Resveratrol stimulation of SIRT1 & exogenous delivery of FGF21 mimics metformin's ability to alleviate non-alcoholic fatty liver disease caused by diet-induced obesity

Metformin has been used clinically since 1957 for its efficacy and safety as therapy for type 2 diabetes. Besides ameliorating hyperglycemia without risk of hypoglycemia, metformin also lowers plasma triglyceride levels. Furthermore, a wealth of data shows that metformin facilitates weight loss in mice as well as humans. Due to its numerous metabolic benefits, researchers and clinicians are interested in the possibility of using metformin as treatment to combat obesity and other metabolic disorders such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Despite being the most commonly prescribed anti-diabetic, metformin’s complete mechanism(s) for weight loss or for lowering glucose and lipids remains an enigma. Our studies show that metformin-treated mice exhibited decreased caloric intake, providing a viable mechanism for metformin to bring about weight loss. Intriguingly, we found that metformin induces PRDM16 to promote browning of iWAT and increase expression of thermogenic genes such as UCP1 and DIO2. However, metformin did not appear to increase energy expenditure. It’s possible that metformin’s effect on energy expenditure was masked since energy expenditure measurements were taken when metformin-treated mice were still losing weight and were in a state of negative energy balance. Recently, there has been much attention given to AMPK activators as exercise mimetics. Metformin is known to activate AMPK and similarly brings about many beneficial effects as exercise such as alleviation of obesity-induced NAFLD. SIRT1 stimulation by resveratrol and delivery of exogenous FGF21 mimics metformin’s ability to combat obesity and improve NAFLD. Collectively, these results implicate metformin, resveratrol, and exogenous administration of FGF21 as beneficial therapies for weight loss and amelioration of NAFLD

Physicians and Maternal-Fetal Conflicts: Duties, Rights and Responsibilities

The physician-patient relationship is substantially influenced by issues involving ethics, morality, law, and politics. Throughout this article, the nexus between law and medicine will be emphasized. Perhaps the most important of these associations is the relationship between principles, duties and rights. Justice Holmes aptly stated that since no rights were absolute, they were poor tools for analysis in any case because they were not truly fundamental considerations. Duties precede rights logically and chronologically. Holmes eventually came to view duties as derivative notions and thought that it was essential to understand the principles at work, not the moral sounding labels attached to the results. Consistent with this reasoning, this article will explore the nature of the ethical and legal foundations of the physician-patient relationship and its most important principle, the doctrine of informed consent. In addition, it will review the constitutional legitimacy of the relationship, the duties imposed upon it, which rights, if any, flow to the mother and the fetus, and how these principles interact with the physician\u27s role in so-called maternal-fetal conflicts. The ultimate question is whether the state can formulate a compelling interest in overruling the autonomy of the individual patient, in this case, a pregnant woman. The entire area of reproductive technology, prenatal care, and the approach to the fetus is affected by this issue, and this analysis should provide a clearer understanding of the physician\u27s medical and legal role in such controversies

Gate-error analysis in simulations of quantum computers with transmon qubits

In the model of gate-based quantum computation, the qubits are controlled by a sequence of quantum gates. In superconducting qubit systems, these gates can be implemented by voltage pulses. The success of implementing a particular gate can be expressed by various metrics such as the average gate fidelity, the diamond distance, and the unitarity. We analyze these metrics of gate pulses for a system of two superconducting transmon qubits coupled by a resonator, a system inspired by the architecture of the IBM Quantum Experience. The metrics are obtained by numerical solution of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation of the transmon system. We find that the metrics reflect systematic errors that are most pronounced for echoed cross-resonance gates, but that none of the studied metrics can reliably predict the performance of a gate when used repeatedly in a quantum algorithm

Benchmarking gate-based quantum computers

With the advent of public access to small gate-based quantum processors, it becomes necessary to develop a benchmarking methodology such that independent researchers can validate the operation of these processors. We explore the usefulness of a number of simple quantum circuits as benchmarks for gate-based quantum computing devices and show that circuits performing identity operations are very simple, scalable and sensitive to gate errors and are therefore very well suited for this task. We illustrate the procedure by presenting benchmark results for the IBM Quantum Experience, a cloud-based platform for gate-based quantum computing.Comment: Accepted for publication in Computer Physics Communication

Practicing Invisibility: Women’s Roles in Higher Education

In this article, two female academics confront their role in producing their own invisibility and ir-relevance in the practice of higher education. Drawing on feminist standpoint theory, the authors interrogate their participation in articulation work that helped male colleagues to assume roles of higher status. Based on an analysis of personal narratives and the text of an international e-mail exchange that resulted in a successful grant proposal, the authors argue that the hierarchical and patriarchal cultural history of the academy as well as the intrusion of gendered relations from contexts beyond the institution of higher education undermine the democratic intentions of aca-demics, both male and female, who espouse horizontal collaborative relations between academics. This case study illustrates the contradiction between egalitarian institutional rhetoric and value systems of individuals and the hierarchical and gendered power relations that play out in everyday life in the academy. The authors conclude that while both male and female academics must work to change the gendered text of higher education, women in the academy must build both critical mass and mentoring networks in consciously acting to change the institution’s cultural history

Are we missing character in strengths-based approaches to coaching and therapy for autistic people?

The move toward a social model of disability in autism has generated more interest in “strengths-based” approaches in research and practice. Definitions of what constitutes as strengths vary, often conflating skills, talents, or interests that can be harnessed for functional purposes, such as boosting employment outcomes. While such strengths-based approaches have merits, we highlight that the limited focus on skills and talents may not be inclusive of all autistic individuals, and harnessing focused interests for functional outcomes may run the risk of turning everything an autistic individual enjoys into a therapeutic opportunity to reinforce behavior change. We propose that Character Strengths, stemming from Positive Psychology, (1) offer a shared language paradigm when communicating strengths across different stakeholder groups; (2) distinguish between an individual’s intrinsic values that motivate them to ac, and extrinsic motivations that may be more akin to social camouflaging and masking; and (3) provide a systematic way to identify and explore strengths profile within every individual. In this perspective piece, we first describe Character Strengths and the research to date in its application with autistic adults. We describe Character Strengths use in autism coaching and share practical interventions aimed at supporting autistic well-being and mental health. Finally, we propose how Character Strengths work may complement mental health treatment through reflecting on one’s personhood through strengths use, when woven into routine assessment, treatment formulation and delivery, and potential mechanisms of change

Pre-service Teachers’ Appropriation of Conceptual Tools

Teachers and teacher educators in the US struggle with conflicting needs. They must thinkcritically and adaptively in response to the rapidly changing demographics of their students andadjust to a policy climate that emphasizes standardization, measurement, and disregard forteachers as professionals. Embattled pre-service teacher education programs in institutions ofhigher education have traditionally sought to develop teacher candidates’ knowledge, skills, anddispositions. The authors argue that in the current climate pre-service teachers also mustappropriate conceptual frameworks to support their development as responsive professionals.While dispositions are beliefs and attitudes the origin and teaching of which remain in dispute,concepts like social justice, political-economic equity, and formative assessment are abstract ideasor concepts that inform practice. Conceptual tools, i.e., concepts, theories, and frameworks, guidenovice teachers in making decisions in response to the growing and rapidly changing studentpopulations they will teach as well as the policy contexts that constrain their teaching practice.The appropriation of conceptual tools contributes to development of vision and adaptive expertiserequired by responsive teacher professionals.Using an activity theory framework developed by Wartofsky (1973/1979) that draws in particularon the classification of artifacts, or tools, this article frames and critically examines teachers’need for conceptual tools, the appropriation of those tools, and a mixed methods study of thatappropriation. The study demonstrates that teacher candidates do appropriate conceptual tools,but that measurement of that process, though desirable in the current policy context, requires thedevelopment of a systematic and replicable methodology

Massively parallel quantum computer simulator, eleven years later

A revised version of the massively parallel simulator of a universal quantum computer, described in this journal eleven years ago, is used to benchmark various gate-based quantum algorithms on some of the most powerful supercomputers that exist today. Adaptive encoding of the wave function reduces the memory requirement by a factor of eight, making it possible to simulate universal quantum computers with up to 48 qubits on the Sunway TaihuLight and on the K computer. The simulator exhibits close-to-ideal weak-scaling behavior on the Sunway TaihuLight,on the K computer, on an IBM Blue Gene/Q, and on Intel Xeon based clusters, implying that the combination of parallelization and hardware can track the exponential scaling due to the increasing number of qubits. Results of executing simple quantum circuits and Shor's factorization algorithm on quantum computers containing up to 48 qubits are presented.Comment: Substantially rewritten + new data. Published in Computer Physics Communicatio

How Strong Is the Primary Care Safety Net? Assessing the Ability of Federally Qualified Health Centers to Serve as Patient-Centered Medical Homes

By expanding access to affordable insurance coverage for millions of Americans, the Affordable Care Act will likely increase demand for the services provided by federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), which provide an important source of care in low-income communities. A pair of Commonwealth Fund surveys asked health center leaders about their ability to function as medical homes. Survey findings show that between 2009 and 2013, the percentage of centers exhibiting medium or high levels of medical home capability almost doubled, from 32 percent to 62 percent. The greatest improvement was reported in patient tracking and care management. Despite this increased capability, health centers reported diminished ability to coordinate care with providers outside of the practice, particularly specialists. Ongoing federal funding and technical support for medical home transformation will be needed to ensure that FQHCs can fulfill their mission of providing high-quality, comprehensive care to low-income and minority populations