The Body Creates: A Panel

Papers presented: Correlation of Skeletal Muscles and Vitamin D by Hala M. Akhtar & Benjamin Ly There is More than Meets the Eye by Henry Nguyen, Anna Villarreal & Ryleigh Bryant The eyes are a very important organ so it is important that we take good care of them. The eye allows us to see and life as we know it could not be possible if we did not have eyesight. There is more than meets the eye as it can be threatened by disease that cannot be simply seen without the use of specially designed instruments or machines. Some of the diseases the eye can have are glaucoma, which causes a loss in eyesight overtime due to the increase in pressure within the eye. Retinopathy or also known as diabetic retinopathy which is caused by damage to the blood vessels of light sensitive tissue located in the back of the eye. Both of these diseases will take away one’s eyesight if not treated. Treatments for glaucoma can include medications and surgery such as laser eye surgery. It is very important to protect the eyes so that there is a reduced chance of complications of the eyes late in life

Tears in your beer: Gender differences in coping drinking motives, depressive symptoms and drinking

This study evaluates associations between coping drinking motives (CDM; drinking to regulate negative affect), depressive symptoms, and drinking behavior and extends the literature by also taking into account gender differences. Two hundred forty-three college students (Mean age = 22.93, SD = 6.29, 82% female) participated. Based on previous research, we expected that CDM would be positively associated with drinking and problems, particularly among those higher in depressive symptoms, as individuals experiencing higher levels of negative affect (i.e. depressive symptoms) and who drink to cope are likely to drink more and experience more alcohol-related problems. Lastly, based on established gender differences, we expected that CDM would be positively associated with drinking and problems, especially among females higher in depressive symptoms. Unexpectedly, findings suggested that CDMs were positively related to peak drinking, especially among those lower in depressive symptoms. Results further revealed a significant three-way interaction between CDM, depressive symptoms, and gender when predicting alcohol-related problems and drinking frequency. Specifically, we found that CDM were more strongly associated with problems among women who were lower in depressive symptoms; whereas CDM were more strongly associated with problems among men who were higher in depressive symptoms. These findings offer a more comprehensive depiction of the relationship between depressive symptoms, CDM, and drinking behavior by taking into account the importance of gender differences. These results provide additional support for considering gender when designing and implementing alcohol intervention strategies

HybridMingler: Towards Mixed-Reality Support for Mingling at Hybrid Conferences

Mingling, the activity of ad-hoc, private, opportunistic conversations ahead of, during, or after breaks, is an important socializing activity for attendees at scheduled events, such as in-person conferences. The Covid-19 pandemic had a dramatic impact on the way conferences are organized, so that most of them now take place in a hybrid mode where people can either attend on-site or remotely. While on-site attendees can resume in-person mingling, hybrid modes make it challenging for remote attendees to mingle with on-site peers. In addressing this problem, we propose a collaborative mixed-reality (MR) concept, including a prototype, called HybridMingler. This is a distributed MR system supporting ambient awareness and allowing both on-site and remote conference attendees to virtually mingle. HybridMingler aims to provide both on-site and remote attendees with a spatial sense of co-location in the very same venue location, thus ultimately improving perceived presence

Feasibility of Using a Commercial Fitness Tracker as an Adjunct to Family-Based Weight Management Treatment: Pilot Randomized Trial.

BACKGROUND: Fitness trackers can engage users through automated self-monitoring of physical activity. Studies evaluating the utility of fitness trackers are limited among adolescents, who are often difficult to engage in weight management treatment and are heavy technology users. OBJECTIVE: We conducted a pilot randomized trial to describe the impact of providing adolescents and caregivers with fitness trackers as an adjunct to treatment in a tertiary care weight management clinic on adolescent fitness tracker satisfaction, fitness tracker utilization patterns, and physical activity levels. METHODS: Adolescents were randomized to 1 of 2 groups (adolescent or dyad) at their initial weight management clinic visit. Adolescents received a fitness tracker and counseling around activity data in addition to standard treatment. A caregiver of adolescents in the dyad group also received a fitness tracker. Satisfaction with the fitness tracker, fitness tracker utilization patterns, and physical activity patterns were evaluated over 3 months. RESULTS: A total of 88 adolescents were enrolled, with 69% (61/88) being female, 36% (32/88) black, 23% (20/88) Hispanic, and 63% (55/88) with severe obesity. Most adolescents reported that the fitness tracker was helping them meet their healthy lifestyle goals (69%) and be more motivated to achieve a healthy weight (66%). Despite this, 68% discontinued use of the fitness tracker by the end of the study. There were no significant differences between the adolescent and the dyad group in outcomes, but adolescents in the dyad group were 12.2 times more likely to discontinue using their fitness tracker if their caregiver also discontinued use of their fitness tracker (95% CI 2.4-61.6). Compared with adolescents who discontinued use of the fitness tracker during the study, adolescents who continued to use the fitness tracker recorded a higher number of daily steps in months 2 and 3 of the study (mean 5760 vs 4148 in month 2, P=.005, and mean 5942 vs 3487 in month 3, P=.002). CONCLUSIONS: Despite high levels of satisfaction with the fitness trackers, fitness tracker discontinuation rates were high, especially among adolescents whose caregivers also discontinued use of their fitness tracker. More studies are needed to determine how to sustain the use of fitness trackers among adolescents with obesity and engage caregivers in adolescent weight management interventions

Detection of gait initiation Failure in Parkinson's disease based on wavelet transform and Support Vector Machine

© 2017 IEEE. Gait initiation Failure (GIF) is the situation in which patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) feel as if their feet get 'stuck' to the floor when initiating their first steps. GIF is a subtype of Freezing of Gait (FOG) and often leads to falls and related injuries. Understanding of neurobiological mechanisms underlying GIF has been limited by difficulties in eliciting and objectively characterizing such gait phenomena in the clinical setting. Studies investigating the effects of GIF on brain activity using EEG offer the potential to study such behavior. In this preliminary study, we present a novel methodology where wavelet transform was used for feature extraction and Support Vector Machine for classifying GIF events in five patients with PD and FOG. To deal with the large amount of EEG data, a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied to reduce the data dimension from 15 EEG channels into 6 principal components (PCs), retaining 93% of the information. Independent Component Analysis using Entropy Bound Minimization (ICA-EBM) was applied to 6 PCs for source separation with the aim of improving detection ability of GIF events as compared to the normal initiation of gait (Good Starts). The results of this analysis demonstrated the correct identification of GIF episodes with an 83.1% sensitivity, 89.5% specificity and 86.3% accuracy. These results suggest that our proposed methodology is a promising non-invasive approach to improve GIF detection in PD and FOG

Acetaldehyde-Mediated Neurotoxicity: Relevance to Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

Ethanol-induced neuro-developmental abnormalities are associated with impaired insulin and IGF signaling, and increased oxidative stress in CNS neurons. We examined the roles of ethanol and its principal toxic metabolite, acetaldehyde, as mediators of impaired insulin/IGF signaling and oxidative injury in immature cerebellar neurons. Cultures were exposed to 3.5 mM acetaldehyde or 50 mM ethanol ± 4-methylpyrazole (4-MP), an inhibitor of ethanol metabolism, and viability, mitochondrial function, oxidative stress, DNA damage, and insulin responsiveness were measured 48 hours later. Acetaldehyde or ethanol increased neuronal death and levels of 8-OHdG and 4-HNE, and reduced mitochondrial function. Ethanol inhibited insulin responsiveness, whereas acetaldehyde did not. 4-MP abated ethanol-induced oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction, but failed to restore insulin responsiveness. Furthermore, alcohol and aldehyde metabolizing enzyme genes were inhibited by prenatal ethanol exposure; this effect was mediated by acetaldehyde and not ethanol + 4MP. These findings suggest that brain insulin resistance in prenatal alcohol exposure is caused by direct effects of ethanol, whereas oxidative stress induced neuronal injury is likely mediated by ethanol and its toxic metabolites. Moreover, the adverse effects of prenatal ethanol exposure on brain development may be exacerbated by down-regulation of genes needed for metabolism and detoxification of alcohol in the brain

Activity and Process Stability of Purified Green Pepper (Capsicum annuum) Pectin Methylesterase

Pectin methylesterase (PME) from green bell peppers (Capsicum annuum) was extracted and purified by affinity chromatography on a CNBr-Sepharose-PMEI column. A single protein peak with pectin methylesterase activity was observed. For the pepper PME, a biochemical characterization in terms of molar mass (MM), isoelectric points (pI), and kinetic parameters for activity and thermostability was performed. The optimum pH for PME activity at 22 °C was 7.5, and its optimum temperature at neutral pH was between 52.5 and 55.0 °C. The purified pepper PME required the presence of 0.13 M NaCl for optimum activity. Isothermal inactivation of purified pepper PME in 20 mM Tris buffer (pH 7.5) could be described by a fractional conversion model for lower temperatures (55?57 °C) and a biphasic model for higher temperatures (58?70 °C). The enzyme showed a stable behavior toward high-pressure/temperature treatments. Keywords: Capsicum annuum; pepper; pectin methylesterase; purification; characterization; thermal and high-pressure stabilit

KRASness and PIK3CAness in Patients with Advanced Colorectal Cancer: Outcome after Treatment with Early-Phase Trials with Targeted Pathway Inhibitors

To evaluate clinicopathologic and molecular features of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) and their outcomes in early-phase trials using pathway-targeting agents.We analyzed characteristics of 238 patients with mCRC referred to the phase 1 trials unit at MD Anderson Cancer Center. KRAS, PIK3CA and BRAF status were tested using PCR-based DNA sequencing.Fifty-one percent of patients harbored KRAS mutations; 15% had PIK3CA mutations. In the multivariate regression model for clinical characteristics KRAS mutations were associated with an increased incidence of lung and bone metastases and decreased incidence of adrenal metastases; PIK3CA mutations were marginally correlated with mucinous tumors (p = 0.05). In the univariate analysis, KRAS and PIK3CA mutations were strongly associated. Advanced Duke's stage (p<0.0001) and KRAS mutations (p = 0.01) were the only significant independent predictors of poor survival (Cox proportional hazards model). Patients with PIK3CA mutations had a trend toward shorter progression-free survival when treated with anti-EGFR therapies (p = 0.07). Eighteen of 78 assessable patients (23%) treated with PI3K/Akt/mTOR axis inhibitors achieved stable disease [SD] ≥6 months or complete response/partial response (CR/PR), only one of whom were in the subgroup (N = 15) with PIK3CA mutations, perhaps because 10 of these 15 patients (67%) had coexisting KRAS mutations. No SD ≥6 months/CR/PR was observed in the 10 patients treated with mitogen-activating protein kinase (MAPK) pathway targeting drugs.KRAS and PIK3CA mutations frequently coexist in patients with colorectal cancer, and are associated with clinical characteristics and outcome. Overcoming resistance may require targeting both pathways