Barriers to Using Motivational Interviewing for Lifestyle Counseling

The Minnesota Department of Health has sponsored Motivational Interviewing Continuing Education sessions for SagePlus providers to increase their knowledge and skill in the utilization of MI in their clinical practice. The impact of these educational sessions on skill development as well as utilization of MI by these providers is unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine if healthcare providers perceive any barriers in utilizing MI techniques to do lifestyle counseling with SagePlus program particiants. A descriptive quantitative design was used for this study. Of the 22 healthcare providers that were doing lifestyle counseling 16 completed the questionnaires. The providers were asked to complete two questionnaires: A modified version of the Preventative Medicine Attitudes and Activities Questionnaire (PMAAQ) and a demographic questionnaire. All 29 potential barriers asked about on the modified PMAAQ were found to have some level of significance. The five most significant barriers were all client based; lack of client interest in prevention, the client\u27s physical and/or financial restrictions, lack of insight by the client on the importance of making healthy-lifestyle changes, and the education level of the patient. There are multiple barriers to using MI for lifestyle counseling with SagePlus participants

SWAN: A Distributed Knowledge Infrastructure for Alzheimer Disease Research

SWAN – a Semantic Web Application in Neuromedicine – is a project to develop an effective, integrated scientific knowledge infrastructure for the Alzheimer disease (AD) research community, using the energy and self-organization of that community, enabled by Semantic Web technology. This infrastructure may later be deployed for research communities in other neuromedical disorders. SWAN incorporates the full biomedical research knowledge lifecycle in its ontological model, including support for personal data organization, hypothesis generation, experimentation, laboratory data organization, and digital pre-publication collaboration. Community, laboratory, and personal digital resources may all be organized and interconnected using SWAN’s common semantic framework

Meeting report: the 2021 FSHD International Research Congress

Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is the second most common genetic myopathy, characterized by slowly progressing and highly heterogeneous muscle wasting with a typical onset in the late teens/early adulthood [1]. Although the etiology of the disease for both FSHD type 1 and type 2 has been attributed to gain-of-toxic function stemming from aberrant DUX4 expression, the exact pathogenic mechanisms involved in muscle wasting have yet to be elucidated [2-4]. The 2021 FSHD International Research Congress, held virtually on June 24-25, convened over 350 researchers and clinicians to share the most recent advances in the understanding of the disease mechanism, discuss the proliferation of interventional strategies and refinement of clinical outcome measures, including results from the ReDUX4 trial, a phase 2b clinical trial of losmapimod in FSHD [NCT04003974]

AlzPharm: integration of neurodegeneration data using RDF

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Neuroscientists often need to access a wide range of data sets distributed over the Internet. These data sets, however, are typically neither integrated nor interoperable, resulting in a barrier to answering complex neuroscience research questions. Domain ontologies can enable the querying heterogeneous data sets, but they are not sufficient for neuroscience since the data of interest commonly span multiple research domains. To this end, e-Neuroscience seeks to provide an integrated platform for neuroscientists to discover new knowledge through seamless integration of the very diverse types of neuroscience data. Here we present a Semantic Web approach to building this e-Neuroscience framework by using the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and its vocabulary description language, RDF Schema (RDFS), as a standard data model to facilitate both representation and integration of the data.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have constructed a pilot ontology for BrainPharm (a subset of SenseLab) using RDFS and then converted a subset of the BrainPharm data into RDF according to the ontological structure. We have also integrated the converted BrainPharm data with existing RDF hypothesis and publication data from a pilot version of SWAN (Semantic Web Applications in Neuromedicine). Our implementation uses the RDF Data Model in Oracle Database 10g release 2 for data integration, query, and inference, while our Web interface allows users to query the data and retrieve the results in a convenient fashion.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Accessing and integrating biomedical data which cuts across multiple disciplines will be increasingly indispensable and beneficial to neuroscience researchers. The Semantic Web approach we undertook has demonstrated a promising way to semantically integrate data sets created independently. It also shows how advanced queries and inferences can be performed over the integrated data, which are hard to achieve using traditional data integration approaches. Our pilot results suggest that our Semantic Web approach is suitable for realizing e-Neuroscience and generic enough to be applied in other biomedical fields.</p

Advancing translational research with the Semantic Web

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A fundamental goal of the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) "Roadmap" is to strengthen <it>Translational Research</it>, defined as the movement of discoveries in basic research to application at the clinical level. A significant barrier to translational research is the lack of uniformly structured data across related biomedical domains. The Semantic Web is an extension of the current Web that enables navigation and meaningful use of digital resources by automatic processes. It is based on common formats that support aggregation and integration of data drawn from diverse sources. A variety of technologies have been built on this foundation that, together, support identifying, representing, and reasoning across a wide range of biomedical data. The Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group (HCLSIG), set up within the framework of the World Wide Web Consortium, was launched to explore the application of these technologies in a variety of areas. Subgroups focus on making biomedical data available in RDF, working with biomedical ontologies, prototyping clinical decision support systems, working on drug safety and efficacy communication, and supporting disease researchers navigating and annotating the large amount of potentially relevant literature.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present a scenario that shows the value of the information environment the Semantic Web can support for aiding neuroscience researchers. We then report on several projects by members of the HCLSIG, in the process illustrating the range of Semantic Web technologies that have applications in areas of biomedicine.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Semantic Web technologies present both promise and challenges. Current tools and standards are already adequate to implement components of the bench-to-bedside vision. On the other hand, these technologies are young. Gaps in standards and implementations still exist and adoption is limited by typical problems with early technology, such as the need for a critical mass of practitioners and installed base, and growing pains as the technology is scaled up. Still, the potential of interoperable knowledge sources for biomedicine, at the scale of the World Wide Web, merits continued work.</p

CDPKs CPK6 and CPK3 Function in ABA Regulation of Guard Cell S-Type Anion- and Ca(2+)- Permeable Channels and Stomatal Closure

Abscisic acid (ABA) signal transduction has been proposed to utilize cytosolic Ca(2+) in guard cell ion channel regulation. However, genetic mutants in Ca(2+) sensors that impair guard cell or plant ion channel signaling responses have not been identified, and whether Ca(2+)-independent ABA signaling mechanisms suffice for a full response remains unclear. Calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs) have been proposed to contribute to central signal transduction responses in plants. However, no Arabidopsis CDPK gene disruption mutant phenotype has been reported to date, likely due to overlapping redundancies in CDPKs. Two Arabidopsis guard cell–expressed CDPK genes, CPK3 and CPK6, showed gene disruption phenotypes. ABA and Ca(2+) activation of slow-type anion channels and, interestingly, ABA activation of plasma membrane Ca(2+)-permeable channels were impaired in independent alleles of single and double cpk3cpk6 mutant guard cells. Furthermore, ABA- and Ca(2+)-induced stomatal closing were partially impaired in these cpk3cpk6 mutant alleles. However, rapid-type anion channel current activity was not affected, consistent with the partial stomatal closing response in double mutants via a proposed branched signaling network. Imposed Ca(2+) oscillation experiments revealed that Ca(2+)-reactive stomatal closure was reduced in CDPK double mutant plants. However, long-lasting Ca(2+)-programmed stomatal closure was not impaired, providing genetic evidence for a functional separation of these two modes of Ca(2+)-induced stomatal closing. Our findings show important functions of the CPK6 and CPK3 CDPKs in guard cell ion channel regulation and provide genetic evidence for calcium sensors that transduce stomatal ABA signaling

Meeting report: The 2022 FSHD International Research Congress

International audienc

The SWAN biomedical discourse ontology

SWAN (Semantic Web Application in Neuromedicine) is a project to construct a semantically-organized, community-curated, distributed knowledge base of Theory, Evidence, and Discussion in biomedicine. Unlike Wikipedia and similar approaches, SWAN’s ontology is designed to represent and foreground both harmonizing and contradictory assertions within the total community discourse. Releases of the software, content and ontology will be initially by and for the Alzheimer Disease (AD) research community, with the obvious potential for extension into other disease research areas. The Alzheimer Research Forum, a 4,000-member web community for AD researchers, will host SWAN’s initial public release, currently scheduled for late 2007. This paper presents the current version of SWAN’s ontology of scientific discourse and presents our current thinking about its evolution including extensions and alignment with related communities, projects and ontologies