Improving transitional care improves outcomes important to patients in the 'real world'

Special PCORI supplement to Medical Care reports on 'Future Directions in Transitional Care Research'

WOLTERS KLUWER HEALTH

Research News

 

IMAGE: A REVIEW OF NINE OF THE TRANSITIONAL CARE STUDIES FUNDED BY THE PATIENT-CENTERED OUTCOMES RESEARCH INSTITUTE (PCORI). view more 

CREDIT: GESELL ET AL. (2021), MEDICAL CARE, DOI: 10.1097/MLR.0000000000001591

July 12, 2021 - Transitions between healthcare sites - such as from the hospital to home or to a skilled nursing facility - carry known risks to patient safety. Many programs have attempted to improve continuity of care during transitions, but it remains difficult to establish and compare the benefits of these complex interventions. An update on patient-centered approaches to transitional care research and implementation is presented in a supplement to the August issue of Medical Care, sponsored by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Medical Care is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

Titled Future Directions in Transitional Care Research, the special issue "focus[es] on opportunities and challenges involved in conducting patient-centered clinical comparative effectiveness research in transitional care," according to an introductory editorial by Carly Parry, PhD, MSW, of PCORI and co-authors. The supplement papers present an overview and update on early findings from PCORI's transitional care research portfolio.

Update on research 'toward a more holistic understanding of transitional care'

Recognizing the high risks and increased costs associated with care transitions has led to new research on interventions to enhance communication and continuity of care. However, new evidence has not always translated into meaningful improvement in the outcomes most important to patients. For this reason, in addition to important outcomes like hospital readmission rates, PCORI has supported research on patient-centered outcomes such as quality of life, caregiver burden, and healthcare decision-making.

A particular challenge is comparing results between studies, or identifying the most important aspects of these multi-component interventions. Providing evidence about the comparative effectiveness of interventions to improve decision making is a key goal of PCORI's investment in transitional care. The supplement presents findings from 11 of the 30 PCORI-funded transitional care studies, representing a wide range of health conditions, healthcare settings, patient characteristics, and patient outcomes.

A paper by Sabina B. Gesell, PhD, of Wake Forest School of Medicine and colleagues highlights the findings and implications of the PCORI transitional care portfolio so far. In discussions with researchers from nine studies, the authors identify three key themes:

• Delineating the function versus form of transitional care interventions. While "function" refers to the core purposes of the intervention, "form" refers to the strategies and activities needed to carry out its function. It is critical to distinguish functions from forms. A pragmatic approach would allow for "flexible options for delivery while maintaining appropriate fidelity to the intervention."
• Evaluating the process supporting implementation and the impact of interventions. Understanding the processes involved in program adaptations - planned and unplanned - is essential to assessing their actual effects, intended or unintended.
• Engaging stakeholders in the design and delivery of interventions. A key aspect of the PCORI approach is engaging stakeholders - including patients, healthcare providers, and advocacy groups or policymakers - in the design and delivery of interventions. Partnering with stakeholders is critical for ensuring that appropriate interventions are designed and successfully disseminated, especially interventions that involve system change. Stakeholders can also play a key role in disseminating the research findings to broader audiences.

The introduction includes an overview of PCORI's Transitional Care Evidence to Action Network: a learning community designed to promote collaboration among researchers and stakeholders, and thus to enhance the collective impact of the new research PCORI has funded on patient-centered transitional care interventions.

"The papers in this Special Issue articulate challenges and lessons learned, and identify new directions for measurement, patient and stakeholder engagement, implementation, and methodological approaches that reflect the complexity of transitional care research," Dr. Parry and coauthors conclude. "They also move us toward a more holistic understanding of transitional care that integrates social needs and lifespan developmental transitions into our approaches to improving transitional care."

Click here to read "Implementation of Complex Interventions: Lessons Learned From the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Transitional Care Portfolio."

DOI: 10.1097/MLR.0000000000001591

Click here to read "Patient-Centered Approaches to Transitional Care Research and Implementation: Overview and Insights From Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute's Transitional Care Portfolio."

DOI: 10.1097/MLR.0000000000001593

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About Medical Care

Rated as one of the top ten journals in health care administration, Medical Care is devoted to all aspects of the administration and delivery of health care. This scholarly journal publishes original, peer-reviewed papers documenting the most current developments in the rapidly changing field of health care. Medical Care provides timely reports on the findings of original investigations into issues related to the research, planning, organization, financing, provision, and evaluation of health services. In addition, numerous special supplementary issues that focus on specialized topics are produced with each volume. Medical Care is the official journal of the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association.

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Wolters Kluwer provides trusted clinical technology and evidence-based solutions that engage clinicians, patients, researchers and students in effective decision-making and outcomes across healthcare. We support clinical effectiveness, learning and research, clinical surveillance and compliance, as well as data solutions. For more information about our solutions, visit https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/health and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter @WKHealth.

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A third of teens, young adults reported worsening mental health during pandemic

Disrupted social connections a factor, study finds

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- As typical social and academic interaction screeched to a halt last year, many young people began experiencing declines in mental health, a problem that appeared to be worse for those whose connections to family and friends weren't as tight, a new study has found.

In June 2020, researchers invited participants in an ongoing study of teenage boys and young men in urban and Appalachian Ohio to complete a survey examining changes to mood, anxiety, closeness to family and friends, and other ways the pandemic affected their lives. The study, co-led by researchers at The Ohio State University and Kenyon College, appears in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Nearly a third of the 571 participants reported that their mood had worsened or their anxiety had increased between March 2020 and June 2020. The study found that worsening mood and increased anxiety during the pandemic were more likely in those with higher socioeconomic status, those who felt decreasing closeness to friends and family and those who were older. Self-reported increases in anxiety were more common among those with a history of depression and/or anxiety.

One example of feedback from a participant: "A return to a much more introverted, anxious and sedentary lifestyle, after recently making attempts to become more social, outgoing and level-headed."

The research team said the study shines light on those who could be most vulnerable to mental health struggles during a pandemic, and potentially during other situations in which they find themselves isolated from their typical social interaction.

"Though serious cases of COVID-19 have been rare among young people, the pandemic appears to have taken another toll on them," said study senior author Amy Ferketich, a professor of epidemiology at Ohio State.

Eleanor Tetreault, the study's lead author and a recent graduate of Kenyon College, said the existing relationships formed within the ongoing Buckeye Teen Health Study provided an opportunity to quickly assess any perceived changes in mood or anxiety at the onset of the pandemic.

Though the findings about worsening mental health are concerning, Tetreault said there were some surprising positive themes that emerged as she and fellow researchers dived into the respondents' answers to open-ended survey questions.

"The group that had really positive experiences talked about the opportunity for self-exploration, having more time to sit and think or get more connected to their family -- at this age, most people are just going, going, going all the time and all the sudden they had this period of time where they could slow down," said Tetrault, who completed a Pelotonia Summer Research Internship at Ohio State's Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2020.

Though the researchers can't be sure what contributed to the worsening mood and anxiety among some respondents, they do have theories.

Being cooped up with parents who were struggling to work from home and manage the stress of the pandemic could be distressing to young people, Ferketich said, adding that those whose home lives weren't stable to begin with would be hardest hit. Participants from higher socioeconomic groups may have been more likely to have parents who were able to work from home and were more likely to report worsening mental health in the first months of the pandemic.

And though the break from the usual routine "might have been kind of nice at first, it did seem that for some people that changed over time, leading them more toward social isolation, anxiety and depression," Tetreault said.

Though pandemics are rare, the findings from the study don't apply just to a global crisis, she said.

"I think this could apply to any kind of really big change or change in routine for an adolescent or group of adolescents. It highlights the importance of finding ways to maintain social connection, and to help young people maintain those connections when normal social interactions are disrupted."

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Other study co-authors, all from Ohio State, are Andreas Teferra, Brittney Keller-Hamilton, Soliana Kahassai, Hayley Curran and Electra Paskett.

The project received support from Pelotonia.

CONTACT: Amy Ferketich, Ferketich.1@osu.edu

Written by Misti Crane, 614-292-3739; Crane.11@osu.edu

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy 

 

Preferred life expectancy and its association with hypothetical adverse life scenarios

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Research News

 

July 12, 2021-- A new study sheds light on how the specter of dementia and chronic pain reduce people's desire to live into older ages. Among Norwegians 60 years of age and older the desire to live into advanced ages was significantly reduced by hypothetical adverse life scenarios with the strongest effect caused by dementia and chronic pain, according to research conducted at the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center based at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.

The paper is among the first to study Preferred Life Expectancy (PLE) based on hypothetical health and living conditions. The findings are published in the July issue of the journal Age and Ageing.

The research team was led by Vegard Skirbekk, PhD, professor of Population and Family Health, who used data from Norway, because of its relatively high life expectancy at birth. He investigated how six adverse health and living conditions affected PLE after the age of 60 and assessed each by age, sex, education, marital status, cognitive function, self-reported loneliness and chronic pain.

The analysis included data from the population-based NORSE-Oppland County study of health and living conditions based on a representative sample of the population aged 60-69 years, 70-79 years and 80 years and older. The data collection was done in three waves in 2017, 2018 and 2019. A total of 948 individuals participated in the interviews and health examinations.

Skirbekk and colleagues asked the 825 community dwellers aged 60 and older the question, "If you could choose freely, until which age would you wish to live?" The results showed that among Norwegians over 60, the desire to live into advanced ages was significantly reduced by hypothetical adverse life scenarios, such as effects of dementia and chronic pain. Weaker negative PLE effects were found for the prospect of losing one's spouse or being subject to poverty

According to Skirbekk, "Dementia tops the list of conditions where people would prefer to live shorter lives - which is a particular challenge given the rapid increase in dementia in the years ahead."

The average Preferred Life Expectancy was 91.4 years of age and there was no difference between men and women, but older participants had higher PLE than younger participants. PLE among singles was not affected by the prospect of feeling lonely. The higher educated had lower PLE for dementia and chronic pain.

"Despite the fact that rising life expectancy to a large extent occurs at later ages, where the experience of loss and disability are widespread, there had been remarkably little scientific evidence on how long individuals would like to live given the impact of such adverse life conditions,' noted Skirbekk.

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Other authors are Ellen Melby Langballe, Norwegian National Advisory Unit on Ageing and Health, Vestfold Hospital Trust, Norway; and Bjørn Heine Strand, Norwegian Institute of Public Health and Norwegian National Advisory Unit on Ageing and Health, Vestfold Hospital Trust, Norway.

The study was supported by the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence, project number 262700.

Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Founded in 1922, the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health pursues an agenda of research, education, and service to address the critical and complex public health issues affecting New Yorkers, the nation and the world. The Columbia Mailman School is the seventh largest recipient of NIH grants among schools of public health. Its nearly 300 multi-disciplinary faculty members work in more than 100 countries around the world, addressing such issues as preventing infectious and chronic diseases, environmental health, maternal and child health, health policy, climate change and health, and public health preparedness. It is a leader in public health education with more than 1,300 graduate students from 55 nations pursuing a variety of master's and doctoral degree programs. The Columbia Mailman School is also home to numerous world-renowned research centers, including ICAP and the Center for Infection and Immunity. For more information, please visit http://www.mailman.columbia.edu.

 

Fear of rejection vs. joy of inclusion: Faith communities from LGBTQ+ perspectives

"I was interested in conducting peer-reviewed research that illuminated the gap of the healing stories about how LGBTQ+ people engaged in faith communities in ways that were beneficial to them," said Megan Gandy with the WVU School of Social Work.

WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: NEW RESEARCH BY MEGAN GANDY WITH THE WVU SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK SUGGESTS THAT FAITH COMMUNITIES CAN BENEFIT LGBTQ+ INDIVIDUALS. view more 

CREDIT: JENNIFER SHEPHARD/WVU PHOTO

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Some LGBTQ+ people want to be part of faith communities. And though they have concerns about inclusion, they hope to find a faith community that feels like a home, based on West Virginia University research.

Megan Gandy, BSW program director at the WVU School of Social Work, is a lesbian and former fundamentalist evangelical Christian whose personal experiences told a story that differed from research available in 2015 when she conceptualized her study.

Gandy said the existing research either focused on the positive impacts of faith communities (which excluded LGBTQ+ people) or highlighted the harms done by faith communities to LGBTQ+ people.

Gandy wanted to tell the whole story: that LGBTQ+ people can also benefit from faith communities. Her findings are published in Spirituality in Clinical Practice.

"I was interested in conducting peer-reviewed research that illuminated the gap of the healing stories about how LGBTQ+ people engaged in faith communities in ways that were beneficial to them," Gandy explained.

For the study, Gandy and her colleagues Anthony Natale and Denise Levy, interviewed 30 participants from the nonprofit Q Christian Fellowship, formerly known as the Gay Christian Network. Gandy and her team asked participants about their experiences in faith communities with the goal of exploring why they stay in those communities.

One major theme stood out to Gandy: The fear of rejection vs. the joy of inclusion. For those that stay, the sense of a inclusion is a feeling of indescribable joy and relief.

"This theme illustrated how much psychological stress is involved in the fear of rejection for LGBTQ+ people who choose to stay in faith communities," she said. "That fear can have detrimental effects on the physical and mental health of LGBTQ+ people in the form of what's called 'minority stress.'"

The stress comes from a constant questioning of whether they are accepted or not, whether they will be asked to leave, if they will be "outed" in a harmful way and if they will have to start over with a new faith community, Gandy added.

"However, the joy of inclusion was a way to alter that stress, eliminate it and even heal from it," she said. "LGBTQ+ people who were completely included in their faith communities experienced joy that they didn't know was possible. It was a part of the research that really lifted up my spirits, and was even something that many participants wanted to share with other LGBTQ+ people who weren't involved in a faith community but who wanted to be."

Not all stories were feel-good ones.

One participant, identified with a pseudonym as "Olivia," lost her job as a priest because her church didn't have a policy that accepted transgender or gender-diverse leadership. Although, the church was in one of the more well-known denominations that has accepted gay and lesbian people for decades and allowed them to become ordained.

"If she came out as gay or lesbian, she would have kept her job, and much of the extreme difficulties associated with unemployment she has faced since would never have happened," Gandy said. "That felt like a gut-punch to me because sexual minorities don't often see themselves as privileged in the church, but compared to transgender and gender diverse people, apparently some do have more privileges than they realize."

Gandy emphasized that, although her study provides many interesting insights, it doesn't represent all LGBTQ+ individuals in faith communities.

However, the findings might be "transferrable" to other LGBTQ+ people, meaning that the study could be relatable to those not in the study, she said. Gandy hopes it is.

"They (the participants) wanted to send the message that it is possible to find a home and a family in a faith community, even if you've experienced rejection and shame from other faith communities," she said. "Those words of 'home' and 'family' were prominent in the stories that participants told, and held importance for how deep the connection felt for these LGBTQ+ people."

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Citation: "We shared a heartbeat": Protective functions of faith communities in the lives of LGBTQ+ people

 

Study shows mental health, support, not just substance misuse key in parental neglect

Rates of clinical depression, substance use key in predicting neglectful behavior

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

Research News

 

LAWRENCE -- Substance use disorder has long been considered a key factor in cases of parental neglect. But new research from the University of Kansas shows that such substance abuse does not happen in a vacuum. When examining whether parents investigated by Child Protective Services engaged in neglectful behaviors over the past year, a picture emerges that suggests case workers should look at substance misuse within the context of other factors, like mental health and social supports, to better prevent child neglect and help families.

KU researchers analyzed data of parents investigated for neglectful behavior toward children aged 2-17 and gauged the level of their substance use as well as if they met the criteria for clinical depression. Researchers also studied whether parents had positive social supports such as friends or family, help with children or financial assistance. The results showed that the relationship between parental substance use behaviors and neglect behaviors varied depending on whether the parent was also experiencing clinical depression in the past year and the types of social supports present in their life. For example, substance use disorder among parents with no co-occurring clinical depression contributes to higher annual neglect frequencies compared to substance use disorder among parents with co-occurring clinical depression.

Nancy Kepple"Substance use may matter differently across different contexts. When a parent is already experiencing clinical levels of depression, does substance misuse exacerbate already present neglect behaviors? Nobody really knows; the evidence is mixed," said Nancy Kepple, associate professor of social welfare at KU and lead author of the study. "This study is a part of building a case that it's not one single story when it comes to thinking about how parental substance use is associated with neglectful behaviors."

The study, co-written with recent KU doctoral graduate Amittia Parker, was published in the journal Children and Youth Services Review.

The study analyzed data from 3,545 parents of children from Wave 4 of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being. Parents in the survey reported their levels of substance use as well as symptoms of depression and data on different types of social supports. Previously, little research had been done on the interaction of substance use, clinical depression and social support for parental neglect, as substance use has been viewed as the primary factor in such behaviors. Neglect is a difficult topic to study, Kepple said, as it is the omission of a behavior -- providing care and basic needs for a child -- as opposed to enacting physical or emotional harm.

Findings showing that the presence of clinical depression and varying types of social support alters the established relationship between substance use disorder and child neglect, suggesting that treatment should look beyond simply promoting abstinence among parents misusing alcohol and other drugs, the researchers said.

For parents without clinical depression, the types of social support alone did not explain neglectful behaviors. But, for their counterparts, it did. Parents experiencing clinical depression were associated with lower neglect frequency when they had people present in their life who they perceived could help raise their children, but those who reported having more friends to spend time with socially had higher rates of neglect.

"For parents who have clinical depression, their substance use does not seem to have as large of an effect if they have social supports that can provide tangible resources to help care for the child," Kepple said. "Interestingly, having more people to spend time with and who can pull parents out of their home may create opportunities for neglect. People in our lives can pull us away from our responsibilities as much as they can help us navigate through challenges."

The relationship between substance use and social supports is more complicated for parents with no co-occurring clinical depression. Social companionship could be protective or risky, depending on the type of substance use behaviors that a parent reported. For example, the study found neglect rates were comparable among parents reporting no people in their lives who provided opportunities for recreational activities, regardless of substance use behaviors. In contrast, researchers observed higher neglect risk for parents reporting either harmful/risky substance use or substance use disorders for parents reporting one to two people providing social companionship. Yet, findings showed parents reporting three or more sources of social companionship only increased neglect risks for the subsample of parents reporting past year substance use disorder.

Kepple said future research will further examine the types of social interactions parents have with individuals within their social networks and how that influenced neglectful or harmful behaviors. She also plans to work with parents in recovery from prior substance use disorder to understand how their experiences in recovery services and communities have affected their parenting.

Study results show the importance of not simply relying on a single factor to make determinations in services or treatment for parents who have neglected or are at risk of neglecting their children. To better serve families, evaluating the big picture, including factors like clinical depression, social supports and substance use is necessary, researchers argue. It may require more time, resources and clinical thinking; the data supports modern interventions that are providing comprehensive services that support recovery and well-being of parents to address neglect behaviors.

"Neglect is highly contextual," Kepple said. "There are lots of reasons it might be occurring, and that's what we need to understand and further explore. We can't just say 'there's substance misuse, that's a problem,' or 'they have social support, that's good.' When you break these things down, context matters. These findings suggest an individualized plan is likely the best plan, given the complex interactions that are occurring among different risk and protective factors. If systems mandate a parent remain abstinent from alcohol or substance use without addressing underlying mental health or social supports needs, we are not addressing the whole picture."

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FLOWER OF THE RUS

Genetic analysis to help predict sunflower oil properties

SKOLKOVO INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (SKOLTECH)

Research News

 

Skoltech researchers and their colleagues from the University of Southern California have performed genetic analysis of a Russian sunflower collection and identified genetic markers that can help predict the oil's fatty acid composition. The research was published in BMC Genomics.

Genomic selection, which helps quickly create new crop varieties, has been a much-discussed topic worldwide for the last 10 years. DNA sequencing and extensive genotyping have been applied to obtain genetic profiles of crops. When analyzed and compared to field data, those profiles help identify genetic markers for traits of interest to farming and predict the properties and value of a crop based on its genetic profile alone.

"Our work is the first large-scale study of the Russian sunflower genetic collection and one of the first attempts to create new varieties using genomic selection. Predicting what a plant will be like before actually planting it - an idea that seemed utterly unrealistic until recently - has become commonplace in many countries thanks to technological advances. Classical breeding can hardly cope with the challenges posed by the global climate change, growing human needs, and evolving food quality requirements. To get a head start, we should turn to genetics," Alina Chernova, Skoltech PhD and lead author of the study, notes.

This long-term research project has been carried out by a joint team led by Skoltech professor Philipp Khaitovich and featuring scientists from Skoltech, the University of Southern California, Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources, and Pustovoit All-Russian Research Institute of Oil Crops, joined by breeders from the seed-producing company Agroplasma.

The team looked at species from two major Russian sunflower gene banks and Agroplasma's collection. Their genetic analysis covered 601 lines of cultivated sunflower to check genetic diversity against the global collection and compare the results with chemical tests of oil obtained from these lines. Bioinformatic analysis revealed genetic markers that can help control the oil's fatty acid content.

"The reason we chose the sunflower is that it is a key source of vegetable fats, and Russia is the world's leading supplier of sunflower oil. You can vary the oil's fatty acid composition - which was the focus of our research - to obtain oils with different properties suitable for roasting, dressings or industrial uses," Skoltech PhD student and study co-author Rim Gubaev says.

"Thanks to this project, we have gained valuable insights and built a team of like-minded people keen on helping breeders to introduce genetics in their work. We have founded Oil Gene - it's a startup that will focus on practical tasks and provide genomic selection services," Gubaev adds.

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Skoltech is a private international university located in Russia. Established in 2011 in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Skoltech is cultivating a new generation of leaders in the fields of science, technology, and business, conducting research in breakthrough fields, and promoting technological innovation with the goal of solving critical problems that face Russia and the world. Skoltech is focusing on six priority areas: data science and artificial intelligence, life sciences, advanced materials and modern design methods, energy efficiency, photonics and quantum technologies, and advanced research. Website: https://www.skoltech.ru/.

Teardrop star reveals hidden supernova doom

W. M. KECK OBSERVATORY

Research News

 

IMAGE: ARTIST'S IMPRESSION OF THE HD265435 SYSTEM AT AROUND 30 MILLION YEARS FROM NOW, WITH THE SMALLER WHITE DWARF DISTORTING THE HOT SUBDWARF INTO A DISTINCT 'TEARDROP' SHAPE. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK/MARK GARLICK

Maunakea, Hawai'i - Astronomers have made the rare sighting of two stars spiraling to their doom by spotting the tell-tale signs of a teardrop-shaped star.

The tragic shape is caused by a massive nearby white dwarf distorting the star with its intense gravity, which will also be the catalyst for an eventual supernova that will consume both. Found by an international team of astronomers and astrophysicists led by the University of Warwick, it is one of only a very small number of star systems discovered that will one day see a white dwarf star reignite its core.

The team's new research is published in today's issue of the journal Nature Astronomy.

With the help of W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawai'i, the astronomers were able to confirm that the two stars are in the early stages of a spiral that will likely end in a Type Ia supernova - a type that helps astronomers determine how fast the universe is expanding.

The couple - a binary star system called HD265435 - is located roughly 1,500 light-years away; it is comprised of a hot subdwarf star and a white dwarf star orbiting each other closely at a dizzying rate of around 100 minutes. White dwarfs are 'dead' stars that have burned all their fuel and collapsed in on themselves, making them small but extremely dense.

A type Ia supernova is generally thought to occur when a white dwarf star's core reignites, leading to a thermonuclear explosion. There are two scenarios where this can happen. In the first, the white dwarf gains enough mass to reach 1.4 times the mass of our Sun, known as the Chandrasekhar limit. HD265435 fits in the second scenario, in which the total mass of a close stellar system of multiple stars is near or above this limit. Only a handful of other star systems have been discovered that will reach this threshold and result in a Type Ia supernova.

Lead author Ingrid Pelisoli from the University of Warwick Department of Physics explains: "We don't know exactly how these supernovae explode, but we know it has to happen because we see it happening elsewhere in the universe."

"One way is if the white dwarf accretes enough mass from the hot subdwarf, so as the two of them are orbiting each other and getting closer, matter will start to escape the hot subdwarf and fall onto the white dwarf. Another way is that because they are losing energy to gravitational wave emissions, they will get closer until they merge. Once the white dwarf gains enough mass from either method, it will go supernova," she says.

Using data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, the team was able to observe the hot subdwarf. While they did not detect the white dwarf, the researchers observed the brightness of the hot subdwarf varied over time; this suggests a nearby massive object was distorting the star into a teardrop shape.

The astronomers then used Palomar Observatory and Keck Observatory's Echellette Spectrograph and Imager (ESI) to measure the radial velocity and rotational velocity of the hot subdwarf star, which allowed them to confirm that the hidden white dwarf is as heavy as our Sun, but just slightly smaller than the Earth's radius. Combined with the mass of the hot subdwarf, which is a little over 0.6 times the mass of our Sun, both stars have the mass needed to cause a Type Ia supernova.

"Keck's ESI data was crucial in determining that the compact binary system exceeds the Chandrasekhar mass limit, which makes HD265435 one of the very few supernova Ia progenitor systems known," says co-author Thomas Kupfer, assistant professor at Texas Tech University's Department of Physics and Astronomy.

As the two stars are already close enough to begin spiraling closer together, the white dwarf will inevitably go supernova in around 70 million years. Theoretical models produced specifically for this study also predict that the hot subdwarf will contract to become a white dwarf star before merging with its companion.

Type Ia supernovae are important for cosmology as 'standard candles.' Their brightness is constant and of a specific type of light, which means astronomers can compare what luminosity they should be with what we observe on Earth, and from that work out how distant they are with a good degree of accuracy. By observing supernovae in distant galaxies, astronomers combine what they know of how fast this galaxy is moving with our distance from the supernova and calculate the expansion of the universe.

"The more we understand how supernovae work, the better we can calibrate our standard candles. This is very important at the moment because there's a discrepancy between what we get from this kind of standard candle, and what we get through other methods," says Pelisoli.

She adds, "The more we understand about how supernovae form, the better we can understand whether this discrepancy we are seeing is because of new physics that we're unaware of and not taking into account, or simply because we're underestimating the uncertainties in those distances."

"There is another discrepancy between the estimated and observed galactic supernovae rate, and the number of progenitors we see. We can estimate how many supernovae are going to be in our galaxy through observing many galaxies, or through what we know from stellar evolution, and this number is consistent. But if we look for objects that can become supernovae, we don't have enough. This discovery was very useful to put an estimate of what a hot subdwarf and white dwarf binaries can contribute. It still doesn't seem to be a lot, none of the channels we observed seems to be enough," Pelisoli says.

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This research was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council, part of UK Research and Innovation.

ABOUT ESI

The Echellette Spectrograph and Imager (ESI) is a medium-resolution visible-light spectrograph that records spectra from 0.39 to 1.1 microns in each exposure. Built at UCO/Lick Observatory by a team led by Prof. Joe Miller, ESI also has a low-resolution mode and can image in a 2 x 8 arc min field of view. An upgrade provided an integral field unit that can provide spectra everywhere across a small, 5.7 x4.0 arc sec field. Astronomers have found a number of uses for ESI, from observing the cosmological effects of weak gravitational lensing to searching for the most metal-poor stars in our galaxy.

ABOUT W. M. KECK OBSERVATORY

The W. M. Keck Observatory telescopes are among the most scientifically productive on Earth. The two 10-meter optical/infrared telescopes atop Maunakea on the Island of Hawai'i feature a suite of advanced instruments including imagers, multi-object spectrographs, high-resolution spectrographs, integral-field spectrometers, and world-leading laser guide star adaptive optics systems. Some of the data presented herein were obtained at Keck Observatory, which is a private 501(c) 3 non-profit organization operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The authors wish to recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Maunakea has always had within the Native Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain.

 

Electric delivery vehicles: When, where, how they're charged has big impact on greenhouse gas emissions

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Research News

 

The transportation sector is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and a lot of attention has been devoted to electric passenger vehicles and their potential to help reduce those emissions.

But with the rise of online shopping and just-in-time shipping, electric delivery fleets have emerged as another opportunity to reduce the transportation sector's environmental impact.

Though EVs represent a small fraction of delivery vehicles today, the number is growing. In 2019, Amazon announced plans to obtain 100,000 electric delivery vehicles. UPS has ordered 10,000 of them and FedEx plans to be fully electric by 2040.

Now, a study from University of Michigan researchers shows that when, where and how those fleet vehicles are charged can greatly impact their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A key point of the study is that both the emissions directly tied to charging the vehicles and emissions that result from manufacturing the batteries must be considered. Charging practices that shorten a battery's lifetime will lead to early battery replacement, adding to the total greenhouse gas emissions associated with that vehicle.

The U-M researchers found that 50% to 80% of the lifetime emissions associated with an electric delivery vehicle's battery occur during charging. Therefore, charging from a cleaner energy source--such as an electrical grid with lots of renewables--is one of the most impactful ways to lower the emissions of an electric vehicle.

When both charging and battery degradation were considered, the researchers found that greenhouse gas emissions could be lowered by as much as 37% by optimizing charging strategies.

And, surprisingly, they also found that even in the most carbon-intensive regions of the United States, electric delivery vehicles resulted in fewer greenhouse gas emissions than their gasoline or diesel counterparts.

"Our evaluation strategy leads to two main recommendations for companies investing in fleets of electric vehicles," said Maxwell Woody of U-M's Center for Sustainable Systems, lead author of the study published online July 9 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

"The first is to consider battery degradation when determining when to charge and how much to charge. Some charging strategies can extend battery lifetime, and this will both lower greenhouse gas emissions and protect the company's investment."

The U-M team's second recommendation to fleet owners is to consider where the energy charging the vehicle comes from. A vehicle charged from solar or wind energy and a vehicle charged from a coal- or natural gas-fired power plant will have very different environmental impacts.

"Considering the charging source can help companies determine the best places to charge, as local grids vary across the country. Companies should prioritize fleet electrification in regions that provide the greatest carbon-reduction benefits," said Woody, a recent master's graduate of U-M's School for Environment and Sustainability who now works as a research area specialist at the Center for Sustainable Systems.

In their modeling study, the researchers analyzed four charging strategies and looked at their lifetime environmental impacts. The new U-M study goes beyond previous work by combining the regional and temporal variation in charging emissions with the impact of charging on battery degradation.

The researchers showed that a baseline charging scenario in which a vehicle is fully charged immediately upon returning to a central depot resulted in the highest emissions. Employing alternative charging methods led to emissions reductions of 8% to 37%.

"Charging the vehicle as soon as it returns and charging the vehicle up to 100% result in a lot of time spent sitting at the depot/charging station with a full battery. This extra time spent fully charged will cause the battery to wear out more quickly--so quickly that the battery may need to be replaced sometime in the vehicle's lifetime," said study corresponding author Parth Vaishnav, assistant professor at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability.

"Creating this additional battery produces additional greenhouse gas emissions, as well as additional costs."

Charging the battery only enough to complete the day's route, a practice the researchers called sufficient charging, led to a large increase in battery lifetime--in some cases more than doubling it. As a result, emissions tied to battery production were reduced.

Overall, charging strategies that minimized greenhouse gas emissions typically lowered costs as well. In most cases, delaying charging until the vehicle was close to departure, combined with sufficient charging, was the optimal strategy for both cost and emissions.

"The most important finding is that there is a big opportunity here to lower emissions," said study co-author Greg Keoleian, U-M professor of environment and sustainability and director of the U-M Center for Sustainable Systems.

"Electric delivery vehicles only make up a small proportion of delivery vehicles right now, but that number is expected to increase in the coming years. Establishing the best practices for charging now, as these vehicles are starting to be deployed in larger numbers, is a critical step toward lowering greenhouse gas emissions."

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The other authors of the study, "Charging Strategies to Minimize Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Electrified Delivery Vehicles," are Michael Craig of the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability and Geoffrey Lewis of the U-M Center for Sustainable Systems. The work was supported by the Responsible Battery Coalition.

Study abstract: Charging Strategies to Minimize Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Electrified Delivery Vehicles

 

The fine nose of storks

Smell leads storks to freshly mown meadows

MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE PREY OF STORKS LIKE TO LIVE IN TALL GRASS. FORAGING IS EASIER FOR THE BIRDS WHEN THE MEADOWS ARE FRESHLY MOWED. view more 

CREDIT: MPI OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOR/ C. ZIEGLER

The sharp eyes of an eagle, the extraordinary hearing of an owl - to successfully find food, the eyes and ears of birds have adapted optimally to their living conditions. Until now, the sense of smell has played a rather subordinate role. When meadows are freshly mowed, storks often appear there to search for snails and frogs. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Radolfzell and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have now studied the birds' behavior and discovered that the storks are attracted by the smell of the mown grass. Only storks that were downwind and could thus perceive the smell reacted to the mowing. The scientists also sprayed a meadow with a spray of green leaf scents released during mowing. Storks appeared here as well. This shows that white storks use their sense of smell to forage and suggests that the sense of smell may also play a greater role in other birds than previously thought.

For farmers around Lake Constance, it's a familiar sight: when they start mowing their meadows, storks often appear next to the tractors as if out of nowhere. The white storks live in the wet areas around the lake, feeding on snails, frogs and small rodents that find shelter in high meadows. If these meadows are mowed, the small animals are easy prey. However, the storks do not always appear when mowing takes place. Until now, it was not known how the storks locate the rich food source.

Previously, it was believed that birds relied primarily on their eyes and ears rather than their sense of smell. "It was simply assumed that birds can't smell well because they don't have real noses," says Martin Wikelski, director at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. "Yet they have a very large olfactory bulb in the brain with many receptor molecules for scents." So birds have the best prerequisites for a fine nose.

Testing for smell

Wikelski has spent many years observing storks and researching their migratory behavior, among other things. When he talked to his colleague Jonathan Williams about the storks' puzzling reaction to mowed meadows, Williams had an idea. Williams works at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, studying volatile organic compounds and their effects on humans and the environment. "My guess was that the storks were reacting to the intense smell of freshly cut grass," Williams says. This typical smell is produced by so-called green leaf odorants and consists of only three different molecules. "These are also added to perfumes, for example, to give them a fresh, "green" note," explains Williams.

The researchers now wanted to find out whether the sense of smell actually leads the storks to freshly mown meadows. To do this, they monitored the birds' movements both from aircraft and via GPS sensors of tagged animals. "We first had to rule out the possibility that the storks could hear the tractor or see the mowing process," Wikelski says. Therefore, they only included storks in the observation that were more than 600 meters away from the mowed meadow and did not have direct visual contact. The researchers also made sure that the storks were not alerted to the mowing process by the behavior of conspecifics or other birds.

CAPTION

Often, the first storks appear shortly after mowing begins. The smell of the freshly cut grass attracts them.

CREDIT

MPI of Animal Behavior/ C. Ziegler

Direction downwind

When mowing began, only the storks that were downwind flew to the meadow in question. The conspecifics that were upwind and thus could not perceive the grass smell did not react. To test whether the smell of the cut grass alone attracted the storks, the researchers switched to a meadow that had been mowed two weeks earlier. "The grass of this meadow was still very short. Therefore, it is uninteresting for the storks to forage," Wikelski explained. On this meadow, he and colleagues spread grass that had been mowed a short time before at a greater distance. A short time later, the first storks flew in and searched for food in the mown grass.

The researchers finally mixed a solution of green leaf scents and sprayed it on a meadow with short grass. The meadow then smelled intensely of mown grass and also attracted storks from the surrounding area. "This proves that storks find their way to feeding sites via scents in the air," Williams says.

This finding contradicts the previous assumption that storks primarily use their eyes to find food. Rather, the birds rely on their sense of smell to do so. "There have been storks that have flown more than 25 kilometers from the other side of Lake Constance to mowed meadows," Wikelski says. The researchers suspect that the sense of smell may also play a greater role than previously thought in the foraging activities of other bird species. Birds of prey such as buzzards and red kites are regularly observed flying over freshly mown meadows.

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Original publication

Martin Wikelski, Michael Quetting, Yachang Cheng, Wolfgang Fiedler, Andrea Flack, Anna Gagliardo, Reyes Salas, Nora Zannoni & Jonathan Williams Smell of green leaf volatiles attracts white storks to freshly cut meadows. Scientific Reports: 18 June, 2021

 TOBACCO GROWING STATE

New technique reduces nicotine levels, harmful compounds simultaneously in tobacco

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: OVEREXPRESSED PAP1 AND TT8 GENES TURN TOBACCO PLANTS RED, BUT ALSO HELP REDUCE CARCINOGENIC CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS. view more 

CREDIT: DE-YU XIE

North Carolina State University researchers have developed a new technique that can alter plant metabolism. Tested in tobacco plants, the technique showed that it could reduce harmful chemical compounds, including some that are carcinogenic. The findings could be used to improve the health benefits of crops.

"A number of techniques can be used to successfully reduce specific chemical compounds, or alkaloids, in plants such as tobacco, but research has shown that some of these techniques can increase other harmful chemical compounds while reducing the target compound," said De-Yu Xie, professor of plant and microbial biology at NC State and the corresponding author of a paper describing the research. "Our technology reduced a number of harmful compounds - including the addictive nicotine, the carcinogenic N-nitrosonornicotine (NNN), and other tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) - simultaneously without detrimental effects to the plant."

The technique uses transcription factors and regulatory elements as molecular tools for new regulation designs. Regulatory elements are short, non-coding DNA fragments that control the transcription of nearby coding genes. Transcription factors are proteins that help turn certain genes on or off by binding to regulatory elements. Xie hypothesized that these could be useful molecular tools to design new regulations for engineering new plant traits. Two Arabidopsis transcription factors in particular, PAP1 and TT8, are known to regulate the biosynthesis of anthocyanins, or classes of nutraceutical compounds with antioxidant properties. Xie further hypothesized that these proteins could be used as molecular tools to help repress a number of harmful chemical compound levels, such as nicotine.

"PAP1 regulates pigmentation, so tobacco plants with our overexpressed PAP1 genes are red," Xie said. "We screened plant DNAs and found that tobacco has PAP1- and TT8-favored regulatory elements near JAZ genes, which repress nicotine biosynthesis. We then proposed that these elements were appropriate tools for a test. In all, we found four JAZ genes activated in red tobacco plants with a designed PAP1 and TT8 cassette overexpressed."

Xie and his colleagues tested the hypothesis by examining tobacco plants in the greenhouse and in the field and showed the reductions of harmful chemical compounds and nicotine in both types of experiments. NNN levels were reduced from 63 to 79% in leaves from tobacco plants that had PAP1 and TT8 overexpressed, for example. Overall, four carcinogenic TSNAs were significantly reduced by the technique.

Xie believes that the technique holds the potential to be used in other crop plants to promote other beneficial traits and make some foods healthier.

The paper appears in Journal of Advanced Research. Research associate Mingzhu Li is a first author of the paper. Former postdoctoral fellows Xianzhi He and Christophe La Hovary are co-first authors. The research was supported by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

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Note to editors: An abstract of the paper follows.

"A De Novo regulation design shows an effectiveness in altering plant secondary metabolism"

Authors: Mingzhuo Li, Xianzhi He, Christophe La Hovary, Yue Zhu, Yilun Dong, Shibiao Liu, Hucheng Xing, Yajun Liu, Yucheng Jie, Dongming Ma, Seyit Yuzuak and De-Yu Xie, NC State University

Published: June 20, 2021 in Journal of Advanced Research

DOI: 10.1016/j.jare.2021.06.017

Abstract:

Introduction

Transcription factors (TFs) and cis-regulatory elements (CREs) control gene transcripts involved in various biological processes. We hypothesize that TFs and CREs can be effective molecular tools for De Novo regulation designs to engineer plants.

Objectives

We selected two Arabidopsis TF types and two tobacco CRE types to design a De Novo regulation and evaluated its effectiveness in plant engineering.

Methods

G-box and MYB recognition elements (MREs) were identified in four Nicotiana tabacum JAZs (NtJAZs) promoters. MRE-like and G-box like elements were identified in one nicotine pathway gene promoter. TF screening led to select Arabidopsis Production of Anthocyanin Pigment 1 (PAP1/MYB) and Transparent Testa 8 (TT8/bHLH). Two NtJAZ and two nicotine pathway gene promoters were cloned from commercial Narrow Leaf Madole (NL) and KY171 (KY) tobacco cultivars. Electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA), cross-linked chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), and dual luciferase assays were performed to test the promoter binding and activation by PAP1 (P), TT8 (T), PAP1/TT8 together, and the PAP1/TT8/Transparent Testa Glabra 1 (TTG1) complex. A DNA cassette was designed and then synthesized for stacking and expressing PAP1 and TT8 together. Three years of field trials were performed by following industrial and GMO protocols. Gene expression and metabolic profiling were completed to characterize plant secondary metabolism.

Results

PAP1, TT8, PAP1/TT8, and the PAP1/TT8/TTG1 complex bound to and activated NtJAZ promoters but did not bind to nicotine pathway gene promoters. The engineered red P+T plants significantly upregulated four NtJAZs but downregulated the tobacco alkaloid biosynthesis. Field trials showed significant reduction of five tobacco alkaloids and four carcinogenic tobacco specific nitrosamines in most or all cured leaves of engineered P+T and PAP1 genotypes.

Conclusion

G-boxes, MREs, and two TF types are appropriate molecular tools for a De Novo regulation design to create a novel distant-pathway cross regulation for altering plant secondary metabolism.