A closed form for the electrostatic interaction between two rod-like charged objects

We have calculated the electrostatic interaction between two rod-like charged objects with arbitrary orientations in three dimensions. we obtained a closed form formula expressing the interaction energy in terms of the separation distance between the centers of the two rod-like objects, $r$, their lengths (denoted by $2l_1$ and $2l_2$), and their relative orientations (indicated by $\theta$ and $\phi$). When the objects have the same length ($2l_1=2l_2=l$), for particular values of separations, i.e for $r\leq0.8 l$, two types of minimum are appeared in the interaction energy with respect to $\theta$. By employing the closed form formula and introducing a scaled temperature $t$, we have also studied the thermodynamic properties of a one dimensional system of rod-like charged objects. For different separation distances, the dependence of the specific heat of the system to the scaled temperature has been studied. It is found that for $r<0.8 l$, the specific heat has a maximum.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 1 table, Accepted by J. Phys.: Condens. Matte

Thinking Like A Scientist ... And An Engineer: Training future leaders and innovators in health care systems and delivery

Health care is increasingly becoming more complex with the advancement of accountable organizations, expansion of hospital systems, and major insurance and government reforms. As leaders of care teams, physicians are often expected to have a hybrid set of skills extending beyond clinical expertise. Examples of leadership knowledge and skill sets include organizational thinking, health quality improvement, health policy, financial literacy, health innovation, and many more. The number of MD/MBA programs has risen significantly since the 1990s and more recently, leadership pipelines for both medical residents and students have also emerged. These trends support a rising demand for well-rounded physician leaders. This project sets out to answer two questions: will a health care leadership program add value to undergraduate medical training for University of Massachusetts medical students? If so, what would such a leadership program look like? We used the Lean management framework and “A3” Plan Do Study Analyze cycle (PDSA) to identify the challenges and appropriateness of developing a leadership program, and then to highlight ideas for promoting leadership. Key components of the framework include a root cause analysis and development of counter measures. As a platform for analysis, we examined the experiences of the “Quality Improvement Health Care Elective,” a student led series of lectures on health care process, Lean management, and health care leadership. We tested our counter measures as well as other ideas in a student opinion survey that focused on level of interest in leadership, career aspirations, desired deliverables, and the option of a training certificate. An estimated 20% of the student population at UMass Medical School completed our survey (n=125). Our study discovered strong interest in the topic of leadership, with 20% of students stating they are very likely to take an elective on leadership, and 54% somewhat likely. Students were especially interested in career aspirations that included management and administration responsibilities, general career exploration, and opportunities for mentorship. These findings can be core features of developing a health care leadership option for medical students at UMass Medical School.https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/capstones/1002/thumbnail.jp

Suppression of eukaryotic initiation factor 4E prevents chemotherapy-induced alopecia

BACKGROUND: Chemotherapy-induced hair loss (alopecia) (CIA) is one of the most feared side effects of chemotherapy among cancer patients. There is currently no pharmacological approach to minimize CIA, although one strategy that has been proposed involves protecting normal cells from chemotherapy by transiently inducing cell cycle arrest. Proof-of-concept for this approach, known as cyclotherapy, has been demonstrated in cell culture settings. METHODS: The eukaryotic initiation factor (eIF) 4E is a cap binding protein that stimulates ribosome recruitment to mRNA templates during the initiation phase of translation. Suppression of eIF4E is known to induce cell cycle arrest. Using a novel inducible and reversible transgenic mouse model that enables RNAi-mediated suppression of eIF4E in vivo, we assessed the consequences of temporal eIF4E suppression on CIA. RESULTS: Our results demonstrate that transient inhibition of eIF4E protects against cyclophosphamide-induced alopecia at the organismal level. At the cellular level, this protection is associated with an accumulation of cells in G1, reduced apoptotic indices, and was phenocopied using small molecule inhibitors targeting the process of translation initiation. CONCLUSIONS: Our data provide a rationale for exploring suppression of translation initiation as an approach to prevent or minimize cyclophosphamide-induced alopecia.1U01 CA168409 - NCI NIH HHS; P01 CA 87497 - NCI NIH HHS; P30 CA008748 - NCI NIH HHS; MOP-106530 - Canadian Institutes of Health Research; P01 CA013106 - NCI NIH HH

Transport of Cosmic Rays in Chaotic Magnetic Fields

The transport of charged particles in disorganised magnetic fields is an important issue which concerns the propagation of cosmic rays of all energies in a variety of astrophysical environments, such as the interplanetary, interstellar and even extra-galactic media, as well as the efficiency of Fermi acceleration processes. We have performed detailed numerical experiments using Monte-Carlo simulations of particle propagation in stochastic magnetic fields in order to measure the parallel and transverse spatial diffusion coefficients and the pitch angle scattering time as a function of rigidity and strength of the turbulent magnetic component. We confirm the extrapolation to high turbulence levels of the scaling predicted by the quasi-linear approximation for the scattering frequency and parallel diffusion coefficient at low rigidity. We show that the widely used Bohm diffusion coefficient does not provide a satisfactory approximation to diffusion even in the extreme case where the mean field vanishes. We find that diffusion also takes place for particles with Larmor radii larger than the coherence length of the turbulence. We argue that transverse diffusion is much more effective than predicted by the quasi-linear approximation, and appears compatible with chaotic magnetic diffusion of the field lines. We provide numerical estimates of the Kolmogorov length and magnetic line diffusion coefficient as a function of the level of turbulence. Finally we comment on applications of our results to astrophysical turbulence and the acceleration of high energy cosmic rays in supernovae remnants, in super-bubbles, and in jets and hot spots of powerful radio-galaxies.Comment: To be published in Physical Review D, 20 pages 9 figure

Odorant Receptor from the Southern House Mosquito Narrowly Tuned to the Oviposition Attractant Skatole

Oviposition attractants are environmental cues that allow Culex gravid female mosquitoes to locate suitable sites for egg-laying and, therefore, may be exploited for environmentally friendly strategies for controlling mosquito populations. Naturally occurring skatole has been identified as an oviposition attractant for the Southern House mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus. Previously, we identified in Cx. quinquefasciatus female antennae an olfactory receptor neuron (ORN) highly sensitive to skatole and an odorant-binding protein involved in the detection of this semiochemical. Here, we describe the characterization of an odorant receptor (OR), CquiOR10, which is narrowly tuned to skatole when expressed in the Xenopus oocyte system. Odorant-induced response profiles generated by heterologously expressed CquiOR10 suggest that this OR is expressed in the mosquito ORN sensitive to skatole. However, geranylacetone, which stimulates the antennal ORN, was not detected by CquiOR10-expressing oocytes, thus raising interesting questions about reception of oviposition attractants in mosquitoes

Olfactory proteins mediating chemical communication in the Navel Orangeworm Moth, Amyelois transitella

Background The navel orangeworm, Amyelois transitella Walker (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), is the most serious insect pest of almonds and pistachios in California for which environmentally friendly alternative methods of control — like pheromone-based approaches — are highly desirable. Some constituents of the sex pheromone are unstable and could be replaced with parapheromones, which may be designed on the basis of molecular interaction of pheromones and pheromone-detecting olfactory proteins. Methodology By analyzing extracts from olfactory and non-olfactory tissues, we identified putative olfactory proteins, obtained their N-terminal amino acid sequences by Edman degradation, and used degenerate primers to clone the corresponding cDNAs by SMART RACE. Additionally, we used degenerate primers based on conserved sequences of known proteins to fish out other candidate olfactory genes. We expressed the gene encoding a newly identified pheromone-binding protein, which was analyzed by circular dichroism, fluorescence, and nuclear magnetic resonance, and used in a binding assay to assess affinity to pheromone components. Conclusion We have cloned nine cDNAs encoding olfactory proteins from the navel orangeworm, including two pheromone-binding proteins, two general odorant-binding proteins, one chemosensory protein, one glutathione S-transferase, one antennal binding protein X, one sensory neuron membrane protein, and one odorant receptor. Of these, AtraPBP1 is highly enriched in male antennae. Fluorescence, CD and NMR studies suggest a dramatic pH-dependent conformational change, with high affinity to pheromone constituents at neutral pH and no binding at low pH

An Odorant Receptor from the Southern House Mosquito Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus Sensitive to Oviposition Attractants

Insect odorant receptors (ORs) are heteromers comprised of highly variable odorant-binding subunits associated with one conserved co-receptor. They are potential molecular targets for the development of novel mosquito attractants and repellents. ORs have been identified in the malaria mosquito, Anopheles gambiae, and in the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti. However, they are still unknown in the Southern house mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus, which transmits pathogens that cause human diseases throughout the world, including West Nile Virus in the United States.We have employed a combination of bioinformatics, molecular cloning and electrophysiology approaches to identify and characterize the response profile of an OR in Cx. quinquefasciatus. First, we have unveiled a large multigenic family of one-hundred-fifty-eight putative ORs in this species, including a subgroup of conserved ORs in three mosquito species. Using the Xenopus oocytes expression system, we have determined the response profile of CquiOR2, an antennae-specific OR, which shares high identity with putative orthologs in Anopheles gambiae (AgamOR2) and Aedes aegypti (AaegOR2).We show that CquiOR2 is highly sensitive to indole, an oviposition attractant for Cx. quinquefasciatus. The response profile of CquiOR2 expressed in Xenopus oocytes resembles that of an olfactory receptor neuron housed in the antennal short blunt-tipped sensilla (A2) of Cx. quinquefasciatus, which are natural detectors for oviposition attractants. This first Culex OR de-orphanized is, therefore, a potential molecular target for screening oviposition attractants

Curricula for empathy and compassion training in medical education: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Empathy and compassion are vital components of health care quality; however, physicians frequently miss opportunities for empathy and compassion in patient care. Despite evidence that empathy and compassion training can be effective, the specific behaviors that should be taught remain unclear. We synthesized the biomedical literature on empathy and compassion training in medical education to find the specific curricula components (skills and behaviors) demonstrated to be effective. METHODS: We searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CINAHL using a previously published comprehensive search strategy. We screened reference lists of the articles meeting inclusion criteria to identify additional studies for potential inclusion. Study inclusion criteria were: (1) intervention arm in which subjects underwent an educational curriculum aimed at enhancing empathy and/or compassion; (2) clearly defined control arm in which subjects did not receive the curriculum; (3) curriculum was tested on physicians (or physicians-in-training); and (4) outcome measure assessing the effect of the curriculum on physician empathy and/or compassion. We performed a qualitative analysis to collate and tabulate effects of tested curricula according to recommended methodology from the Cochrane Handbook. We used the Cochrane Collaboration\u27s tool for assessing risk of bias. RESULTS: Fifty-two studies (total n = 5,316) met inclusion criteria. Most (75%) studies found that the tested curricula improved physician empathy and/or compassion on at least one outcome measure. We identified the following key behaviors to be effective: (1) sitting (versus standing) during the interview; (2) detecting patients\u27 non-verbal cues of emotion; (3) recognizing and responding to opportunities for compassion; (4) non-verbal communication of caring (e.g. eye contact); and (5) verbal statements of acknowledgement, validation, and support. These behaviors were found to improve patient perception of physician empathy and/or compassion. CONCLUSION: Evidence suggests that training can enhance physician empathy and compassion. Training curricula should incorporate the specific behaviors identified in this report