Motivational factors and preferences regarding research participation among HIV+ adults in an urban setting

Session presented on Saturday, July 26, 2014: Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore factors (cost/benefits, social/community endorsement) that influence research participation and comfort with the format for data collection (face-to-face interview, paper questionnaire and computer assessment) of potentially sensitive information of African Americans and Hispanics with HIV/AIDS. We examined whether the importance of cost/benefits, the importance of social/community endorsement, and comfort with three data collection formats were related to ethnicity, age, education, or first-time study participation. This was an exploratory study aimed at building hypotheses for future research and to inform researchers wishing to enroll people from ethnic minority backgrounds with HIV into research studies. The study aims to add to the knowledge base on research participation factors of members of minority groups with HIV. Methods: This was an exploratory cross-sectional study. Participants were 453 English-speaking adults attending two HIV primary care clinics in South Florida. All participants gave informed consent before completing the survey. The University of Miami institutional review board approved the study prior to recruitment. Participants received $10 for completing the survey. Of the 453 participants, 30% were taking part in their first study. A small majority (57%) were male with 42% female, and 1% intersex. Almost two-thirds (61%) were African American, 35% were Hispanic, and 5% were white or of other ethnicity. The average age of participants was 45.97 years (SD = 9.17), 64% had a high school education (or equivalent), and 75% were unemployed at the time of the interview. Most (57%) participants had been diagnosed with HIV more than 10 years before the interview, with 21% 5-10 years before, 17% 1-5 years before, and 5% less than a year before. Nearly all (90%) participants were taking HIV medications. Participants completed a survey developed for the study. Ten items asked about the importance of research participation cost/benefits and social/community endorsement of the research in the participant\u27s decision regarding research participation. Cronbach\u27s alpha for these scales was high: Cost/Benefits ? = .88, Community/Social Endorsement ? = .93. Three items asked about the participant\u27s level of comfort with faces to face interview, paper questionnaire, and private computer screen when being asked personal questions in a research study. Results: All of the Cost/Benefits and Community/Social Endorsement items were rated as either \u27important\u27 or \u27absolutely important\u27 by the majority of participants. However, the majority of participants reported that confidentiality of information (66%), respect (63%), understanding the study (57%), and benefit to society (53%) \u27were absolutely important\u27 for their decision to participate in a research study. Other items related to the cost/benefits of research participation, receiving a benefit (49%) and the study not being a hassle (45%) were also deemed \u27absolutely important\u27 by nearly half of the participants. Items related to community/social endorsement were rated as \u27absolutely important\u27 by about a third of participants. Most participants reported comfort with all of the data gathering techniques (face-to-face interview, paper questionnaire and computer assessment), with face to face as the most popular (93%), followed paper questionnaire (80%) and private computer assessment (70%). Individuals with no past experience as research participants were less likely to report that cost/benefits, B = -0.47, SE = 0.21, p = .025, OR = 0.63, or community/social endorsement, B = -0.60, SE = 0.23, p = .008, OR = 0.5 were important, and less likely to endorse comfort with face to face interviews, B = -0.82, SE = 0.40, p = .041, OR = 0.44. Advance age was associated with a reference for face to face interviews, B = 0.78, SE = 0.21, p \u3c .001, OR = 2.18. Educated individuals preferred paper and pencil survey, B = 0.65, SE = 0.25, p = .008, OR = 9.91, and computer data collection, B = 0.44, SE = 0.22, p = .044, OR = 1.55, to face to face interviews. Conclusion: This study explored factors related to research participation among persons with HIV. We learned that age, education and research experience differentiated the importance or preference for specific study characteristics. The study suggests that more experienced research participants were more likely to discriminate and carefully evaluate the costs/benefits and community endorsement aspects of a study before agreeing to participate. It may be that participants with experience in previous studies were more informed \u27consumers\u27 of research participation, and thus had more well-developed opinions about what was important to them. A large majority of participants were comfortable with any of the three possible data collection formats, but face to face interviews was the most preferred format. These findings are consistent with literature that shows that many individuals with HIV prefer more personal methods of data collection. In particular, findings suggest that researchers should carefully consider face-to-face interviews with study samples that are likely to include a substantial number of elders or people without a high school education

Evaluator/controller practicum for US Department of Energy emergency exercises

Argonne National Laboratory has designed a practicum to help ensure that exercises at Department of Energy (DOE) facilities provide results that will be useful in maintaining or improving emergency preparedness while ensuring the safety of the public and the exercise participants. Participants in the first two offerings of the practicum came from DOE facilities nationwide. The practicum augments the usual forms of controller and evaluator training with actual practice in carrying out controller and evaluator roles. Feedback from participants indicated substantial benefit from the training. Many of the participants expressed a desire to present such training to others at their home facilities

The reference frame for encoding and retention of motion depends on stimulus set size

YesThe goal of this study was to investigate the reference frames used in perceptual encoding and storage of visual motion information. In our experiments, observers viewed multiple moving objects and reported the direction of motion of a randomly selected item. Using a vector-decomposition technique, we computed performance during smooth pursuit with respect to a spatiotopic (nonretinotopic) and to a retinotopic component and compared them with performance during fixation, which served as the baseline. For the stimulus encoding stage, which precedes memory, we found that the reference frame depends on the stimulus set size. For a single moving target, the spatiotopic reference frame had the most significant contribution with some additional contribution from the retinotopic reference frame. When the number of items increased (Set Sizes 3 to 7), the spatiotopic reference frame was able to account for the performance. Finally, when the number of items became larger than 7, the distinction between reference frames vanished. We interpret this finding as a switch to a more abstract nonmetric encoding of motion direction. We found that the retinotopic reference frame was not used in memory. Taken together with other studies, our results suggest that, whereas a retinotopic reference frame may be employed for controlling eye movements, perception and memory use primarily nonretinotopic reference frames. Furthermore, the use of nonretinotopic reference frames appears to be capacity limited. In the case of complex stimuli, the visual system may use perceptual grouping in order to simplify the complexity of stimuli or resort to a nonmetric abstract coding of motion information

Using rapid point-of-care tests to inform antibiotic choice to mitigate drug resistance in gonorrhoea

Background: The first cases of extensively drug resistant gonorrhoea were recorded in the United Kingdom in 2018. There is a public health need for strategies on how to deploy existing and novel antibiotics to minimise the risk of resistance development. As rapid point-of-care tests (POCTs) to predict susceptibility are coming to clinical use, coupling the introduction of an antibiotic with diagnostics that can slow resistance emergence may offer a novel paradigm for maximising antibiotic benefits. Gepotidacin is a novel antibiotic with known resistance and resistance-predisposing mutations. In particular, a mutation that confers resistance to ciprofloxacin acts as the ‘stepping-stone’ mutation to gepotidacin resistance. Aim: To investigate how POCTs detecting Neisseria gonorrhoeae resistance mutations for ciprofloxacin and gepotidacin can be used to minimise the risk of resistance development to gepotidacin. Methods: We use individual-based stochastic simulations to formally investigate the aim. Results: The level of testing needed to reduce the risk of resistance development depends on the mutation rate under treatment and the prevalence of stepping-stone mutations. A POCT is most effective if the mutation rate under antibiotic treatment is no more than two orders of magnitude above the mutation rate without treatment and the prevalence of stepping-stone mutations is 1–13%. Conclusion: Mutation frequencies and rates should be considered when estimating the POCT usage required to reduce the risk of resistance development in a given population. Molecular POCTs for resistance mutations and stepping-stone mutations to resistance are likely to become important tools in antibiotic stewardship

Tyrphostins that suppress the growth of human papilloma virus 16‐immortalized human keratinocytes

ABSTRACT Human papilloma virus 16 (HPV16) is considered to be the causative agent for cervical cancer, which ranks second to breast cancer in women's malignancies. In an attempt to develop drugs that inhibit the malignant transformation of HPV16-immortalized epithelial cells, we examined the effect of tyrphostins on such cells. We examined the effect of tyrphostins from four different families on the growth of HPV16-immortalized human keratinocytes (HF-1) cells. We found that they alter their cell cycle distribution, their morphology, and induce cell death by apoptosis. The effects of tyrphostins on HF-1 cells are different from their effects on normal keratinocytes. Growth suppression by AG555 and AG1478 is accompanied by 30% apoptosis in HF-1 cells, but this is not observed in normal keratinocytes. Tyrphostin treatment produces distinctive morphological changes in HF-1 cells and in normal keratinocytes; however, the culture organization of normal keratinocytes is less disrupted. These differential effects of the tyrphostins on HPV16-immortalized keratinocytes compared with their effects on normal keratinocytes suggests that these compounds are suitable candidates for the treatment of papilloma. Previous and present results indicate that group 1 tyrphostins, which inhibit Cdk2 activation, and group 2 tyrphostins, represented by AG1478, a potent epidermal growth factor receptor kinase inhibitor, induce cell cycle arrest; and, in the case of HF-1 cells, apoptosis and differentiation. Cells accumulate in the G 1 phase of the cell cycle at the expense of S and G 2 ϩ M. These compounds block the growth of normal keratinocytes without inducing apoptosis or differentiation, causing them to accumulate in G 1 . AG17, which belongs to group 4, exerts its antiproliferative effect mainly by increasing the fractions of cells in G 1 with a concomitant decrease in the fraction of cells in S and G 2 ϩ M

Identificaçao da Via Lenta na Reentrada Nodal Atrioventricular Usando o Intervalo Atrioventricular Mais Curto

Em 10 pacientes consecutivos, realizou-se o mapeamento da parede septal do átrio direito durante taquicardia supraventricular por reentrada nodal AV, para comprovar a hipótese de que o intervalo AV mais curto identificava a área de conduçao da via lenta. O septo atrial foi dividido em quatro zonas distintas. Em sete dos pacientes o intervalo AV anterógrado mais curto foi encontrado na zona 3; em dois, na zona 4; no último, na zona 2. A modificaçao por radiofreqüência da via lenta foi obtida com sucesso, em todos os pacientes, na área de conduçao AV mais curta. O intervalo AV durante ritmo sinusal permaneceu inalterado antes e após a ablaçao. Após um seguimento de 21 ±4 meses, nenhum deles teve recorrência dos sintomas

Identificaçao da Via Lenta na Reentrada Nodal Atrioventricular Usando o Intervalo Atrioventricular Mais Curto

Em 10 pacientes consecutivos, realizou-se o mapeamento da parede septal do átrio direito durante taquicardia supraventricular por reentrada nodal AV, para comprovar a hipótese de que o intervalo AV mais curto identificava a área de conduçao da via lenta. O septo atrial foi dividido em quatro zonas distintas. Em sete dos pacientes o intervalo AV anterógrado mais curto foi encontrado na zona 3; em dois, na zona 4; no último, na zona 2. A modificaçao por radiofreqüência da via lenta foi obtida com sucesso, em todos os pacientes, na área de conduçao AV mais curta. O intervalo AV durante ritmo sinusal permaneceu inalterado antes e após a ablaçao. Após um seguimento de 21 ±4 meses, nenhum deles teve recorrência dos sintomas