Development and testing of mobile technology for community park improvements: validity and reliability of the eCPAT application with youth.

Creation of mobile technology environmental audit tools can provide a more interactive way for youth to engage with communities and facilitate participation in health promotion efforts. This study describes the development and validity and reliability testing of an electronic version of the Community Park Audit Tool (eCPAT). eCPAT consists of 149 items and incorporates a variety of technology benefits. Criterion-related validity and inter-rater reliability were evaluated using data from 52 youth across 47 parks in Greenville County, SC. A large portion of items (>70 %) demonstrated either fair or moderate to perfect validity and reliability. All but six items demonstrated excellent percent agreement. The eCPAT app is a user-friendly tool that provides a comprehensive assessment of park environments. Given the proliferation of smartphones, tablets, and other electronic devices among both adolescents and adults, the eCPAT app has potential to be distributed and used widely for a variety of health promotion purposes.

Use of RNAi screens to uncover resistance mechanisms in cancer cells and identify synthetic lethal interactions.

RNAi loss-of-function screens, which have proven effective to identify genes functionally responsible for cellular phenotypes, can be designed to use different genetic backgrounds or altered environmental conditions to elucidate genetic dependencies. These sorts of screening approaches can be exploited to identify genetic targets that minimize resistance to approved drugs, and provide a basis on which to develop new targeted therapies and predict the secondary targets for combinatorial treatments. Four types of pooled short hairpin RNA (shRNA) screens, in particular, have been used to look for genetic targets that work together with known drugs or other anticancer targets, either in an additive or synergistic fashion. Each method produces results that provide a useful but limited picture of the genetic elements driving oncogenesis.