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What if a powerful hurricane hits during the pandemic? Here’s how to prevent a double disaster. – Live Science

August 21, 2020 medical

With the peak of hurricane season fast approaching, possible evacuations must be planned to help people dodge the storms and avoid causing uncontrolled outbreaks of COVID-19.

Now, a new mathematical model offers guidance on how to minimize COVID-19 spread during large-scale evacuations: People evacuating from hard-hit counties should be directed to counties with relatively lower rates of viral spread. The burden then falls to these "destination counties" to enforce social distancing and mask wearing, among other countermeasures to reduce COVID-19 transmission. If all counties adequately prepare, additional coronavirus spread can be minimized, according to the research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.

In the worst-case scenario modeled by the team, more than two million evacuees from high-transmission counties retreated to areas with similarly high viral transmission, and their travel and interactions with others resulted in about 66,000 extra COVID-19 cases. In the best-case scenario, evacuees were systematically divided among low-transmission counties, resulting in only about 9,000 new cases.

Related: Hurricane preparation: What to do

"Those are just hypothetical scenarios," but the overall trends revealed by the model could help local officials plan for large-scale evacuations to come, study author Sen Pei, an associate research scientist in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York, told Live Science. In their report, posted Aug. 11 to the preprint database medRxiv, Pei and his co-authors noted that the ability to minimize viral spread largely lies with the destination counties namely, "the degree to which counties are prepared to host, isolate and meet the needs of evacuees while also minimizing virus exposure."

"The major factor here is just to limit the contact of evacuees with local populations," Pei said. "But it's challenging when you have to provide accommodation for those people."

The researchers built their model using data from the formidable Hurricane Irma, which made landfall in Florida in September 2017. They found that evacuees from the storm dispersed to 165 different destinations across 26 states; these locations served as the "destination counties" in their hypothetical model. Based on additional historical data from four southeast Florida counties Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe the team estimated that about 2.3 million evacuees would leave the counties in response to a Category 3 hurricane. The researchers then assigned these evacuees to different destination counties to devise four hypothetical scenarios.

In the "baseline" scenario, evacuees retreated to the same counties they would have for Hurricane Irma, in terms of overall proportions. In two additional scenarios, 90% of the evacuees were either directed to the 82 counties with the highest rates of COVID-19 transmission or the 82 counties with the lowest rates. After noting that movement to low-transmission counties minimized spread, the team designed a fourth scenario that assigned evacuees to low-transmission counties more systematically, to determine precisely how many should be sent where to limit overall case counts.

Related: 20 of the worst epidemics and pandemics in history

In addition, the model assumed that the rate of COVID-19 spread would increase by 20% in each origin county as the refugees prepare to leave and again when they finally return home, given that coming back requires travel, restocking on supplies, and potentially cleanup from the storm or sheltering with others if homes have been destroyed.

"Essentially, the model simulates what would happen if we move people from one location to the other and then move them back," Pei said. "We wanted to see how this movement of infections across the country would impact the course of the pandemic."

The model does not account for the behavior of individual evacuees once they reach their destination, Pei noted. For example, rates of COVID-19 spread may change depending on how many evacuees stay with family or friends, rather than in public shelters, and the supplies they have on hand may determine how much they interact with the local community. To capture different degrees of mingling between the hosts and refugees, the team adjusted the rate of transmission in the destination counties, increasing it by either 0%, 10% or 20% when the refugees arrived.

"Those [percentages] are all abstractions of those people's individual behaviors," Pei said. COVID-19 cases go up in the 20% scenario, where refugees mingle with their hosts a fair amount, and especially in counties with already high rates of viral spread. "That makes sense intuitively because you're moving people around more," said Pamela Murray-Tuite, a professor of civil engineering at Clemson University in South Carolina, who was not involved in the study.

However, to fine-tune the model and make it more realistic, the researchers would have to incorporate data about real human behavior, Murray-Tuite said.

Related: Name that hurricane: Famous examples of the 5 hurricane categories

"What we don't know yet is whether the evacuees will behave the same as the people living in that destination [county]," in terms of their compliance with mask wearing, how often they frequent local businesses and whether they stick to social distancing, for instance, Murray-Tuite said. In addition, the amount of time people remain in the destination county would depend on the path of the storm, whether the roads home remain safe to travel on and whether a given evacuee stays in a shelter or with friends, among other factors.

What's more, "I would be surprised if 90% of people would allow you to direct them to a given location if they don't have friends or family there," she noted. The mathematical model rests on the assumption that the vast majority of evacuees will accept their destination county assignment, but that would likely be an unrealistic expectation, she said.

Murray-Tuite and her research team plan to survey people seeking refuge from natural disasters during the pandemic to see how they behave. The survey data will be combined with information from Tweets, mobility data and traffic data to fit individual behaviors into their greater context. Murray-Tuite said that she expects the individuals' perceptions of risks will drive their behavior and determine how they interact with communities they encounter.

Given the risk of catching COVID-19, a person's "age and medical conditions may play a greater role than they even have in the past," in terms of whether people are willing to evacuate their homes, she added.

"It's one thing to have COVID, but COVID in a hurricane? Now you're dealing with multiplicative risk," said Robert Stein, a professor of political science at Rice University, who was not involved in the study. Evacuees must weigh the relative risks of leaving their homes and potentially exposing themselves to COVID-19, versus staying home and weathering a dangerous storm. To help people resolve these tough decisions, public officials must clearly communicate who should evacuate and who should stay home, Stein said.

Related: A history of destruction: 8 great hurricanes

So-called shadow evacuees, or people who evacuate when there is no recommendation to do so, can clog the roads during typical evacuations, but during a pandemic, they also amplify the risk of viral spread, Stein noted. Communicating the risk that shadow evacuees pose to others and getting people to comply with official guidance "requires a level of public trust," he said.

Stein and his research team are studying who should deliver messages about risk and disaster responses to reach the public most effectively. He noted that county-level elected officials and governors, as well as local celebrities and athletes, all hold sway in public discourse and can help communicate clear, trustworthy guidance in times of uncertainty.

"The key thing here is to stay away from partisanship," Stein noted. "The argument that we've used is that we try to communicate to people that we're all in this together." To get people to not only evacuate but to go to an approved destination, counties need adequate supplies and funding to care for evacuees once they arrive, he said.

Beyond providing food, transportation, accommodations and medical care, ideally, destination counties should be able to test evacuees for COVID-19, isolate those who test positive and perform thorough contact tracing, Stein said. Evacuees should also be reminded to pack their own food, water, medical supplies and masks so they can avoid relying on stores in their destination county to stock up, Murray-Tuite added. (The American Red Cross has further guidance on what to pack in your evacuation kit.)

In short, while Pei's model provides helpful hints for planning this year's hurricane evacuations, the hard work will be in applying those lessons in real life.

"I think what they're raising is the obvious: If we have the COVID virus running around and a hurricane, it's going to be a problem," Stein said. The model hints at one solution, that is, sending evacuees to counties with low COVID-19 transmission rates. Now comes the work of figuring out how that can be done, in practicality, Stein said.

"You've identified a solution, now tell us how we're going to implement this."

Originally published on Live Science.

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What if a powerful hurricane hits during the pandemic? Here's how to prevent a double disaster. - Live Science

Human Behavior

Why We Should Build Astronaut Cities In Moon And Mars Lava Tubes – Forbes

August 21, 2020 medical

This lava tube on Earth may look big, but the ones on the moon and Mars may be large enough to fit ... [+] bases or cities.

Lava tubes on the moon and Mars may be large enough to fit city center-sized groups of astronauts living on these other worlds, a new study finds.

Lava tubes are an underground tunnel that happens due to the flow of molten rock during a volcanic explosion. We get lava tubes on Earth as well, but the ones on the moon and Mars are likely much larger allowing huge communities of people to work, live and explore on other worlds.

A typical tube on Earth will be roughly 30 feet to 100 feet (10 to 30 meters) in diameter. But one on Mars could be the height of the Empire State Building, with a diameter 10 times that of Earth. If that sounds big, consider the moon, where its even lower gravity produces a tube up to 1000 times larger than Earths much taller than the massive Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai.

Its an exciting find because these small, cramped spaces on Earth would instead open up into vast caverns of space on other worlds. Rather than imagining future astronauts working shoulder to shoulder all the time, these space explorers could easily stroll through otherworldly boulevards, all sheltered from deadly outside radiation (and in the case of Mars, fierce dust storms).

"These [lava tubes] represent ideal gateways or windows for subsurface exploration, said study lead author Francesco Sauro in a statement. While weve known about these lava tubes for a while, the new study shows just how large they are able to contain the same space as the city center of Padua, Italy in at least one case, Sauro said.

Sauro is well-versed in cave exploration, as he is head of the European Space Agencys Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising human behavior and performance Skills (CAVES) program that regularly sends astronauts underground in caves to practice for space missions using an isolated, extreme environment. He is also a speleologist at the University of Bologna.

Japan's Kaguya (SELENE) spacecraft was the first to spot these tubes on the moon, according to NASA. Many follow-up studies were performed using NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which takes high-definition images of the moons surface from pole to pole. The orbiter has spotted dozens of intriguing holes and NASA is considering ways in which future missions could delve inside. It might be too steep for a rover, so the agency is imagining using swarms of flying or climbing vehicles for exploration.

The researchers used data from moon and Mars imagery and compared that with the literature available on Earth from spelunking (cave exploring) and aerial studies of our own lava tubes. The team also created digital terrain models to get an idea of what these lava tubes on Mars and the moon look like inside, and saw vast possibilities for future exploration.

Astronauts practice for space using an analog cave environment in Sardinia. The European Space ... [+] Agency program is called Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising human behaviour and performance Skills (CAVES) and has sent dozens of astronauts underground.

"What is most important is that, despite the impressive dimension of the lunar tubes, they remain well within the roof stability threshold, stated Matteo Massironi, a planetary geologist at the University of Padua who co-authored the study. The models indicate, he added, that most of the lava tubes remain intact and very stable, meaning there is little chance of an underground collapse. (Besides which, we can assume future moon engineers would be happy to provide some support structure for extra safety.)

So how soon can we climb into one of these tubes to check things out? NASA is planning to land humans on the moon in 2024, accompanied by a suite of private vehicles under the Commercial Lunar Services Program (CLPS). At first these landers and rovers will be focused on supporting human missions, but there is the possibility of adding science payloads for exploring the lava tubes.

The earliest missions to Mars would happen no earlier than the mid-2030s, of course assuming that the funding and the will persist long enough to make an international coalition possible. We can only send spacecraft there every two years, so a feasibility study for lava tube living would likely be very far in the future given the complication of even getting a vehicle in the tube in the first place.

But perhaps we can be encouraged that the newly launched NASA Perseverance rover mission may be carrying a vehicle that would take the first tentative steps to lunar tube exploration on Mars. The Ingenuity helicopter should be the first flying vehicle on the Red Planet, taking flight sometime in 2021. If the test mission goes to plan, Ingenuitys design could be used for many other future Martian flying vehicles, perhaps including some that could explore the lunar tubes from up close.

A study based on the research was published in Earth-Science Reviews.

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Why We Should Build Astronaut Cities In Moon And Mars Lava Tubes - Forbes

Human Behavior

Communication and Control Are Inextricably Linked: Artist Cao Fei on How Technology Both Serves and Suppresses Humanity – artnet News

August 21, 2020 medical

Beijing-based artist Cao Fei is easily one of the most influential Chinese artists working today. Her multimedia and sculpture-based workwhich explores the chaotic, liminal space of the real world as it meets the technological onehas been exhibited in major shows the world over, from MoMA PS1 to the Tate Modern.

Recently, her exhibition Blueprints at Serpentine Galleries in London was put on pauseand has just reopened, giving the work, which is all about future plans and projections, new relevance and meaning.

Just in time for the reopening, Cao spoke to Artnet News about the show, how shes been faring in her life and career over the past few months, and what she thinks the art world of the future will look like.

Tell me about how Blueprints came to be. What are you exploring in these multimedia works and how do they relate to each other?

A blueprint can be both a plan and a projection. It points to the past as well as the future. The artists blueprint guides the virtual and the real.

The works in this exhibition all contain the impulse to deconstruct these worlds (the new, the old, the future, and the fictional), which may provide some enlightenment for people, in the sense of time and space and how to live, as well as how to understand the intimate relationship formed between themselves and all these stories.

Cao Fei, Blueprints, installation view, Serpentine Gallery, 2020. Photo: Gautier Deblonde.

Youve long been interested in where virtual reality and reality meet, especially as it concerns young members of Chinese society today. How did you become interested in this subject?

Virtual reality doesnt just center on young people in todays society. When I first started using Second Life [an online world] more than a decade ago, I met many people in their 50s and 70s who were deeply immersed in virtual communities. People of different generations are actually interested in it, and sometimes the older generation is more open to the rapid transformation of this medium than even the younger generation. My interest in virtual reality stems from my concern about people and societyin particular how the transformation of media determines the transformation of human survival, in many respects.

In todays world, the boundary between virtual reality and reality is increasingly blurred, so the creative practice of virtual reality is to study ourselves and intervene when necessary.

How do you feel our relationship to life IRL and to technology has changed over time?

Today, technology and life are deeply interwoven. The roots of online and offline are tied together, and that makes todays reality complex. Its a structure that has never been seen or experienced before in our human society, and, a lot of the time, we can no longer distinguish [the bounds of] real reality. But no matter how optimistic we are about the future of technology, it is rooted in cybernetics, the interaction between technology and human beings. On one hand, technology serves human beings; on the other, it controls human behavior. Communication and control are inextricably linked, and thats essentially political.

Some of my works, to varying degrees, relate to the relationship between technology and the development of human society today. They are strategic technologies developed by nationalism, unmanned technologies that accelerate the era, technological progressalso, the loss of love, and contradictions between technology and human nature. Technology brings order, progress and equal rights; it also fosters new chaos and restrictions. It has the power to destroy us.

Norbert Wieneronce, a cybernetics pioneer, said we must find a way to begin assigning code of values to our relationships with machines. Technology should be used to benefit human life, increase our leisure time and enrich our spiritual lifeit shouldnt exist just for the sake of profit and machine worship.

A sense of apocalyptic doom runs through a lot of your work, though it also seemingly underscores humor and the strength of the individual. How does humor play into your narrative?

Humor may be the only optimistic spirit that can face the end of the world. Even if you know about a lot of bad things coming down the line that you are unable to change, besides being optimistic, what else is left or worth paying attention to? The ancient Chinese Taoist thought wuwei points out that everything follows its own rules and complies with the changes of nature, and the spiritual realm of wuwei is that Tao follows nature. The characters in my works are looking for a self-sufficient relationship with the world, and try to face it calmly, no matter in the depressed production environment or the doomsday time and space.

Cao Fei, Nova, 2019, video, 109. Courtesy of the artist, Vitamin Creative Space and Sprth Magers.

What do you want people to take away from the show?

A friend has said that he sees Maitri in my writingsthe Buddhist word for compassion, and the Sanskrit word for love, or friend. Compassion means extinguishing anger and namelessnessits the will to get past melancholy and anxiety, to transform pain and alleviate grief. I hope that people can get out of their own perspectives through these works and engage with some of these things and try to assess their relationship with the world with more compassion.

How do you feel about all thats happening in the current moment, and how it has interrupted the timeline of the show?

Ive had different feelings in different phases. I started out panicked, sort of pessimistic and skeptical. Then I felt lost, like I was waiting in the dark, anxious. Then I tried to adapt. Now its about reflection and continued action. I think these are probably feelings shared by a lot of people.

It was fortunate that the Serpentine exhibition opened on schedule in March this year, even though it was only on for two weeks. Many institutions still havent recovered. And I feel grateful that Serpentine has been able to reopen. I think Blueprints is the most memorable exhibition of mine. Its on during a historic moment of shared destiny, of shared disaster, and its revelatory.

What, to you, makes good art? What makes great art? Whats the difference? And who, to you, is making great art today?

Art is subjective, unable to be defined as good and bad or right and wrong. Everyone can create their own art. The important thing is that you are willing to express it.

What are you working on now?

Over the past few years, Ive spent most of my time and energy on my job, and raising two young children. Ive been ignoring my own health. Ive recently begun to adjust to a new healthy lifestyle, and I think its time to get rid of both physical and mental impurities. We should also use the present moment as a time of precipitation, recuperation, and introspection, to repair ourselves and our relationships to our families and the world.

I never set any goal for whats next. Time will push you forward and things will run and develop according to their own rules. In fact, you cant help making plans, just like reality cant help but interrupt those original plans. An artist is not a company, and we dont have to run all the time. A pause is good, in fact.

Cao Fei, Blueprints, installation view, Serpentine Gallery, 2020. Photo: Gautier Deblonde.

What do you think the art world will look like in five years?

Some physical galleries and institutions may begin to close, one after anotheronline will become an indispensable structure in the art world. For example, institutions will strengthen online exhibitions and public churches and galleries will also strengthen their roles online. Perhaps there will be more artists with the internet as the medium and aesthetic research. They no longer rely only on galleries, and collectors have reduced their enthusiasm for contemporary art collecting. However, there will be more scholars and authors, and academic discussions in ideology will become more active. There are fewer works that touch interactive media in institutional exhibitions, and the exhibition viewing has become a very modernist aesthetic style. The audience keeps a certain distance from paintings and sculptures, and the exhibition viewing has become a very ritual behavior, like going to the cinema, a theater, or concert.

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Communication and Control Are Inextricably Linked: Artist Cao Fei on How Technology Both Serves and Suppresses Humanity - artnet News

Neuroscience

Oh, The Shame: Why Left-Handed People Are Left Out Of Neuroscience… – 2oceansvibe News

August 21, 2020 medical

[imagesource: Shutterstock]

Before you snort at left-handed people for insisting that they get equal recognition, its worth noting that lefty discrimination has been going on for centuries.

In the Middle Ages, left-handers were often accused of consorting with the devil and, during the excesses of the Inquisition and the witch hunts of the 15th and 16th Century, left-handedness was at times considered sufficient to identify a woman as a witch.

That, as Im sure you know, didnt end well.

The 18th and 19th centuries werent great, either. Left-handers were often forced to write with their right hands, which was enforced by tying the childs left hand behind their back to make sure that the habit was instilled.

In the mid-twentieth century, in some parts of the world, this practice continued.

Now we know better, at least when it comes to schooling and witchcraft, but lefties are still excluded from some things, including studies in neuroscience.

VICE spoke to Emma Karlsson, a postdoctoral researcher in psychology and cognitive neuroscience at Bangor University in Wales, who says that its one of these rules of thumb that people learn when they start doing neuroscience, that including left-handed individuals is bad.

Excluding left-handers is supposedly an attempt to reduce variations in brain data.

The brain is comprised of two hemispheres which are not completely equal in their anatomy. When it comes to some things like language and motor skills, one of the hemispheres does most of the work.

With most right-handed people the left hemisphere of the brain takes that on, while left-handed people are often less reliant on that hemisphere. They might use both hemispheres, but predominantly the right side.

Because of their exclusion, theyre incredibly frustrated, says Lyam Bailey, a doctoral student in psychology and neuroscience, who is one of the few researchers who accepts them.

Its been thought that its just best to play it safe, be careful and exclude left-handers, Bailey said. That kind of mindset has become very deeply ingrained in cognitive neuroscience.

We dont know what we dont know, Bailey said. It might be the case that left-handers are more likely to exhibit differences in some characteristics, maybe with respect to memory or attention or brain structure. But we dont know that because theyre not being included in the research.

There is now a push to diversify data to provide a more accurate overview of the population of which left-handers account for roughly 10%.

When trying to figure out how the brain works, we need to account for all the ways a healthy brain can function, says Karlsson.

Left-handed people may not even have radically different brains for certain tasks. And there may be more variation in both left and right-handed peoples brains than were aware ofthe whole spectrum of lateral variation wont be revealed until we include lefties in brain research.

If youd like to read more into this topic, head here.

To all the lefties out there, keep up the good fight.

I salute you.

[source:vice]

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Oh, The Shame: Why Left-Handed People Are Left Out Of Neuroscience... - 2oceansvibe News

Neuroscience

New center to explore brain, immune system connections – Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

August 21, 2020 medical

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Discoveries will aid efforts to develop immune therapies for neurological diseases

A new center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has been established to unravel the close connections between the brain and the immune system. The Center for Brain Immunology and Glia (BIG) will be led by Jonathan Kipnis, PhD, an international leader in the field of neuroimmunology.

As the brain reigns supreme over the human body, the immune system works 24/7 to defend the body from foreign invaders. For decades, however, the brain and the immune system were thought to operate independently of one another. But a growing body of evidence suggests the two are intimately connected in keeping the body healthy.

A new center has been established at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to unravel the close connections between the brain and the immune system. Such endeavors could lead to new insight into neurological illnesses ranging from Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease to schizophrenia and autism that are linked to an immune system gone awry, and lay the groundwork for developing promising immune-based therapies to treat such illnesses.

The Center for Brain Immunology and Glia (BIG) will be led by Jonathan Kipnis, PhD, an international leader in the new field of neuroimmunology, and the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor. Glia are brain cells that support neurons and the myriad neural connections in the brain. Theyre also involved in immune surveillance within the brain.

Neuroimmunology is one of the most exciting areas of biomedical research, said David H. Perlmutter, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs, the George and Carol Bauer Dean of the School of Medicine, and the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor. The center is conceptualized to leverage the world-class programs in immunology and neurosciences that have flourished at Washington University for many years and will foster collaborations that draw established and early-career scientists from many departments and diverse disciplines to explore the two-way dialogue between the brain and the immune system.

Such investigations are essential to designing innovative approaches to fight brain diseases and injuries, Perlmutter added. The center will also focus on areas that are ideal for urgently needed new therapies, so we envision that it will be a nidus for many new pharmaceutical industry partnerships. We are thrilled that Jony Kipnis is taking the helm and leading the way on this scientific journey.

Kipnis, who joined the School of Medicine faculty in July as a BJC Investigator, is highly regarded for his groundbreaking work in neuroimmunology. In 2015, his lab discovered a network of vessels that drains fluid, immune cells and small molecules from the brain into the lymph nodes, for the first time demonstrating a direct physical connection between the brain and the immune system.

It has long been known that every neurological disease has an immune component to it, and the assumption was that it was detrimental, said Kipnis, who is also a professor of pathology and immunology, of neurology, of neurosurgery and of neuroscience. But the immune system exists to protect and heal the body, not to destroy it. We want to know yet whether immune responses associated with neurological diseases indeed are beneficial helping to prop up and possibly repair damaged neurons or whether they are an underlying cause of illness. Our new center, through collaborations with numerous clinical and basic science departments, will cultivate and bring together scientists who want to be at the forefront of neuroimmunology and help answer such questions that could lead to entirely new approaches for treating diseases of the brain.

The School of Medicine, with its exceptional research strengths in neuroscience and immunology, plus broad and deep expertise in teasing apart the underlying molecular contributions to numerous neurological conditions linked to immune and inflammatory dysfunction such as Alzheimers disease, pain, itch, brain cancer, autism, and sleep disorders provides an unparalleled environment for the center. The new center also will be able to draw upon the exceptional expertise found in the School of Medicines McDonnell Genome Institute to investigate genetic and genomic components of neuroimmunology.

It is clear that inflammation plays an important role in Alzheimers disease and other neurodegenerative diseases, said David Holtzman, MD, the Andrew B. and Gretchen P. Jones Professor and head of the Department of Neurology. It will be important to better understand the details of this interaction as it may provide new innovative treatment approaches. This center will play an important role in supporting basic research to investigate how altering the immune system affects brain health and disease.

The new center is supported by the Departments of Neurology, of Neurosurgery, of Neuroscience and of Pathology and Immunology. Its current leadership team includes Kipnis, Holtzman, and Marco Colonna, MD, the Robert Rock Belliveau Professor of Pathology and Immunology. Holtzman and Colonna have uncovered intriguing links between inflammation and Alzheimers disease. As the center grows and evolves, more experts will be added to the leadership team.

Jony comes at a time of tremendous growth of our neurosciences and world-class immunology programs, said Richard Cote, MD, the Edward Mallinckrodt Professor and head of the Department of Pathology and Immunology. Already a leader, he will be a key part of building one of the great neuroimmunology programs in the world. As we face growing challenges in aging and neurodegenerative disease, we expect that fundamental approaches to these and other diseases of the brain will emanate from the BIG Center and the collaborations that will be enriched through the center.

The center will be a highly interactive and collaborative hub for scientists from all disciplines and backgrounds interested in understanding how the relationship between the brain and the immune system can be manipulated to treat neurological diseases. It will offer a seminar series, workshops to help establish collaborative projects, grant-brewing sessions and journal clubs.

Mentoring junior faculty is a passion of mine, and I hope that the center will be a greenhouse for new investigators and newcomers in the field, Kipnis said. We are planning to seek additional funding for exceptional projects in neuroimmunology and glia biology, with a goal to develop program projects and a neuroimmunology training program.

Our knowledge linking the brain and the immune system is still in its infancy, Kipnis continued. We have much to explore, and the field is wide open. Given the exceptional strengths of clinical and basic neuroscience and immunology here, there is no better place to explore this new field of neuroimmunology than at Washington University. I look forward to working with many tremendous colleagues here and establishing new collaborations throughout the school and the university to push the boundaries of neuroimmunology and glia research to the next frontier.

Washington University School of Medicines 1,500 faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals. The School of Medicine is a leader in medical research, teaching and patient care, ranking among the top 10 medical schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

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New center to explore brain, immune system connections - Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

Neuroscience

Julich-Brain: A 3D probabilistic atlas of the human brain’s cytoarchitecture – Science Magazine

August 21, 2020 medical

A present-day atlas of the human brain

Defining brain regions and demarking their spatial extent are important goals in neuroscience. A modern map of the brain's cellular structure, a cytoarchitectonic atlas, should provide maps of areas in three dimensions, integrate recent knowledge about brain parcellation, consider variations between individual brains, rely on reproducible workflows, and provide web-based links to other resources and databases. Amunts et al. created such an atlas based on serial histological sections of brain. They developed a computational framework and refined the current boundaries of the human brain based on cytoarchitectural patterns. This technique can easily be transferred to build brain atlases for other species or a spatial framework for other organs, other modalities, or multimodal maps for regions of interest at higher spatial scales. This research makes similar future attempts simultaneously reproducible and flexible.

Science, this issue p. 988

Cytoarchitecture is a basic principle of microstructural brain parcellation. We introduce Julich-Brain, a three-dimensional atlas containing cytoarchitectonic maps of cortical areas and subcortical nuclei. The atlas is probabilistic, which enables it to account for variations between individual brains. Building such an atlas was highly data- and labor-intensive and required the development of nested, interdependent workflows for detecting borders between brain areas, data processing, provenance tracking, and flexible execution of processing chains to handle large amounts of data at different spatial scales. Full cortical coverage was achieved by the inclusion of gap maps to complement cortical maps. The atlas is dynamic and will be adapted as mapping progresses; it is openly available to support neuroimaging studies as well as modeling and simulation; and it is interoperable, enabling connection to other atlases and resources.

Neuroscience

Inhibition of key receptor implicated in post-stroke damage and recovery – News-Medical.Net

August 21, 2020 medical

Many people who suffer a stroke are permanently disabled. Stroke remains the leading cause of long-term disability in the United States. Paralysis of one side of the body, speech and language problems, vision problems and memory loss are some of the major consequences of stroke injury.

Every year, nearly 800,000 people in the United States have a stroke. Even with recent advances in treatments to reduce damage and enhance recovery after stroke, solutions are significantly lacking.

Recently, UConn School of Medicine researchers published a paper in Experimental Neurology showing how they successfully inhibited an important receptor implicated in post-stroke damage and recovery.

The researchers specifically looked at ischemic stroke, which comprises 87% of strokes. Ischemic stroke occurs when there is a blockage in an artery leading to the brain. This reduces the amount of blood and oxygen getting to the brain, causing damage or death of brain cells.

Damaged or dying brain cells release excessive amounts of stored adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a molecule that carries energy within cells, leading to over-stimulation of its receptor P2X4 (P2X4R). When P2X4R is over-active, it causes a cascade of detrimental effects in brain cells, leading to ischemic brain injury.

In this study, the researchers found inhibition of P2X4R can regulate the activation of a kind of immune cell that plays a large role in post-stroke inflammation.

By partially short-term blocking this receptor, the researchers limited the over-stimulated immune response to improve both acute and chronic stroke recovery.

The method presented in this paper is particularly attractive as it only operates during this period of over-activation and does not inhibit normal functions of P2X4R during long-term recovery.

"Short-term P2X4R inhibition works perfectly to prevent brain damage immediately after stroke as well as during long-term recovery," author Rajkumar Verma, assistant professor of neuroscience at the UConn School of Medicine and the Pat and Jim Calhoun Cardiology Center at UConn Health, says.

Using mouse models, the researchers observed improved balance and coordination, as well as reduced anxiety after their intervention.

The P2X4R inhibitor treatment decreased the total number of infiltrated leukocytes, which are white blood cells that promote ischemic injury when over abundant.

This treatment effectively reduced the cell surface expression and activation of P2X4R without reducing its total protein level in brain tissue after stroke injury.

One challenge many experimental drugs, including commercially available P2X4R inhibitors, face is insolubility, meaning they cannot enter the body in order to deliver the treatment.

The researchers are currently working with team members Dr. Bruce Liang, Dean of the UConn School of Medicine, and Kenneth Jacobson from the National Institutes of Health to develop more soluble and potent novel P2X4R inhibitors.

This technology would have a major impact as there is currently no effective drug to target stroke damage on the market aside from a few narrowly applicable treatment to dissolve blood clot or device to remove it.

From a drug perspective, we don't have anything for neuroprotection. It's a very big and open market."

Rajkumar Verma, Study Author and Assistant Professor, Department of Neuroscience, School of Medicine, University of Connecticut

With this successful demonstration of their proof of concept, the researchers will continue to refine this method to find the most effective inhibitors. The team is currently working with UConn Technology Commercialization Services to license this innovation. For more information, contact Ana Fidantsef, Ph.D.

Source:

Journal reference:

Srivastavaa, P., et al. (2020) Neuroprotective and neuro-rehabilitative effects of acute purinergic receptor P2X4 (P2X4R) blockade after ischemic stroke. Experimental Neurology. doi.org/10.1016/j.expneurol.2020.113308.

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Inhibition of key receptor implicated in post-stroke damage and recovery - News-Medical.Net

Physiology

New SUU course will explore philosophy, physiology of pro wrestling – The Spectrum

August 21, 2020 medical

Before Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson became the biggest movie star in the world, he got his start in professional wrestling.(Photo: WWE)

Pro wrestling fans at SUU can now studywhat The Rock iscookin'.

Southern Utah University will soon be offering a six-credit general education course focused on the philosophy and physiology of professional wrestling, the school recently announced.

"Talkin' 'Bout Hard Times: The Philosophy and Physiology of Sports Entertainment" will be available starting in the spring semester of 2021. The course was developed and will be taught byKris Phillips, associate professor of philosophy, and Lindsey Roper, assistant professor of biology.

Throughout the course, students will examine professional wrestling through a philosophical and biological lens, according to the announcement. Topics will range from class struggle to complicated injuries, and the class will include field experiences, guests lectures and a final project that will involve creating a wrestling avatar.

The course came about due to a grant from the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, which picked up Phillips' and Roper's course proposal.

Phillips said in the announcement that there's "surprising opportunity" in professional wrestling to explore social, biological and other topics in-depth.

With careful scrutiny, we can learn from the least likely of sources," he said.

Roper said in the announcement that general education courses aren't something to just get through; rather, they should push students outside of their comfort zones and help them see that all fields are connected.

"On the surface, biology, philosophyand professional wrestling have absolutely nothing in common, but when we take a deeper look there is a massive amount of shared interest and subject matter," she said.

Kaitlyn Bancroft reports on faith, health, education, crime and under-served communities for The Spectrum & Daily News, a USA TODAY Network newsroom in St. George, Utah. You can reach her at KBancroft@thespectrum.com, or follow her on Twitter @katbancroft.

Read or Share this story: https://www.thespectrum.com/story/news/2020/08/20/new-suu-course-explore-philosophy-physiology-pro-wrestling/5609695002/

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New SUU course will explore philosophy, physiology of pro wrestling - The Spectrum

Physiology

General health orientation based psychological motivations for masters athletes, a consideration of clustering utilizing t-distributed Stochastic…

August 21, 2020 medical

Authors: Joe Walsh, Ian Timothy Heazlewood, Mark DeBeliso, Mike Climstein

Corresponding Author:Dr. Mike Climstein (FASMF, FACSM, FAAESS)Clinical Exercise PhysiologySouthern Cross UniversitySchool of Health and Human SciencesGold Coast, Queensland, AustraliaMichael.Climstein@scu.edu.au

Dr. Joe Walsh is with Sport Science Institute http://www.sportscienceinstitute.com

Ian Timothy Heazlewood is Associate Professor and Theme Leader Exercise and Sport Science in The School of Psychological and Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, Health, Science and the Environment, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.

Mark DeBeliso is Professor, Department of Physical Education and Human Performance, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, USA

Dr. Mike Climstein (FASMF, FACSM, FAAESS) is with Clinical Exercise Physiology, Southern Cross University, School of Health and Human Sciences, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia; Physical Activity, Lifestyle, Ageing and Wellbeing Faculty Research Group, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2006.

ABSTRACT

An exploration of clustering of general health orientation psychological motivations for participation in sport was conducted using t-distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE). The aim of this research was to assess the suitability of applying t-SNE to creating two-dimensional scatter plots to visualise the relationship between different general health orientation motivators. The data source used for this investigation was survey data gathered on World Masters Games competitors using the Motivations of Marathoners Scales (MOMS). Application of t-SNE plots could assist in visually mapping general health orientation psychological constructs and gaining greater understanding of the underlying patterns in the MOMS tool. Some clustering patterns were observed, with some items in the MOMS connected in a logical manner that complied with those originally proposed by the developers of the MOMS. On tuning the t-SNE model hyperparameters, it became apparent that the t-SNE graphs were able to provide an appropriate representation of clustering with learning rates outside the ranges often recommended (at the time of writing). As t-SNE is a relatively modern approach to visualizing high dimensional data, this was a finding worth reporting. Two-dimensional scatter plots produced using t-SNE may assist in creating hypotheses about the relationships present between psychological constructs in such high-dimensional data.

Key words: t-SNE, Sport Psychology, Motivations Of Marathoners Scales (MOMS), scikit-learn library, LimeSurvey

INTRODUCTION

The World Masters Games

This manuscript focuses on exploration of clustering of scores from psychometric data gathered on masters athletes. Masters athletes are defined as those systematically training for and competing in organized sporting events designed specifically for older adults (44). Competing at sport in older ages has been shown to be beneficial for a number of health indices which includes general cardiovascular health (5), blood pressure (8), improved lipids (14), reduced frailty/sarcopenia(20) and muscular strength and function (41) The biggest masters sporting event (by participant number) is the World Masters Games (WMG). Participation at the WMG is open to sports people of all abilities, limited by age. The minimum age criterion ranges between 25 and 35 years depending upon the sport. The data used in this manuscript was data gathered at the Sydney WMG, which attracted 28,089 competitors who represented 95 countries competing in 28 sports (57, 60, 63). Research on the masters athletes competing at the Sydney WMG has included investigation of smoking prevalence (53), body mass index (26, 50, 51, 52, 54, 56, 58, 63, 64), injury incidence (13, 28, 48, 49, 55) and health (9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19) of competitors. Masters athletes did not show increased incidence of injury in comparison to other active populations (49, 55), a finding which alleviates one potential concern with promoting participation in masters sport.

The Motivations of Marathoners Scales

The Motivations of Marathoners Scales (MOMS) (37) is a psychometric instrument based upon a series of 56 questions and scored on a seven-point Likert scale (35). To complete the MOMS, participants rated the 56 questions from 1-7 in terms of how important it is as a reason for their participation in sport. A score of 1 would indicate that the item is not a reason for participation, whereas a score of 7 indicates that the item is a very important reason for participation and scores in-between these extremes represented relative degrees of each reason. The following are sample questions which sought responses to word stems such as; to control my weight, to compete with others, to earn respect of peers, to improve my sporting performance, to earn respect of people in general, to socialize with other participants, to improve my health, to compete with myself, to become less anxious, to improve my self-esteem and to become less depressed. A full list of the 56 questions in the MOMS scale and summary statistics for the MOMS scale data gathered at the Sydney WMG has been previously published (40, 60).

The MOMS scale has been adopted to investigate athletes competing in other sports (other than marathon), including at both multi-sport events (24, 32) and individual sports tournaments such as rugby (30), or triathlon (6) (with some adaption). Data collected using the MOMS scale has also been used as a convenience sample for demonstrating applications of data mining techniques that can be used in exercise science and exercise psychology (34, 35, 61, 62).

The age ranges in the research used to develop the MOMS survey instrument had significant overlap with age ranges of participants at the WMG. The questions identified in the MOMS have been demonstrated (7, 21, 42, 45) as important motivational constructs and have been used by sport psychology researchers for more than 25 years. A number of studies have been conducted on the MOMS in the context of masters athletes (1, 2, 3, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 33, 47, 64). Heazlewood and colleagues (29) re-evaluated the first and second order factor structure of the MOMS instrument with masters athletes, the factor structure identified in the original MOMS instrument was not reproduced with the WMG male and female cohorts.

t-distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding

There are a number of established techniques for visualizing high dimensional data. A relatively modern technique that has a number of advantages over many earlier approaches is t-distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) (38). With t-SNE, high dimensional data can be converted into a two dimensional scatter plot via a matrix of pair-wise similarities.

Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (SNE) converts Euclidean distances between data points into conditional probabilities that represent similarities (36). In t-SNE the SNE cost function is replaced with a symmetrized version with simpler gradients (38) and t-SNE uses a Cauchy Distribution (one dimensional Students-t distribution (as opposed to a Gaussian distribution)) to compute the similarity between two points in the lower-dimensional space (38). This distribution allows for more dispersion in the lower-dimensional space. Similar to SNE, the t-SNE algorithm develops a probability distribution between factor pairs in the higher-dimensional space with higher probabilities assigned to pairs with higher similarity. A similar probability distribution is then developed in a lower-dimensional map and the Kullback-Leibler divergence (37) between the two distributions is then minimized with respect to the points in the maps using gradient descent. The aim is developing a lower dimensional mapping (in our case two dimensions) where this mapping retains the similarities that were present in the higher dimensional data. The cost function for t-SNE is not convex, thus initializing scripts with different random seed values will result in differing outcomes.

AIM

Effective visualization of data plays a crucial role in knowledge discovery (16). The MOMS scale contains complex, multi-dimensional relations between 56 different questions, split into a factor structure that has not been replicated in previous research on WMG athletes (29). The aim of this research was to assess the suitability of applying t-SNE to creating two-dimensional scatter plots to visualise the relationship between different psychological motivators. If suitable plots could be constructed these could assist in visually mapping psychological constructs and gaining greater understanding of the underlying patterns in the MOMS scale. Two-dimensional scatter plots produced using t-SNE may assist in creating hypotheses about the relationships present between psychological constructs in such high-dimensional data.

METHODOLOGY

Data was collected on athletes participating in the Sydney WMG, after approval for the project was granted by a university Research Ethics Committee in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 (revised in 2008) and the Sydney World Masters Games Organising Committee. An online survey was created using Limesurvey, an open-source, web-based application to deliver the survey. The survey consisted of several sections. A total of 3,928 masters athletes completed all 56 questions in the MOMS. This manuscript analyses psychological participation factors contained within the survey. Further details about the survey methodology and an overview of findings from the survey has been previously published (59).

The psychological participation factors included in the survey were 56 questions based on the MOMS (60). These were analysed using the t-SNE package included in the scikit-learn python machine learning library (43). Analysis was conducted using Python 3.6.5 using operating system x86_64-apple-darwin15.6.0 (64-bit). After provisional exploratory analysis of different hyper parameters, it was deemed appropriate to keep the majority of t-SNE hyper parameters fixed at their default settings (the standard settings within the scikit-learn library, with default values and a description of each hyper parameter reported in Table 1) and tune the learning rate hyper parameter. The learning rate was tuned from values of 0.0001 to 1000, which was outside the recommended range in the scikit-learn (43) package recommendations (10-1000) (46). The fixed values for the other main hyper parameters for t-SNE implemented via scikit-learn (46) are listed in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Descriptions and default values for the t-SNE hyper parameters in the scikit-learn package (46)

RESULTS

Figure 1: Learning Rate 100

Figure 2: Learning Rate 10

Figure 3: Learning Rate 0.125

DISCUSSION

The Figures 1-3 are a visual representation of the clustering of the 56 psychological motivations documented in the literature (31, 40, 42, 60). As the dimensional reduction utilized in t-SNE is non-linear the axes in the graphs in Figures 1-3 represent distances in the two-dimensional space, however relating these to equivalent distances in the initial 56 dimensions is a non-linear transformation. Thus, the figures should be used as a visualization tool; however, the interpretability in the units of the initial 56 dimensional data is not apparent or suitable from the figures. In terms of visualization of relationship between the 56 variables, there were clearly patterns of clustering which give insight into relationships within the data. This discussion section focuses upon the general health orientation questions. These questions were utilised as an example of the replication (or disparity) of clustering relationships in the original development of the MOMS instrument (40) when questions are inspected graphically utilising t-SNE.

Inspection of clustering of questions on the t-SNE scatter plots revealed many patterns that were representative of underlying relationships between the different questions. Many of the clustering relationships as proposed in the original scale (40) were evident in this data explored using t-SNE. For example in Figure 1 using a learning rate of 100, for the General Health Orientation items, the questions to stay in physical condition, to become more physically fit, to improve my health are closely clustered closely together in quadrant IV (the lower right) of Figure 1. The questions to reduce my chance of having a heart attack and to prevent illness were also very close in positioning to these other three questions on Figure 1 with no questions from other categories between them.

It was observed that the question to prolong my life, was also to the bottom right of the diagram, but offset far to the right with a significant displacement away from any of the other questions. As the Euclidean distance between points was representative of similarities between the different questions in the MOMS for these masters athletes, this would imply that there was some meaningful difference between the responses to this question and the other 56 questions.

There was some apparent clustering for the other subset of questions within the Physical Health Motives category, namely Weight Concern, comprised of to look leaner, to help control my weight, to reduce my weight and to stay physically attractive. These questions were also closely clustered together with no other questions from other categories in the intervening space. This would imply that the clustering observed for the WMG athletes for these particular questions was compatible with that established in the development of MOMS (40).

Figure 2, produced by reducing the learning rate hyper parameter to 10, displayed a different t-SNE scatter plot, with some alteration in the clustering of questions. In many cases, this figure displayed pairs of similar questions (both in terms of logical underlying meaning in the language usage and in terms of t-SNE dimensionality). Similar to Figure 1, the General Health Orientation questions to stay in physical condition, to become more physically fit, to improve my health were clustered closely together, though for this particular t-SNE scatter-plot, the clustering was in the upper centre part of the figure (Figure 2). This is due to different learning rates and initialisation with a given random seed. The Cartesian coordinates of different questions was not the focus of this manuscript as t-SNE was utilized instead to explore the data in terms of Euclidean distance between the questions (as detailed in the introduction section). Whilst the other three questions within General Health Orientation, namely to reduce my chance of having a heart attack, to prolong my life and to prevent illness are very close in positioning to each other, however situated on the right of Figure 2. They are considerably separated from the first three questions. This would imply two separate subsets of three questions within General Health Orientation. The Weight Concern scale questions in Figure 2 to look leaner, to help control my weight and to reduce my weight are clustered together, not too far from one of the apparent subsets of General Health Orientation questions also on the right hand side of the diagram, with to help control my weight and to reduce my weight more tightly clustered than to look leaner, which is offset slight to the left from the pair. This grouping is logical in terms of the rational interpretation of the language used in the questions, specifically the two more closely grouped questions contain language specific to weight control/reduction, whilst the other question was related to physical appearance.

In Figure 3, the General Health Orientation questions were split into two subgroups with to prolong my life, to reduce my chance of having a heart attack and to prevent illness clustered in the upper centre of Figure 3. The questions to stay in physical condition, to become more physically fit and to improve my health were separated from the other cluster and were located towards the lower left of the graph. There were more than ten questions located between these two clusters across the two t-SNE dimensions. This result implied two different clusterings and was contrary to the grouping of both clusters together under the same category of General Health Orientation.

All of the t-SNE plots in Figures 1-3 have different subgroupings of psychological motivations including those explicitly discussed for motivations within category of General Health Orientation. Although there were differences, the general categorization of questions in the MOMS did also have some shared and clearly visible commonalities with the groupings apparent in t-SNE graphs created across a range of learning rates. Despite differences according to random initialisation parameters and learning rates, the figures demonstrate that t-SNE can be utilised to produce two-dimensional graphs to visualize the relationship between the different psychological motivation questions comprising the MOMS tool. Visual inspection confirms viable patterns of clustering which give insight into relationships within the data, with these patterns being logical in context of the underlying meaning in the language usage and specific groupings of questions. Further review could be conducted on the differences demonstrated between the MOMS general categorization of questions and the t-SNE graphs. An example would be distinct and separate clusters of questions forming two separate clusters for General Health Orientation questions. Based solely on this cursory visual analysis via these scatter plots, it would be advisable to split the General Health Orientation questions into separate groups and similar patterns may be present for other groupings. This splitting is however not advised without further supporting evidence and it should be noted though that devising such alternative groupings is not the aim of this research, which was to assess the suitability of applying t-SNE to creating two dimensional scatter plots to visualise the relationship between different psychological motivators with specific reference to General Health orientation questions. Such graphs were successfully created. These two dimensional scatter plots produced using t-SNE may assist in creating hypotheses about the relationships present between psychological constructs in such high-dimensional data both for the WMG athletes using the MOMS, for others using the MOMS and for applications outside of MOMS using other tools.

It was interesting to note that the hyper parameter tuning was conducted beyond the recommended ranges provided in the scikit-learn package documentation for t-SNE learning rates (10-1000). This extended range was selected based on investigators extensive experience in hyper parameter tuning. The appropriate learning rates for hyper parameter tuning were found to be well below the standard range (e.g. learning rates below 0.1, such as 0.125 in Figure 3). It should be noted that all other values were set as the scikit-learn package defaults (with values used listed in the method section). As t-SNE is a relatively modern technique, findings that could be beneficial in recommendations for implementation such as this should be noted.

CONCLUSION

It was demonstrated that t-SNE could be utilised to produce two-dimensional graphs to visualize the relationship between the different psychological motivation questions comprising the MOMS tool. Visual inspection confirmed the presence of patterns of clustering which gave viable insight into clustering relationships within the data. Patterns were apparent that were logical in terms of the underlying meaning in the language usage and specific groupings of questions

The general categorization of questions in the MOMS had commonalities with the groupings apparent in t-SNE graphs created across a range of learning rates. There were also some differences demonstrated in the t-SNE graphs. An example would be distinct and separate clusters of questions forming two separate clusters for General Health Orientation questions. Based solely on this cursory visual analysis via these scatter plots, it would be advised to split the General Health Orientation questions into separate groups and similar patterns may be present for other groupings. This is however not advised and it should be noted though that devising such alternative groupings is not the aim of this research, which was to assess the suitability of applying t-SNE to creating two dimensional scatter plots to visualise the relationship between different psychological motivators. Such graphs were successfully created. The two-dimensional scatter plots produced using t-SNE may assist in creating hypotheses about the relationships present between psychological constructs in such high-dimensional data.

A secondary finding was apparent based on the learning rates used in hyper parameter tuning. On tuning the t-SNE model hyper parameters, it became apparent that the t-SNE graphs were able to provide an appropriate representation of clustering with learning rates outside the ranges often recommended. As t-SNE is a relatively modern approach to visualizing high dimensional data, this was a notable finding.

APPLICATIONS IN SPORT

The MOMS is a valid and reliable, quantitative instrument for gauging the importance of a range of psychological factors in determining motivations for sports participation. Participant motivation evaluates those factors that enhance or inhibit motivation to participate and are represented by factors such as health orientation, weight concern/weight loss and personal goal achievement. The MOMS has been used by sport psychology researchers for more than 25 years. The MOMS scale has been adopted to investigate athletes competing in marathons, multi-sport events and individual sports tournaments such as rugby or triathlon. Data collected using the MOMS scale has also been used as a convenience sample for demonstrating applications of data mining techniques that can be used in exercise science and exercise psychology. A number of studies have been conducted on the MOMS in the context of masters athletes (1, 2, 3, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 33, 47, 64). Heazlewood and colleagues identified the first and second order factor structure of the MOMS instrument in the context of masters athletes (29). It was demonstrated the factor structure identified in the original MOMS instrument was not reproduced within the WMG male and female cohorts (29). The data used in this manuscript was data gathered at the Sydney WMG, the biggest masters sporting event (by participant number), which attracted 28,089 competitors who represented 95 countries competing in 28 sports

Effective visualization of data plays a crucial role in knowledge discovery. The MOMS scale contains complex, multi-dimensional relations between 56 different questions, split into a factor structure that has not been replicated in previous research on masters athletes (29). The aim of this research was to assess the suitability of applying t-SNE to creating two-dimensional scatter plots to more simply visualise the relationship between different psychological motivators specifically those related to general health orientation. Suitable plots were constructed as per the aim of this experiment and these can assist in visually mapping general health orientation psychological constructs and gaining greater understanding of the underlying patterns in the MOMS scale for masters athletes and potentially in the other sports and events where motivation for participation has been examined using the MOMS, such as marathon, triathlon, rugby and other multi-sport events. The two-dimensional scatter plots produced in this paper using t-SNE may assist in creating hypotheses about the relationships present between general health orientation constructs in such high-dimensional data as the 56 questions in the MOMS instrument. This paper demonstrate that t-SNE can be utilised to produce two-dimensional graphs to visualize the relationship between the general health orientation questions comprising the MOMS tool. Some clustering patterns were observed in those motivations classified under general health orientation, with some items in the MOMS connected in a logical manner that complied with those originally proposed by the developers of the MOMS.

Masters athletes are defined as those systematically training for and competing in organized sporting events designed specifically for older adults. Competing at sport in older ages has been shown to be beneficial for a number of health indices which includes general cardiovascular health, blood pressure, improved lipids, reduced frailty/sarcopenia and muscular strength and function. Participation at the WMG is open to sports people of all abilities, limited by age. The minimum age criterion ranges between 25 and 35 years depending upon the sport. Given increased risk of injury from participation in sport at older ages has been shown in prior research to not be present for WMG competitors (49,55), it would make sense to encourage participation in masters sport (conditional on appropriate medical screening) to improve health outcomes. Visualisation of the relationship between many different general health orientation motivations in masters athletes can be accomplished using t-SNE. The clustering patterns observed in the general health orientation motivations, can be visualised in simple two dimensional plots to better understand the relationship between the different general health orientation questions comprising the MOMS tool. As a general finding related to improving understanding of the MOMS, this method may assist in progressing understanding of relationships between different general health orientation psychological constructs in high dimensional data. With better understanding of the relationship between the multi-dimensional factors involved in the motivation behind participation for masters athletes, sports marketing and strategies behind promoting participation in sports and physical exercise across the lifespan can be optimised and tailored to enhance masters sport participation and improve general health outcomes.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors appreciate the time taken by the 3,298 WMG masters athletes in completing the 56 questions in the MOMS survey tool. The authors also appreciate the assistance of Evan Wills in data collection using LimeSurvey and the Sydney World Masters Games Organising Committee in approving the project.

REFERENCES

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Physiology

I’m a lung doctor testing the blood from COVID-19 survivors as a treatment for the sick a century old idea that could be a fast track to treatment -…

August 21, 2020 medical

Imagine going to the doctor for a cough and getting a transfusion of blood from a goat. It probably sounds strange today, but that is exactly how antibody therapy started in the late 1800s.

Researchers found that plasma, the part of blood left when you get rid of the cells, had healing properties. In fact, the first Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded to Emil von Behring in 1901 for his work using this approach to treat diphtheria.

Today, scientists understand healing properties of plasma come from antibodies, which are proteins in the blood that recognize and destroy foreign invaders. The goal of a vaccine is to induce the body to make more of these protective antibodies, and lessen the severity of the infection or prevent it all together. As Americans wait for a COVID-19 vaccine, antibody therapy provides a potentially effective treatment option - but one which warrants further study.

As a physician-scientist in pulmonary and critical care medicine, I take care of patients with lung diseases and those who are critically ill in the intensive care unit. I also study the role of antibodies and the cells that make them, called B cells, in lung disease. So when the worst public health crisis in a hundred years struck in my first year out of training, like many of my colleagues I saw it as a call to arms. This is why we became doctors.

Since von Behrings pioneering work, antibodies have been used to treat a variety of different infections. This approach waned with the advent of antibiotics in the 1930s.

In the case of epidemics of novel infections, antibodies have reemerged as a therapeutic partly due to one factor: time. Developing a drug in the laboratory takes a long time. In the case of antibodies, the human immune system does this for us. Our bodies are equipped with an astounding repertoire of B cells capable of making up to one quadrillion different antibodies.

Each one of these antibodies can recognize different parts of an infection. When a B-cell recognizes a virus like SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, as foreign, that B cell makes antibodies which then float around in the blood, binding to the viruses and protecting us from infection.

Three to four weeks after a person recovers from the infection doctors can harvest these antibodies in what is known as convalescent plasma. If effective, this provides a fast track to treatment.

Convalescent plasma has been tried in recent epidemics such as SARS, MERS and Ebola. In each case, there has been at least some evidence that the treatment is safe and may be effective.

Fortunately for humanity, these outbreaks have been relatively limited in scope, preventing the kinds of numbers necessary in clinical trials to demonstrate that a treatment works. The COVID-19 pandemic, as devastating as it has been, provides a unique opportunity to study whether convalescent plasma is effective.

The pandemic was a chance to do important work to understand the biology of the disease and how to treat it. I am now helping to establish and lead a trial testing the effect of convalescent plasma in COVID-19 patients.

In our trial, my colleagues and I have targeted patients who are hospitalized but not yet critically ill. We hope to test whether convalescent plasma can prevent the progression of this disease to critical illness and death. Entering into the sixth month of this pandemic, we have now completed enrolling patients for the trial and our analysis is underway.

Hopefully in the coming months this trial will help determine whether convalescent plasma is an effective treatment for some patients with COVID-19. Importantly, we will not only evaluate the clinical outcomes, but we will also study the immune system responses to convalescent plasma so we can better understand the underlying mechanisms by which it impacts disease.

Several studies have already shown promise for convalescent plasma in COVID-19. A retrospective study from investigators in New York as well as a prospective study out of Houston suggest that convalescent plasma may be effective, particularly when given early before the patient is on a ventilator. Additionally, in a recent report from the Expanded Access Program for convalescent plasma, an analysis of over 35,000 transfused patients showed that earlier transfusion with higher concentrations of antibodies was associated with improved outcomes.

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Convalescent plasma is also the foundation upon which specific antibody therapy is based. In specific antibody therapy, the specific neutralizing antibodies present in convalescent plasma that bind to the virus are isolated and then synthesized in the lab. This has been shown to be effective in the case of Ebola. Researchers have now isolated these neutralizing antibodies for COVID-19, and clinical trials are underway to test their efficacy as well.

These studies and ours provide important steps in developing therapeutics. But even during the urgency of a pandemic it is critically important to perform large, randomized phase 3 clinical trials before changing clinical practice. In support of this the Food and Drug Administration recently halted its emergency use authorization of convalescent plasma, citing a lack of strong evidence. Only by following these rigorous standards of evidence can we finally answer the question: Does convalescent plasma work? In this case, no goats blood needed.

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I'm a lung doctor testing the blood from COVID-19 survivors as a treatment for the sick a century old idea that could be a fast track to treatment -...