A Catalogue of the wood type at Rochester Institute of Technology

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Responding to localised prostate cancer : Lifeworld reconstruction during the first post-diagnostic year

This thesis investigated the experiences of men diagnosed with localised prostate cancer, as they reconstructed their lifeworlds during the first post-diagnostic year. With the exception of health related quality of life, a review of the psychosocial research literature revealed few studies that, explored the psychosocial experience of men diagnosed with localised prostate cancer. Furthermore, the review uncovered no studies that explored the process of Iifeworld reconstruction, and only three studies that considered the role of masculinity in the responses of men to the prostate cancer experience. Such a limited understanding, about the nature and process of lifeworld reconstruction, potentially compromises the provision of gender appropriate care by health care professionals. Therefore, providing an improved understanding of men\u27s evolving responses to localised prostate cancer is important for the development of gender appropriate care that is lifeworld compatible. The purpose of this study was to contribute to an improved understanding of men\u27s emotional, relational, and existential engagements with the prostate cancer experience, by providing an in-depth descriptive account of the process of lifeworld reconstruction

Can we accelerate autism discoveries through crowdsourcing?

AbstractAutism is a dramatically expanding public health challenge. The search for genomic variants underlying the disease concomitantly accelerated over the last 5 years, leading to a general consensus that genetics can explain between 40% and 60% of the symptomatic variability seen in autism. This stresses both an urgent need to continue devoting resources to the search for genetic etiologies that define the forms of autism, and an equal need for attention to the interactive roles of the environment. While some environmental factors have been investigated, few studies have attempted to elucidate the combination and interplay between gene and environment to gain clear understanding of the mechanisms by which environmental factors interact with genetic susceptibilities in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Due to financial constraints as well as recruitment protocols limited by geography, such studies have been challenging to implement. We discuss here how crowdsourcing approaches can overcome these limitations

Acute post-disaster medical needs of patients with diabetes: emergency department use in New York City by diabetic adults after Hurricane Sandy.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the acute impact of disasters on diabetic patients, we performed a geospatial analysis of emergency department (ED) use by New York City diabetic adults in the week after Hurricane Sandy. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Using an all-payer claims database, we retrospectively analyzed the demographics, insurance status, and medical comorbidities of post-disaster ED patients with diabetes who lived in the most geographically vulnerable areas. We compared the patterns of ED use among diabetic adults in the first week after Hurricane Sandy\u27s landfall to utilization before the disaster in 2012. RESULTS: In the highest level evacuation zone in New York City, postdisaster increases in ED visits for a primary or secondary diagnosis of diabetes were attributable to a significantly higher proportion of Medicare patients. Emergency visits for a primary diagnosis of diabetes had an increased frequency of certain comorbidities, including hypertension, recent procedure, and chronic skin ulcers. Patients with a history of diabetes visited EDs in increased numbers after Hurricane Sandy for a primary diagnosis of myocardial infarction, prescription refills, drug dependence, dialysis, among other conditions. CONCLUSIONS: We found that diabetic adults aged 65 years and older are especially at risk for requiring postdisaster emergency care compared to other vulnerable populations. Our findings also suggest that there is a need to support diabetic adults particularly in the week after a disaster by ensuring access to medications, aftercare for patients who had a recent procedure, and optimize their cardiovascular health to reduce the risk of heart attacks

Functional Land Management: Bridging the Think-Do-Gap using a multi-stakeholder science policy interface

peer-reviewedFunctional Land Management (FLM) is proposed as an integrator for sustainability policies and assesses the functional capacity of the soil and land to deliver primary productivity, water purification and regulation, carbon cycling and storage, habitat for biodiversity and recycling of nutrients. This paper presents the catchment challenge as a method to bridge the gap between science, stakeholders and policy for the effective management of soils to deliver these functions. Two challenges were completed by a wide range of stakeholders focused around a physical catchment model—(1) to design an optimised catchment based on soil function targets, (2) identify gaps to implementation of the proposed design. In challenge 1, a high level of consensus between different stakeholders emerged on soil and management measures to be implemented to achieve soil function targets. Key gaps including knowledge, a mix of market and voluntary incentives and mandatory measures were identified in challenge 2.This work was in part conducted under the Soil Quality Assessment Research (SQUARE) Project, Reference No: 13S468 funded by the Irish Government under the National Development Plan 2007–2013. This study was completed as part of the LANDMARK (LAND Management: Assessment, Research, Knowledge Base) project. LANDMARK has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 635201. This work has also received funding as part of the SoilCare project from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under Grant Agreement No. 677407

Ensemble Simulations and Experimental Free Energy Distributions: Evaluation and Characterization of Isoxazole Amides as SMYD3 Inhibitors

Optimization of binding affinities for ligands to their target protein is a primary objective in rational drug discovery. Herein, we report on a collaborative study that evaluates various compounds designed to bind to the SET and MYND domain-containing protein 3 (SMYD3). SMYD3 is a histone methyltransferase and plays an important role in transcriptional regulation in cell proliferation, cell cycle, and human carcinogenesis. Experimental measurements using the scintillation proximity assay show that the distributions of binding free energies from a large number of independent measurements exhibit non-normal properties. We use ESMACS (enhanced sampling of molecular dynamics with approximation of continuum solvent) and TIES (thermodynamic integration with enhanced sampling) protocols to predict the binding free energies and to provide a detailed chemical insight into the nature of ligand-protein binding. Our results show that the 1-trajectory ESMACS protocol works well for the set of ligands studied here. Although one unexplained outlier exists, we obtain excellent statistical ranking across the set of compounds from the ESMACS protocol and good agreement between calculations and experiments for the relative binding free energies from the TIES protocol. ESMACS and TIES are again found to be powerful protocols for the accurate comparison of the binding free energies

Autosomal Resequence Data Reveal Late Stone Age Signals of Population Expansion in Sub-Saharan African Foraging and Farming Populations

BACKGROUND:A major unanswered question in the evolution of Homo sapiens is when anatomically modern human populations began to expand: was demographic growth associated with the invention of particular technologies or behavioral innovations by hunter-gatherers in the Late Pleistocene, or with the acquisition of farming in the Neolithic? METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We investigate the timing of human population expansion by performing a multilocus analysis of > or = 20 unlinked autosomal noncoding regions, each consisting of approximately 6 kilobases, resequenced in approximately 184 individuals from 7 human populations. We test the hypothesis that the autosomal polymorphism data fit a simple two-phase growth model, and when the hypothesis is not rejected, we fit parameters of this model to our data using approximate Bayesian computation. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:The data from the three surveyed non-African populations (French Basque, Chinese Han, and Melanesians) are inconsistent with the simple growth model, presumably because they reflect more complex demographic histories. In contrast, data from all four sub-Saharan African populations fit the two-phase growth model, and a range of onset times and growth rates is inferred for each population. Interestingly, both hunter-gatherers (San and Biaka) and food-producers (Mandenka and Yorubans) best fit models with population growth beginning in the Late Pleistocene. Moreover, our hunter-gatherer populations show a tendency towards slightly older and stronger growth (approximately 41 thousand years ago, approximately 13-fold) than our food-producing populations (approximately 31 thousand years ago, approximately 7-fold). These dates are concurrent with the appearance of the Late Stone Age in Africa, supporting the hypothesis that population growth played a significant role in the evolution of Late Pleistocene human cultures

Advancements and challenges towards a collaborative framework for 3D tele-immersive social networking

Social experiences realized through teleconferencing systems are still quite different from face to face meetings. The awareness that we are online and in a, to some extent, lesser real world are preventing us from really engaging and enjoying the event. Several reasons account for these differences and have been identified. We think it is now time to bridge these gaps and propose inspiring and innovative solutions in order to provide realistic, believable and engaging online experiences. We present a distributed and scalable framework named REVERIE that faces these challenges and provides a mix of these solutions. Applications built on top of the framework will be able to provide interactive, truly immersive, photo-realistic experiences to a multitude of users that for them will feel much more similar to having face to face meetings than the experience offered by conventional teleconferencing systems

Trapeziectomy with ligament reconstruction/ suspensionplasty compared to suture tape suspensionplasty for the surgical treatment of advanced thumb carpometacarpal osteoarthritis

PURPOSE: Trapeziectomy with tendon reconstruction/suspensionplasty (TRS) is the most commonly performed surgical procedure in the United States for treatment of thumb carpometacarpal (CMC) osteoarthritis (OA). Trapeziectomy with suture tape suspensionplasty (STS) has been used recently at the study institution as an alternative surgical treatment option with perceived benefits of earlier return to function and reduced operative time. The purpose of this study was to compare patient outcomes following TRS versus STS for treatment of thumb CMC OA. METHODS: All patients who underwent primary, isolated TRS or STS for treatment of thumb CMC OA between 1/1/2014 and 9/1/2020 were analyzed. We assessed demographics and preoperative and postoperative patient-rated outcome scores including Patient-reported outcomes measurement information system scores as well as pain outcomes, satisfaction, and appearance at a mean of 2.6 years after surgery (minimum 6 months). Time to return to work and activities was compared between groups. Bivariate statistics compared outcomes between groups. RESULTS: Ninety-four patients were included in the final study cohort, of which 53 underwent TRS and 41 underwent STS. There were no differences in preoperative, postoperative, or final patient-rated outcome scores between groups. Patients reported high global and appearance satisfaction scores at final follow-up in both groups. Mean tourniquet time was 15 minutes (26%) shorter and return to work was on average 3 weeks faster for the STS group. CONCLUSIONS: There were no differences in postoperative patient-rated outcome scores between the STS and TRS groups. The STS group had a shorter surgical time and faster return-to-work after surgery. TYPE OF STUDY/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic III