Suchergebnisse

Abstract Background Despite increasing governmental anti-smoking measures, smoking prevalence remains at a high level in France. Methods The objectives of this panel study were (1) to estimate smoking prevalence in France, (2) to identify smokers' profiles according to their perceptions, attitudes and behaviour in relation to smoking cessation, (3) to determine predictive factors of quit attempts, and (4) to assess tobacco-related behaviours and their evolutions according to the changes in the smokers' environments. A representative sample of French population was defined using the quota method. The identified cohort of smokers was assessed, in terms of smoking behaviour, previous quit attempts, and intention to quit smoking. Results A response rate of 66% for the screening enabled to identify a representative sample of the French population (N = 3 889) comprising 809 current smokers (21%). A majority of current smokers (63%) had made an attempt to quit smoking. Main reasons for having made the last attempt were cost (44%), social pressure (39%), wish to improve physical fitness (36%), fear of a future smoking-related disease (24%), and weariness of smoking (21%). Few attempts (16%) were encouraged by a physician. In those who used some kind of support (38%), NRT was the mostly used. Relapse was triggered by craving (45%), anxiety/stress (34%), a significant life event (21), weight gain (18%), and irritability (16%). Depression was rarely quoted (5%). Forty percent of smokers declared they intended to quit smoking permanently. Main reasons were cost (65%), physical fitness improvement (53%), fear of a future smoking-related disease (43%), weariness of tobacco (34%), and social pressure (30%). Using a smoking cessation treatment was considered by 43% of smokers that intended to quit. Barriers to smoking cessation were mainly fear of increased stress (62%), irritability (51%), and anxiety (42%), enjoying smoking (41%), and weight concerns (33%). Conclusion Smoking prevalence and smoking cessation attempts rate were lower in this survey than in previous reports. Cost and social pressure were the main reasons for quitting smoking, maybe an effect of dramatic tax increases and smoking ban.

IntroductionDomiciliary care workers (DCWs) continued providing social care to adults in their own homes throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence of the impact of COVID-19 on health outcomes of DCWs is currently mixed, probably reflecting methodological limitations of existing studies. The risk of COVID-19 to workers providing care in people's homes remains unknown.
ObjectivesTo quantify the impact of COVID-19 upon health outcomes of DCWs in Wales, to explore causes of variation, and to extrapolate to the rest of the UK DCW population.
MethodsMixed methods design comprising cohort study of DCWs and exploratory qualitative interviews. Data for all registered DCWs in Wales is available via the SAIL Databank using a secured, privacy-protecting encrypted anonymisation process. Occupational registration data for DCWs working during the pandemic will be combined with EHR outcome data within the SAIL Databank including clinical codes that identify suspected and confirmed COVID-19 cases. We will report rates of suspected and confirmed COVID-19 infections and key health outcomes including mortality and explore variation (by factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation quintile, rurality, employer, comorbidities) using regression modelling, adjusting for clustering of outcome within Health Board, region and employer. A maximum variation sample of Welsh DCWs will be approached for qualitative interview using a strategy to include participants that vary across factors such as sex, age, ethnicity and employer. The interviews will inform the quantitative analysis modelling. We will generalise the quantitative findings to other UK nations.
DiscussionUsing anonymised linked occupational and EHR data and qualitative interviews, the OSCAR study will quantify the risk of COVID-19 on DCWs' health and explore sources of variation. This will provide a secure base for informing public health policy and occupational guidance.

The Arctic is warming two to three times faster than the global average, partly due to changes in short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) including aerosols. In order to study the effects of atmospheric aerosols in this warming, recent past (1990–2014) and future (2015–2050) simulations have been carried out using the GISS-E2.1 Earth system model to study the aerosol burdens and their radiative and climate impacts over the Arctic (>60° N), using anthropogenic emissions from the Eclipse V6b and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) databases. Surface aerosol levels, in particular black carbon (BC) and sulfate (SO 4 2− ), have been significantly underestimated by more than 50 %, with the smallest biases calculated for the nudged atmosphere-only simulations. CMIP6 simulations performed slightly better in simulating both surface concentrations of aerosols and climate parameters, compared to the Eclipse simulations. In addition, fully-coupled simulations had slightly smaller biases in aerosol levels compared to atmosphere only simulations without nudging. Arctic BC, organic carbon (OC) and SO 4 2− burdens decrease significantly in all simulations following the emission projections, with the CMIP6 ensemble showing larger reductions in Arctic aerosol burdens compared to the Eclipse ensemble. For the 2030–2050 period, both the Eclipse Current Legislation (CLE) and the Maximum Feasible Reduction (MFR) ensembles simulated an aerosol top of the atmosphere (TOA) forcing of −0.39±0.01 W m −2 , of which −0.24±0.01 W m −2 were attributed to the anthropogenic aerosols. The CMIP6 SSP3-7.0 scenario simulated a TOA aerosol forcing of −0.35 W m −2 for the same period, while SSP1-2.6 and SSP2-4.5 scenarios simulated a slightly more negative TOA forcing (−0.40 W m −2 ), of which the anthropogenic aerosols accounted for −0.26 W m −2 . Finally, all simulations showed an increase in the Arctic surface air temperatures both throughout the simulation period. In 2050, surface air temperatures are projected to increase by 2.4 °C to 2.6 °C in the Eclipse ensemble and 1.9 °C to 2.6 °C in the CMIP6 ensemble, compared to the 1990–2010 mean. Overall, results show that even the scenarios with largest emission reductions lead to similar impact on the future Arctic surface air temperatures compared to scenarios with smaller emission reductions, while scenarios no or little mitigation leads to much larger sea-ice loss, implying that even though the magnitude of aerosol reductions lead to similar responses in surface air temperatures, high mitigation of aerosols are still necessary to limit sea-ice loss.

"From Kehinde Wiley to W.E.B. Du Bois, from Nubia to Cuba, Willie Doherty's terror in ancient landscapes to the violence of institutional Neo-Gothic, Reagan's AIDS policies to Beowulf fanfiction, this richly diverse volume brings together art historians and literature scholars to articulate a more inclusive, intersectional medieval studies. It will be of interest to students working on the diaspora and migration, white settler colonialism and pogroms, Indigenous studies and decolonial methodology, slavery, genocide, and culturecide. The authors confront the often disturbing legacies of medieval studies and its current failures to own up to those, and also analyze fascist, nationalist, colonialist, anti-Semitic, and other ideologies to which the medieval has been and is yoked, collectively formulating concrete ethical choices and aims for future research and teaching.

In the face of rising global fascism and related ideological mobilizations, contemporary and past, and of cultural heritage and history as weapons of symbolic and physical oppression, this volume's chapters on Byzantium, Medieval Nubia, Old English, Hebrew, Old French, Occitan, and American and European medievalisms examine how educational institutions, museums, universities, and individuals are shaped by ethics and various ideologies in research, collecting, and teaching."

BACKGROUND: Immigration has taken the central stage in world politics, especially in the developed countries like Germany, where the continuous flow of immigrants has been well documented since 1960s. Strikingly, emerging data suggest that migrant patients have a poorer response to the treatment and lower survival rates in their new host country, raising concerns about health disparities. Herein, we present our investigation on the treatment response rate and cancer survival in German patients with and without an immigrant background that were treated at our comprehensive cancer center in Germany. METHODS: Initially, we considered 8162 cancer patients treated at the Center for Integrated Oncology (CIO), University Hospital Bonn, Germany (April 2002–December 2015) for matched-pair analysis. Subsequently, the German patients with a migration background and those from the native German population were manually identified and catalogued using a highly specific name-based algorithm. The clinical parameters such as demographic characteristics, tumor characteristics, defined staging criteria, and primary therapy were further adjusted. Using these stringent criteria, a total of 422 patients (n = 211, Germans with migration background; n = 211, native German population) were screened to compare for the treatment response and survival rates (i.e., 5-year overall survival, progression-free survival, and time to progression). RESULTS: Compared to the cohort with migration background, the cohort without migration background was slightly older (54.9 vs. 57.9 years) while having the same sex distribution (54.5% vs. 55.0% female) and longer follow-up time (36.9 vs. 42.6 months). We did not find significant differences in cancer survival (5-year overall survival, P = 0.771) and the response rates (Overall Remission Rate; McNemar's test, P = 0.346) between both collectives. CONCLUSION: Contrary to prior reports, we found no significant differences in cancer survival between German patients with immigrant background and native ...

U.S. Department of Energy ; U.S. National Science Foundation ; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain ; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom ; Higher Education Funding Council for England ; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago ; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University ; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University ; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; Argonne National Laboratory ; University of California at Santa Cruz ; University of Cambridge ; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid ; University of Chicago ; University College London ; DES-Brazil Consortium ; University of Edinburgh ; Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich ; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory ; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC) ; Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies ; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ; Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen ; associated Excellence Cluster Universe, the University of Michigan ; National Optical Astronomy Observatory ; University of Nottingham ; Ohio State University ; University of Pennsylvania ; University of Portsmouth ; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory ; Stanford University ; University of Sussex ; Texas AM University ; OzDES Membership Consortium ; National Science Foundation ; El ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO) ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa ; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) ; ERC ; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAAS-TRO) ; National Science Foundation: AST-1138766 ; El ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO): AYA2012-39559 ; El ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO): ESP2013-48274 ; El ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO): FPA2013-47986 ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa: SEV-2012-0234 ; ERC: 240672 ; ERC: 291329 ; ERC: 306478 ; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAAS-TRO): CE110001020 ; We present the discovery of a z = 0.65 low-ionization broad absorption line (LoBAL) quasar in a post-starburst galaxy in data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and spectroscopy from the Australian Dark Energy Survey (OzDES). LoBAL quasars are a minority of all BALs, and rarer still is that this object also exhibits broad Fe II (an FeLoBAL) and Balmer absorption. This is the first BAL quasar that has signatures of recently truncated star formation, which we estimate ended about 40 Myr ago. The characteristic signatures of an FeLoBAL require high column densities, which could be explained by the emergence of a young quasar from an early, dust-enshrouded phase, or by clouds compressed by a blast wave. The age of the starburst component is comparable to estimates of the lifetime of quasars, so if we assume the quasar activity is related to the truncation of the star formation, this object is better explained by the blast wave scenario.

Background & Aims: Spontaneous portosystemic shunts (SPSS) frequently develop in liver cirrhosis. Recent data suggested that the presence of a single large SPSS is associated with complications, especially overt hepatic encephalopathy (oHE). However, the presence of >1 SPSS is common. This study evaluates the impact of total cross-sectional SPSS area (TSA) on outcomes in patients with liver cirrhosis. Methods: In this retrospective international multicentric study, CT scans of 908 cirrhotic patients with SPSS were evaluated for TSA. Clinical and laboratory data were recorded. Each detected SPSS radius was measured and TSA calculated. One-year survival was the primary endpoint and acute decompensation (oHE, variceal bleeding, ascites) was the secondary endpoint. Results: A total of 301 patients (169 male) were included in the training cohort. Thirty percent of all patients presented with >1 SPSS. A TSA cut-off of 83 mm2 was used to classify patients with small or large TSA (S-/L-TSA). Patients with L-TSA presented with higher model for end-stage liver disease score (11 vs. 14) and more commonly had a history of oHE (12% vs. 21%, p 83 mm2 increases the risk for oHE and mortality in patients with cirrhosis. Our results support the clinical use of TSA/SPSS for risk stratification and decision-making in the management of patients with cirrhosis. Lay summary: The prevalence of spontaneous portosystemic shunts (SPSS) is higher in patients with more advanced chronic liver disease. The presence of more than 1 SPSS is common in advanced chronic liver disease and is associated with the development of hepatic encephalopathy. This study shows that total cross-sectional SPSS area (rather than diameter of the single largest SPSS) predicts survival in patients with advanced chronic liver disease. Our results support the clinical use of total cross-sectional SPSS area for risk stratification and decision-making in the management of SPSS. ; Jonel Trebicka is supported by grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB TRR57, CRC1382), Cellex Foundation and European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program GALAXY study (No. 668031), LIVERHOPE (No. 731875) and MICROB-PREDICT (No. 825694) and the Cellex Foundation. Joan Genescà is a recipient of a Research Intensification grant from Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain. The study was partially funded by grants PI15/00066, and PI18/00947 from Instituto de Salud Carlos III and co-funded by European Union (ERDF/ESF, "Investing in your future"). Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Hepáticas y Digestivasis supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos III. Macarena Simón-Talero is a recipient of the grant JR 17/00029 from Instituto de Salud Carlos III

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) ; Cambridge Commonwealth Trust ; UK Science and Technology Research Council (STFC) ; Raymond and Beverly Sackler visiting fellowship at the Institute of Astronomy ; U.S. Department of Energy ; U.S. National Science Foundation ; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain ; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom ; Higher Education Funding Council for England ; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago ; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University ; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University ; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; University of California at Santa Cruz ; University of Cambridge ; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid ; University of Chicago ; University College London ; DES-Brazil Consortium ; University of Edinburgh ; Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich ; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory ; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC) ; Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies ; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ; Ludwig-Maximilians Universitar Munchen ; University of Michigan ; National Optical Astronomy Observatory ; University of Nottingham ; Ohio State University ; University of Pennsylvania ; University of Portsmouth ; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory ; Stanford University ; University of Sussex ; Texas AM University ; OzDES Membership Consortium ; National Science Foundation ; MINECO ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa ; European Research Council under the European Union ; ESO ; Australian Astronomical Observatory ; ICREA ; Science and Technology Facilities Council ; National Science Foundation: AST-1138766 ; MINECO: AYA2012-39559 ; MINECO: ESP-201348274 ; MINECO: FPA2013-47986 ; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa: SEV-2012-0234 ; European Research Council under the European Union: 240672 ; European Research Council under the European Union: 291329 ; European Research Council under the European Union: 306478 ; ESO: 179.A-2010 ; ESO: 096.A-0411 ; Australian Astronomical Observatory: A/2013A/018 ; Australian Astronomical Observatory: A/2013B/001 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/N004493/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/M003914/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/K004182/1 ; We present the discovery and preliminary characterization of a gravitationally lensed quasar with a source redshift z(s) = 2.74 and image separation of 2.9 arcsec lensed by a foreground z(l) = 0.40 elliptical galaxy. Since optical observations of gravitationally lensed quasars showthe lens system as a superposition of multiple point sources and a foreground lensing galaxy, we have developed a morphology-independent multi-wavelength approach to the photometric selection of lensed quasar candidates based on Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) supervised machine learning. Using this technique and gi multicolour photometric observations from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), near-IR JK photometry from the VISTA Hemisphere Survey (VHS) and WISE mid-IR photometry, we have identified a candidate system with two catalogue components with i(AB) = 18.61 and i(AB) = 20.44 comprising an elliptical galaxy and two blue point sources. Spectroscopic follow-up with NTT and the use of an archival AAT spectrum show that the point sources can be identified as a lensed quasar with an emission line redshift of z = 2.739 +/- 0.003 and a foreground early-type galaxy with z = 0.400 +/- 0.002. We model the system as a single isothermal ellipsoid and find the Einstein radius theta(E) similar to 1.47 arcsec, enclosed mass M-enc similar to 4 x 10(11) M-circle dot and a time delay of similar to 52 d. The relatively wide separation, month scale time delay duration and high redshift make this an ideal system for constraining the expansion rate beyond a redshift of 1.

We present an overview of a new integral field spectroscopic survey called MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory), one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) that began on 2014 July 1. MaNGA will investigate the internal kinematic structure and composition of gas and stars in an unprecedented sample of 10,000 nearby galaxies. We summarize essential characteristics of the instrument and survey design in the context of MaNGA's key science goals and present prototype observations to demonstrate MaNGA's scientific potential. MaNGA employs dithered observations with 17 fiber-bundle integral field units that vary in diameter from 12 '' (19 fibers) to 32 '' (127 fibers). Two dual-channel spectrographs provide simultaneous wavelength coverage over 3600-10300 angstrom at R similar to 2000. With a typical integration time of 3 hr, MaNGA reaches a target r-band signal-to-noise ratio of 4-8 (angstrom(-1) per 2 '' fiber) at 23 AB mag arcsec(-2), which is typical for the outskirts of MaNGA galaxies. Targets are selected with M* greater than or similar to 10(9) M-circle dot using SDSS-I redshifts and i-band luminosity to achieve uniform radial coverage in terms of the effective radius, an approximately flat distribution in stellar mass, and a sample spanning a wide range of environments. Analysis of our prototype observations demonstrates MaNGA's ability to probe gas ionization, shed light on recent star formation and quenching, enable dynamical modeling, decompose constituent components, and map the composition of stellar populations. MaNGA's spatially resolved spectra will enable an unprecedented study of the astrophysics of nearby galaxies in the coming 6 yr. ; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation ; National Science Foundation ; U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science ; Carnegie Mellon University ; Colorado University ; Boulder ; Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Participation Group ; Johns Hopkins University ; Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe ; Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astrophysik (MPA Garching) ; Max-Planck-Institut fuer Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE) ; Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astronomic (MPIA Heidelberg) ; National Astronomical Observatories of China ; New Mexico State University ; New York University ; Ohio State University ; Penn State University ; Shanghai Astronomical Observatory ; United Kingdom Participation Group ; University of Portsmouth ; University of Utah ; University of Wisconsin ; Yale University ; World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI Initiative), MEXT, Japan ; People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme FP7 under REA PITN-GA-2011-289313 ; Strategic Priority Research Program "The Emergence of Cosmological Structures" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Xdb09000000 ; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) 11333003 ; Royal Society University Research Fellowship ; Sloan Foundation ; Packard Foundation ; Grainger Foundation ; McDonald Observatory