A Model for Optimal Prevention: Naturopathic Community Healthcare

The burden of chronic disease continues to rise while adequate access to healthcare continues to remain elusive for many at risk populations. The US continues to spend more of its budget on treating preventable diseases with 86% of it’s $2.7 trillion expenditures in 2016 dedicated to people with chronic and mental health conditions. A new model of healthcare is required to tackle the problems the nation continues to face and involves an integrative model of healthcare with prevention at its center and naturopathic physicians leading the way as expert prevention specialists

The Use of Graphic Organizers in Supporting Primary Aged Students in Genre Specific Writing Tasks

The purpose of this research study is to examine the impact that graphic organizers have on the writing process and product for primary aged students. The graphic organizer functions as a tool for meaning making within the context of school writing. The research questions that will be explored in this study focus on how graphic organizers capture teacher scaffolding, the relationship between graphic organizers and the final product, and how the use of graphic organizers encourage natural ways of writing. Research will be based in Anne Dyson’s (1981) study of cultural factors in writing and storytelling, and Sarah Michaels \u27 (2008) attention to strategies that non-mainstream children use in academic writing. Three focal children representing diverse backgrounds are examined in the classroom setting. They attend a public school Upstate York. They participate in a literacy that includes writer’s workshop, 6 + 1 Traits of writing instruction and opportunities for writing within the science and social studies content areas. These students have access to computer lab once every other week. Data collection took a variety of forms including observations, interviews, and student work samples. The duration of the study was four weeks. The findings from this study have tentatively suggested that a graphic organizer can make the writing structure more accessible to students when coupled with appropriate teacher scaffolding and opportunities for authentic content area related experiences. Recommendations for teachers include providing a variety of graphic organizers for student to choose from and extensive modeling of their use

Forced Migration & Health: A Course Proposal

Forced migration is poised to be one of the leading public health issues of our time. The Syrian refugee crisis in particular has placed issues of forced migration firmly in the consciousness of everyday people in developed nations in a way that has not occurred arguably since the genocide in Rwanda. Thus it is important to capitalize on this moment of awareness to prepare future leaders and public health advocates to effectively address the host of issues that accompany the forced migration of populations. As the number of forced migrants increase and represents a larger proportion of the world’s population, an effective public health education must address their health issues in a complex and nuanced way. Further, schools of Public Health are tasked with educating and preparing future leaders in the field. Consequently, schools must position themselves at the forefront of this issue and must equip their graduates with the knowledge and skills to appropriately address the bourgeoning area of forced migration and health in order to move public health forward

Legacy and social media respectively influence risk perceptions and protective behaviors during emerging health threats: A multi-wave analysis of communications on Zika virus cases.

ObjectiveBoth legacy media, such as television and newspapers, and online social media are potentially important but incompletely understood sources of information in the face of emerging public health risks. This research aimed to understand media effects on risk perceptions and behaviors concerning the Zika virus in the United States.MethodsWe analyzed a multi-wave nationally representative survey (N = 29,062) and the volume of communications in social and legacy media (i.e., legacy media data from news sources and databases, N = 2,660 and social media data from Twitter, N = 1,605,752) in the United States between April and October 2016, dates coinciding with the early cases of local transmission of Zika in the United States (i.e., 25 weeks). The present study conducted econometric analyses (i.e., Granger causality tests) to assess the associations of legacy and social media coverage with risk perceptions and protective behaviors in the total sample and specific groups separated by pregnancy status/intent, geographic region, income, education level, age, and ethnicity.ResultsThe results from the overall sample suggested that changes in the volume of information in legacy and social media (i.e., Twitter) were followed by different changes in community risk perceptions and protective behaviors. Specifically, social media coverage correlated with the level of risk perceptions, whereas the legacy media coverage correlated with the level of protective behaviors. Analyses across different subpopulations, including those of different pregnancy status/intent, geographic Zika risk, income, education level, age, and ethnicity, replicated the social media associations with risk perceptions in most cases. However, legacy media and protective behaviors were linked only in some vulnerable subpopulations (e.g., the less-educated populations).ConclusionUnderstanding how media coverage relates to Zika risk perceptions and protective behaviors will help to facilitate effective risk communications by healthcare professionals and providers, particularly when a health risk emerges

3D transdimensional seismic tomography of the inner core

Body wave observations of the Earth's inner core show that it contains strong seismic heterogeneity, both laterally and radially. Models of inner core structure generated using body wave data are often limited by their parameterisation. Thus, it is difficult to determine whether features such as anisotropic hemispheres or an innermost inner core truly exist with their simple shapes, or result only from the chosen parameterisation and are in fact more complex features. To overcome this limitation, we conduct seismic tomography using transdimensional Markov Chain Monte Carlo on a high quality dataset of 5296 differential and 2344 absolute P-wave travel times. In a transdimensional approach, the data defines the model space parameterisation, providing us with both the mean value of each model parameter and its probability distribution, allowing us to identify well versus poorly constrained regions. We robustly recover many first order observations found in previous studies without the imposition of a priori fixed geometry including an isotropic top layer (with anisotropy less than 1%) which is between 60 and 170 km thick, and separated into hemispheres with a slow west and a faster east. Strong anisotropy (with a maximum of 7.2%) is found mainly in the west, with much weaker anisotropy in the east. We observe for the first time that the western anisotropic zone is largely confined to the northern hemisphere, a property which would not be recognised in models assuming a simple hemispherical parameterisation. We further find that the inner most inner core, in which the slowest anisotropic velocity direction is tilted relative to Earth's axis of rotation (zeta = 55 & PLUSMN; 16), is offset by 400 km from the centre of the inner core and is restricted to the eastern hemisphere. We propose that this anomalous anisotropy might indicate the presence of a different phase of iron (either bcc or fcc) compared to the rest of the inner core (hcp)

Asset Allocation with Swarm/Human Blended Intelligence

PSO has been used to demonstrate the near-real-time optimization of frequency allocations and spatial positions for receiver assets in highly complex Electronic Warfare (EW) environments. The PSO algorithm computes optimal or near-optimal solutions so rapidly that multiple assets can be exploited in real-time and re-optimized on the fly as the situation changes. The allocation of assets in 3D space requires a blend of human intelligence and computational optimization. This paper advances the research on the tough problem of how humans interface to the swarm for directing the solution. The human intelligence places new pheromone-inspired spheres of influence to direct the final solution. The swarm can then react to the new input from the human intelligence. Our results indicate that this method can maintain the speed goal of less than 1 second, even with multiple spheres of pheromone influence in the solution space

G protein-coupled receptor 68 increases the number of B lymphocytes

G protein-coupled receptor 68 (GPR68) is a proton sensor that is activated upon binding to extracellular protons. We have previously found that GPR68 induces a proapoptotic pathway in bone marrow (BM) cells from the patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) after treated with lenalidomide. However, the function of GPR68 in normal hematopoietic cells remains unclear. With genetic loss of function approach, we found reduced frequency and number of B lymphocytes in the peripheral blood (PB) of whole body Gpr68-/- mice compared to control littermates upon aging. During hematopoietic regeneration, such as in response to fluorouracil (5-FU), we also found reduced frequency and number of B lymphocytes in Gpr68-/- mice compared to wild type mice. Mechanism studies revealed that Gpr68 expression was upregulated in B lymphocytes of BM during aging and in hematopoietic progenitor cells after treatment with 5-FU. In addition, activation of Gpr68 by its activators increased the frequency and number of B lymphocytes. Our studies indicate that Gpr68 expression is upregulated in hematopoietic cells upon aging and during hematopoietic regeneration that ends up with increased number of B lymphocytes

Ablative five-fraction stereotactic body radiation therapy for inoperable pancreatic cancer using online MR-guided adaptation

Purpose: Patients with inoperable pancreatic adenocarcinoma have limited options, with traditional chemoradiation providing modest clinical benefit and an otherwise poor prognosis. Stereotactic body radiation therapy for pancreatic cancer is limited by proximity to organs-at-risk (OAR). However, stereotactic magnetic resonance-guided adaptive radiation therapy (SMART) has shown promise in delivering ablative doses safely. We sought to demonstrate the benefits of SMART using a 5-fraction approach with daily on-table adaptation. Methods and Materials: Patients with locally advanced, nonmetastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma were treated with 50 Gy in 5 fractions (biologically effective dose Results: Forty-four patients were treated with SMART at our institution from 2014 to 2019. Median follow-up from date of diagnosis was 16 months (range, 6.7-51.6). Late toxicity was limited to 2 (4.6%) grade 3 (gastrointestinal ulcers) and 3 (6.8%) grade 2 toxicities (duodenal perforation, antral ulcer, and gastric bleed). Tumor abutted OARs in 35 patients (79.5%) and tumor invaded OARs in 5 patients (11.1%). Reoptimization was performed for 93% of all fractions. Median overall survival was 15.7 months (95% confidence interval, 10.2-21.2), while 1-year and 2-year overall survival rates were 68.2% and 37.9%, respectively. One-year local control was 84.3%. Conclusions: This is the first reported experience using 50 Gy in 5 fractions for inoperable pancreatic cancer. SMART allows this ablative dose with promising outcomes while minimizing toxicity. Additional prospective trials evaluating efficacy and safety are warranted

Mental health and life satisfaction among 10–11-year-olds in Wales, before and one year after onset of the COVID-19 pandemic

Background In many countries, including in the United Kingdom (UK), COVID-19 social distancing measures placed substantial restrictions on children’s lives in 2020 and 2021, including closure of schools and limitations on play. Many children faced milestones such as transition to secondary school having missed several months of face-to-face schooling in the previous academic years. Methods This paper examines change in mental health difficulties, life satisfaction, school connectedness, and feelings about transition to secondary school among 10–11-year-olds in Wales, UK, using data from repeat cross-sectional surveys before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were 4032 10–11-year-old schoolchildren. The first cohort completed a school-based survey in 2019 (prior to introduction of social distancing measures), and the second in 2021 (following full return to school after two rounds of school closure). Results The percentage of children reporting elevated emotional difficulties rose from 17% in 2019 to 27% in 2021 (Odds Ratio = 1.65; 95%CI = 1.23 to 2.20). There was no evidence of increased behavioural difficulties (OR = 1.04; 95%CI = 0.73 to 1.46). There was a tendency toward declines in life satisfaction in all analyses, but this intersected the null (OR = 0.86; 95%CI = 0.70 to 1.07). Children reported a high degree of school connectedness before and after the pandemic, with no evidence of change in ratings of teacher relationships, pupil relationships or pupil involvement in school life. There was no evidence of impacts of the pandemic on children’s feelings about the transition to secondary school, with feelings becoming more positive as transition neared. Most findings were robust to a range of sensitivity analyses. Conclusions Supporting children’s emotional recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is a public health priority requiring urgent and effective action at multiple levels of society. Maintaining connectedness to school through the pandemic may have played a role in preventing a steeper increase in child mental health difficulties