Protection by Inhaled Hydrogen Therapy in a Rat Model of Acute Lung Injury can be Tracked \u3cem\u3ein vivo\u3c/em\u3e Using Molecular Imaging

Inhaled hydrogen gas (H2) provides protection in rat models of human acute lung injury (ALI). We previously reported that biomarker imaging can detect oxidative stress and endothelial cell death in vivo in a rat model of ALI. Our objective was to evaluate the ability of 99mTc-hexamethylpropyleneamineoxime (HMPAO) and 99mTc-duramycin to track the effectiveness of H2 therapy in vivo in the hyperoxia rat model of ALI. Rats were exposed to room air (normoxia), 98% O2 + 2% N2 (hyperoxia) or 98% O2 + 2% H2 (hyperoxia+H2) for up to 60 h. In vivo scintigraphy images were acquired following injection of 99mTc-HMPAO or 99mTc-duramycin. For hyperoxiarats, 99mTc-HMPAO and 99mTc-duramycin lung uptake increased in a time-dependent manner, reaching a maximum increase of 270% and 150% at 60 h, respectively. These increases were reduced to 120% and 70%, respectively, in hyperoxia+H2 rats. Hyperoxia exposure increased glutathione content in lung homogenate (36%) more than hyperoxia+H2 (21%), consistent with increases measured in 99mTc-HMPAO lung uptake. In 60-h hyperoxia rats, pleural effusion, which was undetectable in normoxia rats, averaged 9.3 gram/rat, and lung tissue 3-nitrotyrosine expression increased by 790%. Increases were reduced by 69% and 59%, respectively, in 60-h hyperoxia+H2 rats. This study detects and tracks the anti-oxidant and anti-apoptotic properties of H2 therapy in vivo after as early as 24 h of hyperoxia exposure. The results suggest the potential utility of these SPECT biomarkers for in vivo assessment of key cellular pathways in the pathogenesis of ALI and for monitoring responses to therapies

Health Care and Plains Native Americans: Striving Towards a Culturally Competent Medical School Curriculum

My honors thesis will explore the curriculum at the USD Sanford School of Medicine (SSOM). I plan to examine the curriculum for cultural competence and diversity education, specifically on Native (American Indian/Alaskan Native) peoples. My primary goal is to increase the educational importance the Sanford School of Medicine places on the culture of all groups, especially, Native peoples. My topic is important because diversity and inclusion are essential parts to creating a unified team. Furthermore, this topic is especially relevant here in South Dakota due to the number of Native peoples in the state. South Dakota has the fourth highest percent population of American Indian or Alaska Natives at 9.0% (United States Census, 2018). There are two major parts to my study. The first was to do a wide range of research on the disparities of Native peoples and the curriculum of the SSOM. Furthermore, my research included meeting with staff and faculty at the SSOM to see what opportunities to better understand the health care needs of Native people are offered to medical students. The second was to send out a survey to the current medical school students to see what curriculum is being taught regarding Native peoples and their knowledge and retention of the information that is presented. Also, in the survey, medical students had the opportunity to suggest topics and experiences they would like to implement to interact more fully with diverse peoples. With the information from the survey I will report upon what material is being taught relating to Natives and diversity in the medical school. Additionally, I compiled the medical students’ suggestions and show some common themes, topics, and experiences students had and perhaps propose implementing some of these suggestions for future medical students

Prenatal exposure to recreational drugs affects global motion perception in preschool children

Chakraborty, A. et al. Prenatal exposure to recreational drugs affects global motion perception in preschool children. Sci. Rep. 5, 16921; doi: 10.1038/srep16921 (2015).Prenatal exposure to recreational drugs impairs motor and cognitive development; however it is currently unknown whether visual brain areas are affected. To address this question, we investigated the effect of prenatal drug exposure on global motion perception, a behavioural measure of processing within the dorsal extrastriate visual cortex that is thought to be particularly vulnerable to abnormal neurodevelopment. Global motion perception was measured in one hundred and forty-five 4.5-year-old children who had been exposed to different combinations of methamphetamine, alcohol, nicotine and marijuana prior to birth and 25 unexposed children. Self-reported drug use by the mothers was verified by meconium analysis. We found that global motion perception was impaired by prenatal exposure to alcohol and improved significantly by exposure to marijuana. Exposure to both drugs prenatally had no effect. Other visual functions such as habitual visual acuity and stereoacuity were not affected by drug exposure. Prenatal exposure to methamphetamine did not influence visual function. Our results demonstrate that prenatal drug exposure can influence a behavioural measure of visual development, but that the effects are dependent on the specific drugs used during pregnancy.This research was supported by the National Institutes on Drug Abuse grants 2RO1DA014948 and RO1DA021757 and the Auckland Medical Research Foundation

Neonatal Glycemia and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes at 2 Years

From McKinlay, C. J. D., Alsweiler, J. M., Ansell, J. M., Anstice, N. S., Chase, J. G., Gamble, G. D., … Harding, J. E. (2015). Neonatal Glycemia and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes at 2 Years. New England Journal of Medicine, 373(16), 1507–1518. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1504909 Copyright © 2015 Massachusetts Medical Society. Reprinted with permission.Neonatal hypoglycemia is a common and readily treatable risk factor for neurologic impairment in children. Although associations between prolonged symptomatic neonatal hypoglycemia and brain injury are well established,1 the effect of milder hypoglycemia on neurologic development is uncertain.2 Consequently, large numbers of newborns are screened and treated for low blood glucose concentrations, which involves heel-stick blood tests, substantial costs, and the possibility of iatrogenic harm. Under current guidelines,3 up to 30% of neonates are considered to be at risk for hypoglycemia, 15% receive a diagnosis of hypoglycemia, and approximately 10% require admission to a neonatal intensive care unit,4 costing an estimated $2.1 billion annually in the United States alone.5 Associated formula feeding and possible separation of mother and baby reduce breast-feeding rates,6 with potentially adverse effects on broader infant health and development. In addition, pain-induced stress in neonates, such as repeated heel sticks, may itself impair brain development.7 Thus, to determine appropriate glycemic thresholds for treatment, there have been repeated calls for studies of the effect of neonatal hypoglycemia on long-term development.2,8 We report the results of the Children with Hypoglycaemia and Their Later Development (CHYLD) study, a large prospective cohort study of term and late-preterm neonates born at risk for hypoglycemia. The study investigated the relation between the duration, frequency, and severity of low glucose concentrations in the neonatal period and neuropsychological development at 2 years.Supported by grants from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD069622), the Health Research Council of New Zealand (10-399), and the Auckland Medical Research Foundation (1110009)

Toward optimal implementation of cancer prevention and control programs in public health: A study protocol on mis-implementation

Abstract Background Much of the cancer burden in the USA is preventable, through application of existing knowledge. State-level funders and public health practitioners are in ideal positions to affect programs and policies related to cancer control. Mis-implementation refers to ending effective programs and policies prematurely or continuing ineffective ones. Greater attention to mis-implementation should lead to use of effective interventions and more efficient expenditure of resources, which in the long term, will lead to more positive cancer outcomes. Methods This is a three-phase study that takes a comprehensive approach, leading to the elucidation of tactics for addressing mis-implementation. Phase 1: We assess the extent to which mis-implementation is occurring among state cancer control programs in public health. This initial phase will involve a survey of 800 practitioners representing all states. The programs represented will span the full continuum of cancer control, from primary prevention to survivorship. Phase 2: Using data from phase 1 to identify organizations in which mis-implementation is particularly high or low, the team will conduct eight comparative case studies to get a richer understanding of mis-implementation and to understand contextual differences. These case studies will highlight lessons learned about mis-implementation and identify hypothesized drivers. Phase 3: Agent-based modeling will be used to identify dynamic interactions between individual capacity, organizational capacity, use of evidence, funding, and external factors driving mis-implementation. The team will then translate and disseminate findings from phases 1 to 3 to practitioners and practice-related stakeholders to support the reduction of mis-implementation. Discussion This study is innovative and significant because it will (1) be the first to refine and further develop reliable and valid measures of mis-implementation of public health programs; (2) bring together a strong, transdisciplinary team with significant expertise in practice-based research; (3) use agent-based modeling to address cancer control implementation; and (4) use a participatory, evidence-based, stakeholder-driven approach that will identify key leverage points for addressing mis-implementation among state public health programs. This research is expected to provide replicable computational simulation models that can identify leverage points and public health system dynamics to reduce mis-implementation in cancer control and may be of interest to other health areas

Interplay between self-assembly and phase separation in a polymer-complex model

We present a theoretical model for predicting the phase behavior of polymer solutions in which phase separation competes with oligomerization. Specifically, we consider scenarios in which the assembly of polymer chains into stoichiometric complexes prevents the chains from phase-separating via attractive polymer-polymer interactions. Combining statistical associating fluid theory with a two-state description of self-assembly, we find that this model exhibits rich phase behavior, including re-entrance, and we show how system-specific phase diagrams can be derived graphically. Importantly, we discuss why these phase diagrams can resemble -- and yet are qualitatively distinct from -- phase diagrams of polymer solutions with lower critical solution temperatures

Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Annual outpatient hysteroscopy and endometrial sampling (OHES) in HNPCC/Lynch syndrome (LS)

Background: LS women have a 40-60 % lifetime risk of endometrial cancer (EC). Most international guidelines recommend screening. However, data on efficacy are limited. Purpose: To assess the performance of OHES for EC screening in LS and compare it with transvaginal ultrasound (TVS) alone. Methods: A prospective observational cohort study of LS women attending a tertiary high-risk familial gynaecological cancer clinic was conducted. LS women opting for EC screening underwent annual OHES and TVS. Histopathological specimens were processed using a strict protocol. Data of women screened between October 2007 and March 2010 were analysed from a bespoke database. Histology was used as the gold standard. Diagnostic accuracy of OHES was compared with TVS using specificity, and positive (PLR) and negative (NLR) likelihood ratios. Results: Forty-one LS women underwent 69 screens (41 prevalent, 28 incident). Four (three prevalent, one incident) women were detected to have EC/atypical endometrial hyperplasia (AEH), five had endometrial polyps and two had endometrial hyperplasia (EH) on OHES. TVS detected two of four EC/AEH. OHES had similar specificity of 89.8 % (CI 79.2, 96.2 %), but higher PLR 9.8 (CI 4.6, 21) and lower NLR (zero) compared to TVS: specificity 84.75 %(CI 73, 92.8 %), PLR 3.28 (CI 1.04, 10.35) and NLR 0.59 (CI 0.22, 1.58). No interval cancers occurred over a median follow-up of 22 months. The annual incidence was 3.57 % (CI 0.09, 18.35) for EC, 10.71 % (CI 2.27, 28.23) for polyps and 21.4 % (CI 8.3, 40.1) for any endometrial pathology. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that in LS, annual OHES is acceptable and has high diagnostic accuracy for EC/AEH screening. Larger international studies are needed for confirmation, given the relatively small numbers of LS women at individual centres. It reinforces the current recommendation that endometrial sampling is crucial when screening these women. © 2012 Springer-Verlag