Online Marketing and New Media Usage in the National Football League

As innovations in technology continue to occur at a rapid rate, marketing as once known continues to drastically change as well. This has provided organizations several new and improved marketing tools, while simultaneously presenting numerous challenges. The sport industry has adopted these innovations and uses internet marketing and new media frequently. The National Football League, the most profitable sports league in the United States, has been identified as a leading force in the use of new marketing initiatives. This research critically analyzes each of the 32 NFL organizations official websites to determine the different aspects of new media and internet marketing each team is utilizing, and to what extent. Houston, Kansas City, Denver, and Green Bay had websites that made the most extensive use of these new tools. Although there was no correlation between demographic information and the usage levels, the yielded information is integral to each organization in understanding how they compare to one another as well as the effectiveness of their current online marketing schemes

O IMPACTO PSICOSSOCIAL DA DOENÇA DE ALZHEIMER

A Doença de Alzheimer (DA) é a mais comum das demências neurodegenerativas e se caracteriza por ser uma doença progressiva e deteriorante. Seu quadro clínico se inicia com a perda de memória sobre fatos recentes e evolui com o esquecimento da realização de tarefas básicas da vida, tornando o doente uma pessoa cada vez mais dependente de cuidados. Dessa forma, o impacto dessa doença pode ser entendido em dois níveis principais: portador da doença e familiares, sendo esse o objetivo desta revisão de literatura. Para isso, foi realizada a leitura de 23 artigos, limitados no período de 2009 a 2016, que foram pesquisados no Portal de Pesquisa BVS acerca desse assunto, com o descritor “Doença de Alzheimer”. Dessa forma, foi encontrado que há uma diminuição na qualidade de vida do doente, entretanto as relações familiares foram apresentadas como satisfatórias. Também, foi observada essa diminuição quando se trata da vida dos familiares, pois, na maioria das vezes, sãos eles os cuidadores que se sobrecarregam de responsabilidades e tendem a apresentar sentimentos negativos, como raiva e culpa. Além disso, foram discutidas as formas de diagnóstico e de apresentação da doença e os cuidados paliativos, tendo a música como um bom método. Portanto, a partir da diferenciação da apresentação da doença foi possível observar o comportamento usual de um idoso portador da DA, sua perda significante da qualidade de vida, por se tornar incapaz de realizar atividades básicas diárias sozinho, e sua dependência por completo dos cuidadores, reduzindo, também, a QV deste

Sintomas do transtorno de ansiedade e prática de atividade física nos estudantes de medicina

Objective: To verify if there is a relation between symptoms of anxiety disorder and practice of physical activities in medical students. Methods: This is a cross-sectional quantitative study conducted with medical students of the first (1st), fifth (5th) and eighth (8th) periods of the University Center of Anapolis - UNIEVANGÉLICA. For the data collection, two questionnaires were applied regarding the practice of physical activity and the symptoms of anxiety. The obtained data were tabulated in electronic spreadsheets for statistical analysis using tests in order to compare the percentage distributions between the periods according to the classifications of the questionnaires. Results: The questionnaires of 131 participants were analyzed. It was observed that there is a relation between the practice of physical activity and the reduction of anxiety symptoms, since the majority of the students considered anxious are irregularly active, whereas the greater number of individuals evaluated as non-anxious are considered very active (p <0.05). Conclusions: It is necessary to ratify that there is a positive relationship between regular physical exercise and the reduction of anxiety symptoms, in order to bring benefits to the medical student regarding the improvement of the quality of life.Objetivos: Verificar se há relação entre sintomas do transtorno de ansiedade e a prática de atividade física em estudantes de medicina. Métodos: Trata-se de um estudo transversal descritivo quantitativo realizado com os estudantes de medicina do primeiro (1°), quinto (5º) e oitavo (8°) períodos do Centro Universitário de Anápolis – UNIEVANGÉLICA. Para a coleta de dados, aplicou-se dois questionários referentes à prática de atividade física e aos sintomas de ansiedade. Os dados obtidos foram tabulados em planilhas eletrônicas para análise estatística utilizando testes com o intuito de comparar as distribuições percentuais entre os períodos de acordo com as classificações dos questionários. Resultados: Foram analisados questionários de 131 participantes. Observou-se que há relação entre a prática de atividade física e a redução dos sintomas de ansiedade, uma vez que a maioria dos acadêmicos considerados ansiosos são irregularmente ativos, ao passo que o maior número de indivíduos avaliados como não ansiosos são considerados muito ativos (p<0,05). Conclusões: Faz-se necessário ratificar que existe relação positiva entre a prática regular de exercícios físicos e a redução dos sintomas de ansiedade, a fim de trazer benefícios ao estudante de medicina quanto à melhora da qualidade de vida

Strengths and limitations of microarray-based phenotype prediction: lessons learned from the IMPROVER Diagnostic Signature Challenge

Motivation: After more than a decade since microarrays were used to predict phenotype of biological samples, real-life applications for disease screening and identification of patients who would best benefit from treatment are still emerging. The interest of the scientific community in identifying best approaches to develop such prediction models was reaffirmed in a competition style international collaboration called IMPROVER Diagnostic Signature Challenge whose results we describe herein. Results: Fifty-four teams used public data to develop prediction models in four disease areas including multiple sclerosis, lung cancer, psoriasis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and made predictions on blinded new data that we generated. Teams were scored using three metrics that captured various aspects of the quality of predictions, and best performers were awarded. This article presents the challenge results and introduces to the community the approaches of the best overall three performers, as well as an R package that implements the approach of the best overall team. The analyses of model performance data submitted in the challenge as well as additional simulations that we have performed revealed that (i) the quality of predictions depends more on the disease endpoint than on the particular approaches used in the challenge; (ii) the most important modeling factor (e.g. data preprocessing, feature selection and classifier type) is problem dependent; and (iii) for optimal results datasets and methods have to be carefully matched. Biomedical factors such as the disease severity and confidence in diagnostic were found to be associated with the misclassification rates across the different teams. Availability: The lung cancer dataset is available from Gene Expression Omnibus (accession, GSE43580). The maPredictDSC R package implementing the approach of the best overall team is available at www.bioconductor.org or http://bioinformaticsprb.med.wayne.edu/. Contact: [email protected] Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics onlin

Genome-wide Analyses Identify KIF5A as a Novel ALS Gene

To identify novel genes associated with ALS, we undertook two lines of investigation. We carried out a genome-wide association study comparing 20,806 ALS cases and 59,804 controls. Independently, we performed a rare variant burden analysis comparing 1,138 index familial ALS cases and 19,494 controls. Through both approaches, we identified kinesin family member 5A (KIF5A) as a novel gene associated with ALS. Interestingly, mutations predominantly in the N-terminal motor domain of KIF5A are causative for two neurodegenerative diseases: hereditary spastic paraplegia (SPG10) and Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 2 (CMT2). In contrast, ALS-associated mutations are primarily located at the C-terminal cargo-binding tail domain and patients harboring loss-of-function mutations displayed an extended survival relative to typical ALS cases. Taken together, these results broaden the phenotype spectrum resulting from mutations in KIF5A and strengthen the role of cytoskeletal defects in the pathogenesis of ALS.Peer reviewe

Common and rare variant association analyses in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis identify 15 risk loci with distinct genetic architectures and neuron-specific biology

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease with a lifetime risk of one in 350 people and an unmet need for disease-modifying therapies. We conducted a cross-ancestry genome-wide association study (GWAS) including 29,612 patients with ALS and 122,656 controls, which identified 15 risk loci. When combined with 8,953 individuals with whole-genome sequencing (6,538 patients, 2,415 controls) and a large cortex-derived expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) dataset (MetaBrain), analyses revealed locus-specific genetic architectures in which we prioritized genes either through rare variants, short tandem repeats or regulatory effects. ALS-associated risk loci were shared with multiple traits within the neurodegenerative spectrum but with distinct enrichment patterns across brain regions and cell types. Of the environmental and lifestyle risk factors obtained from the literature, Mendelian randomization analyses indicated a causal role for high cholesterol levels. The combination of all ALS-associated signals reveals a role for perturbations in vesicle-mediated transport and autophagy and provides evidence for cell-autonomous disease initiation in glutamatergic neurons. A cross-ancestry genome-wide association meta-analysis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) including 29,612 patients with ALS and 122,656 controls identifies 15 risk loci with distinct genetic architectures and neuron-specific biology

Common and rare variant association analyses in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis identify 15 risk loci with distinct genetic architectures and neuron-specific biology

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease with a lifetime risk of one in 350 people and an unmet need for disease-modifying therapies. We conducted a cross-ancestry genome-wide association study (GWAS) including 29,612 patients with ALS and 122,656 controls, which identified 15 risk loci. When combined with 8,953 individuals with whole-genome sequencing (6,538 patients, 2,415 controls) and a large cortex-derived expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) dataset (MetaBrain), analyses revealed locus-specific genetic architectures in which we prioritized genes either through rare variants, short tandem repeats or regulatory effects. ALS-associated risk loci were shared with multiple traits within the neurodegenerative spectrum but with distinct enrichment patterns across brain regions and cell types. Of the environmental and lifestyle risk factors obtained from the literature, Mendelian randomization analyses indicated a causal role for high cholesterol levels. The combination of all ALS-associated signals reveals a role for perturbations in vesicle-mediated transport and autophagy and provides evidence for cell-autonomous disease initiation in glutamatergic neurons. A cross-ancestry genome-wide association meta-analysis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) including 29,612 patients with ALS and 122,656 controls identifies 15 risk loci with distinct genetic architectures and neuron-specific biology

Common and rare variant association analyses in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis identify 15 risk loci with distinct genetic architectures and neuron-specific biology

A cross-ancestry genome-wide association meta-analysis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) including 29,612 patients with ALS and 122,656 controls identifies 15 risk loci with distinct genetic architectures and neuron-specific biology. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease with a lifetime risk of one in 350 people and an unmet need for disease-modifying therapies. We conducted a cross-ancestry genome-wide association study (GWAS) including 29,612 patients with ALS and 122,656 controls, which identified 15 risk loci. When combined with 8,953 individuals with whole-genome sequencing (6,538 patients, 2,415 controls) and a large cortex-derived expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) dataset (MetaBrain), analyses revealed locus-specific genetic architectures in which we prioritized genes either through rare variants, short tandem repeats or regulatory effects. ALS-associated risk loci were shared with multiple traits within the neurodegenerative spectrum but with distinct enrichment patterns across brain regions and cell types. Of the environmental and lifestyle risk factors obtained from the literature, Mendelian randomization analyses indicated a causal role for high cholesterol levels. The combination of all ALS-associated signals reveals a role for perturbations in vesicle-mediated transport and autophagy and provides evidence for cell-autonomous disease initiation in glutamatergic neurons

Direct and indirect effects of climate and fishing on changes in coastal ecosystem services: a historical perspective from the North Sea

Humanity depends on the marine environment for a range of vital ecosystem services, at global (e.g. climate regulation), regional (e.g. commercial fisheries) and local scales (e.g. coastal defence and recreation). At the same time, marine ecosystems have been exploited for centuries, and many systems today are under stress from multiple sources. Recent studies have shown how both climate change and fishing have caused long-term changes in the marine environment. However, there is still poor understanding of how these changes influence change in coastal ecosystem services. In this paper, an integrated modelling approach is used to assess how the final delivery of marine ecosystem services to coastal communities is influenced by the direct and indirect effects of changes in ecosystem processes brought about by climate and human impacts, using fisheries of the North Sea region as a case study. Partial least squares path analysis is used to explore the relationships between drivers of change, marine ecosystem processes and services (landings). A simple conceptual model with four variables—climate, fishing effort, ecosystem process and ecosystem services—is applied to the English North Sea using historic ecological, climatic and fisheries time series spanning 1924–2010 to identify the multiple pathways that might exist. As expected, direct and indirect links between fishing effort, ecosystem processes and service provision were significant. However, links between climate and ecosystem processes were weak. This paper highlights how path analysis can be used for analysing long-term temporal links between ecosystem processes and services following a simplified pathway