Interdisciplinary, Translational, and Community-Based Participatory Research: Finding a Common Language to Improve Cancer Research

Preventing cancer, downstaging disease at diagnosis, and reducing mortality require that relevant research findings be translated across scientific disciplines and into clinical and public health practice. Interdisciplinary research focuses on using the languages of different scientific disciplines to share techniques and philosophical perspectives to enhance discovery and development of innovations; (i.e., from the “left end” of the research continuum). Community-based participatory research (CBPR), whose relevance often is relegated to the “right end” (i.e., delivery and dissemination) of the research continuum, represents an important means for understanding how many cancers are caused as well as for ensuring that basic science research findings affect cancer outcomes in materially important ways. Effective interdisciplinary research and CBPR both require an ability to communicate effectively across groups that often start out neither understanding each other’s worldviews nor even speaking the same language. Both demand an ability and willingness to treat individuals from other communities with respect and understanding. We describe the similarities between CBPR and both translational and interdisciplinary research, and then illustrate our points using squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus as an example of how to deepen understanding and increase relevance by applying techniques of CBPR and interdisciplinary engagement

Concentration of electric dipole strength below the neutron separation energy in N = 82 nuclei

The semi-magic nuclei Ba-138, Ce-140, and Sm-144 have been investigated in photon scattering experiments up to an excitation energy of about 10 MeV. The distribution of the electric dipole strength shows a resonance like structure at energies between 5.5 and 8 MeV exhausting up to 1% of the isovector E1 Energy Weighted Sum Rule.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Metabolic syndrome and risk of death from cancers of the digestive system

We tested the hypothesis that risk of early mortality from cancers of the digestive system will be greater in men with, compared to men without, the metabolic syndrome (MetS). Participants were 33,230 men who were seen at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas, Texas and followed for 14.4 (SD=7.0) yrs. MetS was defined as having at least three of the following risk factors: abdominal obesity, fasting hypertriglyceridemia, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high blood pressure, or high fasting glucose level or diabetes. MetS was associated with higher mortality (HR=1.90 [95% Confidence Interval=1.42-2.55]), and there was a graded positive association for the addition of more syndrome components (p\u3c0.01). Adjustment for cardiorespiratory fitness attenuated the risk estimates by 20 to 30%, but they remained significant following this adjustment. Evaluation of the independent contribution of each of the syndrome components revealed that both abdominal obesity (HR=1.89 [1.36-2.62]) and high glucose (HR=1.38 [1.02-1.87]) were independently associated with cancer morality. Our results support the hypothesis that MetS is positively associated with mortality from cancers of the digestive system. Interventions which reduce abnormalities associated with the syndrome could reduce risk of premature death from these cancers

The Effect of Social Desirability and Social Approval on Self-Reports of Physical Activity

The purpose of this investigation was to examine social desirability and social approval as sources of error in three self-reported physical activity assessments using objective measures of physical activity as reference measures. In 1997, women (n = 81) living in Worcester, Massachusetts, completed doubly labeled water measurements and wore an activity monitor for 14 days. They also completed seven interviewer-administered 24-hour physical activity recalls (PARs) and two different self-administered 7-day PARs. Measures of the personality traits “social desirability” and “social approval” were regressed on 1) the difference between physical activity energy expenditure estimated from doubly labeled water and each physical activity assessment instrument and 2) the difference between monitor-derived physical activity duration and each instrument. Social desirability was associated with overreporting of activity, resulting in overestimation of physical activity energy expenditure by 0.65 kcal/kg/day on the second 7-day PAR (95% confidence interval: 0.06, 1.25) and overestimation of activity durations by 4.15–11.30 minutes/day (both 7-day PARs). Social approval was weakly associated with underestimation of physical activity on the 24-hour PAR (−0.15 kcal/kg/day, 95% confidence interval: −0.30, 0.005). Body size was not associated with reporting bias in this study. The authors conclude that social desirability and social approval may influence self-reported physical activity on some survey instruments

Mercury loading within the Selenga River basin and Lake Baikal, Siberia

Mercury (Hg) loading in Lake Baikal, a UNESCO world heritage site, is growing and poses a serious health concern to the lake’s ecosystem due to the ability of Hg to transform into a toxic form, known as methylmercury (MeHg). Monitoring of Hg into Lake Baikal is spatially and temporally sparse, highlighting the need for insights into historic Hg loading. This study reports measurements of Hg concentrations from water collected in August 2013 and 2014 from across Lake Baikal and its main inflow, the Selenga River basin (Russia, Mongolia). We also report historic Hg contamination using sediment cores taken from the south and north basins of Lake Baikal, and a shallow lake in the Selenga Delta. Field measurements from August 2013 and 2014 show high Hg concentrations in the Selenga Delta and river waters, in comparison to pelagic lake waters. Sediment cores from Lake Baikal show that Hg enrichment commenced first in the south basin in the late-19th century, and then in the north basin in the mid-20th century. Hg flux was also 20-fold greater in the south basin compared to the north basin sediments. Hg enrichment was greatest in the Selenga Delta shallow lake (Enrichment Ratio (ER) = 2.3 in 1994 CE), with enrichment occurring in the mid- to late-20th century. Local sources of Hg are predominantly from gold mining along the Selenga River, which have been expanding over the last few decades. More recently, another source is atmospheric deposition from industrial activity in Asia, due to rapid economic growth across the region since the 1980s. As Hg can bioaccumulate and biomagnify through trophic levels to Baikal’s top consumer, the world’s only truly freshwater seal (Pusa sibirica), it is vital that Hg input at Lake Baikal and within its catchment is monitored and controlled

2016 AAPP Monograph Series: African American Professors Program

The African American Professors Program (AAPP) at the University of South Carolina is honored to publish this fifteenth edition of its annual monograph series. AAPP recognizes the significance of offering scholars a venue through which to engage actively in research and to publish their refereed papers. Parallel with the publication of their manuscripts is the opportunity to gain visibility among colleagues throughout postsecondary institutions at national and international levels. Scholars who have contributed papers for this monograph are acknowledged for embracing the value of including this responsibility within their academic milieu. Writing across disciplines adds to the intellectual diversity of these manuscripts. From neophytes to quite experienced individuals, the chapters have been researched and written in depth. Founded in 1997 through the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies in the College of Education, AAPP was designed originally to address the under-representation of African American professors on college and university campuses. Its mission is to expand the pool of these professors in critical academic and research areas. Sponsored historically by the University of South Carolina, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the South Carolina General Assembly, the program recruits doctoral students for disciplines in which African Americans currently are underrepresented among faculty in higher education. The continuation of this monograph series is seen as responding to a window of opportunity to be sensitive to academic expectation of graduates as they pursue career placement and, at the same time, to allow for the dissemination of products of scholarship to a broader community. The importance of this series has been voiced by one of our 2002 AAPP graduates, Dr. Shundelle LaTjuan Dogan, formerly an Administrative Fellow at Harvard University, a Program Officer for the Southern Education Foundation, and a Program Officer for the Arthur M. Blank Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia. She is currently a Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs Manager for IBM-International Business Machines in Atlanta, Georgia and has written the Foreword for the 2014 monograph. Dr. Dogan wrote: One thing in particular that I want to thank you for is having the African American Professors Program scholars publish articles for the monograph. I have to admit that writing the articles seemed like extra work at the time. However, in my recent interview process, organizations have asked me for samples of my writing. Including an article from a published monograph helped to make my portfolio much more impressive. You were \u27right on target\u27 in having us do the monograph series. (AAPP 2003 Monograph, p. xi) The African American Professors Program continues the tradition as a promoter of international scholarship in higher education evidenced through the inspiration from this group of interdisciplinary manuscripts. I hope that you will envision these published papers to serve as an invaluable contribution to your own professional development and career enhancement. John McFadden, PhD The Benjamin Elijah Mays Distinguished Professor Emeritus Director, African American Professors Program University of South Carolinahttps://scholarcommons.sc.edu/mcfadden_monographs/1003/thumbnail.jp

A mammalian functional-genetic approach to characterizing cancer therapeutics

Supplementary information is available online at http://www.nature.com/naturechemicalbiology/. Reprints and permissions information is available online at http://npg.nature.com/reprintsandpermissions/.Identifying mechanisms of drug action remains a fundamental impediment to the development and effective use of chemotherapeutics. Here we describe an RNA interference (RNAi)–based strategy to characterize small-molecule function in mammalian cells. By examining the response of cells expressing short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) to a diverse selection of chemotherapeutics, we could generate a functional shRNA signature that was able to accurately group drugs into established biochemical modes of action. This, in turn, provided a diversely sampled reference set for high-resolution prediction of mechanisms of action for poorly characterized small molecules. We could further reduce the predictive shRNA target set to as few as eight genes and, by using a newly derived probability-based nearest-neighbors approach, could extend the predictive power of this shRNA set to characterize additional drug categories. Thus, a focused shRNA phenotypic signature can provide a highly sensitive and tractable approach for characterizing new anticancer drugs.National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) (grant RO1 CA128803-03)American Association for Cancer ResearchMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of BiologyNational Cancer Institute (U.S.). Integrative Cancer Biology Program (grant 1-U54-CA112967

The Effect of Service on Research Performance: A Study on Italian Academics in Management

Academics all over the world are feeling the increasing pressure to attain satisfactory research performance. Since research is not the only activity required of academics, though, the debate on how it may be coupled with other knowledge transfer activities like teaching, patenting, and dissemination has been captivating scholars interested in higher education. Literature is surprisingly silent about the interplay between research performance and other roles and tasks that faculty are expected to carry out, namely academic citizenship, intended as the service that they provide to their institution, to the scientific community, and to the larger society. Through a negative binomial regression conducted on 692 Italian academics in management, this paper investigates both the direct and moderating effect exerted by academic citizenship on the relationship between research performance in two subsequent evaluation exercises, thus advancing our knowledge of the relationship between research and service. Findings show that institutional service acts as a pure moderator, discipline-based service is a quasi-moderator, while public service exerts only a direct negative effect on research performance. In light of the emergent interplay between research and service, the necessity to boost reflection on academic citizenship is discussed and suggestions for its acknowledgement and advancement are formulated

Global economic burden of unmet surgical need for appendicitis

Background: There is a substantial gap in provision of adequate surgical care in many low-and middle-income countries. This study aimed to identify the economic burden of unmet surgical need for the common condition of appendicitis. Methods: Data on the incidence of appendicitis from 170 countries and two different approaches were used to estimate numbers of patients who do not receive surgery: as a fixed proportion of the total unmet surgical need per country (approach 1); and based on country income status (approach 2). Indirect costs with current levels of access and local quality, and those if quality were at the standards of high-income countries, were estimated. A human capital approach was applied, focusing on the economic burden resulting from premature death and absenteeism. Results: Excess mortality was 4185 per 100 000 cases of appendicitis using approach 1 and 3448 per 100 000 using approach 2. The economic burden of continuing current levels of access and local quality was US $92 492 million using approach 1 and$73 141 million using approach 2. The economic burden of not providing surgical care to the standards of high-income countries was $95 004 million using approach 1 and$75 666 million using approach 2. The largest share of these costs resulted from premature death (97.7 per cent) and lack of access (97.0 per cent) in contrast to lack of quality. Conclusion: For a comparatively non-complex emergency condition such as appendicitis, increasing access to care should be prioritized. Although improving quality of care should not be neglected, increasing provision of care at current standards could reduce societal costs substantially