Cross-cultural adaptation of a Spanish version of a previously validated HPV survey that evaluates dental students' knowledge, perception and clinical practices in Latin America

Background

The global incidence of oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) is increasing. Dental professionals play a key role in the detection of oral lesions that could lead to cancer. However, scientific-based HPV-OPC visual inspection guidelines are underdeveloped and HPV knowledge and awareness has been reported to be low among dental students and professionals. The present study adapted and performed pretesting of a multi-scale survey evaluating knowledge, perceptions, and clinical practices regarding HPV and HPV-OPC for Latin American Spanish-speaking populations.

Methods

A previously developed questionnaire for English-speaking dental students was translated to Spanish. The questionnaire was administered to first year dental students at two Latin American universities with dental programs. Internal consistencies were measured using Cronbach Alpha. Analyses were conducted in SAS Version 9.4.

Results

Data from a total of 114 students, a majority of the which were female (61%), and Hispanic/Latino(a)/Spanish (91%). The HPV, HPV-OPC, and HPV vaccine knowledge subscales demonstrated good internal consistency, the Cronbach’s alpha was 0.83, 0.75, and 0.86 respectively. The Barriers subscale had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.93, showing excellent internal consistency. The Clinical Procedures subscale, focused on factors surrounding dental students’ hypothetical clinical practice procedures, had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.86. The Scope of Practice scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.93.

Conclusions

Ultimately, this survey demonstrated reliability and applicability for the assessment of dental students’ knowledge, perceptions, and clinical practices regarding HPV and HPV-OPC in Latin America.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12903-022-02108-2.

Genomic variation among populations of threatened coral: Acropora cervicornis

Background

Acropora cervicornis, a threatened, keystone reef-building coral has undergone severe declines (>90 %) throughout the Caribbean. These declines could reduce genetic variation and thus hamper the species’ ability to adapt. Active restoration strategies are a common conservation approach to mitigate species' declines and require genetic data on surviving populations to efficiently respond to declines while maintaining the genetic diversity needed to adapt to changing conditions. To evaluate active restoration strategies for the staghorn coral, the genetic diversity of A. cervicornis within and among populations was assessed in 77 individuals collected from 68 locations along the Florida Reef Tract (FRT) and in the Dominican Republic.

Results

Genotyping by Sequencing (GBS) identified 4,764 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Pairwise nucleotide differences (π) within a population are large (~37 %) and similar to π across all individuals. This high level of genetic diversity along the FRT is similar to the diversity within a small, isolated reef. Much of the genetic diversity (>90 %) exists within a population, yet GBS analysis shows significant variation along the FRT, including 300 SNPs with significant F_ST values and significant divergence relative to distance. There are also significant differences in SNP allele frequencies over small spatial scales, exemplified by the large F_ST values among corals collected within Miami-Dade county.

Conclusions

Large standing diversity was found within each population even after recent declines in abundance, including significant, potentially adaptive divergence over short distances. The data here inform conservation and management actions by uncovering population structure and high levels of diversity maintained within coral collections among sites previously shown to have little genetic divergence. More broadly, this approach demonstrates the power of GBS to resolve differences among individuals and identify subtle genetic structure, informing conservation goals with evolutionary implications.

A stable droplet reactor for high temperature nanocrystal synthesis

We report a versatile capillary-based droplet reactor for the controlled synthesis of nanoparticles over a wide range of flow conditions and temperatures. The reactor tolerates large flow-rate differentials between individual reagent streams, and allows droplet composition to be varied independently of residence time and volume. The reactor was successfully applied to the synthesis of metal (Ag), metal-oxide (TiO(2)) and compound semiconductor (CdSe) nanoparticles, and in each case exhibited stable droplet flow over many hours of operation without fouling, even for reactions involving solid intermediates. For CdSe formed by the reaction of Cd oleate and Se, highly controlled growth could be achieved at temperatures of up to 250 °C, with emission spectra varying smoothly and reproducibly with temperature and flow-rate. The droplet reactor showed exceptional stability when operated under constant flow-rate and temperature conditions, yielding particles with well-defined band-edge emission spectra that did not vary over the course of a full day's continuous operation.