bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
002 PP: TOWARDS AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF CARE: CANCER CARE PRACTICES IN THE EVERYDAY
Authors: Arteaga Pérez MI 
Published: April 2015

A patient affected by cancer is never alone with his/her disease; his/her social surroundings shape and are shaped by the daily practices aiming to manage the disease and its treatments. According to Macmillan Cancer Support reporta, informal caregivers of colorectal cancer patients tend to provide more hours per week of care than those supporting patients affected by other types of cancer (40% of them give at least 20 hours of care versus 25% of all carers). Such care usually requires performing multiple tasks, from emotional support, practical work to advocacy.Psychosocial studies in oncology have successfully attended to the repercussions of cancer and cancer care in the family unit, emphasising the impact of such experiences and transactions for the mental and physical health of family members. In this abstract, I would like to contribute to that research by explaining how an anthropology of care can shed further light on these dynamics, unfolding the practical, cognitive and emotional aspects of care in the everyday contexts of people affected by cancer.My argument is that an anthropology of care would illuminate: (1) the generation of embodied knowledge, emotion work and practical tinkering of caregiving practices by which requirements, side effects and consequences of colorectal cancer treatments are addressed, (2) the ways in which patients and their significant others negotiate the temporalities of treatments and the collective identities as supporters and patients during the day to day life, and (3) the ways in which social-cultural and political and economic arrangements shape people's experiences of cancer treatments.aMore than a million: Understanding the UK's carers of people with cancer—a report by Ipsos Mori for Macmillan Cancer Support.
006 PP: LISTENING TO PARENTS: MIX-METHODS EVALUATION OF THE KEY WORKER ROLE
Authors: Martins A , Aldiss S , Taylor R , Gibson F 
Published: April 2015

Understanding how interventions work in the real world of practice has motivated the use of qualitative methods in evaluation of interventions in health care.aA complex intervention may operate differently in practice from the original intention and qualitative research can address how an intervention is used in practice while quantitative research is used to measure outcomes.bThis paper describes the practical application of a mix-methods approach in the evaluation of a nurse specialist key worker role in children's cancer care across the UK with reference to parents' views of the role. Using this study as example, methodological issues are explored about the use of the interview/questionnaire approach in the evaluation, as well as a brief consideration of combining methods.The nurse specialist key worker role was funded in eighteen Principal Treatment Centres across Scotland, Wales and England. Ninety parents took part in the questionnaire and out of these 20 took part in an individual semi-structured interview.The information from the questionnaires helped identify the family's needs and the support received; it did not show, however, how contextual constraints and families' individual needs helped shape the way the key worker role was developed and the impact it had on families. The interviews allowed the researcher to pick up on these issues. In particular, the interviews expanded the breadth of understanding on how the key worker supported the families, what activities occurred under what conditions, and who carried out the activities.The depth of the analysis and understanding of the impact of the key worker role was only achieved by the combination of methods used. The questionnaire allowed the evaluation of the role in specific outcomes and the interviews helped us identify and understand the influencing factors/conditions needed to achieve the outcomes.aO'Cathain A, Murphy E, Nicholl, J. Why, and how, mixed methods research is undertaken in health services research in England: a mixed methods study.BMC Health Services Research2007;7:85.bParry-Langdon, N., Bloor, M., Audrey, S.,et al. Process evaluation of health promotion interventions.Policy & Politics2003;31:207–16.
010 PP: EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF A CANCER AWARENESS TRAINING PROGRAMME: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF COMMUNITY-BASED HEALTH STAFF AND VOLUNTEERS
Authors: Osborne K , Power E 
Published: April 2015

BackgroundCancer Research UK's cancer awareness training programme, Talk Cancer, aims to equip and empower frontline healthcare staff and volunteers to raise awareness of cancer and promote health behaviour change in their community. Each workshop aims to increase knowledge of cancer prevention, screening and early diagnosis and improve confidence communicating with the public about these areas. This study evaluated the impact of workshops conducted across England between April 2013 and March 2014.MethodsFourteen in-depth qualitative telephone interviews were conducted with attendees approximately four months after training. Interview transcripts were thematically analysed and themes independently verified by two researchers.FindingsAfter training, attendees reported increased awareness of the importance of early diagnosis and the link between lifestyle behaviours and cancer risk. They reported feeling more open towards cancer and that cancer had become a legitimate topic of conversation. They reported feeling more confident to have conversations about cancer and, for some, this was related to feeling more credible. As a result, attendees felt more able to manage and initiate conversations about cancer. Specifically, many attendees had promoted the importance of early diagnosis and encouraged people to seek help with an unusual or persistent change to their body. Some attendees also said they had visited the GP and made healthy lifestyle changes themselves.ConclusionsTalk Cancer training increased attendees' cancer awareness, openness towards cancer and confidence in having cancer-related conversations. In particular, attendees became advocates for prompt help-seeking after learning about the importance of early diagnosis. Furthermore, reports of attendees making changes to their own behaviour suggest the training may benefit attendees as well as their communities.
012 PP: GOING BENEATH THE SURFACE IN A LONGITUDINAL QUALITATIVE NARRATIVE STUDY WITH YOUNG ADULTS WITH CANCER
Authors: Pearce S 
Published: April 2015

The impact of cancer on young people superimposed on the developmental processes toward adulthood is recognised (NICE 2005). Despite this there has been limited in-depth research to understand the experiences of young adults with cancer.This study aimed to explore the issues that contribute to the impact of cancer, on young adults' evolving sense of self and identity, by listening to the stories of young adults over one year from the time of diagnosis.This longitudinal narrative study was grounded in Ricoeur's (1984) notion of narratives as stories of experience. 18 young adults (16 to 30 years of age) took part in the study. Eight of the participants took part in three interviews over a year, 6 participants in two interviews. Data included conversational style interviews using free association; reflection of images taken; and detailed reflexive notes. Regular psychotherapeutic debriefing and an ongoing psychosocial research seminar group at the Tavistock Clinic created the space for reflection and awareness. Data were analysed longitudinally across individual cases; an integrated data framework from all the data was then developed.One participant is used to illustrate the interplay between the psyche and the social, the internal and external worlds in the year from diagnosis to the end of life. This also illustrates the framework across all the data involving the renegotiation of self over time, expressed in narrative, through the core components of: the inner world, (psyche, emotion and coping); self as embodied; self as relating others, and self as relating to place.This study demonstrates the value of storytelling over time for making sense, for patient centred practice and getting beneath the surface of experience. The importance of exploring both the ‘said’ and ‘unsaid’; the challenge of ‘being with’ and ‘standing alongside’; and the nature of psychosocial reflexivity all have important implications for empathic and compassionate care .
013 PP: AN ‘ENRICHED LANDSCAPE’ OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THREE PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUES
Authors: Romero D 
Published: April 2015

Qualitative methods have much to contribute to public health research. Below are three public health projects that provide a sampling of empirical research for reflection on the varied use of qualitative methods.Collaborative Community Health AssessmentSt. Vincent's Hospital closed in 2010, resulting in loss of an ER, in-patient facilities, a trauma center, and outpatient clinics. There was great concern about potential gaps in health care. Romero et al worked with community partners, elected officials, health and social services providers, residents and others to collect data to assess the impact of the hospital closure, via focus groups, key-informant interviews and a community survey.L-GEAR ProjectUS rates of adolescent pregnancy are high among industrialized countries. There is a dearth of qualitative data from adolescents regarding life experiences, educational and career goals, and how their parents' own experiences might influence teens' attitudes and sexual behaviors. We are conducting in-depth interviews (IDIs) with adolescent girls, boys and their parents about their current life circumstances and future goals, and how sexual and childbearing behaviors factor into their lives.Welfare Policy AnalysisUS welfare reform in the 1990s included state “child-exclusion” policies prohibiting additional cash assistance to families with a newborn. We conducted several studies to analyze the policy involving (1) IDIs of women subject to the policy; (2) review of effectiveness evaluations and content analysis vis-à-vis human rights treaties; (3) key-informant interviews with state welfare directors.These three projects illustrate the wide range of qualitative research methods available to public health and other researchers, including in-depth and key-informant interviews, focus groups, and content analysis. It is clear that their combined use, including quantitative methods such as surveys, have much to offer to provide a deeper understanding of public health issues and related social programs and policies.
003 OP: CHALLENGES IN QUALITATIVE INQUIRY: JUDGEMENTS OF ‘ETHICS’ AND ‘QUALITY’
Authors: Stevenson F , Gibson W , Pelletier C , Park S , Chrysikou V 
Published: April 2015

BackgroundUK-based research conducted within a healthcare setting generally requires approval from the National Research Ethics Service. Research ethics committees are required to assess a vast range of proposals, differing in both topic and methodology. We argue the methodological benchmarks with which research ethics committees are generally familiar and which form the basis of assessments of quality do not fit with the aims and objectives of many forms of qualitative enquiry and their more iterative goals of describing social processes/mechanisms and making visible the complexities of social practices.Our researchDrawing on the challenges we encountered gaining ethical approval and subsequently conducting a study of junior doctors' decision-making in an Emergency department, we suggest there is an urgent need to re-think the ways that ethical issues are currently conceptualised. In particular, we argue that embedded in the current paradigm is a restricted notion of ‘quality’, which frames how ethics are developed and worked through. Specific, pre-defined outcome measures are generally seen as the traditional marker of quality, which means that research questions that focus on processes rather than on ‘outcomes’ may be regarded as problematic. We illustrate the importance of re-visiting the notion of ethics in healthcare research. Specifically, we consider the need for an alternative ‘iterative’ paradigm and outline how this offers a useful starting point for moving beyond these limited views.ConclusionsA ‘one size fits all’ standardisation of ethical procedures and approach to ethical review acts against the production of knowledge about healthcare and dramatically restricts what can be known about the social practices and conditions of healthcare. Our central argument is that assessment of ethical implications is important, but that the current paradigm does not facilitate an adequate understanding of the very issues it aims to invigilate.
008 OP: EXCURSUS ON THE IMMUNE SYSTEM: MELTING HISTORY, STORIES AND MICROBIOME DATA
Authors: Casal A Nunez 
Published: April 2015

The microbiome seems to challenge the tenet of a self-contained human nature by recognising the role of microbes along with ecological and lifestyle factors in the shaping of the immune function. Those features, in turn, are specially valuable and timely for critical debates in the social sciences and humanities around notions of biological identity and embodiment as well as for evaluating post-genomics with regards to a molecular-based 20th century biology.In an attempt to map cross-roads for traffic to and from biology, geopolitics and philosophy, this paper develops a critical cartography of the immune system, to which I refer to as ‘excursus on the immune system', by bringing together the two main elements that conform my research project:▸ Empirical insights from Lady Montagu's journeys, who in 1718 imported the variolation technique from Turkey to the UK▸ Ethnographic fieldwork of Dr. Dominguez-Bello's microbiome expedition in the Amazon (2011–2013) as part of the research ‘Microbiomes of Homes across Cultures'I will particularly focus on how the historical analysis of Montagu's diaries and my field notes articulate with health data resulted from microbiome research. I will also discuss how I supplement the aforementioned methods to secondary research methods, which include attending scientific conferences as both data collection and research training, informal conversations and formal interviews, discourse analysis of media reports and specialised scientific literature on the microbiome, and a digital ethnography of ‘American Gut', a personalised microbiome project.My preliminary results show that both the environment and microbes refigure immunity as a rather different object rendering notions of the self as bounded, universal and autonomous increasingly difficult to maintain. Moreover, the fact that the environment, not just genetics, produces differences among bodies, immunities and microbes highlights questions of (bio)inequalities as obligatory points of passage for contemporary social studies of science.
Regulation of VDR Expression in Apc-Mutant Mice, Human Colon Cancers and Adenomas
Authors: Giardina Charles , Nakanishi Masako , Khan Awaad , Kuratnik Anton , Xu Wanli , Brenner Bruce , Rosenberg Daniel W. 
Published: April 2015

Abstract
One variable that may affect the ability of vitamin D to reduce colon cancer risk is the expression of its high-affinity receptor, VDR. Here, we show that vitamin D does not reduce tumor formation in ApcΔ14/+ mice and that VDR expression is lost in the majority of the colon tumor cells. The extent of VDR loss corresponded inversely to the level of β-catenin nuclear localization and could be observed in early lesions composed of just a few crypts. Analysis of reported VDR regulators showed that the repressing class I histone deacetylases (HDAC) were significantly elevated in the tumors (up to 4-fold), whereas the VDR-activating retinoid X receptors (RXR) were downregulated (∼50%). Expression of the Slug repressor was also increased, but was found primarily in stromal cells. Analysis of epigenetically active compounds on colon cell lines and intestinal organoids showed that HDAC inhibitors were particularly adept at stimulating VDR expression. Treatment of tumor-bearing ApcΔ14/+ mice with the HDAC inhibitor panobinostat increased VDR expression in the tumors and normal mucosa. The RXR agonist bexarotene failed to activate VDR expression, indicating that RXR ligands were not limiting. Analysis of human microarray data indicated that VDR mRNA is frequently downregulated in colon adenomas, which correlated positively with RXRA expression and inversely with HDAC 2 and 8 expression. Human adenomas showed variable VDR protein expression levels, both between and within individual lesions. Determining the mechanisms of VDR regulation in colon neoplasms may significantly enhance our ability to use vitamin D as a cancer prevention agent. Cancer Prev Res; 8(5); 387–99. ©2015 AACR.
Anti-Müllerian Hormone Concentrations in Premenopausal Women and Breast Cancer Risk
Authors: Nichols Hazel B. , Baird Donna D. , Stanczyk Frank Z. , Steiner Anne Z. , Troester Melissa A. , Whitworth Kristina W. , Sandler Dale P. 
Published: April 2015

Abstract
Laboratory models support an inverse association between anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) and breast tumor development. Human studies are lacking; one study (N = 105 cases, 204 controls) with prospectively collected serum reported the opposite—an approximate 10-fold increase in breast cancer risk comparing fourth with first quartile AMH levels. We investigated the relation between serum AMH levels and breast cancer risk in a case–control (N = 452 cases, 902 controls) study nested within the prospective Sister Study cohort of 50,884 women. At enrollment, participants were ages 35 to 54, premenopausal, and completed questionnaires on medical and family history, lifestyle factors, and demographics. AMH (ng/mL) was measured by ultrasensitive ELISA in serum collected at enrollment and log-transformed for analysis. Multivariate conditional logistic regression was used to calculate ORs and 95% confidence intervals (CI) to account for matching on age and enrollment year. Mean age at enrollment was 46.8 years with an average 2.9 years from blood draw to breast cancer diagnosis (SD = 1.9). AMH concentrations were below the limit of detection (0.003 ng/mL) for approximately 25% of samples. Compared with samples below the LOD, women with AMH &gt;2.84 ng/mL (90th percentile among controls) had a 2-fold increase in breast cancer odds (OR, 2.25; 95% CI, 1.26–4.02). For each 1-unit increase in lnAMH, overall breast cancer odds increased by 8% (OR, 1.08; 95% CI, 1.02–1.15) and odds of estrogen receptor–positive, invasive disease increased by 15% (OR, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.05–1.25). Our findings demonstrate an overall positive relation between AMH and breast cancer. Cancer Prev Res; 8(6); 528–34. ©2015 AACR.
Quantitative Analysis of Localized Sources Identified by Focal Impulse and Rotor Modulation Mapping in Atrial Fibrillation
Authors: Benharash Peyman , Buch Eric , Frank Paul , Share Michael , Tung Roderick , Shivkumar Kalyanam , Mandapati Ravi 
Published: April 2015

Background—
New approaches to ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF) include focal impulse and rotor modulation (FIRM) mapping, and initial results reported with this technique have been favorable. We sought to independently evaluate the approach by analyzing quantitative characteristics of atrial electrograms used to identify rotors and describe acute procedural outcomes of FIRM-guided ablation.

Methods and Results—
All FIRM-guided ablation procedures (n=24; 50% paroxysmal) at University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center were included for analysis. During AF, unipolar atrial electrograms collected from a 64-pole basket catheter were used to construct phase maps and identify putative AF sources. These sites were targeted for ablation, in conjunction with pulmonary vein isolation in most patients (n=19; 79%). All patients had rotors identified (mean, 2.3±0.9 per patient; 72% in left atrium). Prespecified acute procedural end point was achieved in 12 of 24 (50%) patients: AF termination (n=1), organization (n=3), or >10% slowing of AF cycle length (n=8). Basket electrodes were within 1 cm of 54% of left atrial surface area, and a mean of 31 electrodes per patient showed interpretable atrial electrograms. Offline analysis revealed no differences between rotor and distant sites in dominant frequency or Shannon entropy. Electroanatomic mapping showed no rotational activation at FIRM-identified rotor sites in 23 of 24 patients (96%).

Conclusions—
FIRM-identified rotor sites did not exhibit quantitative atrial electrogram characteristics expected from rotors and did not differ quantitatively from surrounding tissue. Catheter ablation at these sites, in conjunction with pulmonary vein isolation, resulted in AF termination or organization in a minority of patients (4/24; 17%). Further validation of this approach is necessary.
Impact of the Madden–Julian Oscillation on Western North Pacific Tropical Cyclogenesis Associated with Large-Scale Patterns
Authors: Zhao Haikun , Yoshida Ryuji , Raga G. B. 
Published: April 2015

AbstractThe intraseasonal variability of tropical cyclogenesis in the western North Pacific (WNP) basin is explored in this study. The relation of cyclogenesis in each of the five large-scale patterns identified in recent work by Yoshida and Ishikawa is associated with the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO). Confirming previous results, more events of cyclogenesis are found during the active MJO phase in the WNP. Furthermore, results indicate that most of the tropical cyclogenesis is associated with the monsoon shear line large-scale pattern during the active phase. The genesis potential index (GPI) and its individual components are used to evaluate the environmental factors that most contribute toward cyclogenesis under the different phases of the MJO. GPI exhibits a large positive anomaly during the active phase of the MJO, and such an anomaly is spatially correlated with the events of cyclogenesis. The analysis of each factor indicates that low-level relative vorticity and midlevel relative humidity are the two dominant contributors to the MJO-composited GPI anomalies. The positive GPI anomalies during the active phase are partially offset by the negative contributions from vertical wind shear and potential intensity. This is valid for all five large-scale patterns. It is noteworthy that the easterly wave (EW) large-scale pattern, while exhibiting the same influence of relative vorticity and midlevel humidity contributing toward positive GPI anomalies, presents slightly more cyclogenesis events under the inactive phase of the MJO. This unexpected result suggests that other factors not included in the definition of the GPI and/or changes in environmental flows on other time scales contribute to the tropical cyclogenesis associated with the EW large-scale pattern.