The Role of Healing Gardens

The objective of this research is to observe the use patterns of a healing garden located on the oncology floor of a pediatric hospital. Use patterns recorded through behavior mapping and tracking focus on collecting data related to the type of user, length of stay, and activity. Three user groups (patient, provider, and visitor) stay an average of eight (8) minutes at Randall Children’s Hospital ranging in activity from sit and relax to actively play. Some findings are concurrent with past research while other findings are not. This research serves as an initial set of data to inform the production and distribution of post occupancy surveys and interviews in future research. The physical data of use patters in combination with surveys and interviews create a greater understanding on the perception and role of healing gardens in hospitals, enabling research based design decisions to improve the quality of life for patients, providers, and visitors

Implications of Feed Additives in the Mitigation of Heat Stress in Cattle

Nutritional supplements have been used to mitigate heat stress in cattle. A series of experiments were conducted under controlled environment conditions in the Animal Research Complex (ARC) to evaluate the value of nutritional intervention on mitigation of heat stress (HS) in cattle. Previous research and literature have shown mixed results in terms of performance benefits. In the first study, we evaluated the use of a proprietary yeast cell extract to help mitigate the effects of hyperthermia on growth development by improving metabolic and immune functions. Twelve crossbred Hereford steers (250 ± 100 kg) were randomly assigned to one of two dietary groups: control group (CON) received 56.7 g of placebo/hd/day; the feed additive group (BA) received 56.7 g of BA/hd/day. Steers were randomly assigned to one of two tie stall rooms with 6 steers per room and 3 steers per treatment/room. Rooms were exposed to cyclical daily temperature humidity index (THI) of 70 - 81 and 27 – 39 for HS and the thermoneutral (TN) rooms respectively for a total of 15 days. Average daily water consumption and average daily gain were calculated at the end of the experimental period. Heat stress increased water consumption (P<0.001), respiration rate (P<0.001), and skin temperature (P<0.001) and tended to increase rectal temperature (P<0.06). Supplementation with BA tended to reduce rectal temperatures (P<0.06) in heat stressed cattle. Exposure to heat stress lowered serum glucose (P<0.01) and insulin (P<0.01) while increasing NEFAS (P<0.01) and TAG (P<0.01). Supplementation with BA lowered TAG (P<0.05) and glucose (P<0.05). HS and BA supplementation had no effect on serum cortisol levels. Results of this study suggest that HS exposure for 15 days had performance and metabolic impacts in crossbred Hereford steers. Supplementation with the dietary BA alleviated some of the daily metabolic effects associated with heat exposure. The objective of the second study was to evaluate the effect of feeding a dietary supplement (PMI Nutritional Additives, Arden Hills, MN) on the HS response in multi-parturient dairy cows in mid lactation. Two pens of cows at a commercial dairy were fed either control (CON) or additive (YB) at 113 g/cow per d for two weeks prior to arrival. Study cows (n=12) were balanced in days in milk (DIM), milk production, and parity (111.91±4.85 d, 33.67±0.96 kg/d, and 2.25±0.18). Cows were randomly selected from both groups (6 TRT and 6 CON) and housed in environmentally controlled chambers for 18 d and fed appropriate diet. Cows were subjected to 7 d of TN conditions, 7 d of HS, and 4 d of recovery (REC) under TN conditions. HS increased RT (P<0.0001), RR (P<0.0001), BUN (P<0.0001), insulin (P=0.04), neutrophil (P=0.009), and water intake (P=0.0005). HS decreased lymphocyte (P=0.0008), DMI (P=0.0007), energy corrected milk (ECM, P=0.01), and 4% fat corrected milk (FCM, P=0.02). YB decreased the feed efficiency ratio (P=0.03). YB had no effect on blood parameters. There was a treatment x environment interaction with cows fed YB having lower feed efficiency (P=0.02) during peak thermal loads than CON. Results of this study suggest that HS exposure had performance and metabolic impacts in mid lactation cows. Supplementation with YB alleviated some of the performance effects associated with HS. The research results support that feed additives have the potential to mitigate the negative effects of heat stress but doesn’t undermine the importance of other nutritional and management strategies that are in use

The mTOR Signalling Pathway in Human Cancer

The conserved serine/threonine kinase mTOR (the mammalian target of rapamycin), a downstream effector of the PI3K/AKT pathway, forms two distinct multiprotein complexes: mTORC1 and mTORC2. mTORC1 is sensitive to rapamycin, activates S6K1 and 4EBP1, which are involved in mRNA translation. It is activated by diverse stimuli, such as growth factors, nutrients, energy and stress signals, and essential signalling pathways, such as PI3K, MAPK and AMPK, in order to control cell growth, proliferation and survival. mTORC2 is considered resistant to rapamycin and is generally insensitive to nutrients and energy signals. It activates PKC-α and AKT and regulates the actin cytoskeleton. Deregulation of multiple elements of the mTOR pathway (PI3K amplification/mutation, PTEN loss of function, AKT overexpression, and S6K1, 4EBP1 and eIF4E overexpression) has been reported in many types of cancers, particularly in melanoma, where alterations in major components of the mTOR pathway were reported to have significant effects on tumour progression. Therefore, mTOR is an appealing therapeutic target and mTOR inhibitors, including the rapamycin analogues deforolimus, everolimus and temsirolimus, are submitted to clinical trials for treating multiple cancers, alone or in combination with inhibitors of other pathways. Importantly, temsirolimus and everolimus were recently approved by the FDA for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma, PNET and giant cell astrocytoma. Small molecules that inhibit mTOR kinase activity and dual PI3K-mTOR inhibitors are also being developed. In this review, we aim to survey relevant research, the molecular mechanisms of signalling, including upstream activation and downstream effectors, and the role of mTOR in cancer, mainly in melanoma

Measurement of the top-quark mass in tt¯ events with dilepton final states in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.-- Chatrchyan, S. et al.The top-quark mass is measured in proton-proton collisions at s√=7 TeV using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb−1 collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The measurement is performed in the dilepton decay channel tt¯→(ℓ+νℓb)(ℓ−ν¯¯ℓb¯), where ℓ=e,μ. Candidate top-quark decays are selected by requiring two leptons, at least two jets, and imbalance in transverse momentum. The mass is reconstructed with an analytical matrix weighting technique using distributions derived from simulated samples. Using a maximum-likelihood fit, the top-quark mass is determined to be 172.5±0.4 (stat.)±1.5 (syst.) GeV.Acknowledge support from BMWF and FWF (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); MoER, SF0690030s09 and ERDF (Estonia); Academy of Finland, MEC, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France);BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); OTKA and NKTH (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); NRF and WCU (Korea); LAS (Lithuania); CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); MSI (New Zealand); PAEC (Pakistan); MSHE and NSC (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); MON, RosAtom, RAS and RFBR (Russia); MSTD (Serbia); SEIDI and CPAN (Spain); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); NSC (Taipei); ThEP, IPST and NECTEC (Thailand); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); NASU (Ukraine); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA). Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie program and the European Research Council (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Austrian Science Fund (FWF); the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l’Industrie et dans l’Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWTBelgium); the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of Czech Republic; the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the Compagnia di San Paolo (Torino); and the HOMING PLUS program of Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced from European Union, Regional Development Fund.Peer Reviewe

The Role of Healing Gardens

The overarching objective of this research is to expand the dialogue of the role of healing gardens in hospitals. In order to understand the role of healing gardens in hospitals, it is important to determine how and to what extent the healing garden is being used. By expanding this dialogue we can reaffirm the legitimacy of current approaches such as design criteria and the program. When the perception and role of healing gardens in hospitals is understood, research based design decisions can improve the quality of life for patients, providers, and visitors.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/research_based_design/1046/thumbnail.jp

Detailed Energy Efficiency Strategies for Converting an Existing Office Building to NZEB: a Case Study in the Pacific Northwest

This paper is an attempt to identify a methodology for converting conventional energy consumption buildings to net-zero energy buildings (NZEB). The first step was rather different from the usual energy audit, which is to analyze a facility’s energy consumptions from both macro- and micro-scales. To implement such an approach, a governmental office building (Metro) in Portland, OR, was chosen as a case study. After a building model was validated against a real measurement, it was then used to evaluate different energy efficiency strategies (EESs) so as to reduce the energy consumption. The EESs showed a reduction in energy use intensity (EUI) from 166 to 66 kWh/m2.year, which is 60% less than the current consumption. The remaining energy demand of the building will be compensated by implementing renewable energy technologies (RETs), namely photovoltaic. The photovoltaic (PV) panels showed viability since they will produce 532 MWh on-site throughout the year, which is sufficient for the future remaining energy demand of the building (490.5 MWh). In conclusion, the simple payback period (SPP) and the life cycle cost analysis proved the feasibility of EESs and RETs. Environmentally, a total of 106 tons of CO2 was prevented per year; in addition, 64.6 tons of CO2 will also be avoided by the PVs on a yearly basis

Questions from the Forest Interactive Multimedia Evaluation

This report, prepared for the Zoological Parks and Gardens Board of Victoria, Australia, investigates the Questions from the Forest interactive multimedia. By using interviews, surveys, focus groups, observations of users, and by consulting with marketing experts, we determined that the software was an effective learning tool. Additionally, we determined that educational software is an attractive product for the Melbourne Zoo's target audience. Finally, we compiled recommendations for the zoo to follow when investing in similar ventures in the future

Environmental chamber heat stress responses and adaptations in crossbred Hereford steers

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