New book, with accompanying video series, is first to present how musical care can be delivered throughout the human life course

‘Collaborative Insights’ takes an interdisciplinary approach to how musical care is understood and undertaken during different stages of a person’s life, offering perspectives from practitioners and what the research evidence says

Book Announcement

CITY UNIVERSITY LONDON

Co-edited by academics from the Royal College of Music and City, University of London, a new book introduces the term ‘musical care’: the role that music - music listening as well as music-making – can play in supporting aspects of a person’s developmental and health needs, including for their physical and mental health, cognitive and behavioural development, and interpersonal relationships.

Entitled, ‘Collaborative Insights: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Musical Care Throughout the Life Course’, it is a compendium of up-to-date knowledge on musical care and is aimed to act as a resource for anybody involved in the field to learn from and to influence their own practice or research - from music therapists working with children with special needs; to palliative care nurses seeking to introduce musical care to their practice; to academic researchers seeking to investigate the role of music in care contexts.

It is the first book to provide interdisciplinary insights into how musical care is understood and undertaken during different stages of a person’s life, sharing a variety of perspectives from practitioners and academic researchers to create a holistic overview of how musical care may be best delivered in different settings.

Each chapter has been written collaboratively by a music therapist and an academic in a related discipline (e.g. developmental psychology, music psychology, sociology); focuses on one life stage from infancy to the end of life; and provides a brief overview of musical care during that life stage, citing the supporting evidence, and offering new calls to action to inspire further work to better implement or understand musical care.

The eight chapters of the book are:

• Introduction: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Musical Care Throughout the Life Course
• Musical Care in Infancy: Supporting Infants and their Caregivers
• Musical Care in Childhood: How Music Nurtures the Developing Child
• Musical Care in Adolescence: Supporting Healthy Musical Identities and Uses of Music
• Musical Care in Adulthood: Sounding Our Way Through the Landscape
• Musical Care in Older Age: A Score for Healthy Ageing
• Musical Care at the End of Life: Palliative Care Perspectives and Emerging Practices
• Synthesis: The Future of Musical Care

The book is also the cornerstone of a wider initiative to expand awareness of musical care as a concept and to drive new collaborations and interdisciplinary learning.

Created by the book’s editors, the ‘Musical Care’ website contains a number of resources including a fun and freely accessible series of animations outlining to a general audience the roles of musical care in each of the six life stages, matching the chapters of the book.

Filmed at the Royal College of Music, a launch video to the book features the editors and other experts in the field discuss the importance of the book, the musical care network the editors have set up, and the accessible animations.

Co-editor of the book, Dr Katie Rose Sanfilippo, Research Fellow at the Centre for Healthcare Innovation Research at City, University of London said:

“We are delighted to have such a highly experienced and wide-ranging team of authors contribute. We hope that discussion of this book brings together all those interested in musical care, including music therapists, music psychologists, music educators and the public, to explore through collaboration and interdisciplinary working, the potential place of musical care throughout our lives.”

Co-editor, Dr Neta Spiro, Reader at the Centre for Performance Science at the Royal College of Music said:

“Alongside the book we have developed the interdisciplinary network Musical Care International to welcome discussion and connection among the wide range of people that musical care touches around the world. We hope to get more people involved in this conversation.”

Commenting on the book, Raymond MacDonald, Chair of Music Psychology and Improvisation, University of Edinburgh said:

“This is a fabulous book. Written by some of the world's leading researchers, each chapter is beautifully crafted to convey how music is a fundamental feature of human existence across the whole life. An essential read for anyone interested in the relationship between music and wellbeing.”

Helen Odell Miller, OBE PhD, Professor of Music Therapy and Director of the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research (CIMTR) at Anglia Ruskin University said:

“This fascinating book shows how music can enhance and transform care for infants, children, young people, adults, and older people living with a wide range of diverse needs, in different communities across the world."

The book is published by Oxford University Press (OUP) and currently available at the OUP website, on Blackwell’s Bookstore website and on Amazon.co.uk.

ENDS

Notes to editors

Contact details:

To speak to co-editors, Dr Katie Sanfilippo and Dr Neta Spiro, contact Shamim Quadir, Senior Communications Officer, School of Health Sciences. Tel: +44(0) 207 040 8782 Email: shamim.quadir@city.ac.uk.

Watch the launch video of Collaborative Insights filmed at the Royal College of Music (with contributions from the editors and other experts in the field):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0LCYB38ISw

Further information/to purchase ‘Collaborative Insights: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Musical Care Throughout the Life Course’:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/collaborative-insights-9780197535028?cc=gb&lang=en&

https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Collaborative-Insights-by-Neta-Spiro-editor-Katie-Rose-M-Sanfilippo-editor/9780197535028

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Collaborative-Insights-Interdisciplinary-Perspectives-Throughout/dp/019753502X

Visit the Musical Care website:

https://musicalcareresearch.com

About City, University of London

City, University of London is a global higher education institution committed to academic excellence, with a focus on business and the professions and an enviable central London location.

City’s academic range is broadly-based with world-leading strengths in business; law; health sciences; mathematics; computer science; engineering; social sciences; and the arts including journalism and music.

City has around 20,000 students (46% at postgraduate level) from more than 160 countries and staff from over 75 countries.

In the last REF, City doubled the proportion of its total academic staff producing world-leading or internationally excellent research.

More than 140,000 former students from over 180 countries are members of the City Alumni Network.

The University’s history dates from 1894, with the foundation of the Northampton Institute on what is now the main part of City’s campus.  In 1966, City was granted University status by Royal Charter and the Lord Mayor of London became its Chancellor. In September 2016, City joined the University of London and HRH the Princess Royal became City’s Chancellor.

US Voters agree on need for more protections from chemicals

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN FRANCISCO

American voters overwhelmingly say they want government and industry to ensure the products they buy are free of harmful chemicals, and they are willing to pay more for it, according to a national online survey commissioned by the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

“At a time when most issues are politically polarized, the issue of keeping people safe from harmful chemicals finds widespread agreement among Democrats, Republicans and Independent voters,” said Celinda Lake, President of Lake Research Partners, which conducted the poll. 

The survey of 1,200 registered voters found broad agreement that the government require products to be proven safe before they are put on the market. More than 90% of those surveyed support this requirement and two-thirds strongly agree with these ideas.

The poll also found:

• 92% of voters agree and 63% of voters strongly agree that the government should require products to be proven safe before companies are allowed to put them on the  market. 
• 93% of voters agree and 62% strongly agree that companies should do a better job of removing harmful chemicals from consumer products. 
• 88% agree that companies should do a better job of removing plastic and plastic packaging from consumer products.
• 76% are concerned about the impact that chemicals and plastics have on climate change.  
• 54% say chemical regulations are not strong enough, while 21% say they are about right and 10% say they are too strong. 
• 89% support (56% strongly support) the goal of the Toxic Substances Control Act to make it easier to limit or ban harmful chemicals and better protect vulnerable populations like pregnant women, children and people who live near polluting factories. 
• 93% agree (57% strongly) that it is important to remove harmful chemicals from where we live, work and go to school even if it increases the costs for some products, and similar numbers agree that it is important for companies to keep harmful chemicals out of everyday products, even if it increases costs for some products.

Voters are concerned about all of the chemicals they were asked about in the survey and expressed the most worry about chemicals ingested through water, food and food packaging. Still, they are unsure of how the chemical regulatory system works. About half (49%) say the chemicals in food and consumer products have been tested for safety, although this is not true.

“People assume that what they buy is safe and that almost always isn’t the case,” said Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, who directs PRHE and the EaRTH Center at UCSF. “The good news is this survey reveals overwhelming support for the government to do a better job of protecting people from harmful chemicals.”  

The poll was conducted May 25 to June 5, 2022. 

Survey methodology: Lake Research Partners designed and administered this online dial survey that was conducted May 25 to June 5, 2022. The survey reached a total of 1,200 registered voters nationwide including 800 base voters and oversamples of 100 Black registered voters, 100 Latinx registered voters, 100 Asian American Pacific Islander registered voters, and 100 Gen-Z registered voters. Oversamples were designed to ensure the results were representative of the U.S. voting population.

About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF School of Medicine also has a regional campus in Fresno. Learn more at https://ucsf.edu, or see our Fact Sheet.

Making the invisible water crisis visible

Sustainable Development Goal for wastewater treatment not enough

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT FACULTEIT GEOWETENSCHAPPEN

 

IMAGE: WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT, PICTURE BY IZZET CAKALLI view more 

CREDIT: IZZET CAKALLI

While achieving the United Nations (UN) ambitious Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for wastewater treatment would cause substantial improvements in global water quality, severe water quality issues would contain to persist in some world regions. So conclude researchers at Utrecht University. They developed a new water quality model to further elucidate the current and future pollution status of rivers and streams globally. The paper was published on 6th October in Nature Communications Earth & Environment.

Water quality issues are branded an “invisible crisis” by the World Bank, being under-monitored, difficult to detect and often imperceptible to the human eye. Nevertheless, the quality of global water resources is increasingly coming under pressure due to population growth, economic development and climate change. Yet, clean water is vital for our societal needs – such as public health, energy generation and crop production – and for protecting ecosystem health. To illustrate, an estimated 829,000 deaths worldwide are attributed each year to diarrhoea caused by the use of contaminated water for drinking or sanitation purposes.

In this study, the authors developed a new high-resolution global water quality model which can “help to fill-in-the-gaps in water quality knowledge, particularly in world regions where we lack observations”, says lead author Edward Jones. In addition to identifying hotspots of water quality issues, the model can help with attributing the source of pollution to particular sectors. “For instance, large-scale irrigation systems for agriculture drive salinity issues in Northern India, while industrial processes are more responsible in eastern China. Conversely, the domestic and livestock sectors drive organic and pathogen pollution worldwide”, Jones remarks.

The authors extended their focus beyond just past and current water quality. They applied their model to investigate how achieving the SDG target to halve the proportion of untreated wastewater entering the environment in 2030 would benefit global river water quality. “Our simulations show that, for a large part of the year, water quality in several regions would still exceed critical thresholds for human uses and ecosystem health. This is especially the case for developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia”, Jones explains. So, while the SDG target improves water quality, it is not always enough.

Difficult puzzle

Finding an optimum way to manage these problems is a difficult puzzle, however. “Even achieving the current SDG target will pose serious economic challenges, as expansion of wastewater treatment can be an expensive process”, Jones warns. “Yet the cost disadvantages of inadequate water quality for sectoral uses must also be considered. Ultimately, however, we also need to reduce our pollutant emissions and develop new approaches towards wastewater management”. Jones concludes “As such, with this paper we hope to underline the water quality problems we’re facing and firmly place these issues back on the political agenda."

Publication

Edward R. Jones, Marc F.P Bierkens, Niko Wanders, Edwin H. Sutanudjaja, Ludovicus P.H van Beek, Michelle T.H. van Vliet (2022), Current wastewater treatment targets are insufficient to protect surface water quality, Nature Communications Earth & Environment, https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00554-y (available on 6 October)

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s43247-022-00554-y 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Current wastewater treatment targets are insufficient to protect surface water quality

Re-spun silkworm silk is 70% stronger than spider silk

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CELL PRESS

 

IMAGE: STRESS-STRAIN CURVES OF REPRESENTATIVE ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL SILKS view more 

CREDIT: JINGXIA WANG, TIANTIAN FAN, & ZHI LIN

Spiders hold the market for the strongest silks but are too aggressive and territorial to be farmed. The next best alternative involves incorporating spider DNA into silkworms, an expensive and difficult-to-scale process. On October 6 in the journal Matter, scientists at Tianjin University show how the silk naturally produced by silkworms can be made 70% stronger than spider silks by removing a sticky outer layer and manually spinning the silk.

“Our finding reverses the previous perception that silkworm silk cannot compete with spider silks on mechanical performance,” says senior author Zhi Lin, a biochemist at Tianjin University.

Historically, silkworm silk has been used in fashion as a source of luxury robes and apparel fitting of royalty, but today, silk-based materials are more likely to be found in biomedicine as a material for stitches and surgical mesh. It’s also used for tissue regeneration experiments due to its mechanical properties, biocompatibility, and biodegradability.

The most common way to acquire silk is by farming silkworms. However, these silks are not as durable and are weaker than silk spun by spiders, specifically spider dragline silks which naturally do well under high tension. “Dragline silk is the main structural silk of a spider web. It is also used as a lifeline for a spider to fall from trees,” says Lin. Silkworms, on the other hand, use their softer silks for the construction of their cotton-ball-like cocoons during transformation into their moth forms.

While other groups have combined DNA from spiders to make silk, Lin’s group wanted to use common silkworms, which are more accessible and easily managed. They were by inspired by the artificial spinning of spider eggcase silk, which is a close relative to silkworm silk and has been shown to do well in the spinning process.

Natural silkworm silk fiber is composed of a core fiber wrapped by silk glue, which interferes with the spinning of the fibers for commercial purposes. To get around this, the researchers boiled silk from the common silkworm Bombyx mori in a bath of chemicals that could dissolve this glue and minimize the degradation of silk proteins. Then, to enhance the silk for spinning, the research team solidified the silk in a bath of metals and sugars.

“Since silkworm silk is very structurally similar to eggcase spider silk, which has previously been demonstrated to do well in a mix of zinc and iron baths, we thought to test this alternative method to avoid hazardous conditions used elsewhere,” says Lin. “Sucrose, a form of sugar, may increase the density and viscosity of the coagulation bath, which consequently affects the formation of the fibers.”

Once manually spun and drawn, the silks are thinner than the original silkworm silk, reaching nearly the same size as spider silks. Upon observation under a microscope, Lin describes them as “smooth and strong,” indicating that the artificial fibers could withstand force.

“We hope that this work opens up a promising way to produce profitable high-performance artificial silks,” Lin says.

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Financial support was provided by a startup grant from Tianjin University and National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Matter, Wang and Fan et al. “Artificial superstrong silkworm silk surpasses natural spider silks.” https://www.cell.com/matter/fulltext/S2590-2385(22)00517-3

Matter (@Matter_CP), published by Cell Press, is a new journal for multi-disciplinary, transformative materials sciences research. Papers explore scientific advancements across the spectrum of materials development—from fundamentals to application, from nano to macro. Visit https://www.cell.com/matter. To receive Cell Press media alerts, please contact press@cell.com.

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JOURNAL

Matter

DOI

10.1016/j.matt.2022.08.028 

Human cocaine and heroin addiction is found tied to impairments in specific brain circuit initially implicated in animals

Peer-Reviewed Publication

THE MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL / MOUNT SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

 

IMAGE: STRUCTURAL CONNECTIONS WITH THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX MODELED FROM TARGETED NUCLEI IN THE SUBCORTEX (BLUE: HABENULA, YELLOW: ANTERIOR THALAMUS, RED: VENTRAL TEGMENTAL AREA) USING DIFFUSION MRI TRACTOGRAPHY. MICROSTRUCTURAL PROPERTIES OF THE HABENULA TRACT WERE UNIQUELY REDUCED IN INDIVIDUALS WITH COCAINE OR HEROIN USE DISORDER. RESULTS HIGHLIGHT THE POTENTIAL SPECIFICITY OF DISTINCT PREFRONTAL CORTICAL CONNECTIONS TO THE NEUROPATHOLOGY OF DRUG ADDICTION view more 

CREDIT: MOUNT SINAI HEALTH SYSTEM

White matter in the brain that was previously implicated in animal studies has now been suggested to be specifically impaired in the brains of people with addiction to cocaine or heroin, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Baylor College of Medicine. The study was published October 6 in Neuron.

The study looked at the connectivity of the tract between the prefrontal cortex (PFC), a brain region critical for regulating higher-order executive functions, and the habenula, a region that plays a critical role in reward and reward-associated learning. The habenula has emerged as a key driver of drug-seeking behaviors in animal models of addiction. Specifically, signaling from the PFC to the habenula is disrupted in rodent cocaine addiction models, implicating this PFC-habenula circuit in withdrawal and cue-induced relapse behaviors. However, until now, the PFC-habenula path has remained poorly understood in the human brain. Furthermore, its involvement in the neuropathological effects of drugs other than cocaine has not been previously explored.

For the first time in the human brain, a team led by Rita Z. Goldstein, PhD, and Junqian Xu, PhD, used diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tractography to investigate the microstructural features of the PFC-habenula circuit in people with cocaine or heroin addiction compared to healthy control participants. Diffusion MRI tractography uses noninvasive brain imaging to model fiber bundles in the living human brain.

Dr. Goldstein is the Mount Sinai Professor in Neuroimaging of Addiction and Director of the Neuroimaging of Addictions and Related Conditions Research Program at Icahn Mount Sinai. Dr. Xu is Associate Professor of Radiology, and Psychiatry, at Baylor College of Medicine.

“In addition to identifying microstructural differences, specifically reduced coherence in the orientation of the white matter fibers in the cocaine-addicted group that comprised both current cocaine users and those with short-term abstinence, we extended results beyond cocaine (a stimulant) to heroin (an opioid), suggesting that abnormalities in this path may be generalized in addiction,” said Sarah King, a PhD student in Neuroscience in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Icahn Mount Sinai, who led the analyses and is first author of the paper. “Importantly, we found that across all addicted individuals, greater impairment was correlated with earlier age of first drug use, which points to a potential role for this circuit in developmental or premorbid risk factors.”

The results advance ongoing research in the field by targeting a previously unexplored circuit in the pathophysiology of addiction in humans, where deficits may predispose an individual to both the development of drug addiction and to relapse and which may be potentially amenable for individually tailored treatment or prevention efforts.

About the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is internationally renowned for its outstanding research, educational, and clinical care programs. It is the sole academic partner for the eight member hospitals* of the Mount Sinai Health System, one of the largest academic health systems in the United States, providing care to a large and diverse patient population. 

Ranked 14th nationwide in National Institutes of Health (NIH)  funding and among the 99th percentile in  research dollars per investigator according to the  Association of American Medical Colleges, Icahn Mount Sinai has a talented, productive, and successful faculty. More than 3,000 full-time scientists, educators and clinicians work within and across 34 academic departments and 35 multidisciplinary institutes, a structure that facilitates tremendous collaboration and synergy. Our emphasis on translational research and therapeutics is evident in such diverse areas as genomics/big data, virology, neuroscience, cardiology, geriatrics, as well as gastrointestinal and liver diseases.

Icahn Mount Sinai offers highly competitive MD, PhD, and Master’s degree programs, with current enrollment of approximately 1,300 students. It has the largest graduate medical education program in the country, with more than 2,000 clinical residents and fellows training throughout the Health System. In addition, more than 550 postdoctoral research fellows are in training within the Health System.

A culture of innovation and discovery permeates every Icahn Mount Sinai program. Mount Sinai’s technology transfer office, one of the largest in the country, partners with faculty and trainees to pursue optimal commercialization of intellectual property to ensure that Mount Sinai discoveries and innovations translate into healthcare products and services that benefit the public.

Icahn Mount Sinai’s commitment to breakthrough science and clinical care is enhanced by academic affiliations that supplement and complement the School’s programs.

Through the Mount Sinai Innovation Partners (MSIP), the Health System facilitates the real-world application and commercialization of medical breakthroughs made at Mount Sinai. Additionally, MSIP develops research partnerships with industry leaders such as Merck & Co., AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk, and others.

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is located in New York City on the border between the Upper East Side and East Harlem and classroom teaching takes place on a campus facing Central Park. Icahn Mount Sinai’s location offers many opportunities to interact with and care for diverse communities. Learning extends well beyond the borders of our physical campus, to the eight hospitals of the Mount Sinai Health System, our academic affiliates, and globally.
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*  Mount Sinai Health System Member Hospitals: The Mount Sinai Hospital; Mount Sinai Queens; Mount Sinai Beth Israel; Mount Sinai West (previously known as Mount Sinai Roosevelt); Mount Sinai Morningside (previously known as Mount Sinai St. Luke’s); Mount Sinai Brooklyn; New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai; and Mount Sinai South Nassau (previously known as South Nassau Communities Hospital).

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JOURNAL

Neuron

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Prefrontal-habenular microstructural impairments in human cocaine and heroin addiction

On-site reactors could affordably turn CO2 into valuable chemicals

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO

 

IMAGE: LEFT: A SCHEMATIC SHOWING THE KEY COMPONENTS OF THE REACTOR AND WORKING MECHANISM. RIGHT: A PICTURE OF THE CO2 STACK, WHICH IS A DEMONSTRATION OF THE COMMERCIAL REACTORS. view more 

CREDIT: DR. ZHONGWEI CHEN, A CHEMICAL ENGINEERING PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO

New technology developed at the University of Waterloo could make a significant difference in the fight against climate change by affordably converting harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) into fuels and other valuable chemicals on an industrial scale.

Outlined in a study published today in the journal Nature Energy, the system yields 10 times more carbon monoxide (CO) – which can be used to make ethanol, methane and other desirable substances – than existing, small-scale technologies now limited to testing in laboratories.

Its individual cells can also be stacked to form reactors of any size, making the technology a customizable, economically viable solution that could be installed right on site, for example, at factories with CO2 emissions.

“This is a critical bridge to connect CO2 lab technology to industrial applications,” said Dr. Zhongwei Chen, a chemical engineering professor at Waterloo. “Without it, it is very difficult for materials-based technologies to be used commercially because they are just too expensive.”

The system features devices known as electrolyzers that convert CO2, a major greenhouse gas produced by burning fossil fuels, into CO using water and electricity.

Electrolyzers developed by the researchers have new electrodes and a new kind of liquid-based electrolyte, which is saturated with CO2 and flowed through the devices for conversion into CO via an electrochemical reaction.

Their electrolyzers are essentially 10-centimetre by 10-centimetre cells, many times larger than existing devices, that can be stacked and configured in reactors of any size.

“This is a completely new model for a CO2 reactor,” said Chen, the Canada Research Chair in Advanced Materials for Clean Energy. “It makes the whole process economically viable for industrialization and can be customized to meet specific requirements.”

The researchers envision on-site reactors at coal-fired power plants and factories, perhaps the size of a house or more, that would be directly fed CO2 emissions, further reducing costs by eliminating the need to capture and collect CO2 first.

They are also developing plans to power the reactors with on-site renewable energy sources such as solar panels, contributing to the environmental benefits.

“I’m excited by the potential of this technology,” Chen said. “If we really want to make a difference by reducing emissions, we have to concentrate on reducing costs to make it affordable.”

Chen’s collaborators at Waterloo included postdoctoral fellow Dr. Guobin Wen and chemical engineering professors Dr. Aiping Yu and Dr. Jeff Gostick. Several researchers at the South China Normal University also contributed.

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JOURNAL

Nature Energy

Low-income charter school graduates had lower rates of problematic substance use as young adults, UCLA research suggests

Male graduates also reported better health, lower obesity in post graduate years – female graduates did not

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES HEALTH SCIENCES

An 8-year study of nearly 1300 low-income adolescents in Los Angeles found that students who attended high performing charter high schools were much less likely to engage in risky substance use by the time they reached age 21.

The study, to be published in the peer-reviewed JAMA Network Open, found males who attended the high performing schools also had better physical health and lower obesity rates as young adults while females had substantially worse outcomes in those two areas.

‘The present results suggest schools have the potential to have a substantial impact on a range of health behaviors and outcomes, including substance use and obesity--two significant and intransigent public health problems,” said lead author Dr. Mitchell Wong, professor of medicine, division of general internal medicine and health services research, at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “The differences in health and behavior outcomes were immediate, substantial, and persistent beyond adolescence, which is a vulnerable period in students’ lives, and schools can change the trajectory of both educational and health outcomes.”

In previous research called the Reducing Inequities Through Social and Education Change (RISE) Study, Wong and his collaborators examined outcomes at grade 11. They found that low-income minority students enrolled in high-performing Los Angeles public charter schools were significantly less likely to engage in risky health behaviors such as alcohol and marijuana use than students who were on the waitlist for these schools and attended other schools in the area.

The new study, called RISE Up to reflect that it follows up on the prior research, goes beyond that by looking into post-graduate years and extending the focus to physical health and obesity. The researchers randomly selected 694 students admitted by lottery into one of five high-performing public charter high schools (the intervention group) and 576 waitlisted students (the control group) and followed them between March 2013 through June 2021. They were primarily low-income Latinos or Blacks and were monitored from grade nine through three years after high school graduation.

They found that the students in the intervention group had a 50% lower rate of alcohol use disorder compared to the controls. They also found that self-reported fair or poor health and obesity rates were 42% and 33% lower, respectively, among males.

Among women who attended high-performing schools, however, fair or poor physical health and obesity rates went in the opposite direction-- 65% and 31% higher, respectively, compared with those in the control group. While the reason for this was unclear, the researchers suggest it could be because “higher-performing schools raise expectations for success, potentially creating greater tension around decisions about education, career, and family. These expectations may differ for women and men in our study. Women and men may also cope differently with these expectations, possibly leading women to experience more stress and worse physical health.”

“Overall, these results are encouraging given that substance use and obesity are significant public health problems and risk factors for later life conditions such as cardiovascular disease, dementia, and cancer,” Wong said. “But the potential detrimental physical health and obesity outcomes among women is concerning and warrants further study.”

A strength of the study is that participants went to 147 different high schools in the area, representing a wide range of academic environments. However, the study has some limitations, including a reliance on self-reported outcomes, the authors note. The sample only included students who had applied to charter high schools in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods of Los Angeles, so the findings may not be applicable to other school models. In addition, 90% of the sample were Latino and it is unknown if the same results would be found in other student populations.

Still, the results “suggest high-performing public schools may have an impact on a range of behaviors and health outcomes with a large effect, which is particularly impressive given the marginal cost of the ‘intervention’ is zero,” the researchers write. “Finding effective, affordable, and scalable solutions to combat poverty and its negative effects on health is enormously challenging. Ultimately, improving schools has great potential as a strategy to improve health.”

STUDY/PDF

 Association of Attending a High-Performing High School With Substance Use Disorder Rate and Health Outcomes in Young Adults | Adolescent Medicine | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network

Other study authors are Dr. Benjamin Meza, Kulwant Dosanjh, Nicholas Jackson, Teresa

Seeman, Natalia Orendain, and Dr. Rebecca Dudovitz, all of UCLA.

 

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.35083 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Association of attending a high-performing high school with substance use disorder rate and health outcomes in young adults

Good planning gets the bike rolling

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT DRESDEN

 

IMAGE: THE ROUTE CHOICE OF CYCLISTS IS SUBJECT TO VARIOUS DECISION FACTORS. FOR EXAMPLE, MANY PREFER A SEPARATE BIKE LANE (TOP LEFT) INSTEAD OF SHARING SPACE WITH DENSE CAR TRAFFIC (TOP RIGHT). DEPENDING ON WHETHER STREETS WITH HEAVY CAR TRAFFIC (THICK EDGES) ARE EQUIPPED WITH DEDICATED BIKE PATHS (BLUE) OR NOT (GRAY), CYCLISTS TAKE THE DIRECT ROUTE (BLACK ARROW, BOTTOM LEFT), TAKE DETOURS TO STAY ON BIKE PATHS (BOTTOM CENTER) OR RIDE ON SMALL SIDE STREETS (THIN EDGES) (BOTTOM RIGHT). view more 

CREDIT: CHRISTOPH STEINACKER

In surveys, a large majority of respondents usually agree that cycling can make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gases and to sustainable transport, especially in densely populated areas. In contrast, for many countries in reality there is a large gap between desired and actual numbers. In Germany, for example, only 20% of the short-distance of everyday trips in residential environments are covered by bicycle.

When asked about the reasons, one point repeatedly comes up top of the list: The perceived or actual lack of safety on the bike routes used. Increasing the share of cycling trips in the modal split thus depends crucially on a well-developed bike path infrastructure. However, designing efficient bike path networks is a complex problem that involves balancing a variety of constraints while meeting overall cycling demand. In addition, many municipalities still only have small budgets available for improving bicycle infrastructure.

In their study, researchers from the Chair of Network Dynamics / Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) at TU Dresden propose a new approach to generate efficient bike path networks. This explicitly considers the demand distribution and route choice of cyclists based on safety preferences. Typically, minimizing the travel distance is not the only goal, but aspects such as (perceived) safety or attractiveness of a route are also taken into account.

The starting point of this approach is a reversal of the usual planning process: Under real conditions, a bike path network is created by constantly adding bike paths to more streets. The cfaed scientists, on the contrary, start with an ideal, complete network, in which all streets in a city are equipped with a bike path. In a virtual process, they gradually remove individual, less used bike path segments from this network. The route selection of the cyclists is continuously updated. Thus, a sequence of bike path networks is created that is always adapted to the current usage. Each stage of this sequence corresponds to a variant that could be implemented with less financial effort. In this way, city planners can select the version that fits their municipality's budget.

"In our study, we illustrate the applicability of this demand-driven planning scheme for dense urban areas of Dresden and Hamburg," explains Christoph Steinacker, first author of the study. "We approach a real-life issue here using the theoretic toolbox of network dynamics. Our approach allows us to compare efficient bike path networks under different conditions. For example, it allows us to measure the influence of different demand distributions on the emerging network structures." The proposed approach can thus provide a quantitative assessment of the structure of current and planned bike path networks and support demand-driven design of efficient infrastructures.

The study has been published in the journal Nature Computational Science.
Title: "Demand-driven design of bicycle infrastructure networks for improved urban bikeability".
Authors: Christoph Steinacker, David-Maximilian Storch, Marc Timme, Malte Schröder

Link to the study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43588-022-00318-w

The study was funded by project ‘Statistische Physik von Radverkehrinfrastrukturnetzwerken’ (StaCyNet, project number 493613373) of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation).

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JOURNAL

Nature Computational Science

DOI

10.1038/s43588-022-00318-w 

Eye-opening discovery about adult brain’s ability to recover vision

UCI team demonstrates the adult brain has the potential to partially recover from inherited blindness

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - IRVINE

Irvine, Calif., Oct. 6, 2022 — A discovery about how some visually impaired adults could start to see offers a new vision of the brain’s possibilities. The finding that the adult brain has the potential to partially recover from inherited blindness comes from a collaboration between researchers in the University of California, Irvine School of Biological Sciences and the School of Medicine. Their paper appears in Current Biology.

The team was examining treatment for Leber congenital amaurosis, known as LCA. The term refers to a group of inherited retinal diseases distinguished by severe visual impairment at birth. The condition, which stems from mutations in any of over two dozen genes, causes degeneration or dysfunction in the retina’s photoreceptors.

Administering chemical compounds that target the retina, called synthetic retinoids, can restore a notable amount of vision in children with LCA. The UCI team wanted to find out if the treatment could make a difference for adults who have the condition.

“Frankly, we were blown away by how much the treatment rescued brain circuits involved in vision,” said Sunil Gandhi, professor of neurobiology and behavior and the corresponding author. Gandhi is a fellow of UCI’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and a member of the Center for Translational Vision Research. “Seeing involves more than intact and functioning retinae. It starts in the eye, which sends signals throughout the brain. It’s in the central circuits of the brain where visual perception actually arises.” Until now, scientists believed that the brain must receive those signals in childhood so that central circuits could wire themselves correctly.

Working with rodent models of LCA, the collaborators were surprised by what they found. “The central visual pathway signaling was significantly restored in adults, especially the circuits that deal with information coming from both eyes,” Gandhi said. “Immediately after the treatment, the signals coming from the opposite-side eye, which is the dominant pathway in the mouse, activated two times more neurons in the brain. What was even more mind-blowing was that the signals coming from the same-side eye pathway activated five-fold more neurons in the brain after the treatment and this impressive effect was long-lasting. The restoration of visual function at the level of the brain was much greater than expected from the improvements we saw at the level of the retinae. The fact that this treatment works so well in the central visual pathway in adulthood supports a new concept, which is that there is latent potential for vision that is just waiting to be triggered.”

The finding opens exciting research possibilities. “Whenever you have a discovery that breaks with your expectations about the possibility for the brain to adapt and rewire, it teaches you a broader concept,” Gandhi said. “This new paradigm could aid in the development of retinoid therapies to more completely rescue the central visual pathway of adults with this condition.”

Gandhi and first author Carey Huh, PhD, who initiated the project, teamed with Krzysztof Palczewski, Distinguished Professor of ophthalmology. Palczewski, director of the Center for Translational Vision Research, is renowned for his work on retinoids and the visual cycle. Philip Kiser, associate professor of physiology and biophysics, an expert on visual cycle biochemistry, helped lead the group. Kiser, who holds a joint appointment in ophthalmology, is a member, Center for Translational Vision Research.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Research to Prevent Blindness foundation.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UCI, visit www.uci.edu.

Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UCI faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UCI news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at communications.uci.edu/for-journalists.

NOTE TO EDITORS: PHOTO AVAILABLE AT:
ttps://news.uci.edu/2022/10/05/eye-opening-discovery-about-adult-brains-ability-to-recover-vision/

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JOURNAL

Current Biology

ARTICLE TITLE

Retinoid therapy restores eye-specific cortical responses in adult mice with retinal degeneration

Recent advances in smart contact lenses

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

Contact lenses are most often used to correct blurry vision, but sometimes, people wear differently colored ones for fun. And with Halloween just around the corner, people will soon be stocking up on red, black or cat-eye contacts to look extra spooky. Researchers are currently working hard to adapt these little hydrogels into smart devices to treat color blindness, for use in wearable virtual displays, and for drug delivery and noninvasive health monitoring. Below are some recent papers published in ACS journals that report insights into powering smart contacts, as well as new ways they can deliver drugs. Reporters can request free access to these papers by emailing newsroom@acs.org.

Powering smart lenses
“Safe, Durable, and Sustainable Self-Powered Smart Contact Lenses”
ACS Nano
Sept. 7, 2022
Here, researchers showed that the glucose in tears can power smart contact lenses. They sandwiched a microscopic glucose fuel cell between soft hydrogel layers. Combining the fuel cell with color-changing crystal arrays produced a protype sensor that visibly distinguished artificial tears simulating a diabetic condition from controls. The device still needs to be made even smaller, however, before it could be used in smart glucose-sensing contact lenses, say the researchers.

“Flexible and Semi-Transparent Silicon Solar Cells as a Power Supply to Smart Contact Lenses”
ACS Applied Electronic Materials
Aug.1, 2022
In this paper, flexible, semi-transparent solar cells were designed for running the microelectronic and optoelectronic elements in smart contact lenses. Researchers molded the 15 µm-thick silicon-based photovoltaics in arcs, embedding them into dome-shaped lenses. Based on experiments in indoor and outdoor light, the researchers estimated that their 25 and 50% transparent solar cells could generate 49.3 and 26.6 J cm-2 per day, respectively, showing their potential to deliver energy to smart contact lenses.

Delivering drugs
“Printable Metal–Polymer Conductors for Local Drug Delivery”
Nano Letters
Sept. 19, 2022
Medications, such as drops or ointments, that are administered topically can enter the body more easily with localized applications of electricity. As a step toward using this technique to treat eyes and skin, researchers printed liquid metal circuits onto stretchable and bendable pieces of polydimethylsiloxane, simulating contact lenses and skin patches. In animal model tests, electrical pulses were applied to the metal-polymer contact lens, which the researchers found improved the therapeutic effect of eye drops.

“Pressure-Triggered Microfluidic Contact Lens for Ocular Drug Delivery”
ACS Applied Polymer Materials
Sept. 7, 2022
Most eye infections are treated with drops, but blinking and tears quickly rinse them away. So, researchers have developed prototype smart contact lenses that can gradually deliver drugs directly onto the eye. The lenses have arc-shaped microfluidic channels and a micropump that’s activated by eyelid pressure. In blinking simulations, the flexible, transparent lenses released drug-like fluids in a controlled and sustained manner without the need for electronic components.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and all its people. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.