56 research outputs found

    Reducing the Spread of Infectious Disease Through Hand Washing

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    According to the Centers for Disease Control (2002), hand washing is the simplest, most effective measure for preventing the spread of bacteria, pathogens, and viruses. Recent studies by the American Society for Microbiology (2005) indicate that Americans do not wash their hands after going to the bathroom and before handling or eating food. The study reported here sought to determine the presence of publications encouraging the public to wash hands in two North Carolina counties. Public restrooms located in rest areas, convenience stores, restaurants, and childcare facilities were examined. Findings indicate that literature encouraging hand washing is not present

    3UCubed: The IMAP Student Collaboration CubeSat Project

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    The 3UCubed project is a 3U CubeSat being jointly developed by the University of New Hampshire, Sonoma State University, and Howard University as a part of the NASA Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP)1 student collaboration. This project consists of a multidisciplinary team of undergraduate students from all three universities. The mission goal of the 3UCubed is to understand how Earth\u27s polar upper atmosphere (‘the thermosphere’ in Earth’s auroral regions) responds to particle precipitation and solar wind forcing and internal magnetospheric processes. 3UCubed includes two instruments with rocket heritage to achieve the science mission: an ultraviolet photomultiplier tube (UV-PMT) and electron retarding potential analyzer (ERPA). The spacecraft bus consists of the following subsystems–Attitude Determination and Control, Command and Data Handling, Power, Communication, Structural, and Thermal. Currently, the project is in the post-PDR stage, starting to build and test engineering models to develop a FlatSat prior to critical design review in 2023. The goal is to launch at least one 3U CubeSat a to collect science data close to the anticipated peak of Solar Cycle 25 around July 2025.2 Our mother mission–IMAP is also projected to launch in 2025, which will let us jointly analyze the science data of the main mission, providing the solar wind measurements and inputs to the magnetosphere with that of 3UCubed, providing the response of Earth’s cusp to these inputs

    Plant trait and vegetation data along a 1314 m elevation gradient with fire history in Puna grasslands, Perú

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    Alpine grassland vegetation supports globally important biodiversity and ecosystems that are increasingly threatened by climate warming and other environmental changes. Trait-based approaches can support understanding of vegetation responses to global change drivers and consequences for ecosystem functioning. In six sites along a 1314 m elevational gradient in Puna grasslands in the Peruvian Andes, we collected datasets on vascular plant composition, plant functional traits, biomass, ecosystem fluxes, and climate data over three years. The data were collected in the wet and dry season and from plots with different fire histories. We selected traits associated with plant resource use, growth, and life history strategies (leaf area, leaf dry/wet mass, leaf thickness, specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, leaf C, N, P content, C and N isotopes). The trait dataset contains 3,665 plant records from 145 taxa, 54,036 trait measurements (increasing the trait data coverage of the regional flora by 420%) covering 14 traits and 121 plant taxa (ca. 40% of which have no previous publicly available trait data) across 33 families

    Cabbage and fermented vegetables : From death rate heterogeneity in countries to candidates for mitigation strategies of severe COVID-19

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    Large differences in COVID-19 death rates exist between countries and between regions of the same country. Some very low death rate countries such as Eastern Asia, Central Europe, or the Balkans have a common feature of eating large quantities of fermented foods. Although biases exist when examining ecological studies, fermented vegetables or cabbage have been associated with low death rates in European countries. SARS-CoV-2 binds to its receptor, the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). As a result of SARS-CoV-2 binding, ACE2 downregulation enhances the angiotensin II receptor type 1 (AT(1)R) axis associated with oxidative stress. This leads to insulin resistance as well as lung and endothelial damage, two severe outcomes of COVID-19. The nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2 (Nrf2) is the most potent antioxidant in humans and can block in particular the AT(1)R axis. Cabbage contains precursors of sulforaphane, the most active natural activator of Nrf2. Fermented vegetables contain many lactobacilli, which are also potent Nrf2 activators. Three examples are: kimchi in Korea, westernized foods, and the slum paradox. It is proposed that fermented cabbage is a proof-of-concept of dietary manipulations that may enhance Nrf2-associated antioxidant effects, helpful in mitigating COVID-19 severity.Peer reviewe

    Nrf2-interacting nutrients and COVID-19 : time for research to develop adaptation strategies

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    There are large between- and within-country variations in COVID-19 death rates. Some very low death rate settings such as Eastern Asia, Central Europe, the Balkans and Africa have a common feature of eating large quantities of fermented foods whose intake is associated with the activation of the Nrf2 (Nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2) anti-oxidant transcription factor. There are many Nrf2-interacting nutrients (berberine, curcumin, epigallocatechin gallate, genistein, quercetin, resveratrol, sulforaphane) that all act similarly to reduce insulin resistance, endothelial damage, lung injury and cytokine storm. They also act on the same mechanisms (mTOR: Mammalian target of rapamycin, PPAR gamma:Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor, NF kappa B: Nuclear factor kappa B, ERK: Extracellular signal-regulated kinases and eIF2 alpha:Elongation initiation factor 2 alpha). They may as a result be important in mitigating the severity of COVID-19, acting through the endoplasmic reticulum stress or ACE-Angiotensin-II-AT(1)R axis (AT(1)R) pathway. Many Nrf2-interacting nutrients are also interacting with TRPA1 and/or TRPV1. Interestingly, geographical areas with very low COVID-19 mortality are those with the lowest prevalence of obesity (Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia). It is tempting to propose that Nrf2-interacting foods and nutrients can re-balance insulin resistance and have a significant effect on COVID-19 severity. It is therefore possible that the intake of these foods may restore an optimal natural balance for the Nrf2 pathway and may be of interest in the mitigation of COVID-19 severity

    Using structural MRI to identify bipolar disorders - 13 site machine learning study in 3020 individuals from the ENIGMA Bipolar Disorders Working Group

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    Bipolar disorders (BDs) are among the leading causes of morbidity and disability. Objective biological markers, such as those based on brain imaging, could aid in clinical management of BD. Machine learning (ML) brings neuroimaging analyses to individual subject level and may potentially allow for their diagnostic use. However, fair and optimal application of ML requires large, multi-site datasets. We applied ML (support vector machines) to MRI data (regional cortical thickness, surface area, subcortical volumes) from 853 BD and 2167 control participants from 13 cohorts in the ENIGMA consortium. We attempted to differentiate BD from control participants, investigated different data handling strategies and studied the neuroimaging/clinical features most important for classification. Individual site accuracies ranged from 45.23% to 81.07%. Aggregate subject-level analyses yielded the highest accuracy (65.23%, 95% CI = 63.47–67.00, ROC-AUC = 71.49%, 95% CI = 69.39–73.59), followed by leave-one-site-out cross-validation (accuracy = 58.67%, 95% CI = 56.70–60.63). Meta-analysis of individual site accuracies did not provide above chance results. There was substantial agreement between the regions that contributed to identification of BD participants in the best performing site and in the aggregate dataset (Cohen’s Kappa = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.829–0.831). Treatment with anticonvulsants and age were associated with greater odds of correct classification. Although short of the 80% clinically relevant accuracy threshold, the results are promising and provide a fair and realistic estimate of classification performance, which can be achieved in a large, ecologically valid, multi-site sample of BD participants based on regional neurostructural measures. Furthermore, the significant classification in different samples was based on plausible and similar neuroanatomical features. Future multi-site studies should move towards sharing of raw/voxelwise neuroimaging data

    Widespread white matter microstructural abnormalities in bipolar disorder: evidence from mega- and meta-analyses across 3033 individuals

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    Fronto-limbic white matter (WM) abnormalities are assumed to lie at the heart of the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder (BD); however, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies have reported heterogeneous results and it is not clear how the clinical heterogeneity is related to the observed differences. This study aimed to identify WM abnormalities that differentiate patients with BD from healthy controls (HC) in the largest DTI dataset of patients with BD to date, collected via the ENIGMA network. We gathered individual tensor-derived regional metrics from 26 cohorts leading to a sample size of N = 3033 (1482 BD and 1551 HC). Mean fractional anisotropy (FA) from 43 regions of interest (ROI) and average whole-brain FA were entered into univariate mega- and meta-analyses to differentiate patients with BD from HC. Mega-analysis revealed significantly lower FA in patients with BD compared with HC in 29 regions, with the highest effect sizes observed within the corpus callosum (R2 = 0.041, Pcorr < 0.001) and cingulum (right: R2 = 0.041, left: R2 = 0.040, Pcorr < 0.001). Lithium medication, later onset and short disease duration were related to higher FA along multiple ROIs. Results of the meta-analysis showed similar effects. We demonstrated widespread WM abnormalities in BD and highlighted that altered WM connectivity within the corpus callosum and the cingulum are strongly associated with BD. These brain abnormalities could represent a biomarker for use in the diagnosis of BD. Interactive three-dimensional visualization of the results is available at www.enigma-viewer.org

    Review of Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance 2013

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    Study of Physical and Mineral Properties of Soil Clay Landslide Location of IAIN Campus Ambon City

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    This study aims to determine physical and clay mineral properties of soils and how they affect the occurrence of erosion in the IAIN Campus Ambon. The results indicated that the two soil profiles shows a variety in soil properties. the largest distribution of soil particle density is 2.63 at soil layer P2L3 and the smallest is 2.26 at P1L1, the largest soil pore distribution is 60.12% at P2L1 and the smallest is 29.36% at P1L3, while the largest soil pores ratio distribution is 1.51% at P2L1 and the smallest is 0.42% at soil layer P1L3. The soil porosity reflects the level of the soil ability to pass water flow (permeability) or the speed of water flow to pass through the soil mass (percolation). By the decreasing of soil porosity and pore ratio in layers 3 and 4, the permeability is also slower. The major clay mineral found in both soil profiles is kaolinite, an unwell consolidated secondary clay mineral type 1:1 mixed with quartz, the most weathering resistant primary minerals. These two minerals have lower friction resistance due to the increasing of clay content in the lower soil profiles. The physical and hydrological soil properties as well as the presence of kaolinite and quartz in the lower soil layers are considered to be the cause of the erosion occurrence in the study area (IAIN campus)
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