Division of Urogynecology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery

The Division of Urogynecology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery at the University of Iowa includes Drs. Catherine Bradley and Rene Genadry (urogynecologists) and Diane Elas, ARNP (nurse practitioner with advanced clinical training). University of Iowa Urogynecology clinics focus on the outpatient evaluation and management of female pelvic floor disorders, including urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and other urinary and defecatory disorders. Outpatient diagnostic testing is available, including urodynamic tests and cystourethroscopy. We offer a wide spectrum of clinical care for pelvic floor disorders, including nonsurgical (e.g. pessaries and behavioral therapies) and surgical therapies. Clinic-based procedures (such as transurethral bulking injections and intra-detrusor botulinum toxin injections) are offered, as well as outpatient and inpatient surgeries. Special clinical initiatives include our minimally-invasive surgery program for urinary incontinence and prolapse, including outpatient slings and robotic hysterectomy and sacrocolpopexy

Vaginal mesh vs native tissue repairs for prolapse: FDA update and recent evidence

In 2010, 300,000 surgeries were performed in the U.S. for pelvic organ prolapse (POP), and 100,000 of those involved the placement of surgical mesh. The use of mesh in abdominal surgeries for POP has been described for over 50 years, but the first surgical mesh product specifically for POP was approved by the FDA in 2002. Over the last decade, transvaginal mesh POP surgeries have become more common, and mesh “kits” have been approved and are increasingly used for transvaginal POP repair, but clinical trial evidence of their safety and effectiveness has lagged behind rapid adoption into practice

Division of Urogynecology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery

The Division of Urogynecology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery at the University of Iowa focuses on the outpatient evaluation and management of female pelvic floor disorders, including urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and other urinary and defecatory disorders. Outpatient diagnostic testing is available, including urodynamic tests and cystourethroscopy. We offer a wide spectrum of clinical care for pelvic floor disorders, including nonsurgical (e.g. pessaries and behavioral therapies) and surgical therapies. Clinic-based procedures (such as transurethral bulking injections and intra-detrusor botulinum toxin injections) are offered, as well as outpatient and inpatient surgeries. Special clinical initiatives include our minimally-invasive surgery program for urinary incontinence and prolapse, including outpatient slings and robotic hysterectomy and sacrocolpopexy

Authorship and Identity in Late Thirteenth-Century Motets

Questions of authorship are central to the late thirteenth-century motet repertoire represented by the seventh section or fascicle of the Montpellier Codex (Montpellier, Bibliothèque interuniversitaire, Section de médecine, H. 196, hereafter Mo). Mo does not explicitly attribute any of its compositions, but theoretical sources name Petrus de Cruce as the composer of the two motets that open fascicle 7, and three later motets in this fascicle are elsewhere ascribed to Adam de la Halle. This monograph reveals a musical and textual quotation of Adam’s Aucun se sont loe incipit at the outset of Petrus’s Aucun ont trouve triplum, and it explores various invocations of Adam and Petrus – their works and techniques – within further anonymous compositions. Authorship is additionally considered from the perspective of two new types of motets especially prevalent in fascicle 7: motets that name musicians, as well as those based on vernacular song or instrumental melodies, some of which are identified by the names of their creators. This book offers new insights into the musical, poetic, and curatorial reception of thirteenth-century composers’ works in their own time. It uncovers, beneath the surface of an anonymous motet book, unsuspected interactions between authors and traces of compositional identities

Authorship and Identity in Late Thirteenth-Century Motets

Questions of authorship are central to the late thirteenth-century motet repertoire represented by the seventh section or fascicle of the Montpellier Codex (Montpellier, Bibliothèque interuniversitaire, Section de médecine, H. 196, hereafter Mo). Mo does not explicitly attribute any of its compositions, but theoretical sources name Petrus de Cruce as the composer of the two motets that open fascicle 7, and three later motets in this fascicle are elsewhere ascribed to Adam de la Halle. This monograph reveals a musical and textual quotation of Adam’s Aucun se sont loe incipit at the outset of Petrus’s Aucun ont trouve triplum, and it explores various invocations of Adam and Petrus – their works and techniques – within further anonymous compositions. Authorship is additionally considered from the perspective of two new types of motets especially prevalent in fascicle 7: motets that name musicians, as well as those based on vernacular song or instrumental melodies, some of which are identified by the names of their creators. This book offers new insights into the musical, poetic, and curatorial reception of thirteenth-century composers’ works in their own time. It uncovers, beneath the surface of an anonymous motet book, unsuspected interactions between authors and traces of compositional identities

Do music and art influence one another? Measuring cross-modal similarities in music and art

The visual arts and music interact with one another on both an individual scale (e.g., music-inspired synesthetes and artist-musician duos) and on a grand scale (e.g., the art movement Baroque, wherein abstract qualities such as “ornamentation” permeate both media). We develop a means to measure one of the many cross-modal similarities between music and visual art to both reveal any direct influences between the media, and to apply them to determine whether these connections became stronger or weaker throughout time. We examined the cross-modally linked continuums of lightness of color and height of pitch within comparable paintings and music of a time-determined art movement. The model of comparison extracted, measured, and contrasted the attributes of lightness of color in art and height of pitch in music in works from Russia and France created between 1870 and 1920. Although Russian visual art was measurably darker in value than French visual art of the same time, no significant differences were found between Russian and French music. While our results do not suggest direct influences manifesting differently in each medium, they demonstrate the use of the lightness-pitch model, applicable to other eras to measure potential cross-modal convergence and divergence through time

Epoch of reionization parameter estimation with the 21-cm bispectrum

We present the first application of the isosceles bispectrum to MCMC parameter inference from the cosmic 21-cm signal. We extend the MCMC sampler 21cmMC to use the fast bispectrum code, BiFFT, when computing the likelihood. We create mock 1000h observations with SKA1-low, using PyObs21 to account for uv-sampling and thermal noise. Assuming the spin temperature is much higher than that of the CMB, we consider two different reionization histories for our mock observations: fiducial and late-reionization. For both models we find that bias on the inferred parameter means and 1-$\sigma$ credible intervals can be substantially reduced by using the isosceles bispectrum (calculated for a wide range of scales and triangle shapes) together with the power spectrum (as opposed to just using one of the statistics). We find that making the simplifying assumption of a Gaussian likelihood with a diagonal covariance matrix does not notably bias parameter constraints for the three-parameter reionization model and basic instrumental effects considered here. This is true even if we use extreme (unlikely) initial conditions which would be expected to amplify biases. We also find that using the cosmic variance error calculated with Monte-Carlo simulations using the fiducial model parameters whilst assuming the late-reionization model for the simulated data also does not strongly bias the inference. This implies we may be able to sparsely sample and interpolate the cosmic variance error over the parameter space, substantially reducing computational costs. All codes used in this work are publicly-available.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures (submitted to MNRAS

Detection of pediatric upper extremity motor activity and deficits with accelerometry

Importance: Affordable, quantitative methods to screen children for developmental delays are needed. Motor milestones can be an indicator of developmental delay and may be used to track developmental progress. Accelerometry offers a way to gather real-world information about pediatric motor behavior. Objective: To develop a referent cohort of pediatric accelerometry from bilateral upper extremities (UEs) and determine whether movement can accurately distinguish those with and without motor deficits. Design, Setting, and Participants: Children aged 0 to 17 years participated in a prospective cohort from December 8, 2014, to December 29, 2017. Children were recruited from Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital, Maryland Heights, Missouri, and Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, St Louis, Missouri. Typically developing children were included as a referent cohort if they had no history of motor or neurological deficit; consecutive sampling and matching ensured equal representation of sex and age. Children with diagnosed asymmetric motor deficits were included in the motor impaired cohort. Exposures: Bilateral UE motor activity was measured using wrist-worn accelerometers for a total of 100 hours in 25-hour increments. Main Outcomes and Measures: To characterize bilateral UE motor activity in a referent cohort for the purpose of detecting irregularities in the future, total activity and the use ratio between UEs were used to describe typically developing children. Asymmetric impairment was classified using the mono-arm use index (MAUI) and bilateral-arm use index (BAUI) to quantify the acceleration of unilateral movements. Results: A total of 216 children enrolled, and 185 children were included in analysis. Of these, 156 were typically developing, with mean (SD) age 9.1 (5.1) years and 81 boys (52.0%). There were 29 children in the motor impaired cohort, with mean (SD) age 7.4 (4.4) years and 16 boys (55.2%). The combined MAUI and BAUI (mean [SD], 0.86 [0.005] and use ratio (mean [SD], 0.90 [0.008]) had similar F1 values. The area under the curve was also similar between the combined MAUI and BAUI (mean [SD], 0.98 [0.004]) and the use ratio (mean [SD], 0.98 [0.004]). Conclusions and Relevance: Bilateral UE movement as measured with accelerometry may provide a meaningful metric of real-world motor behavior across childhood. Screening in early childhood remains a challenge; MAUI may provide an effective method for clinicians to measure and visualize real-world motor behavior in children at risk for asymmetrical deficits

Coenzyme Q10 deficiencies: pathways in yeast and humans.

Coenzyme Q (ubiquinone or CoQ) is an essential lipid that plays a role in mitochondrial respiratory electron transport and serves as an important antioxidant. In human and yeast cells, CoQ synthesis derives from aromatic ring precursors and the isoprene biosynthetic pathway. Saccharomyces cerevisiae coq mutants provide a powerful model for our understanding of CoQ biosynthesis. This review focusses on the biosynthesis of CoQ in yeast and the relevance of this model to CoQ biosynthesis in human cells. The COQ1-COQ11 yeast genes are required for efficient biosynthesis of yeast CoQ. Expression of human homologs of yeast COQ1-COQ10 genes restore CoQ biosynthesis in the corresponding yeast coq mutants, indicating profound functional conservation. Thus, yeast provides a simple yet effective model to investigate and define the function and possible pathology of human COQ (yeast or human gene involved in CoQ biosynthesis) gene polymorphisms and mutations. Biosynthesis of CoQ in yeast and human cells depends on high molecular mass multisubunit complexes consisting of several of the COQ gene products, as well as CoQ itself and CoQ intermediates. The CoQ synthome in yeast or Complex Q in human cells, is essential for de novo biosynthesis of CoQ. Although some human CoQ deficiencies respond to dietary supplementation with CoQ, in general the uptake and assimilation of this very hydrophobic lipid is inefficient. Simple natural products may serve as alternate ring precursors in CoQ biosynthesis in both yeast and human cells, and these compounds may act to enhance biosynthesis of CoQ or may bypass certain deficient steps in the CoQ biosynthetic pathway