Bed of roses? The role of garden space in older people’s well-being

The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of outdoor housing environment (OHE), including front and back gardens, yards, courtyards, patios and balconies, in older people’s well-being. Descriptions of their OHEs were collected from 2558 individuals living in 526 distinct housing developments using a postal questionnaire. A large range of background variables were measured, mainly through the questionnaire. Characteristics of respondents’ immediate neighbourhood environments were measured from digital maps and satellite/bird’s-eye images. Among the OHE variables, statistically significant predictors of well-being were having one’s own patio (as opposed to shared or none), and having a green view from one’s living area (a positive effect on well-being). The authors conclude that it would be beneficial for older people’s housing to include private patio space, where possible, as well as a large amount of greenery. The research supports the claim that older people benefit from green space as much by viewing it from inside as spending time in it. If older people have no or very little garden space, a green street environment is likely to increase their well-being, especially if it can be seen from their home

The effects of socioeconomic status and indices of physical environment on reduced birth weight and preterm births in Eastern Massachusetts

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background: Air pollution and social characteristics have been shown to affect indicators of health. While use of spatial methods to estimate exposure to air pollution has increased the power to detect effects, questions have been raised about potential for confounding by social factors.Methods: A study of singleton births in Eastern Massachusetts was conducted between 1996 and 2002 to examine the association between indicators of traffic, land use, individual and area-based socioeconomic measures (SEM), and birth outcomes ( birth weight, small for gestational age and preterm births), in a two-level hierarchical model.Results: We found effects of both individual ( education, race, prenatal care index) and area-based ( median household income) SEM with all birth outcomes. The associations for traffic and land use variables were mainly seen with birth weight, with an exception for an effect of cumulative traffic density on small for gestational age. Race/ethnicity of mother was an important predictor of birth outcomes and a strong confounder for both area-based SEM and indices of physical environment. The effects of traffic and land use differed by level of education and median household income.Conclusion: Overall, the findings of the study suggested greater likelihood of reduced birth weight and preterm births among the more socially disadvantaged, and a greater risk of reduced birth weight associated with traffic exposures. Results revealed the importance of controlling simultaneously for SEM and environmental exposures as the way to better understand determinants of health.This work is supported by the Harvard Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Center, Grants R827353 and R-832416, and National Institute for Environmental Health Science (NIEHS) ES-0002

Network adaptation improves temporal representation of naturalistic stimuli in drosophila eye: II Mechanisms

Retinal networks must adapt constantly to best present the ever changing visual world to the brain. Here we test the hypothesis that adaptation is a result of different mechanisms at several synaptic connections within the network. In a companion paper (Part I), we showed that adaptation in the photoreceptors (R1-R6) and large monopolar cells (LMC) of the Drosophila eye improves sensitivity to under-represented signals in seconds by enhancing both the amplitude and frequency distribution of LMCs' voltage responses to repeated naturalistic contrast series. In this paper, we show that such adaptation needs both the light-mediated conductance and feedback-mediated synaptic conductance. A faulty feedforward pathway in histamine receptor mutant flies speeds up the LMC output, mimicking extreme light adaptation. A faulty feedback pathway from L2 LMCs to photoreceptors slows down the LMC output, mimicking dark adaptation. These results underline the importance of network adaptation for efficient coding, and as a mechanism for selectively regulating the size and speed of signals in neurons. We suggest that concert action of many different mechanisms and neural connections are responsible for adaptation to visual stimuli. Further, our results demonstrate the need for detailed circuit reconstructions like that of the Drosophila lamina, to understand how networks process information

Determinants of parents' reticence toward vaccination in urban areas in Benin (West Africa)

Analysis of the data reveals those who are vaccination-reticent say it goes against the will of God, that it is a poison from the “white witch doctor,” and a sin. Members of the control group argued against this, but without conviction. They adhere to the principle of obedience to authority, a biblical precept invoked when the vaccinators oblige them to vaccinate their children. To limit the spread of this phenomenon among the religious population of the cities like Parakou and Cotonou in Benin, more detailed information and negotiation between health authorities and pastors of the churches are essential

Successful establishment of primary small airway cell cultures in human lung transplantation

Background: The study of small airway diseases such as post-transplant bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS) is hampered by the difficulty in assessing peripheral airway function either physiologically or directly. Our aims were to develop robust methods for sampling small airway epithelial cells (SAEC) and to establish submerged SAEC cultures for downstream experimentation

Better governance, better access: practising responsible data sharing in the METADAC governance infrastructure.

BACKGROUND: Genomic and biosocial research data about individuals is rapidly proliferating, bringing the potential for novel opportunities for data integration and use. The scale, pace and novelty of these applications raise a number of urgent sociotechnical, ethical and legal questions, including optimal methods of data storage, management and access. Although the open science movement advocates unfettered access to research data, many of the UK's longitudinal cohort studies operate systems of managed data access, in which access is governed by legal and ethical agreements between stewards of research datasets and researchers wishing to make use of them. Amongst other things, these agreements aim to respect the reasonable expectations of the research participants who provided data and samples, as expressed in the consent process. Arguably, responsible data management and governance of data and sample use are foundational to the consent process in longitudinal studies and are an important source of trustworthiness in the eyes of those who contribute data to genomic and biosocial research. METHODS: This paper presents an ethnographic case study exploring the foundational principles of a governance infrastructure for Managing Ethico-social, Technical and Administrative issues in Data ACcess (METADAC), which are operationalised through a committee known as the METADAC Access Committee. METADAC governs access to phenotype, genotype and 'omic' data and samples from five UK longitudinal studies. FINDINGS: Using the example of METADAC, we argue that three key structural features are foundational for practising responsible data sharing: independence and transparency; interdisciplinarity; and participant-centric decision-making. We observe that the international research community is proactively working towards optimising the use of research data, integrating/linking these data with routine data generated by health and social care services and other administrative data services to improve the analysis, interpretation and utility of these data. The governance of these new complex data assemblages will require a range of expertise from across a number of domains and disciplines, including that of study participants. Human-mediated decision-making bodies will be central to ensuring achievable, reasoned and responsible decisions about the use of these data; the METADAC model described in this paper provides an example of how this could be realised

Depression and sickness behavior are Janus-faced responses to shared inflammatory pathways

It is of considerable translational importance whether depression is a form or a consequence of sickness behavior. Sickness behavior is a behavioral complex induced by infections and immune trauma and mediated by pro-inflammatory cytokines. It is an adaptive response that enhances recovery by conserving energy to combat acute inflammation. There are considerable phenomenological similarities between sickness behavior and depression, for example, behavioral inhibition, anorexia and weight loss, and melancholic (anhedonia), physio-somatic (fatigue, hyperalgesia, malaise), anxiety and neurocognitive symptoms. In clinical depression, however, a transition occurs to sensitization of immuno-inflammatory pathways, progressive damage by oxidative and nitrosative stress to lipids, proteins, and DNA, and autoimmune responses directed against self-epitopes. The latter mechanisms are the substrate of a neuroprogressive process, whereby multiple depressive episodes cause neural tissue damage and consequent functional and cognitive sequelae. Thus, shared immuno-inflammatory pathways underpin the physiology of sickness behavior and the pathophysiology of clinical depression explaining their partially overlapping phenomenology. Inflammation may provoke a Janus-faced response with a good, acute side, generating protective inflammation through sickness behavior and a bad, chronic side, for example, clinical depression, a lifelong disorder with positive feedback loops between (neuro)inflammation and (neuro)degenerative processes following less well defined triggers

Insulin-like signalling to the maternal germline controls progeny response to osmotic stress

In 1893 August Weismann proposed that information about the environment could not pass from somatic cells to germ cells, a hypothesis now known as the Weismann barrier. However, recent studies have indicated that parental exposure to environmental stress can modify progeny physiology and that parental stress can contribute to progeny disorders. The mechanisms regulating these phenomena are poorly understood. We report that the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans can protect itself from osmotic stress by entering a state of arrested development and can protect its progeny from osmotic stress by increasing the expression of the glycerol biosynthetic enzyme GPDH-2 in progeny. Both of these protective mechanisms are regulated by insulin-like signalling: insulin-like signalling to the intestine regulates developmental arrest, while insulin-like signalling to the maternal germline regulates glycerol metabolism in progeny. Thus, there is a heritable link between insulin-like signalling to the maternal germline and progeny metabolism and gene expression. We speculate that analogous modulation of insulin-like signalling to the germline is responsible for effects of the maternal environment on human diseases that involve insulin signalling, such as obesity and type-2 diabetes

Gradual caldera collapse at Bárdarbunga volcano, Iceland, regulated by lateral magma outflow

Large volcanic eruptions on Earth commonly occur with a collapse of the roof of a crustal magma reservoir, forming a caldera. Only a few such collapses occur per century, and the lack of detailed observations has obscured insight into the mechanical interplay between collapse and eruption.We usemultiparameter geophysical and geochemical data to show that the 110-squarekilometer and 65-meter-deep collapse of Bárdarbunga caldera in 2014-2015 was initiated through withdrawal of magma, and lateral migration through a 48-kilometers-long dike, from a 12-kilometers deep reservoir. Interaction between the pressure exerted by the subsiding reservoir roof and the physical properties of the subsurface flow path explain the gradual, nearexponential decline of both collapse rate and the intensity of the 180-day-long eruption

Caveolin-1-Enhanced Motility and Focal Adhesion Turnover Require Tyrosine-14 but Not Accumulation to the Rear in Metastatic Cancer Cells

Caveolin-1 is known to promote cell migration, and increased caveolin-1 expression is associated with tumor progression and metastasis. In fibroblasts, caveolin-1 polarization and phosphorylation of tyrosine-14 are essential to promote migration. However, the role of caveolin-1 in migration of metastatic cells remains poorly defined. Here, caveolin-1 participation in metastatic cell migration was evaluated by shRNA targeting of endogenous caveolin-1 in MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells and ectopic expression in B16-F10 mouse melanoma cells. Depletion of caveolin-1 in MDA-MB-231 cells reduced, while expression in B16-F10 cells promoted migration, polarization and focal adhesion turnover in a sequence of events that involved phosphorylation of tyrosine-14 and Rac-1 activation. In B16-F10 cells, expression of a non-phosphorylatable tyrosine-14 to phenylalanine mutant failed to recapitulate the effects observed with wild-type caveolin-1. Alternatively, treatment of MDA-MB-231 cells with the Src family kinase inhibitor PP2 reduced caveolin-1 phosphorylation on tyrosine-14 and cell migration. Surprisingly, unlike for fibroblasts, caveolin-1 polarization and re-localization to the trailing edge were not observed in migrating metastatic cells. Thus, expression and phosphorylation, but not polarization of caveolin-1 favor the highly mobile phenotype of metastatic cells