Biomedical research leaders: report on needs, opportunities, difficulties, education and training, and evaluation.

The National Association of Physicians for the Environment (NAPE) has assumed a leadership role in protecting environmental health in recent years. The Committee of Biomedical Research Leaders was convened at the recent NAPE Leadership Conference: Biomedical Research and the Environment held on 1--2 November 1999, at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. This report summarizes the discussion of the committee and its recommendations. The charge to the committee was to raise and address issues that will promote and sustain environmental health, safety, and energy efficiency within the biomedical community. Leaders from every important research sector (industry laboratories, academic health centers and institutes, hospitals and care facilities, Federal laboratories, and community-based research facilities) were gathered in this committee to discuss issues relevant to promoting environmental health. The conference and this report focus on the themes of environmental stewardship, sustainable development and "best greening practices." Environmental stewardship, an emerging theme within and outside the biomedical community, symbolizes the effort to provide an integrated, synthesized, and concerted effort to protect the health of the environment in both the present and the future. The primary goal established by the committee is to promote environmentally responsible leadership in the biomedical research community. Key outcomes of the committee's discussion and deliberation were a) the need for a central organization to evaluate, promote, and oversee efforts in environmental stewardship; and b) immediate need to facilitate efficient information transfer relevant to protecting the global environment through a database/clearinghouse. Means to fulfill these needs are discussed in this report

Food allergy knowledge, attitudes and beliefs: Focus groups of parents, physicians and the general public

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Food allergy prevalence is increasing in US children. Presently, the primary means of preventing potentially fatal reactions are avoidance of allergens, prompt recognition of food allergy reactions, and knowledge about food allergy reaction treatments. Focus groups were held as a preliminary step in the development of validated survey instruments to assess food allergy knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs of parents, physicians, and the general public.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Eight focus groups were conducted between January and July of 2006 in the Chicago area with parents of children with food allergy (3 groups), physicians (3 groups), and the general public (2 groups). A constant comparative method was used to identify the emerging themes which were then grouped into key domains of food allergy knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Parents of children with food allergy had solid fundamental knowledge but had concerns about primary care physicians' knowledge of food allergy, diagnostic approaches, and treatment practices. The considerable impact of children's food allergies on familial quality of life was articulated. Physicians had good basic knowledge of food allergy but differed in their approach to diagnosis and advice about starting solids and breastfeeding. The general public had wide variation in knowledge about food allergy with many misconceptions of key concepts related to prevalence, definition, and triggers of food allergy.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Appreciable food allergy knowledge gaps exist, especially among physicians and the general public. The quality of life for children with food allergy and their families is significantly affected.</p

The STAR Time Projection Chamber: A Unique Tool for Studying High Multiplicity Events at RHIC

The STAR Time Projection Chamber (TPC) is used to record collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The TPC is the central element in a suite of detectors that surrounds the interaction vertex. The TPC provides complete coverage around the beam-line, and provides complete tracking for charged particles within +- 1.8 units of pseudo-rapidity of the center-of-mass frame. Charged particles with momenta greater than 100 MeV/c are recorded. Multiplicities in excess of 3,000 tracks per event are routinely reconstructed in the software. The TPC measures 4 m in diameter by 4.2 m long, making it the largest TPC in the world.Comment: 28 pages, 11 figure

Students as ecologists: Strategies for successful mentorship of undergraduate researchers

Guiding undergraduates through the ecological research process can be incredibly rewarding and present opportunities to break down barriers to inclusion and diversity in scientific disciplines. At the same time, mentoring undergraduate researchers is a complicated process that requires time and flexibility. While many academics receive extensive guidance on how to be successful in research endeavors, we pay much less attention to training in mentorship and working collaboratively with undergraduate students. This paper seeks to provide a framework for successfully collaborating with undergraduates including initial recruitment, development of a contract, fostering student ownership of research projects, and submission of a polished manuscript.While institutions worldwide encourage undergraduate research and publication, little training and professional development are provided to potential mentors. Our paper fills a critical gap in knowledge and provides a framework for academic mentors of all career stages to successfully guide students from question to publication.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149365/1/ece35090_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149365/2/ece35090.pd

The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma renal injury grading scale: Implications of the 2018 revisions for injury reclassification and predicting bleeding interventions.

BackgroundIn 2018, the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) published revisions to the renal injury grading system to reflect the increased reliance on computed tomography scans and non-operative management of high-grade renal trauma (HGRT). We aimed to evaluate how these revisions will change the grading of HGRT and if it outperforms the original 1989 grading in predicting bleeding control interventions.MethodsData on HGRT were collected from 14 Level-1 trauma centers from 2014 to 2017. Patients with initial computed tomography scans were included. Two radiologists reviewed the scans to regrade the injuries according to the 1989 and 2018 AAST grading systems. Descriptive statistics were used to assess grade reclassifications. Mixed-effect multivariable logistic regression was used to measure the predictive ability of each grading system. The areas under the curves were compared.ResultsOf the 322 injuries included, 27.0% were upgraded, 3.4% were downgraded, and 69.5% remained unchanged. Of the injuries graded as III or lower using the 1989 AAST, 33.5% were upgraded to grade IV using the 2018 AAST. Of the grade V injuries, 58.8% were downgraded using the 2018 AAST. There was no statistically significant difference in the overall areas under the curves between the 2018 and 1989 AAST grading system for predicting bleeding interventions (0.72 vs. 0.68, p = 0.34).ConclusionAbout one third of the injuries previously classified as grade III will be upgraded to grade IV using the 2018 AAST, which adds to the heterogeneity of grade IV injuries. Although the 2018 AAST grading provides more anatomic details on injury patterns and includes important radiologic findings, it did not outperform the 1989 AAST grading in predicting bleeding interventions.Level of evidencePrognostic and Epidemiological Study, level III

A Compton-vetoed germanium detector with increased sensitivity at low energies

The difficulty to directly detect plutonium in spent nuclear fuel due to the high Compton background of the fission products motivates the design of a Gamma detector with improved sensitivity at low energies. We have built such a detector by operating a thin high-purity Ge detector with a large scintillator Compton veto directly behind it. The Ge detector is thin to absorb just the low-energy Pu radiation of interest while minimizing Compton scattering of high energy radiation from the fission products. The subsequent scintillator is large so that forward scattered photons from the Ge detector interact in it at least once to provide an anti-coincidence veto for the Ge detector. For highest sensitivity, additional material in the line-of-sight is minimized, the radioactive sample is kept thin, and its radiation is collimated. We will discuss the instrument design, and demonstrate the feasibility of the approach with a prototype that employs two large CsI scintillator vetoes. Initial spectra of a thin Cs-137 calibration source show a background suppression of a factor of {approx}2.5 at {approx}100 keV, limited by an unexpectedly thick 4 mm dead layer in the Ge detector

Psychologists’ Authenticity: Implications for Work in Professional and Therapeutic Settings

Derek J. Burks, PhD, is a licensed psychologist and postdoctoral psychology fellow at the Pacific Northwest Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC), located within the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Portland, Oregon. He obtained his PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Oklahoma. His current research focuses on health disparities, posttraumatic stress disorder among sexual-minority U.S. military veterans, and culturally appropriate mental health treatment for American Indians.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Self-selection and variations in the laboratory measurement of other-regarding preferences across subject pools: evidence from one college student and two adult samples

We measure the other-regarding behavior in samples from three related populations in the upper Midwest of the United States: college students, non-student adults from the community surrounding the college, and adult trainee truckers in a residential training program. The use of typical experimental economics recruitment procedures made the first two groups substantially self-selected. Because the context reduced the opportunity cost of participating dramatically, 91 % of the adult trainees solicited participated, leaving little scope for self-selection in this sample. We find no differences in the elicited other-regarding preferences between the self-selected adults and the adult trainees, suggesting that selection is unlikely to bias inferences about the prevalence of other-regarding preferences among non-student adult subjects. Our data also reject the more specific hypothesis that approval-seeking subjects are the ones most likely to select into experiments. Finally, we observe a large difference between self-selected college students and self-selected adults: the students appear considerably less pro-social