Interview with Yolande Bavan Member of Lambert, Hendricks and Bavan Vocalist, The Real Ambassadors, 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival Date of Interview: September 23, 2012

Dave and Iola Brubeck created The Real Ambassadors in the late 1950s. The jazz musical pointed out the absurdity of segregation and makes the case that artists such as Louis Armstrong are the best and real ambassadors to demonstrate a nation\u27s ideals. It was recorded in 1961 and performed live only once. Despite their efforts, the play never made it to stage. Here is a collection of letters, photographs, scripts, and audio that document the creation of The Real Ambassadors.https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/trai/1000/thumbnail.jp

A P2X receptor from the tardigrade species Hypsibius dujardini with fast kinetics and sensitivity to zinc and copper

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Orthologs of the vertebrate ATP gated P2X channels have been identified in <it>Dictyostelium </it>and green algae, demonstrating that the emergence of ionotropic purinergic signalling was an early event in eukaryotic evolution. However, the genomes of a number of animals including <it>Drosophila melanogaster </it>and <it>Caenorhabditis elegans</it>, both members of the Ecdysozoa superphylum, lack P2X-like proteins, whilst other species such as the flatworm <it>Schistosoma mansoni </it>have P2X proteins making it unclear as to what stages in evolution P2X receptors were lost. Here we describe the functional characterisation of a P2X receptor (<it>Hd</it>P2X) from the tardigrade <it>Hypsibius dujardini </it>demonstrating that purinergic signalling is preserved in some ecdysozoa.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>ATP (EC₅₀~44.5 μM) evoked transient inward currents in <it>Hd</it>P2X with millisecond rates of activation and desensitisation. <it>Hd</it>P2X is antagonised by pyridoxal-phosphate-6-azophenyl-2',4' disulfonic acid (IC₅₀15.0 μM) and suramin (IC₅₀22.6 μM) and zinc and copper inhibit ATP-evoked currents with IC₅₀values of 62.8 μM and 19.9 μM respectively. Site-directed mutagenesis showed that unlike vertebrate P2X receptors, extracellular histidines do not play a major role in coordinating metal binding in <it>Hd</it>P2X. However, H306 was identified as playing a minor role in the actions of copper but not zinc. Ivermectin potentiated responses to ATP with no effect on the rates of current activation or decay.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The presence of a P2X receptor in a tardigrade species suggests that both nematodes and arthropods lost their P2X genes independently, as both traditional and molecular phylogenies place the divergence between Nematoda and Arthropoda before their divergence from Tardigrada. The phylogenetic analysis performed in our study also clearly demonstrates that the emergence of the family of seven P2X channels in human and other mammalian species was a relatively recent evolutionary event that occurred subsequent to the split between vertebrates and invertebrates. Furthermore, several characteristics of <it>Hd</it>P2X including fast kinetics with low ATP sensitivity, potentiation by ivermectin in a channel with fast kinetics and distinct copper and zinc binding sites not dependent on histidines make <it>Hd</it>P2X a useful model for comparative structure-function studies allowing a better understanding of P2X receptors in higher organisms.</p

Inertial sensors for the assessment and treatment of shoulder pain

Subacromial shoulder pain is the third most common musculoskeletal complaint presenting to primary care. Despite the extensive amount of research carried out on the role of exercise-based rehabilitation, there remains uncertainty around the effectiveness of specific treatment strategies. Wearable sensors that enable practical monitoring of patient activity and objective measurement of movement could provide opportunities to address this problem. Magneto-inertial measurement units (MIMUs) offer clear advantages over existing motion capture systems, and can facilitate careful measurement of treatment implementation and response. There remains, however, a distinct lack of both technical and usability validation for the clinical application of these tools. The aim of this DPhil thesis was to develop a practical MIMU based motion capture system and investigate its value in providing meaningful and useful feedback on shoulder movement and shoulder rehabilitation. This began with the development and testing of a processing pathway to derive reliable kinematic data from a commercial MIMU sensor under controlled motion conditions representative of human movement. The sensors were subsequently incorporated into custom-made wearable accessories, and shoulder motion data was collected from 70 healthy volunteers and 45 patients with subacromial shoulder pain. Processing of raw inertial data to clinically meaningful output was performed in MATLAB using a combination of custom-written and open-access code. Investigations were performed to evaluate the validity of a range of MIMU derived metrics for the assessment of shoulder activity and functional performance. Finally, the use of a prototype end-to-end remote monitoring system, offering near-real time feedback, was studied in 15 patients undergoing a course of home rehabilitation. System accuracy, usability and perceived impact of the technology was evaluated. Metrics derived from an upper arm MIMU-based kinematic data demonstrated good psychometric properties in the assessment of patients with subacromial shoulder pain. Movement smoothness demonstrated reliability, known group validity and responsiveness to treatment. Metrics based on ranges of accelerometer and gyroscope data showed similar psychometric properties, as well as convergent validity, demonstrated by significant correlation with the Oxford Shoulder Score. Significant effect sizes for changes of these metrics following treatment were seen over a 12-week period. Implementing a single sensor setup, a fully automated processing pathway was validated for independent recognition and classification of shoulder exercise activity, with up to 97.2% overall accuracy. Quantitative and qualitative assessment of usability demonstrated that patients were comfortable with this form of monitoring and many felt these systems could improve their engagement with treatment. MIMU based biofeedback systems offer a practical and reliable approach to measuring treatment compliance and recovery of function in patients with subacromial shoulder pain. They also have the potential to address factors that influence adherence, through selfmonitoring and the provision of automated feedback. Through the development of novel data processing techniques and testing under clinically relevant conditions, this thesis has made several contributions to this field of study and provides translatable findings for researchers and clinicians aiming to employ wearable technologies for the assessment and treatment of musculoskeletal disease.</p

Interview with Yolande Bavan Member of Lambert, Hendricks and Bavan Vocalist, The Real Ambassadors, 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival Date of Interview: September 23, 2012

Dave and Iola Brubeck created The Real Ambassadors in the late 1950s. The jazz musical pointed out the absurdity of segregation and makes the case that artists such as Louis Armstrong are the best and real ambassadors to demonstrate a nation\u27s ideals. It was recorded in 1961 and performed live only once. Despite their efforts, the play never made it to stage. Here is a collection of letters, photographs, scripts, and audio that document the creation of The Real Ambassadors.https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/trai/1000/thumbnail.jp

MicroRNA epigenetics: a new avenue for wound healing research.

A group of small non-coding RNA molecules, termed microRNAs (miRNAs), have generated considerable interest in recent years due to their central role in a growing number of biologic processes. Serving as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression, miRNAs have also emerged as critical factors in the pathogenesis of many diseases. As a result, they show great potential as accurate diagnostic and prognostic markers, as well as viable therapeutic targets for treating disease. It has been proposed that miRNAs play a significant role in cutaneous wound repair and that aberrant miRNA expression may result in disorganized or poor healing. Specific patterns of miRNA expression have been identified in wound healing models. miRNAs are important regulators of leucocyte function and the cytokine network, and are necessary for endothelial cell migration and capillary formation. These molecules also control proliferation and differentiation of wound-specific cells and can determine extracellular matrix composition. This article reviews the evidence for miRNA regulation of inflammation, angiogenesis, fibroblast function, keratinocyte function, and apoptosis, which are essential components for effective wound repair. The future potential for improving wound healing outcomes using miRNA-based therapies is also discussed

Adherence monitoring of rehabilitation exercise with inertial sensors: A clinical validation study

BACKGROUND:Rehabilitation has an established role in the management of a wide range of musculoskeletal conditions. Much of this treatment relies on self-directed exercises at home, where adherence of execution is unknown. Demonstrating treatment fidelity is necessary to draw conclusions about the efficacy of rehabilitation interventions in both clinical and research settings. There is a lack of tools and methods to achieve this. RESEARCH QUESTION:This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of using a single inertial sensor to recognise and classify shoulder rehabilitation activity using supervised machine learning techniques. METHODS:Twenty patients with shoulder pain were monitored performing five rehabilitation exercises routinely prescribed for their condition. Accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer data were collected via a device mounted onto an arm sleeve. Non-specific motion data was included in the analysis. Time and frequency domain features were calculated from labelled data segments and ranked in terms of their predictive importance using the ReliefF algorithm. Selected features were used to train four supervised learning algorithms: decision tree, k-nearest neighbour, support vector machine and random forests. Performance of algorithms in accurately classifying exercise activity was evaluated with ten-fold cross-validation and leave-one-subject-out-validation methods. RESULTS:Optimal predictive accuracies for ten-fold cross-validation (97.2%) and leave-one-subject-out-validation (80.5%) were achieved by support vector machine and random forests algorithms, respectively. Time domain features derived from accelerometer, magnetometer and orientation data streams were shown to have the highest predictive value for classifying rehabilitation activity. SIGNIFICANCE:Classification models performed well in differentiating patient exercise activity from non-specific movement and identifying specific exercise type using inertial sensor data. A clinically useful account of home rehabilitation activity will help guide treatment strategies and facilitate methods to improve patient engagement. Future work should focus on evaluating the performance of such systems in natural and unsupervised settings

Instrumented assessment of shoulder function: a study of inertial sensor based methods

Background: Inertial sensors have the potential to provide objective and practical methods to assess joint and limb function in the clinical setting. The aim of this study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of inertial sensor metrics in the assessment of patients with subacromial shoulder pain. Methods: 25 patients with unilateral subacromial shoulder pain and 50 control subjects were recruited. Assessments were carried out on both shoulders for all participants during a short movement procedure. Patients had assessments repeated after receiving three months of physiotherapy. Inertial metrics evaluated included a smoothness measure and speed and power scores derived from the range of angular velocity and acceleration profiles. Individual shoulder scores and asymmetry scores were both evaluated in terms of reliability, known-group validity, convergent validity and responsiveness. Findings: Regression analysis identified age to be a significant predictor for all scores, therefore an age matched sub-cohort of control subjects was used for comparative analyses. All scores demonstrated inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.48–0.82), were able to differentiate pathological from healthy shoulders (AUC = 0.62–0.91) and displayed significant changes following treatment. Scores derived from the range of acceleration and velocity profiles demonstrated the largest effect sizes (Cohens d = 0.8–1.35), and displayed the highest correlation with the Oxford Shoulder Score (r = −0.40 – -0.58). Interpretation: The scores investigated demonstrate good psychometric properties and have potential to complement existing methods of assessment in the clinical or research setting. Further work is required to fully understand their clinical relevance and optimise assessment methods and interpretation.</p