Sex on TV: Content and Context

Part of a series that examines the nature and extent of sexual messages conveyed on American television. Focuses on references to contraception, safer sex, and waiting to have sex. Based on a sample of 1997-1998 programs

Enhancing User Immersion and Virtual Presence in Interactive Multiuser Virtual Environments through the Development and Integration of a Gesture-Centric Natural User Interface Developed from Existing Virtual Reality Technologies

Immersion, referring to the level of physical or psychological submergence of a user within a virtual space relative to that user's consciousness of the real-world environment, has predominantly been established as an indispensable part of interactive media designs. This is most prevalent in Virtual Reality (VR) platforms, as their applications are typically reliant on user believability. With a wide variation of possible methodologies for the enhancement of this feature, the collectively recognised paradigm lies on the emphasis of naturalism in the design of the virtual system [7]. Though widely used by some specialised VR applications [4] such concepts are yet to be fully explored in the more contemporary virtual systems such as Social Immersive Virtual Environment (SIVE). The focus of the study described in this paper are the techniques being developed to enhance user immersion, virtual presence and co-presence in a SIVE application, through the design and integration of a VR-based Natural User Interface (NUI) that allows users to naturally and intuitively interact with the virtual environment and other networked users through the utilisation of full body gesture controls. These gestural controls prioritise the emulation of the alternate equivalent of such real-wold interactions, whilst also providing an interface for the seamless and unobtrusive translation of the user's real-world physical state into the virtual environment through intuitive user to virtual avatar proprioceptive coordination. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014

Long-term care at night: understanding sleep in care homes

Introduction: Sleep plays a significant role in the lives of older people experiencing institutional long-term care. It relates to their well being yet may also indicate a lack of stimulus and motivation to stay alert and participate in everyday life. However, to date the importance of sleep in this context has not been widely addressed. Research: This research identifies the determinants of poor sleep in care homes as part of a four year New Dynamics of Ageing Collaborative Research Project, SomnIA (Sleep in Ageing), which addresses practice and policy relevant issues arising from the nature, impact and management of the sleep-wake balance in later life. Using multi-methods data was collected in ten care homes. Over a two-week period, sleep and activity diaries are collected from 140 residents, supported by 275 h observational studies, and interviews with residents (n=40) and staff (n=78). Results: A conflict between meeting care needs and the facilitation of sleep has been identified and the findings aim to inform the future development of the care home environment and provide an evidence base from which practitioners can reconfigure the delivery of care to enhance the sleep of older people living in care homes

Mental health, quality of life and self-management behaviours:online evaluation of inflammatory arthritis patients over 1 year of COVID-19 lockdowns

Objective: Patients with inflammatory arthritis were especially vulnerable to the psychosocial and health impacts of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the lockdowns. This study investigated the impact of these changes on mental health, physical health and quality of life for inflammatory arthritis patients over 1 year following the initial lockdown in the UK. Methods: Three hundred and thirty-eight participants with inflammatory arthritis completed an ambidirectional study consisting of online questionnaires at four time points for 1 year. The questionnaires assessed demographic information, inflammatory arthritis condition, mental health, physical symptoms, self-management behaviours, COVID-19 status and impacts. Means, linear regressions and structural equation modelling for mediations were conducted over 12 months. Results: Physical health concerns peaked during June 2020, then declined, but did not return to baseline. Depression was associated with worse quality of life at baseline, as shown by the beta coefficient, (β= 0.94, P &lt; 0.01), September (β = 0.92, P &lt; 0.01), November (β= 0.77, P &lt; 0.01) and 1 year (β = 0.77, P &lt; 0.01). Likewise, anxiety was associated with worse quality of life at baseline (β = 1.92, P &lt; 0.01), September (β = 2.06, P &lt; 0.01), November (β = 1.66, P = 0.03) and 1 year (β = 1.51, P = 0.02). The association between depression and quality of life was mediated by physical activity (β= 0.13, P &lt; 0.01) at baseline. The association between anxiety and quality of life was also mediated by physical activity (β = 0.25, P = 0.04) at baseline. Conclusion: Physical health continued to be worse 1 year later compared with before the COVID-19 lockdowns in patients with inflammatory arthritis. Mental health showed long-Term effects on quality of life, with an impact for ≥12 months. Lastly, physical activity mediated between mental health and quality of life in the short term.</p

Improving and accelerating the differentiation and functional maturation of human stem cell-derived neurons: role of extracellular calcium and GABA

Neurons differentiated from pluripotent stem cells using established neural culture conditions often exhibit functional deficits. Recently, we have developed enhanced media which both synchronize the neurogenesis of pluripotent stem cell-derived neural progenitors and accelerate their functional maturation; together these media are termed SynaptoJuice. This pair of media are pro-synaptogenic and generate authentic, mature synaptic networks of connected forebrain neurons from a variety of induced pluripotent and embryonic stem cell lines. Such enhanced rate and extent of synchronized maturation of pluripotent stem cell-derived neural progenitor cells generates neurons which are characterized by a relatively hyperpolarized resting membrane potential, higher spontaneous and induced action potential activity, enhanced synaptic activity, more complete development of a mature inhibitory GABAA receptor phenotype and faster production of electrical network activity when compared to standard differentiation media. This entire process – from pre-patterned neural progenitor to active neuron – takes 3 weeks or less, making it an ideal platform for drug discovery and disease modelling in the fields of human neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders, such as Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and Schizophrenia

Study protocol for the COPE study: COVID-19 in Older People : the influence of frailty and multimorbidity on survival. A multi-centre, European observational study

Funding: The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

riboviz 2:A flexible and robust ribosome profiling data analysis and visualization workflow

MOTIVATION: Ribosome profiling, or Ribo-seq, is the state-of-the-art method for quantifying protein synthesis in living cells. Computational analysis of Ribo-seq data remains challenging due to the complexity of the procedure, as well as variations introduced for specific organisms or specialized analyses. RESULTS: We present riboviz 2, an updated riboviz package, for the comprehensive transcript-centric analysis and visualization of Ribo-seq data. riboviz 2 includes an analysis workflow built on the Nextflow workflow management system for end-to-end processing of Ribo-seq data. riboviz 2 has been extensively tested on diverse species and library preparation strategies, including multiplexed samples. riboviz 2 is flexible and uses open, documented file formats, allowing users to integrate new analyses with the pipeline. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: riboviz 2 is freely available at github.com/riboviz/riboviz

Complement receptor 1 is expressed on brain cells and in the human brain

Genome wide association studies (GWAS) have highlighted the importance of the complement cascade in pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Complement receptor 1 (CR1; CD35) is among the top GWAS hits. The long variant of CR1 is associated with increased risk for AD; however, roles of CR1 in brain health and disease are poorly understood. A critical confounder is that brain expression of CR1 is controversial; failure to demonstrate brain expression has provoked the suggestion that peripherally expressed CR1 influences AD risk. We took a multi‐pronged approach to establish whether CR1 is expressed in brain. Expression of CR1 at the protein and mRNA level was assessed in human microglial lines, induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)‐derived microglia from two sources and brain tissue from AD and control donors. CR1 protein was detected in microglial lines and iPSC‐derived microglia expressing different CR1 variants when immunostained with a validated panel of CR1‐specific antibodies; cell extracts were positive for CR1 protein and mRNA. CR1 protein was detected in control and AD brains, co‐localizing with astrocytes and microglia, and expression was significantly increased in AD compared to controls. CR1 mRNA expression was detected in all AD and control brain samples tested; expression was significantly increased in AD. The data unequivocally demonstrate that the CR1 transcript and protein are expressed in human microglia ex vivo and on microglia and astrocytes in situ in the human brain; the findings support the hypothesis that CR1 variants affect AD risk by directly impacting glial functions

A proangiogenic signaling axis in myeloid cells promotes malignant progression of glioma

Tumors are capable of coopting hematopoietic cells to create a suitable microenvironment to support malignant growth. Here, we have demonstrated that upregulation of kinase insert domain receptor (KDR), also known as VEGFR2, in a myeloid cell sublineage is necessary for malignant progression of gliomas in transgenic murine models and is associated with high-grade tumors in patients. KDR expression increased in myeloid cells as myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) accumulated, which was associated with the transformation and progression of low-grade fibrillary astrocytoma to high-grade anaplastic gliomas. KDR deficiency in murine BM-derived cells (BMDCs) suppressed the differentiation of myeloid lineages and reduced granulocytic/monocytic populations. The depletion of myeloid-derived KDR compromised its proangiogenic function, which inhibited the angiogenic switch necessary for malignant progression of low-grade to high-grade tumors. We also identified inhibitor of DNA binding protein 2 (ID2) as a key upstream regulator of KDR activation during myeloid differentiation. Deficiency of ID2 in BMDCs led to downregulation of KDR, suppression of proangiogenic myeloid cells, and prevention of low-grade to high-grade transition. Tumor-secreted TGF-β and granulocyte-macrophage CSF (GM-CSF) enhanced the KDR/ID2 signaling axis in BMDCs. Our results suggest that modulation of KDR/ID2 signaling may restrict tumor-associated myeloid cells and could potentially be a therapeutic strategy for preventing transformation of premalignant gliomas.This study was supported by the Department of Defense Con- gressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (DOD CDMRP, CA120318 to Y. Huang), Elizabeth’s Hope (J. Greenfield), the Starr Foundation, the Paduano Foundation, the Champalimaud Foun- dation, the Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation, the POETIC Foundation, the Sohn Foundation, the Hartwell Foundation, and the Children’s Cancer and Blood Foundation (all to D. Lyden). Address correspondence to: David Lyden, Department of Pediatrics, Weill Medical Medicine, 413 E. 69th Street, Box 284, New York, New York 10021, USA. Phone: 646.962.6238; E-mail: [email protected]. Or to: Jeffrey P. Greenfield, Department of Neurological Surgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, 525 E 68th Street, Box 99, New York, New York 10065, USA. Phone: 212.746.2363; E-mail: [email protected]. HP’s present address is: Microenvironment and Metastasis Group, Department of Molecular Oncology, Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), Madrid, Spain.S