Senior Recital, Sulaiman Popal, guitar

The presentation of this senior recital will fulfill in part the requirements for the Bachelor of Music degree in Performance. Sulaiman Popal studies guitar with David Toussaint

Climate Change and National Security

Climate change will have an impact on operations of the United States Armed Forces and the international events, both humanitarian relief efforts and arms conflicts, to which they respond. Rear Admiral Jonathan White will discuss the impacts of climate change on the U.S. Navy's operations as well as actions being taken to prepare for these changes.Ohio State UniversityMershon Center for International Security StudiesByrd Polar Research CenterEvent Web page, event photo

Genotype and sex-based host variation in behavior and susceptibility drives population disease dynamics

Host heterogeneity in pathogen transmission is widespread and presents a major hurdle to predicting and minimizing disease outbreaks. Using Drosophila melanogaster infected with Drosophila C virus as a model system, we integrated experimental measurements of social aggregation, virus shedding, and disease-induced mortality from different genetic lines and sexes into a disease modelling framework. The experimentally measured host heterogeneity produced substantial differences in simulated disease outbreaks, providing evidence for genetic and sex-specific effects on disease dynamics at a population level. While this was true for homogeneous populations of single sex/genetic line, the genetic background or sex of the index case did not alter outbreak dynamics in simulated, heterogeneous populations. Finally, to explore the relative effects of social aggregation, viral shedding and mortality, we compared simulations where we allowed these traits to vary, as measured experimentally, to simulations where we constrained variation in these traits to the population mean. In this context, variation in infectiousness, followed by social aggregation, was the most influential component of transmission. Overall, we show that host heterogeneity in three host traits dramatically affects population-level transmission, but the relative impact of this variation depends on both the susceptible population diversity and the distribution of population-level variation

Determining jumping performance from a single body-worn accelerometer using machine learning

External peak power in the countermovement jump is frequently used to monitor athlete training. The gold standard method uses force platforms, but they are unsuitable for field-based testing. However, alternatives based on jump flight time or Newtonian methods applied to inertial sensor data have not been sufficiently accurate for athlete monitoring. Instead, we developed a machine learning model based on characteristic features (functional principal components) extracted from a single body-worn accelerometer. Data were collected from 69 male and female athletes at recreational, club or national levels, who performed 696 jumps in total. We considered vertical countermovement jumps (with and without arm swing),sensor anatomical locations, machine learning models and whether to use resultant or triaxial signals. Using a novel surrogate model optimisation procedure, we obtained the lowest errors with a support vector machine when using the resultant signal from a lower back sensor in jumps without arm swing. This model had a peak power RMSE of 2.3 W·kg-1 (5.1% of the mean), estimated using nested cross validation and supported by an independent holdout test (2.0 W·kg-1). This error is lower than in previous studies, although it is not yet sufficiently accurate for a field-based method. Our results demonstrate that functional data representations work well in machine learning by reducing model complexity in applications where signals are aligned in time. Our optimisation procedure also was shown to be robust can be used in wider applications with low-cost, noisy objective functions

Bacteriophages of the Urinary Microbiome

Bacterial viruses (bacteriophages) play a significant role in microbial community dynamics. Within the human gastrointestinal tract, for instance, associations amongst bacteriophages (phages), microbiota stability, and human health have been discovered. In contrast to the gastrointestinal tract, the phages associated with the urinary microbiota are largely unknown. Preliminary metagenomic surveys of the urinary virome indicate a rich diversity of novel lytic phage sequences, at an abundance far outnumbering eukaryotic viruses. These surveys, however, exclude the lysogenic phages residing within the bacteria of the bladder. To characterize this phage population, we examined 181 genomes representative of the phylogenetic diversity of bacterial species within the female urinary microbiota and found 457 phage sequences, 226 of which were predicted with high confidence. Phages were prevalent within the bladder bacteria: 86% of the genomes examined contained at least one phage sequence. Most of these phages are novel, exhibiting no discernible sequence homology to public data repositories. The presence of phages with substantial sequence similarity within the microbiota of different women supports the existence of a core community of phages within the bladder. Furthermore, the observed variation between the phage populations of women with and without overactive bladder symptoms suggests that phages may contribute to urinary health. To complement our bioinformatic analyses, viable phages were cultivated from the bacterial isolates for characterization; a novel coliphage was isolated, which is obligately lytic in the laboratory strain E. coli C. Sequencing of bacterial genomes facilitates a comprehensive cataloguing of the urinary virome while also revealing phage-host interactions.Importance Bacteriophages are abundant within the human body. But while some niches have been well surveyed, the phage population within the urinary microbiome is largely unknown. Our study is the first survey of the lysogenic phage population within the urinary microbiota. Most notably, the abundance of prophage exceeds that of the bacteria. Furthermore, many of the prophage sequences identified exhibited no recognizable sequence homology to data repositories. This suggests a rich diversity of uncharacterized phage species present in the bladder. Additionally, we observed a variation in the abundance of phages between bacteria isolated from asymptomatic \u27healthy\u27 individuals and those with urinary symptoms thus suggesting that, like phages within the gut, phages within the bladder may contribute to urinary health

Marshall University Music Department Presents a Cello & Bass Studio Recital, Composition Studio Recital

https://mds.marshall.edu/music_perf/1707/thumbnail.jp

Efficacy and harms of tocilizumab for the treatment of COVID-19 patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction We systematically assessed benefits and harms of tocilizumab (TCZ), which is an antibody blocking IL-6 receptors, in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Methods Five electronic databases and two preprint webpages were searched until March 4, 2021. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and inverse probability treatment weighting (IPTW) cohorts assessing TCZ effects in hospitalized, COVID-19 adult patients were included. Primary outcomes were all-cause mortality, clinical worsening, clinical improvement, need for mechanical ventilation, and adverse events (AE). Inverse variance random-effects meta-analyses were performed with quality of evidence (QoE) evaluated using GRADE methodology. Results Nine RCTs (n = 7,021) and nine IPTW cohorts (n = 7,796) were included. TCZ significantly reduced all-cause mortality in RCTs (RR 0.89, 95%CI 0.81–0.98, p = 0.03; moderate QoE) and non-significantly in cohorts (RR 0.67, 95%CI 0.44–1.02, p = 0.08; very low QoE) vs. control (standard of care [SOC] or placebo). TCZ significantly reduced the need for mechanical ventilation (RR 0.80, 95%CI 0.71–0.90, p = 0.001; moderate QoE) and length of stay (MD -1.92 days, 95%CI -3.46 to -0.38, p = 0.01; low QoE) vs. control in RCTs. There was no significant difference in clinical improvement or worsening between treatments. AEs, severe AEs, bleeding and thrombotic events were similar between arms in RCTs, but there was higher neutropenia risk with TCZ (very low QoE). Subgroup analyses by disease severity or risk of bias (RoB) were consistent with main analyses. Quality of evidence was moderate to very low in both RCTs and cohorts. Conclusions In comparison to SOC or placebo, TCZ reduced all-cause mortality in all studies and reduced mechanical ventilation and length of stay in RCTs in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Other clinical outcomes were not significantly impacted. TCZ did not have effect on AEs, except a significant increased neutropenia risk in RCTs. TCZ has a potential role in the treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.Revisión por pare

Specialist intellectual disability liaison nurses in general hospitals in England: cohort study using a large mortality dataset

Objective: Intellectual disability liaison nurses in general hospitals could enhance access to high-quality, adapted healthcare and improve outcomes. We aimed to explore associations between the input of intellectual disability liaison nurses and the quality of care in people with intellectual disability who are admitted to hospital. Design: Retrospective analysis of a national dataset of mortality reviews. Setting: General hospitals in England. Participants: 4742 adults with intellectual disability who died in hospital between 2016 and 2021 and whose deaths were reviewed as part of the Learning from Lives and Deaths mortality review programme. Outcome measures: We used logistic regression to compare the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of those who did, and did not, receive input from an intellectual disability liaison nurse. We explored associations between liaison nurse input, care processes and overall quality of care. Results: One-third of people with intellectual disability who died in hospital in England between 2016 and 2021 had input from an intellectual disability liaison nurse. Intellectual disability liaison nurse input was not evenly distributed across England and was more common in those who died of cancer. Having an intellectual disability liaison nurse involved in an individual’s care was associated with increased likelihood of reasonable adjustments being made to care (adjusted OR (aOR) 1.95, 95% CI 1.63 to 2.32) and of best practice being identified (aOR 1.37, 95% CI 1.17 to 1.60) but was not associated with a rating of overall quality of care received (aOR 0.94, 95% CI 0.78 to 1.12). Conclusions: Intellectual disability liaison nurses see only a minority of people with intellectual disability who are admitted to hospital in England. Increasing the availability of intellectual disability liaison nurses could improve care for this disadvantaged group