When Faculty Downsizing and Student Success Collide

This session will discuss increasing challenges chairpersons and associate deans’ experience when faced with decreasing or limited faculty resources and how this ultimately impacts student success. Opportunities and best practices related to working together as a cohesive leadership team, increasing on time graduation rates and course scheduling will also discussed

The Iowa Homemaker vol.15, no.8

Let Cupid Be Host at Your Valentine Buffet Supper, page 2 His Pin Is Anchored, page 3 $30,000 a Year for Clothes?, page 4 Don’t Be Savage, page 5 What’s What in Business Letters, page 5 Tick! Tock!, page 6 Watch Your Knives and Forks, page 7 The Coffee Hour, page 7 Sugar, Spice and All Things Nice, page 8 The Pie Has It, page 9 Eleven Grads in Demonstration Work, page 10 Home Economic’s Evolution from Tents, page 12 Centerpiece of Flowers, page 14 Dress for Comfort, page 1

Patient Adherence to Laboratory Tests to Monitor Medication Therapy: A Mixed-Methods Study

Background Little is known about the contribution of patient behavior to incomplete laboratory monitoring and the reasons for patient non-completion of ordered laboratory tests remain unclear. Objective To describe factors, including patient-reported reasons, associated with non-completion of ordered laboratory tests. Design Mixed-methods study including a quantitative assessment of the frequency of patient adherence to ordered monitoring tests combined with qualitative, semi-structured, patient interviews. Participants Quantitative assessment included patients 18 years or older from a large multispecialty group practice prescribed a medication requiring monitoring. Qualitative interviews included a subset of adherent and non-adherent patients prescribed a cardiovascular, anti-convulsant, or thyroid replacement medication. Main Measures Proportion of recommended monitoring tests for each medication not completed, factors associated with patient non-adherence, and patient-reported reasons for non-adherence. Results Of 27,802 patients who were prescribed one of 34 medications, patient non-completion of ordered tests varied (range: 0% to 29%, by drug-test pair). Factors associated with higher odds of test non-completion included younger patient age (\u3c 40 years vs. ≥80 years, adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.52, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.27-1.83), lower medication burden (1 medication vs. more than 1 drug, AOR for non-completion 1.26, 95% CI 1.15-1.37), and lower visit frequency (0-5 visits/year vs. ≥19 visits/year, AOR 1.41, 95% CI 1.25 to 1.59). Drug-test pairs with black box warning status were associated with greater odds of non-completion compared to drugs included only in the PDR (AOR 1.91, 95% CI 1.66-2.19). Qualitative interviews, with 16 non-adherent and 7 adherent patients, identified forgetting as the main cause of non-adherence. Conclusions Patient non-adherence contributed to missed opportunities to monitor medications and was associated with younger patient age and lower medication burden and black box warning status. Interventions to improve laboratory monitoring should target patients as well as physicians

2018-2019 Sanctuary Series - December 8, 2018

https://spiral.lynn.edu/sanctuary_series/1009/thumbnail.jp

The effects on population health status of using dedicated property taxes to fund local public health agencies

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In the United States, a dedicated property tax describes the legal authority given to a local jurisdiction to levy and collect a tax for a specific purpose. We investigated for an association of locally dedicated property taxes to fund local public health agencies and improved health status in the eight states designated as the Mississippi Delta Region.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We analyzed the difference in health outcomes of counties with and without a dedicated public health tax after adjusting for a set of control variables using regression models for county level data from 720 counties of the Mississippi Delta Region.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Levying a dedicated public health tax for counties with per capita income above $28,000 is associated with improved health outcomes of those counties when compared to counties without a dedicated property tax for public health. Alternatively, levying a dedicated property tax in counties with lower per capita income is associated with poor health outcomes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>There are both positive and negative consequences of using dedicated property taxes to fund public health. Policymakers should carefully examine both the positive association of improved health outcomes and negative impact of taxation on poor populations before authorizing the use of dedicated local property tax levies to fund public health agencies.</p

2018-2019 Sanctuary Series - April 18, 2019

https://spiral.lynn.edu/sanctuary_series/1010/thumbnail.jp

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin