Revealing biases in the sampling of ecological interaction networks.

The structure of ecological interactions is commonly understood through analyses of interaction networks. However, these analyses may be sensitive to sampling biases with respect to both the interactors (the nodes of the network) and interactions (the links between nodes), because the detectability of species and their interactions is highly heterogeneous. These ecological and statistical issues directly affect ecologists' abilities to accurately construct ecological networks.

Phase I trial of belinostat in combination with 13-cis-retinoic acid in advanced solid tumor malignancies: a California Cancer Consortium NCI/CTEP sponsored trial.

Purpose: The reported maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of single-agent belinostat is 1000 mg/m given days 1-5, every 21 days. Pre-clinical evidence suggests histone deacetylase inhibitors enhance retinoic acid signaling in a variety of solid tumors. We conducted a phase I study of belinostat combined with 50-100 mg/m/day 13-cis-retinoic acid (13-cRA) in patients with advanced solid tumors.

Evaluation of health and quality of life in apheresis patients - data from the WAA register.

Objective: The World Apheresis Association (WAA) register contains data from more than 89 000 apheresis procedures in more than 12,000 patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate functional health and quality of life (QoL) in patients during apheresis treatment.

Material And Methods: Estimates of health condition (HC) were made in 40,445 and of QoL in 22112 apheresis procedures.

A Phase I Study of the Combination of Rituximab and Ipilimumab in Patients with Relapsed/Refractory B-Cell Lymphoma.

Purpose: Based on the potential for ipilimumab (I) to augment T-cell activation, we hypothesize that ipilimumab would augment the efficacy of rituximab (R) in patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) CD20non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). This phase I study aimed to identify a recommended phase 2 dose, document toxicities, and preliminarily assess efficacy and potential predictive biomarkers.

Patients And Methods: Thirty-three patients with R/R CD20B-cell lymphoma received R at 375 mg/mweekly for 4 weeks and I at 3 mg/kg on day 1 and every 3 weeks for four doses.

MEASURING FAT CONTENT USING COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY TO ESTABLISH A BODY CONDITION INDEX IN FREE-RANGING BLANDING'S TURTLES () IN ILLINOIS.

Health assessment of free-ranging populations requires an integrated approach, often incorporating a method to measure mass as a representation of the animals' ability to utilize environmental resources. In chelonians, direct measurements of mass have historically served as a corollary for body condition. However, this method may not accurately represent the true fat volume (FV) and may be skewed by the presence of eggs, shell size, or muscle mass.

EPIDEMIOLOGY OF HERPESVIRUS 1 IN FREE-RANGING BLANDING'S TURTLES () FROM ILLINOIS.

Herpesvirus infections have been associated with high morbidity and mortality in populations of captive emydid chelonians worldwide, but novel herpesviruses have also recently been identified in apparently healthy free-ranging emydid populations. Blanding's turtle (), an endangered species in Illinois, has experienced range-wide declines because of habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation. A novel herpesvirus, herpesvirus 1 (EBHV1), was identified in Blanding's turtles in DuPage County, IL, in 2015.

Defining Barriers and Facilitators to Advancement for Women in Academic Surgery.

Importance: Sex equity is elusive in academic surgery departments across the United States. Persistent inequities remain a considerable problem and inhibit professional advancement for female surgeons. Identifying the factors that promulgate sex discrepancies may provide a framework for institutional growth and personal progress for women.

The Benefit of Interventions to Reduce Posttraumatic Stress in Youth Exposed to Mass Trauma: A Review and Meta-Analysis.

Numerous interventions to address posttraumatic stress (PTS) in youth exposed to mass trauma have been delivered and evaluated. It remains unclear, however, which interventions work for whom and under what conditions. This report describes a meta-analysis of the effect of youth mass-trauma interventions on PTS to determine if interventions were superior to inactive controls and describes a moderator analysis to examine whether the type of event, population characteristics, or income level of the country where the intervention was delivered may have affected the observed effect sizes.

Dorsal hippocampus not always necessary in a radial arm maze delayed win-shift task.

Spatial working memory is important for foraging and navigating the environment. However, its neural underpinnings remain poorly understood. The hippocampus, known for its spatial coding and involvement in spatial memory, is widely understood to be necessary for spatial working memory when retention intervals increase beyond seconds into minutes.

PROMIS Function Scores Are Lower in Patients Who Underwent More Aggressive Local Treatment for Desmoid Tumors.

Background: Desmoid tumors of the extremities often present with pain and functional limitation, but treatment can lead to morbidity and recurrence is common. The impact of treatment with respect to traditional "oncologic" metrics (such as recurrence rate) has been studied extensively, with a shift in recent years away from local therapies as first-line management; however, little is known about the association between treatment modality and long-term functional outcomes for patients with this benign disease.

Questions/purposes: In a retrospective review of consecutive patients treated at two institutions, we asked: (1) Is event-free survival (EFS) different between patients who undergo local treatment and those who do not for primary as well as for recurrent desmoid tumors? (2) What treatment-related factors are associated with worse Patient-reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) function scores at a minimum of 1 year after treatment?

Methods: Between 1991 and 2017, 102 patients with desmoid tumors of the extremities (excluding those of the hands and feet) were treated at two institutions; of those, 85 patients with 90 tumors were followed clinically for at least 1 year (median [range] 59 months follow-up [12 to 293]) and were included in the present analysis.

Perioperative Gemcitabine + Erlotinib Plus Pancreaticoduodenectomy for Resectable Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma: ACOSOG Z5041 (Alliance) Phase II Trial.

Background: There is considerable interest in a neoadjuvant approach for resectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). This study evaluated perioperative gemcitabine + erlotinib (G+E) for resectable PDAC.

Methods: A multicenter, cooperative group, single-arm, phase II trial was conducted between April 2009 and November 2013 (ACOSOG Z5041).

Phase II California Cancer Consortium Trial of Gemcitabine-Eribulin Combination in Cisplatin-Ineligible Patients With Metastatic Urothelial Carcinoma: Final Report (NCI-9653).

Purpose: Patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma are often ineligible for cisplatin-based treatments. A National Cancer Institute Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program-sponsored trial assessed the tolerability and efficacy of a gemcitabine-eribulin combination in this population.

Methods: Patients with treatment-naïve advanced or recurrent metastatic urothelial carcinoma of the bladder, ureter, or urethra not amenable to curative surgery and not candidates for cisplatin-based therapy were eligible.

Staff Expectations of an Australian Integrated Model of Residential Rehabilitation for People With Severe and Persisting Mental Illness: A Pragmatic Grounded Theory Analysis.

Mental health services increasingly involve peer support workers. Staff expectations of working in these services are important because they frame processes and cultures that develop within services, and influence work satisfaction, staff retention, and consumer experience. We examined staff expectations at two new community-based residential rehabilitation units trialing a staffing model where most staff are employed based on their lived experience of mental illness.

Derivations of the Core Functions of the Maximum Entropy Theory of Ecology.

The Maximum Entropy Theory of Ecology (METE), is a theoretical framework of macroecology that makes a variety of realistic ecological predictions about how species richness, abundance of species, metabolic rate distributions, and spatial aggregation of species interrelate in a given region. In the METE framework, "ecological state variables" (representing total area, total species richness, total abundance, and total metabolic energy) describe macroecological properties of an ecosystem. METE incorporates these state variables into constraints on underlying probability distributions.

Trauma training: Competencies, initiatives, and resources.

Traumatic stress is currently not a required component of the standard curricula in graduate-level education in clinical and counseling psychology. However, due to the high prevalence of trauma and its potentially deleterious physical and mental health effects in the general and clinical populations, it is imperative that psychology graduate students and practitioners understand the relevance of trauma in their clients' lives and its impact in clinical research. A comprehensive model of trauma-focused empirically informed competencies (knowledge, skills, and attitudes) was developed at a national consensus conference in 2013 and approved by the American Psychological Association in 2015 as part of that organization's education and training policy.

Translational models of adaptive and excessive fighting: an emerging role for neural circuits in pathological aggression.

Aggression is a phylogenetically stable behavior, and attacks on conspecifics are observed in most animal species. In this review, we discuss translational models as they relate to pathological forms of offensive aggression and the brain mechanisms that underlie these behaviors. Quantifiable escalations in attack or the development of an atypical sequence of attacks and threats is useful for characterizing abnormal variations in aggression across species.

Fighting Females: Neural and Behavioral Consequences of Social Defeat Stress in Female Mice.

Background: Despite the twofold higher prevalence of major depressive and posttraumatic stress disorders in women compared with men, most clinical and preclinical studies have focused on male subjects. We used an ethological murine model to study several cardinal symptoms of affective disorders in the female targets of female aggression.

Methods: Intact Swiss Webster (CFW) female resident mice were housed with castrated male mice and tested for aggression toward female intruders.

Place cell assemblies remain intact, despite reduced phase precession, after cholinergic disruption.

The hippocampal theta rhythm is frequently viewed as a clocking mechanism that coordinates the spiking activity of neurons across the hippocampus to form coherent neural assemblies. Phase precession is a form of temporal coding evidencing this mechanism and is degraded following systemic pharmacological disruption of cholinergic signaling. However, whether neural assemblies are commensurately degraded, as would be predicted from a clocking mechanism hypothesis, remains unknown.

Examination of CD302 as a potential therapeutic target for acute myeloid leukemia.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common form of adult acute leukemia with ~20,000 new cases yearly. The disease develops in people of all ages, but is more prominent in the elderly, who due to limited treatment options, have poor overall survival rates. Monoclonal antibodies (mAb) targeting specific cell surface molecules have proven to be safe and effective in different haematological malignancies.

Correlation Between White Matter Injury Identified by Neonatal Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes Following Term Neonatal Asphyxia and Therapeutic Hypothermia: An Exploratory Pilot Study.

Aim: Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy is associated with damage to deep gray matter; however, white matter involvement has become recognized. This study explored differences between patients and clinical controls on diffusion tensor imaging, and relationships between diffusion tensor imaging and neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Method: Diffusion tensor imaging was obtained for 31 neonates after hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy treated with therapeutic hypothermia and 10 clinical controls.

Cortical spreading depolarizations induced by surgical field blood in a mouse model of neurosurgery.

Objective: Cortical spreading depolarization (CSD) has been linked to poor clinical outcomes in the setting of traumatic brain injury, malignant stroke, and subarachnoid hemorrhage. There is evidence that electrocautery during neurosurgical procedures can also evoke CSD waves in the brain. It is unknown whether blood contacting the cortical surface during surgical bleeding affects the frequency of spontaneous or surgery-induced CSDs.

Eliminating Institutional Barriers to Career Advancement for Diverse Faculty in Academic Surgery.

: There is critical need to address achievement barriers in Academic Medicine. Although opportunities for professional development of women and underrepresented minority physician scientists are growing, academic promotion rates remain historically low. Moreover, underrepresented groups are not likely to advance to decanal and leadership positions.

Phase II Trial of Cabozantinib Plus Erlotinib in Patients With Advanced Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor ()-Mutant Non-small Cell Lung Cancer With Progressive Disease on Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor Therapy: A California Cancer Consortium Phase II Trial (NCI 9303).

Mesenchymal epidermal transition and vascular endothelial growth factor pathways are important in mediating non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tumorigenesis and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) resistance. We hypothesized that treatment with cabozantinib plus erlotinib in mutation-positive NSCLC following progression on EGFR TKI therapy may allow tumors to overcome this resistance or restore sensitivity to therapy regardless of T790M status. Patients with advanced NSCLC, known mutation and progressive disease on an EGFR TKI immediately prior to enrollment without intervening therapy were enrolled.

Is Viewing Mass Trauma Television Coverage Associated With Trauma Reactions in Adults and Youth? A Meta-Analytic Review.

This study presents the findings of meta-analyses examining the association between viewing mass trauma television coverage and posttraumatic stress (PTS) outcomes as well as acute stress reactions (ASR) among adults and youth. A literature search identified 43 (N = 31,162) studies assessing the association between viewing mass trauma television coverage and PTS and four (N = 9,083) assessing the association with ASR. The overall size of the association between viewing television coverage and PTS, estimated using a random-effect model, was small but statistically significant, r = .

Terrorism Media Effects in Youth Exposed to Chronic Threat and Conflict in Israel.

Purpose Of Review: This paper reviews the extant research on the effects of contact with terrorism media coverage on psychological outcomes in youth in the context of chronic threat and conflict in Israel.

Recent Findings: The extant research is inconclusive with respect to the relationship between media contact and a variety of psychological outcomes in Israeli studies of youth exposed to ongoing threat and repeated terrorist attacks. Additional research is needed to examine potential differences in outcomes and the factors that influence youth coping and adaptation in an environment of chronic threat and extensive media coverage.