Totally Transparent: A Qualitative Study About the Impact of Farm Tours on Bloggers

Producers and agricultural organizations often struggle to effectively and efficiently communicate agricultural practices and values across the green divide. Additionally, producers and agricultural communication professionals must compete with inflammatory or misleading statements communicated to uninformed consumers via the blogosphere and rapidly disseminated on social media. Many organizations are beginning to implement agritourism events as a way of educating the consumer and influential bloggers. This study utilized semi-structured interviews to explore the perceptions, attitudes, and experiences of four bloggers who were invited to a three-day agritourism event. Results showed participants identified personal exposure to transparent farmers yielded an increase in knowledge and appreciation of farming practices that positively impacted their trust in the American farmer and food system. This study expands upon current research being conducted on agritourism events, transparency, and expectancy violations theory and suggests organizations structure agritourism events in such a way as to demonstrate transparency and positively violate the expectations bloggers may have regarding agricultural producers

Patterns of Use of Human Papillomavirus and Other Adolescent Vaccines in the United States

AbstractPurposeThe purpose of the study was to describe the patterns of use of universally recommended adolescent vaccines in the United States.MethodsWe identified 11-year-olds using the MarketScan insurance claims database (2009–2014). Human papillomavirus (HPV), tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis (Tdap), and meningococcal (MenACWY) vaccination claims were identified using diagnosis and procedure codes. Generalized linear models estimated vaccination incidence rates and correlates of adolescent vaccination and timely vaccination.ResultsAmong 1,691,223 adolescents, receipt of Tdap (52.1%) and MenACWY (45.8%) vaccinations exceeded receipt of HPV vaccination (18.4%). While both sexes had similar Tdap and MenACWY vaccination proportions, girls received HPV vaccination more frequently than boys (21.9% vs. 15.1%). Adolescents received HPV vaccination later (mean age: 11.8 years) than Tdap or MenACWY vaccination (mean age: 11.2 years for both). Half of vaccinated adolescents received Tdap and MenACWY vaccination only; however, coadministration with HPV vaccine increased with birth cohort. Western adolescents had the highest incidence rates of HPV vaccination, and Southern adolescents had the lowest. Rural adolescents were less likely than urban adolescents to receive each vaccination except in the Northeast, where they were more likely to receive HPV vaccination (incidence rate ratio: 1.09, 95% confidence interval: 1.2005–1.13). Timely HPV vaccination was associated with female sex, urbanicity, Western residence, and later birth cohort.ConclusionsHPV vaccination occurred later than Tdap or MenACWY vaccination and was less frequent in boys and rural adolescents. Girls, Western and urban residents, and younger birth cohorts were more likely to receive timely HPV vaccination. Vaccine coadministration increased over time and may encourage timely and complete vaccination coverage

Macrophages and small extracellular vesicle mediated-intracellular communication in the peritoneal microenvironment: impact on endometriosis development

Endometriosis is an inflammatory disease that is defined as the growth of endometrium-like tissue outside the uterus, commonly on the lining of the pelvic cavity, visceral organs and in the ovaries. It affects around 190 million women of reproductive age worldwide and is associated with chronic pelvic pain and infertility, which greatly impairs health-related life quality. The symptoms of the disease are variable, this combined with a lack of diagnostic biomarkers and necessity of surgical visualisation to confirm disease, the prognosis can take an average timespan of 6–8 years. Accurate non-invasive diagnostic tests and the identification of effective therapeutic targets are essential for disease management. To achieve this, one of the priorities is to define the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms that contribute to endometriosis. Recently, immune dysregulation in the peritoneal cavity has been linked to endometriosis progression. Macrophages account for over 50% of immune cells in the peritoneal fluid and are critical for lesion growth, angiogenesis, innervation and immune regulation. Apart from the secretion of soluble factors like cytokines and chemokines, macrophages can communicate with other cells and prime disease microenvironments, such as the tumour microenvironment, via the secretion of small extracellular vesicles (sEVs). The sEV-mediated intracellular communication pathways between macrophages and other cells within the peritoneal microenvironment in endometriosis remain unclear. Here, we give an overview of peritoneal macrophage (pMΦ) phenotypes in endometriosis and discuss the role of sEVs in the intracellular communication within disease microenvironments and the impact they may have on endometriosis progression

A Brief Report on Predicting Self-Harm: Is It Gender or Abuse that Matters?

Self-harm, which consists of non-suicidal self-injury and attempted suicide, is a public health problem that is not well understood. There is conflicting evidence on the role of gender in predicting self-harm. Abuse history also is a potentially relevant factor to explore, as it is related to both gender and self-harm. In the current study, we hypothesized that abuse history, as opposed to gender, would predict self-harm. Three hundred ninety-seven undergraduates completed a self-report survey that assessed abuse history, non-suicidal self-injury, and attempted suicide. The results suggested that abuse history predicted non-suicidal self-injury and attempted suicide. These findings can inform clinical interventions, as they reinforce the importance of including abuse history in the conceptualizations and treatment of self-harm.Keywords: non-suicidal self-injury, suicidality, cumulative trauma, self-injury, self-harm, attempted suicide, abuse, gende

Effects of a selectively bred novelty-seeking phenotype on the motivation to take cocaine in male and female rats

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Gender and enhanced novelty reactivity can predispose certain individuals to drug abuse. Previous research in male and female rats selectively bred for high or low locomotor reactivity to novelty found that bred High Responders (bHRs) acquire cocaine self-administration more rapidly than bred Low Responders (bLRs) and that bHR females in particular self-administered more cocaine than the other groups. The experiments presented here aimed to determine whether an individual's sex and behavioral phenotype interact to affect motivation to take cocaine.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We examined motivation for taking cocaine in two experiments using a range of doses on a progressive ratio (PR) schedule of responding in bHR or bLR males and females. Additionally, we included a measure of continuing to respond in the absence of reinforcement, a feature of addiction that has been recently incorporated into tests of animal models on the basis of the criteria for substance use disorder in the <it>Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition</it>. Statistical analyses were performed using PASW Statistics 18.0 software. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures analysis of variance followed by a Bonferroni correction <it>post hoc </it>test when applicable.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found sex differences as well as effects of novelty reactivity on the motivation to self-administer cocaine. Specifically, females demonstrated higher breaking points on the PR schedule compared with males, regardless of phenotype, and bHR males and females exhibited higher motivation than bLR animals at a number of the doses studied.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>An individual's sex continues to be a predisposing factor with respect to drug abuse liability and can be compounded by additional individual differences such as reactivity to novelty.</p

Dynamic Modulation of Thymic MicroRNAs in Response to Stress

thymocyte subsets. Several of the differentially regulated murine thymic miRs are also stress responsive in the heart, kidney, liver, brain, and/or spleen. The most dramatic thymic microRNA down modulated is miR-181d, exhibiting a 15-fold reduction following stress. This miR has both similar and distinct gene targets as miR-181a, another member of miR-181 family. Many of the differentially regulated microRNAs have known functions in thymopoiesis, indicating that their dysregulation will alter T cell repertoire selection and the formation of naïve T cells. This data has implications for clinical treatments involving anti-inflammatory steroids, ablation therapies, and provides mechanistic insights into the consequences of infections

Talking to the Overlooked: A Nationwide Telephone Survey with Four Groups Under-represented in Privacy and Security Studies

Online surveys - a primary research tool in the field of usable security and privacy research - frequently rely on web-panel platforms. However, these platforms tend not to generalize well to specific user groups. Our study addresses this research gap by studying security and privacy perceptions of four under-represented groups. We conducted telephone interviews with n = 1003 participants in Germany: (I) teenagers aged 14-17, (II) older adults 70+, (III) people with low formal education, and (IV) people with migration background. We found these groups to be under-represented in our online comparison survey. We further identified target group-specific perceptions for each group compared to the general population, e.g., regarding their experiences with cybercrime, and provide detailed insight into the privacy and security knowledge and behavior of each group. Our findings underscore the effectiveness of telephone interviews and lay the foundation for further research on these groups

Tides at a coast

People often experience tidal influence at the coast, where the sea meets the land, with a daily or twice-daily rise and fall of the water level. Understanding and predicting tides is critical for: shoreline/hazard management; port, harbor, and shipping activities; renewable energy; and infrastructure management (e.g., telecommunication cables). Accurate prediction is also critical to ensure water sports and beach activities are carried out safely. In shallow waters, tides interact with bathymetry and other physical processes, such as: surges, waves, and density currents. Understanding the net (tidally averaged or residual) flow is key to explaining the transport of particulate and dissolved biogeochemical tracers and physical properties, such as heat and carbon. To observe the tide, (global) gage networks are installed, often providing near real-time data. Harmonic analysis of these data allows accurate prediction of the tide to support the numerous recreational and commercial activities that take place in shelf seas and at the coast

Acute Pressor Response to Psychosocial Stress Is Dependent on Endothelium‐Derived Endothelin‐1

Background Acute psychosocial stress provokes increases in circulating endothelin‐1 (ET‐1) levels in humans and animal models. However, key questions about the physiological function and cellular source of stress‐induced ET‐1 remain unanswered. We hypothesized that endothelium‐derived ET‐1 contributes to the acute pressor response to stress via activation of the endothelin A receptor. Methods and Results Adult male vascular endothelium‐specific ET‐1 knockout mice and control mice that were homozygous for the floxed allele were exposed to acute psychosocial stress in the form of cage switch stress (CSS), with blood pressure measured by telemetry. An acute pressor response was elicited by CSS in both genotypes; however, this response was significantly blunted in vascular endothelium‐specific ET‐1 knockout mice compared with control mice that were homozygous for the floxed allele. In mice pretreated for 3 days with the endothelin A antagonist, ABT‐627, or the dual endothelin A/B receptor antagonist, A‐182086, the pressor response to CSS was similar between genotypes. CSS significantly increased plasma ET‐1 levels in control mice that were homozygous for the floxed allele. CSS failed to elicit an increase in plasma ET‐1 in vascular endothelium‐specific ET‐1 knockout mice. Telemetry frequency domain analyses suggested similar autonomic responses to stress between genotypes, and isolated resistance arteries demonstrated similar sensitivity to α1‐adrenergic receptor‐mediated vasoconstriction. Conclusions These findings specify that acute stress‐induced activation of endothelium‐derived ET‐1 and subsequent endothelin A receptor activation is a novel mediator of the blood pressure response to acute psychosocial stress

Erratum: Non-collinear generation of angularly isolated circularly polarized high harmonics.

[EN]In the version of this Article originally published the blue dashed line was mislabelled in the legend in Fig. 3d and the label should have read i Evert. This has now been corrected in the online versions of the Article