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Cancer and cardiovascular (CV) disease are the most prevalent diseases in the developed world. Evidence increasingly shows that these conditions are interlinked through common risk factors, coincident in an ageing population, and are connected biologically through some deleterious effects of anticancer treatment on CV health. Anticancer therapies can cause a wide spectrum of short- and long-term cardiotoxic effects. An explosion of novel cancer therapies has revolutionised this field and dramatically altered cancer prognosis. Nevertheless, these new therapies have introduced unexpected CV complications beyond heart failure. Common CV toxicities related to cancer therapy are defined, along with suggested strategies for prevention, detection and treatment. This ESMO consensus article proposes to define CV toxicities related to cancer or its therapies and provide guidance regarding prevention, screening, monitoring and treatment of CV toxicity. The majority of anticancer therapies are associated with some CV toxicity, ranging from asymptomatic and transient to more clinically significant and long-lasting cardiac events. It is critical however, that concerns about potential CV damage resulting from anticancer therapies should be weighed against the potential benefits of cancer therapy, including benefits in overall survival. CV disease in patients with cancer is complex and treatment needs to be individualised. The scope of cardio-oncology is wide and includes prevention, detection, monitoring and treatment of CV toxicity related to cancer therapy, and also ensuring the safe development of future novel cancer treatments that minimise the impact on CV health. It is anticipated that the management strategies discussed herein will be suitable for the majority of patients. Nonetheless, the clinical judgment of physicians remains extremely important; hence, when using these best clinical practices to inform treatment options and decisions, practitioners should also consider the individual circumstances of their patients on a case-by-case basis.

Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in using virtual reality (VR) technology to benefit instruction, especially in physics and related subjects. As VR devices improve and become more widely available, there remains a number of unanswered questions regarding the impact of VR on student learning and how best to use this technology in the classroom. On the topic of electrostatics, for example, a large, controlled, randomized study performed by Smith et al. [A controlled study of stereoscopic virtual reality in freshman electrostatics, "Proceedings of the 2017 Physics Education Research Conference, Cincinnati, OH," PER Conference series (2017), pp. 376-379], found that VR-based instruction had an overall negligible impact on student learning compared to videos or images. However, they did find a strong trend for students who reported frequent video game play to learn better from VR than other media. One possible interpretation of this result is that extended videogame play provides a kind of "training" that enables a student to learn more comfortably in the virtual environment. In the present work we consider if a VR training activity that is unrelated to electrostatics can help prepare students to learn electrostatics from subsequent VR instruction. We find that preliminary VR training leads to a small but statistically significant improvement in student performance on our electrostatics assessment. We also find that student reported game play is still correlated with higher scores on this metric.

We investigate the effects of guided group work sessions on graduate student performance on a quantum mechanics assessment. Data from a single large Midwestern university were taken over a five-year period, during which guided group work sessions were offered to accompany the graduate-level quantum mechanics course. Students were pre- and post-tested using a set of mostly conceptual items that we call the graduate quantum mechanics assessment. The reliability and validity of this assessment are addressed. A mixed linear model is used to analyze the dependence of post-test scores on factors such as group work attendance, pretest scores, GRE Physics scores, and others. We find a statistically significant effect of group work attendance on post-pre gains, specifically that attendance of one 60-min group work session improves performance on a related post-test item by 6.4%, administered 2-10 weeks after the session. We discuss the lack of a randomized control group and address possible confounding effects such as student self-selection, and attitudinal and motivational factors. Overall, the results of this study indicate that guided group work sessions at the graduate level can be feasible and effective. We note preliminary observations of differences in group interactions and classroom logistics compared to group work at the undergraduate level.

Quantum mechanics is a notoriously counterintuitive subject within physics and has been the subject of a number of studies at the undergraduate level, and a few pioneering studies at the graduate level. The sketching of wave functions in a confining well is in one sense one of the most basic activities in quantum mechanics. But in another sense, it may be viewed as a rather advanced skill, as it requires the coherent inclusion of a number of details of the wave function, such as wavelength, probability amplitude, and boundary conditions, among others. Although sketching a wave function is not a common activity at the graduate level, a great deal of graduate work is concerned with the aforementioned details, especially boundary conditions. Whether it is seen as a basic skill, or as linked to higher-level understanding, sketching a wave function is an ability that physics graduate students should have. Here, we report on graduate students' ability to sketch wave functions in an asymmetric potential well. We find that the frequency of many errors is not significantly reduced from pretest to posttest, meaning that many errors persist through to the end of graduate quantum mechanics instruction. We find that only 5% of graduate students tested can sketch the 2nd excited state wave function without errors. We include quantitative and diagrammatic descriptions of student errors covering a broader range of misunderstandings than has previously been identified, and we include interview information that speaks to the persistence of some of the errors.

Nernst coefficient measurements are a classic approach to investigate charge carrier scattering in both metals and semiconductors. However, such measurements are not commonly performed, despite the potential to inform material design strategies in applications such as thermoelectricity. As dedicated instruments are extremely scarce, we present here a room temperature apparatus to measure the low field Nernst coefficient (and magneto-Seebeck coefficient) in bulk polycrystalline samples. This apparatus is specifically designed to promote accurate and facile use, with the expectation that such an instrument will make Nernst measurements de rigueur. In this apparatus, sample loading and electrical contacts are all pressure-based and alignment is automatic. Extremely stable thermal control (10 mK of fluctuation when ΔT = 1 K) is achieved from actively cooled thermoelectric modules that operate as heaters or Peltier coolers. Magneto-Seebeck measurements are integrated into the system to correct for residual probe offsets. Data from the apparatus are provided on bulk polycrystalline samples of bismuth, InSb, and SnTe, including raw data to illustrate the process of calculating the Nernst coefficient. Finally, we review how Nernst measurements, in concert with Seebeck, Hall, and electrical resistivity, can be analyzed via the Boltzmann equation in the relaxation time approximation to self-consistently predict the Fermi level, effective mass, and energy-dependent relaxation time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study used Community Partnered Participatory Research (CPPR) to address low participation of racial and ethnic minorities in medical research and the lack of trust between underrepresented communities and researchers. Methods: Using a community and academic partnership in July 2012, residents of a South Los Angeles neighborhood were exposed to research recruitment strategies: referral by word-of-mouth, community agencies, direct marketing, and extant study participants. Results: Among 258 community members exposed to recruitment strategies, 79.8% completed the study. Exposed individuals identified their most important method for learning about the study as referral by study participants (39.8%), community agencies (30.6%), word-of-mouth (17.5%), or direct marketing promotion (12.1%). Study completion rates varied by recruitment method: referral by community agencies (88.7%), referral by participants (80.4%), direct marketing promotion (86.2%), word of mouth (64.3%). Conclusions: Although African American and Latino communities are often described as difficult to engage in research, we found high levels of research participation and completion when recruitment strategies emerged from the community itself. This suggests recruitment strategies based on CPPR principles represent an important opportunity for addressing health disparities and our high rates of research completion should provide optimism and a road map for next steps.

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) has been proposed as a potential target tissue against obesity and its related metabolic complications. Although the molecular and functional characteristics of BAT have been intensively studied in rodents, only a few studies have used human BAT specimens due to the difficulty of sampling human BAT deposits. We established a novel positron emission tomography and computed tomography-guided Bergström needle biopsy technique to acquire human BAT specimens from the supraclavicular area in human subjects. Forty-three biopsies were performed on 23 participants. The procedure was tolerated well by the majority of participants. No major complications were noted. Numbness (9.6%) and hematoma (2.3%) were the two minor complications noted, which fully resolved. Thus, the proposed biopsy technique can be considered safe with only minimal risk of adverse events. Adoption of the proposed method is expected to increase the sampling of the supraclavicular BAT depot for research purposes so as to augment the scientific knowledge of the biology of human BAT.