Smoking-Related Fires and the Impact of the Fire Standard Compliant Legislation in the States

Smoking material fires are the leading cause of residential fire deaths and the third leading cause of residential fire injuries. Cigarettes are the primary source of ignition in smoking material fires. Several policies and regulations have attempted to mitigate the risks associated with smoking cigarettes. This study specifically examines the impact of the states’ fire standard compliant legislation as it relates to smokingrelated residential civilian fire deaths, civilian fire injuries, and fire incidents. To test the impact of the states’ FSC policy, panel data for all 50 states from 2005 through 2012 are analyzed using a feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) model. The results indicate that the states’ FSC policy led to fewer smoking related fire deaths and smoking related fire incidents. The findings from this study indicate that the FSC policy was an effective strategy by the states that helped significantly to reduce both home fire deaths and the damage and destruction that attend smoking related fire incidents

A Generative Model of the Mutual Escalation of Anxiety Between Religious Groups

We propose a generative agent-based model of the emergence and escalation of xenophobic anxiety in which individuals from two different religious groups encounter various hazards within an artificial society. The architecture of the model is informed by several empirically validated theories about the role of religion in intergroup conflict. Our results identify some of the conditions and mechanisms that engender the intensification of anxiety within and between religious groups. We define mutually escalating xenophobic anxiety as the increase of the average level of anxiety of the agents in both groups overtime. Trace validation techniques show that the most common conditions under which longer periods of mutually escalating xenophobic anxiety occur are those in which the difference in the size of the groups is not too large and the agents experience social and contagion hazards at a level of intensity that meets or exceeds their thresholds for those hazards. Under these conditions agents will encounter out-group members more regularly, and perceive them as threats, generating mutually escalating xenophobic anxiety. The model\u27s capacity to grow the macro-level emergence of this phenomenon from micro-level agent behaviors and interactions provides the foundation for future work in this domain

Increased Intestinal Permeability Correlates with Sigmoid Mucosa alpha-Synuclein Staining and Endotoxin Exposure Markers in Early Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder of aging. The pathological hallmark of PD is neuronal inclusions termed Lewy bodies whose main component is alpha-synuclein protein. The finding of these Lewy bodies in the intestinal enteric nerves led to the hypothesis that the intestine might be an early site of PD disease in response to an environmental toxin or pathogen. One potential mechanism for environmental toxin(s) and proinflammatory luminal products to gain access to mucosal neuronal tissue and promote oxidative stress is compromised intestinal barrier integrity. However, the role of intestinal permeability in PD has never been tested. We hypothesized that PD subjects might exhibit increased intestinal permeability to proinflammatory bacterial products in the intestine. To test our hypothesis we evaluated intestinal permeability in subjects newly diagnosed with PD and compared their values to healthy subjects. In addition, we obtained intestinal biopsies from both groups and used immunohistochemistry to assess bacterial translocation, nitrotyrosine (oxidative stress), and alpha-synuclein. We also evaluated serum markers of endotoxin exposure including LPS binding protein (LBP). Our data show that our PD subjects exhibit significantly greater intestinal permeability (gut leakiness) than controls. In addition, this intestinal hyperpermeability significantly correlated with increased intestinal mucosa staining for E. coli bacteria, nitrotyrosine, and alpha-synuclein as well as serum LBP levels in PD subjects. These data represent not only the first demonstration of abnormal intestinal permeability in PD subjects but also the first correlation of increased intestinal permeability in PD with intestinal alpha-synuclein (the hallmark of PD), as well as staining for gram negative bacteria and tissue oxidative stress. Our study may thus shed new light on PD pathogenesis as well as provide a new method for earlier diagnosis of PD and suggests potential therapeutic targets in PD subjects.Clinicaltrials.gov NCT01155492

Mitochondrial abnormalities in Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease: can mitochondria be targeted therapeutically?

Mitochondrial abnormalities have been identified as a central mechanism in multiple neurodegenerative diseases and, therefore, the mitochondria have been explored as a therapeutic target. This review will focus on the evidence for mitochondrial abnormalities in the two most common neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. In addition, we discuss the main strategies which have been explored in these diseases to target the mitochondria for therapeutic purposes, focusing on mitochondrially targeted antioxidants, peptides, modulators of mitochondrial dynamics and phenotypic screening outcomes

ANALYSIS OF PROTEIN MODIFICATION AFTER PLK1 DEPLETION DURING MEIOTIC DNA DAMAGE REPAIR AND CENTRIOLE BIOGENESIS

Accurate recombination and segregation of homologous chromosomes during meiosis contributes to the genetic variation of offspring and prevents aneuploidy. Cell cycle kinases are essential in meiotic progression by acting as regulators for DNA damage repair and spindle assembly checkpoints. In budding yeast, polo-like kinase (PLK) has been proven to be an example of these regulators through its involvement in pachytene exit by promoting crossover formation and breakdown of a protein scaffold that maintains the close association of homologous chromosomes, the synaptonemal complex (SC). Our lab previously elucidated the requirement of a member of the PLK family, polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1), in SC disassembly using a PLK inhibitor on mouse spermatocytes. To further characterize the roles of PLK1 we depleted PLK1 levels using a conditional knockout approach and assessed meiotic DNA damage repair and centriole biogenesis. Using Plk1 conditional knockout (cKO) and conditional heterozygous knockout (cHET) mice obtained by a cre-lox system, we investigated the effect of PLK1 depletion in early prophase of mouse primary spermatocytes. Using immunostaining techniques, we observed alteration in the recruitment of early DNA damage repair proteins to sites of damage, as well as a global increase in the levels of crossover intermediates in Plk1 cKO spermatocytes. Western blot analysis revealed that these alterations to DNA damage repair and crossover formation were not due to changes in global protein levels. Our lab also investigated the requirement of PLK1 for meiotic centriole biogenesis. Centrioles are crucial in male meiotic cells due to their function of forming spindle fibers. in the When evaluating the spermatocytes at metaphase I we saw spindle aberrances that resulted in monopolar spindle formation in Plk1 cKO mice and multipolar spindle formation in Plk1 cHET mice. These results demonstrated that Plk1 cKO mice fail to separate centrosomes, while Plk1 cHET mice undergo centriole overduplication. We also demonstrated the effect of Aurora Kinase A (AURKA) depletion on meiotic centriole biogenesis using Aurka cKO mouse spermatocytes. Our results demonstrate the importance of PLK1 in DNA damage repair and centriole biogenesis and may provide insight into the molecular mechanisms of genetic disorders resulted from improper meiotic progression

The Impact of Presidential Behaviors on Institutional Movement towards Greater Abundance in Community Colleges: An Exploratory Study.

Globalization, technological change, and economic fluctuations have fundamentally altered business environments and are challenging traditional notions of effective management. With greater needs for adaptability and flexibility, organizations must reexamine problem solving strategies and look to strength building practices that recognize, develop, and take advantage of human capital. Community colleges, as institutions of higher education driven by a meta-mission, are impacted greatly by environmental changes and will benefit from having a community college specific approach to management influenced by Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) and Positive Organizational Behavior (POB), both of which are focused on appreciating organizational members and building institutional strengths. This multi-site case study was guided by assumptions emanating from the application of the POS and POB approaches within the community college context. More specifically, these approaches are focused on understanding and enhancing organizational strengths, building up intangible resources, realizing human potential, and working to achieve organizational wellness (superior institutional health) rather than just organizational health (absence of crisis). This qualitative study included four purposefully selected community colleges and data analysis revolved around the presidential behaviors associated with the colleges’ movement towards greater abundance (wellness). In addition to interviewing the president, his/her executive team, faculty, administrators, and staff, data was also gathered from observations and document analysis. To preserve the integrity of the data while providing theoretical generalizability, this study provides results chapters for each college as well as an overarching results chapter. While only one college can be classified as abundant based upon the abundance indicator survey returned by each college, each of the case sites provided a great deal of information on presidential behaviors associated with institutional movement towards abundance. The four presidential behaviors associated with institutional movement towards greater abundance include consciously and consistently engaging in positivity and optimism, treating the development of human potential as an organizational priority, ensuring congruence between the organization and the environment, and relishing the role of institutional sensemaker. The study also reveals some presidential behaviors associated with institutional movement away from abundance, provides insight into the abundance “push-pull” effect, and discusses implications for leadership preparation programs.Ph.D.EducationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62390/1/shultsc_1.pd

Chapitre 20. La dépression d’après-thèse

Perte d’appétit, de sommeil, augmentation significative des épisodes d’angoisse diurnes et nocturnes (sans objet apparent), sentiment d’« incommunicabilité », crises de larmes soudaines ou irritabilité, grande labilité : ce sont bien les dernières choses qu’on s’attend à éprouver lorsqu’on dépose sa thèse. Pourtant, de tels symptômes se constatent fréquemment chez les jeunes docteurs, dans les quelques semaines ou mois suivant la soutenance de leur thèse. En langage familier ou en jargon estu..

Tennessee Municipal Benchmarking Project FY2009

FY2009 annual report to compare the relative cost, efficiency and effectiveness of a set of municipal services by using a collaborative approach with the participating cities, and to set standards and identify best practices in municipal government for use and comparison by all Tennessee cities. Per capita average costs of providing police, fire and residential refuse services are presented

Characterizing clinical pediatric obesity subtypes using electronic health record data.

In this work, we present a study of electronic health record (EHR) data that aims to identify pediatric obesity clinical subtypes. Specifically, we examine whether certain temporal condition patterns associated with childhood obesity incidence tend to cluster together to characterize subtypes of clinically similar patients. In a previous study, the sequence mining algorithm, SPADE was implemented on EHR data from a large retrospective cohort (n = 49 594 patients) to identify common condition trajectories surrounding pediatric obesity incidence. In this study, we used Latent Class Analysis (LCA) to identify potential subtypes formed by these temporal condition patterns. The demographic characteristics of patients in each subtype are also examined. An LCA model with 8 classes was developed that identified clinically similar patient subtypes. Patients in Class 1 had a high prevalence of respiratory and sleep disorders, patients in Class 2 had high rates of inflammatory skin conditions, patients in Class 3 had a high prevalence of seizure disorders, and patients in Class 4 had a high prevalence of Asthma. Patients in Class 5 lacked a clear characteristic morbidity pattern, and patients in Classes 6, 7, and 8 had a high prevalence of gastrointestinal issues, neurodevelopmental disorders, and physical symptoms respectively. Subjects generally had high membership probability for a single class (>70%), suggesting shared clinical characterization within the individual groups. We identified patient subtypes with temporal condition patterns that are significantly more common among obese pediatric patients using a Latent Class Analysis approach. Our findings may be used to characterize the prevalence of common conditions among newly obese pediatric patients and to identify pediatric obesity subtypes. The identified subtypes align with prior knowledge on comorbidities associated with childhood obesity, including gastro-intestinal, dermatologic, developmental, and sleep disorders, as well as asthma