Online Dating During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Is it the New Norm?

For many who were single during the COVID-19 pandemic, this public health crisis may have led to issues with dating or finding a romantic partner. To understand the impact of the pandemic on dating life, in the present study, we examined single people’s dating app usage collected as part of The Kinsey Institute’s annual Singles in America project. Using a nationally representative sample of people who were currently single in the U.S. (N = 4,877 with an average age of 45.92), we found that the vast majority of single people (96%) were using dating apps (e.g., Tinder, Bumble, Match) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sixty-two percent of the sample identified as women and 37.4% identified as men; 88.5% identified as heterosexual and 11.5% identified as a sexual minority (gay, lesbian, or bisexual). One-quarter (24.9%) of single people were using dating apps more frequently than compared to before the pandemic; nearly one-half (42.5%) were less active during the pandemic (the remaining reported no change in dating app usage). Multiple linear regression results show that men and sexual minorities were using dating apps at a higher frequency during the pandemic, compared to women and heterosexual people, respectfully (B = .16, p = .006 and B = .19, p = .01). Age was not associated with dating app usage during the pandemic. Information about video date usage and enjoyment will be discussed as well as common video date activities (e.g., long conversations, sex, games) during the pandemic. Taken together, these results suggest that dating app usage decreased during the pandemic (except for men and sexual minorities), which is likely due to health concerns. At the same time, video dating may have become a new norm during this time period

ranacapa: An R package and Shiny web app to explore environmental DNA data with exploratory statistics and interactive visualizations.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is becoming a core tool in ecology and conservation biology, and is being used in a growing number of education, biodiversity monitoring, and public outreach programs in which professional research scientists engage community partners in primary research. Results from eDNA analyses can engage and educate natural resource managers, students, community scientists, and naturalists, but without significant training in bioinformatics, it can be difficult for this diverse audience to interact with eDNA results. Here we present the R package ranacapa, at the core of which is a Shiny web app that helps perform exploratory biodiversity analyses and visualizations of eDNA results. The app requires a taxonomy-by-sample matrix and a simple metadata file with descriptive information about each sample. The app enables users to explore the data with interactive figures and presents results from simple community ecology analyses. We demonstrate the value of ranacapa to two groups of community partners engaging with eDNA metabarcoding results

On-site treatment of exertional heat stroke

Background: Exertional heat stroke is a devastating condition that can cause significant morbidity and mortality. Rapid cooling is the most effective means of treating heat stroke, but little is published on the safety and logistics of cooling patients on site at a major sporting event. Purpose: To describe an on-site exertional heat stroke treatment protocol and to compare the outcomes of patients treated on site to those transferred to hospitals. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiological study. Methods: Using race-day medical records and ambulance run sheets, patients who developed exertional heat stroke at the Indianapolis half-marathon from 2005 to 2012 were identified. Exertional heat stroke was defined as runners with a core temperature measured with a rectal thermometer greater than 102°F and altered mental status. Clinical information and patient outcomes were abstracted from the race medical tent and hospital charts by 3 separate trained reviewers using structured methods and a data collection form. Two reviewers, using a RedCAP database and dual-data entry, abstracted records for each patient. A third arbitrated all discrepancies between reviewers. Clinical signs, treatments, and outcomes were calculated using descriptive statistics, and data were grouped and compared for patients treated on site or transferred to local hospitals for treatment. Results: Over 235,000 athletes participated in the event over the 8-year period, with 696 seeking medical care. A total of 32 heat stroke victims were identified during the study period; of these, 22 were treated on site. Of these, 68% were treated with cold-water immersion and 59% were discharged home from the race. Ten exertional heat stroke patients were transported from the race course to local hospitals. None of them underwent cold-water immersion, and 40% of them were subsequently discharged home. No patients in the study died. Conclusion: On-site treatment of athletes who develop exertional heat stroke appears to be both safe and effective. On-site treatment may decrease the local burden of critically ill patients to emergency departments during large athletic events

Chandra Observations of the Radio Galaxy 3C 445 and the Hotspot X-ray Emission Mechanism

We present new {\it Chandra} observations of the radio galaxy 3C 445, centered on its southern radio hotspot. Our observations detect X-ray emission displaced upstream and to the west of the radio-optical hotspot. Attempting to reproduce both the observed spectral energy distribution (SED) and the displacement, excludes all one zone models. Modeling of the radio-optical hotspot spectrum suggests that the electron distribution has a low energy cutoff or break approximately at the proton rest mass energy. The X-rays could be due to external Compton scattering of the cosmic microwave background (EC/CMB) coming from the fast (Lorentz factor $\Gamma\approx 4$) part of a decelerating flow, but this requires a small angle between the jet velocity and the observer's line of sight ($\theta\approx 14^{\circ}$). Alternatively, the X-ray emission can be synchrotron from a separate population of electrons. This last interpretation does not require the X-ray emission to be beamed.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, ApJ, in pres

Associations between hippocampal morphometry and neuropathologic markers of Alzheimer's disease using 7 T MRI

Hippocampal atrophy, amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles are established pathologic markers of Alzheimer's disease. We analyzed the temporal lobes of 9 Alzheimer's dementia (AD) and 7 cognitively normal (NC) subjects. Brains were scanned post-mortem at 7 Tesla. We extracted hippocampal volumes and radial distances using automated segmentation techniques. Hippocampal slices were stained for amyloid beta (Aβ), tau, and cresyl violet to evaluate neuronal counts. The hippocampal subfields, CA1, CA2, CA3, CA4, and subiculum were manually traced so that the neuronal counts, Aβ, and tau burden could be obtained for each region. We used linear regression to detect associations between hippocampal atrophy in 3D, clinical diagnosis and total as well as subfield pathology burden measures. As expected, we found significant correlations between hippocampal radial distance and mean neuronal count, as well as diagnosis. There were subfield specific associations between hippocampal radial distance and tau in CA2, and cresyl violet neuronal counts in CA1 and subiculum. These results provide further validation for the European Alzheimer's Disease Consortium Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative Center Harmonized Hippocampal Segmentation Protocol (HarP)

A Call to Action for Optimizing the Electronic Health Record in the Parenteral Nutrition Workflow

Parenteral nutrition (PN) is a complex therapeutic modality provided to neonates, children, and adults for various indications. Surveys have shown that current electronic health record (EHR) systems are in need of functionality enhancement for safe and optimal delivery of PN. This is a consensus statement from the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and the American Society of Health‐System Pharmacists outlining some of the key challenges to prescribing, order review/verification, compounding, and administration of PN using EHRs today and is a call to action for clinicians and vendors to optimize their EHRs regarding the PN build and workflow.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146340/1/ncp10095.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146340/2/ncp10095_am.pd

A Call to Action for Optimizing the Electronic Health Record in the Parenteral Nutrition Workflow: Executive Summary

Parenteral nutrition (PN) is a complex therapeutic modality provided to neonates, children, and adults for various indications. Surveys have shown that current electronic health record (EHR) systems are in need of functionality enhancement for safe and optimal delivery of PN. This is a consensus statement from the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and the American Society of Health‐System Pharmacists outlining some of the key challenges to prescribing, order review/verification, compounding, and administration of PN using EHRs today and is a call to action for clinicians and vendors to optimize their EHRs regarding the PN build and workflow.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146349/1/ncp10202.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146349/2/ncp10202_am.pd

Mechanism of transcription initiation and promoter escape by E. coli RNA polymerase

To investigate roles of the discriminator and open complex (OC) lifetime in transcription initiation by Escherichia coli RNA polymerase (RNAP; α 2 ββ'ωσ 70 ), we compare productive and abortive initiation rates, short RNA distributions, and OC lifetime for the λP R and T7A1 promoters and variants with exchanged discriminators, all with the same transcribed region. The discriminator determines the OC lifetime of these promoters. Permanganate reactivity of thymines reveals that strand backbones in open regions of longlived λP R -discriminator OCs are much more tightly held than for shorter-lived T7A1-discriminator OCs. Initiation from these OCs exhibits two kinetic phases and at least two subpopulations of ternary complexes. Long RNA synthesis (constrained to be single round) occurs only in the initial phase (<10 s), at similar rates for all promoters. Less than half of OCs synthesize a full-length RNA; the majority stall after synthesizing a short RNA. Most abortive cycling occurs in the slower phase (>10 s), when stalled complexes release their short RNA and make another without escaping. In both kinetic phases, significant amounts of 8-nt and 10-nt transcripts are produced by longer-lived, λP R -discriminator OCs, whereas no RNA longer than 7 nt is produced by shorter-lived T7A1-discriminator OCs. These observations and the lack of abortive RNA in initiation from short-lived ribosomal promoter OCs are well described by a quantitative model in which ∼1.0 kcal/mol of scrunching free energy is generated per translocation step of RNA synthesis to overcome OC stability and drive escape. The different length-distributions of abortive RNAs released from OCs with different lifetimes likely play regulatory roles. RNA polymerase | open complex lifetime | transcription initiation | abortive RNA | hybrid length M any facets of transcription initiation by E. coli RNA polymerase (RNAP; α 2 ββ′ωσ 70 ) have been elucidated, but significant questions remain about the mechanism or mechanisms by which initial transcribing complexes (ITC) with a short RNA-DNA hybrid decide to advance and escape from the promoter to enter elongation mode, or, alternately, to stall, release their short RNA, and reinitiate (abortive cycling). For RNAP to escape, its sequencespecific interactions with promoter DNA in the binary open complex (OC) must be overcome. The open regions of promoter DNA in the binary OC are the −10 region (six residues, with specific interactions between σ 2.2 and the nontemplate strand), the discriminator region (typically six to eight residues with no consensus sequence, the upstream end of which interacts with σ 1.2 ), and the transcription start site (TSS, +1) and adjacent residue (+2), which are in the active site of RNAP What drives promoter escape? Escape involves disrupting all the favorable interactions involved in forming and stabilizing the binary OC as well as σ-core interactions. Escape from these interactions is fundamentally driven by the favorable chemical (free) energy change of RNA synthesis, but this energy must be stored in the ITC in each step before escape. Proposed means of energy storage as the length of the RNA-DNA hybrid increases include the stresses introduced by scrunching distortions of the discriminator regions of the open strands in the cleft (2, 5, 6) and by unfavorable interactions of the RNA-DNA hybrid with the hairpin loop of σ 3.2 (7-10). Scrunching of the discriminator region of the template strand is proposed to be most significant for Significance The enzyme RNA polymerase (RNAP) transcribes DNA genetic information into RNA. Regulation of transcription occurs largely in initiation; these regulatory mechanisms must be understood. Lifetimes of transcription-capable RNAP-promoter open complexes (OCs) vary greatly, dictated largely by the DNA discriminator region, but the significance of OC lifetime for regulation was unknown. We observe that a significantly longer RNA:DNA hybrid is synthesized before RNAP escapes from long-lived λP R -promoter OCs as compared with shorter-lived T7A1 promoter OCs. We quantify the free energy needed to overcome OC stability and allow escape from the promoter and elongation of the nascent RNA, and thereby predict escape points for ribosomal (rrnB P1) and lacUV5 promoters. Longer-lived OCs produce longer abortive RNAs, which likely have specific regulatory roles

Mechanism of transcription initiation and promoter escape by E. coli RNA polymerase

To investigate roles of the discriminator and open complex (OC) lifetime in transcription initiation by Escherichia coli RNA polymerase (RNAP; α 2 ββ'ωσ 70 ), we compare productive and abortive initiation rates, short RNA distributions, and OC lifetime for the λP R and T7A1 promoters and variants with exchanged discriminators, all with the same transcribed region. The discriminator determines the OC lifetime of these promoters. Permanganate reactivity of thymines reveals that strand backbones in open regions of longlived λP R -discriminator OCs are much more tightly held than for shorter-lived T7A1-discriminator OCs. Initiation from these OCs exhibits two kinetic phases and at least two subpopulations of ternary complexes. Long RNA synthesis (constrained to be single round) occurs only in the initial phase (<10 s), at similar rates for all promoters. Less than half of OCs synthesize a full-length RNA; the majority stall after synthesizing a short RNA. Most abortive cycling occurs in the slower phase (>10 s), when stalled complexes release their short RNA and make another without escaping. In both kinetic phases, significant amounts of 8-nt and 10-nt transcripts are produced by longer-lived, λP R -discriminator OCs, whereas no RNA longer than 7 nt is produced by shorter-lived T7A1-discriminator OCs. These observations and the lack of abortive RNA in initiation from short-lived ribosomal promoter OCs are well described by a quantitative model in which ∼1.0 kcal/mol of scrunching free energy is generated per translocation step of RNA synthesis to overcome OC stability and drive escape. The different length-distributions of abortive RNAs released from OCs with different lifetimes likely play regulatory roles. RNA polymerase | open complex lifetime | transcription initiation | abortive RNA | hybrid length M any facets of transcription initiation by E. coli RNA polymerase (RNAP; α 2 ββ′ωσ 70 ) have been elucidated, but significant questions remain about the mechanism or mechanisms by which initial transcribing complexes (ITC) with a short RNA-DNA hybrid decide to advance and escape from the promoter to enter elongation mode, or, alternately, to stall, release their short RNA, and reinitiate (abortive cycling). For RNAP to escape, its sequencespecific interactions with promoter DNA in the binary open complex (OC) must be overcome. The open regions of promoter DNA in the binary OC are the −10 region (six residues, with specific interactions between σ 2.2 and the nontemplate strand), the discriminator region (typically six to eight residues with no consensus sequence, the upstream end of which interacts with σ 1.2 ), and the transcription start site (TSS, +1) and adjacent residue (+2), which are in the active site of RNAP What drives promoter escape? Escape involves disrupting all the favorable interactions involved in forming and stabilizing the binary OC as well as σ-core interactions. Escape from these interactions is fundamentally driven by the favorable chemical (free) energy change of RNA synthesis, but this energy must be stored in the ITC in each step before escape. Proposed means of energy storage as the length of the RNA-DNA hybrid increases include the stresses introduced by scrunching distortions of the discriminator regions of the open strands in the cleft (2, 5, 6) and by unfavorable interactions of the RNA-DNA hybrid with the hairpin loop of σ 3.2 (7-10). Scrunching of the discriminator region of the template strand is proposed to be most significant for Significance The enzyme RNA polymerase (RNAP) transcribes DNA genetic information into RNA. Regulation of transcription occurs largely in initiation; these regulatory mechanisms must be understood. Lifetimes of transcription-capable RNAP-promoter open complexes (OCs) vary greatly, dictated largely by the DNA discriminator region, but the significance of OC lifetime for regulation was unknown. We observe that a significantly longer RNA:DNA hybrid is synthesized before RNAP escapes from long-lived λP R -promoter OCs as compared with shorter-lived T7A1 promoter OCs. We quantify the free energy needed to overcome OC stability and allow escape from the promoter and elongation of the nascent RNA, and thereby predict escape points for ribosomal (rrnB P1) and lacUV5 promoters. Longer-lived OCs produce longer abortive RNAs, which likely have specific regulatory roles