The corticotropin-releasing factor-like diuretic hormone 44 (DH44) and kinin neuropeptides modulate desiccation and starvation tolerance in Drosophila melanogaster

Malpighian tubules are critical organs for epithelial fluid transport and stress tolerance in insects, and are under neuroendocrine control by multiple neuropeptides secreted by identified neurons. Here, we demonstrate roles for CRF-like diuretic hormone 44 (DH44) and Drosophila melanogaster kinin (Drome-kinin, DK) in desiccation and starvation tolerance. Gene expression and labelled DH44 ligand binding data, as well as highly selective knockdowns and/or neuronal ablations of DH44 in neurons of the pars intercerebralis and DH44 receptor (DH44-R2) in Malpighian tubule principal cells, indicate that suppression of DH44 signalling improves desiccation tolerance of the intact fly. Drome-kinin receptor, encoded by the leucokinin receptor gene, LKR, is expressed in DH44 neurons as well as in stellate cells of the Malpighian tubules. LKR knockdown in DH44-expressing neurons reduces Malpighian tubule-specific LKR, suggesting interactions between DH44 and LK signalling pathways. Finally, although a role for DK in desiccation tolerance was not defined, we demonstrate a novel role for Malpighian tubule cell-specific LKR in starvation tolerance. Starvation increases gene expression of epithelial LKR. Also, Malpighian tubule stellate cell-specific knockdown of LKR significantly reduced starvation tolerance, demonstrating a role for neuropeptide signalling during starvation stress

Exploring the impact of social media on anxiety among university students in the United Kingdom: qualitative study

Background: The rapid surge in social media platforms has significant implications for users’ mental health, particularly anxiety. In the case of social media, the impact on mental well-being has been highlighted by multiple stakeholders as a cause for concern. However, there has been limited research into how the association between social media and anxiety arises, specifically among university students—the generation that has seen the introduction and evolution of social media, and currently lives through the medium. Extant systematic literature reviews within this area of research have not yet focused on university students or anxiety, rather predominantly investigating adolescents or generalized mental health symptoms and disorders. Furthermore, there is little to no qualitative data exploring the association between social media and anxiety among university students. Objective: The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic literature review of the existing literature and a qualitative study that aims to develop foundational knowledge around the association of social media and anxiety among university students and enhance extant knowledge and theory. Methods: A total of 29 semistructured interviews were conducted, comprising 19 male students (65.5%) and 10 female students (34.5%) with a mean age of 21.5 years. All students were undergraduates from 6 universities across the United Kingdom, with most students studying in London (89.7%). Participants were enrolled through a homogenous purposive sampling technique via social media channels, word of mouth, and university faculties. Recruitment was suspended at the point of data saturation. Participants were eligible for the study if they were university students in the United Kingdom and users of social media. Results: Thematic analysis resulted in 8 second-order themes: 3 mediating factors that decrease anxiety levels and 5 factors that increase anxiety levels. Social media decreased anxiety through positive experiences, social connectivity, and escapism. Social media increased anxiety through stress, comparison, fear of missing out, negative experiences, and procrastination. Conclusions: This qualitative study sheds critical light on how university students perceive how social media affects their anxiety levels. Students revealed that social media did impact their anxiety levels and considered it an important factor in their mental health. Thus, it is essential to educate stakeholders, including students, university counselors, and health care professionals, about the potential impact of social media on students’ anxiety levels. Since anxiety is a multifactorial condition, pinpointing the main stressors in a person’s life, such as social media use, may help manage these patients more effectively. The current research highlights that there are also many benefits to social media, and uncovering these may help in producing more holistic management plans for anxiety, reflective of the students’ social media usage

Attitudes and barriers to incident reporting: a collaborative hospital study

Copyright © 2006 by the BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.ObjectivesTo assess awareness and use of the current incident reporting system and to identify factors inhibiting reporting of incidents in hospitals.Design, setting and participantsAnonymous survey of 186 doctors and 587 nurses from diverse clinical settings in six South Australian hospitals (response rate = 70.7% and 73.6%, respectively).Main outcome measuresKnowledge and use of the current reporting system; barriers to incident reporting.ResultsMost doctors and nurses (98.3%) were aware that their hospital had an incident reporting system. Nurses were more likely than doctors to know how to access a report (88.3% v 43.0%; relative risk (RR) 2.05, 95% CI 1.61 to 2.63), to have ever completed a report (89.2% v 64.4%; RR 1.38, 95% CI 1.19 to 1.61), and to know what to do with the completed report (81.9% v 49.7%; RR 1.65, 95% CI 1.27 to 2.13). Staff were more likely to report incidents which are habitually reported, often witnessed, and usually associated with immediate outcomes such as patient falls and medication errors requiring corrective treatment. Near misses and incidents which occur over time such as pressure ulcers and DVT due to inadequate prophylaxis were least likely to be reported. The most frequently stated barrier to reporting for doctors and nurses was lack of feedback (57.7% and 61.8% agreeing, respectively).ConclusionsBoth doctors and nurses believe they should report most incidents, but nurses do so more frequently than doctors. To improve incident reporting, especially among doctors, clarification is needed of which incidents should be reported, the process needs to be simplified, and feedback given to reporters.S M Evans, J G Berry, B J Smith, A Esterman, P Selim, J O’Shaughnessy, M DeWi

Q-Force:Quantum Mechanically Augmented Molecular Force Fields

The quality of molecular dynamics simulations strongly depends on the accuracy of the underlying force fields (FFs) that determine all intra- and intermolecular interactions of the system. Commonly, transferable FF parameters are determined based on a representative set of small molecules. However, such an approach sacrifices accuracy in favor of generality. In this work, an open-source and automated toolkit named Q-Force is presented, which augments these transferable FFs with molecule-specific bonded parameters and atomic charges that are derived from quantum mechanical (QM) calculations. The molecular fragmentation procedure allows treatment of large molecules (&gt;200 atoms) with a low computational cost. The generated Q-Force FFs can be used at the same computational cost as transferable FFs, but with improved accuracy: We demonstrate this for the vibrational properties on a set of small molecules and for the potential energy surface on a complex molecule (186 atoms) with photovoltaic applications. Overall, the accuracy, user-friendliness, and minimal computational overhead of the Q-Force protocol make it widely applicable for atomistic molecular dynamics simulations.</p

Resolving Donor-Acceptor Interfaces and Charge Carrier Energy Levels of Organic Semiconductors with Polar Side Chains

Organic semiconductors consisting of molecules bearing polar side chains have been proposed as potential candidates to overcome the limitations of organic photovoltaics owing to their enhanced dielectric constant. However, introducing such polar molecules in photovoltaic devices has not yet resulted in higher efficiencies. A microscopic understanding of the impact of polar side chains on electronic and structural properties of organic semiconductors is paramount to rationalize their effect. Here, the impact of such side chains on bulk heterojunction overall morphology, molecular configurations at donor-acceptor (DA) interfaces, and charge carrier energy levels is investigated. The multiscale modeling approach used allows to resolve DA interfaces with atomistic resolution while taking into account the large-scale self-organization process which takes place during the processing of an organic thin film. The polar fullerene-based blends are compared to the well-studied reference system, poly(3-hexyl-thiophene) (P3HT):phenyl-C-61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM). Introduction of polar side chains on a similar molecular scaffold does not affect molecular orientations at the DA interfaces; such orientations are, however, found to be affected by processing conditions and polymer molecular weight. Polar side chains, instead, are found to impact considerably the charge carrier energy levels of the organic blend, causing electrostatic-induced broadening of these levels

Autonomous clustering using rough set theory

This paper proposes a clustering technique that minimises the need for subjective human intervention and is based on elements of rough set theory. The proposed algorithm is unified in its approach to clustering and makes use of both local and global data properties to obtain clustering solutions. It handles single-type and mixed attribute data sets with ease and results from three data sets of single and mixed attribute types are used to illustrate the technique and establish its efficiency

Equity in science: advocating for a triple-blind review system

We propose 'triple-blind review' for peer-reviewed journals – a process that keeps author identities and affiliations blind to manuscript editors until after first appraisal. Blinded appraisalwill help to reduce the biases that negatively affect under-represented and minority scientists, ultimately better supporting equity in scientific publishing.En prens

Patterns of primary care and mortality among patients with schizophrenia or diabetes: a cluster analysis approach to the retrospective study of healthcare utilization

Abstract Background Patients with schizophrenia have difficulty managing their medical healthcare needs, possibly resulting in delayed treatment and poor outcomes. We analyzed whether patients reduced primary care use over time, differentially by diagnosis with schizophrenia, diabetes, or both schizophrenia and diabetes. We also assessed whether such patterns of primary care use were a significant predictor of mortality over a 4-year period. Methods The Veterans Healthcare Administration (VA) is the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States. Administrative extracts of the VA's all-electronic medical records were studied. Patients over age 50 and diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2002 were age-matched 1:4 to diabetes patients. All patients were followed through 2005. Cluster analysis explored trajectories of primary care use. Proportional hazards regression modelled the impact of these primary care utilization trajectories on survival, controlling for demographic and clinical covariates. Results Patients comprised three diagnostic groups: diabetes only (n = 188,332), schizophrenia only (n = 40,109), and schizophrenia with diabetes (Scz-DM, n = 13,025). Cluster analysis revealed four distinct trajectories of primary care use: consistent over time, increasing over time, high and decreasing, low and decreasing. Patients with schizophrenia only were likely to have low-decreasing use (73% schizophrenia-only vs 54% Scz-DM vs 52% diabetes). Increasing use was least common among schizophrenia patients (4% vs 8% Scz-DM vs 7% diabetes) and was associated with improved survival. Low-decreasing primary care, compared to consistent use, was associated with shorter survival controlling for demographics and case-mix. The observational study was limited by reliance on administrative data. Conclusion Regular primary care and high levels of primary care were associated with better survival for patients with chronic illness, whether psychiatric or medical. For schizophrenia patients, with or without comorbid diabetes, primary care offers a survival benefit, suggesting that innovations in treatment retention targeting at-risk groups can offer significant promise of improving outcomes.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78274/1/1472-6963-9-127.xmlhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78274/2/1472-6963-9-127.pdfPeer Reviewe

Everything is INTERRELATED:Teaching Software Engineering for Sustainability

Sustainability has become an important concern across many disciplines,and software systems play an increasingly central role in addressing it. However, teaching students from software engineering and related disciplines to effectively act in this space requires interdisciplinary courses that combines the concep to of sustainability with software engineering practice and principles. Yet, presently little guidance exist on which subjects and materials to cover in such courses and how, combined with a lack of reusable learning objects. This paper describes a summer school course on Software Engineering for Sustainability (SE4S). We provide a blueprint for this course, in the hope that it can help the community develop a shared approach and methods to teaching SE4S. Practical lessons learned from delivery of this course are also reported here, and could help iterate over the course materials, structure, and guidance for future improvements. The course blueprint, availability of used materials and report of the study results make this course viable for replication and further improvement