Assessing and forecasting collective urban heat exposure with smart city digital twins.

Due to population growth, climate change, and the urban heat island effect, heat exposure is becoming an important issue faced by urban built environments. Heat exposure assessment is a prerequisite for mitigation measures to reduce the impact of heat exposure. However, there is limited research on urban heat exposure assessment approaches that provides fine-scale spatiotemporal heat exposure information, integrated with meteorological status and human collective exposure as they move about in cities, to enable proactive heat exposure mitigation measures.

The field of human building interaction for convergent research and innovation for intelligent built environments.

Human-Building Interaction (HBI) is a convergent field that represents the growing complexities of the dynamic interplay between human experience and intelligence within built environments. This paper provides core definitions, research dimensions, and an overall vision for the future of HBI as developed through consensus among 25 interdisciplinary experts in a series of facilitated workshops. Three primary areas contribute to and require attention in HBI research: humans (human experiences, performance, and well-being), buildings (building design and operations), and technologies (sensing, inference, and awareness).

Investigating the association between mass transit adoption and COVID-19 infections in US metropolitan areas.

Urbanization introduces the threat of increased epidemic disease transmission resulting from crowding on mass transit. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which has directly led to over 600,000 deaths in the US as of July 2021, triggered mass social distancing policies to be enacted as a key deterrent of widespread infections. Social distancing can be challenging in confined spaces required for transportation such as mass transit systems.

Short-term air pollution exposure and COVID-19 infection in the United States.

The Sars-CoV-2 disease (known as COVID-19) has become a global public health emergency. Researchers have been unveiling the transmission mechanisms and disclosing possible contributing factors. Studies have theorized plausible linkage mechanisms between air pollution exposure and COVID-19 infection and have divided the air pollution exposure into two types: long-term exposure and short-term exposure.

Recurrent Mobility: Urban Conduits for Diffusion of Energy Efficiency.

Recent advances in energy technologies, policies, and practices have accelerated the global rate of improvements in energy efficiency, bringing the energy targets identified in the 2030 United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Agenda within reach. However, Target 7.3 requires this rate to double by 2030, demanding a more substantial response to energy interventions.

Aggregated responses of human mobility to severe winter storms: An empirical study.

Increasing frequency of extreme winter storms has resulted in costly damages and a disruptive impact on the northeastern United States. It is important to understand human mobility patterns during such storms for disaster preparation and relief operations. We investigated the effects of severe winter storms on human mobility during a 2015 blizzard using 2.

Diffusion Dynamics of Energy Saving Practices in Large Heterogeneous Online Networks.

Online social networks are today's fastest growing communications channel and a popular source of information for many, so understanding their contribution to building awareness and shaping public perceptions of climate change is of utmost importance. Today's online social networks are composed of complex combinations of entities and communication channels and it is not clear which communicators are the most influential, what the patterns of communication flow are, or even whether the widely accepted two-step flow of communication model applies in this new arena. This study examines the diffusion of energy saving practices in a large online social network across organizations, opinion leaders, and the public by tracking 108,771 communications on energy saving practices among 1,084 communicators, then analyzing the flow of information and influence over a 28 day period.

Patterns and Limitations of Urban Human Mobility Resilience under the Influence of Multiple Types of Natural Disaster.

Natural disasters pose serious threats to large urban areas, therefore understanding and predicting human movements is critical for evaluating a population's vulnerability and resilience and developing plans for disaster evacuation, response and relief. However, only limited research has been conducted into the effect of natural disasters on human mobility. This study examines how natural disasters influence human mobility patterns in urban populations using individuals' movement data collected from Twitter.

Quantifying human mobility perturbation and resilience in Hurricane Sandy.

Human mobility is influenced by environmental change and natural disasters. Researchers have used trip distance distribution, radius of gyration of movements, and individuals' visited locations to understand and capture human mobility patterns and trajectories. However, our knowledge of human movements during natural disasters is limited owing to both a lack of empirical data and the low precision of available data.

Anxiety and anxiety-related disorders in the adolescent population: an overview of diagnosis and treatment.

Anxiety is a common component of visits to the doctor's office by adolescents; however, it is often overlooked as a possible causative agent of the presenting complaint. With a high index of suspicion and proper questioning, a clinician can analyze the contribution that anxiety plays in the life of an adolescent patient. Behavioral and pharmacologic interventions exist for this group of disorders, and with proper diagnosis and treatment the symptoms of these disorders can possibly be ameliorated.

No effects of human ghrelin on cardiac function despite profound effects on body composition in a rat model of heart failure.

Background: Ghrelin, was observed to have treatment-potential for severe chronic heart failure (CHF) and cardiac cachexia based on anti-cachectic and cardio-protective effects.

Methods: We performed two studies to assess the effects of human ghrelin on food intake, body weight and body composition, as well as heart function in a rat model of CHF. Study-1 (50 or 500 nmole/kg/d ghrelin by pump infusion) was focused on food intake and body composition, study-2 (50 or 100 nmole/kg/d ghrelin by subcutaneous injection (3-times daily) was focused on heart function due to a lack of cardiac effects observed in study-1.

Efficacy of a dopamine-somatostatin chimeric molecule, BIM-23A760, in the control of cell growth from primary cultures of human non-functioning pituitary adenomas: a multi-center study.

Dopamine D2 and somatostatin receptors (sstrs) were reported to affect non-functioning pituitary adenoma (NFPA) proliferation in vitro. However, the reported results differ according to the experimental conditions used. We established an experimental protocol allowing reproducible evaluation of NFPA cell proliferation in vitro, to test and compare the antiproliferative effects of dopamine and somatostatin analogs (alone or in combination) with the activity of the dopamine-somatostatin chimeric molecule BIM-23A760.

Investigation of the anxiolytic effects of linalool, a lavender extract, in the male Sprague-Dawley rat.

The purpose of our study was to investigate the anxiolytic effects of linalool and its potential interaction with the GABAA receptor in Sprague-Dawley rats. Lavender has been used traditionally as an herbal remedy in the treatment of many medical conditions, including anxiety. Linalool is a major component of the essential oil of lavender.

Ghrelin treatment of chronic kidney disease: improvements in lean body mass and cytokine profile.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with an increase in inflammatory cytokines and can result in cachexia with loss of muscle and fat stores. We previously demonstrated the efficacy of treating a model of cancer cachexia with ghrelin and a ghrelin receptor agonist. Currently, we examine a surgical model of CKD in rats, resulting in uremia and decreased accrual of lean body mass.

Glucocorticoid inhibition of growth in rats: partial reversal with the full-length ghrelin analog BIM-28125.

Glucocorticoids are important immunosuppressive hormones; these steroids also inhibit somatic growth by decreased growth hormone (GH) secretion and induced protein catabolism. The ability of ghrelin, the endogenous ligand for the GHS-1a receptor, to increase body weight is attributed to a combination of enhanced food intake, increased gastric emptying and increased food assimilation, coupled with potent GH releasing activity. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the ability of a full-length, metabolically stabilized ghrelin agonist, BIM-28125, to reverse the dexamethasone-induced decrease of growth rate of prepubertal Sprague-Dawley male rats.

Ghrelin treatment causes increased food intake and retention of lean body mass in a rat model of cancer cachexia.

Cancer cachexia is a debilitating syndrome of anorexia and loss of lean body mass that accompanies many malignancies. Ghrelin is an orexigenic hormone with a short half-life that has been shown to improve food intake and weight gain in human and animal subjects with cancer cachexia. We used a rat model of cancer cachexia and administered human ghrelin and a synthetic ghrelin analog BIM-28131 via continuous infusion using sc osmotic minipumps.

Cortistatin inhibits growth hormone release from human fetal and adenoma pituitary cells and prolactin secretion from cultured prolactinomas.

Context: Cortistatin (CST) is a neuropeptide that shares high homology with somatostatin and binds with high affinity to all somatostatin receptor (SSTR) subtypes. Many of its endocrine and biological activities overlap with those of somatostatin.

Objective/design: The objective of the study was to assess the direct in vitro effects of CST on human pituitary hormone secretion.

A novel growth hormone secretagogue-1a receptor antagonist that blocks ghrelin-induced growth hormone secretion but induces increased body weight gain.

Ghrelin, the natural ligand for the growth hormone secretagogue-1a (GHS-1a) receptor, has received a great deal of attention due to its ability to stimulate weight gain and the hope that an antagonist of the GHS-1a receptor could be a treatment for obesity. We have discovered an analog of full-length human ghrelin, BIM-28163, which fully antagonizes GHS-1a by binding to but not activating the receptor. We further demonstrate that BIM-28163 blocks ghrelin activation of the GHS-1a receptor, and inhibits ghrelin-induced GH secretion in vivo.

The toxicology of chemokine inhibition.

The dividing line between essential physiological inflammatory processes and excessive pathological inflammation is often very thin - in some circumstances, indeed, it may be non-existent. Devising anti-inflammatory medications that effectively target only the pathological component therefore remains a central challenge for the pharmaceutical industry. At present, the general rule is that the more powerful the anti-inflammatory effect of a drug, the greater the side-effects that accompany it.

Somatostatin and dopamine receptor expression in lung carcinoma cells and effects of chimeric somatostatin-dopamine molecules on cell proliferation.

To study somatostatin/dopamine (SS/D) synergy in a human cell system constitutively expressing SS and D receptors (SSR and DR, respectively), we characterized the expression of SSR and DR subtypes in the non-small-cell lung cancer line Calu-6, and then we evaluated the effect on cell proliferation of SS/D chimeric molecules (BIM-23A387 and BIM-23A370), which bind with high affinity both sst(2) and D(2)R, and compared the results with those obtained by using SS-14 and subtype-selective SS analogs (SSA) and D agonists (DA). Because Calu-6 cells produce insulin-like growth factor (IGF) and IGF-binding protein (IGFBP) peptides, which play a role in the autocrine/paracrine control of cell growth, we also investigated the effects of chimeric compounds on secretion and expression of IGF system components. Relative high levels of sst(2) and the long isoform of the D(2)R were detected by real-time RT-PCR and Western blot in Calu-6, together with sst(5) and to a lesser extent sst(3) and D(4)R.

Distinct functional properties of native somatostatin receptor subtype 5 compared with subtype 2 in the regulation of ACTH release by corticotroph tumor cells.

In a series of human corticotroph adenomas, we recently found predominant mRNA expression of somatostatin (SS) receptor subtype 5 (sst5). After 72 h, the multiligand SS analog SOM230, which has a very high sst5 binding affinity, but not Octreotide (OCT), significantly inhibited basal ACTH release. To further explore the role of sst5 in the regulation of ACTH release, we conducted additional studies with mouse AtT-20 cells.

The somatostatin subtype-2 receptor antagonist, BIM-23627, improves the catabolic effects induced by long-term glucocorticoid treatment in the rat.

BIM-23627 is a synthetic peptide with "in vitro" and "in vivo" properties consistent with a pure sst2 antagonist. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of long-term administration of BIM-23627 and the combined effects of BIM-23627 and dexamethasone (DEX) on the somatotropic axis, including growth, epididymal fat accumulation, glucose homeostasis and insulin activity, in young male rats. Beginning on day 23 of age, 16 animals were treated daily with saline or DEX (40 microg/kg/daily).