Notes: Original Notes from the First Women\u27s Liberation Consciousness Raising Group in Jacksonville

Handwritten and typed notes including topics of discussion for the Consciousness Raising group discussion meetings October 22, 1970-March 1972. NOW Major local projects: Consciousness raising groups

First-Year Success Program: First-Year Success Courses

Student success is central to UMaine\u27s mission, values, reputation and fiscal health. Improving first-year student success is a major focus for Academic Affairs and Student Affairs in 2018-2019. The goal is to develop an integrated plan of actions that will result in improved first year student success as defined by first year retention. First-Year Success Courses All University of Maine students have access to a so-called first year success course. Develop a set of recommendations for ways to improve the quality of students\u27 experiences in these courses. Please consider the following questions as you complete this work. 1. What are the goals of first year student success courses? How do they vary across colleges? 2. What core content should be included in first year success course? 3. What are considered best practices with respect to the following questions: a. Should the course be required or recommended? i. Should it be required of some students? If yes, which students and why? b. How many credit hours? c. Disciplinary cohorts versus mixed disciplines

Shared genetics and couple-associated environment are major contributors to the risk of both clinical and self-declared depression

Background: Both genetic and environmental factors contribute to risk of depression, but estimates of their relative contributions are limited. Commonalities between clinically-assessed major depressive disorder (MDD) and self-declared depression (SDD) are also unclear. Methods: Using data from a large Scottish family-based cohort (GS:SFHS, N = 19,994), we estimated the genetic and environmental variance components for MDD and SDD. The components representing the genetic effect associated with genome-wide common genetic variants (SNP heritability), the additional pedigree-associated genetic effect and non-genetic effects associated with common environments were estimated in a linear mixed model (LMM). Findings: Both MDD and SDD had significant contributions from components representing the effect from common genetic variants, the additional genetic effect associated with the pedigree and the common environmental effect shared by couples. The estimate of correlation between SDD and MDD was high (r = 1.00, se = 0.20) for common-variant-associated genetic effect and lower for the additional genetic effect from the pedigree (r= 0.57, se = 0.08) and the couple-shared environmental effect (r = 0.53, se = 0.22). Interpretation: Both genetics and couple-shared environmental effects were major factors influencing liability to depression. SDD may provide a scalable alternative to MDD in studies seeking to identify common risk variants. Rarer variants and environmental effects may however differ substantially according to different definitions of depression

Fatigue Intervention by Nurses Evaluation - The FINE Trial. A randomised controlled trial of nurse led self-help treatment for patients in primary care with chronic fatigue syndrome: study protocol. [ISRCTN74156610]

Background: Chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as ME (CFS/ME), is a condition characterised primarily by severe, disabling fatigue, of unknown origin, which has a poor prognosis and serious personal and economic consequences. Evidence for the effectiveness of any treatment for CFS/ME in primary care, where most patients are seen, is sparse. Recently, a brief, pragmatic treatment for CFS/ME, based on a physiological dysregulation model of the condition, was shown to be successful in improving fatigue and physical functioning in patients in secondary care. The treatment involves providing patients with a readily understandable explanation of their symptoms, from which flows the rationale for a graded rehabilitative plan, developed collaboratively with the therapist. The present trial will test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of pragmatic rehabilitation when delivered by specially trained general nurses in primary care. We selected a client-centred counselling intervention, called supportive listening, as a comparison treatment. Counselling has been shown to be as effective as cognitive behaviour therapy for treating fatigue in primary care, is more readily available, and controls for supportive therapist contact time. Our control condition is treatment as usual by the general practitioner (GP). Methods and design: This study protocol describes the design of an ongoing, single-blind, pragmatic randomized controlled trial of a brief (18 week) self-help treatment, pragmatic rehabilitation, delivered by specially trained nurse-therapists in patients' homes, compared with nurse-therapist delivered supportive listening and treatment as usual by the GP. An economic evaluation, taking a societal viewpoint, is being carried out alongside the clinical trial. Three adult general nurses were trained over a six month period to deliver the two interventions. Patients aged over 18 and fulfilling the Oxford criteria for CFS are assessed at baseline, after the intervention, and again one year later. Primary outcomes are self-reported physical functioning and fatigue at one year, and will be analysed on an intention-to-treat basis. A qualitative study will examine the interventions' mechanisms of change, and also GPs' drivers and barriers towards referral

Cosmic Rays during BBN as Origin of Lithium Problem

There may be non-thermal cosmic rays during big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) epoch (dubbed as BBNCRs). This paper investigated whether such BBNCRs can be the origin of Lithium problem or not. It can be expected that BBNCRs flux will be small in order to keep the success of standard BBN (SBBN). With favorable assumptions on the BBNCR spectrum between 0.09 -- 4 MeV, our numerical calculation showed that extra contributions from BBNCRs can account for the $^7$Li abundance successfully. However $^6$Li abundance is only lifted an order of magnitude, which is still much lower than the observed value. As the deuteron abundance is very sensitive to the spectrum choice of BBNCRs, the allowed parameter space for the spectrum is strictly constrained. We should emphasize that the acceleration mechanism for BBNCRs in the early universe is still an open question. For example, strong turbulent magnetic field is probably the solution to the problem. Whether such a mechanism can provide the required spectrum deserves further studies.Comment: 34 pages, 21 figures, published versio

Pregnant women in four low-middle income countries have a high prevalence of inadequate dietary intakes that are improved by dietary diversity

Background: Up-to-date dietary data are required to understand the diverse nutritional challenges of pregnant women living in low-middle income countries (LMIC). To that end, dietary data were collected from 1st trimester pregnant women in rural areas of Guatemala, India, Pakistan, and Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) participating in a maternal lipid-based nutrient supplement (LNS) Randomized Controlled Trial to examine dietary diversity (DD), usual group energy and nutrient intakes, and prevalence of inadequate dietary intakes.Methods: Two 24-h dietary recalls were conducted in ~240 pregnant women/site (total n = 966) prior to 12-week gestation. Adequate DD was assessed, i.e., ≥5 major food groups consumed within the past 24 h. Median, Q1, Q3 intakes (without LNS) of energy, macronutrients, 12 micronutrients, and phytate were examined. The at risk prevalence of inadequate intakes were based on international guidelines for pregnant women.Results: Dietary patterns varied widely among sites, with adequate DD reported: 20% (Pakistan), 25% (DRC), 50% (Guatemala), and 70% (India). Significantly higher intakes of most key nutrients were observed in participants with adequate DD. More than 80% of women in all sites had inadequate intakes of folate, vitamin B12, and choline, and \u3e80% of women in India and DRC also had inadequate intakes of calcium, thiamine, riboflavin, and vitamin B6.Conclusions: Our data highlight the likely need for micronutrient supplementation in pregnancy, specifically multi-micronutrient interventions, and support the value of increasing DD as part of sustainable long-term nutrition programs for women of reproductive age in these poor rural settings in LMIC

The polygenic risk for bipolar disorder influences brain regional function relating to visual and default state processing of emotional information

Genome-wise association studies have identified a number of common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), each of small effect, associated with risk to bipolar disorder (BD). Several risk-conferring SNPs have been individually shown to influence regional brain activation thus linking genetic risk for BD to altered brain function. The current study examined whether the polygenic risk score method, which models the cumulative load of all known risk-conferring SNPs, may be useful in the identification of brain regions whose function may be related to the polygenic architecture of BD. We calculated the individual polygenic risk score for BD (PGR-BD) in forty-one patients with the disorder, twenty-five unaffected first-degree relatives and forty-six unrelated healthy controls using the most recent Psychiatric Genomics Consortium data. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to define task-related brain activation patterns in response to facial affect and working memory processing. We found significant effects of the PGR-BD score on task-related activation irrespective of diagnostic group. There was a negative association between the PGR-BD score and activation in the visual association cortex during facial affect processing. In contrast, the PGR-BD score was associated with failure to deactivate the ventromedial prefrontal region of the default mode network during working memory processing. These results are consistent with the threshold-liability model of BD, and demonstrate the usefulness of the PGR-BD score in identifying brain functional alternations associated with vulnerability to BD. Additionally, our findings suggest that the polygenic architecture of BD is not regionally confined but impacts on the task-dependent recruitment of multiple brain regions

Amlodipine versus angiotensin II receptor blocker; control of blood pressure evaluation trial in diabetics (ADVANCED-J)

BACKGROUND: The coexistence of type 2 diabetes mellitus and hypertension increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases. The U.K. Prospective Diabetes Study has shown that blood pressure control as well as blood glucose control is efficient for prevention of complications in hypertensive patients with diabetes mellitus. However, some reports have shown that it is difficult to control the blood pressure and the concomitant use of a plurality of drugs is needed in hypertensive patients with diabetes mellitus. In recent years renin-angiotensin system depressants are increasingly used for the blood pressure control in diabetic patients. Particularly in Japan, angiotensin II (A II) antagonists are increasingly used. However, there is no definite evidence of the point of which is efficient for the control, the increase in dose of A II antagonist or the concomitant use of another drug, in hypertensive patients whose blood pressure levels are inadequately controlled with A II antagonist. METHODS/DESIGN: Hypertensive patients of age 20 years or over with type 2 diabetes mellitus who have been treated by the single use of AII antagonist at usual doses for at least 8 weeks or patients who have been treated by the concomitant use of AII antagonist and an antihypertensive drug other than calcium channel blockers and ACE inhibitors at usual doses for at least 8 weeks are included. DISCUSSION: We designed a multi-center, prospective, randomized, open label, blinded-endpoint trial, ADVANCED-J, to compare the increases in dose of A II antagonist and the concomitant use of a Ca-channel blocker (amlodipine) and A II antagonist in hypertensive patients with diabetes mellitus, whose blood pressure levels were inadequately controlled with A II antagonist. This study is different from the usual previous studies in that home blood pressures are assessed as indicators of evaluation of blood pressure. The ADVANCED-J study may have much influence on selection of antihypertensive drugs for treatment in hypertensive patients with diabetes mellitus. It is expected to give an important hint for considering the validity of selection of antihypertensive drugs from the aspects not only of the antihypertensive effect but medical cost-effectiveness

Estimating the returns to UK publicly funded cancer-related research in terms of the net value of improved health outcomes

© 2014 Glover et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background - Building on an approach developed to assess the economic returns to cardiovascular research, we estimated the economic returns from UK public and charitable funded cancer-related research that arise from the net value of the improved health outcomes. Methods - To assess these economic returns from cancer-related research in the UK we estimated: 1) public and charitable expenditure on cancer-related research in the UK from 1970 to 2009; 2) net monetary benefit (NMB), that is, the health benefit measured in quality adjusted life years (QALYs) valued in monetary terms (using a base-case value of a QALY of GB£25,000) minus the cost of delivering that benefit, for a prioritised list of interventions from 1991 to 2010; 3) the proportion of NMB attributable to UK research; 4) the elapsed time between research funding and health gain; and 5) the internal rate of return (IRR) from cancer-related research investments on health benefits. We analysed the uncertainties in the IRR estimate using sensitivity analyses to illustrate the effect of some key parameters. Results - In 2011/12 prices, total expenditure on cancer-related research from 1970 to 2009 was £15 billion. The NMB of the 5.9 million QALYs gained from the prioritised interventions from 1991 to 2010 was £124 billion. Calculation of the IRR incorporated an estimated elapsed time of 15 years. We related 17% of the annual NMB estimated to be attributable to UK research (for each of the 20 years 1991 to 2010) to 20 years of research investment 15 years earlier (that is, for 1976 to 1995). This produced a best-estimate IRR of 10%, compared with 9% previously estimated for cardiovascular disease research. The sensitivity analysis demonstrated the importance of smoking reduction as a major source of improved cancer-related health outcomes. Conclusions - We have demonstrated a substantive IRR from net health gain to public and charitable funding of cancer-related research in the UK, and further validated the approach that we originally used in assessing the returns from cardiovascular research. In doing so, we have highlighted a number of weaknesses and key assumptions that need strengthening in further investigations. Nevertheless, these cautious estimates demonstrate that the returns from past cancer research have been substantial, and justify the investments made during the period 1976 to 1995.Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK, the National Institute of Health Research, and the Academy of Medical Sciences