Daily Archives: May 2, 2017

FY17

Effective July 1, 2016

Click on the Payroll Title for a listing of job titles by level.

Salary Schedule

Longevity Payment

Minimum

Midpoint

Maximum

10 Years Service (25% of full allotment)

15 Years Service (50% of full allotment)

20 Years Service (75% of full allotment)

25 Year Service (100% of full allotment)

$38,769

$52,144

$65,237

$208.50

$417.00

$625.50

$834.00

$39,993

$53,797

$67,598

$215.25

$430.50

$645.75

$861.00

$41,449

$55,762

$70,075

$223.00

$446.00

$669.00

$892.00

$43,076

$57,955

$72,834

$231.75

$463.50

$695.25

$927.00

$46,072

$62,002

$77,930

$248.00

$496.00

$744.00

$992.00

$50,540

$68,039

$85,529

$272.25

$544.50

$816.75

$1,089.00

$55,471

$74,692

$93,913

$298.75

$597.50

$896.25

$1,195.00

$60,578

$81,586

$102,594

$326.25

$652.50

$978.75

$1,305.00

$65,758

$88,582

$111,398

$354.25

$708.50

$1,062.75

$1,417.00

$71,513

$96,349

$121,188

$385.50

$771.00

$1,156.50

$1,542.00

$77,852

$104,901

$131,958

$419.50

$839.00

$1,258.50

$1,678.00

$87,074

$117,332

$147,607

$469.25

$938.50

$1,407.75

$1,877.00

NOTE: As the result of the Board of Trustees approval to extend the current UCPEA contract, the July 1, 2015 salary schedule for the UCPEA bargaining unit will remain in effect for fiscal year 2017 or until such time as a successor agreement is ratified and approved by the Board of Trustees and Legislature, whichever occurs first.

LONGEVITY: Employees in the bargaining unit shall be eligible for longevity increments in accordance with Connecticut General Statutes. The full longevity payment shall be 1.6% of the mid-point of the range according to the salary schedule.

UCP Levels by Job Family

See more here:
UCPEA Classification Salary & Longevity Schedule ...

May 2, 2017 Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)a condition that can lead to liver cirrhosis and cancerisn't typically detected until it's well advanced. Even then, diagnosis requires an invasive liver biopsy. To detect NAFLD earlier and more easily, researchers in the NAFLD Research Center at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, Human Longevity, Inc. and the J. Craig Venter Institute report that the unique microbial makeup of a patient's stool sampleor gut microbiomecan be used to predict advanced NAFLD with 88 to 94 percent accuracy.

The proof-of-concept study, which involved 135 participants, is published May 2 in Cell Metabolism.

"We estimate that as many as 100 million adults and children in the U.S. may have NAFLD. Determining exactly who has or is at risk for the disease is a critical unmet medical need," said first author Rohit Loomba, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, director of the NAFLD Research Center and a faculty member in the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego. "There are about 50 new NAFLD drugs in the pipeline, including about five that will likely be approved for use in the next two years. If we are better able to diagnose this condition, we will be better at enrolling the right types of patients in these trials, and ultimately will be better equipped to prevent and treat it."

The precise cause of NAFLD is unknown, but diet and genetics play substantial roles. Up to 50 percent of obese people are believed to have NAFLD. As mounting evidence continues to suggest that the makeup of a person's gut microbiome may influence his or her risk for obesity, Loomba and team began to wonder if the gut microbiome might also be linked to obesity-associated liver disease. If so, they hypothesized that a stool-based "read-out" of what's living in a person's gut might provide insight into his or her NAFLD status.

To answer these questions, Loomba and team examined two different patient groups. The first group included 86 patients with NAFLD, as diagnosed by biopsy. Of these, 72 had mild/moderate NAFLD and 14 had advanced disease. Collaborators at Human Longevity, Inc. sequenced the microbial genes extracted from each participant's stool sample and used that information to determine which species were living where, and the relative abundance of each. The researchers found 37 bacterial species that distinguished mild/moderate NAFLD from advanced disease, allowing them to predict which patients had advanced disease with 93.6 percent accuracy.

The team validated this finding with a second study group that included 16 patients with advanced NAFLD and 33 healthy people as controls. In this case, they found nine bacterial species whose relative numbers allowed them to distinguish NAFLD patients from the healthy volunteers, with 88 percent accuracy. Seven of these bacterial species overlapped with the signature 37 used in the previous group.

There are four main types of bacteria found in the human gut: Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Actinobacteria. Loomba and team found that patients with advanced NAFLD tend to have more Proteobacteria and fewer Firmicutes in their stool than those with early stage NAFLD. At the species level, one major difference the researchers found was in the abundance of E. colithese bacteria were three-fold more common in advanced NAFLD patients than early stage patients.

"We believe our study sets the stage for a potential stool-based test to detect advanced liver fibrosis based simply on microbial patterns," said senior author Karen E. Nelson, PhD, president of the J. Craig Venter Institute, "or at least help us minimize the number of patients who have to undergo liver biopsies."

While Loomba estimates that a stool-based microbiome diagnostic might cost $1,500 if it were on the market today, he predicts that cost will lower to less than $400 in the next five years due to advances in genomic sequencing and analysis technologies.

While excited, the researchers caution that so far this new diagnostic approach has only been tested in a relatively small patient group at a single, highly specialized medical center. The team is now applying for grant funding to expand their study in a larger cohort across multiple sites. Even if successful, a stool-based test for NAFLD wouldn't be available to patients for at least five years, they said. Loomba also points out that while a distinct set of microbial species may be associated with advanced NAFLD, this study does not suggest that the presence or absence of these microbes causes NAFLD or vice versa.

"We are looking forward to further studies to assess the role, if any, these microbial species play in gut permeability, liver inflammation and cross-talk with other factors to induce liver injury, and ultimately influence disease progression in NAFLD," said study co-author David A. Brenner, MD, vice chancellor of UC San Diego Health Sciences and dean of UC San Diego School of Medicine.

"Understanding the microbiome, just as sequencing the human genome, is one part of the puzzle on human health and disease," said study co-author J. Craig Venter, PhD, co-founder and executive chairman of Human Longevity, Inc. "New technologies, such as machine learning, are allowing for tremendous advances to interpret these data."

Explore further: Many diabetics don't know they have serious liver disease

More information: Rohit Loomba et al, Gut Microbiome-Based Metagenomic Signature for Non-invasive Detection of Advanced Fibrosis in Human Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, Cell Metabolism (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2017.04.001

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver disease in the Western world. NAFLD is a frequent finding in patients with type 2 diabetes, but the exact prevalence of NAFLD, as well as whether patients ...

A study published in the Journal of Pediatrics suggests that children born with lower or higher weight than normal may be at increased risk for developing nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). These children also were ...

Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have found that a form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that non-invasively measures fat density in the liver corresponds with histological (microscopic ...

A new study presented today demonstrates that a build-up of fat around the waist can cause more serious complications than obesity in the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The study was presented at ...

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD, comprises a group of liver disorders whose prevalence is widespread and rising. It's estimated that at least one-third of Americans have NAFLD; among obese persons, the figure is ...

(HealthDay)Evidence-based recommendations have been developed for screening, diagnosis, and treatment of pediatric nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The guidelines were published online Nov. 30 in the Journal of ...

A new genetic fingerprinting technique has for the first time shown the huge genetic diversity of the malaria parasite, one of nature's most persistent and successful human pathogens.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)a condition that can lead to liver cirrhosis and cancerisn't typically detected until it's well advanced. Even then, diagnosis requires an invasive liver biopsy. To detect NAFLD ...

The cells of vertebrates have evolved pathways that act like an internal defense, inhibiting viral infections by preventing replication of the pathogens. Drugs that activate those existing systems suggest a promising novel ...

Francisco Goya is the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th century. He was famed for his sensitive portraits, and many historians argue that he was the first truly modern painter.

Substances produced by a harmful bacterium in the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients may enhance the growth of other bacteria that, in turn, inhibit the harmful bacterium's biofilm, according to new research published in PLOS ...

A single transplant of microbes contained in the stool of a healthy donor is a safe and effective way to increase diversity of good bacteria in the guts of patients with ulcerative colitis, according to new research from ...

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Link:
Stool microbes predict advanced liver disease - Medical Xpress

With the advent of CRISPR , a new way to edit DNA, the field of genomic technology has never been more exciting. The implications have yet to be seen, but scientists could theoretically snip out a person's genetic risk for disease. But it's also never been a more anxiety-inducing time. Some experts argue innovations in genomics are moving forward at a pace faster than our ability to parse their potential consequences.

In a panel discussion at Fortune s Brainstorm Health conference in San Diego, scientists discussed the promises and perils of this breakthrough technologysome of which they're already starting to see.

I think CRISPR is a very exciting discovery, said J. Craig Venter, co-founder of the health company Human Longevity, Inc. and one of the first scientists to sequence the human genome. Venter is using genome sequencing as a way to help predict a persons risk for disease and offer more personalized treatment with a physical exam called the Health Nucleus : an eight-hour, $25,000 inside-and-out doctors appointment that includes whole-genome sequencing, high-tech scanning and early diagnostics.

So far the company has sequenced more than 40,000 human genomes. Of the people that complete the Health Nucleus, one in 40 will discover they have a serious cancer they didn't know about, he said.

Yet some experts are skeptical that exhaustive testing always translates to better health. Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of Scripps Translational Science Institute, called for a more reserved way forward in his remarks at the conference, arguing that too much scanning can lead to more false positive results and potentially unnecessary interventions. We have to prove that doing tests are truly associated with positive outcomes, Topol said. We have to be much more discriminative about the tests that we do.

Some companies are taking a more tempered approach: inexpensive testing that looks for specific genes known to substantially increase a persons risk for disease. Color Genomics, a genetics company that has brought down the cost of genetic testing, focuses on cancer and offers affordable tests for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which can significantly raise a womans risk for breast and ovarian cancer. It changes the equation in terms of treating disease, said Othman Laraki, co-founder and CEO of Color Genomics.

As for finding and fixing genetic problems well before they even arise? The scientists on the panel agreed that they're not there yet, and that current iterations of CRISPR may not be quite as precise as the hype has claimed. For now, that may be for the best. Editing human embryos with CRISPR should be a long way off, said Venter. Not something we do next week.

Follow this link:
How Scientists Think CRISPR Will Change Medicine - TIME

The oldest man in the world died on Sunday at his home in Indonesia. Sodimejo, known to many as Mbah Gotho, claimed to be 146 years old. While the Indonesian government only started tracking births in 1900, Sodimejo has identification papers that say he was born in December 1870. And though his age was called into question in 2016, Indonesian authorities have confirmed the validity of his documents. If theyre right, he was the oldest person on record.

This would mean that the oldest human was 24 years older than what we have previously even thought possible for aging. And in a world filled with people obsessed with living forever, people are hungry for the keys to slowing the inexorable process of bodily and mental decay.

Unfortunately, Sodimejo doesnt appear to have had many answers that doctors could bottle. A lifelong smoker, he cited patience and close relationships with loved ones as the keys to his longevity. Nevertheless, besides the whole smoking thing, this is good advice, even if it is a little underwhelming.

But having a positive attitude doesnt seem to sufficiently explain Sodimejos long life. His case, if true, would upend conventional wisdom about human lifespans. So what could account for it?

One possible explanation for why Sodimejo lived from 1870 to 2017 is not totally unique to him: Improvements in public health and sanitation affect everyone. When he was born, most people didnt have electricity, running water, or access to science-based health care. Shortly before he died, though, he spent several days in a modern hospital. This is a huge change from the era of his birth.

The common causes of death during much of Sodimejos life such as water-borne pathogens, tuberculosis, or even infections that settle in minor scrapes are now considered to be almost completely preventable. So while many people who were born around the same time as Sodimejo may have fallen victim to illnesses or accidents that are now treated as routine, he beat the odds for a man born in 1870.

But that doesnt seem to explain his whole situation. Other people in his peer group also dodged preventable diseases before they were curable, so if we choose to explain his long life as beating the odds, we still need another way to explain why he outlived his peers by so long.

In 2016, scientists said that the upper limit for human aging is 115 years old and that this limit is fixed and subject to natural constraints. The matter is far from settled, though; other researchers in the field vigorously disagreed about whether there could be a fixed upper limit to human aging at all. Directly contradicting that study in the same year that it was published, Jeanne Calment, who at the time was the worlds oldest person, died at 122 years old.

Besides, while seemingly irreversible physical changes like slowed mitochondrial regeneration and telomere shortening set in as we age, a fixed limit on aging doesnt seem to make sense in light of average human lifespans that continue to increase each year.

So, the possibility that the limit to human aging does not exist remains. This doesnt mean that all humans will live for a super long time because human illnesses vary in who they affect and are often unpredictable. It could simply mean that Sodimejo is on the far end of the bell curve, where outliers live. If thats the case, then whats to stop others from joining him there? We could be witnessing an era in which the maximum human lifespan simply continues to increase, and not just for the super rich.

Then again, its also entirely possible that Sodimejo wasnt actually 146 years old.

Peter is a writer living in New York. He is preoccupied with Star Wars and memes, but he writes about climate change, chatbots and ants. You may have seen his work in Popular Science, New Scientist and Motherboard.

Read more from the original source:
What the Death of the World's Oldest Human Means for Longevity - Inverse

An Indonesian man claimed to be 146 years old the longest living human ever. He died in his village in Central Java.

According to his papers, Sodimedjo, also known as Mbah Ghoto (grandpa Ghoto), was born in December 1870.

But Indonesia only started recording births in 1900 and there have been mistakes before.

Yet officials told the BBC his papers were valid, based on documents he provided and interviews with him. He was taken to hospital on 12 April because of deteriorating health. Six days later he insisted on checking out to return home.

Mbah was an Indonesian Christian man who unverifiably claimed to be the oldest person ever recorded. In May 2010, Solopos reported that enumerators of that years census had recorded his age next birthday as 142, which would make him 19 years older than the official oldest recorded person, Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997. He outlived ten siblings, four wives and all his children. The Liputan 6 website reported that Mbah Gothos estimated age was 140, that he could not remember his date of birth but claimed to remember the construction of a sugar factory built in Sragen in 1880.

Indonesian officials at the local record office confirm the birth date. There is no independent, third-party verification of his claimed age, which is required for the longevity claim to be recognized by record authorities such as Guinness World Records. Robert Young of the Gerontology Research Group said the claimed age was fiction, unbelievable and in the same category as Sasquatch [Bigfoot], the Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster. The 2010 Liputan 6 story noted others of a similar claimed age including a woman named Maemunah and known as Ambu Unah, supposedly born in 1867, in Cimanuk, Pandeglang Regency.

There are living supercentenarian cases, in descending order of claimed age, with full birth and review dates, have been updated within the past two years, but have not had their claimed age validated by an independent body such as the Gerontology Research Group or Guinness World Records. Only claims over 115 years but under 130 years are included in the list. See longevity myths for claims over 130 years, such as Mbah Gotho.

Maria Lucimar Pereira, is a native of Feij and was born on September 3, 1890. She is of the Kaxinaw ethnic group and lives in Aldeia Grota. She is believed to be 126 and has better documentation than Mbah. Marias claim has not been independently verified.

More:
Oldest human might have reached 146 or it was a very long con - Next Big Future