Culture

Women tend to have a greater immune response to a flu vaccination compared to men, but their advantage largely disappears as they age and their estrogen levels decline, suggests a study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The researchers, whose study appears July 12 in the journal npj Vaccines, evaluated responses to the flu vaccine in 50 adults age 18-45 years and 95 adults age 65 and older, and found that the women in the younger group had a stronger immune response compared to the older women and all men. Experiments in mice yielded similar results, and suggested that estrogen--levels of which lessen with age in females--boosts females' immune responses to flu vaccines, while testosterone lowers males' responses. The scientists expect that their results will be generalizable to other vaccines.

"We need to consider tailoring vaccine formulations and dosages based on the sex of the vaccine recipient as well as their age," says study senior author Sabra Klein, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Bloomberg School.

Scientists have known that women tend to have stronger immune responses to vaccines, and also that the elderly tend to have weaker responses. Klein and colleagues in their study set out to get a better understanding of the interaction of these sex- and age-related differences.

First, they evaluated immune responses to the 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine in 145 human volunteers--one group age 18-45 years, the other 65 and older. Analyzing key markers of the immune response, the researchers found that, on average, women in the younger group had a stronger response compared to both the men and the older women. The younger women had, for example, a jump in their levels of the important immune protein IL-6 that was almost three times greater than that seen in the younger men, and almost double that seen in older women. Measures of the anti-flu antibody response also were higher for the younger women compared to the men and the older women, though the greatest differences were between the younger and older women.

The team conducted a similar set of experiments in adult and aged mice and observed similar results. They also determined that the younger mice, compared to the older mice, were much better protected from a challenge with live flu virus--the younger female mice being best protected. This group, for example had much less flu-induced lung inflammation after the virus challenge.

In the mice and in the human volunteers, the younger females, as expected, had higher bloodstream levels of estradiol, one of the important estrogens, compared to the older, post-menopausal females. Similarly, the younger males had higher bloodstream levels of testosterone compared to the older males. A stronger vaccine response was linked to higher estradiol among the females and, more weakly, to lower testosterone among the younger males.

Klein and her colleagues found evidence that this association with sex hormone levels was causal. Removing the ovaries and testes of the mice to cut down estradiol and testosterone production eliminated the male/female differences in vaccine responses. When the scientists then artificially resupplied estradiol to some of the low-hormone female mice, the mice showed greater vaccine antibody responses. By contrast, resupplying testosterone to the castrated males caused them to have lower antibody responses.

"What we show here is that the decline in estrogen that occurs with menopause impacts women's immunity," Klein says. "Until now, this hasn't been considered in the context of a vaccine. These findings suggest that for vaccines, one size doesn't fit all--perhaps men should get larger doses, for example."

She and her colleagues are now investigating the molecular mechanisms by which estradiol and other estrogens boost the antibody response to vaccines.

Over the past 22 years, sea levels in the Arctic have risen an average of 2.2 millimeters per year. This is the conclusion of a Danish-German research team after evaluating 1.5 billion radar measurements of various satellites using specially developed algorithms.

"The Arctic is a hotspot of climate change," explains Prof. Florian Seitz of the German Geodetic Research Institute at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). "Due to rising temperatures, the glaciers of Greenland are receding. At the same time sea ice is melting. Every year, billions of liters of meltwater are released into the ocean." The enormous volumes of fresh water released in the Arctic not only raise the sea level, they also have the potential to change the system of global ocean currents - and thus, our climate.

But how fast do sea levels rise? And precisely what effect does this have? To answer these questions, climatologists and oceanographers require specific measurements over as long a period as possible.

In a collaborative effort, researchers from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and from the TUM have now documented sea-level changes in the Arctic over more than two decades. "This study is based on radar measurements from space via so-called altimetry satellites and covers the period from 1991 to 2018. Thus, we have obtained the most complete and precise overview of the sea level changes in the Arctic Ocean to date. This information is important in terms of being able to estimate future sea levels associated with climate change," says Stine Kildegaard Rose, Ph.D., researcher at Space DTU.

Finding water with algorithms

"The challenge lies in finding the water signals in the measured data: Radar satellites measure only the distance to the surface: Albeit, vast areas of the Arctic are covered with ice, which obscures the seawater," explains Dr. Marcello Passaro. The TUM researcher has developed algorithms to evaluate radar echoes reflected from the water where it reaches the surface through cracks in the ice.

Using these algorithms, Passaro processed and homogenized 1.5 billion radar measurements from the ERS-2 and Envisat satellites. On the basis of the signals tracked at the TUM, the DTU team worked on the post-processing of these data and added the measurements collected by the current CryoSat radar mission.

From monthly averages to a climate trend

The researchers created a map with lattice points to represent the monthly sea level elevations for the period between 1996 and 2018. The sum of the monthly maps reveals the long-term trend: The Arctic sea level rose by an average of 2.2 millimeters per year.

There are, however, significant regional differences. Within the Beaufort Gyre, north of Greenland, Canada and Alaska, sea levels rose twice as fast as on average - more than 10 centimeters in 22 years. The reason: The low-salinity meltwater collects here, while a steady east wind produces currents that prevent the meltwater from mixing with other ocean currents. Along the coast of Greenland, on the other hand, the sea level is falling - on the west coast by more than 5 mm per year, because the melting glaciers weaken the attractive force of gravity there.

"The homogenized and processed measurements will allow climate researchers and oceanographers to review and improve their models in the future," concludes Passaro.

BOSTON (July 16, 2019)-- A new study published in Cell Reports found that a transcription factor called Slug serves as 'command central' for determining breast stem cell health, regulating both stem cell activity and repair of DNA damage. The research team also discovered that Slug likely functions as a safeguard against age-related decline of breast stem cell function.

Transcription factors are proteins that bind to DNA sequences and play a role in cancer. The research team previously reported that Slug plays a central role in some types of breast cancers. Building on their prior work, the researchers used breast cells from both humans and mice to explore how Slug might be helpful in maintaining cell fitness.

"These findings help us understand how Slug functions in normal breast tissue and how it may function in breast cancer," said breast cancer researcher Charlotte Kuperwasser at Tufts University School of Medicine. "Slug is overexpressed in a subtype of breast cancer called basal-like breast cancer. If Slug is also critical for DNA damage repair mechanisms in basal-like breast cancers, it might increase the attractiveness of Slug as a therapeutic target."

The main function of stem cells in our bodies is to replenish tissues, and to do so, stem cells need to stay healthy. One of the most important ways stem cells do this is by efficiently repairing damaged DNA, as unrepaired damage can lead to mutations in DNA that disrupt normal stem cell behavior. Upon detecting DNA damage, stem cells activate checkpoints to prevent replication of damaged cells, and they only regain regenerative activity after damaged DNA has been properly repaired.

"Our previous work established that Slug is critical for stem cell activity in breast tissue, but we suspected that there was more to the story," said Kuperwasser. "In asking what other functions Slug might be performing in breast tissue, particularly with regard to maintaining cell fitness, we found something quite interesting, which is that Slug regulates breast stem cell function partially through DNA damage repair."

More specifically, the researchers found that Slug deficiency in human breast cells prevented recruitment of key proteins that are required for repairing DNA. This function of Slug appears to be independent of its role in regulating gene transcription.

While Kuperwasser and colleagues have yet to determine whether breast cancer cells utilize Slug's DNA damage repair function, their current study did make a connection between Slug's multifaceted roles in breast tissue and another biological process: aging.

As stem cells age, their ability to replicate and repair DNA damage decreases. The team found that breast tissue from aged mice had higher levels of DNA damage and lower stem cell activity. Importantly, these characteristics were also found in Slug-deficient breast tissue from young mice. The observation of these characteristics both in aged tissue and in young Slug-deficient breast tissue strongly suggests that Slug function is disrupted during aging. The precise mechanism of how that function is disrupted is still being investigated by the team.

"Our data point towards Slug acting as a safeguard against breast tissue aging, as it promotes both stem cell activity and efficient DNA damage repair, which are disrupted in aged breast tissue," said co-first author Kayla Gross, who did this work as part of her Ph.D. dissertation at the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts.

"But these 'fountain of youth' properties of Slug are certainly a double-edged sword. Breast cancer cells may keep themselves up and running by co-opting the stem cell activity and DNA repair activity of Slug. What will be most important going forward is understanding how Slug is regulated. How do aged cells turn off its functions? How do breast cancer cells turn them on?" continued Gross.

Astronomers have made a new measurement of how fast the universe is expanding, using an entirely different kind of star than previous endeavors. The revised measurement, which comes from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, falls in the center of a hotly debated question in astrophysics that may lead to a new interpretation of the universe's fundamental properties.

Scientists have known for almost a century that the universe is expanding, meaning the distance between galaxies across the universe is becoming ever more vast every second. But exactly how fast space is stretching, a value known as the Hubble constant, has remained stubbornly elusive.

Now, University of Chicago professor Wendy Freedman and colleagues have a new measurement for the rate of expansion in the modern universe, suggesting the space between galaxies is stretching faster than scientists would expect. Freedman's is one of several recent studies that point to a nagging discrepancy between modern expansion measurements and predictions based on the universe as it was more than 13 billion years ago, as measured by the European Space Agency's Planck satellite.

As more research points to a discrepancy between predictions and observations, scientists are considering whether they may need to come up with a new model for the underlying physics of the universe in order to explain it.

"The Hubble constant is the cosmological parameter that sets the absolute scale, size and age of the universe; it is one of the most direct ways we have of quantifying how the universe evolves," said Freedman. "The discrepancy that we saw before has not gone away, but this new evidence suggests that the jury is still out on whether there is an immediate and compelling reason to believe that there is something fundamentally flawed in our current model of the universe."

In a new paper accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, Freedman and her team announced a new measurement of the Hubble constant using a kind of star known as a red giant. Their new observations, made using Hubble, indicate that the expansion rate for the nearby universe is just under 70 kilometers per second per megaparsec (km/sec/Mpc). One parsec is equivalent to 3.26 light-years distance.

This measurement is slightly smaller than the value of 74 km/sec/Mpc recently reported by the Hubble SH0ES (Supernovae H0 for the Equation of State) team using Cepheid variables, which are stars that pulse at regular intervals that correspond to their peak brightness. This team, led by Adam Riess of the Johns Hopkins University and Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland, recently reported refining their observations to the highest precision to date for their Cepheid distance measurement technique.

How to Measure Expansion

A central challenge in measuring the universe's expansion rate is that it is very difficult to accurately calculate distances to distant objects.

In 2001, Freedman led a team that used distant stars to make a landmark measurement of the Hubble constant. The Hubble Space Telescope Key Project team measured the value using Cepheid variables as distance markers. Their program concluded that the value of the Hubble constant for our universe was 72 km/sec/Mpc.

But more recently, scientists took a very different approach: building a model based on the rippling structure of light left over from the big bang, which is called the Cosmic Microwave Background. The Planck measurements allow scientists to predict how the early universe would likely have evolved into the expansion rate astronomers can measure today. Scientists calculated a value of 67.4 km/sec/Mpc, in significant disagreement with the rate of 74.0 km/sec/Mpc measured with Cepheid stars.

Astronomers have looked for anything that might be causing the mismatch. "Naturally, questions arise as to whether the discrepancy is coming from some aspect that astronomers don't yet understand about the stars we're measuring, or whether our cosmological model of the universe is still incomplete," Freedman said. "Or maybe both need to be improved upon."

Freedman's team sought to check their results by establishing a new and entirely independent path to the Hubble constant using an entirely different kind of star.

Certain stars end their lives as a very luminous kind of star called a red giant, a stage of evolution that our own Sun will experience billions of years from now. At a certain point, the star undergoes a catastrophic event called a helium flash, in which the temperature rises to about 100 million degrees and the structure of the star is rearranged, which ultimately dramatically decreases its luminosity. Astronomers can measure the apparent brightness of the red giant stars at this stage in different galaxies, and they can use this as a way to tell their distance.

The Hubble constant is calculated by comparing distance values to the apparent recessional velocity of the target galaxies -- that is, how fast galaxies seem to be moving away. The team's calculations give a Hubble constant of 69.8 km/sec/Mpc -- straddling the values derived by the Planck and Riess teams.

"Our initial thought was that if there's a problem to be resolved between the Cepheids and the Cosmic Microwave Background, then the red giant method can be the tie-breaker," said Freedman.

But the results do not appear to strongly favor one answer over the other say the researchers, although they align more closely with the Planck results.

NASA's upcoming mission, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), scheduled to launch in the mid-2020s, will enable astronomers to better explore the value of the Hubble constant across cosmic time. WFIRST, with its Hubble-like resolution and 100 times greater view of the sky, will provide a wealth of new Type Ia supernovae, Cepheid variables, and red giant stars to fundamentally improve distance measurements to galaxies near and far.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.

Biodiversity loss is one of the most prominent global issues, also affecting human well-being. With privately owned land covering large areas of the world, private land conservation is an increasingly recognized strategy to address the biodiversity crisis and support human well-being.

Several governments are currently developing and implementing private land conservation policies to achieve national and global conservation targets. A new study assessed 30 years of published scientific literature in order to identify research gaps and mainstream future private land conservation research.

"We found that 78% of the articles focused on four countries only, namely United States of America, Australia, South Africa and Canada", says Gonzalo Cortés Capano, a PhD student at the University of Helsinki and lead author of the study. "However, priority areas for biodiversity conservation on private land extend well beyond these four countries. Worryingly, we also found that half of the articles did not report the engagement of any stakeholder sector, which is fundamental for successful biodiversity conservation".

"Furthermore, we found differences in literature content, showing that research has focus on different topics at the continental level", says Associate Professor Tuuli Toivonen, a co-author in the paper. "These differences might well reflect research adaptations to regional contexts and needs", she continues.

"While several policy instruments exist to promote private land conservation globally, we found that property rights instruments, for example landowners voluntarily transferring partial property rights to a conservation organization, were the most covered instruments in literature", says Dr Alvaro Soutullo, Scientific Director of the Uruguayan Antarctic Institute, a co-author in the paper.

"As conserving biodiversity in a changing world requires understanding complex socio-ecological systems, it is paramount that future research better understands stakeholders' engagement in private land conservation", says Adjunct Professor Enrico Di Minin, senior co-author in the paper. "We also need to better understand which conservation actions and policies help achieve the best outcomes in diverse cultural and geographical contexts", he concludes.

Pick your chicken wisely. The choice could make or break your marriage.

For generations, household farmers in the Horn of Africa have selectively chosen chickens with certain traits that make them more appealing. Some choices are driven by the farmers' traditional courtship rituals; others are guided by more mundane concerns, such as taste and disease resistance.

The result is the development of a genetically distinct African chicken -- one with longer, meatier legs, according to new Washington University in St. Louis research published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. But that 3,000-year-old local breed type is threatened by the introduction of commercial cluckers.

This study contains the first metrical baselines of chickens with known history in the region, and it reveals much about the history of the selection process and African poultry development, said Helina S. Woldekiros, assistant professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences.

For this new work conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Universities of Exeter, Leicester, Nottingham, Oxford and Roehampton in England, Woldekiros returned to a community in northern Ethiopia near where she previously discovered some of the oldest known physical evidence for the introduction of domesticated chickens to the continent of Africa.

"I'm a bone person, so I'm mostly interested in how much change there was between the archaeological chickens and the modern ones," Woldekiros said. She already had measurements from the ancient chickens in her original find. So she approached 20 families in the small village of Mesert to ask if she could survey their chickens before a Christmas celebration -- then processed all the bones after the chickens were eaten.

In addition to the earliest domestic chickens in Africa and today's African local chicken breeds, the study includes the red junglefowl -- a wild chicken found only in Asia -- using bones from a collection curated at the Natural History Museum at Tring, England, northwest of London.

By comparing measurements from these three types of chickens, Woldekiros collaborated with her colleagues from the U.K. to identify key differences that provide insight into African poultry development over the centuries.

"African farmers were selecting for longer limbs," Woldekiros said. "They were looking for more meaty legs, rather than meaty wings. There was a big change in the length of the legs." The earliest domesticated chickens, dating from 800 BCE to 400 BCE, were also much closer total body size to today's red junglefowl than to the modern household chicken.

African chickens are a primary source of protein for the farmers with whom Woldekiros works. Most Mesert families keep between five to seven birds at any given time. Locals prize certain physical attributes like colorful shank feathers and elaborate comb patterns. But Woldekiros is concerned about a trend that she has been observing while she conducts her fieldwork.

"Right now, exotic and commercial chickens are being introduced to Africa, and local African breed types are in danger," Woldekiros said.

"They are more biologically diverse than the exotic or commercial birds," she said. "Now we are in danger of losing that diversity."

The new chickens might be more productive -- but it comes at a cost.

"The problem with the new chickens, even though they produce more meat and more eggs, is that they're really expensive to keep," she said. "You need to build a shelter for them, so they can't scavenge like local birds. And they're very sensitive to disease."

These costs weigh particularly heavily on widows and single mothers for whom chickens have traditionally been a good source of income, because they were so inexpensive to keep, she said.

Gut microbes produce compounds that prime immune cells to destroy harmful viruses in the brain and nervous system, according to a mouse study published today in eLife.

The findings suggest that having a healthy and diverse microbiota is essential for quickly clearing viruses in the nervous system to prevent paralysis and other risks associated with diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

A condition that causes progressive damage to nerve cells, multiple sclerosis has become more common over the past several decades. Viral infections in the brain or spinal cord are thought to trigger this disease. Some scientists believe that changes in the way we eat, increased sanitation or growing antibiotic use may be causing detrimental changes in the helpful bacteria that live within the human body, potentially increasing the risk of multiple sclerosis and other related diseases.

"We wanted to investigate whether gut microbes could alter the immune response to a virus in the central nervous system and whether this affects the amount of damage the virus causes," says one of the lead authors David Garrett Brown, a graduate research assistant in the Department of Pathology at University of Utah Health, Salt Lake City, US.

To do this, Garrett Brown and co-lead author Ray Soto looked at the effect of Mouse Hepatitis Virus, a virus that infects cells in the mouse nervous system and causes multiple-sclerosis type symptoms, on two groups of mice: some with normal gut microbes and some that were bacteria-free. They found that bacteria-free mice had a weak immune response, were unable to eliminate the virus and developed worsening paralysis, while those with normal gut bacteria were better able to fight off the virus.

Mice treated with antibiotics before the onset of disease were unable to defend themselves. They also had fewer immune cells called microglia, which help flag viruses for destruction by other immune cells.

Next, the team identified compounds produced by gut bacteria that might help the microglia. When they administered these helpful compounds to the bacteria-free mice, they saw that the animals were protected from neurologic damage caused by the virus.

"We've shown that gut microbes protect infected mice from paralysis by turning on a specific pathway in central nervous system cells," explains June Round, Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology at University of Utah Health, and a co-senior author alongside Professor Thomas Lane, from the same department. "This suggests that signals from microbes are essential to quickly clear viruses in the nervous system and prevent damage from multiple sclerosis-like diseases. Our results emphasise the importance of maintaining a diverse community of bacteria in the gut, and that interventions to restore this community after taking antibiotics may be necessary."

Robotics researchers at the University of California San Diego have for the first time used a commercial 3D printer to embed complex sensors inside robotic limbs and grippers. But they found that materials commercially available for 3D printing still need to be improved before the robots can be fully functional.

Researchers who specialize in 3D printing have long sought to make an entire robot in one print--a machine that would be able to walk itself away from the printer when it's done. This would make it easier to print more robots faster. It would also make it possible to 3D print robots without human supervision, for example on the moon or Mars.

One of the main roadblocks on the way to this goal is the development of effective sensors for soft robots. That's because soft, flexible robots often have complex surfaces and movements that are difficult to equip and cover with sensors made with traditional manufacturing techniques. These types of robots are more flexible than their rigid cousins and can safely work side by side with humans.

The UC San Diego researchers' insight was twofold. They turned to a commercially available printer for the job, (the Stratasys Objet350 Connex3--a workhorse in many robotics labs). In addition, they realized one of the materials used by the 3D printer is made of carbon particles that can conduct power to sensors when connected to a power source. So roboticists used the black resin to manufacture complex sensors embedded within robotic parts made of clear polymer. They designed and manufactured several prototypes, including a gripper.

When stretched, the sensors failed at approximately the same strain as human skin. But the polymers the 3D printer uses are not designed to conduct electricity, so their performance is not optimal. The 3D printed robots also require a lot of post-processing before they can be functional, including careful washing to clean up impurities and drying.

However, researchers remain optimistic that in the future, materials will improve and make 3D printed robots equipped with embedded sensors much easier to manufacture.

"Embedded printing of sensors is a powerful process that could enable and enhance seamless integration of sensors into soft robots, but there does not yet exist a suitable, commercially available, easy to use platform that allows users to simultaneously print soft actuators and sensors," researchers write.

Patients with dementia are hospitalized at higher rates and involved in transitional care more frequently than those who are cognitively unimpaired. Yet, current practices for managing transitional care--and the research informing them--have overlooked the needs of patients with dementia and their caregivers.

"Patients with dementia have only been considered in a small portion of decades of transitional care studies," said Beth Prusaczyk, Ph.D., a recent postdoctoral fellow in The Center for Clinical Quality and Implementation Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Prusaczyk is among the experts beginning to develop evidence-based practices to support patients with dementia in transitional care.

"The research has excluded patients with dementia for several reasons: because of IRB hurdles, and out of the concern that they can't fully appreciate participation," Prusaczyk said. "There is also an erroneous assumption you can't get good data."

Needs Going Unmet

In a new study published in the Journal of Gerontological Nursing, Prusaczyk and colleagues showed that older patients with dementia at one major teaching hospital were less often provided with transitional care steps including patient education, discharge planning, and documentation of medication history, as compared to patients without dementia.

The study used a chart review of 210 patients aged 70 and older who were discharged from an inpatient stay other than the ED. The 126 patients with dementia--60 percent of those included--experienced significant differences in their transitional care. The researchers assumed charts reflected steps taken with patients or caregivers.

Care teams collected medical histories from the patient, family member or other provider for only 60 percent of patients with dementia, compared to 86 percent of patients without. Patients with dementia also received discharge education far less frequently. This included education about:

In-hospital medications (77 percent of patients with dementia; 100 percent of patients without)

Diagnoses (45 percent; 83 percent)

Follow-up needs (42 percent; 81 percent)

Medication regimens after discharge (47 percent; 80 percent)

Prusaczyk says the researchers confirmed these trends during qualitative interviews with providers at the hospital. "They didn't necessarily set a high priority for these types of transitional care activities for patients with dementia or their caregivers," she said.

Aligning Care

In a separate study of the same patient cohort, published in Journal of Interprofessional Care, Prusaczyk's group applied social mapping and network analyses to identify 14 unique types of actors engaged in discharge communications. Both clinicians and non-clinicians (e.g. social workers, case managers) contributed to discharge planning. Perhaps concerningly, primary care physicians did not participate, unless responding to queries initiated by case managers.

"I'd like more research to understand why transition care teams are still struggling to communicate internally, but especially with primary care providers. This is obviously significant with an older patient with dementia," Prusaczyk said.

Prusaczyk, who is a former hospital social worker, acknowledges the "pressures and challenges" of managing care transitions across complex teams. Still, there are clear opportunities to better understand and serve the needs of patients with dementia.

"My focus is identifying changes we can enact now. System-level changes are needed, but there are communication tools available today that improve retention--making sure patients have their glasses, using teach-back and more visual aids," Prusaczyk said. "The change can happen if it is prioritized."

A five-year, $4.63 million award from the National Science Foundation will enable a multi-disciplinary team of researchers at the University of Arkansas to recruit, educate and train the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.

The program will provide the knowledge and tools necessary to protect network and computer systems in three critical industries - cybersecurity, transportation security, and critical infrastructure security.

"The federal agencies that support these industries - all critical to our nation's security and economic health - understand that new cybersecurity challenges are met with an increasingly insufficient security workforce," said Jia Di, professor of computer science and computer engineering and principal investigator for the program. "But people at these agencies also understand that our university, with its specific research strengths, is uniquely positioned to expand the pool of highly skilled professionals who can address these challenges."

The "Cyber-Centric Multidisciplinary Security Workforce Development" program will draw on faculty research expertise in the departments of Computer Science and Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Industrial Engineering. Faculty members will design curriculum focused on cybersecurity in the areas of computer and information systems, transportation and critical infrastructure with specific focus on the electrical power grid. The program will provide job training and research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students, and all students will be offered internships at government agencies, where additional training could lead to job placement.

The program will focus on attracting students from underrepresented populations and will partner with Northwest Arkansas Community College to open paths for its students to pursue bachelors' and advanced degrees at the university.

The program will address a national shortage of a highly skilled cybersecurity professionals. Over a one-year period, from September 2017 to August 2018, for example, there were more than 300,000 open cybersecurity jobs in the United States, Di said. Professionals at these companies cited lack of education as the reason for this shortage. To qualify for these jobs, students must understand not only computer systems, networks and software, but also data storage protection, cryptography, malware and software vulnerabilities, as well as the nature of cyber-crimes and other threats to infrastructure.

THE PROGRAM

Led by the Arkansas Security Research and Education Institute (ASCENT), which Di directs, the "Cyber-Centric Multidisciplinary Security Workforce Development"program will include investigators affiliated with several U of A research centers - Center for Information Security and Reliability, Mack-Blackwell Transportation Center and Cybersecurity Center for Secure Evolvable Energy Delivery Systems. Students will conduct research at these centers.

Co-principal investigators for the program are Brajendra Panda, professor of computer science and computer engineering; Alan Mantooth, Distinguished Professor of electrical engineering; Dale Thompson, associate professor of computer science and computer engineering; and Chase Rainwater, associate professor of industrial engineering.

Designed by PluginHUMAN art duo, Dr Betty Sargeant and Justin Dwyer, the system involves an interactive bed and ambient music controlled by the artists, and kaleidoscopic visuals controlled by the user with their own brainwaves, via EEG.

With each brain frequency assigned a different colour and brainwave intensity tied to movement, each person's brain activity generates unique imagery.

PhD researcher with RMIT University's Exertion Games Lab, Natahan Semertzidis, has now assessed the system for inducing pre-sleep states and general mental wellbeing.

"Technology and sleep are always talked about as incompatible," Semertzidis says. "Our findings flip that notion upside down and show how technology can also aid rest and relaxation."

Analysis of physiological and psychological data along with user interviews were recently presented at the premier international conference of Human-Computer Interaction, CHI 2019.

"Results demonstrated statistically significant decreases in pre-sleep cognitive arousal and negative emotion," Semertzidis says.

"EEG readings were also indicative of restorative restfulness and a clear mind, while interview responses described experiences of mindfulness."

Participants reported a 21 per cent drop in general negative emotion and a 55 per cent drop in feelings of fear after using Inter-Dream. Meanwhile, general positive emotions increased by 8 per cent and feelings of serenity by 13 per cent.

Good sleep is acknowledged to be preceded by a characteristic set of specific cognitive and mood states, as well as physiological changes, says Semertzidis.

"Good sleepers are generally more relaxed and positive, while bad sleepers are more likely to focus on unpleasant and intrusive worries and stressors because of involuntary mental rehearsal of the past day's events," he says.

"It makes sense that influencing these cognitive mood states can help us better ease into rest."

Semertzidis says people not only passively relaxed into the experience but creatively interacted with it too.

"Some of them reported really going on a journey by manipulating the system with their minds," he says.

"This is no trivial notion in the context of inducing positive pre-sleep states, as it has been well documented that creative expression is strongly associated with positive effects on emotion and affect."

Another prevalent theme from the 12 user interviews was cognitive states consistent with those of mindfulness.

"This was often voiced as a redirection of thought away from life stressors and toward the present experience as a result of the system's neurofeedback reactivity," he says.

Semertzidis' supervisor and co-author on the paper, Associate Professor Fabio Zambetta, said while the system itself was not the answer to healthy sleep - clinical interventions would require larger samples and control groups, and technology would need to be explored that was less invasive during sleep - it presented a fascinating case study.

"Our findings are really significant in pointing a possible way forward using neurofeedback technology to facilitate restfulness and sleep onset," Zambetta said.

Semertzidis' co-supervisor Professor Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, who heads RMIT University's Exertion Games Lab, said the project demonstrated how art and science can complement each other in novel approaches to address old problems.

"The work really puts the human body centre stage, allowing us to see the human body not just as a mere input controller, but rather allowing people to experience their bodies as play," Mueller said.

"For me, this is a beginning to facilitate a more playful future, in particular, one where we can even experience rest and ultimately sleep as a form of (digital) play: it would be fascinating to explore what such a future could look like and we are always looking for PhD candidates who want to explore this."

New insight into a protein's role in regulating tight DNA packing could have implications for combating tumor cell resistance to anti-cancer treatments.

Hokkaido University researchers have revealed how a protein maintains a delicate balance of tightly packing DNA inside yeast cells with the same genetic material, while also allowing for variation amongst them. The findings, published in the journal PLOS Genetics, could help researchers identify ways to suppress the formation of tumor cells that are resistant to anti-cancer drugs.

The incredibly long strands of DNA found in cells are packed into a structure called chromatin with the help of proteins called histones. Heterochromatin is where parts of chromatin are really tightly packed together. This makes certain genes difficult to access, effectively silencing them. Abnormal heterochromatin formation can inhibit genes that are essential for basic cell functions. But it can also play a role in cellular adaptation to changing circumstances by modifying gene accessibility. The mechanisms that regulate heterochromatin distribution are not yet fully understood.

A protein, called Epe1, is known for its suppressive role in the formation of heterochromatin. Biological chemist Yota Murakami of Hokkaido University led a team of scientists in Japan to find out what was happening at the molecular level.

When a fission yeast cell divides into two, each cell has identical genetic material. Murakami's team found that turning off Epe1 in yeast cells led to stochastic heterochromatin formation, altering the characteristics of some cells and leading to the production of a more diverse yeast population.

At the molecular level, Epe1 works against a molecular label on histone called H3K9me which recruits gene-silencing proteins for heterochromatin formation. The team found that Epe1 prevents H3K9me deposition at sites where abnormal "ectopic" heterochromatin has the potential to form. It also promotes the removal of H3K9me on already-formed ectopic heterochromatin, destabilizing the tight structure. "Interestingly, our study showed that the removal of ectopic heterochromatin by Epe1 is incomplete. Thus, it creates diversity in gene expression and cell characteristics in a population with the same genetic material," says Yota Murakami. "In other words, while Epe1 prevents the emergence of extreme diversity caused by accidental heterochromatin formation, it also allows individuality."

Cell diversity is thought to help adaptation to ever-changing environments, but, it is not always a good thing. Dividing tumor cells can also acquire diversity and develop resistance to anti-cancer treatments. "Since the chromatin regulatory mechanisms found in fission yeast cells are similar to those in humans and other mammals, this work could improve understandings of how cells in our body adapt to changing environments and develop resistance to anti-cancer treatments," explains Yota Murakami.

BOSTON - By examining both blood samples and tumor tissues from patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have identified markers that can distinguish between major subtypes of lung cancer and can accurately identify lung cancer stage. Their proof-of-concept test accurately predicted whether the blood samples they examined came from patients with shorter or longer survival following lung cancer surgery, including patients with early-stage disease.

Their findings could eventually help physicians decide whether an individual patient with lung cancer can benefit from standard treatment or may need more aggressive therapy. The study is published in the open-access journal Scientific Reports.

The US Preventive Services Task Force currently recommends that middle-age and older persons with a history of heavy smoking be screened annually for lung cancer with low-dose CT. Low-dose CT is effective at detecting small lung tumors, but the cost of CT screening and risks of repeated radiation exposure prevent its use for screening of the general population. This points to a need for a low cost, minimally invasive method for identifying people who may require further CT screening to catch the disease at earlier, more readily treatable stages, says co-principal investigator Leo L. Cheng, PhD, an associate biophysicist in the departments of Pathology and Radiology at MGH.

"You cannot use CT as a screening tool for every patient or even for every at-risk patient every year, so what we're trying to do is to develop biomarkers from blood samples that could be incorporated into physical exams, and if there is any suspicion of lung cancer, then we would put the patient through CT," Cheng says.

Along with co-principal investigator David C. Christiani, MD, MPH, a physician in the Department of Medicine at MGH, Cheng and other colleagues studied paired blood samples and tumor tissues taken at the time of surgery and looked for unique metabolomic markers using high-resolution magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), a sensitive technique for characterizing the chemical composition of tissues.

Cheng says that although other research groups have used MRS to identify potential biomarkers of lung cancer in serum, "the uniqueness of our study is that we have paired samples from patients obtained at the same time as surgery."

The paired specimens came from 42 patients with squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) of the lung, and 51 patients with adenocarcinomas of the lung. The investigators also examined blood samples from 29 healthy volunteers who served as controls. The patients included 58 with early (Stage I) lung cancer, and 35 with more advanced disease (Stage II, III, or IV).

The experiments were designed to see whether blood samples and tumor tissue samples from the same patient had common features that would identify the presence or absence of lung cancer, discriminate between cancer subtypes, and confirm the diagnostic accuracy of a simple blood test.

The investigators identified specific profiles of metabolites common to both types of samples and showed the differences between the profiles could signal whether a patient had SCC or adenocarcinoma, which require different treatments. They also found that the profiles could distinguish between early-stage disease, which is often highly treatable, and later disease stages which require more aggressive or experimental treatments.

Importantly, the tests also identified whether the samples came from patients who lived an average of 41 months after surgery, or from those patients who lived longer than 41 months. This finding, if validated in further studies, could identify early on those patients at especially high risk for early death, who might benefit from clinical trials of new drugs.

The ultimate goal of the study is to develop a blood test that could be included as part of a standard physical and could indicate whether a specific patient has suspicious signs pointing to lung cancer. Patients identified by the blood screen would then be referred for CT.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN- July 15, 2019 - Cryptococcus neoformans is a fungal pathogen that infects people with weakened immune systems, particularly those with advanced HIV/AIDS. New University of Minnesota Medical Research could mean a better understanding of this infection and potentially better treatments for patients.

In "Identification of Pathogen Genomic Differences That Impact Human Immune Response and Disease during Cryptococcus neoformans Infection" published in the journal MBio by American Society for Microbiology, Kirsten Nielsen, PhD, Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Minnesota, Medical School and colleagues were the first to examine how Cryptococcus genes impact the disease using human data.

After her last study, which found that the pathogen was driving the outcome of the Cryptococcus infection, Nielsen went on to examine the underlying genetic differences in her current study.

"We looked at differences in disease between patients - whether the patient lived or died, how the patient's immune system responded to the infection, and whether the antifungal drug treatment worked well - and we asked 'How do genetic differences in the Cryptococcus strains impact the disease variables?'" explained Nielsen.

The study found that there are 40 genes that are crucial to the ability of Cryptococcus to change the outcome of human disease, which have never before been identified as important. These genes give researchers a new set of information that they've never had before.

"We can take this new information generated using the human data and show how the genes work in other models," said Nielsen. "When we deleted the genes, it changed the ability of Cryptococcus to cause disease in a model system, so we know that they are important in disease."

Nielsen and her colleagues hope that identifying which versions of genes are important for patient survival will ultimately lead to better treatment of patients.

"We hope that this will have clinical benefits in the future. If we can figure out why certain strains are more deadly, and identify which patients have those strains, we can treat them differently. This will hopefully decrease reliance on toxic antifungals," said Katrina Jackson, a Graduate Student in the University of Minnesota Medical School, who was involved in the project.

Irvine, Calif., July 16, 2019 - A new wireless transceiver invented by electrical engineers at the University of California, Irvine boosts radio frequencies into 100-gigahertz territory, quadruple the speed of the upcoming 5G, or fifth-generation, wireless communications standard.

Labeled an "end-to-end transmitter-receiver" by its creators in UCI's Nanoscale Communication Integrated Circuits Labs, the 4.4-millimeter-square silicon chip is capable of processing digital signals significantly faster and more energy-efficiently because of its unique digital-analog architecture. The team's innovation is outlined in a paper published recently in the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

"We call our chip 'beyond 5G' because the combined speed and data rate that we can achieve is two orders of magnitude higher than the capability of the new wireless standard," said senior author Payam Heydari, NCIC Labs director and UCI professor of electrical engineering & computer science. "In addition, operating in a higher frequency means that you and I and everyone else can be given a bigger chunk of the bandwidth offered by carriers."

He said that academic researchers and communications circuit engineers have long wanted to know if wireless systems are capable of the high performance and speeds of fiber-optic networks. "If such a possibility could come to fruition, it would transform the telecommunications industry, because wireless infrastructure brings about many advantages over wired systems," Heydari said.

His group's answer is in the form of a new transceiver that leapfrogs over the 5G wireless standard - designated to operate within the range of 28 to 38 gigahertz - into the 6G standard, which is expected to work at 100 gigahertz and above.

"The Federal Communications Commission recently opened up new frequency bands above 100 gigahertz," said lead author and postgraduate researcher Hossein Mohammadnezhad, a UCI grad student at the time of the work who this year earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering & computer science. "Our new transceiver is the first to provide end-to-end capabilities in this part of the spectrum."

Having transmitters and receivers that can handle such high-frequency data communications is going to be vital in ushering in a new wireless era dominated by the "internet of things," autonomous vehicles, and vastly expanded broadband for streaming of high-definition video content and more.

While this digital dream has driven technology developers for decades, stumbling blocks have begun to appear on the road to progress. According to Heydari, changing frequencies of signals through modulation and demodulation in transceivers has traditionally been done via digital processing, but integrated circuit engineers have in recent years begun to see the physical limitations of this method.

"Moore's law says we should be able to increase the speed of transistors - such as those you would find in transmitters and receivers - by decreasing their size, but that's not the case anymore," he said. "You cannot break electrons in two, so we have approached the levels that are governed by the physics of semiconductor devices."

To get around this problem, NCIC Labs researchers utilized a chip architecture that significantly relaxes digital processing requirements by modulating the digital bits in the analog and radio-frequency domains.

Heydari said that in addition to enabling the transmission of signals in the range of 100 gigahertz, the transceiver's unique layout allows it to consume considerably less energy than current systems at a reduced overall cost, paving the way for widespread adoption in the consumer electronics market.

Co-author Huan Wang, a UCI doctoral student in electrical engineering & computer science and an NCIC Labs member, said that the technology combined with phased array systems - which use multiple antennas to steer beams - facilitates a number of disruptive applications in wireless data transfer and communication.

"Our innovation eliminates the need for miles of fiber-optic cables in data centers, so data farm operators can do ultra-fast wireless transfer and save considerable money on hardware, cooling and power," he said.