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PURPOSE: A cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment can have a significant impact on an individual’s quality of life. Differences in quality of life by sex among long-term melanoma survivors remain unclear. The objective of this study was to describe sex differences in cancer-specific psychosocial quality of life of long-term melanoma survivors. METHODS: Melanoma survivors 7–10 years post-diagnosis from a previously conducted population-based case-control study were recruited for a cross-sectional survey. Validated measures of psychosocial quality of life related to melanoma diagnosis were assessed. Outcomes were compared by sex using linear regression models adjusting for age, education, income, and marital status. RESULTS: The survey response rate was 62% (433 females, 291 males; 86% stage I disease). Females were more likely to report changes in their appearance (p = 0.006) and being more fearful of recurrence (p = 0.001) or a second melanoma (p = 0.001) than males but were also more likely to report that melanoma had a positive impact on their lives (p < 0.0001). Males were more likely to agree with statements that emphasized that life’s duration is limited (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: Long-term melanoma survivors reported generally favorable measures of psychosocial quality of life related to their diagnosis. Females and males reported unique quality of life concerns and may require varied methods of support following a melanoma diagnosis.

The John & Nettie Mooney Library is the patient education library serving Gundersen Health System. The Library provides patient education and health and wellness information to Gundersen’s health c...

Breast cancer is currently one of the leading causes of death among women worldwide. Masses are considered significant signs of the existence of malignant lesions, as they occur in most breast cancer cases. However, their detection is challenging since masses have large variation in shape, margin, size and are often indistinguishable from surrounding tissue, making the radiologist's task tedious in the case where a significant number of mammograms require fast and accurate interpretation. For these reasons, computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems are being developed to make the diagnostic process easier for radiologists. In these systems, segmentation and classification of breast masses in mammograms are important steps. This work aims to evaluate the performance of machine learning techniques in classifying tumors into benign and malignant. The selected techniques were applied on 1663 mammograms from the Digital Database for Screening Mammography. Of the 1663 images, 769 images correspond to malignant cases, and 894 correspond to benign cases. The efficiency of each of the considered techniques was evaluated by using four metrics, namely, the false positive rate, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy.

Malinda R Schaefer,1 Jessica Holttum,1 Megan Olson,1 Danielle Westenberg,1 Nathan Rubin,2 Mark R Schleiss,3 Jessica Nyholm1 1Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Women’s Health, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA; 2Biostatistics Core, Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA; 3Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USACorrespondence: Malinda R Schaefer Email schaefer.malinda@gmail.comPurpose: Congenital CMV infection can result in serious sequelae in the newborn. The goal of this study was to assess pregnant women’s knowledge and understanding of CMV infection during pregnancy and develop an educational tool about CMV infection to be utilized during prenatal care.Materials and Methods: This is a prospective intervention study that assessed pregnant women’s knowledge before and after receiving an educational handout about CMV infection in pregnancy and the perceived value of this education. Pre- and post-education questionnaires were utilized to assess knowledge. The pre-education questionnaire and CMV educational handout were given at the same clinic visit. The educational handout was given after the pre-education questionnaire had been completed. The post-education questionnaire was given at the next scheduled prenatal clinic appointment and included questions regarding the level of satisfaction with the education and the perceived value of the information. Pregnant women less than 34 weeks of gestation were eligible.Results: A total of 263 women were enrolled, 263 completed the pre-CMV educational questionnaire and 215 women completed both questionnaires. Some women only partially completed the questionnaires and those partial responses have been included. Prior to education, 33% (85/261) of participants had heard of CMV. This increased to 75% (160/214) after education. Participants scored each of the recommended hygiene practices between 1 and 5 (5 is the most acceptable) and each recommended hygiene practice received an average score between 3.8 and 5. 74% (134/180) of participants reported increasing their hygienic practices after education. 96% (180/188) of participants indicated they were satisifedto have received the education. 98% (187/190) thought more women should receive this education during prenatal care.Conclusion: Pregnant women viewed education about CMV favorably and increased the frequency of recommended hygiene practices. Introducing an educational handout to routine prenatal care may be beneficial in increasing awareness of CMV infection in pregnancy.Keywords: congenital CMV, CMV vaccine, CMV pregnancy, CMV education

Root-infecting fungal pathogens such as Gaeumannomyces avenae, Ophiosphaerella korrae, and Magnaporthiopsis poae cause extensive damage to amenity turfgrasses in temperate climates. The diseases they cause are difficult to diagnose by visual symptoms or microscopic inspection, and traditional polymerase chain reaction-based assays require large financial investments in equipment such as thermal cyclers and highly trained staff. The primary objective of this research was to develop fast and accurate detection assays for the three pathogens listed above that did not require the use of thermal cycling equipment. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) and recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) assays were developed for each pathogen based on known fungal cultures. The assays were tested on 27 samples received at the University of Wisconsin's Turfgrass Diagnostic Laboratory in 2016 and 2017 and both methods provided accurate diagnoses within about 30 min with minimal sample preparation. However, the RPA assays had lower levels of false positive contamination relative to the LAMP assays and are more likely to be effective in a field or diagnostic laboratory for improved turf root-pathogen detection.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate health care provider adherence to the surgical protocol endorsed by the National Cogmprehensive Cancer Network and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists at the time of risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy and compare adherence between gynecologic oncologists and obstetrician-gynecologists (ob-gyns). METHODS: In this multicenter retrospective cohort study, women were included if they had a pathogenic BRCA mutation and underwent risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy between 2011 and 2017. Adherence was defined as completing all of the following: collection of washings, complete resection of the fallopian tube, and performing the Sectioning and Extensively Examining the Fimbriated End (SEE-FIM) pathologic protocol. RESULTS: Of 290 patients who met inclusion criteria, 160 patients were treated by 18 gynecologic oncologists and 130 patients by 75 ob-gyns. Surgery was performed at 10 different hospitals throughout a single metropolitan area. Demographic and clinical characteristics were similar between groups. Overall, 199 cases (69%) were adherent to the surgical protocol. Gynecologic oncologists were more than twice as likely to fully adhere to the full surgical protocol as ob-gyns (91% vs 41%, P

The recent challenge issued by the HFES President emphasizes the need for members and professionals of the Human Factors and Ergonomics community to remain relevant to society at large in spite of the challenges we face as a professional society (Marras, 2015). One characteristic of our present and future as a society is our existence in a world of increasing globalization. Consequently, it is appropriate that we grow our awareness of the culture of HF/E around the world in order to facilitate increased reception of the services we are able to offer and promote intercultural collaboration. This panel brings professionals from academia and industry around the world to bring their perspectives on unique challenges and approaches to HF/E in an international setting. These global perspectives span industries, countries, and attitudes and behaviors from around the world. The panel will first present their observations on the unique aspects of their cultural experiences and then engage attendees in a discussion with the aim of equipping them to adopt a more effective global mindset towards their HF/E endeavors.

This paper presents a knowledge synthesis of ethical questions for the application of rational ethics theories to human factors in vehicle automation. First, a brief summary of ethical concerns related to transportation automation and human factors is presented. A series of theoretical questions are then posed for different levels of vehicle automation. Particular concerns relating to the Principle of Utility and the Principle of Respect for Persons are highlighted for low levels of automation, high levels of automation, and full automation through the use of theoretical scenarios. Although some recommendations are drawn from these scenarios, the primary purpose of this paper is to serve as a starting point to encourage discussion and collaboration between human factors professionals, engineers, policymakers, transportation officials, software programmers, manufacturers, and the driving public regarding realistic goals for automated vehicle implementation.

Background We established a Source Animal (barrier) Facility (SAF) for generating designated pathogen‐free (DPF) pigs to serve as donors of viable organs, tissues, or cells for xenotransplantation into clinical patients. This facility was populated with caesarian derived, colostrum deprived (CDCD) piglets, from sows of conventional‐specific (or specified) pathogen‐free (SPF) health status in six cohorts over a 10‐month period. In all cases, CDCD piglets fulfilled DPF status including negativity for porcine circovirus (PCV), a particularly environmentally robust and difficult to inactivate virus which at the time of SAF population was epidemic in the US commercial swine production industry. Two outbreaks of PCV infection were subsequently detected during sentinel testing. The first occurred several weeks after PCV‐negative animals were moved under quarantine from the nursery into an animal holding room. The apparent origin of PCV was newly installed stainless steel penning, which was not sufficiently degreased thereby protecting viral particles from disinfection. The second outbreak was apparently transmitted via employee activities in the Caesarian‐section suite adjacent to the barrier facility. In both cases, PCV was contained in the animal holding room where it was diagnosed making a complete facility depopulation‐repopulation unnecessary. Method Infectious PCV was eliminated during both outbreaks by the following: euthanizing infected animals, disposing of all removable items from the affected animal holding room, extensive cleaning with detergents and degreasing agents, sterilization of equipment and rooms with chlorine dioxide, vaporized hydrogen peroxide, and potassium peroxymonosulfate, and for the second outbreak also glutaraldehyde/quaternary ammonium. Impact on other barrier animals throughout the process was monitored by frequent PCV diagnostic testing. Result After close monitoring for 6 months indicating PCV absence from all rooms and animals, herd animals were removed from quarantine status. Conclusion Ten years after PCV clearance following the second outbreak, due to strict adherence to biosecurity protocols and based on ongoing sentinel diagnostic monitoring (currently monthly), the herd remains DPF including PCV negative.

Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) and recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) are two rapid isothermal amplification methods for detecting three common fungal root pathogens of cool-season turfgrass: Gaeumannomyces avenae, Magnaporthiopsis poae and Ophiosphaerella korrae, “Detection of root-infecting fungi on cool-season turfgrasses using loop-mediated isothermal amplification and recombinase polymerase amplification” (Karakkat et al., 2018) [1]. The data provided here describe the information for designing primers and probes for LAMP and RPA, how specific they are for each of the three fungi, and the evaluation of RPA on field samples. Keywords: Turfgrass, LAMP, RPA, Gaeumannomyces avenae, Ophiosphaerella korrae, Magnaporthiopsis poae

In a reaction time (RT) task requiring fast responses to two stimuli presented close in time, human observers show a delayed RT to the second stimulus. This phenomenon has been attributed to a psychological refractory period (PRP). A similar asymmetric interference is found when performing multiple concurrent visual time-to-contact (TTC) estimations for moving objects, despite important differences between the tasks. In the present study, we studied the properties of the asymmetric interference found in the TTC task and compared them to the classical PRP effect. In Experiment 1, we varied the time interval between the two objects' arrival times to determine the dependence of the PRP-like effect on the asynchrony between the two TTCs. In Experiment 2, we investigated whether the physical or the perceived arrival order determined the asymmetric interference. Our results confirmed the existence of asymmetric interference in the multiple TTC estimation task, but also indicated important differences from the traditional PRP effect observed in the RT paradigm. The origins of these differences are discussed, as well as the practical implications.