The high prevalence of smoking pregnant women in Dutch areas with lower socioeconomic status and the consecutively harmful exposure to tobacco to both mother and child, depicted a high need for a ...novel intervention. According to other studies, the utilisation of financial incentives appeared to be a promising method for smoking cessation in pregnant women. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of implementing contingent financial incentives as smoking cessation support for pregnant women in the Netherlands.
Feasibility study consisting of four developmental phases: (1) acceptability of Dutch population regarding financial-incentive-intervention by conducting an online questionnaire, (2) composing a pilot study utilising the financial-incentive-intervention in clinical practice, (3) execution of the composed pilot study and (4) evaluation of the executed pilot study utilising a mixed-methods approach. A financial-incentive-intervention, given in a contingent financial scheme (during five consequential appointments, respectively €25/€50/€100/€150/€250), if smoking abstinence was proven by the amount of cotinine in the urine of the pregnant women measured utilising a urine dipstick test. The public acceptability for the financial-incentive-intervention was assessed using 5-Likert scales. The number of pregnant women able to abstain from smoking during the pilot study and utilising the financial-incentive-intervention in clinical practice were used to assess the prosperity and practicality of the pilot study respectively. The pilot study was evaluated using a mixed-methods approach.
In total, 55.1% of the Dutch population sample (n = 328) found a financial incentive inappropriate for smoking cessation in pregnant women, while the healthcare professionals and pilot study participants thought the financial-incentive-intervention to be a helpful approach. Eleven vouchers were given during the pilot study, and one woman completed all test points and tested negative for cotinine at the end of the pilot study.
Although the financial-incentive-intervention appeared to be a promising approach for smoking cessation in pregnant women, the acceptability of the Dutch population and the number of pregnant women able to abstain smoking during this pilot study was low. Despite the limited study population, this study proved the concept of this financial-incentive-intervention to be feasible for implementation in the Netherlands.
Not applicable since this is a feasibility study prior to a trial.
We report new precise H(e,e(')p)pi(0) measurements at the Delta(1232) resonance at Q(2)=0.127 (GeV/c)(2) obtained at the MIT-Bates out-of-plane scattering facility which are particularly sensitive to ...the transverse electric amplitude (E2) of the gamma(*)N-->Delta transition. The new data have been analyzed together with those of earlier measurements to yield precise quadrupole to dipole amplitude ratios: Re(E(3/2)(1+)/M(3/2)(1+))=(-2.3+/-0.3(stat+syst)+/-0.6(model))% and Re(S(3/2)(1+)/M(3/2)(1+))=(-6.1+/-0.2(stat+syst)+/-0.5(model))% for M(3/2)(1+)=(41.4+/-0.3(stat+syst)+/-0.4(model))(10(-3)/m(pi(+))). The derived amplitudes give credence to the conjecture of deformation in hadrons favoring, at low Q2, the dominance of mesonic effects.
Application of RNA interference for in vivo evaluation of gene function or for therapeutic interventions has been hampered by a lack of suitable delivery methods for small interfering RNA (siRNA). ...Here, we present reconstituted viral envelopes (virosomes) derived from influenza virus as suitable vehicles for in vitro as well as in vivo delivery of siRNAs. Virosomes are vesicles that bear in their membrane the influenza virus spike protein hemagglutinin (HA). This protein mediates binding of native virus to and fusion with cellular target membranes. Accordingly, virosomes with membrane-incorporated HA bind to cells, are taken up by receptor-mediated endocytosis, and fuse with the endosomal membrane to release their contents into the cytoplasm. When complexed to cationic lipids, siRNA was successfully encapsulated in virosomes. Virosomes with encapsulated siRNA fused with target membranes in a pH-dependent manner and delivered the encapsulated siRNA to several cell lines in vitro. Virosome-delivered siRNA markedly downregulated the synthesis of newly induced and constitutively expressed green fluorescent protein. Moreover, intraperitoneal injection of siRNA-loaded virosomes resulted in delivery of the nucleotides to cells in the peritoneal cavity. Our results indicate that virosomes are a promising delivery device for in vivo application, especially where topical administration of siRNA, for example, to the respiratory tract is envisaged.
A middiaphyseal, 2.5-cm osteoperiosteal segmental defect stabilized by plate fixation was created in the right femur of 17 sheep. Four treatment groups were included: Group I, no implant; Group II, ...inactive bone matrix; Group III, recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein (rhBMP-2) mixed with inactive bone matrix; and Group IV, autogeneic bone graft. Three animals had early failure of fixation, and the remaining 14 were evaluated at three months after implantation. Radiographs showed bony union of all defects treated with rhBMP-2 (six) and a lack of bony union in the negative-control groups treated with no implant (three) and inactive bone matrix without BMP (three). Both defects treated with autograft healed. New bone formation in the defect sites treated with rhBMP-2 first appeared one month after implantation and had a mean bending strength (expressed as a percentage of the contralateral femur) of 91% +/- 59% (mean +/- standard deviation) for defects treated with BMP-2, 77% +/- 34% for autograft, 9% +/- 8% for no implant, and 11% +/- 7% for inactive matrix without BMP. Three sheep treated with rhBMP-2 had their fixation plates removed at four months and were followed for one year. Their bone defect sites remained solidly healed one year after the initial operation.
We are developing immunization strategies against cervical carcinoma and premalignant disease, based on the use of recombinant Semliki Forest virus (SFV) encoding the oncoproteins E6 and E7 from ...high-risk human papilloma viruses (HPV). Thus far, protein-based, as well as genetic immunization studies have demonstrated low to moderate cellular immune responses against E6 and E7. To improve these responses, we modified the structure and expression level of the E6 and E7 proteins produced by the SFV vector. Specifically, a construct was generated encoding a fusion protein of E6 and E7, while furthermore a translational enhancer was included (enhE6,7). Infection of cells with recombinant SFV-enhE6,7 resulted in the production of large amounts of the E6,7 fusion protein. The fusion protein was more stable than either one of the separate proteins. Immunization of mice with SFV-enhE6,7 resulted in strong, long-lasting HPV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses. Tumor challenge experiments in mice demonstrated that immunization with SFV-enhE6,7 resulted in prevention of tumor outgrowth and subsequent protection against tumor re-challenge.
Two separate analyses of CLAS data from the E2 run period have extracted detailed information about nuclear correlations. Observations of scaling for the cross section ratios of nuclei to
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Freshwater mussels are considered one of the most imperiled aquatic species groups in the USA. One of the challenges in protecting and restoring mussel biodiversity effectively is a lack of ...understanding of their natural distributions at relevant spatial scales. Without this information, assessing the current status of individual species and overall biodiversity or evaluating restoration success is difficult. We compiled records for 45 mussel species and a range of natural environmental variables describing climate, geology, soil, land cover, and watershed topography in Illinois wadeable streams. We used reaches (segments between 2 neighboring tributaries) as the basic spatial unit of the stream network for modeling species distributions with Maxent. We applied these models statewide to all identified wadeable reaches. Stacking the predictions of individual models yielded an estimate of species richness for each reach. The estimates were compared with observed richness from 2 sets of independent sites: 17 sites sampled multiple times over the past 50 to 100 y and 18 sites intensively sampled in 2009 to 2010. The latter set was expected to represent much more impaired mussel assemblages than the former. These sets of sites lost an average of 25 and 46%, respectively, of species expected under natural conditions. Observed occupancy of individual species decreased by 27 and 35%, respectively, from expected natural values. Listed species suffered heavy occupancy loss more frequently than nonlisted species. Estimated mussel species loss was negatively correlated with 2 existing indices of biological integrity. These results, together with maps of natural distributions for individual species and for species richness, will assist with mussel biodiversity conservation and the development and use of mussel-based biological indicators in stream assessment.
The mean square polarizability radii of the proton have been measured for the first time in a virtual-Compton-scattering experiment performed at the MIT-Bates out-of-plane scattering facility. ...Response functions and polarizabilities obtained from a dispersion analysis of the data at Q2 = 0.057 GeV2/c2 are in agreement with O(p3) heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory. The data support the dominance of mesonic effects in the polarizabilities.
The atomic nucleus is made of protons and neutrons (nucleons), which are themselves composed of quarks and gluons. Understanding how the quark-gluon structure of a nucleon bound in an atomic nucleus ...is modified by the surrounding nucleons is an outstanding challenge. Although evidence for such modification-known as the EMC effect-was first observed over 35 years ago, there is still no generally accepted explanation for its cause
. Recent observations suggest that the EMC effect is related to close-proximity short-range correlated (SRC) nucleon pairs in nuclei
. Here we report simultaneous, high-precision measurements of the EMC effect and SRC abundances. We show that EMC data can be explained by a universal modification of the structure of nucleons in neutron-proton SRC pairs and present a data-driven extraction of the corresponding universal modification function. This implies that in heavier nuclei with many more neutrons than protons, each proton is more likely than each neutron to belong to an SRC pair and hence to have distorted quark structure. This universal modification function will be useful for determining the structure of the free neutron and thereby testing quantum chromodynamics symmetry-breaking mechanisms and may help to discriminate between nuclear physics effects and beyond-the-standard-model effects in neutrino experiments.
The atomic nucleus is one of the densest and most complex quantum-mechanical systems in nature. Nuclei account for nearly all the mass of the visible Universe. The properties of individual nucleons ...(protons and neutrons) in nuclei can be probed by scattering a high-energy particle from the nucleus and detecting this particle after it scatters, often also detecting an additional knocked-out proton. Analysis of electron- and proton-scattering experiments suggests that some nucleons in nuclei form close-proximity neutron-proton pairs
with high nucleon momentum, greater than the nuclear Fermi momentum. However, how excess neutrons in neutron-rich nuclei form such close-proximity pairs remains unclear. Here we measure protons and, for the first time, neutrons knocked out of medium-to-heavy nuclei by high-energy electrons and show that the fraction of high-momentum protons increases markedly with the neutron excess in the nucleus, whereas the fraction of high-momentum neutrons decreases slightly. This effect is surprising because in the classical nuclear shell model, protons and neutrons obey Fermi statistics, have little correlation and mostly fill independent energy shells. These high-momentum nucleons in neutron-rich nuclei are important for understanding nuclear parton distribution functions (the partial momentum distribution of the constituents of the nucleon) and changes in the quark distributions of nucleons bound in nuclei (the EMC effect)
. They are also relevant for the interpretation of neutrino-oscillation measurements
and understanding of neutron-rich systems such as neutron stars
.
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