Exploring the impact of COVID-19 on the willingness of older adults to participate in physiology research: views from past and potential volunteers

This is the final version. Available on open access from Canadian Science Publishing via the DOI in this recordData availability statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.We explored the views of older (≥65 years) past and potential volunteers in regard to participating in physiology research during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using an online questionnaire and focus groups, we found that past volunteers (n=55) were more likely to take part in both acute (p<0.05) and chronic (p<0.05) physiology studies, compared to potential future volunteers (n=57). Both cohorts demonstrated a positive attitude towards volunteering during the COVID-19 pandemic, although concern was evident.Novelty • Volunteers demonstrated a positive attitude and also concern towards participating in physiology research during COVID-19Medical Research Council (MRC)National Institute for Health Research (NIHR

Exploring the impact of COVID-19 on the willingness of older adults to participate in physiology research: views from past and potential volunteers

We explored the views of older (≥65 years) past and potential volunteers in regard to participating in physiology research during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using an online questionnaire and focus groups, we found that past volunteers (n = 55) were more likely to take part in both acute (p < 0.05) and chronic (p < 0.05) physiology studies, compared with potential future volunteers (n = 57). Both cohorts demonstrated a positive attitude towards volunteering during the COVID-19 pandemic, although concern was evident. Novelty: •Volunteers demonstrated a positive attitude and also concern towards participating in physiology research during COVID-19

Genes Are Often Sheltered from the Global Histone Hyperacetylation Induced by HDAC Inhibitors

Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) are increasingly used as therapeutic agents, but the mechanisms by which they alter cell behaviour remain unclear. Here we use microarray expression analysis to show that only a small proportion of genes (∼9%) have altered transcript levels after treating HL60 cells with different HDACi (valproic acid, Trichostatin A, suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid). Different gene populations respond to each inhibitor, with as many genes down- as up-regulated. Surprisingly, HDACi rarely induced increased histone acetylation at gene promoters, with most genes examined showing minimal change, irrespective of whether genes were up- or down-regulated. Many genes seem to be sheltered from the global histone hyperacetyation induced by HDACi

Development of Genomic Resources for Pacific Herring through Targeted Transcriptome Pyrosequencing

Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) support commercially and culturally important fisheries but have experienced significant additional pressure from a variety of anthropogenic and environmental sources. In order to provide genomic resources to facilitate organismal and population level research, high-throughput pyrosequencing (Roche 454) was carried out on transcriptome libraries from liver and testes samples taken in Prince William Sound, the Bering Sea, and the Gulf of Alaska. Over 40,000 contigs were identified with an average length of 728 bp. We describe an annotated transcriptome as well as a workflow for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) discovery and validation. A subset of 96 candidate SNPs chosen from 10,933 potential SNPs, were tested using a combination of Sanger sequencing and high-resolution melt-curve analysis. Five SNPs supported between-ocean-basin differentiation, while one SNP associated with immune function provided high differentiation between Prince William Sound and Kodiak Island within the Gulf of Alaska. These genomic resources provide a basis for environmental physiology studies and opportunities for marker development and subsequent population structure analysis

An 800-million-solar-mass black hole in a significantly neutral Universe at redshift 7.5

Quasars are the most luminous non-transient objects known and as a result they enable studies of the Universe at the earliest cosmic epochs. Despite extensive efforts, however, the quasar ULAS J1120+0641 at z=7.09 has remained the only one known at z>7 for more than half a decade. Here we report observations of the quasar ULAS J134208.10+092838.61 (hereafter J1342+0928) at redshift z=7.54. This quasar has a bolometric luminosity of 4e13 times the luminosity of the Sun and a black hole mass of 8e8 solar masses. The existence of this supermassive black hole when the Universe was only 690 million years old---just five percent of its current age---reinforces models of early black-hole growth that allow black holes with initial masses of more than about 1e4 solar masses or episodic hyper-Eddington accretion. We see strong evidence of absorption of the spectrum of the quasar redwards of the Lyman alpha emission line (the Gunn-Peterson damping wing), as would be expected if a significant amount (more than 10 per cent) of the hydrogen in the intergalactic medium surrounding J1342+0928 is neutral. We derive a significant fraction of neutral hydrogen, although the exact fraction depends on the modelling. However, even in our most conservative analysis we find a fraction of more than 0.33 (0.11) at 68 per cent (95 per cent) probability, indicating that we are probing well within the reionization epoch of the Universe.Comment: Updated to match the final journal versio

Helping students to self-care and enhance their health-promotion skills.

Nurses have a public health role, requiring them to promote the health of individuals and communities, and to engage at a political and policy level to improve population health. There is also a professional expectation that nurses will model healthy behaviours and take responsibility for their personal health and wellbeing. However, studies have indicated that undergraduate nurses find the academic and practice elements of their nursing programmes stressful. To manage their stress many use coping behaviours that negatively impact on their health and wellbeing and may influence their ability and willingness to effectively support health promotion in practice. It is widely recognised that environments influence health outcomes and personal health behaviours. This article addresses some of the structural causes of student nurse stress and highlights a recent educational initiative at a UK university that aims to equip student nurses with the practical skills required to engage in health promotion and thereby provide benefits for service users and student nurses alike

iRefR: an R package to manipulate the iRefIndex consolidated protein interaction database

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The iRefIndex addresses the need to consolidate protein interaction data into a single uniform data resource. iRefR provides the user with access to this data source from an R environment.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The iRefR package includes tools for selecting specific subsets of interest from the iRefIndex by criteria such as organism, source database, experimental method, protein accessions and publication identifier. Data may be converted between three representations (MITAB, edgeList and graph) for use with other R packages such as igraph, graph and RBGL.</p> <p>The user may choose between different methods for resolving redundancies in interaction data and how n-ary data is represented. In addition, we describe a function to identify binary interaction records that possibly represent protein complexes. We show that the user choice of data selection, redundancy resolution and n-ary data representation all have an impact on graphical analysis.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The package allows the user to control how these issues are dealt with and communicate them via an R-script written using the iRefR package - this will facilitate communication of methods, reproducibility of network analyses and further modification and comparison of methods by researchers.</p

Purinergic signaling microenvironments: An introduction

The common theme of this introductory article and the minireviews that follow in this special issue is the concept of microenvironments within tissues and surrounding cells that would be ideal signaling venues for a biologically active purinergic ligand. Collectively, the editors/authors and the other contributing authors agree that nucleotides and nucleosides would be most potent within a confined system. A talented cadre of purinergics has been solicited to discuss purinergic signaling in his or her favorite microenvironment within a given organ or tissue. We are gratified by the large number of original articles that also have successfully navigated the peer review process and are part of this special issue. These concepts are not simply purinergic, but the idea of maximal potency in a tissue microenvironment and surrounding specialized cells within a tissue pertains to any autacoid or paracrine agonist

An innovative telemedicine knowledge translation program to improve quality of care in intensive care units: protocol for a cluster randomized pragmatic trial

Abstract Background There are challenges to timely adoption of, and ongoing adherence to, evidence-based practices known to improve patient care in the intensive care unit (ICU). Quality improvement initiatives using a collaborative network approach may increase the use of such practices. Our objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of a novel knowledge translation program for increasing the proportion of patients who appropriately receive the following six evidence-based care practices: venous thromboembolism prophylaxis; ventilator-associated pneumonia prevention; spontaneous breathing trials; catheter-related bloodstream infection prevention; decubitus ulcer prevention; and early enteral nutrition. Methods and design We will conduct a pragmatic cluster randomized active control trial in 15 community ICUs and one academic ICU in Ontario, Canada. The intervention is a multifaceted videoconferenced educational and problem-solving forum to organize knowledge translation strategies, including comparative audit and feedback, educational sessions from content experts, and dissemination of algorithms. Fifteen individual ICUs (clusters) will be randomized to receive quality improvement interventions targeting one of the best practices during each of six study phases. Each phase lasts four months during the first study year and three months during the second. At the end of each study phase, ICUs are assigned to an intervention for a best practice not yet received according to a random schedule. The primary analysis will use patient-level process-of-care data to measure the intervention's effect on rates of adoption and adherence of each best practice in the targeted ICU clusters versus controls. Discussion This study design evaluates a new system for knowledge translation and quality improvement across six common ICU problems. All participating ICUs receive quality improvement initiatives during every study phase, improving buy-in. This study design could be considered for other quality improvement interventions and in other care settings. Trial Registration This trial is registered with http://www.clinicaltrials.gov (ID #: NCT00332982

Endothelium-Based Biomarkers Are Associated with Cerebral Malaria in Malawian Children: A Retrospective Case-Control Study

Differentiating cerebral malaria (CM) from other causes of serious illness in African children is problematic, owing to the non-specific nature of the clinical presentation and the high prevalence of incidental parasitaemia. CM is associated with endothelial activation. In this study we tested the hypothesis that endothelium-derived biomarkers are associated with the pathophysiology of severe malaria and may help identify children with CM.Plasma samples were tested from children recruited with uncomplicated malaria (UM; n = 32), cerebral malaria with retinopathy (CM-R; n = 38), clinically defined CM without retinopathy (CM-N; n = 29), or non-malaria febrile illness with decreased consciousness (CNS; n = 24). Admission levels of angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2), Ang-1, soluble Tie-2 (sTie-2), von Willebrand factor (VWF), its propeptide (VWFpp), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), soluble ICAM-1 (sICAM-1) and interferon-inducible protein 10 (IP-10) were measured by ELISA. Children with CM-R had significantly higher median levels of Ang-2, Ang-2:Ang-1, sTie-2, VWFpp and sICAM-1 compared to children with CM-N. Children with CM-R had significantly lower median levels of Ang-1 and higher median concentrations of Ang-2:Ang-1, sTie-2, VWF, VWFpp, VEGF and sICAM-1 compared to UM, and significantly lower median levels of Ang-1 and higher median levels of Ang-2, Ang-2:Ang-1, VWF and VWFpp compared to children with fever and altered consciousness due to other causes. Ang-1 was the best discriminator between UM and CM-R and between CNS and CM-R (areas under the ROC curve of 0.96 and 0.93, respectively). A comparison of biomarker levels in CM-R between admission and recovery showed uniform increases in Ang-1 levels, suggesting this biomarker may have utility in monitoring clinical response.These results suggest that endothelial proteins are informative biomarkers of malarial disease severity. These results require validation in prospective studies to confirm that this group of biomarkers improves the diagnostic accuracy of CM from similar conditions causing fever and altered consciousness