Pinpoint Magazine: A Student’s Guide to Preparing for a Career in Design

Pinpoint magazine’s purpose is to inspire and educate design students in their path toward a design career. Pinpoint is a magazine that features articles filled with insight and practical advice about entering the design industry. The information gathered is presented in a printed magazine format that will help college students pursuing degrees in art and design become informed about how to best pursue their career, how to navigate the world of design, and how to develop their design skills effectively. By reading a magazine filled with practical information on how to become a professional designer, design students will have a more informed and well-rounded view of their chosen career

Lancet

BACKGROUND: In 2015, the second cycle of the CONCORD programme established global surveillance of cancer survival as a metric of the effectiveness of health systems and to inform global policy on cancer control. CONCORD-3 updates the worldwide surveillance of cancer survival to 2014. METHODS: CONCORD-3 includes individual records for 37.5 million patients diagnosed with cancer during the 15-year period 2000-14. Data were provided by 322 population-based cancer registries in 71 countries and territories, 47 of which provided data with 100% population coverage. The study includes 18 cancers or groups of cancers: oesophagus, stomach, colon, rectum, liver, pancreas, lung, breast (women), cervix, ovary, prostate, and melanoma of the skin in adults, and brain tumours, leukaemias, and lymphomas in both adults and children. Standardised quality control procedures were applied; errors were rectified by the registry concerned. We estimated 5-year net survival. Estimates were age-standardised with the International Cancer Survival Standard weights. FINDINGS: For most cancers, 5-year net survival remains among the highest in the world in the USA and Canada, in Australia and New Zealand, and in Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. For many cancers, Denmark is closing the survival gap with the other Nordic countries. Survival trends are generally increasing, even for some of the more lethal cancers: in some countries, survival has increased by up to 5% for cancers of the liver, pancreas, and lung. For women diagnosed during 2010-14, 5-year survival for breast cancer is now 89.5% in Australia and 90.2% in the USA, but international differences remain very wide, with levels as low as 66.1% in India. For gastrointestinal cancers, the highest levels of 5-year survival are seen in southeast Asia: in South Korea for cancers of the stomach (68.9%), colon (71.8%), and rectum (71.1%); in Japan for oesophageal cancer (36.0%); and in Taiwan for liver cancer (27.9%). By contrast, in the same world region, survival is generally lower than elsewhere for melanoma of the skin (59.9% in South Korea, 52.1% in Taiwan, and 49.6% in China), and for both lymphoid malignancies (52.5%, 50.5%, and 38.3%) and myeloid malignancies (45.9%, 33.4%, and 24.8%). For children diagnosed during 2010-14, 5-year survival for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia ranged from 49.8% in Ecuador to 95.2% in Finland. 5-year survival from brain tumours in children is higher than for adults but the global range is very wide (from 28.9% in Brazil to nearly 80% in Sweden and Denmark). INTERPRETATION: The CONCORD programme enables timely comparisons of the overall effectiveness of health systems in providing care for 18 cancers that collectively represent 75% of all cancers diagnosed worldwide every year. It contributes to the evidence base for global policy on cancer control. Since 2017, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has used findings from the CONCORD programme as the official benchmark of cancer survival, among their indicators of the quality of health care in 48 countries worldwide. Governments must recognise population-based cancer registries as key policy tools that can be used to evaluate both the impact of cancer prevention strategies and the effectiveness of health systems for all patients diagnosed with cancer. FUNDING: American Cancer Society; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Swiss Re; Swiss Cancer Research foundation; Swiss Cancer League; Institut National du Cancer; La Ligue Contre le Cancer; Rossy Family Foundation; US National Cancer Institute; and the Susan G Komen Foundation

Sustainable Solutions: Fall design report 2016

The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is responsible for enforcing environmental laws and regulations. Partnering with the DEQ has provided Sustainable Solutions with the opportunity to aid the City of Enid Municipal Landfill with its current erosion problem. Attention was directed to an erosion concern on the north facing slope. These concerns include sediment deposition at the base of the slope, potential trash exposure, rill formation, scarce vegetative growth, and contamination of the on-site stormwater pond. Some current low-cost solutions on existing landfills around the state have been ineffective in solving the erosion problem long-term. Previously at the City of Enid Municipal Landfill, sections of the north facing slope have been hydroseeded with an ADC machine, covered with mulch, and sprigged and seeded. Other landfill erosion control methods include layering straw and topsoil on the slopes. Many solutions have succeeded for a time, but the erosion problem persists. Therefore, more sustainable designs must be implemented in order to prevent detrimental impacts to the environment. The EPA requires certain standards to be maintained for the on-site stormwater pond, runoff, and groundwater. Enid's composting program operates on the premises of the landfill. Therefore, yard waste compost and mulch are available for use as soil amendments. A stormwater detention pond nearby could also be utilized for irrigation. If on-site resources are successfully utilized to control the erosion concerns, a similar design could be applied at other erosion-prone sites with the potential to incorporate sustainable local resources

Sustainable Solutions: Spring design report 2017

In August 2016, the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) approached the Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Department at Oklahoma State University with a design project at the City of Enid (COE) Municipal Landfill. Four senior design students partnered to form Sustainable Solutions, responding to the opportunity to aid the COE landfill with its current erosion problem. Erosion concerns on the north-facing slope include scarce vegetative growth, sediment deposition at the base of the slope, rill formation, potential trash exposure, and contamination of the on-site stormwater pond. Sustainable Solutions designed a menu containing effective strategies to reduce erosion on landfill slopes. The menu contains solutions organized by severity of the erosion problem, anticipated cost, and longevity of solution. For the COE recommendation, the feasibility of using local resources such as soil, compost, mulch, leachate, biosolids, and stormwater was determined through research and testing. Different erosion control designs were evaluated with computer modeling, and an on-site experiment was implemented on the north-facing landfill slope to determine the most promising solution

Modulation perception in listening difficulties (Petley et al., 2024)

Purpose: Amplitude modulations (AMs) are important for speech intelligibility, and deficits in speech intelligibility are a leading source of impairment in childhood listening difficulties (LiD). The present study aimed to explore the relationships between AM perception and speech-in-noise (SiN) comprehension in children and to determine whether deficits in AM processing contribute to childhood LiD. Evoked responses were used to parse the neural origins of AM processing.Method: Forty-one children with LiD and 44 typically developing children, ages 8–16 years, participated in the study. Behavioral AM depth thresholds were measured at 4 and 40 Hz. SiN tasks included the Listening in Spatialized Noise–Sentences Test (LiSN-S) and a coordinate response measure (CRM)–based task. Evoked responses were obtained during an AM change detection task using alternations between 4 and 40 Hz, including the N1 of the acoustic change complex, auditory steady-state response (ASSR), P300, and a late positive response (late potential [LP]). Maturational effects were explored via age correlations.Results: Age correlated with 4-Hz AM thresholds, CRM separated talker scores, and N1 amplitude. Age-normed LiSN-S scores obtained without spatial or talker cues correlated with age-corrected 4-Hz AM thresholds and area under the LP curve. CRM separated talker scores correlated with AM thresholds and area under the LP curve. Most behavioral measures of AM perception correlated with the signal-to-noise ratio and phase coherence of the 40-Hz ASSR. AM change response time also correlated with area under the LP curve. Children with LiD exhibited deficits with respect to 4-Hz thresholds, AM change accuracy, and area under the LP curve.Conclusions: The observed relationships between AM perception and SiN performance extend the evidence that modulation perception is important for understanding SiN in childhood. In line with this finding, children with LiD demonstrated poorer performance on some measures of AM perception, but their evoked responses implicated a primarily cognitive deficit.Supplemental Material S1. EEG denoising and ERP data quality metrics. Number of ICA components rejected and number of trials accepted for averaging are reported as mean (SD). Measurement windows for ERP amplitudes and areas under the curve are reported as window limits, in milliseconds.Petley, L., Blankenship, C., Hunter, L. L., Stewart, H. J., Lin, L., & Moore, D. R. (2024). Amplitude modulation perception and cortical evoked potentials in children with listening difficulties and their typically developing peers. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_JSLHR-23-00317</p

Serum Amyloid Beta Precursor Protein, Neurofilament Light, and Visinin-like Protein-1 in Rugby Players: An Exploratory Study

Concussion diagnosis is difficult and may be improved with the addition of a blood-based biomarker that indicates concussion. The purpose of this research was to investigate the capability of serum amyloid beta precursor protein (APP), neurofilament light (NfL), and visinin-like protein-1 (VILIP-1) to distinguish athletes who were diagnosed with a concussion pitch-side. An observational cross-sectional study design was used to replicate sideline concussion diagnosis. Subjects included mutually exclusive pre-match (n = 9), post-match (n = 15), and SRC (n = 7) groups. Six paired pre-and post-match subjects were analyzed for APP. APP increased significantly from pre-match (mean = 57.98 pg&middot;mL&minus;1, SD = 63.21 pg&middot;mL&minus;1) to post-match (mean = 111.37 pg&middot;mL&minus;1, SD = 106.89 pg&middot;mL&minus;1, p = 0.048) in the paired subjects. NfL was lower in the SRC group (median = 8.71 pg&middot;mL&minus;1, IQR = 6.09 pg&middot;mL&minus;1) compared to the post-match group (median = 29.60 pg&middot;mL&minus;1, IQR = 57.45 pg&middot;mL&minus;1, p &lt; 0.001). VILIP-1 was higher in the post-match group (median = 212.18 pg&middot;mL&minus;1, IQR = 345.00 pg&middot;mL&minus;1) compared to both the pre-match (median = 32.63 pg&middot;mL&minus;1, IQR = 52.24 pg&middot;mL&minus;1), p = 0.001) and SRC (median = 30.21 pg&middot;mL&minus;1, IQR = 47.20 pg&middot;mL&minus;1), p = 0.003) groups. APP, NfL, and VILIP-1 were all able to distinguish between pre-match and post-match groups (AUROC &gt; 0.700) but not from the SRC group (AUROC &lt; 0.660). Our results show that APP, NfL, and VILIP-1 were not helpful in differentiating concussed from non-concussed athletes pitch-side in this study

A Quick Route to Multiple Highly Potent SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitors*.

The COVID-19 pathogen, SARS-CoV-2, requires its main protease (SC2MPro ) to digest two of its translated long polypeptides to form a number of mature proteins that are essential for viral replication and pathogenesis. Inhibition of this vital proteolytic process is effective in preventing the virus from replicating in infected cells and therefore provides a potential COVID-19 treatment option. Guided by previous medicinal chemistry studies about SARS-CoV-1 main protease (SC1MPro ), we have designed and synthesized a series of SC2MPro inhibitors that contain β-(S-2-oxopyrrolidin-3-yl)-alaninal (Opal) for the formation of a reversible covalent bond with the SC2MPro active-site cysteine C145. All inhibitors display high potency with Ki values at or below 100 nM. The most potent compound, MPI3, has as a Ki value of 8.3 nM. Crystallographic analyses of SC2MPro bound to seven inhibitors indicated both formation of a covalent bond with C145 and structural rearrangement from the apoenzyme to accommodate the inhibitors. Virus inhibition assays revealed that several inhibitors have high potency in inhibiting the SARS-CoV-2-induced cytopathogenic effect in both Vero E6 and A549/ACE2 cells. Two inhibitors, MPI5 and MPI8, completely prevented the SARS-CoV-2-induced cytopathogenic effect in Vero E6 cells at 2.5-5 μM and A549/ACE2 cells at 0.16-0.31 μM. Their virus inhibition potency is much higher than that of some existing molecules that are under preclinical and clinical investigations for the treatment of COVID-19. Our study indicates that there is a large chemical space that needs to be explored for the development of SC2MPro inhibitors with ultra-high antiviral potency

IL1 Receptor Antagonist Controls Transcriptional Signature of Inflammation in Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer.

Inflammation affects tumor immune surveillance and resistance to therapy. Here, we show that production of IL1β in primary breast cancer tumors is linked with advanced disease and originates from tumor-infiltrating CD11c+ myeloid cells. IL1β production is triggered by cancer cell membrane-derived TGFβ. Neutralizing TGFβ or IL1 receptor prevents breast cancer progression in humanized mouse model. Patients with metastatic HER2- breast cancer display a transcriptional signature of inflammation in the blood leukocytes, which is attenuated after IL1 blockade. When present in primary breast cancer tumors, this signature discriminates patients with poor clinical outcomes in two independent public datasets (TCGA and METABRIC).Significance: IL1β orchestrates tumor-promoting inflammation in breast cancer and can be targeted in patients using an IL1 receptor antagonist. Cancer Res; 78(18); 5243-58