'Men give in to chips and beer too easily': How working-class men make sense of gender differences in health

This article, based on qualitative research with working-class men, explores men's perceptions and experiences regarding gender differences in health. It demonstrates how men put forward a range of behavioural/cultural, materialist/structural and psychosocial factors, which were believed to differently impact men's health compared to women. A common theme underpinning their explanations was the ways in which men and women were located within two distinct gender categories. These characterisations were used to explain why health-damaging beliefs and behaviours were more prevalent among men and also why men were better suited for certain kinds of jobs, albeit with potential costs to their health. Men also believed that women were protected from the damaging physical and emotional impact of manual employment because of their primary role within the home and because they were less emotionally robust, which required men to shield women from the stresses they experienced. However, men's emotional withdrawal can also be viewed as another example of how men use whatever resources are available to achieve and maintain dominance over women. Finally, the article demonstrates how a gender- and class-based approach can capture the impact of men's health-related practices alongside the broader cultural and structural influences on men's health

Learning from people with long-term conditions: new insights for governance in primary health care

Internationally, system-wide changes to the structures and systems governing health care aim to improve outcomes for patients, quality of care and access to services. The introduction of top-down centrally driven solutions to governance of health care, at the same time as increasing policy emphasis on greater ‘bottom up’ patient and public involvement in all aspects of health care, has set up complex tensions for policy implementation and health care practice. This paper explores the interplay of these agendas in the context of changes in primary health care services provided by the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Specifically, it looks at an example of service user involvement in a study (the PEGI study) of professional response to changes in the governance and incentives in the care of people with long-term conditions. This qualitative study was conducted in three Primary Care Trust sites in England. Service users influenced and guided the study throughout. In-depth interviews with 56 health and social care professionals engaged in the development of local policies and the delivery of care for people with complex long-term illness drew on vignettes developed by 32 members from three Service User Reference Groups (SURG). Themes generated by the cross case analysis were validated through these SURG groups. The findings presented here focus on four themes about risk and comparison of professionals’/service users’ perspectives of the issues: managing risks/consistent support, the risks of letting go/feeling in control, professionalism/helping people to help themselves, and managing expectations/professionals losing out. Service user involvement added value by: validating understandings of governance, framing debates to focus on what matters at the point of care, and enabling perspective sharing and interaction. We suggest that more collaborative forms of governance in health care, that take account of service user perspectives and enable interaction with professional groups, could help to validate processes of quality assurance and provide motivation for continuous quality improvement. We offer a model for ‘opening up’ collaborative projects to evaluation and appraisal and a process for critical reflection of the interrelationships between the PEGI study context, researcher issues, methods/approach and outcomes/impact of service user involvement

Alveolar T-helper 17 responses to streptococcus pneumoniae are preserved in ART-untreated and treated HIV-infected Malawian adults

Objective: We explored if HIV infection is associated with impaired T-Helper 17 responses against Streptococcus pneumoniae in the lung. Methods: We recruited 30 HIV-uninfected healthy controls, 23 asymptomatic HIV-infected adults not on ART, and 40 asymptomatic HIV-infected adults on ART (Median time 3.5yrs), in whom we collected bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. We measured alveolar CD4+ T cell immune responses following stimulation with pneumococcal cell culture supernatant using flow cytometry-based intracellular cytokine staining. Results: We found that the proportion of alveolar CD4+ T cells producing IL-17A following stimulation with pneumococcal cell culture supernatant (CCS) was similar between HIV-uninfected controls and ART-naïve HIV-infected adults (0.10% vs. 0.14%; p = 0.9273). In contrast, the proportion and relative absolute counts of CD4+ T cells producing IL-17A in response to pneumococcal CCS were higher in ART-treated HIV-infected adults compared HIV-uninfected controls (0.22% vs. 0.10%, p = 0.0166; 5420 vs. 1902 cells/100 ml BAL fluid; p = 0.0519). The increase in relative absolute numbers of IL-17A-producing alveolar CD4+ T cells in ART-treated individuals was not correlated with the peripheral blood CD4+ T cell count (r=–0.1876, p = 0.1785). Conclusion: Alveolar Th17 responses against S. pneumoniae are preserved in HIV-infected adults. This suggests that there are other alternative mechanisms that are altered in HIV-infected individuals that render them more susceptible to pneumococcal pneumonia

Light Higgsino from Axion Dark Radiation

The recent observations imply that there is an extra relativistic degree of freedom coined dark radiation. We argue that the QCD axion is a plausible candidate for the dark radiation, not only because of its extremely small mass, but also because in the supersymmetric extension of the Peccei-Quinn mechanism the saxion tends to dominate the Universe and decays into axions with a sizable branching fraction. We show that the Higgsino mixing parameter mu is bounded from above when the axions produced at the saxion decays constitute the dark radiation: mu \lesssim 300 GeV for a saxion lighter than 2m_W, and mu less than the saxion mass otherwise. Interestingly, the Higgsino can be light enough to be within the reach of LHC and/or ILC even when the other superparticles are heavy with mass about 1 TeV or higher. We also estimate the abundance of axino produced by the decays of Higgsino and saxion.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure; published in JHE

Measurement of the antineutrino neutral-current elastic differential cross section

arXiv:1309.7257v1 [hep-ex

Who Watches the Watchmen? An Appraisal of Benchmarks for Multiple Sequence Alignment

Multiple sequence alignment (MSA) is a fundamental and ubiquitous technique in bioinformatics used to infer related residues among biological sequences. Thus alignment accuracy is crucial to a vast range of analyses, often in ways difficult to assess in those analyses. To compare the performance of different aligners and help detect systematic errors in alignments, a number of benchmarking strategies have been pursued. Here we present an overview of the main strategies--based on simulation, consistency, protein structure, and phylogeny--and discuss their different advantages and associated risks. We outline a set of desirable characteristics for effective benchmarking, and evaluate each strategy in light of them. We conclude that there is currently no universally applicable means of benchmarking MSA, and that developers and users of alignment tools should base their choice of benchmark depending on the context of application--with a keen awareness of the assumptions underlying each benchmarking strategy.Comment: Revie

Migraine aura: retracting particle-like waves in weakly susceptible cortex

Cortical spreading depression (SD) has been suggested to underlie migraine aura. Despite a precise match in speed, the spatio-temporal patterns of SD and aura symptoms on the cortical surface ordinarily differ in aspects of size and shape. We show that this mismatch is reconciled by utilizing that both pattern types bifurcate from an instability point of generic reaction-diffusion models. To classify these spatio-temporal pattern we suggest a susceptibility scale having the value [sigma]=1 at the instability point. We predict that human cortex is only weakly susceptible to SD ([sigma]<1), and support this prediction by directly matching visual aura symptoms with anatomical landmarks using fMRI retinotopic mapping. We discuss the increased dynamical repertoire of cortical tissue close to [sigma]=1, in particular, the resulting implications on migraine pharmacology that is hitherto tested in the regime ([sigma]>>1), and potentially silent aura occurring below a second bifurcation point at [sigma]=0 on the susceptible scale

Impact of generic alendronate cost on the cost-effectiveness of osteoporosis screening and treatment

Introduction: Since alendronate became available in generic form in the Unites States in 2008, its price has been decreasing. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of alendronate cost on the cost-effectiveness of osteoporosis screening and treatment in postmenopausal women. Methods: Microsimulation cost-effectiveness model of osteoporosis screening and treatment for U.S. women age 65 and older. We assumed screening initiation at age 65 with central dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), and alendronate treatment for individuals with osteoporosis; with a comparator of "no screening" and treatment only after fracture occurrence. We evaluated annual alendronate costs of $20 through$800; outcome measures included fractures; nursing home admission; medication adverse events; death; costs; quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs); and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) in 2010 U.S. dollars per QALY gained. A lifetime time horizon was used, and direct costs were included. Base-case and sensitivity analyses were performed. Results: Base-case analysis results showed that at annual alendronate costs of $200 or less, osteoporosis screening followed by treatment was cost-saving, resulting in lower total costs than no screening as well as more QALYs (10.6 additional quality-adjusted life-days). When assuming alendronate costs of$400 through $800, screening and treatment resulted in greater lifetime costs than no screening but was highly cost-effective, with ICERs ranging from$714 per QALY gained through $13,902 per QALY gained. Probabilistic sensitivity analyses revealed that the cost-effectiveness of osteoporosis screening followed by alendronate treatment was robust to joint input parameter estimate variation at a willingness-to-pay threshold of$50,000/QALY at all alendronate costs evaluated. Conclusions: Osteoporosis screening followed by alendronate treatment is effective and highly cost-effective for postmenopausal women across a range of alendronate costs, and may be cost-saving at annual alendronate costs of $200 or less. © 2012 Nayak et al

Wolbachia and DNA barcoding insects: patterns, potential and problems

Wolbachia is a genus of bacterial endosymbionts that impacts the breeding systems of their hosts. Wolbachia can confuse the patterns of mitochondrial variation, including DNA barcodes, because it influences the pathways through which mitochondria are inherited. We examined the extent to which these endosymbionts are detected in routine DNA barcoding, assessed their impact upon the insect sequence divergence and identification accuracy, and considered the variation present in Wolbachia COI. Using both standard PCR assays (Wolbachia surface coding protein – wsp), and bacterial COI fragments we found evidence of Wolbachia in insect total genomic extracts created for DNA barcoding library construction. When >2 million insect COI trace files were examined on the Barcode of Life Datasystem (BOLD) Wolbachia COI was present in 0.16% of the cases. It is possible to generate Wolbachia COI using standard insect primers; however, that amplicon was never confused with the COI of the host. Wolbachia alleles recovered were predominantly Supergroup A and were broadly distributed geographically and phylogenetically. We conclude that the presence of the Wolbachia DNA in total genomic extracts made from insects is unlikely to compromise the accuracy of the DNA barcode library; in fact, the ability to query this DNA library (the database and the extracts) for endosymbionts is one of the ancillary benefits of such a large scale endeavor – for which we provide several examples. It is our conclusion that regular assays for Wolbachia presence and type can, and should, be adopted by large scale insect barcoding initiatives. While COI is one of the five multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) genes used for categorizing Wolbachia, there is limited overlap with the eukaryotic DNA barcode region

EFSA NDA Panel (EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies), 2013 . Scientific opinion on Dietary Reference Values for fluoride

Following a request from the European Commission, the Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) derived Dietary Reference Values (DRVs) for fluoride, which are provided as Adequate Intake (AI) from all sources, including non-dietary sources. Fluoride is not an essential nutrient. Therefore, no Average Requirement for the performance of essential physiological functions can be defined. Nevertheless, the Panel considered that the setting of an AI is appropriate because of the beneficial effects of dietary fluoride on prevention of dental caries. The AI is based on epidemiological studies (performed before the 1970s) showing an inverse relationship between the fluoride concentration of water and caries prevalence. As the basis for defining the AI, estimates of mean fluoride intakes of children via diet and drinking water with fluoride concentrations at which the caries preventive effect approached its maximum whilst the risk of dental fluorosis approached its minimum were chosen. Except for one confirmatory longitudinal study in US children, more recent studies were not taken into account as they did not provide information on total dietary fluoride intake, were potentially confounded by the use of fluoride-containing dental hygiene products, and did not permit a conclusion to be drawn on a dose-response relationship between fluoride intake and caries risk. The AI of fluoride from all sources (including non-dietary sources) is 0.05 mg/kg body weight per day for both children and adults, including pregnant and lactating women. For pregnant and lactating women, the AI is based on the body weight before pregnancy and lactation. Reliable and representative data on the total fluoride intake of the European population are not available