Occupational Mobility and Chronic Health Conditions in Middle and Later Life: A Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND: Occupational mobility at various stages in the life course may have a cumulative impact on health outcomes and trajectory. This study aims to (1) systematically review empirical evidence regarding the impact of intergenerational and intra-generational occupational mobility on chronic health conditions in middle and later life; and (2) assess the collective evidence on the health consequences of different types of occupational mobility. METHOD: A systematic review of literature was carried out by searching three databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, and SocINDEX) and the reference lists. Eligible studies examined the impact of occupational mobility on at least one chronic health condition among adults aged 35 years or above. The quality of each included study was assessed by standardized tools. RESULTS: Out of 170 identified publications, 16 studies based on 12 independent data sets met the inclusion criteria. There is moderately strong evidence that downward intergenerational occupational mobility and stable low occupational status across generations were associated with worse chronic health conditions. The relationships to chronic health conditions were more pronounced for intergenerational occupational mobility than for intra-generational occupational mobility. Gender differences were observed in the relationship between occupational mobility and health. CONCLUSION: Career advancement interventions should target both the career starters and older employees. More generous unemployment insurance systems are suggested in less egalitarian countries, especially during economic recession periods. Future studies of occupational mobility should give more attention to women and people from developing and Eastern countries.

Factors Affecting the Rate and Measurement of Feed Intake for a Cereal-Based Meal in Horses.

The rapid intake of high-cereal, low-roughage meals may cause gastrointestinal and behavioral disorders. We investigated some of the factors that can affect the rate of intake (ROI) in four separate studies. Study 1 investigated the effect of chaff length and addition rate on the ROI of oats. The ROI decreased as more chaff was added to the diet, attaining significance (P < .05, n = 6) at levels above 15% addition and reaching a plateau at ∼50%. This was independent of stalk length (1.4 cm vs. 4.1 cm). Study 2 showed that meal size (varying from 0.5 to 4 g/kg BW) did not affect the ROI for a cereal-based meal, nor was ROI altered by the addition of 10% molasses (n = 6). Study 3 demonstrated that ROI changed markedly over the course of a meal, commencing at an average rate of 74 g/minute for the first 5 minutes and decreasing to 15.8 g/minute after 30 minutes (n = 6). Study 4 examined the effects of breed, BW, exercise, and gender in 71 horses. In Clydesdales, BW affected ROI (P < .05), and Clydesdales had a faster ROI than Thoroughbreds of similar BW (81.8 ± 6.8 vs. 66.0 ± 3.35 g/minute; P < .05). Exercise level, age, and gender did not impact ROI significantly. The results highlight the effectiveness of feeding chaff to slow ROI and demonstrate the need for a standardized protocol if ROI is to be compared between different studies.

National Neuroinformatics Framework for Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA).

The Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) launched the "International Collaborative Research Strategy for Alzheimer's Disease" as a signature initiative, focusing on Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and related neurodegenerative disorders (NDDs). The Canadian Consortium for Neurodegeneration and Aging (CCNA) was subsequently established to coordinate and strengthen Canadian research on AD and NDDs. To facilitate this research, CCNA uses LORIS, a modular data management system that integrates acquisition, storage, curation, and dissemination across multiple modalities. Through an unprecedented national collaboration studying various groups of dementia-related diagnoses, CCNA aims to investigate and develop proactive treatment strategies to improve disease prognosis and quality of life of those affected. However, this constitutes a unique technical undertaking, as heterogeneous data collected from sites across Canada must be uniformly organized, stored, and processed in a consistent manner. Currently clinical, neuropsychological, imaging, genomic, and biospecimen data for 509 CCNA subjects have been uploaded to LORIS. In addition, data validation is handled through a number of quality control (QC) measures such as double data entry (DDE), conflict flagging and resolution, imaging protocol checks, and visual imaging quality validation. Site coordinators are also notified of incidental findings found in MRI reads or biosample analyses. Data is then disseminated to CCNA researchers via a web-based Data-Querying Tool (DQT). This paper will detail the wide array of capabilities handled by LORIS for CCNA, aiming to provide the necessary neuroinformatic infrastructure for this nation-wide investigation of healthy and diseased aging.

Cyberinfrastructure for Open Science at the Montreal Neurological Institute.

Data sharing is becoming more of a requirement as technologies mature and as global research and communications diversify. As a result, researchers are looking for practical solutions, not only to enhance scientific collaborations, but also to acquire larger amounts of data, and to access specialized datasets. In many cases, the realities of data acquisition present a significant burden, therefore gaining access to public datasets allows for more robust analyses and broadly enriched data exploration. To answer this demand, the Montreal Neurological Institute has announced its commitment to Open Science, harnessing the power of making both clinical and research data available to the world (Owens, 2016a,b). As such, the LORIS and CBRAIN (Das et al., 2016) platforms have been tasked with the technical challenges specific to the institutional-level implementation of open data sharing, including: Comprehensive linking of multimodal data (phenotypic, clinical, neuroimaging, biobanking, and genomics, etc.)Secure database encryption, specifically designed for institutional and multi-project data sharing, ensuring subject confidentiality (using multi-tiered identifiers).Querying capabilities with multiple levels of single study and institutional permissions, allowing public data sharing for all consented and de-identified subject data.Configurable pipelines and flags to facilitate acquisition and analysis, as well as access to High Performance Computing clusters for rapid data processing and sharing of software tools.Robust Workflows and Quality Control mechanisms ensuring transparency and consistency in best practices.Long term storage (and web access) of data, reducing loss of institutional data assets.Enhanced web-based visualization of imaging, genomic, and phenotypic data, allowing for real-time viewing and manipulation of data from anywhere in the world.Numerous modules for data filtering, summary statistics, and personalized and configurable dashboards. Implementing the vision of Open Science at the Montreal Neurological Institute will be a concerted undertaking that seeks to facilitate data sharing for the global research community. Our goal is to utilize the years of experience in multi-site collaborative research infrastructure to implement the technical requirements to achieve this level of public data sharing in a practical yet robust manner, in support of accelerating scientific discovery.

Vitamin d: pharmacokinetics and safety when used in conjunction with the pharmaceutical drugs used in cancer patients: a systematic review.

Vitamin D has reported anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties modulated through gene transcription and non-genomic signaling cascades. The purpose of this review was to summarize the available research on interactions and pharmacokinetics between vitamin D and the pharmaceutical drugs used in patients with cancer. Hypercalcemia was the most frequently reported side effect that occurred in high dose calcitriol. The half-life of 25(OH)D3 and/or 1,25(OH)2D3 was found to be impacted by cimetidine; rosuvastatin; prednisone and possibly some chemotherapy drugs. No unusual adverse effects in cancer patients; beyond what is expected from high dose 1,25(OH)2D3 supplementation, were revealed through this review. While sufficient evidence is lacking, supplementation with 1,25(OH)2D3 during chemotherapy appears to have a low risk of interaction. Further interactions with vitamin D3 have not been studied.