Feeling the benefit : fluctuating illness and the world of welfare

This article explores the experiences of people living with fluctuating long-term conditions, with a particular focus on the UK welfare benefits system. Respondents in this study suggested that this system constitutes a critical barrier to maintaining a positive work-based identity, being characterised by assessment and decision-making processes that are inappropriately focused and inflexibly implemented. Here, we report the findings from a cross sectional online study of people aged 18 to 75+, resident in the UK, with a self-reported diagnosis of lupus, arguably, the archetypal fluctuating condition. We explore some of the key themes respondents living with lupus identified in the context of striving to maintain a sense of themselves as productive and functional citizens. We conclude that there is a critical lack of attention afforded to the experience of fluctuating illness within the State benefits system and offer some strategies for better understanding, and addressing, this issue

The risk of non-specific hospitalised infections following MMR vaccination given with and without inactivated vaccines in the second year of life. Comparative self-controlled case-series study in England.

Observational cohort studies in high-income settings have suggested that vaccination order may affect children's subsequent risk of a heterologous infection, with live vaccines reducing and inactivated vaccines (given on their own or with a live vaccine), increasing the risk. We used the self-controlled case-series method, which automatically controls for the individual level confounding to which such cohort studies are prone, to test this hypothesis. We compared the relative incidence (RI) of infections post-vaccination in two calendar periods in England; in Period 1 (September 2002-August 2006) live measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine was given on its own and in Period 2 (September 2006-April 2010) inactivated vaccines (7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) and sometimes the combined Haemophilus influenzae type b/meningococcal group C vaccine (Hib-MenC)) were given concomitantly with MMR. Admissions for an infection of the upper or lower respiratory tract, gastrointestinal system or other site in children aged 11-23?months were selected from the Hospital Episode Statistics database in England and linked to child health immunisation histories. The analysis included a total of 24,144 infections in 21,067 children in Period 1 and 36,880 in 31,616 children in Period 2. The RI of admission for any infection in Period 1 was 1.00 (95% confidence interval 0.95-1.06) compared with 0.95 (95% confidence interval 0.90-1.00) in Period 2. Comparing the two periods showed no evidence of a difference in the relative incidence estimates with a ratio of RI of 0.94 (95% confidence interval 0.87-1.02), RIs within 90?days of vaccination were 0.94 (0.91-0.97) in Period 1 and 0.94 (0.91-0.97) in Period 2, consistent with a temporary healthy vaccinee effect. In conclusion, we found no evidence to support the hypothesis that there is a reduction in heterologous infections after MMR on its own or an increase after MMR given concomitantly with an inactivated vaccine

Templateâ based protein structure prediction in CASP11 and retrospect of Iâ TASSER in the last decade

We report the structure prediction results of a new composite pipeline for templateâ based modeling (TBM) in the 11th CASP experiment. Starting from multiple structure templates identified by LOMETS based metaâ threading programs, the QUARK ab initio folding program is extended to generate initial fullâ length models under strong constraints from template alignments. The final atomic models are then constructed by Iâ TASSER based fragment reassembly simulations, followed by the fragmentâ guided molecular dynamic simulation and the MQAPâ based model selection. It was found that the inclusion of QUARKâ TBM simulations as an intermediate modeling step could help improve the quality of the Iâ TASSER models for both Easy and Hard TBM targets. Overall, the average TMâ score of the first Iâ TASSER model is 12% higher than that of the best LOMETS templates, with the RMSD in the same threadingâ aligned regions reduced from 5.8 to 4.7 à . Nevertheless, there are nearly 18% of TBM domains with the templates deteriorated by the structure assembly pipeline, which may be attributed to the errors of secondary structure and domain orientation predictions that propagate through and degrade the procedures of template identification and final model selections. To examine the record of progress, we made a retrospective report of the Iâ TASSER pipeline in the last five CASP experiments (CASP7â 11). The data show no clear progress of the LOMETS threading programs over PSIâ BLAST; but obvious progress on structural improvement relative to threading templates was witnessed in recent CASP experiments, which is probably attributed to the integration of the extended ab initio folding simulation with the threading assembly pipeline and the introduction of atomicâ level structure refinements following the reduced modeling simulations. Proteins 2016; 84(Suppl 1):233â 246. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134137/1/prot24918.pd

Menus in Child Care: A Comparison of State Regulations with National Standards

The purpose of this project was to compare individual state regulations regarding menus for child-care centers and family child-care homes with national menu standards. For all 50 states and the District of Columbia, state regulations were compared with menu standards found in Caring for Our Children—National Health and Safety Performance Standards: Guidelines for Out-of-Home Child Care Programs. Specifically, these guidelines suggest that (a) menus must be posted or made available to parents, (b) menus must be dated, (c) menus must reflect food served, (d) menus must be planned in advance, and (e) menus must be kept on file. One additional standard, that menus in child care are reviewed by a nutrition professional, was added to this review. Data were collected between June and August of 2007. Substantial variation existed among state regulations regarding menus. For child-care centers, seven states (14%) included regulations on all five standards, and 13 states (25%) had regulations on four of the five menu standards. Ten states (20%) did not have any regulations on the five menu standards. For family child-care homes, only three states (6%) had regulations on all five menu standards; four states (8%) had regulations on four of the five menu standards. Twenty-seven states (53%) did not have any regulations on the five standards for menus. Within the same state, regulations for child-care centers and family child-care homes often did not match. Overall, great discrepancies were found between model child-care menu policies and current state regulations in most states. States have the opportunity to improve regulations regarding menus to ensure that child-care providers develop accurate, specific, and healthful menus

A Review of Pink Salmon in the Pacific, Arctic, and Atlantic Oceans

The Northern Hemisphere Pink Salmon Expert Group Meeting was held on October 2–3, 2022 in Vancouver, Canada, immediately preceding the International Year of the Salmon (IYS) Synthesis Symposium. The rapid expansion of pink salmon was the theme for the meeting, and experts came together to discuss the current state of knowledge for pink salmon. Specific topics of focus included the range expansion into the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, trends in distribution and abundance, research and monitoring approaches, potential inter-specific interactions, mitigation efforts, and plans for future collaborations. The outcomes of the meeting were presented at the IYS Synthesis Symposium and are further disseminated through this NPAFC Technical Report. The Executive Summary section of this report provides a brief background, a condensed overview of each topic, and concludes with overarching takeaway messages that are intended to guide future collaborations.publishedVersio

A Review of Pink Salmon in the Pacific, Arctic, and Atlantic Oceans

The Northern Hemisphere Pink Salmon Expert Group Meeting was held on October 2–3, 2022 in Vancouver, Canada, immediately preceding the International Year of the Salmon (IYS) Synthesis Symposium. The rapid expansion of pink salmon was the theme for the meeting, and experts came together to discuss the current state of knowledge for pink salmon. Specific topics of focus included the range expansion into the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, trends in distribution and abundance, research and monitoring approaches, potential inter-specific interactions, mitigation efforts, and plans for future collaborations. The outcomes of the meeting were presented at the IYS Synthesis Symposium and are further disseminated through this NPAFC Technical Report. The Executive Summary section of this report provides a brief background, a condensed overview of each topic, and concludes with overarching takeaway messages that are intended to guide future collaborations.publishedVersio

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

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