Using action research and a community-academic partnership to understand clinical trial participation: a patient-centered perspective.

Background: Clinical trials that are patient-centered appear to be more successful (e.g., clinical outcomes, improved communication, mutual empowerment, changed attitudes), thus, action research may be a field of importance.

A patient perspective on applying intermittent fasting in gynecologic cancer.

Objective: Researchers sought patient feedback on a proposed randomized controlled trial (RCT) in which gynecological cancer patients would modify their diets with intermittent fasting to gain insight into patients' perspectives, receptivity, and potential obstacles. A convenience sample of 47 patients who met the inclusion criteria of the proposed RCT provided their feedback on the feasibility and protocols of the RCT using a multi-method approach consisting of focus groups (n = 8 patients) and surveys (n = 36 patients).

Results: Patients were generally receptive to the concept of intermittent fasting, and many expressed an interest in attempting it themselves.

"Healing Can Be a Very Jagged Line": Reflections on Life as a COVID-19 Long Hauler.

"Long COVID" - a term referring to COVID-19-associated symptoms and conditions (ie, sequelae) that remain or emerge after resolution of a SARS-CoV-2 infection - is a multifaceted condition about which little is known. As part of formalized patient-engaged research at a large Midwestern health system, patient stakeholders with long COVID (N=5) wrote stories based on their lived experience, as this was their preferred format for detailing their experience with the condition. These patient stakeholders reviewed one another's stories, identified relevant quotes, and provided opportunities for elaboration.

Bridging the Patient Engagement Gap in Research and Quality Improvement Utilizing the Henry Ford Flexible Engagement Model.

Purpose: This paper was intended to share a flexible engagement model (FEM) for organizing a structure to obtain patient input regarding health care operations and research, provide greater detail on recruitment, retention, and dissemination strategies, and demonstrate successes and potential applications in other health care settings.

Methods: Utilizing a pragmatic approach, the Patient-Engaged Research Center (PERC) at Henry Ford Health System developed the FEM, a 7-step process to introduce interested patients/caregivers to the patient advisor program and to follow up with placements. PERC developed a meeting evaluation to measure participant satisfaction.

Neuronatin is a modifier of estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer incidence and outcome.

Purpose: Understanding the molecular mediators of breast cancer survival is critical for accurate disease prognosis and improving therapies. Here, we identified Neuronatin (NNAT) as a novel antiproliferative modifier of estrogen receptor-alpha (ER+) breast cancer.

Experimental Design: Genomic regions harboring breast cancer modifiers were identified by congenic mapping in a rat model of carcinogen-induced mammary cancer.

The irrelevant speech effect among younger and older adults: The influence of background noises on reading comprehension.

Background: Aging could exacerbate the decreases in cognitive functioning already caused by noise pollution. According to the inhibitory deficit hypothesis, older adults have more difficulty than do younger adults keeping irrelevant information from interfering with processing of relevant information. However, irrelevant speech studies typically fail to support this hypothesis.

Host genetic modifiers of nonproductive angiogenesis inhibit breast cancer.

Purpose: Multiple aspects of the tumor microenvironment (TME) impact breast cancer, yet the genetic modifiers of the TME are largely unknown, including those that modify tumor vascular formation and function.

Methods: To discover host TME modifiers, we developed a system called the Consomic/Congenic Xenograft Model (CXM). In CXM, human breast cancer cells are orthotopically implanted into genetically engineered consomic xenograft host strains that are derived from two parental strains with different susceptibilities to breast cancer.

Spatial and temporal assessment of cumulative disturbance impacts due to military training, burning, haying, and their interactions on land condition of Fort Riley.

The effects of military training activities on the land condition of Army installations vary spatially and temporally. Training activities observably degrade land condition while also increasing biodiversity and stabilizing ecosystems. Moreover, other anthropogenic activities regularly occur on military lands such as prescribed burns and agricultural haying-adding to the dynamics of land condition.

Making sense of age-related distractibility: the critical role of sensory modality.

Older adults are known to have reduced inhibitory control and therefore to be more distractible than young adults. Recently, we have proposed that sensory modality plays a crucial role in age-related distractibility. In this study, we examined age differences in vulnerability to unimodal and cross-modal visual and auditory distraction.

A model of top-down gain control in the auditory system.

To evaluate a model of top-down gain control in the auditory system, 6 participants were asked to identify 1-kHz pure tones differing only in intensity. There were three 20-session conditions: (1) four soft tones (25, 30, 35, and 40 dB SPL) in the set; (2) those four soft tones plus a 50-dB SPL tone; and (3) the four soft tones plus an 80-dB SPL tone. The results were well described by a top-down, nonlinear gain-control system in which the amplifier's gain depended on the highest intensity in the stimulus set.

The role of sensory modality in age-related distraction: a critical review and a renewed view.

Selective attention requires the ability to focus on relevant information and to ignore irrelevant information. The ability to inhibit irrelevant information has been proposed to be the main source of age-related cognitive change (e.g.

Aging and distraction by irrelevant speech: does emotional valence matter?

Objectives: From prior studies, we know that older adults are rarely more distracted by irrelevant speech than younger adults, which is remarkable in light of the inhibitory deficit view of aging. We tested the hypothesis that older adults are more distracted by emotional irrelevant speech during a visual cognitive task than younger adults.

Methods: Forty-eight younger (mean age = 21.

The effects of age on channel capacity for absolute identification of tonal duration.

We compared the ability of younger and older adults to identify which 2-kHz tones of eight varying durations was presented on a trial with their ability to discriminate between adjacent pairs of duration-varying tones drawn from the same set. We used signal detection analyses to construct scales of perceived duration for both tasks. Scales derived from pairwise comparisons of adjacent durations were related linearly to the logarithm of stimulus duration; these were essentially identical in younger and older adults.

ZATPAC: a model consortium evaluates teen programs.

How do we advance the environmental literacy of young people, support the next generation of environmental stewards and increase the diversity of the leadership of zoos and aquariums? We believe it is through ongoing evaluation of zoo and aquarium teen programming and have founded a consortium to pursue those goals. The Zoo and Aquarium Teen Program Assessment Consortium (ZATPAC) is an initiative by six of the nation's leading zoos and aquariums to strengthen institutional evaluation capacity, model a collaborative approach toward assessing the impact of youth programs, and bring additional rigor to evaluation efforts within the field of informal science education. Since its beginning in 2004, ZATPAC has researched, developed, pilot-tested and implemented a pre-post program survey instrument designed to assess teens' knowledge of environmental issues, skills and abilities to take conservation actions, self-efficacy in environmental actions, and engagement in environmentally responsible behaviors.

A comparison of higher order auditory processes in younger and older adults.

The authors conducted 3 experiments investigating the effects of aging on higher order auditory processes. They compared younger and older adults with respect to (a) their auditory channel capacity, (b) the extent of their top-down control over auditory gain, and (c) their ability to focus attention on a narrow band of frequencies. To ensure that subclinical cochlear processing deficits in older adults (e.

Why do older adults have difficulty following conversations?

Age-related declines in understanding conversation may be largely a consequence of perceptual rather than cognitive declines. B. A.

Speech comprehension difficulties in older adults: cognitive slowing or age-related changes in hearing?

Speech comprehension declines more rapidly in older adults than in younger adults as speech rate increases. This effect is usually attributed to a slowing of brain function with age. Alternatively, this Age X Speed interaction could reflect the inability of the older adult's auditory system to cope with speed-induced stimulus degradation.

Top-down gain control in the auditory system: evidence from identification and discrimination experiments.

The influence of intensity range in auditory identification and intensity discrimination experiments is well documented and is usually attributed to nonsensory factors. Recent studies, however, have suggested that the stimulus range effect might be sensory in origin. To test this notion, in one set of experiments, we had listeners identify the individual tones in a set.

Comparing the effects of aging and background noise on short-term memory performance.

Paired associate recall was tested as a function of serial position for younger and older adults for five word pairs presented aurally in quiet and in noise. In Experiment 1, the addition of noise adversely affected recall in young adults, but only in the early serial positions. Experiments 2 and 3 suggested that the recall of older adults listening to the words in quiet was nearly equivalent to that of younger adults listening in noise.