Mobile Grocery Stores for Rural Communities

On January 19, 2018, Cowley County was contacted by a representative from Sunflower Foundation with an amazing opportunity. The funder had been in contact with Honor Capital, LLC, a veteran-owned private equity firm with the mission to build and operate grocery stores in underserved areas. While much of their work has been in urban settings, Honor Capital, LLC has a desire to tackle the very unique challenge of RURAL food deserts. They recently received funding from out of state to pilot the concept of a mobile grocery truck in rural Kansas. They wish to use the recently built Save-a-Lot store in Winfield to service surrounding towns without grocery stores. Sunflower Foundation offered to provide a grant to a local non-profit that might support the role of grocery/healthy food liaisons (paid positions) in the small communities where the truck wishes to stop. The liaisons would serve as a critical connector between the grocery store and the residents – surveying community wants/needs, figuring out best ordering system for people, promoting and publicizing the grocery truck with all forms of media including coffee shop talk and social media, perhaps even figuring out healthy food cooking demos or innovative ideas like pre-packaged meal boxes. Of critical importance is the work of local champions. How can rural communities mobilize themselves to be ready? Partnerships are key as well as the willingness to try, fail and persevere. This project reflects how strengthening communities with strong partnerships can lead to strengthened health for communities. This presentation emphasizes the importance of partnerships and being willing to try, fail and persevere. Cowley County shares data about its rural communities and existing community partnerships to help support this project. Residents in rural communities accept that they have to leave their community for many consumer goods and services. The concept of a mobile rural grocery store model strengthens communities and strengthens health

Environment-induced dynamical chaos

We examine the interplay of nonlinearity of a dynamical system and thermal fluctuation of its environment in the ``physical limit'' of small damping and slow diffusion in a semiclassical context and show that the trajectories of c-number variables exhibit dynamical chaos due to the thermal fluctuations of the bath.Comment: Revtex, 4 pages and 4 figure

Adults with intellectual disabilities: prevalence, incidence and remission of aggressive behaviour and related factors

<b>Introduction:</b> Aggressive behaviours can be disabling for adults with intellectual disabilities (ID), with negative consequences for the adult, their family and paid carers. It is surprising how little research has been conducted into the epidemiology of these needs, given the impact they can have. This study investigates point prevalence, 2-year incidence and 2-year remission rates for aggressive behaviour (physically aggressive, destructive and verbally aggressive), and it investigates which factors are independently associated with aggressive behaviour. <b>Methods:</b> All adults with ID – within a geographically defined area of Scotland, UK – were recruited to a longitudinal cohort. At baseline, assessments were undertaken of demography, lifestyle, supports, development, problem behaviours, disabilities and physical and mental health. These were repeated for a 2-year period. <b>Results:</b> At baseline, the participation rate was 1023 (65.5%). After 2 years, the cohort retention was 651 adults. The point prevalence of Diagnostic Criteria for Psychiatric Disorders for Use with Adults with Learning Disabilities/Mental Retardation (DC-LD) aggressive behaviour was 9.8% (95% confidence interval = 8.0–11.8%), 2-year incidence was 1.8%, and 2-year remission rate from all types of aggressive behaviour meeting DC-LD criteria was 27.7%. The factors independently associated with aggressive behaviours were lower ability, female gender, not living with a family carer, not having Down syndrome, having attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and having urinary incontinence. Incidence of aggressive behaviour meeting DC-LD criteria in adult life is similar to that for each of psychotic, anxiety and organic disorders. <b>Conclusions:</b> Aggressive behaviour is common among adults with ID, but contrary to previous suggestions, more than a quarter remit within the short to medium term. This is important knowledge for professionals as well as the person and her/his family and paid carers. There is much yet to learn about the mechanisms underpinning aetiology and maintenance of aggressive behaviour in this population, and exploratory epidemiological investigations such as this have a role to play in progressing research towards further hypothesis testing and trials to influence clinical practice, service development and policy

Encouraging Medicare Advantage Enrollees to Switch to Higher Quality Plans: Assessing the Effectiveness of a ‘‘Nudge’’ Letter

There are considerable quality differences across private Medicare Advantage insurance plans, so it is important that beneficiaries make informed choices. During open enrollment for the 2013 coverage year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services sent letters to beneficiaries enrolled in low-quality Medicare Advantage plans (i.e., plans rated less than 3 stars for at least 3 consecutive years by Medicare) explaining the stars and encouraging them to reexamine their choices. To understand the effectiveness of these low-cost, behavioral ‘‘nudge’’ letters, we used a beneficiary-level national retrospective cohort and performed multivariate regression analysis of plan selection during the 2013 open enrollment period among those enrolled in plans rated less than 3 stars. Our analysis controls for beneficiary demographic characteristics, health and health care spending risks, the availability of alternative higher rated plan options in their local market, and historical disenrollment rates from the plans. We compared the behaviors of those beneficiaries who received the nudge letters with those who enrolled in similar poorly rated plans but did not receive such letters. We found that beneficiaries who received the nudge letter were almost twice as likely (28.0% [95% confidence interval = 27.7%, 28.2%] vs. 15.3% [95% confidence interval = 15.1%, 15.5%]) to switch to a higher rated plan compared with those who did not receive the letter. White beneficiaries, healthier beneficiaries, and those residing in areas with more high-performing plan choices were more likely to switch plans in response to the nudge. Our findings highlight both the importance and efficacy of providing timely and actionable information to beneficiaries about quality in the insurance marketplace to facilitate informed and value-based coverage decisions

Unprecedented springtime retreat of Antarctic sea ice in 2016

During austral spring 2016 Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) decreased at a record rate of 75 x 10(3) km(2) d(-1), which was 46% faster than the mean rate and 18% faster than in any previous spring season during the satellite era. The decrease of sea ice area was also exceptional and 28% greater than the mean. Anomalous negative retreat occurred in all sectors of the Antarctic but was greatest in the Weddell and Ross Seas. Record negative SIE anomalies for the day of year were recorded from 3 November 2016 to 9 April 2017. Rapid ice retreat in the Weddell Sea took place in strong northerly flow after an early maximum ice extent in late August. Rapid ice retreat occurred in November in the Ross Sea when surface pressure was at a record high level, with the Southern Annular Mode at its most negative for that month since 1968

Generation of atom-photon entangled states in atomic Bose-Einstein condensate via electromagnetically induced transparency

In this paper, we present a method to generate continuous-variable-type entangled states between photons and atoms in atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The proposed method involves an atomic BEC with three internal states, a weak quantized probe laser and a strong classical coupling laser, which form a three-level Lambda-shaped BEC system. We consider a situation where the BEC is in electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with the coupling laser being much stronger than the probe laser. In this case, the upper and intermediate levels are unpopulated, so that their adiabatic elimination enables an effective two-mode model involving only the atomic field at the lowest internal level and the quantized probe laser field. Atom-photon quantum entanglement is created through laser-atom and inter-atomic interactions, and two-photon detuning. We show how to generate atom-photon entangled coherent states and entangled states between photon (atom) coherent states and atom-(photon-) macroscopic quantum superposition (MQS) states, and between photon-MQS and atom-MQS states.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

Molecular surveillance of insecticide resistance in Phlebotomus argentipes targeted by indoor residual spraying for visceral leishmaniasis elimination in India

Molecular surveillance of resistance is an increasingly important part of vector borne disease control programmes that utilise insecticides. The visceral leishmaniasis (VL) elimination programme in India uses indoor residual spraying (IRS) with the pyrethroid, alpha-cypermethrin to control Phlebotomus argentipes the vector of Leishmania donovani, the causative agent of VL. Prior long-term use of DDT may have selected for knockdown resistance (kdr) mutants (1014F and S) at the shared DDT and pyrethroid target site, which are common in India and can also cause pyrethroid cross-resistance. We monitored the frequency of these marker mutations over five years from 2017–2021 in sentinel sites in eight districts of north-eastern India covered by IRS. Frequencies varied markedly among the districts, though finer scale variation, among villages within districts, was limited. A pronounced and highly significant increase in resistance-associated genotypes occurred between 2017 and 2018, but with relative stability thereafter, and some reversion toward more susceptible genotypes in 2021. Analyses linked IRS with mutant frequencies suggesting an advantage to more resistant genotypes, especially when pyrethroid was under-sprayed in IRS. However, this advantage did not translate into sustained allele frequency changes over the study period, potentially because of a relatively greater net advantage under field conditions for a wild-type/mutant genotype than projected from laboratory studies and/or high costs of the most resistant genotype. Further work is required to improve calibration of each 1014 genotype with resistance, preferably using operationally relevant measures. The lack of change in resistance mechanism over the span of the study period, coupled with available bioassay data suggesting susceptibility, suggests that resistance has yet to emerge despite intensive IRS. Nevertheless, the advantage of resistance-associated genotypes with IRS and under spraying, suggest that measures to continue monitoring and improvement of spray quality are vital, and consideration of future alternatives to pyrethroids for IRS would be advisable

Effect of probe energy and competing pathways on time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy signals: ring-opening reaction of 1,3-cyclohexadiene

The ring-opening dynamics of 1,3-cyclohexadiene (CHD) following UV excitation is studied using a model based on quantum molecular dynamics simulations with the ab-initio multiconfigurational Ehrenfest (AI-MCE) method coupled to the Dyson orbital approach for photoionisation cross sections. Time-dependent photoelectron spectra are calculated for probe photon energies in the range 2-15 eV. The calculations demonstrate the value of universal high-energy probes, capableof tracking the full photochemical dynamics of the molecule, as well as the benefit of more selective, lower-energy probes. The predicted signal, especially with the universal probes, becomes highly convoluted due to the contributions from multiple reaction paths, rendering interpretationdifficult unless complementary measurements and theoretical comparisons are available

TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Expression of Human Frataxin Is Regulated by Transcription Factors SRF and TFAP2

Friedreich ataxia is an autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disease caused by reduced expression levels of the frataxin gene (FXN) due to expansion of triplet nucleotide GAA repeats in the first intron of FXN. Augmentation of frataxin expression levels in affected Friedreich ataxia patient tissues might substantially slow disease progression.We utilized bioinformatic tools in conjunction with chromatin immunoprecipitation and electrophoretic mobility shift assays to identify transcription factors that influence transcription of the FXN gene. We found that the transcription factors SRF and TFAP2 bind directly to FXN promoter sequences. SRF and TFAP2 binding sequences in the FXN promoter enhanced transcription from luciferase constructs, while mutagenesis of the predicted SRF or TFAP2 binding sites significantly decreased FXN promoter activity. Further analysis demonstrated that robust SRF- and TFAP2-mediated transcriptional activity was dependent on a regulatory element, located immediately downstream of the first FXN exon. Finally, over-expression of either SRF or TFAP2 significantly increased frataxin mRNA and protein levels in HEK293 cells, and frataxin mRNA levels were also elevated in SH-SY5Y cells and in Friedreich ataxia patient lymphoblasts transfected with SRF or TFAP2.We identified two transcription factors, SRF and TFAP2, as well as an intronic element encompassing EGR3-like sequence, that work together to regulate expression of the FXN gene. By providing new mechanistic insights into the molecular factors influencing frataxin expression, our results should aid in the discovery of new therapeutic targets for the treatment of Friedreich ataxia