CANINES AND CHILDHOOD CANCER: THE EFFECTS OF ANIMAL-ASSISTED THERAPY FOR PATIENTS, FAMILIES AND THERAPY DOGS

PLEASE USE THE PDF (available from the download link) TO FOLLOW ALONG WITH THE VIDEO For many people, animals take center stage in their daily lives, offering companionship, comfort, joy and for some, even kinship. Increasingly, greater attention has been given to the roles that animals can play in supporting the health and emotional well-being of people in need, specifically through the use of animal-assisted therapy (AAT). However, while the field of human-animal interaction (HAI) research has expanded enormously in recent years, it is still unclear whether the incorporation of animals into clinical settings is effective from a scientific standpoint. Likewise, although many studies have examined the complex bio-psychosocial impacts of childhood cancer for patients and their families, few have identified complementary therapeutic interventions to help families with the coping process. Finally, there remains a lack of sound HAI research on how AAT may affect therapy dogs. The Canines and Childhood Cancer (CCC) study seeks to address these research gaps by examining the ability of AAT to impact the well-being and distress levels of pediatric oncology patients and their parents/caregivers, as well as the therapy dogs who visit them, throughout the child’s treatment process. Researchers will present the preliminary findings from a pilot trial conducted with three pediatric oncology sites, including data from patients, families and therapy dogs, as well as information on the feasibility of conducting rigorous and innovative AAT research across multiple pediatric healthcare settings. CCC is a collaborative project between American Humane Association and Pfizer Animal Health

Evidence of Possible Spin-Orbit Misalignment Along the Line of Sight in Transiting Exoplanet Systems

Of the 26 transiting exoplanet systems with measurements of the Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect, eight have now been found to be significantly spin-orbit misaligned in the plane of the sky. Unfortunately, the RM effect only measures the angle between the orbit of a transiting exoplanet and the spin of its host star projected in the plane of sky, leaving unconstrained the compliment misalignment angle between the orbit of the planet and the spin of its host star along the line of sight. I use a simple model of stellar rotation benchmarked with observational data to statistically identify ten exoplanet systems from a sample of 75 for which there is likely a significant degree of misalignment along the line of sight between the orbit of the planet and the spin of its host star. I find that HAT-P-7, HAT-P-14, HAT-P-16, HD 17156, Kepler-5, Kepler-7, TrES-4, WASP-1, WASP-12, and WASP-14 are likely spin-orbit misaligned along the line of sight. All ten systems have host stellar masses M_star in the range 1.2 M_sun <= M_star <= 1.5 M_sun, and the probability of this occurrence by chance is less than one in ten thousand. In addition, the planets in the candidate misaligned systems are preferentially massive and eccentric. The coupled distribution of misalignment from the RM effect and from this anaylsis suggests that transiting exoplanets are more likely to be spin-orbit aligned than expected given predictions for a transiting planet population produced entirely by planet-planet scattering or Kozai cycles and tidal friction. For that reason, there are likely two populations of close-in exoplanet systems: a population of aligned systems and a population of apparently misaligned systems in which the processes that lead to misalignment or to the survival of misaligned systems operate more efficiently in systems with massive stars and planets. (abridged)Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, and 2 tables in emulateapj format; submitted to ApJ in original form 24 December 2009, resubmitted in response to referee report 1 June 201

A simple model of the reflection effect for the interacting binaries and extrasolar planets

Extrasolar planets are a natural extension of the interacting binaries towards the companions with very small masses and similar tools might be used to study them. Unfortunately, the generally accepted treatment of the reflection effect in interacting binaries is not very suitable to study cold objects irradiated by hot objects or extrasolar planets. Our simple model of the reflection effect takes into account the reflection (scattering), heating and heat redistribution over the surface of the irradiated object. The shape of the objects is described by the Roche potential and limb and gravity darkening can be taken into account. The orbital revolution and rotation of the planet with proper Doppler shifts for the scattered and thermal radiation are also accounted for. Subsequently, light-curves and/or spectra of exoplanets were modeled and the effects of the heat redistribution, limb darkening/brightening, (non-)grey albedo, and non-spherical shape were studied. Recent observations of HD189733b, WASP12b, and Wasp-19b were reproduced reasonably well. HD189733b has low Bond albedo and intense heat redistribution. Wasp-19b has low Bond albedo and low heat redistribution. We also calculate the exact Roche shapes and temperature distribution over the surface of all 78 transiting extrasolar planets known so far. It is found that the departures from the sphere vary considerably within the sample. Departures of about 1% are common. In some cases: WASP-12b, WASP-19b, WASP-33b departures can reach about 14, 12, and 8%, respectively. The mean temperatures of these planets also vary considerably from 300 K to 2600 K. The extreme cases are WASP-33b, WASP-12b, and WASP-18b with mean temperatures of about 2600, 2430, and 2330 K, respectively.Comment: Any comments or suggestions will be appreciate

Tidal Evolution of Close-in Planets

Recent discoveries of several transiting planets with clearly non-zero eccentricities and some large inclinations started changing the simple picture of close-in planets having circular and well-aligned orbits. Two major scenarios to form such planets are planet migration in a disk, and planet--planet interactions combined with tidal dissipation. The former scenario can naturally produce a circular and low-obliquity orbit, while the latter implicitly assumes an initially highly eccentric and possibly high-obliquity orbit, which are then circularized and aligned via tidal dissipation. We investigate the tidal evolution of transiting planets on eccentric orbits. We show that the current and future orbital evolution of these systems is likely dominated by tidal dissipation, and not by a more distant companion. Although most of these close-in planets experience orbital decay all the way to the Roche limit, there are two characteristic evolution paths for them, depending on the relative efficiency of tidal dissipation inside the star and the planet. We point out that the current observations may be consistent with one of them. Our results suggest that at least some of the close-in planets with non-zero orbital eccentricity may have been formed by tidally circularizing an initially eccentric orbit. We also find that even when the stellar spin-orbit misalignment is observed to be small at present, some systems could have had a highly misaligned orbit in the past. Finally, we also re-examine the recent claim by Levrard et. al., who found that all orbital and spin parameters evolve on a similar timescale to orbital decay.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 22 pages, 19 figures, 2 tables, Corrupted figures are fixe

Relationship between Medication Use and Cardiovascular Disease Health Outcomes in the Jackson Heart Study

Even though some medications have the potential to slow the progress of atherosclerosis and development of CVD, there are many at-risk individuals who continue to resist the benefits that are available by not following the advice of medical professionals. Non-adherence to prescribed drug regimens is a pervasive medical problem that negatively affects treatment outcomes. Information from standardized interviews of 5301 African Americans participating in the Jackson Heart Study was examined to determine the association between demographic parameters, behavior including adherence to prescribed medical regimens, and health outcomes. Data were also collected at Annual Follow-Up and Surveillance visits. During the two weeks prior to the examination visit, almost 52% of the participants reported taking blood pressure medication, 14% took cholesterol medication, 16% took medication for diabetes, and 19% took blood thinning medication. Of those who did not take the prescribed medications, the reasons given were the following: 47% were in a hurry, too busy, or forgot to take medications; 23% were trying to do without medications; 18% had no money to purchase medications; 19% indicated that the medications made them feel bad; 17% felt that they could not carry out daily functions when taking medications. The African American population can benefit from heightened awareness of the risk factors that are associated with CVD and the benefits of following a prescribed treatment regimen. Unacceptable secondary effects of prescribed medication comprised an important cause of non-compliance. Encouragement of this population to communicate with their healthcare providers to ensure that medication regimens are better tolerated could increase compliance and improve health outcomes

Physiological and behavioral effects of animal-assisted interventions for therapy dogs in pediatric oncology settings

Over the past two decades, animal-assisted interventions (AAIs), defined as the purposeful incorporation of specially trained animals in services to improve human health, have become increasingly popular in clinical settings. However, to date, there have been few rigorously-designed studies aimed at examining the impact of AAIs on therapy animals, despite a notable potential for stress. The current study measured physiological and behavioral stress indicators in therapy dogs who participated in AAI sessions in pediatric oncology settings, while also examining the psychosocial effects for patients and their parents. This manuscript describes the study’s canine stress findings. Methods: A total of 26 therapy dog-handler teams were paired with newly diagnosed children with cancer at five children’s hospitals in the United States. These teams provided regular AAI visits to the child and his/her parent(s) for a period of four months. The teams completed a demographic form, the Canine Behavioral Assessment & Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ), and a self-report survey to document the types of activities that occurred during each session. Canine saliva was also collected at five baseline time points and 20 minutes after the start of study sessions for cortisol analysis, and all study sessions were video recorded to document the dog’s behavior via an ethogram measure. Results: Data showed no significant differences in salivary cortisol levels between baseline (0.51µg/dL) and AAI sessions (0.44µg/dL), p = 0.757. Higher salivary cortisol was significantly associated with a higher number of stress behaviors per session (p = 0.039). There was a significant relationship between stress and affiliative session behaviors (pConclusions:Results show that therapy dogs did not have significantly increased physiological stress responses, nor did they exhibit significantly more stress-related behaviors than affiliative-related behaviors, while participating in AAIs in pediatric oncology settings. The significant relationship between canine cortisol and behavior, thus strengthening the argument for the use of cortisol in canine well-being research. This study discusses the importance of further investigation to confirm these findings, which may lead to enhanced canine involvement in hospital settings

Association of the Joint Effect of Menopause and Hormone Replacement Therapy and Cancer in African American Women: The Jackson Heart Study

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the US and in Mississippi. Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer among women, and the underlying pathophysiology remains unknown, especially among African American (AA) women. The study purpose was to examine the joint effect of menopause status (MS) and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on the association with cancers, particularly BC using data from the Jackson Heart Study. The analytic sample consisted of 3202 women between 35 and 84 years of which 73.7% and 22.6% were postmenopausal and on HRT, respectively. There were a total of 190 prevalent cancer cases (5.9%) in the sample with 22.6% breast cancer cases. Menopause (p < 0.0001), but not HRT (p = 0.6402), was independently associated with cancer. Similar results were obtained for BC. BC, cancer, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, prevalent cardiovascular disease, physical activity and certain dietary practices were all significantly associated with the joint effect of menopause and HRT in the unadjusted analyses. The family history of cancer was the only covariate that was significantly associated with cancer in the age-adjusted models. In examining the association of cancer and the joint effect of menopause and HRT, AA women who were menopausal and were not on HRT had a 1.97 (95% CI: 1.15, 3.38) times odds of having cancer compared to pre-menopausal women after adjusting for age; which was attenuated after further adjusting for family history of cancer. Given that the cancer and BC cases were small and key significant associations were attenuated after adjusting for the above mentioned covariates, these findings warrant further investigation in studies with larger sample sizes of cancer (and BC) cases

TESS Discovery of a Transiting Super-Earth in the π\pi Mensae System

We report the detection of a transiting planet around $\pi$ Mensae (HD 39091), using data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The solar-type host star is unusually bright (V=5.7) and was already known to host a Jovian planet on a highly eccentric, 5.7-year orbit. The newly discovered planet has a size of $2.04\pm 0.05$ $R_\oplus$ and an orbital period of 6.27 days. Radial-velocity data from the HARPS and AAT/UCLES archives also displays a 6.27-day periodicity, confirming the existence of the planet and leading to a mass determination of $4.82\pm 0.85$ $M_\oplus$. The star's proximity and brightness will facilitate further investigations, such as atmospheric spectroscopy, asteroseismology, the Rossiter--McLaughlin effect, astrometry, and direct imaging.Comment: Accepted for publication ApJ Letters. This letter makes use of the TESS Alert data, which is currently in a beta test phase. The discovery light curve is included in a table inside the arxiv submissio

Mass-loss rates for transiting exoplanets

Exoplanets at small orbital distances from their host stars are submitted to intense levels of energetic radiations, X-rays and extreme ultraviolet (EUV). Depending on the masses and densities of the planets and on the atmospheric heating efficiencies, the stellar energetic inputs can lead to atmospheric mass loss. These evaporation processes are observable in the ultraviolet during planetary transits. The aim of the present work is to quantify the mass-loss rates (dm/dt), heating efficiencies (eta), and lifetimes for the whole sample of transiting exoplanets, now including hot jupiters, hot neptunes, and hot super-earths. The mass-loss rates and lifetimes are estimated from an "energy diagram" for exoplanets, which compares the planet gravitational potential energy to the stellar X/EUV energy deposited in the atmosphere. We estimate the mass-loss rates of all detected transiting planets to be within 10^6 to 10^13 g/s for various conservative assumptions. High heating efficiencies would imply that hot exoplanets such the gas giants WASP-12b and WASP-17b could be completely evaporated within 1 Gyr. We further show that the heating efficiency can be constrained when dm/dt is inferred from observations and the stellar X/EUV luminosity is known. This leads us to suggest that eta ~ 100% in the atmosphere of the hot jupiter HD209458b, while it could be lower for HD189733b. Simultaneous observations of transits in the ultraviolet and X-rays are necessary to further constrain the exospheric properties of exoplanets.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic