Food for All: An Interview With Sam Springs of Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture.

Limited access to healthy foods can lead to negative health outcomes such as cardiovascular conditions and diabetes. In North Carolina, there are more than 350 "food deserts" where it is difficult for more than 1.5 million residents to access healthy food.

Where We Work, Play, And Live: Health Equity and the Physical Environment.

The physical environment in which we live, work, and play has everything to do with our overall well-being and health. This issue of the focuses on those physical structures, environmental factors, and access issues that impact North Carolinians' ability to make healthy choices and the policy changes that could improve indicators like access to healthy food, exercise opportunities, and secure and safe housing.

Disruption of pancreatic stellate cell myofibroblast phenotype promotes pancreatic tumor invasion.

In pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), differentiation of pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) into myofibroblast-like cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) can both promote and suppress tumor progression. Here, we show that the Rho effector protein kinase N2 (PKN2) is critical for PSC myofibroblast differentiation. Loss of PKN2 is associated with reduced PSC proliferation, contractility, and alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) stress fibers.

Engaging the Power of Communities for Better Health.

Authentically engaging community residents is necessary to impact social drivers of health. Acknowledging the value of residents' lived experiences in the planning, implementation, and financial decisions of community engagement initiatives is key. Sustainability of community engagement initiatives depends on open communication and follow-through on commitments.

Collaborating for Community Health.

The Greensboro Housing Coalition was founded 27 years ago to advocate for fair, safe, decent, and affordable housing for low- to moderate-income individuals. We advocate in 4 primary service areas: foreclosure prevention/homeowner counseling, homelessness prevention/ rental housing counseling, healthy homes, and our Community Centered Health Initiative.

A randomised, crossover study on an electronic vapour product, a nicotine inhalator and a conventional cigarette. Part B: Safety and subjective effects.

An Electronic Vapour Product (EVP) has been evaluated for short-term safety parameters and subjective effects in a 2-part study, in smokers. Part 1 compared the EVP with unflavoured (UF) and flavoured (FL) e-liquid at 2.0% nicotine to a conventional cigarette (CC; JPS Silver King Size, 0.

A randomised, crossover study on an electronic vapour product, a nicotine inhalator and a conventional cigarette. Part A: Pharmacokinetics.

The pharmacokinetic (PK) profile of nicotine delivered by an Electronic Vapour Product (EVP) was characterised in a 2-part study in smokers. The study was designed as a randomised, controlled, four-way crossover trial. Part 1 compared an unflavoured e-liquid (UF2.

Degree of Cajal-Retzius Cell Mislocalization Correlates with the Severity of Structural Brain Defects in Mouse Models of Dystroglycanopathy.

The secondary dystroglycanopathies are characterized by the hypoglycosylation of alpha dystroglycan, and are associated with mutations in at least 18 genes that act on the glycosylation of this cell surface receptor rather than the Dag1 gene itself. At the severe end of the disease spectrum, there are substantial structural brain defects, the most striking of which is often cobblestone lissencephaly. The aim of this study was to determine the gene-specific aspects of the dystroglycanopathy brain phenotype through a detailed investigation of the structural brain defects present at birth in three mouse models of dystroglycanopathy-the FKRP(KD) , which has an 80% reduction in Fkrp transcript levels; the Pomgnt1null , which carries a deletion of exons 7-16 of the Pomgnt1 gene; and the Large(myd) mouse, which carries a deletion of exons 5-7 of the Large gene.

Rural hospital information technology implementation for safety and quality improvement: lessons learned.

This grant involved a hospital collaborative for excellence using information technology over 3-year period. The project activities focused on the improvement of patient care safety and quality in Southern rural and small community hospitals through the use of technology and education. The technology component of the design involved the implementation of a Web-based business analytic tool that allows hospitals to view data, create reports, and analyze their safety and quality data.

A hospital-randomized controlled trial of a formal quality improvement educational program in rural and small community Texas hospitals: one year results.

Objective: To investigate the effectiveness of a quality improvement educational program in rural hospitals.

Design: Hospital-randomized controlled trial.

Participants: A total of 47 rural and small community hospitals in Texas that had previously received a web-based benchmarking and case-review tool.

Challenges in conducting a hospital-randomized trial of an educational quality improvement intervention in rural and small community hospitals.

The study design for this hospital-randomized controlled trial of an educational quality improvement intervention in rural and small community hospitals, following the implementation of a Web-based quality benchmarking and case review tool, specified a control group and a rapid-cycle quality improvement education group of >or= 30 hospitals each. Of the 64 hospitals initially interested in participating, 7 could not produce the required quality data and 10 refused consent to randomization. Of the 23 hospitals randomized to the educational intervention, 16 completed the educational program, 1 attended the didactic sessions but did not complete the required quality improvement project, 3 enrolled in "make-up" sessions, and 3 were unable to attend.

Innovative peer review model for rural physicians: system design and implementation.

Context: The peer review process in small rural hospitals is complicated by limited numbers of physicians, conflict of interest, issues related to appropriate utilization of new technology, possibility for conflicting recommendations, and need for external expertise.

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to design, test, and implement a virtual peer review system for small rural hospitals in Texas. We sought to define the characteristics of a virtual peer review system in the context of rural health care, and to explore the benefits from peer review administration within a rural network supported by a university.

A hospital-randomized controlled trial of an educational quality improvement intervention in rural and small community hospitals in Texas following implementation of information technology.

Rural and small community hospitals typically have few resources and little experience with quality improvement (QI) and, on average, demonstrate poorer quality of care than larger facilities. Formalized QI education shows promise in improving quality, but little is known about its effect in rural and small community hospitals. The authors describe a randomized controlled trial assigning 47 rural and small community Texas hospitals to such a program (n = 23) or to the control group (n = 24), following provision of a Web-based quality benchmarking and case review tool.

The role of public health nurses in bioterrorism preparedness.

Background: Public health nurses have a central function in the public health system. Nurses conduct disease surveillance, which is an important first step in recognizing diseases caused by bioterrorist agents. Unfortunately, the current public health infrastructure and expectations for public health nurses are not clearly defined and therefore pose serious difficulties for conducting disease surveillance.

Lessons learned from a regional strategy for resource allocation.

Two qualitative case studies focus on the allocation of CDC funds distributed during 2002 for bioterrorism preparedness in two Texas public health regions (each as populous and complex as many states). Lessons learned are presented for public health officials and others who work to build essential public health services and security for our nation. The first lesson is that personal relationships are the cornerstone of preparedness.

Acute vascular rejection and accommodation: divergent outcomes of the humoral response to organ transplantation.

Background: The most difficult barrier to organ transplantation is humoral rejection, a condition initiated by binding of antibodies to blood vessels in the graft. Fortunately, humoral rejection is not the only outcome of antibody binding to the graft. In some cases, accommodation, a condition in which the graft does not undergo humoral injury despite the existence of humoral immunity directed against it, occurs and the graft remains seemingly inured.

Saprotrophic and mycoparasitic components of aggressiveness of Trichoderma harzianum groups toward the commercial mushroom Agaricus bisporus.

We examined the mycoparasitic and saprotrophic behavior of isolates representing groups of Trichoderma harzianum to establish a mechanism for the aggressiveness towards Agaricus bisporus in infested commercial compost. Mycoparasitic structures were infrequently observed in interaction zones on various media, including compost, with cryoscanning electron microscopy. T.

A selective medium for quantitative reisolation of Trichoderma harzianum from Agaricus bisporus compost.

We adapted a selective medium, previously developed for reisolation of Trichoderma spp. from soil, for quantitative determination of growth of T. harzianum from commercial Agaricus bisporus composts.

Apoptosis and cellular activation in the pathogenesis of acute vascular rejection.

Acute vascular or humoral rejection, a vexing outcome of organ transplantation, has been attributed by some to activation and by others to apoptosis of endothelial cells in the graft. We asked which of these processes causes acute vascular rejection by tracing the processes during the development of acute vascular rejection in porcine cardiac xenografts performed in baboons. Apoptosis, assayed by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end-labeling (TUNEL), expression of activated caspase-3, and proapoptotic genes Bax and Bcl-x(L), was not detected until acute vascular rejection was well advanced, and even then, apoptosis was largely confined to myocytes.