Lyme Disease Prevention

This project focused on Lyme Disease prevention, specifically for cub scouts from 5-10 years of age and their families.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1452/thumbnail.jp

10 simple rules to create a serious game, illustrated with examples from structural biology

Serious scientific games are games whose purpose is not only fun. In the field of science, the serious goals include crucial activities for scientists: outreach, teaching and research. The number of serious games is increasing rapidly, in particular citizen science games, games that allow people to produce and/or analyze scientific data. Interestingly, it is possible to build a set of rules providing a guideline to create or improve serious games. We present arguments gathered from our own experience ( Phylo , DocMolecules , HiRE-RNA contest and Pangu) as well as examples from the growing literature on scientific serious games

Observational Evidence of For-Profit Delivery and Inferior Nursing Home Care: When Is There Enough Evidence for Policy Change?

This research was financially supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

Balanced Shh signaling is required for proper formation and maintenance of dorsal telencephalic midline structures

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The rostral telencephalic dorsal midline is an organizing center critical for the formation of the future cortex and hippocampus. While the intersection of WNTs, BMPs, and FGFs establishes boundaries within this critical center, a direct role of Shh signaling in this region remains controversial. In this paper we show that both increased and decreased Shh signaling directly affects boundary formation within the telencephalic dorsal midline.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Viral over-expression of Shh in the embryonic telencephalon prevents formation of the cortical hem and choroid plexus, while expanding the roof plate. In a transgenic model where cholesterol-lacking ShhN is expressed from one allele (<it>ShhN/+</it>), genes expressed in all three domains, cortical hem, choroid plexus and roof plate expand. In <it>Gli1/2 -/- </it>mutant brains, where Shh signaling is reduced, the roof plate expands, again at the expense of cortical hem and plexus. Cell autonomous activation of Shh signaling in the dorsal midline through Gdf7-driven activated Smoothened expression results in expansion of the <it>Wnt3a</it>-expressing cortical hem into the plexus domain. In addition, developmental stage determines dorsal midline responsiveness to Shh.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Together, these data demonstrate that balanced Shh signaling is critical for maintaining regional boundaries within the dorsal midline telencephalic organizing center.</p

''With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility'': Democracy, the Secretary of State for Health and Blame Shifting Within the English National Health Service

The English National Health Service (NHS) has suffered from a democratic deficit since its inception. Democratic accountability was to be through ministers to Parliament, but ministerial control over and responsibility for the NHS were regarded as myths. Reorganizations and management and market reforms, in the neoliberal era, have centralized power within the NHS. However, successive governments have sought to reduce their responsibility for health care through institutional depoliticization, to shift blame, facilitated through legal changes. New Labour’s creation of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) and Monitor were somewhat successful in reducing ministerial culpability regarding health technology regulation and foundation trusts, respectively. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition created NHS England to reduce ministerial culpability for health care more generally. This is pertinent as the NHS is currently being undermined by inadequate funding and privatization. However, the public has not shifted from blaming the government to blaming NHS England. This indicates limits to the capacity of law to legitimize changes to social relations. While market reforms were justified on the basis of empowering patients, I argue that addressing the democratic deficit is a preferable means of achieving this goal

Racism as a determinant of health: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Despite a growing body of epidemiological evidence in recent years documenting the health impacts of racism, the cumulative evidence base has yet to be synthesized in a comprehensive meta-analysis focused specifically on racism as a determinant of health. This meta-analysis reviewed the literature focusing on the relationship between reported racism and mental and physical health outcomes. Data from 293 studies reported in 333 articles published between 1983 and 2013, and conducted predominately in the U.S., were analysed using random effects models and mean weighted effect sizes. Racism was associated with poorer mental health (negative mental health: r = -.23, 95% CI [-.24,-.21], k = 227; positive mental health: r = -.13, 95% CI [-.16,-.10], k = 113), including depression, anxiety, psychological stress and various other outcomes. Racism was also associated with poorer general health (r = -.13 (95% CI [-.18,-.09], k = 30), and poorer physical health (r = -.09, 95% CI [-.12,-.06], k = 50). Moderation effects were found for some outcomes with regard to study and exposure characteristics. Effect sizes of racism on mental health were stronger in cross-sectional compared with longitudinal data and in non-representative samples compared with representative samples. Age, sex, birthplace and education level did not moderate the effects of racism on health. Ethnicity significantly moderated the effect of racism on negative mental health and physical health: the association between racism and negative mental health was significantly stronger for Asian American and Latino(a) American participants compared with African American participants, and the association between racism and physical health was significantly stronger for Latino(a) American participants compared with African American participants.<br /

What matters more for South African households’ debt repayment difficulties?

While the increased access to consumer credit has helped many families improve their welfare, the rising repayment burdens upon a background of chronically law savings rate have generated concerns that South African families are becoming ever more financially fragile and less able to meet their consumer debt repayment obligations. Using data from the Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS), this paper investigates whether consumer debt repayment problems are better explained by excessive spending which leaves households financial overstretched or by negative income shocks. The results indicate that households are significantly more likely to be delinquent on their financial obligations when they suffer negative events beyond their control rather than due to the size of the expenditure burden. This suggests that some consumers will experience repayment problems even when they borrow within their means. Thus regulatory efforts to improve mechanisms for debt relief might be more meaningful than restrictions on lending