Dynamics of living cells in a cytomorphological state space.

Cells are nonequilibrium systems that exchange matter and energy with the environment to sustain their metabolic needs. The nonequilibrium nature of this system presents considerable challenges to developing a general theory describing its behavior; however, when studied at appropriate spatiotemporal scales, the behavior of ensembles of nonequilibrium systems can resemble that of a system at equilibrium. Here we apply this principle to a population of cells within a cytomorphological state space and demonstrate that cellular transition dynamics within this space can be described using equilibrium formalisms. We use this framework to map the effective energy landscape underlying the cytomorphological state space of a population of mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) and identify topographical nonuniformity in this space, indicating nonuniform occupation of cytomorphological states within an isogenic population. The introduction of exogenous apoptotic agents fundamentally altered this energy landscape, inducing formation of additional energy minima that correlated directly with changes in sensitivity to apoptosis induction. An equilibrium framework allows us to describe the behavior of an ensemble of single cells, suggesting that although cells are complex nonequilibrium systems, the application of formalisms derived from equilibrium thermodynamics can provide insight into the basis of nongenetic heterogeneities within cell populations, as well as the relationship between cytomorphological and functional heterogeneity

Abundance, distribution and population characteristics of Western Grey Kangaroos (Macropus fuliginosus, Desmarest 1817) in Yellagonga Regional Park

Yellagonga Regional Park is located in the northwest corridor of Perth and constitutes 1400 hectares of wetlands, parkland, open forest and open woodland. Few studies have been conducted on the native fauna in the Park\u27s upland habitats. For this reason, a study of the abundance and distribution of western grey kangaroos (Macropus fuliginosus) was conducted. A walked survey using direct counts and individual recognition of kangaroos during winter, recorded a total of 123 kangaroos, 51 pouch young and 23 unidentified individuals in Yellagonga Regional Park, and a further 24 kangaroos and 18 pouch young at Edith Cowan University\u27s Joondalup campus. Two populations were identified, one alongside the north and northwest of Lake Joondalup and the other in the southern end of the Park between Woodvale Drive and Whitfords Avenue. Individuals in the northern population migrated freely between Yellagonga Regional Park and adjacent areas, while those in the southern population were mostly confined within the Park. Eight kangaroos sighted at Edith Cowan University\u27s Joondalup Campus were also recorded in Yellagonga Regional Park and individuals sighted north of Lake Joondalup moved between Yellagonga Regional Park and Neerabup National Park. Both populations had highly biased female ratios that were attributed to higher mortality among the adult males, missed sightings and greater movement of males. Macropus fuliginosus did not show a preference for open woodland or open forest habitats. Distribution of the northern population was influenced by both understorey density and levels of human activity, while distribution of the southern population was mostly influenced by human disturbance. A low-level of management may be needed to ensure that future developments within and adjacent the Park do not limit the ranges of individuals or reduce the viability of populations

Politics of Health: the 2013 Integration Policy’s Effect on Immigrant Access to Care

In September of 2013, King Mohammed VI announced a regularization campaign, implementing a new policy of integration with respect to undocumented immigrants in the country. Deviating from former official discourse, the new measure allowed in principle for—among provision of residence cards and lifted criminalization of undocumented immigrants—greater immigrant access to healthcare services. The purpose of the following research was to assess whether the effects of this new provision are being positively felt on the ground in ensuring inclusivity of health services.Individual interviews on personal experiences with the Moroccan healthcare system were held with members of various immigrant sub-populations: refugees, asylum seekers, irregular immigrants, and documented immigrants. Technical and administrative perspectives were also obtained from health professionals as well as NGO officials.The results showed a lack of homogeneity in immigrant engagement with public healthcare; experiences were dictated by a multitude of individual politics. However, from the qualitative data, it was found that perception of the reality and lack of information placed limits on the recent change’s efficacy in improving health access. Confounding factors of typical hospital procedures continue to disproportionately affect immigrants

Barriers to Head and Neck Cancer Treatment in Rural Populations

Head and Neck cancer (HNC) patients have unique outcomes and resource needs. They often experience debilitating speech, nutrition, respiratory, and psychological problems, requiring a multidisciplinary team. Additionally, they also require more support in terms of alcohol and tobacco support, whether that be an addiction medicine specialist or a support group. The coordination of these specialists is difficult in a rural setting with limited resources. Furthermore, HNC is more prevalent in developing countries and rural populations due to use of known etiological factors like tobacco and alcohol. The combination of high prevalence and low resources in rural populations may lead to suboptimal treatment and worst outcomes

Investigating lupus retention in care to inform interventions for disparities reduction: an observational cohort study.

BACKGROUND:Systemic lupus erythematous (SLE) disproportionately impacts patients of color and socioeconomically disadvantaged patients. Similar disparities in HIV were reduced through a World Health Organization-endorsed Care Continuum strategy targeting "retention in care," defined as having at least two annual visits or viral load lab tests. Using similar definitions, this study aimed to examine predictors of lupus retention in care, to develop an SLE Care Continuum and inform interventions to reduce disparities. We hypothesized that Black patients and those residing in disadvantaged neighborhoods would have lower retention in care. METHODS:Abstractors manually validated 545 potential adult cases with SLE codes in 2013-2014 using 1997 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) or 2012 Systemic Lupus Erythematosus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) criteria. We identified 397 SLE patients who met ACR or SLICC criteria for definite lupus, had at least one baseline rheumatology visit, and were alive through 2015. Retention in care was defined as having two ambulatory rheumatology visits or SLE labs (e.g., complement tests) during the outcome year 2015, analogous to HIV retention definitions. Explanatory variables included age, sex, race, ethnicity, smoking status, neighborhood area deprivation index (ADI), number of SLE criteria, and nephritis. We used multivariable logistic regression to test our hypothesis and model predictors of SLE retention in care. RESULTS:Among 397 SLE patients, 91% were female, 56% White, 39% Black, and 5% Hispanic. Notably, 51% of Black versus 5% of White SLE patients resided in the most disadvantaged ADI neighborhood quartile. Overall, 60% met visit-defined retention and 27% met complement lab-defined retention in 2015. Retention was 59% lower for patients in the most disadvantaged neighborhood quartile (adjusted OR 0.41, CI 0.18, 0.93). No statistical difference was seen based on age, sex, race, or ethnicity. More SLE criteria and non-smoking predicted greater retention. CONCLUSIONS:Disadvantaged neighborhood residence was the strongest factor predicting poor SLE retention in care. Future interventions could geo-target disadvantaged neighborhoods and design retention programs with vulnerable populations to improve retention in care and reduce SLE outcome disparities

Calm Multi-Baryon Operators

Outstanding problems in nuclear physics require input and guidance from lattice QCD calculations of few baryons systems. However, these calculations suffer from an exponentially bad signal-to-noise problem which has prevented a controlled extrapolation to the physical point. The variational method has been applied very successfully to two-meson systems, allowing for the extraction of the two-meson states very early in Euclidean time through the use of improved single hadron operators. The sheer numerical cost of using the same techniques in two-baryon systems has been prohibitive. We present an alternate strategy which offers some of the same advantages as the variational method while being significantly less numerically expensive. We first use the Matrix Prony method to form an optimal linear combination of single baryon interpolating fields generated from the same source and different sink interpolators. Very early in Euclidean time this linear combination is numerically free of excited state contamination, so we coin it a calm baryon. This calm baryon operator is then used in the construction of the two-baryon correlation functions. To test this method, we perform calculations on the WM/JLab iso-clover gauge configurations at the SU(3) flavor symmetric point with m{\pi} $\sim$ 800 MeV --- the same configurations we have previously used for the calculation of two-nucleon correlation functions. We observe the calm baryon removes the excited state contamination from the two-nucleon correlation function to as early a time as the single-nucleon is improved, provided non-local (displaced nucleon) sources are used. For the local two-nucleon correlation function (where both nucleons are created from the same space-time location) there is still improvement, but there is significant excited state contamination in the region the single calm baryon displays no excited state contamination.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, proceedings for LATTICE 201