St. Patrick Inspires a Shamrock Luncheon

The March hostess who is looking for something different may well · take advantage of the possibilities offered by St. Patrick\u27s Day. A green and white color scheme, besides commemorating the venerable Irishman, is very dainty and suggestive of the spring season

Reconciling Vocabularies: Making connections between studio art and library research

This study explores the role of library research in the studio art curriculum, contributing to the scholarly discourse on the information needs of art students. Raising the concern that previous studies simplify the creative process and conflate a wide range of information needs under the umbrella term "inspiration," this study examines the role of research in student work through a content analysis of recent studio art thesis statements at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The content analysis demonstrates that studio art students are engaged in a high level of inquiry in their creative projects and that they draw from a wide range of information sources to support this inquiry, including scholarly print material. It also shows areas in which this population could benefit from library instruction

The Iowa Homemaker vol.4, no.11

Table of Contents St. Patrick Inspires a Shamrock Luncheon by Alice Ericson and Julia B. Whiteside, page 1 Do You Test Your Textiles? by Mrs. Avis Duffey, page 2 Farm and Home Week Pays by Anne Westrom, page 2 Coffee in a Multitude of Ways by Adele Herbst, page 3 With the Iowa State Home Economics Association, page 4 Another Fuel – Bottled Gas by Florence Forbes, page 5 Iowa Child Welfare Research Station by Agnes Crain, page 6 Editorial, page 7 The Eternal Question, page 8 Who’s There and Where, page

Visioning the (im)possible: Experiences of Librarian-caregivers During the Pandemic and Strategies for the Future of Library Work

What has the pandemic work-life experience been for library workers who have caregiving responsibilities? As reports trickle into popular media about the perilously strained state of working parents, we look to our membership to ask: how are librarian caregivers holding up, moving forward, and making change in the workplace? This panel conversation addresses the current state and future possibilities of remote, hybrid, and flexible work arrangements in art libraries, specifically examining how these arrangements impact art librarians and library workers who are also caregivers. We ask: how has the “how” of our work changed? How can we co-create library workplaces that allow all workers to contribute and thrive? Panelists will share aggregate information gathered from the media, ARLIS/NA members, vignettes of life during the pandemic that illustrate shared but often unspoken experiences, and examples of advocacy and success in grappling with and implementing change toward a more equitable workplace

University Libraries 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge Syllabus

As part of the University Libraries Reckoning Initiative, Library staff engaged in a voluntary 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge to further skills around understanding racism, bias, and racial inequity. The University Libraries 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge inspired participants to engage, act, and reflect on race and racial equity in personal spaces as well as in the organization and the profession

A View from the Past Into our Collective Future: The Oncofertility Consortium Vision Statement

Today, male and female adult and pediatric cancer patients, individuals transitioning between gender identities, and other individuals facing health extending but fertility limiting treatments can look forward to a fertile future. This is, in part, due to the work of members associated with the Oncofertility Consortium. The Oncofertility Consortium is an international, interdisciplinary initiative originally designed to explore the urgent unmet need associated with the reproductive future of cancer survivors. As the strategies for fertility management were invented, developed or applied, the individuals for who the program offered hope, similarly expanded. As a community of practice, Consortium participants share information in an open and rapid manner to addresses the complex health care and quality-of-life issues of cancer, transgender and other patients. To ensure that the organization remains contemporary to the needs of the community, the field designed a fully inclusive mechanism for strategic planning and here present the findings of this process. This interprofessional network of medical specialists, scientists, and scholars in the law, medical ethics, religious studies and other disciplines associated with human interventions, explore the relationships between health, disease, survivorship, treatment, gender and reproductive longevity. The goals are to continually integrate the best science in the service of the needs of patients and build a community of care that is ready for the challenges of the field in the future

Symptom-based stratification of patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome: multi-dimensional characterisation of international observational cohorts and reanalyses of randomised clinical trials

Background Heterogeneity is a major obstacle to developing effective treatments for patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome. We aimed to develop a robust method for stratification, exploiting heterogeneity in patient-reported symptoms, and to relate these differences to pathobiology and therapeutic response. Methods We did hierarchical cluster analysis using five common symptoms associated with primary Sjögren's syndrome (pain, fatigue, dryness, anxiety, and depression), followed by multinomial logistic regression to identify subgroups in the UK Primary Sjögren's Syndrome Registry (UKPSSR). We assessed clinical and biological differences between these subgroups, including transcriptional differences in peripheral blood. Patients from two independent validation cohorts in Norway and France were used to confirm patient stratification. Data from two phase 3 clinical trials were similarly stratified to assess the differences between subgroups in treatment response to hydroxychloroquine and rituximab. Findings In the UKPSSR cohort (n=608), we identified four subgroups: Low symptom burden (LSB), high symptom burden (HSB), dryness dominant with fatigue (DDF), and pain dominant with fatigue (PDF). Significant differences in peripheral blood lymphocyte counts, anti-SSA and anti-SSB antibody positivity, as well as serum IgG, κ-free light chain, β2-microglobulin, and CXCL13 concentrations were observed between these subgroups, along with differentially expressed transcriptomic modules in peripheral blood. Similar findings were observed in the independent validation cohorts (n=396). Reanalysis of trial data stratifying patients into these subgroups suggested a treatment effect with hydroxychloroquine in the HSB subgroup and with rituximab in the DDF subgroup compared with placebo. Interpretation Stratification on the basis of patient-reported symptoms of patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome revealed distinct pathobiological endotypes with distinct responses to immunomodulatory treatments. Our data have important implications for clinical management, trial design, and therapeutic development. Similar stratification approaches might be useful for patients with other chronic immune-mediated diseases. Funding UK Medical Research Council, British Sjogren's Syndrome Association, French Ministry of Health, Arthritis Research UK, Foundation for Research in Rheumatology

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Genetic mechanisms of critical illness in COVID-19.

Host-mediated lung inflammation is present1, and drives mortality2, in the critical illness caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Host genetic variants associated with critical illness may identify mechanistic targets for therapeutic development3. Here we report the results of the GenOMICC (Genetics Of Mortality In Critical Care) genome-wide association study in 2,244 critically ill patients with COVID-19 from 208 UK intensive care units. We have identified and replicated the following new genome-wide significant associations: on chromosome 12q24.13 (rs10735079, P = 1.65 × 10-8) in a gene cluster that encodes antiviral restriction enzyme activators (OAS1, OAS2 and OAS3); on chromosome 19p13.2 (rs74956615, P = 2.3 × 10-8) near the gene that encodes tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2); on chromosome 19p13.3 (rs2109069, P = 3.98 ×  10-12) within the gene that encodes dipeptidyl peptidase 9 (DPP9); and on chromosome 21q22.1 (rs2236757, P = 4.99 × 10-8) in the interferon receptor gene IFNAR2. We identified potential targets for repurposing of licensed medications: using Mendelian randomization, we found evidence that low expression of IFNAR2, or high expression of TYK2, are associated with life-threatening disease; and transcriptome-wide association in lung tissue revealed that high expression of the monocyte-macrophage chemotactic receptor CCR2 is associated with severe COVID-19. Our results identify robust genetic signals relating to key host antiviral defence mechanisms and mediators of inflammatory organ damage in COVID-19. Both mechanisms may be amenable to targeted treatment with existing drugs. However, large-scale randomized clinical trials will be essential before any change to clinical practice