BE YOUR OWN BOSS: A CHRONIC DISEASE SELF-MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

poster abstractObjective: Describe the pilot of a peer-led chronic disease self-management workshop for youth aged 13-24 years old. Background: Fifteen to eighteen percent of children in the United States live with a chronic health condition (Perrin et al., Journal of the American Medical Association 2007, 297:2755). The Stanford chronic disease self-management program (CDSMP) has demonstrated improved self-care and health outcomes in older adults. Alberta Health Services has adapted this program from Stanford University for youth and young adults. CYACC is col-laborating with Alberta to evaluate the effectiveness of the adapted version in adolescents and young adults. Methods: Train the trainer sessions were completed to develop an initial cadre of lay leaders to implement the workshop sessions. Participants with any chronic condition attend 2 hour peer-led sessions once per week for six weeks. During the sessions, individuals with a variety of chronic diseases learn the skills needed in self-management of their condition and mainte-nance of general well-being and life’s activities. Data is collected on self-efficacy, pain, adherence, and other outcomes through pre- and post- as-sessment surveys. Results: Fourteen individuals participated in the pilot phase of the pro-gram; 5 in Lafayette, IN and 8 in Indianapolis, IN. A total of 14 pre-surveys were collected, while 10 post-surveys were collected. Analyses of the sur-veys show beneficial topics , while also indicating which topics should receive additional focus. Areas of the program identified as needing attention include recruitment, risk management, transportation issues, participant dropout rates, logistics of workshops, continued training of lay leaders, and stand-ardization of survey responses. Conclusion: The pilot study identified the importance and need for a self-management program for youth and young adults with chronic conditions. This program has the potential to improve health and self-management in the study population. Limitations of the program were addressed and will be improved for the next round of workshops

Physical activity ameliorates cardiovascular health in elderly subjects: the functional role of the Beta adrenergic system.

Aging is a complex process characterized by a gradual decline in organ functional reserves, which eventually reduces the ability to maintain homeostasis. An exquisite feature of elderly subjects, which constitute a growing proportion of the world population, is the high prevalence of cardiovascular disorders, which negatively affect both the quality of life and the life expectancy. It is widely acknowledged that physical activity represents one of the foremost interventions capable in reducing the health burden of cardiovascular disease. Interestingly, the benefits of moderate-intensity physical activity have been established both in young and elderly subjects. Herein we provide a systematic and updated appraisal of the literature exploring the pathophysiological mechanisms evoked by physical activity in the elderly, focusing on the functional role of the β adrenergic system

Spin gating electrical current

We use an aluminium single electron transistor with a magnetic gate to directly quantify the chemical potential anisotropy of GaMnAs materials. Uniaxial and cubic contributions to the chemical potential anisotropy are determined from field rotation experiments. In performing magnetic field sweeps we observe additional isotropic magnetic field dependence of the chemical potential which shows a non-monotonic behavior. The observed effects are explained by calculations based on the $\mathbf{k}\cdot\mathbf{p}$ kinetic exchange model of ferromagnetism in GaMnAs. Our device inverts the conventional approach for constructing spin transistors: instead of spin-transport controlled by ordinary gates we spin-gate ordinary charge transport.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Reconfigurable Boolean Logic using Magnetic Single-Electron Transistors

We propose a novel hybrid single-electron device for reprogrammable low-power logic operations, the magnetic single-electron transistor (MSET). The device consists of an aluminium single-electron transistors with a GaMnAs magnetic back-gate. Changing between different logic gate functions is realized by reorienting the magnetic moments of the magnetic layer which induce a voltage shift on the Coulomb blockade oscillations of the MSET. We show that we can arbitrarily reprogram the function of the device from an n-type SET for in-plane magnetization of the GaMnAs layer to p-type SET for out-of-plane magnetization orientation. Moreover, we demonstrate a set of reprogrammable Boolean gates and its logical complement at the single device level. Finally, we propose two sets of reconfigurable binary gates using combinations of two MSETs in a pull-down network

A novel approach with "skeletonised MTR" measures tract-specific microstructural changes in early primary-progressive MS

We combined tract‐based spatial statistics (TBSS) and magnetization transfer (MT) imaging to assess white matter (WM) tract‐specific short‐term changes in early primary‐progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) and their relationships with clinical progression. Twenty‐one PPMS patients within 5 years from onset underwent MT and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) at baseline and after 12 months. Patients' disability was assessed. DTI data were processed to compute fractional anisotropy (FA) and to generate a common WM “skeleton,” which represents the tracts that are “common” to all subjects using TBSS. The MT ratio (MTR) was computed from MT data and co‐registered with the DTI. The skeletonization procedure derived for FA was applied to each subject's MTR image to obtain a “skeletonised” MTR map for every subject. Permutation tests were used to assess (i) changes in FA, principal diffusivities, and MTR over the follow‐up, and (ii) associations between changes in imaging parameters and changes in disability. Patients showed significant decreases in MTR over one year in the corpus callosum (CC), bilateral corticospinal tract (CST), thalamic radiations, and superior and inferior longitudinal fasciculi. These changes were located both within lesions and the normal‐appearing WM. No significant longitudinal change in skeletonised FA was found, but radial diffusivity (RD) significantly increased in several regions, including the CST bilaterally and the right inferior longitudinal fasciculus. MTR decreases, RD increases, and axial diffusivity decreases in the CC and CST correlated with a deterioration in the upper limb function. We detected tract‐specific multimodal imaging changes that reflect the accrual of microstructural damage and possibly contribute to clinical impairment in PPMS. We propose a novel methodology that can be extended to other diseases to map cross‐subject and tract‐specific changes in MTR

Intrinsic magnetic refrigeration of a single electron transistor

In this work, we show that aluminium doped with low concentrations of magnetic impurities can be used to fabricate quantum devices with intrinsic cooling capabilities. We fabricate single electron transistors made of aluminium doped with 2% Mn by using a standard multi angle evaporation technique and show that the quantity of metal used to fabricate the devices generates enough cooling power to achieve a drop of 160 mK in the electron temperature at the base temperature of our cryostat (300 mK). The cooling mechanism is based on the magneto-caloric effect from the diluted Mn moments

T2 lesion location really matters: a 10 year follow-up study in primary progressive multiple sclerosis

Objectives: Prediction of long term clinical outcome in patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) using imaging has important clinical implications, but remains challenging. We aimed to determine whether spatial location of T2 and T1 brain lesions predicts clinical progression during a 10-year follow-up in PPMS. Methods: Lesion probability maps of the T2 and T1 brain lesions were generated using the baseline scans of 80 patients with PPMS who were clinically assessed at baseline and then after 1, 2, 5 and 10 years. For each patient, the time (in years) taken before bilateral support was required to walk (time to event (TTE)) was used as a measure of progression rate. The probability of each voxel being ‘lesional’ was correlated with TTE, adjusting for age, gender, disease duration, centre and spinal cord cross sectional area, using a multiple linear regression model. To identify the best, independent predictor of progression, a Cox regression model was used. Results: A significant correlation between a shorter TTE and a higher probability of a voxel being lesional on T2 scans was found in the bilateral corticospinal tract and superior longitudinal fasciculus, and in the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (p<0.05). The best predictor of progression rate was the T2 lesion load measured along the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (p=0.016, hazard ratio 1.00652, 95% CI 1.00121 to 1.01186). Conclusion: Our results suggest that the location of T2 brain lesions in the motor and associative tracts is an important contributor to the progression of disability in PPMS, and is independent of spinal cord involvement

Visual Function and Brief Cognitive Assessment for Multiple Sclerosis (BICAMS) in Optic Neuritis Clinically Isolated Syndrome Patients

BACKGROUND: In this study, we hypothesized that clinically isolated syndrome–optic neuritis patients may have disturbances in neuropsychological functions related to visual processes. METHODS: Forty-two patients with optic neuritis within 3 months from onset and 13 healthy controls were assessed at baseline and 6 months with MRI (brain volumes, lesion load, and optic radiation lesion volume) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) (peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer [RNFL], ganglion cell and inner plexiform layers [GCIPLs], and inner nuclear layer). Patients underwent the brief cognitive assessment for multiple sclerosis, high-contrast and low-contrast letter acuity, and color vision. RESULTS: At baseline, patients had impaired visual function, had GCIPL thinning in both eyes, and performed below the normative average in the visual-related tests: Symbol Digit Modalities Test and Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised (BVMT-R). Over time, improvement in visual function in the affected eye was predicted by baseline GCIPL (P = 0.015), RNFL decreased, and the BVMT-R improved (P = 0.001). Improvement in BVMT-R was associated with improvement in the high-contrast letter acuity of the affected eye (P = 0.03), independently of OCT and MRI metrics. CONCLUSION: Cognitive testing, assessed binocularly, of visuospatial processing is affected after unilateral optic neuritis and improves over time with visual recovery. This is not related to structural markers of the visual or central nervous system

Thickness dependence study of current-driven ferromagnetic resonance in Y3Fe5O12/heavy metal bilayers

We use ferromagnetic resonance to study the current-induced torques in YIG/heavy metal bilayers. YIG samples with thickness varying from 14.8 nm to 80 nm, with the Pt or Ta thin film on top, are measured by applying a microwave current into the heavy metals and measuring the longitudinal DC voltage generated by both spin rectification and spin pumping. From a symmetry analysis of the FMR lineshape and its dependence on YIG thickness, we deduce that the Oersted field dominates over spin-transfer torque in driving magnetization dynamics