Online interaction and "real information flow": Contrasts between talking about interdisciplinarity and achieving interdisciplinary collaboration

In this article we study how members of an interdisciplinary research team use an online forum for communicating about their research project. We use the concepts of “community of practice” and “connectivity” to consider the online interaction within a wider question of how people from different academic traditions “do” interdisciplinarity. The online forum for this Grey and Pleasant Land project did not take off as hoped, even after a series of interventions and amendments, and we consider what the barriers were and how they might be overcome. Barriers to involvement included participants’ expectations of interaction and collaboration--expectation that real interaction happens elsewhere, tensions between academic discourse and forum talk norms, unfamiliarity with the technology, and different conceptions of appropriate academic discussion. We suggest that common academic practice does not prepare us well for creating interdisciplinary research communities through online collaboration tools, whereas such tools are our best bet currently for including geographically dispersed members in collaborative projects. Therefore, careful planning and competence building would be necessary if such tools are to be used in collaborative research. Suggested interventions, based on our experience, include providing a more focused forum, making technical support easily available, and setting up particular tasks or items to debate, within a preset, synchronous timeframe, focusing on issues relevant to the project at that time

Neonatal Seizures and Associated Neurobehavioral Profiles in Preschool Age Children

BackgroundNeonatal seizures are common with acute brain injury. Up to 25% of survivors develop postneonatal epilepsy. We hypothesized postneonatal epilepsy diagnosed by age 24 months would increase risk for early markers of neurobehavioral disorders than acute provoked neonatal seizures alone.MethodsNeonates with acute provoked seizures born from July 2015 to March 2018 were enrolled at nine Neonatal Seizure Registry sites. Composite scores from parent-completed standardized ratings assessed Adaptive, Social, Externalizing, Internalizing, Self-Regulation, and Sensory Seeking domains. Linear regression demonstrated relationships between composite scores for children who developed postneonatal epilepsy compared with those who did not. Results were adjusted for seizure etiology, sex, gestational age, and cerebral palsy (CP) severity.ResultsA total of 151 children (n = 20, 13% with postneonatal epilepsy), 4.1 years median age, participated. Children with epilepsy had impaired adaptive (Cohen d = 1.62, P < 0.0001), social (Cohen d = 0.86, P = 0.004), and executive functioning (Cohen d = 0.56, P = 0.06) compared with children without epilepsy. Mean scores for children without epilepsy were within average range. Risk for impairment among children with epilepsy persisted after adjusting for neonatal seizure etiology, sex, and gestational age, but not when adjusting for CP severity.ConclusionsThere was higher incidence of adverse neurobehavioral outcomes among preschool children diagnosed with postneonatal epilepsy compared with those without epilepsy. CP severity was associated with greater impairment; results also suggest that epilepsy is an independent predictor of adaptive functioning. Children with postneonatal epilepsy should be screened for neurobehavioral problems to facilitate early identification and developmental support

Validity of Recall of Tobacco Use in Two Prospective Cohorts

This project studied the convergent validity of current recall of tobacco-related health behaviors, compared with prospective self-report collected earlier at two sites. Cohorts were from the Oregon Research Institute at Eugene (N = 346, collected 19.5 years earlier) and the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (N = 294, collected 3.9 years earlier). Current recall was examined through computer-assisted interviews with the Lifetime Tobacco Use Questionnaire from 2005 through 2008. Convergent validity estimates demonstrated variability. Validity estimates of some tobacco use measures were significant for Oregon subjects (age at first cigarette, number of cigarettes/day, quit attempts yes/no and number of attempts, and abstinence symptoms at quitting; all P < 0.03). Validity estimates of Pittsburgh subjects’ self-reports of tobacco use and abstinence symptoms were significant (P < 0.001) for all tobacco use and abstinence symptoms and for responses to initial use of tobacco. These findings support the utility of collecting recalled self-report information for reconstructing salient lifetime health behaviors and underscore the need for careful interpretation

Early Shifts of Brain Metabolism by Caloric Restriction Preserve White Matter Integrity and Long-Term Memory in Aging Mice

Preservation of brain integrity with age is highly associated with lifespan determination. Caloric restriction (CR) has been shown to increase longevity and healthspan in various species; however, its effects on preserving living brain functions in aging remain largely unexplored. In the study, we used multimodal, non-invasive neuroimaging (PET/MRI/MRS) to determine in vivo brain glucose metabolism, energy metabolites, and white matter structural integrity in young and old mice fed with either control or 40% CR diet. In addition, we determined the animals’ memory and learning ability with behavioral assessments. Blood glucose, blood ketone bodies, and body weight were also measured. We found distinct patterns between normal aging and CR aging on brain functions – normal aging showed reductions in brain glucose metabolism, white matter integrity, and long-term memory, resembling human brain aging. CR aging, in contrast, displayed an early shift from glucose to ketone bodies metabolism, which was associated with preservations of brain energy production, white matter integrity, and long-term memory in aging mice. Among all the mice, we found a positive correlation between blood glucose level and body weight, but an inverse association between blood glucose level and lifespan. Our findings suggest that CR could slow down brain aging, in part due to the early shift of energy metabolism caused by lower caloric intake, and we were able to identify the age-dependent effects of CR non-invasively using neuroimaging. These results provide a rationale for CR-induced sustenance of brain health with extended longevity

A Potassium-Based Quality-of-Service Metric Reduces Phlebotomy Errors, Resulting in Improved Patient Safety and Decreased Cost

Abstract Objectives Poor phlebotomy technique can introduce pseudohyperkalemia without hemolysis, requiring additional workup and placing a significant burden on patients, clinical teams, and laboratories. Such preanalytical biases can be detected through systematic evaluation of potassium concentrations on a per-phlebotomist basis. We report our long-term experience with a potassium-based quality-of-service phlebotomy metric and its effects on resource utilization. Methods Potassium monitoring and retraining of 26 full-time phlebotomists were piloted as a quality-of-service intervention. Changes in potassium concentrations and impact on resource utilization were assessed. An algorithm for data monitoring and phlebotomist feedback was developed, followed by institution-wide implementation. Results Systematic intervention and retraining normalized K+ concentrations and lowered the percentage of venipunctures with K+ above 5.2 mmol/L, leading to a marked increase in phlebotomist compliance. This change resulted in resources savings of 13% to 100% for individual phlebotomists, reducing the total extra laboratory time required for repeat phlebotomies to determine hyperkalemia, mostly in the high-volume phlebotomist group. Conclusions A quality-of-service algorithm that involved monitoring potassium concentrations on a per-phlebotomist basis with feedback and retraining contributed to a concrete, data-based quality improvement plan. The institution-wide implementation of this metric allowed for significant cost savings and a reduction in critical value alerts, directly affecting the quality of patient care. </jats:sec

The murine gammaherpesvirus-68 gp150 acts as an immunogenic decoy to limit virion neutralization.

Herpesviruses maintain long-term infectivity without marked antigenic variation. They must therefore evade neutralization by other means. Immune sera block murine gammaherpesvirus-68 (MHV-68) infection of fibroblasts, but fail to block and even enhance its infection of IgG Fc receptor-bearing cells, suggesting that the antibody response to infection is actually poor at ablating virion infectivity completely. Here we analyzed this effect further by quantitating the glycoprotein-specific antibody response of MHV-68 carrier mice. Gp150 was much the commonest glycoprotein target and played a predominant role in driving Fc receptor-dependent infection: when gp150-specific antibodies were boosted, Fc receptor-dependent infection increased; and when gp150-specific antibodies were removed, Fc receptor-dependent infection was largely lost. Neither gp150-specific monoclonal antibodies nor gp150-specific polyclonal sera gave significant virion neutralization. Gp150 therefore acts as an immunogenic decoy, distorting the MHV-68-specific antibody response to promote Fc receptor-dependent infection and so compromise virion neutralization. This immune evasion mechanism may be common to many non-essential herpesvirus glycoproteins

Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus K5 removes CD31/PECAM from endothelial cells

The transmembrane ubiquitin ligase K5/MIR2 of Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV) mediates internalization and lysosomal degradation of glycoproteins involved in antigen presentation and co-stimulation. In endothelial cells (ECs), K5 additionally reduced expression of CD31/platelet–endothelial cell adhesion molecule (PECAM), an adhesion molecule regulating cell-cell interactions of ECs, platelets, monocytes, and T cells. K5 also reduced EC migration, a CD31-dependent process. Unlike other K5 substrates, both newly synthesized and pre-existing CD31 molecules were targeted by K5. K5 was transported to the cell surface and ubiquitinated pre-existing CD31, resulting in endocytosis and lysosomal degradation. In the endoplasmic reticulum, newly synthesized CD31 was degraded by proteasomes, which required binding of phosphofurin acidic cluster sorting protein-2 (PACS-2) to acidic residues in the carboxyterminal tail of K5. Thus, CD31, a novel target of K5, is efficiently removed from ECs by a dual degradation mechanism that is regulated by the subcellular sorting of the ubiquitin ligase. K5-mediated degradation of CD31 is likely to affect EC function in KS tumors

Neonatal Seizures and Associated Neurobehavioral Profiles in Preschool Age Children.

BACKGROUND: Neonatal seizures are common with acute brain injury. Up to 25% of survivors develop postneonatal epilepsy. We hypothesized postneonatal epilepsy diagnosed by age 24 months would increase risk for early markers of neurobehavioral disorders than acute provoked neonatal seizures alone. METHODS: Neonates with acute provoked seizures born from July 2015 to March 2018 were enrolled at nine Neonatal Seizure Registry sites. Composite scores from parent-completed standardized ratings assessed Adaptive, Social, Externalizing, Internalizing, Self-Regulation, and Sensory Seeking domains. Linear regression demonstrated relationships between composite scores for children who developed postneonatal epilepsy compared with those who did not. Results were adjusted for seizure etiology, sex, gestational age, and cerebral palsy (CP) severity. RESULTS: A total of 151 children (n = 20, 13% with postneonatal epilepsy), 4.1 years median age, participated. Children with epilepsy had impaired adaptive (Cohen d = 1.62, P \u3c 0.0001), social (Cohen d = 0.86, P = 0.004), and executive functioning (Cohen d = 0.56, P = 0.06) compared with children without epilepsy. Mean scores for children without epilepsy were within average range. Risk for impairment among children with epilepsy persisted after adjusting for neonatal seizure etiology, sex, and gestational age, but not when adjusting for CP severity. CONCLUSIONS: There was higher incidence of adverse neurobehavioral outcomes among preschool children diagnosed with postneonatal epilepsy compared with those without epilepsy. CP severity was associated with greater impairment; results also suggest that epilepsy is an independent predictor of adaptive functioning. Children with postneonatal epilepsy should be screened for neurobehavioral problems to facilitate early identification and developmental support