Developing a cultural competence assessment tool for people in recovery from racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds: the journey, challenges and lessons learned.

In 1997, Maryland implemented a new managed care mental health system. Consumer satisfaction, evaluation and cultural competency were considered high priorities for the new system. While standardized tools for measuring consumer satisfaction were readily available, no validated, reliable and standardized tool existed to measure the perception of people from minority groups receiving mental health services. The MHA*/MHP* Cultural Competency Advisory Group (CCAG) accepted the challenge of developing a consumer assessment tool for cultural competency. The CCAG, composed of people in recovery, clinicians and administrators used their collective knowledge and experiences to develop a 52-item tool that met standards for validity and reliability. Consultation from a researcher helped to further develop the tool into one possessing tremendous potential for statewide implementation within Maryland's Public Mental Health System. Recognizing the limitations of the study and the need for further research, this instrument is a work in progress. Strategies to improve the instrument are currently underway with the Mental Hygiene Administration's Systems Evaluation Center of the University of Maryland and several national researchers

Mutation Clusters from Cancer Exome

We apply our statistically deterministic machine learning/clustering algorithm *K-means (recently developed in https://ssrn.com/abstract=2908286) to 10,656 published exome samples for 32 cancer types. A majority of cancer types exhibit mutation clustering structure. Our results are in-sample stable. They are also out-of-sample stable when applied to 1,389 published genome samples across 14 cancer types. In contrast, we find in- and out-of-sample instabilities in cancer signatures extracted from exome samples via nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF), a computationally costly and non-deterministic method. Extracting stable mutation structures from exome data could have important implications for speed and cost, which are critical for early-stage cancer diagnostics such as novel blood-test methods currently in development.Comment: 84 page

*K-means and Cluster Models for Cancer Signatures

We present *K-means clustering algorithm and source code by expanding statistical clustering methods applied in https://ssrn.com/abstract=2802753 to quantitative finance. *K-means is statistically deterministic without specifying initial centers, etc. We apply *K-means to extracting cancer signatures from genome data without using nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF). *K-means' computational cost is a fraction of NMF's. Using 1,389 published samples for 14 cancer types, we find that 3 cancers (liver cancer, lung cancer and renal cell carcinoma) stand out and do not have cluster-like structures. Two clusters have especially high within-cluster correlations with 11 other cancers indicating common underlying structures. Our approach opens a novel avenue for studying such structures. *K-means is universal and can be applied in other fields. We discuss some potential applications in quantitative finance.Comment: 124 pages, 69 figures; a trivial typo corrected; to appear in Biomolecular Detection and Quantificatio

Recent QCD results from the Tevatron

Four years after the shutdown of the Tevatron proton-antiproton collider, the two Tevatron experiments, CDF and DZero, continue producing important results that test the theory of the strong interaction, Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). The experiments exploit the advantages of the data sample acquired during the Tevatron Run II, stemming from the unique pp initial state, the clean environment at the relatively low Tevatron instantaneous luminosities, and the good understanding of the data sample after many years of calibrations and optimizations. A summary of results using the full integrated luminosity is presented, focusing on measurements of prompt photon production, weak boson production associated with jets, and non-perturbative QCD processes.Comment: Presentation at the DPF 2015 Meeting of the American Physical Society Division of Particles and Fields, Ann Arbor, Michigan, August 4-8, 201

A report on the Department of Health ‘Walking Cities’ initiative in Birmingham, Cambridge, Leeds and Bradford, Norwich and Manchester

Overview This report on the five ‘Walking Cities’ was commissioned by Beelin Baxter, Senior Physical Activity Policy Officer at the Department of Health (DH). The aim was to synthesise the findings from the reports submitted to DH, highlight innovative practice and to enable learning for the future. This report was written by Sarah Hanson, Research Associate and Professor Andy Jones, both from the Norwich Medical School at the University of East Anglia. Executive summary and recommendations The Department of Health funded five ‘Walking Cities’ in 2013 – 2015 to develop walking initiatives. There was great variety in the projects and evidence of much activity. The aim was also to target the particularly inactive and those who were less well socially situated. Whilst there are useful transferable lessons to be learned from this project, the poor reporting did not allow the assessment of how well aims were achieved. Where baseline measurements were recorded it appeared that participants were already physically active. Where interventions were particularly successful, they built on ‘grass-roots’ community assets already in existence which took them to the heart of a community. The use of community based assets was particularly important in accessing those who are harder to reach and hence the learnings from this programme support assessing and utilising the assets in a community. There were attempts to work with health professionals with direct referrals into the walking interventions. This met with very limited success and continues to represent a major missed opportunity in reaching those who are the most inactive and in poorest health. Due to the poor project reporting the mandated and full use of the Standard Evaluation Framework for Physical Activity is recommended for the future. There was limited outcomes reporting and this limited our evaluation of how successful the programme was at increasing physical activity. We would make the following two recommendations. Firstly, that the Standard Evaluation Framework for Physical Activity is mandated for future work and that practitioners are trained in how to use it. Secondly, we would recommend that we need to understand the missed opportunity of direct referrals from health professionals; why this is the case and why health professionals do not refer to walking interventions, such as group walks

Taxogenomics of the order Chlamydiales.

Bacterial classification is a long-standing problem for taxonomists and species definition itself is constantly debated among specialists. The classification of strict intracellular bacteria such as members of the order Chlamydiales mainly relies on DNA- or protein-based phylogenetic reconstructions because these organisms exhibit few phenotypic differences and are difficult to culture. The availability of full genome sequences allows the comparison of the performance of conserved protein sequences to reconstruct Chlamydiales phylogeny. This approach permits the identification of markers that maximize the phylogenetic signal and the robustness of the inferred tree. In this study, a set of 424 core proteins was identified and concatenated to reconstruct a reference species tree. Although individual protein trees present variable topologies, we detected only few cases of incongruence with the reference species tree, which were due to horizontal gene transfers. Detailed analysis of the phylogenetic information of individual protein sequences (i) showed that phylogenies based on single randomly chosen core proteins are not reliable and (ii) led to the identification of twenty taxonomically highly reliable proteins, allowing the reconstruction of a robust tree close to the reference species tree. We recommend using these protein sequences to precisely classify newly discovered isolates at the family, genus and species levels

A framework for cumulative risk assessment in the 21st century

The ILSI Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) has developed a framework to support a transition in the way in which information for chemical risk assessment is obtained and used (RISK21). The approach is based on detailed problem formulation, where exposure drives the data acquisition process in order to enable informed decision-making on human health safety as soon as sufficient evidence is available. Information is evaluated in a transparent and consistent way with the aim of optimizing available resources. In the context of risk assessment, cumulative risk assessment (CRA) poses additional problems and questions that can be addressed using the RISK21 approach. The focus in CRA to date has generally been on chemicals that have common mechanisms of action. Recently, concern has also been expressed about chemicals acting on multiple pathways that lead to a common health outcome, and non-chemical other conditions (non-chemical stressors) that can lead to or modify a common outcome. Acknowledging that CRAs, as described above, are more conceptually, methodologically and computationally complex than traditional single-stressor risk assessments, RISK21 further developed the framework for implementation of workable processes and procedures for conducting assessments of combined effects from exposure to multiple chemicals and non-chemical stressors. As part of the problem formulation process, this evidence-based framework allows the identification of the circumstances in which it is appropriate to conduct a CRA for a group of compounds. A tiered approach is then proposed, where additional chemical stressors and/or non-chemical modulating factors (ModFs) are considered sequentially. Criteria are provided to facilitate the decision on whether or not to include ModFs in the formal quantitative assessment, with the intention to help focus the use of available resources to have the greatest potential to protect public health

Молекулярно-генетичний поліморфізм сортів ячменю (Hordeum vulgare L.), виявлений методом AFLP

Проаналізовано молекулярно-генетичний поліморфізм сортів ячменю методом AFLP. Розроблено систему ідентифікації та диференціації сортів ячменю на основі AFLP-маркерів. Результати апробації на 19 сортах свідчать про високу диференційну здатність розробленої системи. Ідентифікація сортів може проводитись із використанням одного з двох запропонованих дискримінаційних наборів AFLP-маркерів. На основі розрахованих генетичних дистанцій побудовано дендрограму філогенетичних зв’язків між сортами, яка виявила відокремлене походження сортів пивоварного та кормового напрямків.Проанализирован молекулярно-генетический полиморфизм сортов ячменя методом AFLP. Разработана система идентификации и дифференциации сортов ячменя на основе AFLP-маркеров. Результаты апробации на 19 сортах свидетельствуют о высокой дифференцирующей способности разработанной системы. Идентификация сортов может проводиться с использованием одного из двух предложенных диск-риминационных наборов AFLP-маркеров. На основе рассчитанных генетических дистанций построена дендрограмма филогенетических связей между сортами, выявившая обособленное происхождение сортов пивоваренного и кормового направлений.Analysis of molecular-genetic polymorphism of barley varieties was performed using the AFLP-method. A system for identification and differentiation of barley varieties based on AFLP-markers was developed. Results of testing of 19 varieties indicate a high differential ability of the developed system. Identification of varieties can be conducted using one of two offered discriminatory sets of AFLP-markers. Based on the calculated genetic distances, a dendrogram of phylogenetic relations between varieties was constructed. The dendrogram revealed a separated origin of varieties of brewer and feed directions