Effort, reward and self-reported mental health: a simulation study on negative affectivity bias.

Background : In the present article, we propose an alternative method for dealing with negative affectivity (NA) biases in research, while investigating the association between a deleterious psychosocial environment at work and poor mental health. First, we investigated how strong NA must be to cause an observed correlation between the independent and dependent variables. Second, we subjectively assessed whether NA can have a large enough impact on a large enough number of subjects to invalidate the observed correlations between dependent and independent variables.Methods : We simulated 10,000 populations of 300 subjects each, using the marginal distribution of workers in an actual population that had answered the Siegrist's questionnaire on effort and reward imbalance (ERI) and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ).Results : The results of the present study suggested that simulated NA has a minimal effect on the mean scores for effort and reward. However, the correlations between the effort and reward imbalance (ERI) ratio and the GHQ score might be important, even in simulated populations with a limited NA.Conclusions : When investigating the relationship between the ERI ratio and the GHQ score, we suggest the following rules for the interpretation of the results: correlations with an explained variance of 5% and below should be considered with caution; correlations with an explained variance between 5% and 10% may result from NA, although this effect does not seem likely; and correlations with an explained variance of 10% and above are not likely to be the result of NA biases. [Authors]

Rare chromosome abnormalities, prevalence and prenatal diagnosis rates from population-based congenital anomaly registers in Europe.

The aim of this study is to quantify the prevalence and types of rare chromosome abnormalities (RCAs) in Europe for 2000-2006 inclusive, and to describe prenatal diagnosis rates and pregnancy outcome. Data held by the European Surveillance of Congenital Anomalies database were analysed on all the cases from 16 population-based registries in 11 European countries diagnosed prenatally or before 1 year of age, and delivered between 2000 and 2006. Cases were all unbalanced chromosome abnormalities and included live births, fetal deaths from 20 weeks gestation and terminations of pregnancy for fetal anomaly. There were 10,323 cases with a chromosome abnormality, giving a total birth prevalence rate of 43.8/10,000 births. Of these, 7335 cases had trisomy 21,18 or 13, giving individual prevalence rates of 23.0, 5.9 and 2.3/10,000 births, respectively (53, 13 and 5% of all reported chromosome errors, respectively). In all, 473 cases (5%) had a sex chromosome trisomy, and 778 (8%) had 45,X, giving prevalence rates of 2.0 and 3.3/10,000 births, respectively. There were 1,737 RCA cases (17%), giving a prevalence of 7.4/10,000 births. These included triploidy, other trisomies, marker chromosomes, unbalanced translocations, deletions and duplications. There was a wide variation between the registers in both the overall prenatal diagnosis rate of RCA, an average of 65% (range 5-92%) and the prevalence of RCA (range 2.4-12.9/10,000 births). In all, 49% were liveborn. The data provide the prevalence of families currently requiring specialised genetic counselling services in the perinatal period for these conditions and, for some, long-term care.

Effectiveness of three different walking prescription durations on total physical activity in normal- and overweight women.

OBJECTIVE: While there is a dose-response relationship between physical activity (PA) and health benefit, little is known about the effectiveness of different PA prescriptions on total daily PA. AIM: To test, under real-life conditions and using an objective, non-invasive measurement technique (accelerometry), the effect of prescribing additional physical activity (walking only) of different durations (30, 60 and 90 min/day) on compliance (to the activity prescribed) and compensation (to total daily PA). Participants in each group were prescribed 5 sessions of walking per week over 4 weeks. METHODS: 55 normal-weight and overweight women (mean BMI 25 ± 5 kg/m(2), height 165 ± 1 cm, weight 68 ± 2 kg and mean age 27 ± 1 years) were randomly assigned to 3 prescription groups: 30, 60 or 90 min/day PA. RESULTS: Walking duration resulted in an almost linear increase in the number of steps per day during the prescription period from an average of about 10,000 steps per day for the 30-min prescription to about 14,000 for the 90-min prescription. Compliance was excellent for the 30-min prescription but decreased significantly with 60-min and 90-min prescriptions. In parallel, degree of compensation subsequent to exercise increased progressively as length of prescription increased. CONCLUSION: A 30-min prescription of extra walking 5 times per week was well tolerated. However, in order to increase total PA further, much more than 60 min of walking may need to be prescribed in the majority of individuals. While total exercise 'volume' increased with prescriptions longer than 30 min, compliance to the prescription decreased and greater compensation was evident. © 2014 S. Karger GmbH, Freiburg.

Trends in lung cancer among young European women: the rising epidemic in France and Spain.

Lung cancer mortality in young women in the European Union (EU) has steadily increased until the mid 1990 s and has levelled off thereafter, but trends have been heterogeneous in various countries. We analyzed therefore age-standardized trends in lung cancer mortality in young women (20-44) for the 6 major European countries, using joinpoint regression. In the early 1970s the highest lung cancer mortality in young women was in the UK (2.1/100,000). UK rates, however, steadily declined and in 2000-2004 they were the lowest of all 6 major EU countries (1.2/100,000). The second lowest rate in 2000-2002 was in Italy, whose rates remained around 1.1/100,000 between 1970 and 1994, and increased to 1.4 thereafter. In Germany and Poland, lung cancer rates in young women rose from 0.8-1.0/100,000 in the early 1970s to 1.7-1.9 in the mid 1990 s and levelled off during the last decade. Major rises over recent years were observed in France (from 0.8/100,000 in 1985-1989 to 2.2 in 2000-2003) and in Spain (from 0.8 in the 1985-1989 to 1.7 in 2000-2004). Thus, France showed both the highest rate observed over the last 3 decades and the largest rise over the last 2 decades. Since recent trends in the young give relevant information to the likely future trends in middle age, the female lung cancer epidemic is likely to expand in southern Europe from the current rates of 5.0/100,000 in Spain and 7.7 in France to approach 20/100,000 within the next 2-3 decades. Urgent interventions for smoking cessation in women are therefore required.

Hodgkin's lymphoma mortality in the Americas, 1997-2008: Achievements and persistent inadequacies.

Although therapeutic advancements have made Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) a largely curable disease, trends in HL mortality have been variable across countries. To provide updated information on HL mortality in the Americas, overall and 20-44 years age-standardized (world population) mortality rates from HL were derived for the 12 Latin American countries providing valid data to the World Health Organization database and with more than two million of inhabitants. For comparative purpose, data for the United States and Canada were also presented. Trends in mortality over the 1997 to 2008 period are based on joinpoint regression analysis. Declines in HL mortality were registered in all Latin American countries except in Venezuela. In most recent years, HL mortality had fallen to about 0.3/100,000 men and 0.2/100,000 women in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Guatemala, that is, to values similar to North America. Despite some declines, rates remained high in Cuba (1/100,000 men and 0.7/100,000 women), Costa Rica and Mexico as well as in Venezuela (between 0.5 and 0.6/100,000 men and between 0.3 and 0.5/100,000 women). In young adults, trends were more favorable in all Latin American countries except Cuba, whose rates remained exceedingly high (0.8/100,000 men and 0.6/100,000 women). Thus, appreciable declines in HL mortality were observed in most Latin America over the last decade, and several major countries reached values comparable to North America. Substantial excess mortality was still observed in Cuba, Costa Rica, Mexico and Venezuela, calling for urgent interventions to improve HL management in these countries.

Prevalence at Birth of Cleft Lip With or Without Cleft Palate: Data From the International Perinatal Database of Typical Oral Clefts (IPDTOC).

As part of a collaborative project on the epidemiology of craniofacial anomalies, funded by the National Institutes for Dental and Craniofacial Research and channeled through the Human Genetics Programme of the World Health Organization, the International Perinatal Database of Typical Orofacial Clefts (IPDTOC) was established in 2003. IPDTOC is collecting case-by-case information on cleft lip with or without cleft palate and on cleft palate alone from birth defects registries contributing to at least one of three collaborative organizations: European Surveillance Systems of Congenital Anomalies (EUROCAT) in Europe, National Birth Defects Prevention Network (NBDPN) in the United States, and International Clearinghouse for Birth Defects Surveillance and Research (ICBDSR) worldwide. Analysis of the collected information is performed centrally at the ICBDSR Centre in Rome, Italy, to maximize the comparability of results. The present paper, the first of a series, reports data on the prevalence of cleft lip with or without cleft palate from 54 registries in 30 countries over at least 1 complete year during the period 2000 to 2005. Thus, the denominator comprises more than 7.5 million births. A total of 7704 cases of cleft lip with or without cleft palate (7141 livebirths, 237 stillbirths, 301 terminations of pregnancy, and 25 with pregnancy outcome unknown) were available. The overall prevalence of cleft lip with or without cleft palate was 9.92 per 10,000. The prevalence of cleft lip was 3.28 per 10,000, and that of cleft lip and palate was 6.64 per 10,000. There were 5918 cases (76.8%) that were isolated, 1224 (15.9%) had malformations in other systems, and 562 (7.3%) occurred as part of recognized syndromes. Cases with greater dysmorphological severity of cleft lip with or without cleft palate were more likely to include malformations of other systems.

Preserving Electronic Theses through the MetaArchive network

In the recent years most libraries have focused on mass digitization programs and keeping electronic born documents, showing and organizing them in a repository. While those repositories have evolved to a much more manageable systems focusing on the user expectations and introducing web 2.0 tools, digital preservation is still in the to-do list of most of them. There is quite a lot of studies focused on preservation and some complex models exist, unfortunately, very few practical systems are running and its quite difficult for a library to get involved in a solution already tested by others. The CBUC (Consortium of University Catalan Libraries) runs TDX, an ETD repository now keeping more than 10.000 full text thesis from any of the 12 university members. After 10 years running TDX a solid preservation system was needed to ensure every thesis would be kept as it was regardless what happens to the repository. The perfect solution was found in the MetaArchive cooperative, this is the effort of many insitutions to keep a copy of each other content through a newtwork using the LOCKSS software as a mechanism to keep track of any change. The presentation will shortly introduce what TDX and MetaArchive is but will, in a practical way, show how the LOCKSS network for presrervation works. Finally a summary of the benefits of the overall experience will be shown.

Proposed guidelines for the diagnosis and management of methylmalonic and propionic acidemia.

Methylmalonic and propionic acidemia (MMA/PA) are inborn errors of metabolism characterized by accumulation of propionic acid and/or methylmalonic acid due to deficiency of methylmalonyl-CoA mutase (MUT) or propionyl-CoA carboxylase (PCC). MMA has an estimated incidence of ~ 1: 50,000 and PA of ~ 1:100'000 -150,000. Patients present either shortly after birth with acute deterioration, metabolic acidosis and hyperammonemia or later at any age with a more heterogeneous clinical picture, leading to early death or to severe neurological handicap in many survivors. Mental outcome tends to be worse in PA and late complications include chronic kidney disease almost exclusively in MMA and cardiomyopathy mainly in PA. Except for vitamin B12 responsive forms of MMA the outcome remains poor despite the existence of apparently effective therapy with a low protein diet and carnitine. This may be related to under recognition and delayed diagnosis due to nonspecific clinical presentation and insufficient awareness of health care professionals because of disease rarity.

The borehole-fluid effect in electrical resistivity imaging

Fluid that fills boreholes in crosswell electrical resistivity investigations provides the necessary electrical contact between the electrodes and the rock formation but it is also the source of image artifacts in standard inversions that do not account for the effects of the boreholes. The image distortions can be severe for large resistivity contrasts between the rock formation and borehole fluid and for large borehole diameters. We have carried out 3D finite-element modeling using an unstructured-grid approach to quantify the magnitude of borehole effects for different resistivity contrasts, borehole diameters, and electrode configurations. Relatively common resistivity contrasts of 100:1 and borehole diameters of 10 and 20 cm yielded, for a bipole length of 5 m, apparent resistivity underestimates of approximately 12% and 32% when using AB-MN configurations and apparent resistivity overestimates of approximately 24% and 95% when using AM-BN configurations. Effects are generally more severe at shorter bipole spacings. We report the results obtained by either including or ignoring the boreholes in inversions of 3D field data from a test site in Switzerland, where approximately 10,000 crosswell resistivity-tomography measurements were made across six acquisition planes among four boreholes. Inversions of raw data that ignored the boreholes filled with low-resistivity fluid paradoxically produced high-resistivity artifacts around the boreholes. Including correction factors based on the modeling results fora ID model with and without the boreholes did not markedly improve the images. The only satisfactory approach was to use a 3D inversion code that explicitly incorporated the boreholes in the actual inversion. This new approach yielded an electrical resistivity image that was devoid of artifacts around the boreholes and that correlated well with coincident crosswell radar images.

Prevention of transfusional Trypanosoma cruzi infection in Latin America

Trypanosoma cruzi is a protozoan infection widely spread in Latin America, from Mexico in the north to Argentina and Chile in the south. The second most important way of acquiring the infection is by blood transfusion. Even if most countries of Latin America have law/decree/norms, that make mandatory the screening of blood donors for infectious diseases, including T. cruzi (El Salvador and Nicaragua do not have laws on the subject), there is usually no enforcement or it is very lax. Analysis of published serologic surveys of T. cruzi antibodies in blood donors done in 1993, indicating the number of donors and screening coverage for T. cruzi in ten countries of Central and South America indicated that the probability of receiving a potentially infected transfusion unit in each country varied from 1,096 per 10,000 transfusions in Bolivia, the highest, to 13.02 or 13.86 per 10,000 transfusions in Honduras and Venezuela respectively, where screening coverage was 100%. On the other hand the probability of transmitting a T. cruzi infected unit was 219/10,000 in Bolivia, 24/10,000 in Colombia, 17/10,000 in El Salvador, and around 2-12/10,000 for the seven other countries. Infectivity risks defined as the likelihood of being infected when receiving an infected transfusion unit were assumed to be 20% for T. cruzi. Based on this, estimates of the absolute number of infections induced by transfusion indicated that they were 832, 236, and 875 in Bolivia, Chile and Colombia respectively. In all the other countries varied from seven in Honduras to 85 in El Salvador. Since 1993, the situation has improved. At that time only Honduras and Venezuela screened 100% of donors, while seven countries, Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, did the same in 1996. In Central America, without information from Guatemala, the screening of donors for T. cruzi prevented the transfusion of 1,481 infected units and the potential infection of 300 individuals in 1996. In the same year, in seven countries of South America, the screening prevented the transfusion of 36,017 infected units and 7, 201 potential cases of transfusional infection.

Epidemiology of small intestinal atresia in Europe: a register-based study.

BACKGROUND: The epidemiology of congenital small intestinal atresia (SIA) has not been well studied. This study describes the presence of additional anomalies, pregnancy outcomes, total prevalence and association with maternal age in SIA cases in Europe. METHODS: Cases of SIA delivered during January 1990 to December 2006 notified to 20 EUROCAT registers formed the population-based case series. Prevalence over time was estimated using multilevel Poisson regression, and heterogeneity between registers was evaluated from the random component of the intercept. RESULTS: In total 1133 SIA cases were reported among 5126, 164 registered births. Of 1044 singleton cases, 215 (20.6%) cases were associated with a chromosomal anomaly. Of 829 singleton SIA cases with normal karyotype, 221 (26.7%) were associated with other structural anomalies. Considering cases with normal karyotype, the total prevalence per 10 000 births was 1.6 (95% CI 1.5 to 1.7) for SIA, 0.9 (95% CI 0.8 to 1.0) for duodenal atresia and 0.7 (95% CI 0.7 to 0.8) for jejunoileal atresia (JIA). There was no significant trend in SIA, duodenal atresia or JIA prevalence over time (RR=1.0, 95% credible interval (CrI): 1.0 to 1.0 for each), but SIA and duodenal atresia prevalence varied by geographical location (p=0.03 and p=0.04, respectively). There was weak evidence of an increased risk of SIA in mothers aged less than 20 years compared with mothers aged 20 to 29 years (RR=1.3, 95% CrI: 1.0 to 1.8). CONCLUSION: This study found no evidence of a temporal trend in the prevalence of SIA, duodenal atresia or JIA, although SIA and duodenal atresia prevalence varied significantly between registers.

Escalating epidemiology of eosinophilic esophagitis: 21 years of prospective population-based documentation in Olten county

Background and Aims: Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) is detected with a dramatically increasingfrequency during the last decades. However, it is still unknown whether this reflects atrue increase in incidence or just an increased awareness by gastroenterologists. We therefore,prospectively assessed incidence and prevalence of EoE in an epidemiologically well definedindicator area over the last 21 years. Methods: Olten County is an area of approximately90,000 inhabitants without pronounced demographic changes during the last two decades.Two EoE-experienced gastroenterologists and one pathology centre are responsible forcovering the gastroenterological service of the area. No public programs for increasingawareness of EoE were implemented in this region. Since 1989 all individuals with confirmeddiagnosis of EoE living in Olten County were entered prospectively into the database. Results:Forty-six patients (76% males, mean age 41±16 yrs) were diagnosed with EoE between1989 and 2009. Ninety-four percent of patients presented with dysphagia. An average annualincidence rate of 1.88/100,000 was found (range 0-8) with a marked increase in the periodfrom 2004 to 2009. The cumulative EoE prevalence rose up to 35.1/100,000 inhabitantsin 2009. No significant change was observed for the median diagnostic delay, as it was 3years from 1989 to 1998 and 2 years from 1999 to 2009 with age < 40 years representinga risk factor for retarded diagnosis. The number of upper endoscopies per year increasedby 63% in the period from 1999 to 2009 compared to the years 1989 to 1998 which ismarkedly less then the increase in the incidence rate of 150% for the same periods. Conclusions:Over the last 21 years, a significant increase in EoE incidence and prevalence wasfound in an epidemiologically stable indicator region of Switzerland. The constant diagnosticdelay, the number of newly diagnosed EoE cases that was much more pronounced thanthe modest increase of performed upper endoscopies, as well as the lack of EoE awarenessprograms in Olten County indicates a true increase in EoE incidence.

Prenatal screening for congenital toxoplasmosis in Campania: preliminary report on activities and results

By 1997, an open cohort of 1,652 live newborn of 1,637 mothers with gestational toxoplasmosis had been recruited in the Campania region to monitor the burden of congenital toxoplasmosis (CT). Of the 1,556 mother-child pairs that completed the follow up, 92 definite cases were detected, yielding a 5.9% (4.8-7.1 95% CI) transmission rate. The onset was patent for 43% of patients and sensorineural complications were shown for a further 15% of subclinical onset patients later than two years of age. The overall prevalence of toxoplasmosis during gestation was 2.46 of 1,000 deliveries, while the prevalence of definite CT was 1.38 of 10,000 live newborns. However, there is still room for intervention, as only 23% of the maternal diagnoses were proven through seroconversion, 63 of the late-gestation seroconverters remained untreated, and six probable CT diagnoses were made following referrals due to patent sequelae and born during the study period. There was a positive secular trend on the rates of infant referral and definite CT diagnosis, according to the live birth rate (Ç2 for trend < 0.001). Extension of this surveillance system across the country could help to define a future strategy for prevention.

Sex chromosome trisomies in Europe: prevalence, prenatal detection and outcome of pregnancy.

This study aims to assess prevalence and pregnancy outcome for sex chromosome trisomies (SCTs) diagnosed prenatally or in the first year of life. Data held by the European Surveillance of Congenital Anomalies (EUROCAT) database on SCT cases delivered 2000-2005 from 19 population-based registries in 11 European countries covering 2.5 million births were analysed. Cases included were livebirths diagnosed to 1 year of age, fetal deaths from 20 weeks gestation and terminations of pregnancy for fetal anomaly (TOPFA). In all, 465 cases of SCT were diagnosed between 2000 and 2005, a prevalence of 1.88 per 10,000 births (95% CI 1.71-2.06). Prevalence of XXX, XXY and XYY were 0.54 (95% CI 0.46-0.64), 1.04 (95% CI 0.92-1.17) and 0.30 (95% CI 0.24-0.38), respectively. In all, 415 (89%) were prenatally diagnosed and 151 (36%) of these resulted in TOPFA. There was wide country variation in prevalence (0.19-5.36 per 1000), proportion prenatally diagnosed (50-100%) and proportion of prenatally diagnosed resulting in TOPFA (13-67%). Prevalence of prenatally diagnosed cases was higher in countries with high prenatal detection rates of Down syndrome. The EUROCAT prevalence rate for SCTs diagnosed prenatally or up to 1 year of age represents 12% of the prevalence expected from cytogenetic studies of newborn babies, as the majority of cases are never diagnosed or are diagnosed later in life. There is a wide variation between European countries in prevalence, prenatal detection and TOPFA proportions, related to differences in screening policies as well as organizational and cultural factors.

European cancer mortality predictions for the year 2013.

Background Estimated cancer mortality statistics were published for the years 2011 and 2012 for the European Union (EU) and its six more populous countries. Patients and methods Using logarithmic Poisson count data joinpoint models and the World Health Organization mortality and population database, we estimated numbers of deaths and age-standardized (world) mortality rates (ASRs) in 2013 from all cancers and selected cancers. Results The 2013 predicted number of cancer deaths in the EU is 1 314 296 (737 747 men and 576 489 women). Between 2009 and 2013, all cancer ASRs are predicted to fall by 6% to 140.1/100 000 in men, and by 4% to 85.3/100 000 in women. The ASRs per 100 000 are 6.6 men and 2.9 women for stomach, 16.7 men and 9.5 women for intestines, 8.0 men and 5.5 women for pancreas, 37.1 men and 13.9 women for lung, 10.5 men for prostate, 14.6 women for breast, and 4.7 for uterine cancer, and 4.2 and 2.6 for leukaemia. Recent trends are favourable except for pancreatic cancer and lung cancer in women. Conclusions Favourable trends will continue in 2013. Pancreatic cancer has become the fourth cause of cancer death in both sexes, while in a few years lung cancer will likely become the first cause of cancer mortality in women as well, overtaking breast cancer.