To facilitate safety-net healthcare system partnerships with community social service providers, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (LAC DHS) created a new collaboration team to ...spur cross-agency social and medical referral networks and engage communities affected by health disparities as part of a Sect. 1115 Medicaid waiver in Los Angeles County entitled Whole Person Care-Los Angeles (WPC-LA).
This observational research reviews three years of collaboration team implementation (2018-2020) through Medicaid-reportable engagement reports, a collaboration team qualitative survey on challenges, facilitators, and recommendations for community engagement. Member reflections for survey findings were conducted with the collaboration team and LAC DHS WPC-LA leadership.
Collaboration team Medicaid engagement reports (n = 144) reported > 2,700 events, reaching > 70,000 individuals through cross-agency and community-partnered meetings. The collaboration team survey (n = 9) and member reflection sessions portrayed engagement processes through outreach, service assessments, and facilitation of service partnerships. The collaboration team facilitated community engagement processes through countywide workgroups on justice-system diversion and African American infant and maternal health. Recommendations for future safety net health system engagement processes included assessing health system readiness for community engagement and identifying strategies to build mutually beneficial social service partnerships.
A dedicated collaboration team allowed for bi-directional knowledge exchange between county services, populations with lived experience, and social services, identifying service gaps and recommendations. Engagement with communities affected by health disparities resulted in health system policy recommendations and changes.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Prevention or disease‐modifying therapies are critical for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and Huntington's ...disease. However, no such intervention is currently available. Growing evidence has demonstrated that administration of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors ameliorates a wide range of neurologic and psychiatric disorders in experimental models. Suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA) was the first HDAC inhibitor approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the sole use of cancer therapy. The purpose of this study was to explore the potential new indications of SAHA for therapy of neurodegenerative diseases in in vitro Parkinson's disease models.
EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH Mesencephalic neuron–glia cultures and reconstituted cultures were used to investigate neurotrophic and neuroprotective effects of SAHA. We measured toxicity in dopaminergic neurons, using dopamine uptake assay and morphological analysis and expression of neurotrophic substances by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay and real‐time RT PCR.
KEY RESULTS In mesencephalic neuron–glia cultures, SAHA displayed dose‐ and time‐dependent prolongation of the survival and protection against neurotoxin‐induced neuronal death of dopaminergic neurons. Mechanistic studies revealed that the neuroprotective effects of SAHA were mediated in part by promoting release of neurotrophic factors from astroglia through inhibition of histone deacetylation.
CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS The novel neurotrophic and neuroprotective effects of SAHA demonstrated in this study suggest that further study of this HDAC inhibitor could provide a new therapeutic approach to the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
Background
Allergic asthma is a chronic airway inflammatory disease involving the complementary actions of innate and adaptive immune responses. Endogenously generated cannabinoids acting via CB2 ...receptors play important roles in both homeostatic and inflammatory processes. However, the contribution of CB2‐acting eicosanoids to the innate events preceding sensitization to the common house dust mite (HDM) allergen remains to be elucidated. We investigated the role of CB2 activation during allergen‐induced pulmonary inflammation and natural killer (NK) cell effector function.
Methods
Lung mucosal responses in CB2‐deficient (CB2−/−) mice were examined and compared with wild‐type (WT) littermates following intranasal exposure to HDM allergen.
Results
Mice lacking CB2 receptors exhibited elevated numbers of pulmonary NK cells yet were resistant to the induction of allergic inflammation exemplified by diminished airway eosinophilia, type 2 cytokine production and mucus secretion after allergen inhalation. This phenomenon was corroborated when WT mice were treated with a CB2‐specific antagonist that caused a pronounced inhibition of HDM‐induced airway inflammation and goblet cell hyperplasia. Unexpectedly, the preponderance of NK cells in the lungs of CB2−/− mice correlated with reduced numbers of group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s). Depletion of NK cells restored the allergen responsiveness in the lungs and was associated with elevated ILC2 numbers.
Conclusions
Collectively, these results reveal that CB2 activation is crucial in regulating pulmonary NK cell function, and suggest that NK cells serve to limit ILC2 activation and subsequent allergic airway inflammation. CB2 inhibition may present an important target to modulate NK cell response during pulmonary inflammation.
Let
k
be an integer with
k
≥
2
. Let
R
be a finite commutative ring with zero element
0
R
and identity element
1
R
≠
0
R
and let
R
∗
be the multiplicative group of units of
R
. Let
f
(
x
)
∈
R
x
be ...a non-constant polynomial. An element
u
∈
R
is called an
f
-unit if
f
(
u
)
∈
R
∗
. An
f
-unit is called an exceptional unit when
f
(
x
)
=
x
(
1
R
-
x
)
. In this paper, we obtain an exact formula for the number of representations of any element of
R
as the sum of
k
f
-units of
R
. Furthermore, by using the technique of exponential sums, we deduce a more explicit formula for the case when
f(x)
is linear or quadratic. Our results generalize Miguel's theorem from exceptional unit to general
f
-unit and the Zhao–Hong–Zhu theorem from the ring of residue classes to the general finite commutative ring.
Climate warming directly affects insect disturbance regimes by altering temperature‐dependent population development. Indirect effects of climate change on insect disturbance may mediate or ...accelerate direct effects via vegetation feedback (e.g. host tree demographic dynamics). However, such indirect effects have rarely been incorporated in predicting insect disturbance regimes.
We included both direct and indirect effects in a forest landscape modelling framework to simulate red oak borer ROB, Enaphalodes rufulus (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) disturbance regimes under a warming climate from 2000 to 2150 in the Central Hardwood Forests, U.S. We quantified effect sizes and relative importance of direct effects and indirect effects of warming climate on the ROB disturbance using a factorial experimental design and two‐way ANOVA.
Both direct and indirect effects acted positively in the short and medium term (e.g. 0–100 years) while the effect size of indirect effects changed over time from positive (+30.9 kha) to negative (−17.3 kha) and mediated the positive direct effects in the long term (e.g. 100–150 years).
Direct effects had greater influence than indirect effects on ROB disturbed areas in the short term (e.g. <50 years), whereas indirect effects were more important (ω2 = 0.38 vs. 0.26) in the long term. This was because the host tree abundance significantly declined over time under warming climates, which decreased the forest susceptibility to ROB and thus overrode the outbreak‐promoting effects of warming climates in the long term.
Synthesis and applications. This study reveals indirect effects of warming climates mediate direct effects on insect disturbance regimes by altering primary host tree demographic dynamics. We highlight that indirect effects are important in understanding insect disturbance regimes under warming climates as they may mediate or even reverse the expectation of increased insect disturbance. Long‐term predictions of insect disturbance without considering indirect effects may overestimate its impacts under warming climates. Our findings also indicate that different management interventions are required at different time‐scales to maintain oak forests' health and sustainability in the U.S. central temperate broadleaf forests.
This study reveals indirect effects of warming climates mediate direct effects on insect disturbance regimes by altering primary host tree demographic dynamics. We highlight that indirect effects are important in understanding insect disturbance regimes under warming climates as they may mediate or even reverse the expectation of increased insect disturbance. Long‐term predictions of insect disturbance without considering indirect effects may overestimate its impacts under warming climates. Our findings also indicate that different management interventions are required at different time‐scales to maintain oak forests' health and sustainability in the U.S. central temperate broadleaf forests.
Since November 2021, gradual changes in non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) had begun in consideration of the socio-economic cost and the high rate of COVID-19 vaccination. As an effort to monitor ...the COVID-19 situation and the effect of NPIs, regular risk assessment for COVID-19 has been conducted based on the input from the external advisory committee. This paper examines the correlation between the risk assessment results and other indicators, such as the incidence of COVID-19, public perception, community mobility, and the government policy from November 2021 to May 2022.
For weekly regular risk assessment of COVID-19, the data were collected from the National Infectious Disease Surveillance System website, which included incidence, mortality, and % of severe cases. Other indicators were from regular surveys on perceived risk among the public, community mobility from the Google website, and the government's response policy from The Oxford Stringency Index. The level of risk was classified into five levels from very low to very high. The level of COVID-19 risk and its correlation with the COVID-19 incidence, risk perception, community mobility, and government policy were examined.
The result of the correlation analysis showed the highest positive correlation between the risk level and risk perception (r=0.86, CI 0.72-0.94). This indicates that the actual risk level and the risk perceived by the public are similar. Among the incidence-related indicators, the number of new severe cases of COVID-19 per week showed the highest correlation with the risk level (r=0.62, CI 0.33-0.80).
The high correlation between the weekly severe cases and the overall COVID-19 risk level suggests that Korea's COVID-19 policy priority was mainly at protecting the high-risk population
The initial moisture content, cultivation time, inoculum size and concentration of basal medium were optimized in solid state fermentation (SSF) for the production of xylanase by an Aspergillus niger ...mutant using statistical experimental designs. The cultivation time and concentration of basal medium were the most important factors affecting xylanase activity. An inoculum size of 5x10(5) spores/g, initial moisture content of 65%, cultivation time of 5 days and 10 times concentration of basal medium containing 50 times concentration of corn steep liquor were optimum for xylanase production in SSF. Under the optimized conditions, the activity and productivity of xylanase obtained after 5 days of fermentation were 5,071 IU/g of rice straw and 14,790 IU l(-1) h(-1), respectively. The xylanase activity predicted by a polynomial model was 5,484 IU/g of rice straw.
The metastasis-invasion cascade describes the series of steps required for a cancer cell to successfully spread from its primary tumor and ultimately grow within a secondary organ. Despite metastasis ...being a dynamic, multistep process, most omics studies to date have focused on comparing primary tumors to the metastatic deposits that define end-stage disease. This static approach means we lack information about the genomic and epigenomic changes that occur during the majority of tumor progression. One particularly understudied phase of tumor progression is metastatic colonization, during which cells must adapt to the new microenvironment of the secondary organ. Through temporal profiling of chromatin accessibility and gene expression in vivo, we identify dynamic changes in the epigenome that occur as osteosarcoma tumors form and grow within the lung microenvironment. Furthermore, we show through paired in vivo and in vitro CRISPR drop-out screens and pharmacological validation that the upstream transcription factors represent a class of metastasis-specific dependency genes. While current models depict lung colonization as a discrete step within the metastatic cascade, our study shows it is a defined trajectory through multiple epigenetic states, revealing new therapeutic opportunities undetectable with standard approaches.
Fire suppression allows tree species that are intolerant of fire stress to increase their distribution, potentially resulting in disruption of historical species-environmental relationships. To ...measure changes between historical General Land Office surveys (1815 to 1850) and current USDA Forest Inventory and Assessment surveys (2004 to 2008), we compared composition, distribution, and site factors of 21 tree species or species groups in the Missouri Ozarks. We used 24 environmental variables and random forests as a classification method to model distributions. Eastern redcedar, elms, maples, and other fire-sensitive species have increased in dominance in oak forests, with concurrent reductions by oak species; specific changes varied by ecological subsection. Ordinations displayed loss of separation between formerly distinctive oak and fire-sensitive tree species groups. Distribution maps showed decreased presence of disturbance-dependent oak and pine species and increased presence of fire-sensitive species that generally expanded from subsections protected from fire along rivers to upland areas, except for eastern redcedar, which expanded into these subsections. Large scale differences in spatial gradients between past and present communities paralleled reduced influence of local topographic gradients in the varied relief of the Missouri Ozarks, as fire-sensitive species have moved to higher, drier, and sunnier sites away from riverine corridors. Due to changes in land use, landscapes in the Missouri Ozarks, eastern United States, and world-wide are changing from open oak and pine-dominated ecosystems to novel oak-mixed species forests, although at fine scales, forests are becoming more diverse in tree species today. Fire suppression weakened the influence by environmental gradients over species dominance, allowing succession from disturbance-dependent oaks to an alternative state of fire-sensitive species. Current and future research and conservation that rely on historical relationships and ecological principles based on disturbance across the landscape will need to incorporate modern interactions among species for resources into management plans and projections.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK