the canal length and transverse variations through cross-sectional slices. Two methods of computation were used. A modified horn equation approach parametrizes the sound field with a single coordinate, the position along a curved center axis-this approach can accommodate the curvature and varying cross-sectional area of the ear canal but cannot compute transverse variations of the sound field.

Effect of handset proximity on hearing aid feedback.

The increased sensitivity of hearing aids to feedback as a telephone handset is brought near has been studied experimentally and numerically. For the measurements, three different hearing aids were modified so that the open-loop transfer function could be measured. They were mounted in the pinna of a mannikin and the change in open-loop transfer function determined as a function of handset proximity.

Loglinear models for the robust design in mark-recapture experiments.

The robust design is a method for implementing a mark-recapture experiment featuring a nested sampling structure. The first level consists of primary sampling sessions; the population experiences mortality and immigration between primary sessions so that open population models apply at this level. The second level of sampling has a short mark-recapture study within each primary session.

Experimental and numerical study of air-coupled surface waves generated above strips of finite impedance.

A series of laboratory experiments are described in which air coupled surface waves are generated from a point source in the frequency range between 800 and 1700 Hz above a surface composed of a lattice of small cavities. Since the sound pressure near the lattice of cavities can be greater than if the surface was rigid, passive amplification is obtained. Moreover, directional receivers can be designed by restricting the lattice of cavities to a strip of finite width.

Scattering from impedance gratings and surface wave formation.

The scattering problem of acoustic plane waves from comb-like impedance gratings on a rigid surface has been investigated in this paper. A rigorous analytic approach for homogeneous plane-wave incidence is presented based on the periodicity of the grating structure, in which the problem was solved as a mixed boundary value problem and the scattered field was represented by the tangent velocity difference across a partition wall of the grating. A singular integral equation has been derived for the tangent velocity difference, which can directly be solved with the Gauss-Chebyshev procedure.

Controlled experiments of the diffraction of sound by a curved surface.

Controlled measurements of the sound field from a point source above a curved surface are described. The measurements were made in the frequency range between 0.3 and 10 kHz, in the case of a rigid boundary and a surface of finite impedance.

Automated quantification of bone and liver alkaline phosphatase isoenzymes of human serum.

Coupling two Technicon AAII samplers synchronised at 50 per hour with a 2 : 1 sample to wash ratio, sera are denatured and collected automatically. The incubation is done in continuous flow by passage through a U device made of large metallic needles soaked in a water bath at 60 +/- 0.1 degree C.