47 research outputs found
GenQ: Automated Question Generation to Support Caregivers While Reading Stories with Children
When caregivers ask open--ended questions to motivate dialogue with children,
it facilitates the child's reading comprehension skills.Although there is scope
for use of technological tools, referred here as "intelligent tutoring
systems", to scaffold this process, it is currently unclear whether existing
intelligent systems that generate human--language like questions is beneficial.
Additionally, training data used in the development of these automated question
generation systems is typically sourced without attention to demographics, but
people with different cultural backgrounds may ask different questions. As a
part of a broader project to design an intelligent reading support app for
Latinx children, we crowdsourced questions from Latinx caregivers and
noncaregivers as well as caregivers and noncaregivers from other demographics.
We examine variations in question--asking within this dataset mediated by
individual, cultural, and contextual factors. We then design a system that
automatically extracts templates from this data to generate open--ended
questions that are representative of those asked by Latinx caregivers
Play and metaphor in clinical supervision: keeping creativity alive
This article explores the use of play and metaphor in clinical supervision. The intention is not to attempt to cover the whole area of play, or the use of metaphor in clinical supervision, but rather to highlight particular aspects of their respective roles in the service of learning about therapeutic work. The relevance of the arts - especially the visual arts - in relation to this is also discussed. A number of brief clinical vignettes are included by way of illustration. All names, and some identifying details, have been changed to preserve confidentiality. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
Dundee ADHD continuing care proforma (revised)
These are two proforma (one for males the other for females) that facilitate the recording of clinical information about the ongoing clinical status of children and adolescents receiving treatment for ADHD. Whilst the Dundee ADHD care pathway has recorded similar clinical information in a standardised way for the last 10 years the previous clinical records required a new document for each clinic visit. This made it more difficult to assess the development of clinical response over time and increased the time required by clinicians to make evidence based treatment decisions. These revised proforma allow the clinician to view the information from up to 12 clinic visits at the same time and therefore simplify the clinical task and improving clinical care. The proforma were designed as a part of a collaboration between graphic and product designers and clinicians that was made possible through the wider ADHD Behavioural Clinical Data (ABCD) data visualisation collaboration funded through and award from the University of Dundee
Accurate reconstruction of insertion-deletion histories by statistical phylogenetics
The Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) is a computational abstraction that
represents a partial summary either of indel history, or of structural
similarity. Taking the former view (indel history), it is possible to use
formal automata theory to generalize the phylogenetic likelihood framework for
finite substitution models (Dayhoff's probability matrices and Felsenstein's
pruning algorithm) to arbitrary-length sequences. In this paper, we report
results of a simulation-based benchmark of several methods for reconstruction
of indel history. The methods tested include a relatively new algorithm for
statistical marginalization of MSAs that sums over a stochastically-sampled
ensemble of the most probable evolutionary histories. For mammalian
evolutionary parameters on several different trees, the single most likely
history sampled by our algorithm appears less biased than histories
reconstructed by other MSA methods. The algorithm can also be used for
alignment-free inference, where the MSA is explicitly summed out of the
analysis. As an illustration of our method, we discuss reconstruction of the
evolutionary histories of human protein-coding genes.Comment: 28 pages, 15 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1103.434
Does Cultural Competency Training of Health Professionals Improve Patient Outcomes? A Systematic Review and Proposed Algorithm for Future Research
BACKGROUND: Cultural competency training has been proposed as a way to improve patient outcomes. There is a need for evidence showing that these interventions reduce health disparities.
OBJECTIVE: The objective was to conduct a systematic review addressing the effects of cultural competency training on patient-centered outcomes; assess quality of studies and strength of effect; and propose a framework for future research.
DESIGN: The authors performed electronic searches in the MEDLINE/PubMed, ERIC, PsycINFO, CINAHL and Web of Science databases for original articles published in English between 1990 and 2010, and a bibliographic hand search. Studies that reported cultural competence educational interventions for health professionals and measured impact on patients and/or health care utilization as primary or secondary outcomes were included.
MEASUREMENTS: Four authors independently rated studies for quality using validated criteria and assessed the training effect on patient outcomes. Due to study heterogeneity, data were not pooled; instead, qualitative synthesis and analysis were conducted.
RESULTS: Seven studies met inclusion criteria. Three involved physicians, two involved mental health professionals and two involved multiple health professionals and students. Two were quasi-randomized, two were cluster randomized, and three were pre/post field studies. Study quality was low to moderate with none of high quality; most studies did not adequately control for potentially confounding variables. Effect size ranged from no effect to moderately beneficial (unable to assess in two studies). Three studies reported positive (beneficial) effects; none demonstrated a negative (harmful) effect.
CONCLUSION: There is limited research showing a positive relationship between cultural competency training and improved patient outcomes, but there remains a paucity of high quality research. Future work should address challenges limiting quality. We propose an algorithm to guide educators in designing and evaluating curricula, to rigorously demonstrate the impact on patient outcomes and health disparities
Genotype-phenotype features of germline variants of the TMEM127 pheochromocytoma susceptibility gene: A 10-year update
Purpose: This work aimed to evaluate genotype-phenotype associations in individuals carrying germline variants of transmembrane protein 127 gene (TMEM127), a poorly known gene that confers susceptibility to pheochromocytoma (PHEO) and paraganglioma (PGL). Design: Data were collected from a registry of probands with TMEM127 variants, published reports, and public databases. Main Outcome Analysis: Clinical, genetic, and functional associations were determined. Results: The cohort comprised 110 index patients (111 variants) with a mean age of 45 years (range, 21-84 years). Females were predominant (76 vs 34, P <. 001). Most patients had PHEO (n = 94; 85.5%), although PGL (n = 10; 9%) and renal cell carcinoma (RCC, n = 6; 5.4%) were also detected, either alone or in combination with PHEO. One-third of the cases had multiple tumors, and known family history was reported in 15.4%. Metastatic PHEO/PGL was rare (2.8%). Epinephrine alone, or combined with norepinephrine, accounted for 82% of the catecholamine profiles of PHEO/PGLs. Most variants (n = 63) occurred only once and 13 were recurrent (2-12 times). Although nontruncating variants were less frequent than truncating changes overall, they were predominant in non-PHEO clinical presentations (36% PHEO-only vs 69% other, P <. 001) and clustered disproportionately within transmembrane regions (P <. 01), underscoring the relevance of these domains for TMEM127 function. Integration of clinical and previous experimental data supported classification of variants into 4 groups based on mutation type, localization, and predicted disruption. Conclusions: Patients with TMEM127 variants often resemble sporadic nonmetastatic PHEOs. PGL and RCC may also co-occur, although their causal link requires further evaluation. We propose a new classification to predict variant pathogenicity and assist with carrier surveillance.Fil: Armaiz Pena, Gustavo. University Of Texas Health Science Center At San Antonio;; Estados UnidosFil: Flores, Shahida K.. No especifĂca;Fil: Cheng, Zi Ming. No especifĂca;Fil: Zhang, Xhingyu. No especifĂca;Fil: Esquivel, Emmanuel. No especifĂca;Fil: Poullard, Natalie. No especifĂca;Fil: Vaidyanathan, Anusha. No especifĂca;Fil: Liu, Qianqian. No especifĂca;Fil: Michalek, Joel. No especifĂca;Fil: Santillan Gomez, Alfredo A.. No especifĂca;Fil: Liss, Michael. No especifĂca;Fil: Ahmadi, Sara. No especifĂca;Fil: Katselnik, Daniel. No especifĂca;Fil: Maldonado, Enrique. No especifĂca;Fil: Salgado, Sarimar Agosto. No especifĂca;Fil: Jimenez, Camilo. No especifĂca;Fil: Fishbein, Lauren. No especifĂca;Fil: Hamidi, Oksana. No especifĂca;Fil: Else, Tobias. No especifĂca;Fil: Lechan, Ron. Tufts Medical Center; Estados UnidosFil: Tischler, Art S.. Tufts Medical Center; Estados UnidosFil: Benn, Diana E.. No especifĂca;Fil: Dwight, Trisha. University of Technology Sydney; AustraliaFil: Clifton Bligh, Rory. University of Technology Sydney; AustraliaFil: Sanso, Elsa Gabriela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Oficina de CoordinaciĂłn Administrativa Parque Centenario. Centro de Investigaciones EndocrinolĂłgicas "Dr. CĂ©sar Bergada". Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Centro de Investigaciones EndocrinolĂłgicas "Dr. CĂ©sar Bergada". FundaciĂłn de EndocrinologĂa Infantil. Centro de Investigaciones EndocrinolĂłgicas "Dr. CĂ©sar Bergada"; Argentina. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital General de Niños "Ricardo GutiĂ©rrez"; ArgentinaFil: Barontini, Marta Beatriz. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Oficina de CoordinaciĂłn Administrativa Parque Centenario. Centro de Investigaciones EndocrinolĂłgicas "Dr. CĂ©sar Bergada". Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Centro de Investigaciones EndocrinolĂłgicas "Dr. CĂ©sar Bergada". FundaciĂłn de EndocrinologĂa Infantil. Centro de Investigaciones EndocrinolĂłgicas "Dr. CĂ©sar Bergada"; Argentina. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital General de Niños "Ricardo GutiĂ©rrez"; ArgentinaFil: Vincent, Deepa. Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Estados UnidosFil: Aronin, Neil. Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Estados UnidosFil: Biondi, Bernadette. University of Naples Federico II; ItaliaFil: Koops, Maureen. University of Texas Health San Antonio; Estados UnidosFil: Bowhay Carnes, Elizabeth. No especifĂca;Fil: Gimenez Roqueplo, Anne Paule. No especifĂca;Fil: Alvarez Eslava, Andrea. No especifĂca;Fil: Bruder, Jan M.. No especifĂca;Fil: Kitano, Mio. No especifĂca;Fil: Burnichon, Nelly. No especifĂca;Fil: Ding, Yanli. No especifĂca;Fil: Dahia, Patricia L. M.. No especifĂca
Selection in Coastal Synechococcus (Cyanobacteria) Populations Evaluated from Environmental Metagenomes
Environmental metagenomics provides snippets of genomic sequences from all organisms in an environmental sample and are an unprecedented resource of information for investigating microbial population genetics. Current analytical methods, however, are poorly equipped to handle metagenomic data, particularly of short, unlinked sequences. A custom analytical pipeline was developed to calculate dN/dS ratios, a common metric to evaluate the role of selection in the evolution of a gene, from environmental metagenomes sequenced using 454 technology of flow-sorted populations of marine Synechococcus, the dominant cyanobacteria in coastal environments. The large majority of genes (98%) have evolved under purifying selection (dN/dS<1). The metagenome sequence coverage of the reference genomes was not uniform and genes that were highly represented in the environment (i.e. high read coverage) tended to be more evolutionarily conserved. Of the genes that may have evolved under positive selection (dN/dS>1), 77 out of 83 (93%) were hypothetical. Notable among annotated genes, ribosomal protein L35 appears to be under positive selection in one Synechococcus population. Other annotated genes, in particular a possible porin, a large-conductance mechanosensitive channel, an ATP binding component of an ABC transporter, and a homologue of a pilus retraction protein had regions of the gene with elevated dN/dS. With the increasing use of next-generation sequencing in metagenomic investigations of microbial diversity and ecology, analytical methods need to accommodate the peculiarities of these data streams. By developing a means to analyze population diversity data from these environmental metagenomes, we have provided the first insight into the role of selection in the evolution of Synechococcus, a globally significant primary producer
The Partisan Effects of Voter Turnout: How Conservatives Profit from Rainy Election Days
Radiation and Dust Sensor for Mars Environmental Dynamic Analyzer Onboard M2020 Rover
32 pags., 26 figs., 3 tabs. -- This article belongs to the Section Remote SensorsThe Radiation and Dust Sensor is one of six sensors of the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer onboard the Perseverance rover from the Mars 2020 NASA mission. Its primary goal is to characterize the airbone dust in the Mars atmosphere, inferring its concentration, shape and optical properties. Thanks to its geometry, the sensor will be capable of studying dust-lifting processes with a high temporal resolution and high spatial coverage. Thanks to its multiwavelength design, it will characterize the solar spectrum from Mars' surface. The present work describes the sensor design from the scientific and technical requirements, the qualification processes to demonstrate its endurance on Mars' surface, the calibration activities to demonstrate its performance, and its validation campaign in a representative Mars analog. As a result of this process, we obtained a very compact sensor, fully digital, with a mass below 1 kg and exceptional power consumption and data budget features.This work has been funded with the help of the Spanish National Research, Development
and Innovation Program, through the grants RTI2018-099825-B-C31, ESP2016-80320-C2-1-R and
ESP2014-54256-C4-3-R. DT acknowledges the financial support from the Comunidad de Madrid
for an âAtracciĂłn de Talento Investigadorâ grant (2018-T2/TIC10500). ASL is supported by Grant
PID2019-109467GB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ and by Grupos Gobierno
Vasco IT1366-19. The US co-authors performed their work under sponsorship from NASAâs Mars
2020 project, from the Game Changing Development program within the Space Technology Mission
Directorate, and from the Human Exploration and Operations Directorate.Peer reviewe