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Background: Screening mammography and invasive breast cancer and ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) rates recently declined in the United States; screening mammography declines among former hormone therapy (HT) users may be an important contributor. We longitudinally examined women and compared mammography use and cancer rates by HT use [current, former, and never users of estrogen + progestin (EPT) and estrogen only (ET)].Methods: We studied 163,490 unique women aged 50–79 years enrolled in Group Health (Washington State) between 1994–2009. Electronic data identified HT dispensing, mammography use and incident breast cancer diagnosis. We calculated age-adjusted screening compliance as a time-varying variable (screened-within-the-past-26 months, yes/no).Results: Before 2002, screening compliance differed significantly by HT with current EPT users having the highest rates (83%) followed by former EPT (77%), current ET (77%), former ET (72%), and never users (56%). After 2002, screening was high (∼81%) among current and former EPT and ET users and significantly increased among never users (∼62%). Invasive breast cancer rates significantly decreased over the whole study period (Ptrend ≤ 0.05) for all HT users, except EPT current users (Ptrend = 0.68); DCIS rates did not change in any group.Conclusions: Differential screening mammography rates by HT use do not explain invasive breast cancer incidence declines. Our data suggest discontinuing HT has an immediate effect on breast cancer rates, lending support to the mechanism that cessation leads to tumor regression.Impact: Studies examining the influence of a changing exposure in relation to outcomes should account for varying exposures, individuals' characteristics, as well as screening methods and frequency. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 21(5); 720–7. ©2012 AACR.

Editorial for This Article from Screening Mammography Use among Current, Former, and Never Hormone Therapy Users May Not Explain Recent Declines in Breast Cancer Incidence

This article describes the motivation for the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Challenge Outback Rescue, the competition mission, and a summary of the six events that have taken place since 2007. In total, more than 350 teams and 2,000 team members competed to see who would be the first to save lost bushwalker, Outback Joe. In 2014, four teams completed the search and rescue mission task and demonstrated that they had developed a cost-effective robot aircraft that could find and save a lost bushwalker in the Australian Outback. We discuss what factors were behind the completion of the competition and we outline some of the significant outcomes that have fed into the UAV industry. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This paper presents the hardware development and testing of a new concept for air sampling via the integration of a prototype spore trap onboard an unmanned aerial system (UAS). We propose the integration of a prototype spore trap onboard a UAS to allow multiple capture of spores of pathogens in single remote locations at high or low altitude, otherwise not possible with stationary sampling devices. We also demonstrate the capability of this system for the capture of multiple time-stamped samples during a single mission. Wind tunnel testing was followed by simulation, and flight testing was conducted to measure and quantify the spread during simulated airborne air sampling operations. During autonomous operations, the onboard autopilot commands the servo to rotate the sampling device to a new indexed location once the UAS vehicle reaches the predefined waypoint or set of waypoints (which represents the region of interest). Time-stamped UAS data are continuously logged during the flight to assist with analysis of the particles collected. Testing and validation of the autopilot and spore trap integration, functionality, and performance is described. These tools may enhance the ability to detect new incursions of spores. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

UAVs could one day save the lives of lost civilians and those sent to find them, and a competition in outback Australia is proving how soon that day might come.

The ATLAS Computing Model was designed around the concept of grid computing; since the start of data-taking, this model has proven very successful in the federated operation of more than one hundred Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) sites for offline data distribution, storage, processing and analysis. However, new paradigms in computing, namely virtualization and cloud computing, present improved strategies for managing and provisioning IT resources that could allow ATLAS to more flexibly adapt and scale its storage and processing workloads on varied underlying resources. In particular, ATLAS is developing a "grid-of-clouds" infrastructure in order to utilize WLCG sites that make resources available via a cloud API. This work will present the current status of the Virtualization and Cloud Computing R&D project in ATLAS Distributed Computing. First, strategies for deploying PanDA queues on cloud sites will be discussed, including the introduction of a "cloud factory" for managing cloud VM instances. Next, performance results when running on virtualized/cloud resources at CERN LxCloud, StratusLab, and elsewhere will be presented. Finally, we will present the ATLAS strategies for exploiting cloud-based storage, including remote XROOTD access to input data, management of EC2-based fi les, and the deployment of cloud-resident LCG storage elements.

Purpose To assess trends in invasive breast cancer and ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) incidence in association with changes in hormone therapy (HT) use in regular mammography screeners. Methods We included 2,071,814 screening mammography examinations performed between January 1997 and December 2006 on 696,385 women age 40 to 79 years; 9,586 breast cancers were diagnosed within 12 months of a screening examination. We calculated adjusted annual rates (mammogram level) for prevalent HT use, incident invasive breast cancer (overall and by tumor histology and estrogen receptor [ER] status), and incident DCIS. Results After a precipitous decrease in HT use in 2002, the incidence of invasive breast cancer decreased significantly in 2002 to 2006 among women age 50 to 69 years (Ptrend(2002–2006) = .005) and 70 to 79 years (Ptrend(2002–2006) = .003) but not in women age 40 to 49 years (Ptrend(2002–2006) = .45). DCIS rates significantly decreased in women age 50 to 69 years after 2002 (Ptrend(2002–2006) = .02). Invasive ductal tumors significantly declined in women age 50 to 69 years and 70 to 79 years in 2002 to 2006. In women age 50 to 69 years, invasive lobular and ER-positive cancer rates declined steadily in 2002 to 2005 (Ptrend(2002–2005) = .02 and .03, respectively), but an elevated rate in 2006 rendered the overall trend nonsignificant (Ptrend(2002–2006) = .89 and .91, respectively). Conclusion In parallel to the sharp decline in HT use in women undergoing regular mammography screening, invasive breast cancer rates decreased in women age 50 to 69 and 70 to 79 years after 2002, and DCIS rates decreased in women age 50 to 69 years, consistent with evidence that HT cessation reduces breast cancer risk. However, the decrease in incidence may have started to level off in 2006; this finding has not been uniformly reported in other populations, warranting further investigation.