Bachia heteropa

Number of Pages: 10Integrative BiologyGeological Science

The Value of Instability: An Investigation of Intra-Subject Variability in Brain Activity Among Obese Adolescent Girls

BACKGROUND: The present study investigated the value of intra-subject variability (ISV) as a metric for revealing differences in cognition and brain activation associated with an obese versus lean body mass. METHODS: Ninety-six adolescents with a lean body mass (BMI %-ile = 5-85), and 92 adolescents with an obese body mass (BMI %-ile \u3e=95), performed two tasks (Stroop and Go/NoGo) challenging response inhibition skills. The standard deviations and averages of their reaction time and P300 electroencephalographic responses to task stimuli were computed across trials. RESULTS: During the Go/NoGo task, the reaction times of subjects with an obese body mass were more variable than those of their lean body mass peers. Accompanying the greater ISV in reaction times was a group difference in P300 amplitude ISV in the opposite direction across both tasks. The effect sizes associated with these group differences in ISV were marginally greater than the effect sizes for the comparisons of the group means. CONCLUSIONS: ISV may be superior to the mean as a tool for differentiating groups without significant cognitive impairment. The co-occurrence of reduced ISV in P300 amplitude and elevated ISV in reaction time may indicate a constraint among obese adolescent girls in the range of information processing strategies and neural networks that can compete to optimize response output. It remains to be determined if this decrement in neural plasticity has implications for their problem solving skills as well as their response to weight management interventions

The Rise and Fall of the Miranda Warnings in Popular Culture

While Dickerson\u27s rationale is certainly correct in presuming that those over thirty have already learned about the Miranda warning from decades of television, younger generations only have today\u27s Miranda-less programming on which to form their assumptions about law enforcement. Miranda can still be found on television, but its presence has severely diminished over the years. If this trend continues, how will America\u27s current youth internalize the Miranda warning in the way older generations have? Near-universal awareness of Miranda is an artifact of a shared popular culture in which the repetition of the warnings was pervasive and inescapable. But how can that level of awareness not dissipate when the portrayal of Miranda in popular culture has become minimal, nearly obsolete? If Miranda continues disappearing from popular culture, how might a future Supreme Court reevaluate the importance of Miranda and the holding of Dickerson? In fifteen or twenty years, would the rationale of Dickerson still make any sense? The Miranda warning--once an integral part of American culture--may disappear as easily as television shows that are cancelled and quickly forgotten

Healthy People/Healthy Economy: Annual Report Card 2014

This fourth annual Healthy People/Healthy Economy Report Card makes the case once again that health and wellness are essential to the future of the Commonwealth. This Report Card outlines more than a dozen complementary policies and practices to improve health and prevent disease, and it is critical that we adopt them.This year, the Report Card intensifies its focus on health at both ends of the lifespan— young children and seniors. Equally important, it stresses the urgent need for action to improve health at the neighborhood and community level in order to enhance lives and meet the Commonwealth's new goals for controlling health care costs.Massachusetts is now focused squarely on the difficult task of controlling its health care spending. With the enactment of Chapter 224 in 2012, the Commonwealth became the third U.S. state, following Maryland and Vermont, to assert control over all public and private health care spending. Under Chapter 224, the Commonwealth aims to keep the rate of increase in total health care spending equal to or less than the state's economic growth rate. This ambitious goal builds upon the state's achievement of the highest rate of health insurance in the country, with about 96 percent of residents covered. While people who live in Massachusetts are already among the healthiest in the United States, there are many areas for improvement, and making those improvements is key to controlling future costs.Let's look at the record.Massachusetts ranks high among the states on most health indicators. One well-regarded national report, America's Health Rankings, rates Massachusetts as the 4th-healthiest state in the country. Yet measures like these mask important and costly problems.For example, even though the Commonwealth is among the states with the lowest levels of overweight, obesity and illnesses related to unhealthy weight, including Type 2 diabetes, the overall national trend has been consistently negative. In Massachusetts: - The percentage of obese people has doubled since 1990, from approximately 10 percent to more than 20 percent.- The number of cases of diabetes skyrocketed 80 percent between 1995 and 2010.- The cost impact of diabetes, which is estimated to be more than $6 billion per year, will escalate unless the current trend is reversed.- Equity issues remain, as African Americans are more likely to report that they are in fair or poor health compared to whites (about 18 percent vs. 12.5 percent), and Hispanics are much more likely to report poor health status (27 percent).- Low-income residents are much more likely to characterize their health as fair or poor (29 percent of residents earning less than$25,000, compared to 4.7 percent of residents earning more than $75,000 per year).- People who have completed high school or college are much more likely to report their health as good compared to those who have not finished school (Only 6 percent of college graduates characterized their health as fair or poor, compared to nearly 35 percent among those who did not finish high school).

Knowledge and Perceptions of Electronic Cigarette Use among Pregnant Women

poster abstractThe association between maternal tobacco smoke exposure and restricted fetal growth has been well studied. However, the safety of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) is quite controversial among pregnant women and the public. Research on the health effects of e-cigarette use during pregnancy is limited, particularly because of the health risks and ethical considerations. However, there is concern about the effects of the nicotine on fetal health from e-cigarettes. Some women’s beliefs about e-cigarettes are influenced by information that e-cigarettes may be beneficial as a way to decrease the number of tobacco cigarettes smoked. We conducted a systematic review of the literature to explore the knowledge and perceptions of e-cigarette use among pregnant women. Using pre-designated inclusion and exclusion criteria, relevant articles were located and reviewed searching PubMed, EMBASE, EBSCOhost, CINAHL Complete, and the reference lists of related articles. Full text, English language, peer-reviewed articles relevant to pregnant women’s knowledge and perceptions of e-cigarettes were reviewed. Of the thirty studies, six met the inclusion criteria. The following findings were common among the studies reviewed: 1) study participants had inaccurate information regarding the amount of nicotine in ecigarettes and the effects on the fetus; 2) e-cigarettes were perceived as safe alternatives and could be used for smoking cessation; 3) using e-cigarettes caused less negative side effects than traditional cigarettes; and 4) information obtained from the media about e-cigarettes was confusing for pregnant women. The findings support the need for healthcare providers to assess e-cigarette use among pregnant women and provide accurate information regarding e-cigarettes and the potential impact of use during pregnancy

Analytical uncertainty propagation for multi-period stochastic optimal power flow

The increase in renewable energy sources (RESs), like wind or solar power, results in growing uncertainty also in transmission grids. This affects grid stability through fluctuating energy supply and an increased probability of overloaded lines. One key strategy to cope with this uncertainty is the use of distributed energy storage systems (ESSs). In order to securely operate power systems containing renewables and use storage, optimization models are needed that both handle uncertainty and apply ESSs. This paper introduces a compact dynamic stochastic chance-constrained DC optimal power flow (CC-OPF) model, that minimizes generation costs and includes distributed ESSs. Assuming Gaussian uncertainty, we use affine policies to obtain a tractable, analytically exact reformulation as a second-order cone problem (SOCP). We test the new model on five different IEEE networks with varying sizes of 5, 39, 57, 118 and 300 nodes and include complexity analysis. The results show that the model is computationally efficient and robust with respect to constraint violation risk. The distributed energy storage system leads to more stable operation with flattened generation profiles. Storage absorbed RES uncertainty, and reduced generation cost

Healthy People/Healthy Economy: A Five-Year Review and Five Priorities for the Future

The first Report Card (2011) identified a dozen priorities for decisive action to improve health in Massachusetts. The need to act was summed up in the title of our first report, The Boston Paradox, published in 2007. As we saw it, Massachusetts had "plenty of health care, but not enough health." The Commonwealth ranked high on many measures of health status and health care compared to the rest of the United States. But it was not immune to risks such as rising rates of overweight, obesity and diabetes that threatened to increase the burden of illness on many families, to drive up health-care costs that were already too high, and to sap the economic vitality of the state.So how have we done? Clear signs have emerged that rates of growth in overweight and obesity in the Massachusetts population at large have stayed flat over the last two to three years. Similarly, overweight and obesity have leveled off among youth in several high-risk communities aided by the Commonwealth's Mass in Motion program. We have seen a widespread effort to promote a "culture of health."A real culture of health requires investment of real dollars in priorities that shape our lifelong health. Here there have been encouraging signs as well.In 2011 we documented a "mismatch": increased health care spending by the Commonwealth came at the expense of investment in crucial long-term determinants of health such as education and public health programs. Since then, the Commonwealth's spending on health care and other health-related priorities has come closer into balance.But it is far too early to give ourselves good grades. First, it remains to be seen whether the unhealthy weight gain in Massachusetts has stopped for good. After all, America's obesity crisis has been more than 30 years in the making. In Massachusetts, rates of overweight, obesity and related conditions such as diabetes remain at historically high levels. Disparities in rates and resulting health risks among African-American and Latino residents remain stubbornly high. There is an especially urgent need for addressing what can be termed "ZIP-code disparities," or huge differences in health between affluent communities and low-income, high-risk urban neighborhoods throughout the state.And while Massachusetts adults are among the nation's healthiest, the state's youth consistently fall in the middle of the pack for risks such as overweight and obesity, with especially troubling numbers for the youngest children. These facts do not bode well for our economic future.It likewise remains to be seen whether the Commonwealth's tentative steps toward a better balance can be sustained in state expenditures on both health care and the determinants of health. The growth in health-care spending in Massachusetts has slowed in the last two to three years, but experts are divided on whether this trend will continue. Meanwhile, recent budget increases for public health and other health-related programs have not come close to making up for cuts in real inflation-adjusted spending suffered over the last 15 years.And so as Governor Baker, the Legislature and community leaders reset the state's agenda, we offer one overarching goal and five specific recommendations for further action. The Commonwealth's overarching goal should be to make steady progress toward a culture of health. To make this a reality, Massachusetts officials need to fully embrace the "health in all policies" approach that many experts and health-care leaders see as essential if we are to improve health, avoid unnecessary spending, and sustain our economic vitality. Nearly every government action, from capital planning and construction to the design or reform of programs, represents an opportunity to contribute to better health for all residents

The role of the inflammasome in the respiratory innate immune response to viruses and pollutants: insights for asthma pathogenesis

The respiratory mucosal innate immune system is composed of both structural cells, such as airway epithelial cells, and immune cells, such as macrophages, that together determine the appropriate immune response to inhaled stimuli. These cells use pattern recognition receptors to distinguish between harmless and harmful stimuli by recognizing conserved microbial pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) and endogenously derived damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) from damaged tissue. Inappropriate immune responses to normally innocuous stimuli underpin the pathogenesis of a number of immune disorders, including asthma, a chronic inflammatory disease of the airway typified by difficulty breathing in response to a trigger. In this dissertation, we explored the contribution of the inflammasome signaling complex to respiratory mucosal host defense against two sources of asthma exacerbation: influenza A virus infection and inhalation of the oxidant air pollutant ozone (O3). The inflammasome is an innate immune complex composed of a pattern recognition receptor, the protease caspase-1, and an adaptor protein (PYCARD) that when formed induces activation of caspase-1-mediated processing of the pro-inflammatory mediators IL-1B and IL-18 or cell death. Our results show that caspase-1 and the inflammasome contribute to the airway epithelial cell innate immune response to influenza and that this pathway is modified by asthma, suggesting a role for caspase-1 in virus-induced asthma exacerbation. Using a mouse model of allergic airway inflammation, we also show that caspase-1 may be involved in the development of allergic asthma, though its function in asthma development is complex. In the context of O3, we found increased presence of several DAMPs that may activate inflammasome signaling in the airway of healthy volunteers exposed to O3, but no evidence to suggest that inflammasome signaling strongly contributes to the innate immune response to O3. Finally, we identified a mechanism by which O3 alters the interaction between epithelial cells and macrophages leading to the accumulation of DAMPs that may activate innate immune responses in the lung. In summary, our results shed light on the function of the inflammasome in the human respiratory innate immune response to viruses and pollutants, and provide insight on the contribution of inflammasome signaling to asthma pathogenesis.Doctor of Philosoph

Factors Impacting Transgender Patients’ Discomfort with Their Family Physicians: A Respondent-Driven Sampling Survey

BACKGROUND: Representing approximately 0.5% of the population, transgender (trans) persons in Canada depend on family physicians for both general and transition-related care. However, physicians receive little to no training on this patient population, and trans patients are often profoundly uncomfortable and may avoid health care. This study examined factors associated with patient discomfort discussing trans health issues with a family physician in Ontario, Canada. METHODS: 433 trans people age 16 and over were surveyed using respondent-driven sampling for the Trans PULSE Project; 356 had a family physician. Weighted logistic regression models were fit to produce prevalence risk ratios (PRRs) via average marginal predictions, for transmasculine (n = 184) and transfeminine (n = 172) trans persons. RESULTS: Among the 83.1% (95% CI = 77.4, 88.9) of trans Ontarians who had a family physician, approximately half reported discomfort discussing trans health issues. 37.2% of transmasculine and 38.1% of transfeminine persons reported at least one trans-specific negative experience. In unadjusted analysis, sociodemographics did not predict discomfort, but those who planned to medically transition sex, but had not begun, were more likely to report discomfort (transmasculine: PRR = 2.62 (95% CI = 1.44, 4.77); transfeminine: PRR = 1.85 (95% CI = 1.08, 3.15)). Adjusted for other factors, greater perceived physician knowledge about trans issues was associated with reduced likelihood of discomfort, and previous trans-specific negative experiences with a family physician with increased discomfort. Transfeminine persons who reported three or more types of negative experiences were 2.26 times as likely, and transmasculine persons 1.61 times as likely, to report discomfort. In adjusted analyses, sociodemographic associations differed by gender, with being previously married or having higher education associated with increased risk of discomfort among transfeminine persons, but decreased risk among transmasculine persons. CONCLUSIONS: Within this transgender population, discomfort in discussing trans health issues with a family physician was common, presenting a barrier to accessing primary care despite having a regular family physician and “universal” health insurance