1,133 research outputs found
A Diabetes Psychosocial Profile
An educational needs assessment instrument for individuals with diabetes has been developed at the Michigan Diabetes Research and Training Center. Responses to the 110-item questionnaire provide subscores on con structs labeled "Control Problems, " "Psychosocial Impact," "Barriers to Compliance, " "Benefits of Regimen, " "Regimen Complexity," and "Risk of Complications." Com bined with demographic and clinical information, these scores form a com prehensive summary of the patient's attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and knowledge in relation to diabetes. This summary is in the form of an individ ualized graphic profile that highlights possible prob lem areas to be consid ered when developing patient education and management plans.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68817/2/10.1177_014572178601200210.pd
Binocular summation and other forms of non-dominant eye contribution in individuals with strabismic amblyopia during habitual viewing
YesAdults with amblyopia ('lazy eye'), long-standing strabismus (ocular misalignment) or both typically do not experience visual symptoms because the signal from weaker eye is given less weight than the signal from its fellow. Here we examine the contribution of the weaker eye of individuals with strabismus and amblyopia with both eyes open and with the deviating eye in its anomalous motor position. The task consisted of a blue-on-yellow detection task along a horizontal line across the central 50 degrees of the visual field. We compare the results obtained in ten individuals with strabismic amblyopia with ten visual normals. At each field location in each participant, we examined how the sensitivity exhibited under binocular conditions compared with sensitivity from four predictions, (i) a model of binocular summation, (ii) the average of the monocular sensitivities, (iii) dominant-eye sensitivity or (iv) non-dominant-eye sensitivity. The proportion of field locations for which the binocular summation model provided the best description of binocular sensitivity was similar in normals (50.6%) and amblyopes (48.2%). Average monocular sensitivity matched binocular sensitivity in 14.1% of amblyopes' field locations compared to 8.8% of normals'. Dominant-eye sensitivity explained sensitivity at 27.1% of field locations in amblyopes but 21.2% in normals. Non-dominant-eye sensitivity explained sensitivity at 10.6% of field locations in amblyopes but 19.4% in normals. Binocular summation provided the best description of the sensitivity profile in 6/10 amblyopes compared to 7/10 of normals. In three amblyopes, dominant-eye sensitivity most closely reflected binocular sensitivity (compared to two normals) and in the remaining amblyope, binocular sensitivity approximated to an average of the monocular sensitivities. Our results suggest a strong positive contribution in habitual viewing from the non-dominant eye in strabismic amblyopes. This is consistent with evidence from other sources that binocular mechanisms are frequently intact in strabismic and amblyopic individuals
Stimulus set size modulates the sex–emotion interaction in face categorization
Previous research has shown that invariant facial features—for example, sex—and variant facial features—for example, emotional expressions—interact during face categorization. The nature of this interaction is a matter of dispute, however, and has been reported as either asymmetrical, such that sex cues influence emotion perception but emotional expressions do not affect the perception of sex, or symmetrical, such that sex and emotion cues each reciprocally influence the categorization of the other. In the present research, we identified stimulus set size as the critical factor leading to this disparity. Using faces drawn from different databases, in two separate experiments we replicated the finding of a symmetrical interaction between face sex and emotional expression when larger sets of posers were used. Using a subset of four posers, in the same setups, however, did not provide evidence for a symmetrical interaction, which is also consistent with prior research. This pattern of results suggests that different strategies may be used to categorize aspects of faces that are encountered repeatedly
Walks4work: Rationale and study design to investigate walking at lunchtime in the workplace setting
Background: Following recruitment of a private sector company, an 8week lunchtime walking intervention was implemented to examine the effect of the intervention on modifiable cardiovascular disease risk factors, and further to see if walking environment had any further effect on the cardiovascular disease risk factors. Methods. For phase 1 of the study participants were divided into three groups, two lunchtime walking intervention groups to walk around either an urban or natural environment twice a week during their lunch break over an 8week period. The third group was a waiting-list control who would be invited to join the walking groups after phase 1. In phase 2 all participants were encouraged to walk during their lunch break on self-selecting routes. Health checks were completed at baseline, end of phase 1 and end of phase 2 in order to measure the impact of the intervention on cardiovascular disease risk. The primary outcome variables of heart rate and heart rate variability were measured to assess autonomic function associated with cardiovascular disease. Secondary outcome variables (Body mass index, blood pressure, fitness, autonomic response to a stressor) related to cardiovascular disease were also measured. The efficacy of the intervention in increasing physical activity was objectively monitored throughout the 8-weeks using an accelerometer device. Discussion. The results of this study will help in developing interventions with low researcher input with high participant output that may be implemented in the workplace. If effective, this study will highlight the contribution that natural environments can make in the reduction of modifiable cardiovascular disease risk factors within the workplace. © 2012 Brown et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd
HOXA9 Reprograms the Enhancer Landscape to Promote Leukemogenesis
Aberrant expression of HOXA9 is a prominent feature of acute leukemia driven by diverse oncogenes. Here we show that HOXA9 overexpression in myeloid and B progenitor cells leads to significant enhancer reorganizations with prominent emergence of leukemia-specific de novo enhancers. Alterations in the enhancer landscape lead to activation of an ectopic embryonic gene program. We show that HOXA9 functions as a pioneer factor at de novo enhancers and recruits CEBPα and the MLL3/MLL4 complex. Genetic deletion of MLL3/MLL4 blocks histone H3K4 methylation at de novo enhancers and inhibits HOXA9/MEIS1-mediated leukemogenesis in vivo. These results suggest that therapeutic targeting of HOXA9-dependent enhancer reorganization can be an effective therapeutic strategy in acute leukemia with HOXA9 overexpressio
Recombinant Moraxella bovoculi cytotoxin-ISCOM matrix adjuvanted vaccine to prevent naturally occurring infectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis
Ethnography of Open Cultural Production: From Participant Observation to Multisited Participatory Communication
Spectroscopic scanning tunneling microscopy insights into Fe-based superconductors
In the first three years since the discovery of Fe-based high Tc
superconductors, scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy have shed
light on three important questions. First, STM has demonstrated the complexity
of the pairing symmetry in Fe-based materials. Phase-sensitive quasiparticle
interference (QPI) imaging and low temperature spectroscopy have shown that the
pairing order parameter varies from nodal to nodeless s\pm within a single
family, FeTe1-xSex. Second, STM has imaged C4 -> C2 symmetry breaking in the
electronic states of both parent and superconducting materials. As a local
probe, STM is in a strong position to understand the interactions between these
broken symmetry states and superconductivity. Finally, STM has been used to
image the vortex state, giving insights into the technical problem of vortex
pinning, and the fundamental problem of the competing states introduced when
superconductivity is locally quenched by a magnetic field. Here we give a
pedagogical introduction to STM and QPI imaging, discuss the specific
challenges associated with extracting bulk properties from the study of
surfaces, and report on progress made in understanding Fe-based superconductors
using STM techniques.Comment: 36 pages, 23 figures, 229 reference
A practical guide to the simultaneous determination of protein structure and dynamics using metainference
Accurate protein structural ensembles can be determined with metainference, a
Bayesian inference method that integrates experimental information with prior
knowledge of the system and deals with all sources of uncertainty and errors as
well as with system heterogeneity. Furthermore, metainference can be
implemented using the metadynamics approach, which enables the computational
study of complex biological systems requiring extensive conformational
sampling. In this chapter, we provide a step-by-step guide to perform and
analyse metadynamic metainference simulations using the ISDB module of the
open-source PLUMED library, as well as a series of practical tips to avoid
common mistakes. Specifically, we will guide the reader in the process of
learning how to model the structural ensemble of a small disordered peptide by
combining state-of-the-art molecular mechanics force fields with nuclear
magnetic resonance data, including chemical shifts, scalar couplings and
residual dipolar couplings.Comment: 49 pages, 9 figure
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