Dr. Barbara Higdon: Let It Begin With Me

College and university leadership has been analyzed in many ways using critiques of leadership styles, reviews of issues and individual philosophies. An examination of Dr. Barbara Higdon’s career and impact as an educator and educational leader will add to the story of women educational leaders in the United States. The record of such would be incomplete without her story

Using Electronic Drug Monitor Feedback to Improve Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy Among HIV-Positive Patients in China

Effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) requires excellent adherence. Little is known about how to improve ART adherence in many HIV/AIDS-affected countries, including China. We therefore assessed an adherence intervention among HIV-positive patients in southwestern China. Eighty subjects were enrolled and monitored for 6 months. Sixty-eight remaining subjects were randomized to intervention/control arms. In months 7–12, intervention subjects were counseled using EDM feedback; controls continued with standard of care. Among randomized subjects, mean adherence and CD4 count were 86.8 vs. 83.8% and 297 vs. 357 cells/μl in intervention vs. control subjects, respectively. At month 12, among 64 subjects who completed the trial, mean adherence had risen significantly among intervention subjects to 96.5% but remained unchanged in controls. Mean CD4 count rose by 90 cells/μl and declined by 9 cells/μl among intervention and control subjects, respectively. EDM feedback as a counseling tool appears promising for management of HIV and other chronic diseases.Boston University and the Office of Health and Nutrition of the United States Agency for International Development (GHS-A-00-03-00030-00); World Health Organization; United States Centers for Disease Control; National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (K23 AI 62208); Mid-Career Mentoring Award (K24 RR020300

Magnetism, X-rays, and Accretion Rates in WD 1145+017 and other Polluted White Dwarf Systems

This paper reports circular spectropolarimetry and X-ray observations of several polluted white dwarfs including WD 1145+017, with the aim to constrain the behavior of disk material and instantaneous accretion rates in these evolved planetary systems. Two stars with previously observed Zeeman splitting, WD 0322-019 and WD 2105-820, are detected above 5 sigma and > 1 kG, while WD 1145+017, WD 1929+011, and WD 2326+049 yield (null) detections below this minimum level of confidence. For these latter three stars, high-resolution spectra and atmospheric modeling are used to obtain limits on magnetic field strengths via the absence of Zeeman splitting, finding B* < 20 kG based on data with resolving power R near 40 000. An analytical framework is presented for bulk Earth composition material falling onto the magnetic polar regions of white dwarfs, where X-rays and cyclotron radiation may contribute to accretion luminosity. This analysis is applied to X-ray data for WD 1145+017, WD 1729+371, and WD 2326+049, and the upper bound count rates are modeled with spectra for a range of plasma kT = 1 - 10 keV in both the magnetic and non-magnetic accretion regimes. The results for all three stars are consistent with a typical dusty white dwarf in a steady-state at 1e8 - 1e9 g/s. In particular, the non-magnetic limits for WD 1145+017 are found to be well below previous estimates of up to 1e12 g/s, and likely below 1e10 g/s, thus suggesting the star-disk system may be average in its evolutionary state, and only special in viewing geometry.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables; accepted to MNRA

Birth, life and death of a cyclonic eddy in the Southern Ocean

The ACC is a climatically relevant frontal structure of global importance that regularly develops instabilities which grow into meanders that eventually evolve into long-lived cyclonic eddies. These eddies exhibit sustain primary productivity that can last several months fuelled by local resupply of nutrients. During April-May 2015 we conducted an intensive field experiment in the Southern Ocean (SMILES) where we sampled and tracked an ACC meander as it developed into an eddy and later vanished some 90 days later. The meander and later eddy physical characteristics were observed with a combination of high resolution hydrography, ADCP and turbulence observations in addition to surface and depth resolved biogeochemical observations of nutrients and phytoplankton. The life and death of the eddy was subsequently tracked through ARGO, BIO-ARGO and remote sensing

Operationalising and measuring language dominance

The paper offers a new way to measure language ability in bilinguals, based on measures of lexical richness. The validity of proposed approach is tested in a variety of ways

Reversibility of Apixaban Anticoagulation with a Four-Factor Prothrombin Complex Concentrate in Healthy Volunteers.

It was hypothesized that the four-factor prothrombin complex concentrate (4F-PCC) Kcentra 25 unit/kg would reverse impairment of thrombin generation in healthy volunteers dosed with apixaban to steady state. In this randomized, two-period crossover, assessor-blinded trial, 12 healthy subjects received 5 mg apixaban every 12 h. Three h after the fifth dose, four-factor prothrombin complex concentrate (4F-PCC) 25 unit/kg or saline were infused. Serial blood samples were assessed for thrombin generation using PPP-reagent and PPP-reagent low, anti-Xa, PT, and PTT assays. Geometric mean ratio was calculated at 30 min postinfusion, and at 24, 48, and 72 h. Peak thrombin generation was 76% higher at 30 min postinfusion with 4F-PCC (p = 0.025). The difference declined to 24% at 24 h and resolved by 48 h. Other thrombin generation parameters were also partially normalized. There was no difference between 4F-PCC and saline in anti-Xa assessment at 30 min or later time points

The variable relationship between arm and hand use: a rationale for using finger magnetometry to complement wrist accelerometry when measuring daily use of the upper extremity.

Wrist-worn accelerometers are becoming more prevalent as a means to assess use of the impaired upper extremity in daily life after stroke. However, wrist accelerometry does not measure joint movements of the hand, which are integral to functional use of the upper extremity. In this study, we used a custom-built, non-obtrusive device called the manumeter to measure both arm use (via wrist accelerometry) and hand use (via finger magnetometry) of a group of unimpaired subjects while they performed twelve motor tasks at three intensities. We also gave the devices to four stroke subjects and asked them to wear them for six hours a day for one month. From the in-lab testing we found that arm use was a strong predictor of hand use for individual tasks, but that the slope of the relationship varied by up to a factor of ~12 depending on the task being performed. Consistent with this, in the daily use data collected from stroke subjects we found a broad spread in the relationship between arm and hand use. These results suggest that analyzing the spread of the relationship between daily hand and arm use will give more insight into upper extremity recovery than wrist accelerometry or finger magnetometry alone, because the spread reflects the nature of the daily tasks performed as well as the amount of upper extremity use