Shingles & Pneumococcal Vaccines: Recommendations for Older Adults

As the immune system tends to weaken over time, patients aged 50+ begin having increased risk for certain potentially preventable diseases, especially shingles and pneumonia. Although there are vaccinations to protect against these diseases, there are many significant barriers preventing patients from receiving the vaccines that they need, including potentially confusing guidelines, concerns over risks, and recent changes to vaccine recommendations. This project aims to produce a clear and concise educational brochure to help overcome some of these barriers, and to drive patient-provider conversation about their vaccine recommendations.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1463/thumbnail.jp

Investigating the Role of FGF8 Signaling in Neurogenesis of the Developing Zebrafish Eye

In the embryonic zebrafish, the fibroblast growth factor 8a (FGF8) signaling network is essential for proper development and maintenance of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) as well as the hyaloid vasculature, the vessels that supply the eye with nutrients during development. Disruption of FGF8 signaling via knock down of FGF8 or pharmacologic inhibition of FGF receptors (FGFRs) results in extensive abnormalities throughout the developing eye. Our preliminary data indicated that in developing zebrafish, mRNA expression of fgf8a is present exclusively in the RGCs, while the fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (fgfr1b) is expressed exclusively in the area of the hyaloid vasculature. These results led us to hypothesize that FGF8 signals from the RGCs to the vasculature of the developing eye, and that this signaling network is essential for proper eye development. In order to test this hypothesis, we demonstrated the ability to detect downstream phosphorylation events in response to acute FGF8 stimulation in cells that expressed FGFR1 using Western blot and immunofluorescence (IF). Next, we established a zebrafish eye explant culture system to treat the cells of the developing zebrafish eye in vitro. Using transgenic zebrafish lines expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) tags in either the differentiating RGCs or the vascular cells of the eye, we attempted to identify the specific cells capable of responding to FGF8. Our data indicate that recombinant FGF8 is capable of activating detectable intracellular signaling cascades, such as ERK phosphorylation, in cultured endothelial cells. Furthermore, FGF8 is capable of inducing signaling in some of the cells from the developing zebrafish eye, but not in the RGCs. These findings support our proposed model in which FGF8 signals from the RGCs to the hyaloid vasculature, resulting in the activation of signaling pathways that are necessary for proper development of the hyaloid vasculature and RGCs

Eliminating Barriers: Connecting Seniors to Services in Chittenden County

Introduction. Physical activity programs for older adults help to improve physical, social, and emotional health and reduce impairments in activities of daily living1. In Chittenden county, less than 1⁄3 of older adults participate in programs, while 48% report that they would like to exercise more. Our aim was to identify barriers to participation in physical activity programs by older adults in Chittenden county, such as accessibility, transportation, health, affordability, and social isolation, and to identify strategies to overcome these barriers. Methods. 144 paper and electronic surveys were administered in Chittenden County, Vermont to assess use of group programs among older adults aged ≥ 50 years including transportation, motivation, preferences, advertisement, and barriers to access. A focus group explored aspects of ideal group activities for seniors. Results. 87.9% of respondents were active for two or more hours each week, while 46.5% had participated in group programming in the past 6 months. Group par- ticipation was significantly higher among physically active respondents (p=0.020). Motivators for participation in group activity included health benefits, social aspects, and physical activity, while the most cited barrier to attendance was timing conflicts. Respondents received information about programming via word of mouth, email, and online resources. Discussion. Overall, our findings indicate that the majority of respondents are highly active, however, they frequently experience barriers that prevent them from participating in group programming. We recommend offering flexible scheduling, advertising programming via word of mouth and email, and emphasizing program health benefits.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1260/thumbnail.jp

Can plantations develop understory biological and physical attributes of naturally regenerated forests?

With an increasing proportion of natural forests being replaced by plantations, there is a need to determine their potential to fulfill ecological purposes other than wood production. This study evaluated the extent to which deciduous and coniferous plantations develop understory attributes comparable to those of naturally regenerated stands. A functional group approach was used to synthesise species responses in terms of their ecological traits. Multivariate analyses of ecological traits revealed 16 emergent groups that shared common traits associated with a similar life history strategy. Responses of these groups, understory structure, and understory environmental conditions to plantation types and stand stages were analyzed and compared to naturally regenerated stands. Clear associations of trait responses to stand developmental stages and plantation types emerged. Light-demanding and wind-dispersed species groups were associated with early-successional stages, while woody groups, ferns and ant-dispersed spring-flowering herbs were associated with late-successional stages. Analyses also revealed an indicator group associated with old naturally regenerated forest. The understory functional groups and environmental conditions of deciduous plantations converged toward those of old naturally regenerated forests. However, understory structure in deciduous plantations remained poorly developed and richness of the indicator group was low compared to unplanted stands. Conifer plantations, currently the most common plantation type in the northern hardwood biome, showed a completely different pathway of understory development. Modifications to current plantation management practices are proposed to help recreate or maintain natural understory biological and physical attributes

Nitrogen vacancy defects in single-particle nanodiamonds sense paramagnetic transition metal spin noise from nanoparticles on a transmission electron microscopy grid

Spin-active nanomaterials play a vital role in current and upcoming quantum technologies, such as spintronics, data storage and computing. To advance the design and application of these materials, methods to link size, shape, structure, and chemical composition with functional magnetic properties at the nanoscale level are needed. In this work, we combine the power of two local probes, namely, Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) spin-active defects in diamond and an electron beam, within experimental platforms used in electron microscopy. Negatively charged NVs within fluorescent nanodiamond (FND) particles are used to sense the local paramagnetic environment of Rb0.5Co1.3[Fe(CN)6]·3.7H2O nanoparticles (NPs), a Prussian blue analogue (PBA), as a function of FND-PBA distance (order of 10 nm) and local PBA concentration. We demonstrate perturbation of NV spins by proximal electron spins of transition metals within NPs, as detected by changes in the photoluminescence (PL) of NVs. Workflows are reported and demonstrated that employ a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) finder grid to spatially correlate functional and structural features of the same unique NP studied using NV sensing, based on a combination of Optically Detected Magnetic Resonance (ODMR) and Magnetic Modulation (MM) of NV PL, within TEM imaging modalities. Significantly, spin–spin dipole interactions were detected between NVs in a single FND and paramagnetic metal centre spin fluctuations in NPs through a carbon film barrier of 13 nm thickness, evidenced by TEM tilt series imaging and Electron Energy-Loss Spectroscopy (EELS), opening new avenues to sense magnetic materials encapsulated in or between thin-layered nanostructures. The measurement strategies reported herein provide a pathway towards solid-state quantitative NV sensing with atomic-scale theoretical spatial resolution, critical to the development of quantum technologies, such as memory storage and molecular switching nanodevices

A Nonparametric Approach for Assessing Precision in Georeferenced Point Clouds Best Fit Planes: Toward More Reliable Thresholds

The fitting of a plane to data points is essential to the geosciences. However, it is recognized that the reliability of these best fit planes depends upon the point set distribution and geometry, evaluated in terms of the eigen-based parameters derived from the moment of inertia analysis. Despite its significance, few studies have addressed the uncertainties of the analysis, which can adversely affect the reproduction of results one of the cornerstones of scientific endeavor. Aiming to contribute toward the neglected issue of the moment of inertia precision, we have developed a bootstrap resampling scheme to empirically discover the distribution of uncertainties in the orientation of best fit planes. Dispersion of the bootstrapped normal vectors to the best fit plane is regarded as a measure of precision, evaluated with the maximum angular distance from the optimal solution. This rationale was tested using Monte Carlo-generated samples covering a comprehensive range of shape parameters to assess the dependence between eigen parameters and their inherent bias. Our results show that the oblateness of the point cloud is a robust parameter to assess the reliability of the best fit plane. Given this, the method was then applied to a publicly available lidar data set. We argue that georeferenced point clouds with an oblateness parameter greater than 3 and 1.5 may be placed at 95% confidence levels of 5° and 10°, respectively. We propose using these values as thresholds to obtain robust best fit planes, guaranteeing reproducible results for scientific research.Fil: Gallo, Leandro César. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Geociencias Básicas, Aplicadas y Ambientales de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Geociencias Básicas, Aplicadas y Ambientales de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Cristallini, Ernesto Osvaldo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Estudios Andinos "Don Pablo Groeber". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Estudios Andinos "Don Pablo Groeber"; ArgentinaFil: Svarc, Marcela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de San Andrés; Argentin

AUGMENT : a phase III study of lenalidomide plus rituximab versus placebo plus rituximab in relapsed or refractory indolent lymphoma

PURPOSE Patients with indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma typically respond well to first-line immunochemotherapy. At relapse, single-agent rituximab is commonly administered. Data suggest the immunomodulatory agent lenalidomide could increase the activity of rituximab. METHODS A phase III, multicenter, randomized trial of lenalidomide plus rituximab versus placebo plus rituximab was conducted in patients with relapsed and/or refractory follicular or marginal zone lymphoma. Patients received lenalidomide or placebo for 12 cycles plus rituximab once per week for 4 weeks in cycle 1 and day 1 of cycles 2 through 5. The primary end point was progression-free survival per independent radiology review. RESULTS A total of 358 patients were randomly assigned to lenalidomide plus rituximab (n = 178) or placebo plus rituximab (n = 180). Infections (63% v 49%), neutropenia (58% v 23%), and cutaneous reactions (32% v 12%) were more common with lenalidomide plus rituximab. Grade 3 or 4 neutropenia (50% v 13%) and leukopenia (7% v 2%) were higher with lenalidomide plus rituximab; no other grade 3 or 4 adverse event differed by 5% or more between groups. Progression-free survival was significantly improved for lenalidomide plus rituximab versus placebo plus rituximab, with a hazard ratio of 0.46 (95% CI, 0.34 to 0.62; P < .001) and median duration of 39.4 months (95% CI, 22.9 months to not reached) versus 14.1 months (95% CI, 11.4 to 16.7 months), respectively. CONCLUSION Lenalidomide improved efficacy of rituximab in patients with recurrent indolent lymphoma, with an acceptable safety profile

Sensing the Spin State of Room-Temperature Switchable Cyanometallate Frameworks with Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers in Nanodiamonds

Room-temperature magnetically switchable materials play a vital role in current and upcoming quantum technologies, such as spintronics, molecular switches, and data storage devices. The increasing miniaturization of device architectures produces a need to develop analytical tools capable of precisely probing spin information at the single-particle level. In this work, we demonstrate a methodology using negatively charged nitrogen vacancies (NV–) in fluorescent nanodiamond (FND) particles to probe the magnetic switching of a spin crossover (SCO) metal–organic framework (MOF), [Fe(1,6-naphthyridine)2(Ag(CN)2)2] material (1), and a single-molecule photomagnet [X(18-crown-6)(H2O)3]Fe(CN)6·2H2O, where X = Eu and Dy (materials 2a and 2b, respectively), in response to heat, light, and electron beam exposure. We employ correlative light–electron microscopy using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) finder grids to accurately image and sense spin–spin interacting particles down to the single-particle level. We used surface-sensitive optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) and magnetic modulation (MM) of FND photoluminescence (PL) to sense spins to a distance of ca. 10–30 nm. We show that ODMR and MM sensing was not sensitive to the temperature-induced SCO of FeII in 1 as formation of paramagnetic FeIII through surface oxidation (detected by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy) on heating obscured the signal of bulk SCO switching. We found that proximal FNDs could effectively sense the chemical transformations induced by the 200 keV electron beam in 1, namely, AgI → Ag0 and FeII → FeIII. However, transformations induced by the electron beam are irreversible as they substantially disrupt the structure of MOF particles. Finally, we demonstrate NV– sensing of reversible photomagnetic switching, FeIII + (18-crown-6) ⇆ FeII + (18-crown-6)+ •, triggered in 2a and 2b by 405 nm light. The photoredox process of 2a and 2b proved to be the best candidate for room-temperature single-particle magnetic switching utilizing FNDs as a sensor, which could have applications into next-generation quantum technologies

Operating System Support for Application-Specific Speculation

Speculative execution is a technique that allows serial tasks to execute in parallel. An implementation of speculative execution can be divided into two parts: (1) a policy that specifies what operations and values to predict, what actions to allow during speculation, and how to compare results; and (2) the mechanisms that support speculative execution, such as checkpointing, rollback, causality tracking, and output buffering. In this paper, we show how to separate policy from mechanism. We implement a speculation mechanism in the operating system, where it can coordinate speculations across all applications and kernel state. Policy decisions are delegated to applications, which have the most semantic information available to direct speculation. We demonstrate how custom policies can be used in existing applications to add new features that would otherwise be difficult to implement. Using custom policies in our separated speculation system, we can hide 85 % of program load time by predicting the program’s launch, decrease SSL connection latency by 15 % in Firefox, and increase a BFT client’s request rate by 82%. Despite the complexity of the applications, small modifications can implement these features since they only specify policy choices and rely on the system to realize those policies. We provide this increased programmability with a modest performance trade-off, executing only 8 % slower than an optimized, applicationimplemented speculation system