A Resident Retreat with Emergency Medicine Specific Mindfulness Training Significantly Reduces Burnout and Perceived Stress

Introduction: We hypothesize that a resident retreat with mindfulness training tailored for Emergency Medicine (EM) physicians can significantly reduce levels of burnout and perceived stress in EM residents. Methods: We conducted an intervention study of 60 EM residents undergoing an annual resident retreat with a 2.5-hour mindfulness training. The retreat was a department-funded 2-day off-site experience with a wellness theme. The training was developed and delivered by an EM physician (JO\u27S) who is a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher trainee, and a certified MBSR teacher (MD). The training focused on techniques that can be used on shift, such as mindful breathing, handwashing, eating/drinking, walking, and anchoring before resuscitations. The cohort contained an equal distribution of 1st, 2nd and 3rd year residents who received a financial incentive. The subjects completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory, Perceived Stress Scale and Mindful Attention and Awareness Scale at three time points: Time 1 - one month prior, Time 2 – one week post, Time 3 – one month post. Results: The subjects were 60 EM residents (54% Male, 46% Female) with an average age of 29. Completion rates at the three time points were 70% (n = 42), 60% (n = 36) and 50% (n = 30) respectively. We found that Perceived Stress (ω2 = 0.15, p \u3c 0.01) and Emotional Exhaustion (ω2 = 0.21, p \u3c 0.01) decreased significantly over time in a linear progression across the three sampling periods. Though mindfulness as a trait did not change significantly during the study period, in the month after the retreat, 64% of resident respondents at Time 3 (n = 32) reported using the mindfulness techniques learned from the training at least 2 or 3 times a week on shift and 52% (n = 31) reported using them at least 2 or 3 times a week at home. Conclusions: An EM resident retreat that included an EM specific mindfulness training significantly reduced perceived stress and emotional exhaustion. The learned mindfulness skills were readily adopted for use on shift. Further studies should investigate effectiveness of mindfulness training outside of the retreat format. Other wellness / academic activities that occur within the socially supportive milieu of a retreat could lead to the same significant reduction in burnout and perceived stress seen in the current study

Bayesian Modeling of Multiple Structural Connectivity Networks During the Progression of Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease is the most common neurodegenerative disease. The aim of this study is to infer structural changes in brain connectivity resulting from disease progression using cortical thickness measurements from a cohort of participants who were either healthy control, or with mild cognitive impairment, or Alzheimer's disease patients. For this purpose, we develop a novel approach for inference of multiple networks with related edge values across groups. Specifically, we infer a Gaussian graphical model for each group within a joint framework, where we rely on Bayesian hierarchical priors to link the precision matrix entries across groups. Our proposal differs from existing approaches in that it flexibly learns which groups have the most similar edge values, and accounts for the strength of connection (rather than only edge presence or absence) when sharing information across groups. Our results identify key alterations in structural connectivity which may reflect disruptions to the healthy brain, such as decreased connectivity within the occipital lobe with increasing disease severity. We also illustrate the proposed method through simulations, where we demonstrate its performance in structure learning and precision matrix estimation with respect to alternative approaches.Comment: Accepted to Biometrics January 202

The function and regulation of the GATA factor ELT-2 in the C. elegans endoderm

ELT-2 is the major regulator of genes involved in differentiation, maintenance and function o

IXPE Mission System Concept and Development Status

The Goal of the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) Mi SMEX), is to expand understanding of high-energy astrophysical processes and sources, in support of NASAs first science objective in Astrophysics: Discover how the universe works. IXPE, an international collaboration, will conduct X-ray imaging polarimetry for multiple categories of cosmic X-ray sources such as neutron stars, stellar-mass black holes, supernova remnants and active galactic nuclei. The Observatory uses a single science operational mode capturing the X-ray data from the targets. The IXPE Observatory consists of spacecraft and payload modules built up in parallel to form the Observatory during system integration and test. The payload includes three X-ray telescopes each consisting of a polarization-sensitive, gas pixel X-ray detector, paired with its corresponding grazing incidence mirror module assembly (MMA). A deployable boom provides the correct separation (focal length) between the detector units (DU) and MMAs. These payload elements are supported by the IXPE spacecraft which is derived from the BCP-small spacecraft architecture. This paper summarizes the IXPE mission science objectives, updates the Observatory implementation concept including the payload and spacecraft ts and summarizes the mission status since last years conference

Effects of Water-Level Management on Nesting Success of Common Loons

Water-level management is widespread and illustrates how contemporary climate can interact directly and indirectly with numerous biological and abiotic factors to influence reproductive success of wildlife species. We studied common loons, an iconic waterbird sensitive to timing and magnitude of waterlevel changes during the breeding season, using a before-after-control-impact design on large lakes in Voyageurs National Park (Minnesota, USA), to assess the effect of anthropogenic changes in hydroregime on their nesting success and productivity. We examined multiple competing a priori hypotheses in an information-theoretic framework, and predicted that magnitude of changes in loon productivity would be greater in the Namakan Reservoir, where water-level management was altered to mimic a more natural hydroregime, than in Rainy Lake, where management remained relatively unchanged. We determined outcomes from 278 nests during 2004–2006 by performing boat-based visits every 3–5 days, and measuring hydrologic, vegetative, and microtopographic covariates. Relative to comparably collected data for 260 total loon pairs during 1983–1986, productivity (chicks hatched/territorial pair) increased 95% in the Namakan Reservoir between the 2 time periods. Nest success declined in both lakes over the 2 study periods but less so in the Namakan Reservoir than in Rainy Lake. Flooding was a primary cause of nest failures (though second nests were less likely to flood). Nest predation appears to have increased considerably between the 2 study periods. Top-ranked models suggested that timing of nest initiation, probability of nest flooding, probability of nest stranding, and probability of nest success were each related to 2–4 factors, including date of initiation, timing of initiation relative to peak water levels, changes in the elevation of the nest edge, maximum waterlevel change between initiation and peak water levels, and maximum water-level change between initiation and nest outcome. The top model for all variables except stranding each garnered \u3e82% of total model weight. Results demonstrate that water-level management can be altered to benefit productivity of common loons. However, nuanced interactions between land-use change, invasive species, human development, recreation, climate change, and recovery of top predators may often complicate both management decisions and interpretation of water-level impacts on wildlife

Sharpening the predictions of big-bang nucleosynthesis

Motivated by the recent measurement of the primeval abundance of deuterium, we re-examine the nuclear inputs to big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). Using Monte-Carlo realization of the nuclear cross-section data to directly estimate the theoretical uncertainties for the yields of D, 3-He and 7-Li, we show that previous estimates were a factor of 2 too large. We sharpen the BBN determination of the baryon density based upon deuterium, rho_B = (3.6 +/- 0.4) * 10^{-31} g/cm^3 (Omega_B h^2 = 0.019 +/- 0.0024), which leads to a predicted 4-He abundance, Y_P = 0.246 +/- 0.0014 and a stringent limit to the equivalent number of light neutrino species: N_nu < 3.20 (all at 95% cl). The predicted 7-Li abundance, 7-Li/H = (3.5 + 1.1 - 0.9) * 10^{-10}, is higher than that observed in pop II stars, (1.7 +/- 0.3) * 10^{-10} (both, 95% cl). We identify key reactions and the energies where further work is needed.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures (epsfig), REVTeX; submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Ground-State of Charged Bosons Confined in a Harmonic Trap

We study a system composed of N identical charged bosons confined in a harmonic trap. Upper and lower energy bounds are given. It is shown in the large N limit that the ground-state energy is determined within an accuracy of $\pm 8$ and that the mean field theory provides a reasonable result with relative error of less than 16% for the binding energy .Comment: 15 page

Chaste: an open source C++ library for computational physiology and biology

Chaste - Cancer, Heart And Soft Tissue Environment - is an open source C++ library for the computational simulation of mathematical models developed for physiology and biology. Code development has been driven by two initial applications: cardiac electrophysiology and cancer development. A large number of cardiac electrophysiology studies have been enabled and performed, including high performance computational investigations of defibrillation on realistic human cardiac geometries. New models for the initiation and growth of tumours have been developed. In particular, cell-based simulations have provided novel insight into the role of stem cells in the colorectal crypt. Chaste is constantly evolving and is now being applied to a far wider range of problems. The code provides modules for handling common scientific computing components, such as meshes and solvers for ordinary and partial differential equations (ODEs/PDEs). Re-use of these components avoids the need for researchers to "re-invent the wheel" with each new project, accelerating the rate of progress in new applications. Chaste is developed using industrially-derived techniques, in particular test-driven development, to ensure code quality, re-use and reliability. In this article we provide examples that illustrate the types of problems Chaste can be used to solve, which can be run on a desktop computer. We highlight some scientific studies that have used or are using Chaste, and the insights they have provided. The source code, both for specific releases and the development version, is available to download under an open source Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) licence at http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/chaste, together with details of a mailing list and links to documentation and tutorials

Quantum simulation of the wavefunction to probe frustrated Heisenberg spin systems

Quantum simulators are controllable quantum systems that can reproduce the dynamics of the system of interest, which are unfeasible for classical computers. Recent developments in quantum technology enable the precise control of individual quantum particles as required for studying complex quantum systems. Particularly, quantum simulators capable of simulating frustrated Heisenberg spin systems provide platforms for understanding exotic matter such as high-temperature superconductors. Here we report the analog quantum simulation of the ground-state wavefunction to probe arbitrary Heisenberg-type interactions among four spin-1/2 particles . Depending on the interaction strength, frustration within the system emerges such that the ground state evolves from a localized to a resonating valence-bond state. This spin-1/2 tetramer is created using the polarization states of four photons. The single-particle addressability and tunable measurement-induced interactions provide us insights into entanglement dynamics among individual particles. We directly extract ground-state energies and pair-wise quantum correlations to observe the monogamy of entanglement