Absentee Fathers\u27 Intergenerational Impact on Developing Children

This paper examines the crisis of single parent homes, specifically absentee fathers in America. It examines and attempts to explore how father-figure inclusion can mitigate the consequences experienced by the majority of children in absent father homes. Scholarly research to date indicates children of absentee fathers are susceptible to detrimental conditions including an increased likelihood of delinquent behavior, higher risk for teenage pregnancy, emotional instability and an increased propensity for substance abuse. Longitudinal effects can manifest as intergenerational absenteeism, arrested development, low wage employment, stunted education, recidivist incarceration and higher rates of suicide. The objective of this research is to extrapolate new knowledge about the phenomenon of absent fathers by reviewing, critiquing, and synthesizing existing literature as an offering to the body of scholarly work in hopes of reconceptualizing methods for intervention. This is accomplished through qualitative research design, utilizing integrative literature review methodology. Findings strongly suggest high rates of intergenerational father absenteeism through divorce, out of wedlock child bearing, incarceration and other issues leave children at a disadvantage in many areas, and if the rate of father absenteeism can be reduced it will also decrease rates of domestic violence, juvenile detention, unplanned pregnancies, teenaged substance abuse, and behavioral issues in school among other various social problems

Feasibility Evaluation of Commercially Available Video Conferencing Devices to Technically Direct Untrained Nonmedical Personnel to Perform a Rapid Trauma Ultrasound Examination.

Introduction: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is a rapidly expanding discipline that has proven to be a valuable modality in the hospital setting. Recent evidence has demonstrated the utility of commercially available video conferencing technologies, namely, FaceTime (Apple Inc, Cupertino, CA, USA) and Google Glass (Google Inc, Mountain View, CA, USA), to allow an expert POCUS examiner to remotely guide a novice medical professional. However, few studies have evaluated the ability to use these teleultrasound technologies to guide a nonmedical novice to perform an acute care POCUS examination for cardiac, pulmonary, and abdominal assessments. Additionally, few studies have shown the ability of a POCUS-trained cardiac anesthesiologist to perform the role of an expert instructor. This study sought to evaluate the ability of a POCUS-trained anesthesiologist to remotely guide a nonmedically trained participant to perform an acute care POCUS examination. Methods: A total of 21 nonmedically trained undergraduate students who had no prior ultrasound experience were recruited to perform a three-part ultrasound examination on a standardized patient with the guidance of a remote expert who was a POCUS-trained cardiac anesthesiologist. The examination included the following acute care POCUS topics: (1) cardiac function via parasternal long/short axis views, (2) pneumothorax assessment via pleural sliding exam via anterior lung views, and (3) abdominal free fluid exam via right upper quadrant abdominal view. Each examiner was given a handout with static images of probe placement and actual ultrasound images for the three views. After a brief 8 min tutorial on the teleultrasound technologies, a connection was established with the expert, and they were guided through the acute care POCUS exam. Each view was deemed to be complete when the expert sonographer was satisfied with the obtained image or if the expert sonographer determined that the image could not be obtained after 5 min. Image quality was scored on a previously validated 0 to 4 grading scale. The entire session was recorded, and the image quality was scored during the exam by the remote expert instructor as well as by a separate POCUS-trained, blinded expert anesthesiologist. Results: A total of 21 subjects completed the study. The average total time for the exam was 8.5 min (standard deviation = 4.6). A comparison between the live expert examiner and the blinded postexam reviewer showed a 100% agreement between image interpretations. A review of the exams rated as three or higher demonstrated that 87% of abdominal, 90% of cardiac, and 95% of pulmonary exams achieved this level of image quality. A satisfaction survey of the novice users demonstrated higher ease of following commands for the cardiac and pulmonary exams compared to the abdominal exam. Conclusions: The results from this pilot study demonstrate that nonmedically trained individuals can be guided to complete a relevant ultrasound examination within a short period. Further evaluation of using telemedicine technologies to promote POCUS should be evaluated

A Microscale Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer for Ion Species Analysis

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77363/1/AIAA-2004-3444-418.pd

Neurodevelopmental phenotypes in individuals with pathogenic variants in CHAMP1

Discapacitat intel·lectual; Retard greu del desenvolupament global; Microcefàlia severaDiscapacidad intelectual; Retraso severo en el desarrollo global; Microcefalia severaIntellectual disability; Severe global developmental delay; Severe microcephalyBackground: De novo pathogenic variants in CHAMP1 (chromosome alignment maintaining phosphoprotein 1) that encodes kinetochore-microtubule associated protein on 13q34 cause a rare neurodevelopmental disorder. Methods: We enrolled 14 individuals with pathogenic variants in CHAMP1 that were documented by exome sequencing or gene panel sequencing. Medical history interviews, seizure surveys, Vineland Adapted Behavior Scales Second Edition, and other behavioral surveys were completed by primary care givers of available participants in Simons Searchlight. Clinicians extracted clinical data from the medical record for two participants. Results: We report on clinical features of fourteen individuals (ages 2-26) with de novo predicted loss of function variants in CHAMP1 and compare them with previously reported cases (total n=32). At least two individuals have the same de novo variant: p.(Ser181Cysfs*5), p.(Trp348*), p.(Arg398*), p.(Arg497*), or p.(Tyr709*). Common phenotypes include intellectual disability/developmental delay, language impairment, congenital and acquired microcephaly, behavioral problems including autism spectrum disorder, seizures, hypotonia, gastrointestinal issues of reflux and constipation, and ophthalmologic issues. Other rarely observed phenotypes include leukemia, failure to thrive and high pain tolerance. Conclusion: Pathogenic variants in CHAMP1 are associated with a variable clinical phenotype of developmental delay/intellectual disability and seizures.This work is supported by the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine Research Committee who awarded Madison Garrity Summer Fellowship Honors and grants from SFARI and the JPB Foundation

Member Share Grocery Program Survey Results: 2023

The University of Central Florida’s Institute for Social and Behavioral Sciences (ISBS) partnered with United Against Poverty to measure the impact of their Member Share Grocery Program (MSGP). Surveys with 651 MSGP members across the four locations were undertaken September-December 2023. The following report details the results of every question by location

Self-Similar Dynamical Relaxation of Dark Matter Halos in an Expanding Universe

We investigate the structure of cold dark matter halos using advanced models of spherical collapse and accretion in an expanding Universe. These base on solving time-dependent equations for the moments of the phase-space distribution function in the fluid approximation; our approach includes non-radial random motions, and most importantly, an advanced treatment of both dynamical relaxation effects that takes place in the infalling matter: phase-mixing associated to shell crossing, and collective collisions related to physical clumpiness. We find self-similar solutions for the spherically-averaged profiles of mass density rho(r), pseudo phase-space density Q(r) and anisotropy parameter beta(r). These profiles agree with the outcomes of state-of-the-art N-body simulations in the radial range currently probed by the latter; at smaller radii, we provide specific predictions. In the perspective provided by our self-similar solutions we link the halo structure to its two-stage growth history, and propose the following picture. During the early fast collapse of the inner region dominated by a few merging clumps, efficient dynamical relaxation plays a key role in producing a closely universal mass density and pseudo phase-space density profiles; in particular, these are found to depend only weakly on the detailed shape of the initial perturbation and the related collapse times. The subsequent inside-out growth of the outer regions feeds on the slow accretion of many small clumps and diffuse matter; thus the outskirts are only mildly affected by dynamical relaxation but are more sensitive to asymmetries and cosmological variance.Comment: 31 pages, 16 figures. Typos corrected. Accepted by Ap

Modeling deltaic lobe‐building cycles and channel avulsions for the Yellow River delta, China

River deltas grow by repeating cycles of lobe development punctuated by channel avulsions, so that over time, lobes amalgamate to produce a composite landform. Existing models have shown that backwater hydrodynamics are important in avulsion dynamics, but the effect of lobe progradation on avulsion frequency and location has yet to be explored. Herein, a quasi‐2‐D numerical model incorporating channel avulsion and lobe development cycles is developed. The model is validated by the well‐constrained case of a prograding lobe on the Yellow River delta, China. It is determined that with lobe progradation, avulsion frequency decreases, and avulsion length increases, relative to conditions where a delta lobe does not prograde. Lobe progradation lowers the channel bed gradient, which results in channel aggradation over the delta topset that is focused farther upstream, shifting the avulsion location upstream. Furthermore, the frequency and location of channel avulsions are sensitive to the threshold in channel bed superelevation that triggers an avulsion. For example, avulsions occur less frequently with a larger superelevation threshold, resulting in greater lobe progradation and avulsions that occur farther upstream. When the delta lobe length prior to avulsion is a moderate fraction of the backwater length (0.3–0.5L_b), the interplay between variable water discharge and lobe progradation together set the avulsion location, and a model capturing both processes is necessary to predict avulsion timing and location. While this study is validated by data from the Yellow River delta, the numerical framework is rooted in physical relationships and can therefore be extended to other deltaic systems

Benefits of ICU admission in critically ill patients: Whether instrumental variable methods or propensity scores should be used

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The assessment of the causal effect of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission generally involves usual observational designs and thus requires controlling for confounding variables. Instrumental variable analysis is an econometric technique that allows causal inferences of the effectiveness of some treatments during situations to be made when a randomized trial has not been or cannot be conducted. This technique relies on the existence of one variable or "instrument" that is supposed to achieve similar observations with a different treatment for "arbitrary" reasons, thus inducing substantial variation in the treatment decision with no direct effect on the outcome. The objective of the study was to assess the benefit in terms of hospital mortality of ICU admission in a cohort of patients proposed for ICU admission (ELDICUS cohort).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Using this cohort of 8,201 patients triaged for ICU (including 6,752 (82.3%) patients admitted), the benefit of ICU admission was evaluated using 3 different approaches: instrumental variables, standard regression and propensity score matched analyses. We further evaluated the results obtained using different instrumental variable methods that have been proposed for dichotomous outcomes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The physician's main specialization was found to be the best instrument. All instrumental variable models adequately reduced baseline imbalances, but failed to show a significant effect of ICU admission on hospital mortality, with confidence intervals far higher than those obtained in standard or propensity-based analyses.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Instrumental variable methods offer an appealing alternative to handle the selection bias related to nonrandomized designs, especially when the presence of significant unmeasured confounding is suspected. Applied to the ELDICUS database, this analysis failed to show any significant beneficial effect of ICU admission on hospital mortality. This result could be due to the lack of statistical power of these methods.</p

Oestrogen receptor alpha in pulmonary hypertension

Aims Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) occurs more frequently in women with mutations in bone morphogenetic protein receptor type 2 (BMPR2) and dysfunctional BMPR2 signalling underpinning heritable PAH. We have previously shown that serotonin can uncover a pulmonary hypertensive phenotype in BMPR2+/− mice and that oestrogen can increase serotinergic signalling in human pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells (hPASMCs). Hence, here we wished to characterize the expression of oestrogen receptors (ERs) in male and female human pulmonary arteries and have examined the influence of oestrogen and serotonin on BMPR2 and ERα expression. Methods and results: By immunohistochemistry, we showed that ERα, ERβ, and G-protein-coupled receptors are expressed in human pulmonary arteries localizing mainly to the smooth muscle layer which also expresses the serotonin transporter (SERT). Protein expression of ERα protein was higher in female PAH patient hPASMCs compared with male and serotonin also increased the expression of ERα. 17β-estradiol induced proliferation of hPASMCs via ERα activation and this engaged mitogen-activated protein kinase and Akt signalling. Female mice over-expressing SERT (SERT+ mice) develop PH and the ERα antagonist MPP attenuated the development of PH in normoxic and hypoxic female SERT+ mice. The therapeutic effects of MPP were accompanied by increased expression of BMPR2 in mouse lung. Conclusion: ERα is highly expressed in female hPASMCs from PAH patients and mediates oestrogen-induced proliferation of hPASMCs via mitogen-activated protein kinase and Akt signalling. Serotonin can increase ERα expression in hPASMCs and antagonism of ERα reverses serotonin-dependent PH in the mouse and increases BMPR2 expression.</p