U.S. Public and Private Higher Education
News releases, reports, statements and associated documents from public, private and community colleges in the U.S.
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Bucknell University's Ng Studies Generational Differences Among Temp Workforce
LEWISBURG, Pennsylvania, Dec. 9 [TNSsociologyresearch-Personnel Review journal] -- Bucknell University issued the following news:
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- Study Finds Baby Boomers Most Loyal, Millennials Prefer Employer Investment
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A November report indicates that temporary employment has been growing steadily in the U.S. for the last several years, with nearly 480,000 temp jobs being added from 2012-19 as companies seek more staffing flexibility. Among the current temp workforce, more than half (57%) are 35 or older.
Now a new study, co-authored by Eddy Ng, the James & Elizabeth Freeman Professor of
... Show Full Article
LEWISBURG, Pennsylvania, Dec. 9 [TNSsociologyresearch-Personnel Review journal] -- Bucknell University issued the following news:
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- Study Finds Baby Boomers Most Loyal, Millennials Prefer Employer Investment
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A November report indicates that temporary employment has been growing steadily in the U.S. for the last several years, with nearly 480,000 temp jobs being added from 2012-19 as companies seek more staffing flexibility. Among the current temp workforce, more than half (57%) are 35 or older.
Now a new study, co-authored by Eddy Ng, the James & Elizabeth Freeman Professor ofManagement at Bucknell University, sheds light on how different generations value their temporary employer relationships. Temporary or contingent work, traditionally performed by working students, is gaining popularity among older workers who are extending their work lives.
The study of nearly 4,000 temporary workers from seven temp employment agencies in Portugal found that both Gen Xers (born between 1966 to 1980) and millennials (born between 1981 to 1995) value their employers' investments in them more than baby boomers (born between 1945 and 1965), with millennials most likely to respond to those investments.
Baby boomers show the highest levels of employer commitment and are much more interested in establishing relationships and displaying employment loyalty.
The study was published in the current issue of the journal Personnel Review.
"Baby boomers tend to be more loyal and work focused," Ng said. "Employers don't have to invest in older workers as much since they're more happy to have work, particularly at the back end of their careers."
The authors wrote that because millennials have lower concerns for job security, they may see temporary employment as meeting their lifestyle needs.
"Millennials' work is something they do to support their lifestyle, so they tend to be more quid pro quo," Ng said. "They only invest in you if you show an investment in them."
Gen Xers report the lowest scores of affective commitment among the three generations. The authors wrote that Gen Xers have diminished expectations, in part because of the changing economic times they experienced when entering the labor market, "leaving them cynical and alienated."
"Part of that with Gen Xers is when they graduated, they were hit by the worst economic times, so there's a level of skepticism in employers, and it doesn't matter how much they invest in them," Ng said. "Gen Xers are the toughest to move (in level of commitment) because they've become much more cynical because they've seen the layoffs and limited opportunity."
Regardless of the generation, the researchers didn't find any significant relationship between temp workers' affective commitment with the temp agency and perceived performance. The investment-performance relationship is instead formed with the client company, suggesting that it is in the interest of client companies to invest in millennials.
Wastewater Leak in West Texas Revealed by Satellite Radar Imagery, Sophisticated Modeling: Southern Methodist University
DALLAS, Texas, Dec. 7 [TNSscientificresearch-Scientific Reports journal] -- Southern Methodist University issued the following news:
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- Leakage in Ken Regan field could have contaminated groundwater for livestock and irrigation between 2007 and 2011
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Geophysicists at SMU say that evidence of leak occurring in a West Texas wastewater disposal well between 2007 and 2011 should raise concerns about the current potential for contaminated groundwater and damage to surrounding infrastructure.
SMU geophysicist Zhong Lu and the rest of his team believe the leak happened at a wastewater disposal
... Show Full Article
DALLAS, Texas, Dec. 7 [TNSscientificresearch-Scientific Reports journal] -- Southern Methodist University issued the following news:
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- Leakage in Ken Regan field could have contaminated groundwater for livestock and irrigation between 2007 and 2011
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Geophysicists at SMU say that evidence of leak occurring in a West Texas wastewater disposal well between 2007 and 2011 should raise concerns about the current potential for contaminated groundwater and damage to surrounding infrastructure.
SMU geophysicist Zhong Lu and the rest of his team believe the leak happened at a wastewater disposalwell in the Ken Regan field in northern Reeves County, which could have leaked toxic chemicals into the Rustler Aquifer. The same team of geophysicists at SMU has revealed that sinkholes are expanding and forming in West Texas at a startling rate.
Wastewater is a byproduct of oil and gas production. Using a process called horizontal drilling, or "fracking," companies pump vast quantities of water, sand and chemicals far down into the ground to help extract more natural gas and oil. With that gas and oil, however, come large amounts of wastewater that is injected deep into the earth through disposal wells.
Federal and state oil and gas regulations require wastewater to be disposed of at a deep depth, typically ranging from about 1,000 to 2,000 meters deep in this region, so it does not contaminate groundwater or drinking water. A small number of studies suggest that arsenic, benzene and other toxins potentially found in fracking fluids may pose serious risks to reproductive and development health.
Even though the leak is thought to have happened between 2007 and 2011, the finding is still potentially dangerous, said Weiyu Zheng, a Ph.D. student at SMU (Southern Methodist University) who led the research.
"The Rustler Aquifer, within the zone of the effective injection depth, is only used for irrigation and livestock but not drinking water due to high concentrations of dissolved solids. Wastewater leaked into this aquifer may possibly contaminate the freshwater sources," Zheng explained.
"If I lived in this area, I would be a bit worried," said Lu, professor of Shuler-Foscue Chair at SMU's Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences and the corresponding researcher of the findings.
He also noted that leaking wastewater can do massive damage to surrounding infrastructure. For example, oil and gas pipelines can be fractured or damaged beneath the surface, and the resulting heaving ground can damage roads and put drivers at risk.
SMU geophysicists say satellite radar imagery indicates a leak in the nearby disposal well happened because of changes shown to be happening in the nearby Ken Regan field: a large section of ground, five football fields in diameter and about 230 feet from the well, was raised nearly 17 centimeters between 2007 and 2011. In the geology world, this is called an uplift, and it usually happens where parts of the earth have been forced upward by underground pressure.
Lu said the most likely explanation for that uplift is that leakage was happening at the nearby well.
"We suspect that the wastewater was accumulated at a very shallow depth, which is quite dramatically different from what the report data says about that well," he said.
Only one wastewater disposal well is located in close proximity to the uplifted area of the Ken Regan field. The company that owns it reported the injection of 1,040 meters of wastewater deep into the disposal well in Ken Regan. That well is no longer active.
But a combination of satellite images and models done by SMU show that water was likely escaping at a shallower level than the well was drilled for.
And the study (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-51138-4.epdf?author_access_token=Ia34OI27TkuBnaFeGo52XNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NL0-EjoOevyyXRJhcSTZ4NTn6CrqFswPZb9UVbaS5UpGzYDfDqxSWvc5eNHRlo_yhUSy8nICmrscZ6l9Bls23iZRrsm1KCR_FQiwh8RvHw0g%3D%3D), which was published in the Nature publication Scientific Reports, estimates that about 57 percent of the injected wastewater went to this shallower depth. At that shallower depth, the wastewater-which typically contains salt water and chemicals-could have mixed in with groundwater from the nearby Rustler Aquifer. Drinking water doesn't come from the Rustler Aquifer, which spans seven counties. But the aquifer does eventually flow into the Pecos River, which is a drinking source.
The scientists made the discovery of the leak after analyzing radar satellite images from January 2007 to March 2011. These images were captured by a read-out radar instrument called Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) mounted on the Advanced Land Observing Satellite, which was run by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
With this technology called interferometric synthetic aperture radar, or InSAR for short, the satellite radar images allow scientists to detect changes that aren't visible to the naked eye and that might otherwise go undetected. The satellite technology can capture ground deformation with a precision of sub-inches or better, at a spatial resolution of a few yards or better over thousands of miles, say the researchers.
Lu and his team also used data that oil and petroleum companies are required to report to the Railroad Commission of Texas (Texas RRC), as well as sophisticated hydrogeological models that mapped out the distribution and movement of water underground as well as rocks of the Earth's crust.
"We utilized InSAR to detect the surface uplift and applied poroelastic finite element models to simulate displacement fields. The results indicate that the effective injection depth is much shallower than reported," Zheng said. "The most reasonable explanation is that the well was experiencing leakage due to casing failures and/or sealing problem(s)."
"One issue is that the steel pipes can degrade as they age and/or wells may be inadequately managed. As a result, wastewater from failed parts can leak out," said Jin-Woo Kim, research scientist with Lu's SMU Radar Laboratory and a co-author of this study.
The combination of InSAR imagery and modeling done by SMU gave the scientists a clear picture of how the uplift area in Regan field developed.
Lu, who is world-renowned for leading scientists in using InSAR applications to detect surface changes, said these types of analysis are critical for the future of oil-producing West Texas.
"Our research that exploits remote sensing data and numerical models provides a clue as to understanding the subsurface hydrogeological process responding to the oil and gas activities. This kind of research can further be regarded as an indirect leakage monitoring method to supplement current infrequent leakage detection," Zheng said.
"It's very important to sustain the economy of the whole nation. But these operations require some checking to guarantee the operations are environmentally-compliant as well," Lu said.
Co-author Dr. Syed Tabrez Ali from AIR-Worldwide in Boston also contributed to this study.
This research was sponsored by the NASA Earth Surface and Interior Program and the Schuler-Foscue endowment at SMU.
Previously, Kim and Lu used satellite radar imaging to find that two giant sinkholes near Wink, Texas--two counties over from the Ken Regan uplift--were likely just the tip of the iceberg of ground movement in West Texas. Indeed, they found evidence that large swaths of West Texas oil patch were heaving and sinking at alarming rates. Decades of oil production activities in West Texas appears to have destabilized localities in an area of about 4,000 square miles populated by small towns like Wink, roadways and a vast network of oil and gas pipelines and storage tanks.
Watch the WFAA Verify news segment (https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/verify/scientists-find-wastewater-leak-in-west-texas/287-1bc2eb40-9854-4883-bb28-49c1d57052c8).
Reduced Soil Tilling Helps Both Soils and Yields, Stanford Researchers Find
STANFORD, California, Dec. 7 [TNSbiologyresearch-Environmental Research Letters journal] -- Stanford University issued the following news release:
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- By monitoring crops through machine learning and satellite data, Stanford scientists have found farms that till the soil less can increase yields of corn and soybeans and improve the health of the soil - a win-win for meeting growing food needs worldwide.
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Agriculture degrades over 24 million acres of fertile soil every year, raising concerns about meeting the rising global demand for food. But a simple farming practice born from the
... Show Full Article
STANFORD, California, Dec. 7 [TNSbiologyresearch-Environmental Research Letters journal] -- Stanford University issued the following news release:
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- By monitoring crops through machine learning and satellite data, Stanford scientists have found farms that till the soil less can increase yields of corn and soybeans and improve the health of the soil - a win-win for meeting growing food needs worldwide.
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Agriculture degrades over 24 million acres of fertile soil every year, raising concerns about meeting the rising global demand for food. But a simple farming practice born from the1930's Dust Bowl could provide a solution, according to new Stanford research. The study, published Dec. 6 in Environmental Research Letters, shows that Midwest farmers who reduced how much they overturned the soil - known as tilling - increased corn and soybean yields while also nurturing healthier soils and lowering production costs.
"Reduced tillage is a win-win for agriculture across the Corn Belt," said study lead author Jillian Deines, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford's Center on Food Security and the Environment. "Worries that it can hurt crop yields have prevented some farmers from switching practices, but we found it typically leads to increased yields."
The U.S. - the largest producer of corn and soybeans worldwide - grows a majority of these two crops in the Midwest. Farmers plucked about 367 million metric tons of corn and 108 million metric tons of soybeans from American soil this past growing season, providing key food, oil, feedstock, ethanol and export value.
Monitoring farming from space
Farmers generally till the soil prior to planting corn or soybeans - a practice known to control weeds, mix nutrients, break up compacted dirt and ultimately increase food production over the short term. However, over time this method degrades soil. A 2015 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations found that in the past 40 years the world has lost a third of food-producing land to diminished soil. The demise of once fertile land poses a serious challenge for food production, especially with mounting pressures on agriculture to feed a growing global population.
In contrast, reduced tillage - also known as conservation tillage - promotes healthier soil management, reduces erosion and runoff and improves water retention and drainage. It involves leaving the previous year's crop residue (such as corn stalks) on the ground when planting the next crop, with little or no mechanical tillage. The practice is used globally on over 370 million acres, mostly in South America, Oceania and North America. However, many farmers fear the method could reduce yields and profits. Past studies of yield effects have been limited to local experiments, often at research stations, that don't fully reflect production-scale practices.
The Stanford team turned to machine learning and satellite datasets to address this knowledge gap. First, they identified areas of reduced and conventional tilling from previously published data outlining annual U.S. practices for 2005 to 2016. Using satellite-based crop yield models - which take into account variables such as climate and crop life-cycles - they also reviewed corn and soybean yields during this time. To quantify the impact of reduced tillage on crop yields, the researchers trained a computer model to compare changes in yields based on tillage practice. They also recorded elements such as soil type and weather to help determine which conditions had a larger influence on harvests.
Improved yields
The researchers calculated corn yields improved an average of 3.3 percent and soybeans by 0.74 percent across fields managed with long-term conservation tillage practices in the nine states sampled. Yields from the additional tonnage rank in the top 15 worldwide for both crops. For corn, this totals approximately 11 million additional metric tons matching the 2018 country output of South Africa, Indonesia, Russia or Nigeria. For soybeans, the added 800,000 metric tons ranks in between Indonesia and South Africa's country totals.
Some areas experienced up to an 8.1 percent increase for corn and 5.8 percent for soybeans. In other fields, negative yields of 1.3 percent for corn and 4.7 for soybeans occurred. Water within the soil and seasonal temperatures were the most influential factors in yield differences, especially in drier, warmer regions. Wet conditions were also found favorable to crops except during the early season where water-logged soils benefit from conventional tillage that in turn dries and aerates.
"Figuring out when and where reduced tillage works best could help maximize the benefits of the technology and guide farmers into the future," said study senior author David Lobell, a professor of Earth system science in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences and the Gloria and Richard Kushel Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment.
It takes time to see the benefits from reduced tillage, as it works best under continuous implementation. According to the researchers' calculations, corn farmers won't see the full benefits for the first 11 years, and soybeans take twice as long for full yields to materialize. However, the approach also results in lower costs due to reduced need for labor, fuel and farming equipment while also sustaining fertile lands for continuous food production. The study does show a small positive gain even during the first year of implementation, with higher gains accruing over time as soil health improves. According to a 2017 Agricultural Censuses report, farmers appear to be getting on board with the long-term investment and close to 35 percent of cropland in the U.S. is now managed with reduced tillage.
"One of the big challenges in agriculture is achieving the best crop yields today without comprising future production. This research demonstrates that reduced tillage can be a solution for long-term crop productivity," Deines said.
To read all stories about Stanford science, subscribe to the biweekly Stanford Science Digest.
David Lobell is also the William Wrigley Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy and Research. Graduate student Sherrie Wang is also a co-author. Research was funded by NASA Harvest.
Oh, Snap - Bacteria, Fungus Combo Can Help Crops Fight Salty Conditions: Florida International University
MIAMI, Florida, Dec. 7 [TNSbiologyresearch-Agronomy journal] -- Florida International University, a component of the public university system in Florida, issued the following news:
FIU researchers have found coating seeds with a fungus and a bacterium could help valuable crops block the one-two punch of saltier groundwater and soil.
The salt-sensitive snap bean, which contributes more than $105 million to Florida's economy every year, is particularly at risk. It is grown in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, coastal communities where underground aquifers used for irrigation and drinking water
... Show Full Article
MIAMI, Florida, Dec. 7 [TNSbiologyresearch-Agronomy journal] -- Florida International University, a component of the public university system in Florida, issued the following news:
FIU researchers have found coating seeds with a fungus and a bacterium could help valuable crops block the one-two punch of saltier groundwater and soil.
The salt-sensitive snap bean, which contributes more than $105 million to Florida's economy every year, is particularly at risk. It is grown in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, coastal communities where underground aquifers used for irrigation and drinking waterare threatened by rising seas and saltwater intrusion.
Coating its seeds with the bacteria rhizobium or the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi helped snap beans fight wilting and nutritional issues associated with saltier conditions that can lower crop yield.
Coating the seeds with both the bacteria and the fungus worked more like a vaccine to inoculate the plant from salt, said Professor Krish Jayachandran, the co-director of FIU's Agroecology program who directed the study.
"We wanted to see if it can mitigate the salt stress effects," said Claudia L. Garcia, an agroecology master's student and the study's lead author. "Especially together, these microorganisms could play a critical role in mitigating salt stress in soil."
The bacterium-fungus combination was also found to increase the production of a protein released by the fungus that helps soil clump together to keep from being blown or washed away.
Further research is needed to see how other Florida crops might benefit from the inoculation afforded by the bacteria and fungal concoction.
The study was published in the academic journal Agronomy. It was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture - Hispanic Serving Institutions START-NOW Grant.
Prior FIU studies have shown saltwater intrusion just west of farmland in the Florida Everglades can stress affect plants and trees differently. Bald cypress could experience nutrient stress where they absorb food too quickly or too slowly. Sawgrass might grow larger while their roots wither and die. Mangroves seeking a better balance of salt and freshwater are fleeing altogether.
First Investigational Drug Therapy For Liver Disease NASH Awaiting FDA Approval: Virginia Commonwealth University
RICHMOND, Virginia, Dec. 7 [TNSmedicalresearch-The Lancet Journal] -- Virginia Commonwealth University issued the following news:
Patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a chronic liver disease and a leading cause for liver transplantation in the U.S., currently lack an approved drug therapy, but this may soon change. A large Phase III clinical trial designed in collaboration with Virginia Commonwealth University is the first to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of an oral medication to treat the disease.
The drug therapy is pending approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
... Show Full Article
RICHMOND, Virginia, Dec. 7 [TNSmedicalresearch-The Lancet Journal] -- Virginia Commonwealth University issued the following news:
Patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a chronic liver disease and a leading cause for liver transplantation in the U.S., currently lack an approved drug therapy, but this may soon change. A large Phase III clinical trial designed in collaboration with Virginia Commonwealth University is the first to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of an oral medication to treat the disease.
The drug therapy is pending approval from the Food and Drug Administration.Findings from the interim analysis of the REGENERATE study were published in the medical journal The Lancet this week.
According to the National Institutes of Health, between 7 million and 30 million U.S. adults suffer from NASH, a severe form of fatty liver disease unrelated to alcohol abuse but closely related to obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
"NASH is definitely a modern lifestyle disease and on its way to becoming the leading cause of liver transplantation in the U.S. as early as 2020," said Arun Sanyal, M.D., the senior and corresponding author of the manuscript, and a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine in the VCU School of Medicine. "We hope that this landmark study will lead to the first approved drug therapy for NASH."
In patients suffering from NASH, the buildup of fat in the liver damages cells and causes inflammation. For many, NASH can progress to include scarring, called fibrosis, which prevents the liver from functioning properly. In severe cases, the condition can lead to liver cancer, liver failure or death. The REGENERATE study assesses the safety and efficacy of obeticholic acid in patients with liver fibrosis due to NASH.
"The treatment tested can reverse the course of NASH," Sanyal said. "Obeticholic acid showed an ability to successfully reverse liver scarring in patients most at risk for irreversible liver damage when evaluated 18 months into the study. The study will also follow the patients long term to see if these changes seen on a liver biopsy translate into improved clinical outcomes."
"We hope that this landmark study will lead to the first approved drug therapy for NASH."
Given the silent nature of the disease, many patients progress to cirrhosis without being diagnosed. While developing an approved therapy is critical, it also will be important to develop simple diagnostic tools that can be used in clinics, Sanyal said. He currently is engaged in studies to develop such diagnostics. In the U.S. alone, the prevalence of NASH is expected to increase by 63% between 2015 and 2030.
A decade ago, Sanyal helped establish the scientific foundation for what may soon become the first approved drug therapy for NASH at the VCU C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research, where he serves as education core director. The scientific understanding of how bile acids enhance glucose disposal, which is a critical element of a condition called insulin resistance, led to a successful, federally funded Phase II FLINT trial in 2015, paving the way for the REGENERATE trial.
"Obeticholic acid, the new investigational drug submitted for FDA approval, is in essence a more potent, chemically modified version of a naturally occurring bile acid that plays a key role in our metabolism and also has anti-fibrotic effects," Sanyal said.
REGENERATE is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter study. More than 2,400 adult NASH patients enrolled across 339 qualified centers worldwide, including Mayo Clinic Arizona, Stanford University, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Yale University School of Medicine and VCU Medical Center.
About VCU and VCU Health
Virginia Commonwealth University is a major, urban public research university with national and international rankings in sponsored research. Located in downtown Richmond, VCU enrolls more than 31,000 students in 217 degree and certificate programs in the arts, sciences and humanities. Thirty-eight of the programs are unique in Virginia, many of them crossing the disciplines of VCU's 11 schools and three colleges. The VCU Health brand represents the VCU health sciences academic programs, the VCU Massey Cancer Center and the VCU Health System, which comprises VCU Medical Center (the only academic medical center in the region), Community Memorial Hospital, Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU, MCV Physicians and Virginia Premier Health Plan. For more, please visit http://www.vcu.edu and vcuhealth.org.
Acupuncture Reduces Radiation-Induced Dry Mouth for Cancer Patients: University of Texas
HOUSTON, Texas, Dec. 7 [TNSmedicalresearch-JAMA Network Open journal] -- The University of Texas's MD Anderson Cancer Center issued the following news release:
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- Patients who had acupuncture during radiation reported less dry mouth symptoms up to 12 months after treatment
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After receiving acupuncture treatment three days a week during the course of radiation treatment, head and neck cancer patients experienced less dry mouth, according to study results from researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
The trial results, published in JAMA Network Open, is the
... Show Full Article
HOUSTON, Texas, Dec. 7 [TNSmedicalresearch-JAMA Network Open journal] -- The University of Texas's MD Anderson Cancer Center issued the following news release:
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- Patients who had acupuncture during radiation reported less dry mouth symptoms up to 12 months after treatment
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After receiving acupuncture treatment three days a week during the course of radiation treatment, head and neck cancer patients experienced less dry mouth, according to study results from researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
The trial results, published in JAMA Network Open, is thefirst randomized, placebo-controlled, Phase III trial to evaluate the use of acupuncture during radiation therapy to reduce the incidence and severity of radiation-induced xerostomia, or dry mouth. Acupuncture treatment has very few side effects and is relatively low cost compared to standard treatments such as medication and saliva substitutes. These results support a 2011 study that found symptoms improved up to six months after radiation treatment with concurrent acupuncture sessions.
"Dry mouth is a serious concern for head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy. The condition can affect up to 80% of patients by the end of radiation treatment," said the study's principal investigator, Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D., professor of Palliative, Rehabilitation, and Integrative Medicine and director of the Integrative Medicine Program. "The symptoms severely impact quality of life and oral health, and current treatments have limited benefits."
True acupuncture (TA) had significantly lower xerostomia scores than standard care control (SCC) and marginally lower than the sham acupuncture (SA), with no differences between SA and SCC. One year after the end of radiation therapy, the incidence of clinically significant xerostomia was 35% in the TA group, 48% in the SA group and 55% in the SCC group.
The study included 339 head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment at MD Anderson and Fudan University Cancer Center in Shanghai between December 16, 2011 and July 7, 2015. The patients were divided into three groups. One group received true acupuncture, another group received sham acupuncture and the third group, the SCC group, received radiation and oral health education but no acupuncture. None had received acupuncture prior to participating in the study.
Patients assigned to either TA or SA received acupuncture three days a week on the same day as their radiation treatment, which lasted six to seven weeks. The sham procedure involved a real needle at a point not indicated for xerostomia, real needles at sham points and placebo needles at sham points.
Results were based on data derived from a self-report questionnaire. Patients completed the Xerostomia Questionnaire (XQ), an eight-item survey assessing symptoms of the condition. XQ scores under 30 corresponded to mild or no symptoms of xerostomia. The data was collected at baseline, at the end of radiotherapy, and three, six and 12 months after radiation treatment.
TA resulted in significantly fewer and less severe dry mouth symptoms one year after treatment. The xerostomia score in the TA group was 26.6 vs 31.3 in the SA group and 34.8 in the SCC group.
The Acupuncture Expectancy Scale (AES) was used to measure the relationship between expectations related to acupuncture and clinical response. Patients completed the AES at baseline, after four acupuncture sessions and at the end of acupuncture treatment. There were no group differences or differences between sites.
"The evidence is to a point where patients should incorporate acupuncture alongside radiation treatment as a way to prevent the severity of dry mouth symptoms," said Cohen. "I think with this study we can add acupuncture to the list for the prevention and treatment of xerostomia, and the guidelines for the use of acupuncture in the oncology setting should be revised to include this important chronic condition."
A secondary analysis showed a significant difference between sites in response to placebo. The Chinese patients had little to no placebo response to sham acupuncture whereas the MD Anderson patients had a large placebo response, showing both forms of acupuncture worked. More studies are needed to understand these site differences, but it has been suggested that it could be due to the environment in which the acupuncture is delivered, cultural influences or the relationship between patient and practitioner.
Future studies will focus on ensuring acupuncture delivery is well controlled and will evaluate inconsistencies in response to sham acupuncture. Additional studies are needed to confirm the trial results and better understand the neurological mechanisms of acupuncture.
A full list of collaborating researchers and their disclosures are included in the paper.
The research was supported in part by United States National Cancer Institute (NCI) grants CA121503 and CA148707 (PI L Cohen), the NCI Cancer Center Support Grant CA016672, and the Chinese Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality grant 05DZ19747 (PI Z Meng). Partial funding provided by the Richard E. Haynes Distinguished Professorship for Clinical Cancer Prevention at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (L Cohen).
'Conductor' Gene Found in Plant Root Stem Cell 'Orchestra': North Carolina State University
RALEIGH, North Carolina, Dec. 7 [TNSbiologyresearch-Nature Communications journal] -- North Carolina State University issued the following news release:
In a new paper, researchers at North Carolina State University lift the veil on the "conductor" plant root stem cell gene that helps orchestrate and coordinate stem cell division of different root stem cell types, ensuring the harmonic communication necessary for plant growth and maintenance.
Ross Sozzani, an NC State associate professor of plant and microbial biology and corresponding author of the paper, says that the conductor behind this
... Show Full Article
RALEIGH, North Carolina, Dec. 7 [TNSbiologyresearch-Nature Communications journal] -- North Carolina State University issued the following news release:
In a new paper, researchers at North Carolina State University lift the veil on the "conductor" plant root stem cell gene that helps orchestrate and coordinate stem cell division of different root stem cell types, ensuring the harmonic communication necessary for plant growth and maintenance.
Ross Sozzani, an NC State associate professor of plant and microbial biology and corresponding author of the paper, says that the conductor behind thiscommunication - which is critical to key aspects of plant development, including plant cell division, proliferation and differentiation - is a gene called TCX2, which is present in all the different plant root stem cells.
Like an orchestra with its various component instruments working together to create beautiful music, plant root stem cells work within various networks to perform various functions. TCX2 ensures that these local networks communicate with each other, similar to an orchestra conductor making sure that horns, for example, don't drown out the violins.
The interdisciplinary research included molecular biology experiments in Arabadopsis thaliana, or mustard weed, as well as mathematical modeling and machine learning approaches to narrow down some 3,000 candidate genes to learn about the causal relationships between different root stem cell networks.
"We saw that TCX2 was able to target different stem cell genes in different stem cell networks and regulate their functional timing," Sozzani said.
To validate the network prediction and mathematical modeling, the researchers took an experimental approach. They both overexpressed and knocked out the TCX2 gene and found that the timing of plant root stem cell division suffered. Sozzani and Natalie Clark, the paper's first author and a former NC State biomathematics graduate student, likened this to the principle behind the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears - the porridge was acceptable only when its temperature was "just right."
Sozzani said that future work will use these findings and 3D bioprinting to learn more about building better plants.
"We can physically change the position or number of these root stem cells and see how those changes help or harm this harmonic system," she said. "If you wanted to help a plant become more drought tolerant, for example, how do you build more vascular tissue which is important for that function? 3D bioprinting allows us to test this by positioning stem cells in desired spatial arrangements."
The paper appears in Nature Communications (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13132-2). First author Clark is a former recipient of a NSG GRFP fellowship and is now at Iowa State University as a USDA postdoctoral fellow. Co-authors from NC State's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering include associate professor Cranos Williams and graduate student Eli Buckner. Abigail Simmons and Dominique Bergmann from Stanford University also co-authored the paper.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation CAREER award (MCB-1453130) and by a grant from NC State's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Research Foundation to Sozzani.
* * *
- Abstract:
"Stem-cell-ubiquitous genes spatiotemporally coordinate division through regulation of stem-cell-specific gene networks"
Authors: Natalie M Clark, Eli Buckner, Adam P Fisher, Emily C Nelson, Thomas T Nguyen, Maria A de Luis Balaguer, Tiara Butler-Smith, Parnell J Sheldon, Cranos M Williams and Rosangela Sozzani, North Carolina State University; Abigail R Simmons and Dominique C Bergmann, Stanford University
Published: Dec. 6, 2019 in Nature Communications
DOI: 10.1101/517250
Abstract: Stem cells are responsible for generating all of the differentiated cells, tissues, and organs in a multicellular organism and, thus, play a crucial role in cell renewal, regeneration, and organization. A number of stem cell type-specific genes have a known role in stem cell maintenance, identity, and/or division. Yet, how genes expressed across different stem cell types, referred here as stem-cell-ubiquitous genes, contribute to stem cell regulation is less understood. Here, we find that, in the Arabidopsis root, a stem-cell-ubiquitous gene, TESMIN-LIKE CXC2 (TCX2), controls stem cell division by regulating stem cell-type specific networks. Development of a mathematical model of TCX2 expression allowed us to show that TCX2 orchestrates the coordinated division of different stem cell types. Our results highlight that genes expressed across different stem cell types ensure cross-communication among cells, allowing them to divide and develop harmonically together.
