A qualitative synthesis of research into social motivational influences across the athletic career span

This study represents a qualitative synthesis of research examining the socio-environmental influences of coaches, parents and peers on athlete motivation, across the athletic career-span. Using a critical-realist perspective, meta-interpretation methodology was deployed to search and analyse the literature. On-going, iterative analysis generated new areas of enquiry and new search terms, until the emerging analysis reached the points of saturation. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were developed during this process to produce a clear statement of applicability for the study. In the final analysis, a developmental structure was specified to describe the athletic career trajectory, together with a horizontal structure capturing seven domains of the motivational atmosphere surrounding athletes (competition, training, evaluation, emotion, authority, social-support, and relatedness), and a vertical structure varying in terms of level-of-abstraction: The global/broad ‘motivational atmosphere’ containing contextual ‘climates’, built from immediate/situational ‘motivational conditions’. A model of the overall ‘motivational atmosphere’ in sport, based on a meteorological analogy, is offered with a view to stimulating critical debate and new research directions that reflect the complexity of interpersonal motivation in sport

Impact of breast cancer subtypes on 3-year survival among adolescent and young adult women.

IntroductionYoung women have poorer survival after breast cancer than do older women. It is unclear whether this survival difference relates to the unique distribution of hormone receptor (HR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-defined molecular breast cancer subtypes among adolescent and young adult (AYA) women aged 15 to 39 years. The purpose of our study was to examine associations between breast cancer subtypes and short-term survival in AYA women, as well as to determine whether the distinct molecular subtype distribution among AYA women explains the unfavorable overall breast cancer survival statistics reported for AYA women compared with older women.MethodsData for 5,331 AYA breast cancers diagnosed between 2005 and 2009 were obtained from the California Cancer Registry. Survival by subtype (triple-negative; HR+/HER2-; HR+/HER2+; HR-/HER2+) and age-group (AYA versus 40- to 64-year-olds) was analyzed with Cox proportional hazards regression with follow-up through 2010.ResultsWith up to 6 years of follow-up and a mean survival time of 3.1 years (SD = 1.5 years), AYA women diagnosed with HR-/HER + and triple-negative breast cancer experienced a 1.6-fold and 2.7-fold increased risk of death, respectively, from all causes (HR-/HER + hazard ratio: 1.55; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.10 to 2.18; triple-negative HR: 2.75; 95% CI, 2.06 to 3.66) and breast cancer (HR-/HER + hazard ratio: 1.63; 95% CI, 1.12 to 2.36; triple-negative hazard ratio: 2.71; 95% CI, 1.98 to 3.71) than AYA women with HR+/HER2- breast cancer. AYA women who resided in lower socioeconomic status neighborhoods, had public health insurance, and were of Black, compared with White, race/ethnicity experienced worse survival. This race/ethnicity association was attenuated somewhat after adjusting for breast cancer subtypes (hazard ratio, 1.33; 95% CI, 0.98 to 1.82). AYA women had similar all-cause and breast cancer-specific short-term survival as older women for all breast cancer subtypes and across all stages of disease.ConclusionsAmong AYA women with breast cancer, short-term survival varied by breast cancer subtypes, with the distribution of breast cancer subtypes explaining some of the poorer survival observed among Black, compared with White, AYA women. Future studies should consider whether distribution of breast cancer subtypes and other factors, including differential receipt of treatment regimens, influences long-term survival in young compared with older women

M-sigma relations across space and time

Feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) has long been invoked to explain the correlation between black hole mass and stellar velocity dispersion (M-{\sigma}) discovered in low redshift galaxies. We describe the time evolution of AGN in the M-{\sigma} plane based on our gap model (Garofalo, Evans & Sambruna 2010) for black hole accretion and jet formation illustrating a fundamental difference between jetted and non-jetted AGN. While the latter tend to evolve diagonally upward with black hole mass increasing along with stellar dispersion, we show that jetted AGN tend on average to move initially more upwards because their effect on velocity dispersion is weaker than for non-jetted AGN. But this initial phase is followed by a shift in the nature of the feedback, from positive to negative, a transition that is more dramatic on average in denser cluster environments. The feedback gets its kick from tilted jets which shut down star formation but increase velocity dispersion values. As this change in the nature of the feedback takes tens of million to hundreds of millions of years, jetted AGN triggered in mergers will evolve mostly upwards for up to order 10^8 years, followed by an extremely long phase in which low excitation progressively slows black hole growth but dramatically affects stellar dispersion. As a result, powerful jetted AGN evolve for most of their lives almost horizontally on the M-{\sigma} plane. The prediction is that strongest AGN feedback on stellar dispersion is a late universe phenomenon with M87 being a case in point. We show how jetted and non-jetted AGN parallel the Sersic and core-Sersic galaxy paths in the M-{\sigma} plane found by Sahu et al (2019)

Distinct Stromal Cell Factor Combinations Can Separately Control Hematopoietic Stem Cell Survival, Proliferation, and Self-Renewal

SummaryHematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are identified by their ability to sustain prolonged blood cell production in vivo, although recent evidence suggests that durable self-renewal (DSR) is shared by HSC subtypes with distinct self-perpetuating differentiation programs. Net expansions of DSR-HSCs occur in vivo, but molecularly defined conditions that support similar responses in vitro are lacking. We hypothesized that this might require a combination of factors that differentially promote HSC viability, proliferation, and self-renewal. We now demonstrate that HSC survival and maintenance of DSR potential are variably supported by different Steel factor (SF)-containing cocktails with similar HSC-mitogenic activities. In addition, stromal cells produce other factors, including nerve growth factor and collagen 1, that can antagonize the apoptosis of initially quiescent adult HSCs and, in combination with SF and interleukin-11, produce >15-fold net expansions of DSR-HSCs ex vivo within 7 days. These findings point to the molecular basis of HSC control and expansion

Evidence for the Role of B Cells and Immunoglobulins in the Pathogenesis of Multiple Sclerosis

The pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis (MS) remains elusive. Recent reports advocate greater involvement of B cells and immunoglobulins in the initiation and propagation of MS lesions at different stages of their ontogeny. The key role of B cells and immunoglobulins in pathogenesis was initially identified by studies in which patients whose fulminant attacks of demyelination did not respond to steroids experienced remarkable functional improvement following plasma exchange. The positive response to Rituximab in Phase II clinical trials of relapsing-remitting MS confirms the role of B cells. The critical question is how B cells contribute to MS. In this paper, we discuss both the deleterious and the beneficial roles of B cells and immunoglobulins in MS lesions. We provide alternative hypotheses to explain both damaging and protective antibody responses

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance tagging of the right ventricular free wall for the assessment of long axis myocardial function in congenital heart disease

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Right ventricular ejection fraction (RV-EF) has traditionally been used to measure and compare RV function serially over time, but may be a relatively insensitive marker of change in RV myocardial contractile function. We developed a cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) tagging-based technique with a view to rapid and reproducible measurement of RV long axis function and applied it in patients with congenital heart disease.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We studied 84 patients: 56 with repaired Tetralogy of Fallot (rTOF); 28 with atrial septal defect (ASD): 13 with and 15 without pulmonary hypertension (RV pressure > 40 mmHG by echocardiography). For comparison, 20 healthy controls were studied. CMR acquisitions included an anatomically defined four chamber cine followed by a cine gradient echo-planar sequence in the same plane with a labelling pre-pulse giving a tag line across the basal myocardium. RV tag displacement was measured with automated registration and tracking of the tag line together with standard measurement of RV-EF.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Mean RV displacement was higher in the control (26 ± 3 mm) than in rTOF (16 ± 4 mm) and ASD with pulmonary hypertension (18 ± 3 mm) groups, but lower than in the ASD group without (30 ± 4 mm), P < 0.001. The technique was reproducible with inter-study bias ± 95% limits of agreement of 0.7 ± 2.7 mm. While RV-EF was lower in rTOF than in controls (49 ± 9% versus 57 ± 6%, P < 0.001), it did not differ between either ASD group and controls.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Measurements of RV long axis displacement by CMR tagging showed more differences between the groups studied than did RV-EF, and was reproducible, quick and easy to apply. Further work is needed to assess its potential use for the detection of longitudinal changes in RV myocardial function.</p

Epidemiology of Non-small Cell Lung Cancer in Asian Americans: Incidence Patterns Among Six Subgroups by Nativity

BackgroundDifferences in the epidemiology of lung cancer between Asians and non-Hispanic whites have brought to light the relative influences of genetic and environmental factors on lung cancer risk. We set out to describe the epidemiology of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) among Asians living in California, and to explore the effects of acculturation on lung cancer risk by comparing lung cancer rates between U.S.-born and foreign-born Asians.MethodsAge-adjusted incidence rates of NSCLC were calculated for Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and South Asians in California between 1988 and 2003 using data from the California Cancer Registry. Incidence rates were calculated and stratified by sex and nativity. We analyzed population-based tobacco smoking prevalence data to determine whether differences in rates were associated with prevalence of tobacco smoking.ResultsAsians have overall lower incidence rates of NSCLC compared with whites (29.8 and 57.7 per 100,000, respectively). South Asians have markedly low rates of NSCLC (12.0 per 100,000). Foreign-born Asian men and women have an approximately 35% higher rate of NSCLC than U.S.-born Asian men and women. The incidence pattern by nativity is consistent with the population prevalence of smoking among Asian men; however, among women, the prevalence of smoking is higher among U.S.-born, which is counter to their incidence patterns.ConclusionsForeign-born Asians have a higher rate of NSCLC than U.S.-born Asians, which may be due to environmental tobacco smoke or nontobacco exposures among women. South Asians have a remarkably low rate of NSCLC that approaches white levels among the U.S.-born. More studies with individual-level survey data are needed to identify the specific environmental factors associated with differential lung cancer risk occurring with acculturation among Asians

The role of molecular testing and enzyme analysis in the management of hypomorphic citrullinemia

No Abstract.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69185/1/33256_ftp.pd