Cancer patients are increasingly known to use complementary medicine (CAM) during conventional treatment, but data are limited on how Canadian oncology health professionals attempt to assist patients ...with their use of cam in the context of conventional cancer care. As part of a larger qualitative study assessing the perceptions of Canadian oncology health professionals regarding integrated breast cancer care, we undertook an exploration of current integrative practices of oncology health professionals.
Using an interpretive description research design and a purposive sampling, we conducted a series of in-depth qualitative interviews with various oncology health professionals recruited from provincial cancer agencies, hospitals, integrative clinics, and private practice settings in four Canadian cities: Vancouver, Winnipeg, Montreal, and Halifax. A total of 16 oncology health professionals participated, including medical and radiation oncologists, nurses, and pharmacists.
Findings highlighted two main strategies used by oncology health professionals to create a more integrative approach for cancer patients: acting as an integrative care guide, and collaborating with other health professionals.
Although few clear standards of practice or guidance material were in place within their organizational settings, health professionals discussed some integrative roles that they had adopted, depending on interest, knowledge, and skills, in supporting patients with cam decisions. Given that cancer patients report that they want to be able to confer with their conventional health professionals, particularly their oncologists, about their cam use, health professionals who elect to adopt integrative practices are likely offering patients much-welcomed support.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) advises Local Planning Authorities about the siting of major hazard installations and pipelines and the control of housing and other developments nearby. HSE ...uses quantified risk assessment (QRA) to set a consultation distance around each of the major hazards and advises on possible risks to people within this distance so these risks can be considered in reaching planning decisions. The risks may be derived from dispersion models which estimate concentration levels and exposure times for a range of loss of containment accidents. The paper describes how HSE has piloted a Geographic Information System (GIS) to support the expert decision making process and to assist in ensuring consistent responses within statutory deadlines. It considers both the advantages and disadvantages of a GIS over more conventional methods as well as potential developments such as the use of population data in considering societal risks, biological constraints and 3D terrain mapping.
ABSTRACT We report the discovery of the millisecond pulsar (MSP) PSR J1950+2414 (P = 4.3 ms) in a binary system with an eccentric (e = 0.08) 22 day orbit in Pulsar Arecibo L-band Feed Array survey ...observations with the Arecibo telescope. Its companion star has a median mass of 0.3 M and is most likely a white dwarf (WD). Fully recycled MSPs like this one are thought to be old neutron stars spun-up by mass transfer from a companion star. This process should circularize the orbit, as is observed for the vast majority of binary MSPs, which predominantly have orbital eccentricities e < 0.001. However, four recently discovered binary MSPs have orbits with 0. 027 < e < 0.44; PSR J1950+2414 is the fifth such system to be discovered. The upper limits for its intrinsic spin period derivative and inferred surface magnetic field strength are comparable to those of the general MSP population. The large eccentricities are incompatible with the predictions of the standard recycling scenario: something unusual happened during their evolution. Proposed scenarios are (a) initial evolution of the pulsar in a triple system which became dynamically unstable, (b) origin in an exchange encounter in an environment with high stellar density, (c) rotationally delayed accretion-induced collapse of a super-Chandrasekhar WD, and (d) dynamical interaction of the binary with a circumbinary disk. We compare the properties of all five known eccentric MSPs with the predictions of these formation channels. Future measurements of the masses and proper motion might allow us to firmly exclude some of the proposed formation scenarios.
In this White Paper, we present recommendations for the scientific community and funding agencies to foster the infrastructure for a collaborative multi-messenger and time-domain astronomy (MMA/TDA) ...ecosystem. MMA/TDA is poised for breakthrough discoveries in the coming decade. In much the same way that expanding beyond the optical bandpass revealed entirely new and unexpected discoveries, cosmic messengers beyond light (i.e., gravitational waves, neutrinos, and cosmic rays) open entirely new windows to answer some of the most fundamental questions in (astro)physics: heavy element synthesis, equation of state of dense matter, particle acceleration, etc. This field was prioritized as a frontier scientific pursuit in the 2020 Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics via its "New Windows on the Dynamic Universe" theme. MMA/TDA science presents technical challenges distinct from those experienced in other disciplines. Successful observations require coordination across myriad boundaries -- different cosmic messengers, ground vs. space, international borders, etc. -- all for sources that may not be well localized, and whose brightness may be changing rapidly with time. Add that all of this work is undertaken by real human beings, with distinct backgrounds, experiences, cultures, and expectations, that often conflict. To address these challenges and help MMA/TDA realize its full scientific potential in the coming decade (and beyond), the second in a series of community workshops sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA titled "Windows on the Universe: Establishing the Infrastructure for a Collaborative Multi-Messenger Ecosystem" was held on October 16-18, 2023 in Tucson, AZ. Here we present the primary recommendations from this workshop focused on three key topics -- hardware, software, and people and policy. abridged
Abstract
Some diseases are associated with abnormally extended regions of triplet repeats. These repeating regions are an attractive target for both diagnostic and therapeutic goals. In an attempt to ...approach to this goal, we have focused on establishment of an allosteric binding mechanism, in which the binding of the ligand promotes the next ligand binding. In the previous study, we already reported that the ligand having the bipyridine unit for binding with Cu2+ and the Hoechst33258 for binding to A3T3 site displayed Cu2+- mediated assembly on the DNA with two A3T3 sites. In this study, we synthesized the new ligands containing two bipyridine units attached to Hoechst33258 by different length linkers. It was expected that the bipyridine-Cu2+ complexation would enhance assembly of a number of the lingand on the DNA sequence with repeating regions. UV spectroscopy has been used to demonstrate the binding of these ligands to a DNA template mediated by the complexation of Cu2+ ions.
NMR studies have revealed that the conformational preferences of both furanose sugars in a glyconucleoside are altered by the incorporation of a thioglycoside linkage.
A glyconucleoside containing a ...thioglycoside linkage, namely 1-(3-
S-β-
d-ribofuranosyl-2,3-dideoxy-3-thio-β-
d-ribofuranosyl)-thymine, has been prepared through condensation of a suitably protected derivative of 3′-thiothymidine with an activated ribose sugar. NMR has been used to study the conformation of the S-disaccharide and the unmodified O-disaccharide. A full pseudorotational analysis showed that for the S-disaccharide, the ribose and deoxy ribose sugars have a preference for the south and north pucker, respectively; which is the reverse of what is seen for the O-disaccharide.
Accurately monitoring and predicting the evolution of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet via secular changes in the Earth's gravity field requires knowledge of the underlying upper mantle viscosity ...structure. Published seismic models show the West Antarctic lithosphere to be ∼70–100 km thick and underlain by a low velocity zone extending to at least ∼200 km. Mantle viscosity is dependent on factors including temperature, grain size, the hydrogen content of olivine, the presence of partial melt and applied stress. As seismic wave propagation is particularly sensitive to thermal variations, seismic velocity provides a means of gauging mantle temperature. In 2012, a magnitude 5.6 intraplate earthquake in Marie Byrd Land was recorded on an array of POLENET-ANET seismometers deployed across West Antarctica. We modelled the waveforms recorded by six of the seismic stations in order to determine realistic estimates of temperature and lithology for the lithospheric mantle beneath Marie Byrd Land and the central West Antarctic Rift System. Published mantle xenolith and magnetotelluric data provided constraints on grain size and hydrogen content, respectively, for viscosity modelling. Considering tectonically-plausible stresses, we estimate that the viscosity of the lithospheric mantle beneath Marie Byrd Land and the central West Antarctic Rift System ranges from ∼1020–1022 Pa s. To extend our analysis to the sublithospheric seismic low velocity zone, we used a published shear wave model. We calculated that the velocity reduction observed between the base of the lithosphere (∼4.4–4.7 km/s) and the centre of the low velocity zone (∼4.2–4.3 km/s) beneath West Antarctica could be caused by a 0.1–0.3% melt fraction or a one order of magnitude reduction in grain size. However, the grain size reduction is inconsistent with our viscosity modelling constraints, suggesting that partial melt more feasibly explains the origin of the low velocity zone. Considering plausible asthenospheric stresses, we estimate the viscosity of the seismic low velocity zone beneath West Antarctica to be ∼1018–1019 Pa s. It has been shown elsewhere that the inclusion of a low viscosity layer of order 1019 Pa s in Fennoscandian models of glacial isostatic adjustment reduces disparities between predicted surface uplift rates and corresponding field observations. The incorporation of a low viscosity layer reflecting the seismic low velocity zone in Antarctic glacial isostatic adjustment models might similarly lessen the misfit with observed uplift rates.
•We probe the seismic structure of the central West Antarctic uppermost mantle.•The seismic velocities inform a two-layer model of uppermost mantle viscosity.•The lithospheric mantle viscosity beneath central West Antarctica is 1020–1022 Pa s.•The viscosity of the sublithospheric low velocity zone is 1018–1019 Pa s.•The low velocity zone is explicable by a 0.1–0.3% melt fraction.
As a tool for management, query, visualization and analysis of spatially referred information, GIS has been recognized as a method to aid the modeling of diffuse pollution and visualize the results ...in a spatial context. A common question in integrating diffuse pollution models and GIS is to choose a suitable coupling approach, in which the feature of diffuse pollution models should be taken into account. In this paper, we report on our experience in coupling a distributed diffuse pollution model with a GIS. A prototype of fully integrated system is developed in this paper. This system has high flexibility, extendibility and great data management efficiency. Differences in applicability of loose coupling, tight coupling and fully integrated approaches are addressed. It is concluded that the fully integrated approach can avoid tanglesome data exchange and routine execution and more robust than loose and tight coupling approaches and is suitable for distributed diffuse pollution modes.
Departmental select committees are now the principal mechanism through which the House of Commons holds the executive to account. Ten years ago the Hansard Society's Commission on Parliamentary ...Scrutiny (the Newton Commission) recommended a series of reforms to select committees including the introduction of core tasks. A decade on, however, many new demands have since been placed on committees, public expectation of them has been heightened, and yet resources are finite and will come under increasing pressure in the future as a result of budget cuts. As recommended at the end of the last Parliament by the Commons Liaison Committee, the time has therefore come to review the core tasks and the role and operation of select committees. This article outlines issues that such a review should explore in order to ensure further development of systematic departmental scrutiny and to make the most effective use of committee time and resources. It argues that select committees themselves need to be more accountable to MPs and the public and to be more self-critical about what they do and how they do it.
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