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Introduction: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the sexually transmitted etiologic agent of cervical cancer. While HPV infects both men and women, little is known about HPV infection in men. Specifically, knowledge of the prevalence of type-specific HPV infection and the distribution of these infections by anogenital anatomic site in men is incomplete. Evaluation of factors associated with HPV infection based on complete anogenital sampling and with HPV-16 antibody detection may lead to a better understanding of HPV transmission and prevention.Methods: A total of 493 asymptomatic men ages 18 to 40 years old were recruited in Tucson, Arizona, and Tampa, Florida, from 2003 to 2006. Eligibility requirements included having had sex with a woman within the past year and having no history of genital warts. Testing for HPV from anogenital swabs from six anatomic sites and semen was conducted by PCR and reverse line blot genotyping for 37 HPV types. Serum antibodies for HPV-16 were detected by ELISA. Self-administered demographic, health, and sexual history/behavior questionnaires were collected. HPV prevalence and type distributions by anatomic site were calculated, as was seroprevalence of HPV-16 antibodies. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify independent risk factors for HPV infection at any anatomic site and for having HPV-16 antibodies.Results: HPV was detected in at least one sample for 303 (65.4%) men, with 29.2% of men having an oncogenic infection and 36.3% having a non-oncogenic infection. Multiple HPV types were detected in 27.2% of men. Factors associated with infection were a greater lifetime number of female sexual partners, currently smoking 10 or more cigarettes per day, lack of condom use, and more sexual partners in the past three months. HPV-16 antibodies were detected in the serum of 63 (12.8%) men, and detection was associated with increasing age and concurrent detection of HPV DNA in perianal or anal canal samples.Discussion: The combination of more complete anogenital sampling and sensitive HPV detection for 37 HPV types resulted in a higher HPV prevalence in asymptomatic men than previously reported. Smoking and condom use were the most important modifiable risk factors for HPV in men. These results have implications for research of HPV transmission.

Most neonates and infants acquire HIV-1 infection as a result of mother-to-infant (vertical) transmission and are infected with the minor genotype with macrophage-tropic (R5) phenotype of the mother. Several studies suggest that infected infants have a higher viral load and develop AIDS more rapidly than infected adults, but the mechanisms of this differential HIV-1 infection are not known. The hypothesis of my dissertation is that viral determinants and differential cellular gene expression profiles influence differential HIV-1 replication and disease progression seen in neonates vs. adults. This work includes characterization of viral determinants, including reverse transcriptase (RT) and envelope gp120, and host determinants, including cellular transcription factors and cytokines that may be associated with differential HIV-1 replication in infants and adults. The characterization of HIV-1 RT gene from five mother-infant pairs following vertical transmission revealed a low degree of viral heterogeneity and a high conservation of intact open reading frames comprising functional domains and CTL epitopes. Biological characterization of HIV-1 subtype C envelope gp120 from infected patients from India was performed by constructing chimeras with HIV-1 subtype B. Infection of cell lines and primary cells with chimeric subtype C/B virus showed that the subtype C env gp120 from patients contributed to an increased rate of virus entry, which correlated with higher replication efficiencies and virus production in subtype C env chimeras compared with subtype B env chimeras and subtype B primary isolates. Higher level of viremia with subtype C infection compared with subtype B may be responsible for its rapid disease progression and spread. The mechanisms of HIV-1 replication in neonatal and adult cells was determined and found that differential HIV-1 replication in neonatal and adult cells is influenced at the level of HIV-1 gene expression. Evaluation of cellular gene expression profile of neonatal and adult mononuclear cells performed by microarray analysis identified several factors, including transcription factors, cytokines and matrix metalloproteinases that may be associated with increased HIV-1 gene expression and replication in neonates and infants. Taken together, these results provide new insights into the understanding of mecahnsims of HIV-1 vertical transmission, pathogenesis and disease progression in infected neonates and infants.

Introduction: This dissertation seeks to identify novel, potentially modifiable risk factors that could be used to reduce the risk of prostate cancer (PCa) progression. Aim 1 investigates the effects of obesity and smoking on PCa progression, aim 2 studies the effects of specific medication use on PCa progression, and aim 3 identifies factors associated with faster PCa progression.Methods: Data from 140 subjects from the Watchful Waiting study followed every 3 months for up to 5 years were used. Multiple linear regressions were used to determine associations with baseline PSA. PSA velocity (rate of change of PSA over time) was used as a surrogate marker for PCa progression. Mixed effect models were used to assess the effect of obesity, smoking and medication use on PSA velocity(aim1 and 2). For aim 3, subjects were categorized as slow, intermediate and fast progressors based on tertiles of PSA velocity. In addition to the above variables, age, Gleason score, chromogranin-A, family history, selenium and free PSA were investigated as determinants of faster PCa progression using multiple logistic regressions. Analyses were run using two models, comparing slow progressors to fast progressors (model1) and slow progressors to a combination of fast and intermediate progressors (model2).Results: Aspirin use was negatively associated with baseline PSA (coefficient = -0.39 and 95% confidence interval (CI):-0.612, -0.158). Aspirin effect was statistically significant in never smokers (coefficient = -0.54, 95% CI: -0.916, -0.170) but not in ever smokers (coefficient = -0.22, 95% CI: -0.505, 0.065). Ever smoking was statistically significantly associated with higher PSA velocity compared to never smoking (coefficient = -0.001, 95% CI: 0.0002, 0.002). In aim 3, pack-years of smoking were positively associated whereas aspirin use was negatively associated with high PSA velocity in both models. Odds Ratio and 95% CI for smoking and aspirin use for model1 and 2 respectively; 1.03 (0.92, 1.13), 1.02 (1.00, 1.03), 0.24(0.06, 0.94) and 0.26(0.10, 0.68).Conclusions: Although more studies are needed before recommendations can be made, if these results are borne to be true in other studies these modifiable risk factors can be potentially be used in prevention of PCa progression.

The purpose of this thesis was to develop a means of predicting future injury among nursing personnel working in a hospital system. Nursing has one of the highest incidence rates of musculoskeletal injuries among U.S. occupations. Endemic to the job are tasks such as rolling, sitting, standing, and transferring large, and often times, uncooperative patients. These tasks often place large biomechanical stresses on the musculoskeletal system and, in some cases, contribute to or cause a musculoskeletal injury. Given the current nursing shortage, it is imperative to keep nurses injury-free and productive so they can provide patient care services. Even though a large number of nursing personnel are injured every year and most are exposed to these high levels of biomechanical stress, the majority of nurses are injury-free. The question then arises "Why do some nurses have injuries while others do not?" The purpose of this thesis was to determine whether individual attributes in a population of nurses were associated with risk of future injury. The subject population was comprised of 140 nursing personnel at a local hospital system hired between April 1995 and February 1999. Data on individual attributes, such as patient demographics, previous injuries, posture, joint range of motion, flexibility, and muscular strength, was ascertained during a post-offer screening on these personnel. Twenty six (19%) nurses experienced an injury associated with the axial skeleton. Chi square test for homogeneity for the categorical predictor variables, and the Student's T-test for continuous predictor variables were used to determine if any individual attributes were associated with future injuries. None of the variables were associated with a risk of future axial skeletal injury. Practical application of these results for St. Joseph Regional Health Center, and possibly other acute care facilities, directs us to stop costly pre-employment/post-offer testing for the purpose of identifying injury prone nurse applicants. Secondly, it allows the focus of limited resources to be on making the job safer through administrative and engineering controls.

There is an upsurge of trend in studying the internationalization strategy (IS) of firms from China in international business (IB) research area. However studies which have done on Chinese firms in IB area are mostly focused on large state owned enterprises (SOEs), and there are few studies which have focused on the IS of Chinese privately owned  enterprises  (POEs).  This  study  used  the  framework  of  environment – internationalization  strategy – performance as  the theoretical support,  and  adopted  a case study method on a Chinese POE –Wonder Auto Technology Inc.. By analyzing the firm's ISs, the study results showed that Chinese POEs use export, foreign direct investment  (FDI),  and  strategic  alliance  as  their  ISs,  environmental  factors  from institution,  industry,  and  firm  level  could  influence  a  firm's  choices  of internationalization  strategies,  and  these  strategies  are  positive  related  to  the  firm's performance.

Syftet var att genom journalgranskning kartlägga i vilken omfattning identifiering och dokumentation görs av förekomsten av avoidable factors hos skallskadade patienter, av sjuksköterskor på en neurointensivvårdsavdelning (NIVA), samt undersöka överensstämmelsen mellan dokumentation och monitorvärden rörande intrakraniellt tryck (ICP), cerebralt perfusionstryck (CPP), systoliskt blodtryck (SBT) och temperatur som registrerats via övervakningsutrustningen. Dokumentationen gjordes med ledning av en befintlig guideline. Urvalet var konsekutivt och studien innefattade 25 patienter. Antalet bedömningar i studien var totalt 2176 stycken. Vid 85 % av bedömningstillfällena dokumenterade sjuksköterskan i bedömningsformuläret. För ICP, CPP och SBT bedömdes det vid 70-80 % av tillfällena som att inga problem hade funnits och vid 55 % av tillfällena bedömdes det att det inte varit några problem med temperaturen. Det fanns signifikanta skillnader mellan då avvikelser och inga avvikelser var dokumenterade för insulttiden för ICP, samt insulttiden och monitormedelvärde för CPP och temperatur. Med hjälp av guidelines och formulär för att dokumentera avoidable factors kan patienter med sekundära insulter identifieras i stor utsträckning. Insulttiden då värdena avviker från det normala väger in starkare i bedömningen än hur avvikande värdet varit. Att vårda skallskadade patienter innebär att ständigt väga behovet av omvårdnadsåtgärder mot risken för att det kan leda till sekundära insulter.

Three experiments have been completed to investigate whether and how a software technique called real-time image mosaicing applied to a restricted field of view (FOV) might influence target detection and path integration performance in simulated aerial search scenarios, representing local and global spatial awareness tasks respectively. The mosaiced FOV (mFOV) was compared to single FOV (sFOV) and one with double the single size (dFOV). In addition to advancing our understanding of visual information in mosaicing, the present study examines the advantages and limitations of a number of metrics used to evaluate performance in path integration tasks, with particular attention paid to measuring performance in identifying complex routes. The highlights of the results are summarized as follows, according to Experiments 1 through 3 respectively. 1. A novel response method for evaluating route identification performance was developed. The surmised benefits of the mFOV relative to sFOV and dFOV revealed no significant differences in performance for the relatively simple route shapes tested. Compared to the mFOV and dFOV conditions, target detection performance in the local task was found to be superior in the sFOV condition. 2. In order to appropriately quantify the observed differences in complex route selections made by the participants, a novel analysis method was developed using the Thurstonian Paired Comparisons Method. 3. To investigate the effect of display size and elevation angle (EA) in a complex route environment, a 2x3 experiment was conducted for the two spatial tasks, at a height selected from Experiment 2. Although no significant differences were found in the target detection task, contrasts in the Paired Comparisons Method results revealed that route identification performance were as hypothesised: mFOV > dFOV > sFOV for EA = 90°. Results were similar for EA = 45°, but with mFOV being no different than dFOV. As hypothesised, EA was found to have an effect on route selection performance, with a top down view performing better than an angled view for the mFOV and sFOV conditions.