Urban Fathers Asset Building – Final Report

The Urban Fathers Asset Building (UFAB) project demonstrated the potential benefits, as well as limitations, of an innovative nexus between the child support system, fatherhood programs, and the Assets for Independence (AFI) grant-funded services. UFAB was a collaborative initiative of the Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG), Baylor College of Medicine’s Teen Health Clinic, Covenant Community Capital Corporation (the local AFI grantee), and RAISE Texas, the statewide association of AFI grantees. This Final Report summarizes UFAB’s operational features and outcomes; depicts the demonstration’s challenges and innovative responses; reviews the accomplishments of the ancillary projects supported by BAFF funds; and assesses the prospects for sustaining demonstration practices in the Houston area, as well as extending promising practices to other areas of the state.Texas Office of the Attorney GeneralRay Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resource

Urban Fathers Asset Building Initiative: Evaluation Plan

Urban Fathers Asset Building Initiative: Evaluation PlanThe Urban Fathers Asset Building (UFAB) project is demonstrating an innovative nexus between the child support system, fatherhood programs and Assets for Independence (AFI) grant-funded services. UFAB is a collaborative initiative of the Texas Office of the Attorney General, Baylor College of Medicine’s Teen Health Clinic, and Covenant Community Capital Corporation, the local AFI grantee in Houston. UFAB targets low-income, young fathers—a population notably under-served by financial education services regularly provided under AFI—prior to their need for enforcement of child support orders. UFAB intends to recruit and enroll up to 200 new or expectant young fathers who reside in the urban core of Houston, Texas, near the time of the births of their children in order to encourage financial literacy and asset building to become more economically self-sufficient. Simultaneously, the demonstration presents the opportunity to provide information about child support laws and enforcement to the young fathers at this early stage of family formation, as well as to personnel of collaborating entities at the community level. The grant also authorizes OAG to build awareness and support for this and other efforts of OAG’s Child Support Division throughout the state, including Child Support for College and the Bring it Back to Texas program. UFAB involves collaboration at the statewide level between the OAG and RAISE Texas, the statewide association of AFI grantees, for the purpose of disseminating child support information, including family stability initiatives to the grantees and their local partners. The Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin has been contracted by OAG as the project evaluator to conduct process and outcomes analyses of UFAB.US Dept of Heath and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Support Enforcement, Texas Office of the Attorney General, RAISE Texas, Harris County Precinct One, Baylor College of Medicine's Young Fathers/Bootstrap Project, Covenant Community CapitalRay Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resource

Morphological studies on Kluyveromyces Marxianus var; Marxianus NRRLy2415 in suspension culture: a study incorporating computer aided image analysis

The morphology of the lactose fermenting organism, Kluyveromyces marxianus var. marxianus NRRLy2415 was studied in batch and continuous culture. The morphology of the organism was observed to vary significantly from a budding yeastlike form to a branched pseudohyphal form depending on the operating conditions. The following morphological classes were deemed important for the complete description of culture morphology: yeast, elongated yeast, filament, double yeast, double elongated yeast, double filament and pseudohyphae. Image analysis was used to implement the classification system, due to its objectivity in measurement of visual phenomena. The protocol developed was also capable of measuring geometric properties of the cell population including volume, length and width for all cells and hyphal growth unit length for pseudohyphae. The predominant morphology observed for the organism in fully aerobic batch culture was yeast-like. When the agitation rate was decreased, an increased heterogeneity in the morphology was observed, w ith the generation o f more elongated yeast and filamentous forms. This was attributed to partial oxygen limitation in the fermentations. In chemostat culture, the morphology observed was predominantly pseudohyphal. This morphological form was found to dominate over a large range of dilution rates (0 .1-0 .45 h ']) and substrate feed concentrations (5 to 20 g /L lactose). At both extrema of dilution rates a reversion to a yeastlike morphology was observed. The mycelial morphology was attributed to substrate limitation and was demonstrated to be of ecological advantage under substrate limited conditions. Kinetic modelling of substrate metabolism was undertaken for continuous and batch culture results. It was demonstrated that, the stoichiometry of the metabolic pathways studied was identical under all operating conditions. This is significant, as the morphology of the organism varies significantly from batch to continuous culture. A population model was developed which was capable of describing the distributions of cell geometric parameters based on summed lognormal distributions of selected morphological classes. The ultrastructure of pseudohyphae was examined. This study demonstrated significant differences in methods of formation between pseudohyphae and true hyphae and highlighted key issues that need to be addressed if successful modeling of such grow this to be undertaken

The development and validation of the Virtual Tissue Matrix, a software application that facilitates the review of tissue microarrays on line

BACKGROUND: The Tissue Microarray (TMA) facilitates high-throughput analysis of hundreds of tissue specimens simultaneously. However, bottlenecks in the storage and manipulation of the data generated from TMA reviews have become apparent. A number of software applications have been developed to assist in image and data management; however no solution currently facilitates the easy online review, scoring and subsequent storage of images and data associated with TMA experimentation. RESULTS: This paper describes the design, development and validation of the Virtual Tissue Matrix (VTM). Through an intuitive HTML driven user interface, the VTM provides digital/virtual slide based images of each TMA core and a means to record observations on each TMA spot. Data generated from a TMA review is stored in an associated relational database, which facilitates the use of flexible scoring forms. The system allows multiple users to record their interpretation of each TMA spot for any parameters assessed. Images generated for the VTM were captured using a standard background lighting intensity and corrective algorithms were applied to each image to eliminate any background lighting hue inconsistencies or vignetting. Validation of the VTM involved examination of inter-and intra-observer variability between microscope and digital TMA reviews. Six bladder TMAs were immunohistochemically stained for E-Cadherin, β-Catenin and PhosphoMet and were assessed by two reviewers for the amount of core and tumour present, the amount and intensity of membrane, cytoplasmic and nuclear staining. CONCLUSION: Results show that digital VTM images are representative of the original tissue viewed with a microscope. There were equivalent levels of inter-and intra-observer agreement for five out of the eight parameters assessed. Results also suggest that digital reviews may correct potential problems experienced when reviewing TMAs using a microscope, for example, removal of background lighting variance and tint, and potential disorientation of the reviewer, which may have resulted in the discrepancies evident in the remaining three parameters

New directions in cellular therapy of cancer: a summary of the summit on cellular therapy for cancer

A summit on cellular therapy for cancer discussed and presented advances related to the use of adoptive cellular therapy for melanoma and other cancers. The summit revealed that this field is advancing rapidly. Conventional cellular therapies, such as tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL), are becoming more effective and more available. Gene therapy is becoming an important tool in adoptive cell therapy. Lymphocytes are being engineered to express high affinity T cell receptors (TCRs), chimeric antibody-T cell receptors (CARs) and cytokines. T cell subsets with more naïve and stem cell-like characteristics have been shown in pre-clinical models to be more effective than unselected populations and it is now possible to reprogram T cells and to produce T cells with stem cell characteristics. In the future, combinations of adoptive transfer of T cells and specific vaccination against the cognate antigen can be envisaged to further enhance the effectiveness of these therapies

Development and preliminary evaluation of the VPS ReplaySuite: a virtual double-headed microscope for pathology

BACKGROUND: Advances in computing and telecommunications have resulted in the availability of a range of online tools for use in pathology training and quality assurance. The majority focus on either enabling pathologists to examine and diagnose cases, or providing image archives that serve as reference material. Limited emphasis has been placed on analysing the diagnostic process used by pathologists to reach a diagnosis and using this as a resource for improving diagnostic performance. METHODS: The ReplaySuite is an online pathology software tool that presents archived virtual slide examinations to pathologists in an accessible video-like format, similar to observing examinations with a double-headed microscope. Delivered through a customised web browser, it utilises PHP (Hypertext PreProcessor) to interact with a remote database and retrieve data describing virtual slide examinations, performed using the Virtual Pathology Slide (VPS). To demonstrate the technology and conduct a preliminary evaluation of pathologists opinions on its potential application in pathology training and quality assurance, 70 pathologists were invited to use the application to review their own and other pathologists examinations of 10 needle-core breast biopsies and complete an electronic survey. 9 pathologists participated, and all subsequently completed an exit survey. RESULTS: Of those who replayed an examination by another pathologist, 83.3% (5/6) agreed that replays provided an insight into the examining pathologists diagnosis and 33.3% (2/6) reconsidered their own diagnosis for at least one case. Of those who reconsidered their original diagnosis, all re-classified either concordant with group consensus or original glass slide diagnosis. 77.7% (7/9) of all participants, and all 3 participants who replayed more than 10 examinations stated the ReplaySuite to be of some or great benefit in pathology training and quality assurance. CONCLUSION: Participants conclude the ReplaySuite to be of some or of great potential benefit to pathology training and quality assurance and consider the ReplaySuite to be beneficial in evaluating the diagnostic trace of an examination. The ReplaySuite removes temporal and spatial issues that surround the use of double-headed microscopes by allowing examinations to be reviewed at different times and in different locations to the original examination. While the evaluation set was limited and potentially subject to bias, the response of participants was favourable. Further work is planned to determine whether use of the ReplaySuite can result in improved diagnostic ability

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London