302 research outputs found
The Science of Prevention Strategies
From newborn screening for Phenylkentonurea (PKU) and the birth dose of Hepatitis B vaccine to prostate and breast cancer screening and pneumococcal immunization for older adults, the science of health maintenance is multi-tiered and spans the lifetime of an individual. Primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention strategies are used in concert with each other to enable healthcare professionals and their patients to sustain and improve the quality of life
Developing Active Learning Exercises for Any Content
Teaching and learning both should be fun, engaging, and impactful in lasting ways. Studies show that student engagement and information retention increases when students are immersed in active learning - hands-on usage of the information. Modern faculty members are seeking methods of incorporating active learning into their teaching, but may not know where to start when creating their own active learning materials. This paper will outline a process for creating new activities. Included are appendices full of creative active-learning formats (hot topics borrowed from primary and secondary education), as well as guidelines on when to use them that will make teaching and learning fun and practical. These media are also useful for developing transferable skills that students will bring into the workplace
Relationship between Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Immune Function in Cancer and HIV/AIDS
Objective: Chronic stress is widespread, and is detrimental to immune functioning and to overall physical and emotional health. These effects may be potentiated in patients with chronic illness, as high levels of chronic stress are common in this population. Numerous studies support the efficacy of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) in improving psychological functioning. If a strong relationship is found between MBSR and immune function, then MBSR may be implemented as a strategy to improve immune functioning and overall well-being.
Methods: In the present review paper, the relationship between MBSR and immune function is evaluated. Empirical studies measuring immune markers as they relate to a standard MBSR intervention were reviewed. Relevant articles primarily involved patients with cancer or HIV. Therefore, the associations of immune measures with psychological distress are discussed, with an emphasis on patients with these conditions. A psychoneuroimmunological (PNI) framework was utilized to propose a mechanism for the relationship between MBSR and immune function.
Results: Overall, the findings support a positive relationship between MBSR intervention and beneficial immunological outcomes. Variability in immune measures assessed across studies precludes pooling data to develop more conclusive results.
Conclusions: MBSR has been shown to consistently improve emotional functioning and quality of life, and these effects appear to facilitate immune function
Thin Fisher Zeroes
Biskup et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 84 (2000) 4794] have recently suggested that
the loci of partition function zeroes can profitably be regarded as phase
boundaries in the complex temperature or field planes.
We obtain the Fisher zeroes for Ising and Potts models on non-planar
(``thin'') regular random graphs using this approach, and note that the locus
of Fisher zeroes on a Bethe lattice is identical to the corresponding random
graph. Since the number of states appears as a parameter in the Potts solution
the limiting locus of chromatic zeroes is also accessible.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
A Top-Down Approach to Estimating Spatially Heterogeneous Impacts of Development Aid on Vegetative Carbon Sequestration
Since 1945, over $4.9 trillion dollars of international aid has been allocated to developing countries. To date, there have been no estimates of the regional impact of this aid on the carbon cycle. We apply a geographically explicit matching method to estimate the relative impact of large-scale World Bank projects implemented between 2000 and 2010 on sequestered carbon, using a novel and publicly available data set of 61,243 World Bank project locations. Considering only carbon sequestered due to fluctuations in vegetative biomass caused by World Bank projects, we illustrate the relative impact of World Bank projects on carbon sequestration. We use this information to illustrate the geographic variation in the apparent effectiveness of environmental safeguards implemented by the World Bank. We argue that sub-national data can help to identify geographically heterogeneous impact effects, and highlight many remaining methodological challenges
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Development of a benchmarking toolkit for adolescent and young adult rheumatology services (BeTAR)
Background:
Young people (YP; 12–24 years old) with rheumatic diseases face many challenges associated with chronic illness in addition to the physiological and psychosocial changes of adolescence. Timely access to developmentally appropriate multidisciplinary care is key to successfully managing rheumatic diseases, but gaps in the care of this vulnerable age group still exist. This study aimed to develop a benchmarking toolkit to enable comparative evaluation of YP rheumatology services in order to promote best practice and reduce variations in service delivery.
Methods:
A staged and consultative method was used across a broad group of stakeholders in the UK (YP, parents/other carers, and healthcare professionals, HCPs) to develop this toolkit, with reference to pre-existing standards of YP-friendly healthcare. Eighty-seven YP (median age 19 years, range 12–24 years) and 26 rheumatology HCPs with 1–34 years of experience caring for YP have participated.
Results:
Thirty quality criteria were identified, which were grouped into four main domains: assessment and treatment, information and involvement, accessibility and environment, and continuity of care. Two toolkit versions, one to be completed by HCPs and one to be completed by patients, were developed. These were further refined by relevant groups and face validity was confirmed.
Conclusions:
A toolkit has been developed to systematically evaluate and benchmark YP rheumatology services, which is key in setting standards of care, identifying targets for improvement and facilitating research. Engagement from YP, clinical teams, and commissioners with this tool should facilitate investigation of variability in levels of care and drive quality improvement
Bayesian Analysis for Stellar Evolution with Nine Parameters (BASE-9): User's Manual
BASE-9 is a Bayesian software suite that recovers star cluster and stellar
parameters from photometry. BASE-9 is useful for analyzing single-age,
single-metallicity star clusters, binaries, or single stars, and for simulating
such systems. BASE-9 uses Markov chain Monte Carlo and brute-force numerical
integration techniques to estimate the posterior probability distributions for
the age, metallicity, helium abundance, distance modulus, and line-of-sight
absorption for a cluster, and the mass, binary mass ratio, and cluster
membership probability for every stellar object. BASE-9 is provided as open
source code on a version-controlled web server. The executables are also
available as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud images. This manual provides
potential users with an overview of BASE-9, including instructions for
installation and use.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figure
The SFR-M <sub>∗</sub> Correlation Extends to Low Mass at High Redshift
To achieve a fuller understanding of galaxy evolution, SED fitting can be
used to recover quantities beyond stellar masses (M) and star formation
rates (SFRs). We use Star Formation Histories (SFHs) reconstructed via the
Dense Basis method of Iyer \& Gawiser (2017) for a sample of galaxies
at in the CANDELS GOODS-S field to study the nature and evolution of
the SFR-M correlation. The reconstructed SFHs represent trajectories in
SFR-M space, enabling us to study galaxies at epochs earlier than observed
by propagating them backwards in time along these trajectories. We study the
SFR-M correlation at using both direct fits to galaxies
observed at those epochs and SFR-M trajectories of galaxies observed at
lower redshifts. The SFR-M correlations obtained using the two approaches
are found to be consistent with each other through a KS test. Validation tests
using SFHs from semi-analytic models and cosmological hydrodynamical
simulations confirm the sensitivity of the method to changes in the slope,
normalization and shape of the SFR-M correlation. This technique allows us
to further probe the low-mass regime of the correlation at high-z by
dex and over an effective volume of larger than possible with
just direct fits. We find that the SFR-M correlation is consistent with
being linear down to M at . The evolution of the
correlation is well described by , where is the age of the universe in Gyr.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
Infection and transmission dynamics of rKSHV.219 in primary endothelial cells
Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is the aetiologic agent of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), a tumour of endothelial cell origin. The study of KS development was aided by the generation of a recombinant GFP (latent)/RFP (lytic)-expressing KSHV (rKSHV.219) by Vieira and O’Hearn (2004). In this study the first data characterising primary endothelial cell infection and transmission with this virus is presented. Infection was predominantly latent and the percentage of GFP-positive cells increased over time. Neither horizontal transmission of infection, nor cellular proliferation, explained this increase. Analysis of latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA-1) expression revealed that a threshold level of infection was required for GFP expression early post infection. At later time points GFP correlated more closely with LANA-1 expression, likely due to the accumulation of GFP over time. This study provides methodological guidance for the use of rKSHV.21. In addition, it highlights potential problems associated with the use of fluorescent proteins as markers of viral infection
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