Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) minimizes recall burden and maximizes ecological validity and has emerged as a valuable tool to characterize individual differences, assess contextual ...associations, and document temporal associations. However, EMA has yet to be reliably utilized in young children, in part due to concerns about responder reliability and limited compliance. The present study addressed these concerns by building a developmentally appropriate EMA smartphone app and testing the app for feasibility and usability with young children ages 4-10 (N = 20; m age = 7.7, SD = 2.0). To pilot test the app, children completed an 11-item survey about their mood and behavior twice a day for 14 days. Parents also completed brief surveys twice a day to allow for parent-child comparisons of responses. Finally, at the end of the two weeks, parents provided user feedback on the smartphone app. Overall, findings suggest that this developmentally appropriate EMA smartphone app is a reliable and valid tool for collecting in-the-moment data from young children outside of a laboratory setting.
Cancer patients with newly created ostomies face complications that reduce quality of life (QOL) and increase morbidity and mortality. This proof-of-concept study examined the feasibility, usability, ...acceptability, and initial efficacy of an eHealth program titled the "Patient Reported Outcomes-Informed Symptom Management System" (PRISMS) during post-ostomy creation care transition.
We conducted a 2-arm pilot randomized controlled trial among 23 patients who received surgical treatment with curative intent for bladder and colorectal cancer and their caregivers. After assessing QOL, general symptoms, and caregiver burden at baseline, participants were randomly assigned to PRISMS (n = 16 dyads) or usual care (UC) (n = 7 dyads). After a 60-day intervention period, participants completed a follow-up survey and post-exit interview. We used descriptive statistics and t-tests to analyze the data.
We achieved an 86.21% recruitment rate and a 73.91% retention rate. Among the PRISMS participants who used the system and biometric devices (n = 14, 87.50%), 46.43% used the devices for ≥ 50 days during the study period. Participants reported PRISMS as useful and acceptable. Compared to their UC counterparts, PRISMS patient social well-being scores decreased over time and had an increased trend of physical and emotional well-being; PRISMS caregivers experienced a greater decrease in caregiver burden.
PRISMS recruitment and retention rates were comparable to existing family-based intervention studies. PRISMS is a useful and acceptable multilevel intervention with the potential to improve the health outcomes of cancer patients needing ostomy care and their caregivers during post-surgery care transition. A sufficiently powered RCT is needed to test its effects.
ClinicalTrial.gov ID: NCT04492007. Registration date: 30/07/2020.
We assessed whether a meaningful set of latent risk profiles could be identified in an inner-city population through individual and network characteristics of substance use, sexual behaviors, and ...mental health status.
Data came from 600 participants in Social Network Study III, conducted in 2009 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. We used latent class analysis (LCA) to identify risk profiles and, with covariates, to identify predictors of class.
A 4-class model of risk profiles fit the data best: (1) solitary users reported polydrug use at the individual level, but low probabilities of substance use or concurrent sexual partners with network members; (2) social-all-substance users reported polydrug use at the individual and network levels; (3) social-noninjection drug users reported less likelihood of injection drug and solvent use; (4) low-risk users reported low probabilities across substances. Unstable housing, preadolescent substance use, age, and hepatitis C status predicted risk profiles.
Incorporation of social network variables into LCA can distinguish important subgroups with varying patterns of risk behaviors that can lead to sexually transmitted and bloodborne infections.
With technological advances, collection of intensive longitudinal data (ILD), such as ecological momentary assessments, becomes more widespread in prevention science. In ILD studies, researchers are ...often interested in the effects of time-varying covariates (TVCs) on a time-varying outcome to discover correlates and triggers of target behaviors (e.g., how momentary changes in affect relate to momentary smoking urges). Traditional analytical methods, however, impose important constraints, assuming a constant effect of the TVC on the outcome. In the current paper, we describe a time-varying effect model (TVEM) and its applications to data collected as part of a smoking-cessation study. Differentiating between groups of short-term successful quitters (
N
= 207) and relapsers (
N
= 40), we examine the effects of momentary negative affect and abstinence self-efficacy on the intensity of smoking urges in each subgroup in the 2 weeks following a quit attempt. Successful quitters demonstrated a rapid reduction in smoking urges over time, a gradual decoupling of the association between negative affect and smoking urges, and a consistently strong negative effect of self-efficacy on smoking urges. In comparison, relapsers exhibited a high level of smoking urges throughout the post-quit period, a time-varying and, generally, weak effect of self-efficacy on smoking urges, and a gradual reduction in the strength of the association between negative affect and smoking urges. Implications of these findings are discussed. The TVEM is made available to applied prevention researchers through a SAS macro.
Assessing canopy nitrogen content (CNC) and canopy carbon content (CCC) of maize by hyperspectral remote sensing data permits estimating cropland productivity, protecting farmland ecology, and ...investigating the nitrogen and carbon cycles in the atmosphere. This study aimed to assess maize CNC and CCC using canopy hyperspectral information and uninformative variable elimination (UVE). Vegetation indices (VIs) and wavelet functions were adopted for estimating CNC and CCC under varying water and nitrogen regimes. Linear, nonlinear, and partial least squares (PLS) regression models were fitted to VIs and wavelet functions to estimate CNC and CCC, and were evaluated for their prediction accuracy. UVE was used to eliminate uninformative variables, improve the prediction accuracy of the models, and simplify the PLS regression models (UVE-PLS). For estimating CNC and CCC, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI, based on red edge and NIR wavebands) yielded the highest correlation coefficients (r > 0.88). PLS regression models showed the lowest root mean square error (RMSE) among all models. However, PLS regression models required nine VIs and four wavelet functions, increasing their complexity. UVE was used to retain valid spectral parameters and optimize the PLS regression models. UVE-PLS regression models improved validation accuracy and resulted in more accurate CNC and CCC than the PLS regression models. Thus, canopy spectral reflectance integrated with UVE-PLS can accurately reflect maize leaf nitrogen and carbon status.
Multivariate normal mixtures provide a flexible model for high-dimensional data. They are widely used in statistical genetics, statistical finance, and other disciplines. Due to the unboundedness of ...the likelihood function, classical likelihood-based methods, which may have nice practical properties, are inconsistent. In this paper, we recommend a penalized likelihood method for estimating the mixing distribution. We show that the maximum penalized likelihood estimator is strongly consistent when the number of components has a known upper bound. We also explore a convenient EM-algorithm for computing the maximum penalized likelihood estimator. Extensive simulations are conducted to explore the effectiveness and the practical limitations of both the new method and the ratified maximum likelihood estimators. Guidelines are provided based on the simulation results.
Exposure to per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) has been associated with significant alterations in female reproductive health. These include changes in menstrual cyclicity, timing of ...menarche and menopause, and fertility outcomes, as well as increased risk of endometriosis, all of which may contribute to an increased risk of endometrial cancer. The effect of PFAS on endometrial cancer cells, specifically altered treatment response and biology, however, remains poorly studied. Like other gynecologic malignancies, a key contributor to lethality in endometrial cancer is resistance to chemotherapeutics, specifically to platinum-based agents that are used as the standard of care for patients with advanced-stage and/or recurrent disease.
To explore the effect of environmental exposures, specifically PFAS, on platinum-based chemotherapy response and mitochondrial function in endometrial cancer.
HEC-1 and Ishikawa endometrial cancer cells were exposed to sub-cytotoxic nanomolar and micromolar concentrations of PFAS/PFAS mixtures and were treated with platinum-based chemotherapy. Survival fraction was measured 48-h post-chemotherapy treatment. Mitochondrial membrane potential was evaluated in both cell lines following exposure to PFAS ± chemotherapy treatment.
HEC-1 and Ishikawa cells displayed differing outcomes after PFAS exposure and chemotherapy treatment. Cells exposed to PFAS appeared to be less sensitive to carboplatin, with instances of increased survival fraction, indicative of platinum resistance, observed in HEC-1 cells. In Ishikawa cells treated with cisplatin, PFAS mixture exposure significantly decreased survival fraction. In both cell lines, increases in mitochondrial membrane potential were observed post-PFAS exposure ± chemotherapy treatment.
Exposure of endometrial cancer cell lines to PFAS/PFAS mixtures had varying effects on response to platinum-based chemotherapies. Increased survival fraction post-PFAS + carboplatin treatment suggests platinum resistance, while decreased survival fraction post-PFAS mixture + cisplatin exposure suggests enhanced therapeutic efficacy. Regardless of chemotherapy sensitivity status, mitochondrial membrane potential findings suggest that PFAS exposure may affect endometrial cancer cell mitochondrial functioning and should be explored further.
Purpose
Patients undergoing a hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) have varied symptoms during their hospitalization. This study examined whether daily symptom reporting (with electronic ...patient-reported outcomes PROs) in an inpatient bone marrow transplant clinic reduced symptom burden on post-transplant days +7, +10, and +14.
Methods
A prospective, single-institution 1:1 pilot randomized, two-arm study recruited HCT patients. HCT inpatients (
N
= 76) reported daily on 16 common symptoms using the PRO version of the Common Terminology for Adverse Events (PRO-CTCAE). Fisher’s exact test was used to examine differences in the proportion of patients reporting individual symptoms. Multivariable linear regression modeling was used to examine group differences in peak symptom burden, while controlling for symptom burden at baseline, age, comorbidity, and transplantation type (autologous or allogeneic).
Results
HCT patients receiving the PRO intervention also experienced lower peak symptom burden (average of 16 symptoms) at days +7, +10, and +14 (10.4 vs 14.5,
p
= 0.03).
Conclusions
Daily use of electronic symptom reporting to nurses in an inpatient bone marrow transplant clinic reduced peak symptom burden and improved individual symptoms during the 2 weeks post-transplant. A multi-site trial is warranted to demonstrate the generalizability, efficacy, and value of this intervention.
Trial registration
ClinicalTrials.gov
identifier: NCT 02574897
STING is an innate immune sensor for immune surveillance of viral/bacterial infection and maintenance of an immune‐friendly microenvironment to prevent tumorigenesis. However, if and how STING exerts ...innate immunity‐independent function remains elusive. Here, the authors report that STING expression is increased in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) patients and governs tumor growth through non‐canonical innate immune signaling involving mitochondrial ROS maintenance and calcium homeostasis. Mitochondrial voltage‐dependent anion channel VDAC2 is identified as a new STING binding partner. STING depletion potentiates VDAC2/GRP75‐mediated MERC (mitochondria‐ER contact) formation to increase mitochondrial ROS/calcium levels, impairs mitochondria function, and suppresses mTORC1/S6K signaling leading to RCC growth retardation. STING interaction with VDAC2 occurs through STING‐C88/C91 palmitoylation and inhibiting STING palmitoyl‐transferases ZDHHCs by 2‐BP significantly impedes RCC cell growth alone or in combination with sorafenib. Together, these studies reveal an innate immunity‐independent function of STING in regulating mitochondrial function and growth in RCC, providing a rationale to target the STING/VDAC2 interaction in treating RCC.
STING is a canonical innate immune sensor triggering type‐I interferon production. Here, an innate immunity‐independent STING function in governing renal cancer cell (RCC) proliferation is reported through regulating mitochondria calcium homeostasis by binding mitochondrial calcium transporter VDAC2, as well as its therapeutic potential in treating RCC.
Background: Aging leads to structural and functional changes in the vasculature characterized by arterial endothelial dysfunction and stiffening of large elastic arteries and is a predominant risk ...factor for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in modern societies. Although exercise reduces the risk of many age-related diseases, including cardiovascular disease, the mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of exercise on age-related endothelial function fully elucidated. Purpose: The present study explored the effects of exercise on the impaired endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor (EDHF)–mediated vasodilation in aged arteries and on the involvement of the transient receptor potential vanilloid 4 (TRPV4) channel and the small-conductance calcium-activated potassium (KCa2.3) channel signaling in this process. Methods: Male Sprague-Dawley rats aged 19–21 months were randomly assigned to a sedentary group or to an exercise group. Two-month-old rats were used as young controls. Results: We found that TRPV4 and KCa2.3 isolated from primary cultured rat aortic endothelial cells pulled each other down in co-immunoprecipitation assays, indicating that the two channels could physically interact. Using ex vivo functional arterial tension assays, we found that EDHF-mediated relaxation induced by acetylcholine or by the TRPV4 activator GSK1016790A was markedly decreased in aged rats compared with that in young rats and was significantly inhibited by TRPV4 or KCa2.3 blockers in both young and aged rats. However, exercise restored both the age-related and the TRPV4-mediated and KCa2.3-mediated EDHF responses. Conclusion: These results suggest an important role for the TRPV4-KCa2.3 signaling undergirding the beneficial effect of exercise to ameliorate age-related arterial dysfunction.
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