Feasibility, acceptability and preliminary effectiveness of a video conference delivered, group-based physical activity program for cancer survivors

2021 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.Background: Although supervised cancer rehabilitation and exercise programs are effective for improving health outcomes among cancer survivors, widespread access is lacking, and the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for innovative ways to reach and serve cancer survivors in their homes. Method: A single arm, pre-post study to assess feasibility, acceptability and preliminary effectiveness of Fitness for Cancer Therapy (Fit Cancer), an 8-week, group-based videoconference delivered exercise program. Feasibility and acceptability were captured by accrual, attendance and adherence rates and participant satisfaction and analyzed using descriptive statistics. Preliminary estimates of the effects of Fit Cancer on physical function, Quality of Life (QOL) and Exercise Self Efficacy (ESE) were measured at pre- and post-program and analyzed by percent change and one-tailed, paired sample t-tests. Results: A total of n = 39 participated in the study. Accrual (91%), retention (90%), adherence (88%) rates along with acceptability (94%) findings support feasibility. Physical activity measured by moderate-vigorous aerobic and resistance exercise had a percent change increase of 69.9% (p <0.05). Lower (10.4%, p <0.05) and upper body muscular endurance (22.4%, p <0.05) and single-leg balance (12.1%, p <0.05) all increased significantly. No changes were seen in QOL or BARSE and a reduction was seen in ESE (-8.1%, p <0.05). Conclusion: Results indicate that a videoconference delivered exercise program was feasible and acceptable and may help cancer survivors increase physical activity and muscular strength/endurance. A controlled trial is required to confirm these findings

Investigation of nucleation and heat transfer during subcooled flow boiling on augmented surfaces

Heat transfer characteristics of flat augmented surfaces in subcooled flow boiling with water at atmospheric pressure were obtained as functions of the surface orientation and Reynolds number. Data was collected with the heater surface temperature between 90C and 1 15C. The maximum temperature recorded by the thermocouple closest to the heater was between 200C and 220C. Five augmented surfaces and a base line plain polished aluminum surface were prepared and their performance was experimentally obtained in a 3 mm x 40 mm rectangular channel. The five augmented surfaces consisted of a sintered plain surface, microfin #1 (fin height- .132 mm, pitch - .635 mm, fin shape - round), sintered microfin #1, microfin #2 (fin height - .197 mm, pitch - .726 mm, fin shape - trapezoidal), and microfin #3 (fin height - .240 mm, pitch - .870 mm, fin shape - trapezoidal). Two microfin orientations of 0 and 20 were tested by rotating the heater surface. The heat transfer performance of the heater surface in the non-boiling (single-phase) and boiling regions were obtained over a Reynolds number range of 1565 to 7254 and compared with the plain surface performance. Microfin #3 and microfin #1 exhibited better heat transfer performance compared to the polished aluminum surface while microfin #2 transferred less heat compared to the polished aluminum surface. For microfin #1 nucleation started as soon as positive wall superheat was attained, while for microfin #2, microfin #3, and a polished aluminum surface a wall superheat of 6 to 10 C was required for inception of nucleation. A number of parameters affect the heat transfer from the augmented surfaces - subcooling, flow rate, swirl angle, surface finish, and surface geometry. The effect of these parameters was investigated for the six surfaces studied. Bubble activity was studied with the aid of video images obtained using a regular 30 frames per second video camera and a high speed video camera up to 1 000 frames per second under a magnification of up to 43 OX. As the degree of superheat increased beyond 10C, bubble activity became faster and could not be tracked by the high speed camera which only showed streaks of bubbles. It is thought that this increased bubble behavior continues with faster and smaller bubbles as the surface temperature continues to increase. Using experimental data taken by Mizo (1995), for flow boiling of water on a flat polished aluminum surface, existing pool boiling bubble growth models were investigate for possible extension into flow boiling. Extending existing pool boiling models to flow boiling proved very complex. Mikic and Rohsenow\u27s [17] pool boiling bubble growth rate model is well accepted in literature. Limitations in applying this work to flow boiling were identified

Strategies for maximizing ATP supply in the microsporidian Encephalitozoon cuniculi: direct binding of mitochondria to the parasitophorous vacuole and clustering of the mitochondrial porin VDAC

Microsporidia are obligate intracellular parasites with extremely reduced genomes and a dependence on host-derived ATP. The microsporidium Encephalitozoon cuniculi proliferates within a membranous vacuole and we investigated how the ATP supply is optimized at the vacuole–host interface. Using spatial EM quantification (stereology), we found a single layer of mitochondria coating substantial proportions of the parasitophorous vacuole. Mitochondrial binding occurred preferentially over the vegetative ‘meront’ stages of the parasite, which bulged into the cytoplasm, thereby increasing the membrane surface available for mitochondrial interaction. In a broken cell system mitochondrial binding was maintained and was typified by electron dense structures (&#60;10 nm long) bridging between outer mitochondrial and vacuole membranes. In broken cells mitochondrial binding was sensitive to a range of protease treatments. The function of directly bound mitochondria, as measured by the membrane potential sensitive dye JC-1, was indistinguishable from other mitochondria in the cell although there was a generalized depression of the membrane potential in infected cells. Finally, quantitative immuno-EM revealed that the ATP-delivering mitochondrial porin, VDAC, was concentrated atthe mitochondria-vacuole interaction site. Thus E. cuniculi appears to maximize ATP supply by direct binding of mitochondria to the parasitophorous vacuole bringing this organelle within 0.020 microns of the growing vegetative form of the parasite. ATP-delivery is further enhanced by clustering of ATP transporting porins in those regions of the outer mitochondrial membrane lying closest to the parasite

E PLURIBUS URBES: INTEREST GROUP ORGANIZATION’S EFFECT ON THE FRAGMENTATION AND GOVERNANCE OF AMERICAN URBAN AREAS

American cities have proliferated in the post-War era. More than 2,000 new cities were founded between 1950 and 2000. While the history of the local government boom has been documented, research into urban fragmentation has explored why there is no consolidation of metropolitan areas rather than exploring why Americans chose fragmentation initially. This dissertation proposes that individuals create new jurisdictions because individuals prefer to have governments which give them the services individuals desire, even if they could have similar (but not perfect) services cheaper in a larger jurisdiction. Individuals, however, must balance the benefit they get from better fitting cities with the price they must pay to live within the small cities. In the first part of the dissertation, I synthesize the literatures on urban governance and fragmentation with the literature on interest groups. This synthesis builds the argument for conceiving cities as interest groups and contributes a theory of urban behavior as the behavior of organized interest groups. I argue that urban fragmentation should exist anywhere there are urban areas –not only metropolises –and that fragmentation is produced by diversity in the population and constrained by the resources available for the formation of cities. In the second part of the dissertation, I analyze the fragmentation of both metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas to determine what drives fragmentation. I use Poisson regression on 2-period panel data from 1992 and 2002 collected from various public sources. I find that there are differences in the forms of fragmentation in the metropolis and the non-metropolis. In both types of urban settlement, fragmentation is driven by political and population diversity and available resources for forming cities. Legal authority and intergovernmental revenue are particularly important. Finally, I turn my attention to cities’ interactions with each other. I use a survey of Kentucky mayors, fielded with the Kentucky League of Cities, to determine why mayors of different cities to communicate with each other. Using specialized network methods I find that mayor-to-mayor contact is not based on goal and interest similarities as expected, but rather depends on sharing an organization which encourages communication –an Area Development District

The Perceptions and Effects of Nutrition on Worker Health and Productivity in Construction

Construction workers often have poor dietary habits due to poor nutrition education, lack of nutritious food options, and social stigma. These habits often lead to health problems like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease which can decrease productivity and put workers at risk of on-site injury. This preliminary study examines how nutrition impacts worker safety and productivity. A survey was distributed to six students involved in construction work for Cal Poly’s Residential Construction course. This survey identified their eating habits and inhibitors for healthy eating. Two meals, one with high nutritional value and one with low nutritional value, were given to the students before performing construction work. The students then filled out a survey rating their perceived levels of safety, alertness, and productivity. Results indicated that students who ate the healthy meal averaged 2.6% lower for safety, 10.6% higher for alertness, and 13.4% higher for productivity than those who ate the unhealthy meal. This aligns with research showing that diets low in fruit and vegetable intake and high in sodium can lead to decreases in productivity. Findings of this study could be applied in the field to improve worker diets, which would lead to increases in alertness and productivity

PopZ and FtsZ coordinate polar growth termination and cell division in Agrobacterium tumefaciens

Understanding how bacterial cells expand their cell walls is an important question with relevance to development of antibiotics. While many studies have focused on the regulation of bacterial elongation utilizing lateral cell wall biogenesis, polar growth in bacteria is less well understood. Yet, polar growth has been observed across taxonomically diverse bacteria like Actinobacteria and the alphaproteobacterial clade Rhizobiales (Howell and Brown, 2016). Interestingly, polar-growing bacteria within Rhizobiales lack canonical scaffolding proteins for spatial and temporal regulation of peptidoglycan synthesis during elongation. Here, we dissect the role of two candidate scaffolding proteins in directing cell wall synthesis in the bacterial plant pathogen, Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Since cell wall (peptidoglycan) biosynthesis during elongation and cell division is vital for bacterial survival, we expected many key proteins involved in these processes to be essential for cell survival. Thus, we developed a depletion system for A. tumefaciens (Figureroa-Cuilan et al. 2016). We further optimized a suite of target-specific fluorescent labeling techniques which allow us to visualize morphological changes during essential cell processes (Howell, Daniel, and Brown, 2017). We use these techniques to dissect the contributions of PopZ and FtsZ to polar growth and cell division. Although PopZ is not required for polar growth, it is required for proper coordination of polar growth, chromosome segregation, and cell division. This PopZ-mediated coordination ensures that daughter cells are the proper size and contain a complete complement of genetic material (Howell et al 2017). Next, we find that FtsZ is required for both termination of polar growth and cell division. This finding suggests that FtsZ has at least two important functions in regulation of cell wall biogenesis. First, FtsZ enables cell wall biogenesis machinery to be released or inactivated from the growth pole. Second, FtsZ must recruit additional proteins to mid cell to assemble the divisome, enabling activation of cell wall biogenesis to promote septum formation and cell separation. While further research is needed to understand how growth is targeted to the pole during elongation, our work provides mechanistic insights about the coordination of polar growth termination, chromosome segregation, and cell division. We hypothesize that our findings will be applicable to other closely related polar growing Rhizobiales, including plant, animal, and human pathogens.Includes bibliographical reference

Photon counting compressive depth mapping

We demonstrate a compressed sensing, photon counting lidar system based on the single-pixel camera. Our technique recovers both depth and intensity maps from a single under-sampled set of incoherent, linear projections of a scene of interest at ultra-low light levels around 0.5 picowatts. Only two-dimensional reconstructions are required to image a three-dimensional scene. We demonstrate intensity imaging and depth mapping at 256 x 256 pixel transverse resolution with acquisition times as short as 3 seconds. We also show novelty filtering, reconstructing only the difference between two instances of a scene. Finally, we acquire 32 x 32 pixel real-time video for three-dimensional object tracking at 14 frames-per-second.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure

Lobbyists as Imperfect Agents: Implications for Public Policy in a Pluralist System

Interest group pluralism presumes that public policy outcomes are determined principally through a contest for influence among organized pressure groups. Most interest groups, however, do not represent themselves in this process. Rather, they rely on professional lobbyists for representation, information, and advice. These lobbyists are agents with their own interests, and these interests may not align perfectly with those of their clients. This essay outlines this principal-agent problem and sketches its possible implications for policy outcomes. In particular, we hypothesize that the lobbyist-client agency problem may bias policy in favor of small homogeneous groups, may exacerbate status quo bias and lead to excessive attention to symbolic issues, may promote expansive delegations to administrative agencies, and may impede systematic reforms to the policy-making process

Picoradian deflection measurement with an interferometric quasi-autocollimator using weak value amplification

We present an "interferometric quasi-autocollimator" that employs weak value amplification to measure angular deflections of a target mirror. The device has been designed to be insensitive to all translations of the target. We present a conceptual explanation of the amplification effect used by the device. An implementation of the device demonstrates sensitivities better than 10 picoradians per root hertz between 10 and 200 hertz.Comment: To be published in Optics Letter