Neighbors Link\u27s Parent-Child Together Program: Supporting Immigrant Parents\u27 Integration to Promote School Readiness Among Their Emergent Bilingual Children

The authors of this article describe Neighbors Link, a multi-service community and worker center in suburban Westchester County, NY. This organization created Parent-Child Together in the belief that supporting immigrant parents\u27 integration and social inclusion, in activities that also engage long-term community residents, would improve school readiness outcomes for preschool children. A key assumption in the program design is that immigrant parents are best supported when teaching respects their home language and incorporates their home culture and customs. Among the program\u27s positive results has been greater acceptance of the assets and strengths that immigrants bring to the community. The community, concurrently, has incorporated this perspective into programming, notably the school district\u27s new elementary-level dual language program that supports both children of immigrants and long-term residents in becoming bilingual

Dysregulated protocadherin-pathway activity as an intrinsic defect in induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cortical interneurons from subjects with schizophrenia.

We generated cortical interneurons (cINs) from induced pluripotent stem cells derived from 14 healthy controls and 14 subjects with schizophrenia. Both healthy control cINs and schizophrenia cINs were authentic, fired spontaneously, received functional excitatory inputs from host neurons, and induced GABA-mediated inhibition in host neurons in vivo. However, schizophrenia cINs had dysregulated expression of protocadherin genes, which lie within documented schizophrenia loci. Mice lacking protocadherin-α showed defective arborization and synaptic density of prefrontal cortex cINs and behavioral abnormalities. Schizophrenia cINs similarly showed defects in synaptic density and arborization that were reversed by inhibitors of protein kinase C, a downstream kinase in the protocadherin pathway. These findings reveal an intrinsic abnormality in schizophrenia cINs in the absence of any circuit-driven pathology. They also demonstrate the utility of homogenous and functional populations of a relevant neuronal subtype for probing pathogenesis mechanisms during development

Perceiving Pain in Others: Automatic and Controlled Mechanisms

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Evolutionary life history theory as an organising framework for cohort studies : insights from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey

By tracking a group of individuals through time, cohort studies provide fundamental insights into the developmental time course and causes of health and disease. Evolutionary life history theory seeks to explain patterns of growth, development, reproduction and senescence, and inspires a range of hypotheses that are testable using the longitudinal data from cohort studies. Here we review two decades of life history theory-motivated work conducted in collaboration with the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS), a birth cohort study that enrolled more than 3000 pregnant women in the Philippines in 1983 and has since followed these women, their offspring and grandoffspring. This work has provided evidence that reproduction carries “costs” to cellular maintenance functions, potentially speeding senescence, and revealed an unusual form of genetic plasticity in which the length of telomeres inherited across generations is influenced by reproductive timing in paternal ancestors. Men in Cebu experience hormonal and behavioural changes in conjunction with changes in relationship and fatherhood status that are consistent with predictions based upon other species that practice bi-parental care. The theoretical expectation that early life cues of mortality or environmental unpredictability will motivate a “fast” life history strategy are confirmed for behavioural components of reproductive decision making, but not for maturational tempo, while our work points to a broader capacity for early life developmental calibration of systems like immunity, reproductive biology and metabolism. Our CLHNS findings illustrate the power of life history theory as an integrative, lifecourse framework to guide longitudinal studies of human populations

Systemic Exposure to PAHs and Benzene in Firefighters Suppressing Controlled Structure Fires

Turnout gear provides protection against dermal exposure to contaminants during firefighting; however, the level of protection is unknown. We explored the dermal contribution to the systemic dose of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and other aromatic hydrocarbons in firefighters during suppression and overhaul of controlled structure burns. The study was organized into two rounds, three controlled burns per round, and five firefighters per burn. The firefighters wore new or laundered turnout gear tested before each burn to ensure lack of PAH contamination. To ensure that any increase in systemic PAH levels after the burn was the result of dermal rather than inhalation exposure, the firefighters did not remove their self-contained breathing apparatus until overhaul was completed and they were >30 m upwind from the burn structure. Specimens were collected before and at intervals after the burn for biomarker analysis. Urine was analyzed for phenanthrene equivalents using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and a benzene metabolite (s-phenylmercapturic acid) using liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry; both were adjusted by creatinine. Exhaled breath collected on thermal desorption tubes was analyzed for PAHs and other aromatic hydrocarbons using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. We collected personal air samples during the burn and skin wipe samples (corn oil medium) on several body sites before and after the burn. The air and wipe samples were analyzed for PAHs using a liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection. We explored possible changes in external exposures or biomarkers over time and the relationships between these variables using non-parametric sign tests and Spearman tests, respectively. We found significantly elevated (P < 0.05) post-exposure breath concentrations of benzene compared with pre-exposure concentrations for both rounds. We also found significantly elevated post-exposure levels of PAHs on the neck compared with pre-exposure levels for round 1. We found statistically significant positive correlations between external exposures (i.e. personal air concentrations of PAHs) and biomarkers (i.e. change in urinary PAH metabolite levels in round 1 and change in breath concentrations of benzene in round 2). The results suggest that firefighters wearing full protective ensembles absorbed combustion products into their bodies. The PAHs most likely entered firefighters’ bodies through their skin, with the neck being the primary site of exposure and absorption due to the lower level of dermal protection afforded by hoods. Aromatic hydrocarbons could have been absorbed dermally during firefighting or inhaled during the doffing of gear that was off-gassing contaminants.National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) by intramural award under the National Occupational Research AgendaOpe

Regions of High Out-Of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Incidence and Low Bystander CPR Rates in Victoria, Australia

BACKGROUND: Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) remains a major public health issue and research has shown that large regional variation in outcomes exists. Of the interventions associated with survival, the provision of bystander CPR is one of the most important modifiable factors. The aim of this study is to identify census areas with high incidence of OHCA and low rates of bystander CPR in Victoria, Australia. METHODS: We conducted an observational study using prospectively collected population-based OHCA data from the state of Victoria in Australia. Using ArcGIS (ArcMap 10.0), we linked the location of the arrest using the dispatch coordinates (longitude and latitude) to Victorian Local Government Areas (LGAs). We used Bayesian hierarchical models with random effects on each LGA to provide shrunken estimates of the rates of bystander CPR and the incidence rates. RESULTS: Over the study period there were 31,019 adult OHCA attended, of which 21,436 (69.1%) cases were of presumed cardiac etiology. Significant variation in the incidence of OHCA among LGAs was observed. There was a 3 fold difference in the incidence rate between the lowest and highest LGAs, ranging from 38.5 to 115.1 cases per 100,000 person-years. The overall rate of bystander CPR for bystander witnessed OHCAs was 62.4%, with the rate increasing from 56.4% in 2008-2010 to 68.6% in 2010-2013. There was a 25.1% absolute difference in bystander CPR rates between the highest and lowest LGAs. CONCLUSION: Significant regional variation in OHCA incidence and bystander CPR rates exists throughout Victoria. Regions with high incidence and low bystander CPR participation can be identified and would make suitable targets for interventions to improve CPR participation rates

Does managed care make a difference? Physicians' length of stay decisions under managed and non-managed care

BACKGROUND: In this study we examined the influence of type of insurance and the influence of managed care in particular, on the length of stay decisions physicians make and on variation in medical practice. METHODS: We studied lengths of stay for comparable patients who are insured under managed or non-managed care plans. Seven Diagnosis Related Groups were chosen, two medical (COPD and CHF), one surgical (hip replacement) and four obstetrical (hysterectomy with and without complications and Cesarean section with and without complications). The 1999, 2000 and 2001 – data from hospitals in New York State were used and analyzed with multilevel analysis. RESULTS: Average length of stay does not differ between managed and non-managed care patients. Less variation was found for managed care patients. In both groups, the variation was smaller for DRGs that are easy to standardize than for other DRGs. CONCLUSION: Type of insurance does not affect length of stay. An explanation might be that hospitals have a general policy concerning length of stay, independent of the type of insurance of the patient

Prognostic impact of vitamin B6 metabolism in lung cancer

Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are routinely treated with cytotoxic agents such as cisplatin. Through a genome-wide siRNA-based screen, we identified vitamin B6 metabolism as a central regulator of cisplatin responses in vitro and in vivo. By aggravating a bioenergetic catastrophe that involves the depletion of intracellular glutathione, vitamin B6 exacerbates cisplatin-mediated DNA damage, thus sensitizing a large panel of cancer cell lines to apoptosis. Moreover, vitamin B6 sensitizes cancer cells to apoptosis induction by distinct types of physical and chemical stress, including multiple chemotherapeutics. This effect requires pyridoxal kinase (PDXK), the enzyme that generates the bioactive form of vitamin B6. In line with a general role of vitamin B6 in stress responses, low PDXK expression levels were found to be associated with poor disease outcome in two independent cohorts of patients with NSCLC. These results indicate that PDXK expression levels constitute a biomarker for risk stratification among patients with NSCLC.publishedVersio