Fluorescence Turn-On Sensor to Characterize Quaternary Folding Structure of Transthyretin

Landon Sims is in the Biology department at Louisiana Tech University. Paul Kim is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Grambling State University. The abstract for their presentation Fluorescence Turn-On Sensor to Characterize Quaternary Folding Structure of Transthyretin can be downloaded by clicking on the blue download button

Guppies: Sexy and You Know it?

We were curious to know if female guppies are more interested in the quality or quantity of males

Teaching Counseling Skills in Audiology Graduate Programs: Clinical Supervisors’ Perceptions and Practices

Background: Counseling is a critical component within audiological service delivery. Partnering with patients to support them in learning to effectively cope with their hearing challenges is a key component in achieving desired outcomes. Even though there is agreement on the foundational role counseling plays in audiology service delivery, counseling instruction varies among audiology training programs. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the perspectives and practices of supervisors in audiology graduate training programs related to mentoring students in the acquisition of counseling skills. Research Design: A cross-sectional design was used; participants completed a self-report survey. Study Sample: The survey was sent to 323 clinical supervisors in AuD graduate programs in the United States. Data Collection and Analysis: Completed surveys were received from 205 supervisors. Responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics to identify practice trends. Results: Participants reported their perceptions about importance of teaching counseling skills to audiology students, their confidence in teaching skills, their self-efficacy for supporting student learning, how they provide feedback to students, and challenges they encounter. Most participants reported their program requires a counseling course (88%; n=176). The majority of participants reported confidence in teaching counseling skills; however, fewer reported being very or extremely confident in teaching students how to talk with clients about their emotions (53%; n=109), and explaining the rationale behind specific counseling strategies (47%; n=97). Participants with more years of supervisory experience had statistically significantly higher self- ratings for teaching confidence and self-efficacy for supporting student learning in counseling than those with fewer years of experience. Conclusions: Audiology supervisors in AuD programs believe counseling is important to teach to students; however, they report variability in use of methods for providing feedback, evaluating student performance, and in their self-efficacy for supporting student learning. Future audiologists would benefit from a more systematic approach within graduate training for teaching counseling skills

Evaluation of Open Cell Foam Heat Transfer Enhancement for Liquid Rocket Engine

As NASA pursues the exploration mission, advanced propulsion for the next generation of spacecraft will be needed. These new propulsion systems will require higher performance and increased durability, despite current limitations on materials. A break-through technology is needed in the thrust chamber. In this paper the idea of using a porous metallic foam is examined for its potential cooling enhancement capabilities. The goal is to increase the chamber wall cooling without creating an additional pressure drop penalty. A feasibility study based on experiments at laboratory-scale conditions was performed and analysis at rocket conditions is underway. In the experiment, heat transfer and pressure drop data were collected using air as the coolant in a copper or nickel foam filled annular channel. The foam-channel performance was evaluated based on comparison with conventional microchannel cooling passages under equal pressure drop conditions. The heat transfer enhancement of the foam channel over the microchannel ranges from 130% to 172%. The enhancement is relatively independent of the pressure drop and increases with decreasing pore size. A direct numerical simulation model of the foam heat exchange has been built. The model is based on the actual metal foam microstructure of thin ligaments (0.2- 0.3 mm in diameter) that form a network of interconnected open-cells. The cell dimension is around 2 mm. The numerical model was built using the FLUENT CFD code. Comparison of the pressure drop results predicted by the current model with those experimental data of Leong and Jin [8] shows favorable comparisons. Pressure drop predictions have been made using hydrogen as a coolant at typical rocket conditions. Conjugate heat transfer analysis using the foam filled channel is planned for the future

MRI radiomic features are independently associated with overall survival in soft tissue sarcoma

Purpose: Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) represent a heterogeneous group of diseases, and selection of individualized treatments remains a challenge. The goal of this study was to determine whether radiomic features extracted from magnetic resonance (MR) images are independently associated with overall survival (OS) in STS. Methods and Materials: This study analyzed 2 independent cohorts of adult patients with stage II-III STS treated at center 1 (N = 165) and center 2 (N = 61). Thirty radiomic features were extracted from pretreatment T1-weighted contrast-enhanced MR images. Prognostic models for OS were derived on the center 1 cohort and validated on the center 2 cohort. Clinical-only (C), radiomics-only (R), and clinical and radiomics (C+R) penalized Cox models were constructed. Model performance was assessed using Harrell\u27s concordance index. Results: In the R model, tumor volume (hazard ratio [HR], 1.5) and 4 texture features (HR, 1.1-1.5) were selected. In the C+R model, both age (HR, 1.4) and grade (HR, 1.7) were selected along with 5 radiomic features. The adjusted c-indices of the 3 models ranged from 0.68 (C) to 0.74 (C+R) in the derivation cohort and 0.68 (R) to 0.78 (C+R) in the validation cohort. The radiomic features were independently associated with OS in the validation cohort after accounting for age and grade (HR, 2.4; Conclusions: This study found that radiomic features extracted from MR images are independently associated with OS when accounting for age and tumor grade. The overall predictive performance of 3-year OS using a model based on clinical and radiomic features was replicated in an independent cohort. Optimal models using clinical and radiomic features could improve personalized selection of therapy in patients with STS

The Gap Between Physicians and the Public in Satisfaction with the National Health Insurance System in Korea

The Korean National Health Insurance (NHI) system was an unprecedented accomplishment that was achieved in a short period of time. In this study, we sought to identify gaps between physicians and the public with respect to attitudes toward the NHI system in Korea. The study population was derived from the 2008 Korean Medical Association Survey, which was conducted to investigate satisfaction with and perceptions of the NHI system among physicians (n = 961) and the public (n = 935). Only 6.5% of the physicians were satisfied with NHI system, and 71.5% were dissatisfied with it. In contrast, 28.3% of the public were satisfied with the NHI system, and 21.4% were dissatisfied. The level of dissatisfaction expressed by physicians (2.03 ± 0.91 on a five-point scale) was also higher than that expressed by the public (3.06 ± 0.84). Despite rapid growth of NHI system, a large gap in satisfaction exists between physicians and the public

Projects in Geospatial Data Analysis: Spring 2015

This document contains semester projects for students in CSCI 4380/7000 Geospatial Data Analysis (GSA). The course explores the technical aspects of programmatic geospatial data analysis with a focus on GIS concepts, custom GIS programming, analytical and statistical methods, and open source tools and frameworks

Physiological and Cellular Targets of Neurotrophic Anxiolytic Phytochemicals in Food and Dietary Supplements

Diet impacts anxiety in two main ways. First anxiety can be caused by deficiencies in antioxidants, neurotransmitter precursors, amino acids, cations and vitamins and other cofactors. Second, anxiety can be reduced by anxiolytic nutraceuticals which are food molecules that bind to molecular targets of the amygdala and the hypothalamus-pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA-axis). Anxiety is a feeling of fear that arises from a perceived threat and can be a beneficial coping mechanism to threats and stressors. However excessive anxiety is a disorder that interferes with healthy responses to stressors. The amygdala is responsible for assigning value to a threat or stressor and triggering the HPA-axis to support the body wide system responses to the threat. The amygdala also communicates with the neuroplastic learning and memory centers of the hippocampus to fix or set a learned value to the threat. Interestingly, many anxiolytic nutraceuticals that show benefits in human clinical trials have neurotrophic activity and increase neuronal plasticity. Moreover, anxiolytic nutraceuticals either act like the neurotrophins, nerve growth factor (NGF), brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF and neurotrophin-3 (NT3) by either directly binding to or potentiating the tyrosine receptor kinase (TRK) family of receptors (TRKA, TRKB and TRKC) and activating the ERK1/2 signal transduction pathway associated with neurite outgrowth and neural plasticity. This chapter will explore the neuritogenic activity of clinically proven plant-based anxiolytic nutraceuticals and examine the commonality of TRKA-C receptors and the ERK1/2 signaling pathway in the pharmacological and nutraceutical treatment of anxiety disorders

First-Trimester Follistatin-Like-3 Levels in Pregnancies Complicated by Subsequent Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

Objective: To determine whether maternal levels of follistatin-like-3 (FSTL3), an inhibitor of activin and myostatin involved in glucose homeostasis, are altered in the first trimester of pregnancies complicated by subsequent gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Research Design and Methods: This was a nested case-control study of subjects enrolled in a prospective cohort of pregnant women with and without GDM ($\geq$2 abnormal values on a 100-g glucose tolerance test at ~28 weeks of gestation). We measured FSTL3 levels in serum collected during the first trimester of pregnancy. Logistic regression analyses were used to determine the risk of GDM. Results: Women who developed GDM (n = 37) had lower first-trimester serum levels of FSTL3 compared with women who did not (n = 127) (median 10,789 [interquartile range 7,013-18,939] vs. 30,670 [18,370-55,484] pg/ml, P < 0.001). When subjects were divided into tertiles based on FSTL3 levels, women with the lowest levels demonstrated a marked increase in risk for developing GDM in univariate (odds ratio 11.2 [95% CI 3.6-35.3]) and multivariate (14.0 [4.1-47.9]) analyses. There was a significant negative correlation between first-trimester FSTL3 levels and ~28-week nonfasting glucose levels (r = -0.30, P < 0.001). Conclusions: First-trimester FSTL3 levels are associated with glucose intolerance and GDM later in pregnancy

Novel Naphthalene-Based Inhibitors of Trypanosoma brucei RNA Editing Ligase 1

African sleeping sickness is a devastating disease that plagues sub-Saharan Africa. Neglected tropical diseases like African sleeping sickness cause significant death and suffering in the world's poorest countries. Current treatments for African sleeping sickness either have high costs, terrible side effects, or limited effectiveness. Consequently, new medicines are urgently needed. RNA editing ligase 1 is an important protein critical for the survival of Trypanosoma brucei, the unicellular parasite that causes African sleeping sickness. In this paper, we describe our recent efforts to use advanced computer techniques to identify chemicals predicted to prevent RNA editing ligase 1 from functioning properly. We subsequently tested our predicted chemicals and confirmed that a number of them inhibited the protein's function. Additionally, one of the chemicals was effective at stopping the growth of the parasite in culture. Although substantial work remains to be done in order to optimize these chemicals so they are effective and safe to use in human patients, the identification of these parasite-killing compounds is nevertheless a valuable step towards finding a better cure for this devastating disease