86 research outputs found
Chrismon v. Guilford County and Hall v. City of Durham: Redefining Contract Zoning and Approving Conditional Use Zoning in North Carolina
Combining exercise with cognitive training and vitamin D
Changes in functional brain connectivity (FBC) may indicate how lifestyle modifications can prevent the progression to dementia; FBC identifies areas that are spatially separate but temporally synchronized in their activation and is altered in those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a prodromal state between healthy cognitive aging and dementia. Participants with MCI were randomly assigned to one of five study arms. Three times per week for 20-weeks, participants performed 30-min of (control) cognitive training, followed by 60-min of (control) physical exercise. Additionally, a vitamin
Mobility and Cognition in Seniors. Report from the 2008 Institute of Aging (CIHR) Mobility and Cognition Workshop
Background
The annual Scientific Meeting of the Canadian Association on Gerontology was held on October 24 and 25, 2008 in London, Ontario. Prior to the annual meeting, mobility and cognition experts met on October 23, 2008 to engage in a pre-conference workshop.
Methods
Discussions during the workshop addressed novel areas of research and knowledge and research gaps pertaining to the interaction between mobility and cognition in seniors.
Results
Workshop presenters moved from the neuromuscular, biomechanics, and neurology of gait impairments, and falls through the role of cognition and mood on mobility regulation to the whole person in the environment. Research gaps were identified.
Conclusions
Despite a consensus that mobility and cognition are increasingly correlated as people age, several gaps in our understanding of mechanisms and how to assess the interaction were recognized. The gaps originally identified in 2008 are still pertinent today. Common and standardized assessments for “mobility and cognition” are still not in place in current practice. Interventions that target mobility and cognitive decline as a single entity are still lacking
Catalogue of BRITE-Constellation targets I. Fields 1 to 14 (November 2013 - April 2016)
The BRIght Target Explorer (BRITE) mission collects photometric time series
in two passbands aiming to investigate stellar structure and evolution. Since
their launches in the years 2013 and 2014, the constellation of five BRITE
nano-satellites has observed a total of more than 700 individual bright stars
in 64 fields. Some targets have been observed multiple times. Thus, the total
time base of the data sets acquired for those stars can be as long as nine
years. Our aim is to provide a complete description of ready-to-use BRITE data,
to show the scientific potential of the BRITE-Constellation data by identifying
the most interesting targets, and to demonstrate and encourage how scientists
can use these data in their research. We apply a decorrelation process to the
automatically reduced BRITE-Constellation data to correct for instrumental
effects. We perform a statistical analysis of the light curves obtained for the
300 stars observed in the first 14 fields during the first ~2.5 years of the
mission. We also perform cross-identification with the International Variable
Star Index. We present the data obtained by the BRITE-Constellation mission in
the first 14 fields it observed from November 2013 to April 2016. We also
describe the properties of the data for these fields and the 300 stars observed
in them. Using these data, we detected variability in 64% of the presented
sample of stars. Sixty-four stars or 21.3% of the sample have not yet been
identified as variable in the literature and their data have not been analysed
in detail. They can therefore provide valuable scientific material for further
research. All data are made publicly available through the BRITE Public Data
Archive and the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre.Comment: accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics, 13 pages main text, 22 pages of
appendi
Impact of a Plasmodium falciparum AMA1 Vaccine on Antibody Responses in Adult Malians
Apical Membrane Antigen 1 (AMA1) of Plasmodium falciparum merozoites is a leading blood-stage malaria vaccine candidate. Protection of Aotus monkeys after vaccination with AMA1 correlates with antibody responses.A randomized, controlled, double-blind phase 1 clinical trial was conducted in 54 healthy Malian adults living in an area of intense seasonal malaria transmission to assess the safety and immunogenicity of the AMA1-C1 malaria vaccine. AMA1-C1 contains an equal mixture of yeast-expressed recombinant proteins based on sequences from the FVO and 3D7 clones of P. falciparum, adsorbed on Alhydrogel. The control vaccine was the hepatitis B vaccine (Recombivax). Participants were enrolled into 1 of 3 dose cohorts (n = 18 per cohort) and randomized 2:1 to receive either AMA1-C1 or Recombivax. Participants in the first, second, and third cohorts randomized to receive AMA1-C1 were vaccinated with 5, 20 and 80 microg of AMA1-C1, respectively. Vaccinations were administered on days 0, 28, and 360, and participants were followed until 6 months after the final vaccination. AMA1-C1 was well tolerated; no vaccine-related severe or serious adverse events were observed. AMA1 antibody responses to the 80 microg dose increased rapidly from baseline levels by days 14 and 28 after the first vaccination and continued to increase after the second vaccination. After a peak 14 days following the second vaccination, antibody levels decreased to baseline levels one year later at the time of the third vaccination that induced little or no increase in antibody levels.Although the AMA1-C1 vaccine candidate was well-tolerated and induced antibody responses to both vaccine and non-vaccine alleles, the antibody response after a third dose given at one year was lower than the response to the initial vaccinations. Additionally, post-vaccination increases in anti-AMA1 antibody levels were not associated with significant changes in in vitro growth inhibition of P. falciparum.ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00343005
Medial longitudinal arch development of school children : The College of Podiatry Annual Conference 2015: meeting abstracts
Background Foot structure is often classified into flat foot, neutral and high arch type based on the variability of the Medial Longitudinal Arch (MLA). To date, the literature provided contrasting evidence on the age when MLA development stabilises in children. The influence of footwear on MLA development is also unknown. Aim This study aims to (i) clarify whether the MLA is still changing in children from age 7 to 9 years old and (ii) explore the relationship between footwear usage and MLA development, using a longitudinal approach. Methods We evaluated the MLA of 111 healthy school children [age = 6.9 (0.3) years] using three parameters [arch index (AI), midfoot peak pressure (PP) and maximum force (MF: % of body weight)] extracted from dynamic foot loading measurements at baseline, 10-month and 22-month follow-up. Information on the type of footwear worn was collected using survey question. Linear mixed modelling was used to test for differences in the MLA over time. Results Insignificant changes in all MLA parameters were observed over time [AI: P = .15; PP: P = .84; MF: P = .91]. When gender was considered, the AI of boys decreased with age [P = .02]. Boys also displayed a flatter MLA than girls at age 6.9 years [AI: mean difference = 0.02 (0.01, 0.04); P = .02]. At baseline, subjects who wore close-toe shoes displayed the lowest MLA overall [AI/PP/MF: P < .05]. Subjects who used slippers when commencing footwear use experienced higher PP than those who wore sandals [mean difference = 31.60 (1.44, 61.75) kPa; post-hoc P = .04]. Discussion and conclusion Our findings suggested that the MLA of children remained stable from 7 to 9 years old, while gender and the type of footwear worn during childhood may influence MLA development. Clinicians may choose to commence therapy when a child presents with painful flexible flat foot at age 7 years, and may discourage younger children from wearing slippers when they commence using footwear
The ABC130 barrel module prototyping programme for the ATLAS strip tracker
For the Phase-II Upgrade of the ATLAS Detector, its Inner Detector,
consisting of silicon pixel, silicon strip and transition radiation
sub-detectors, will be replaced with an all new 100 % silicon tracker, composed
of a pixel tracker at inner radii and a strip tracker at outer radii. The
future ATLAS strip tracker will include 11,000 silicon sensor modules in the
central region (barrel) and 7,000 modules in the forward region (end-caps),
which are foreseen to be constructed over a period of 3.5 years. The
construction of each module consists of a series of assembly and quality
control steps, which were engineered to be identical for all production sites.
In order to develop the tooling and procedures for assembly and testing of
these modules, two series of major prototyping programs were conducted: an
early program using readout chips designed using a 250 nm fabrication process
(ABCN-25) and a subsequent program using a follow-up chip set made using 130 nm
processing (ABC130 and HCC130 chips). This second generation of readout chips
was used for an extensive prototyping program that produced around 100
barrel-type modules and contributed significantly to the development of the
final module layout. This paper gives an overview of the components used in
ABC130 barrel modules, their assembly procedure and findings resulting from
their tests.Comment: 82 pages, 66 figure
A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being
The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N=10,535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported β=0.120). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported β=0.039). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates
A Many-analysts Approach to the Relation Between Religiosity and Well-being
The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N = 10, 535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported β = 0.120). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported β = 0.039). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates
The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex
The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
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