Finding Pesa Sooname: Using Documentary Film to Explore Selfhood and Personhood Within the Context of Dementia at the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe

Increasingly, academics are exploring selfhood and personhood among people living with dementia with intent to inform care practices and community development efforts. Yet very little is understood about dementia in indigenous populations, and nearly no information is available regarding selfhood and personhood within the context of dementia for Native people, despite their increased risk of developing dementia. This study—conducted in partnership with the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe—utilizes Video- Based Dialogical Analysis to unpack how tribal elders living with dementia are supported in preserving selfhood and personhood. The analysis employs a dialogical research framework, which rejects the tendency to finalize participants as is typical in traditional, monological research. Rather, participants are engaged in genuine conversation that helps them chart their path of perpetual becoming, expanding complexity through generative questions instead of reducing it through fundamental truth claims. Participants described selfhood for tribal members as inextricably linked to land, family, culture, and community. Identity was so interwoven with notions of service that selfhood and personhood appeared to operate as a single construct. Tensions between Western and traditional ideologies related to these pillars of selfhood and personhood threaten the well-being of tribal elders living with dementia, yet participants believe that intentional conversation surrounding dementia will help navigate those tensions. Throughout such conversations, one phrase rings with particular resonance: “pesa sooname.” Meaning “good thought” or “good think” in Northern Paiute, “pesa sooname” denotes the power of positivity and strengths-based perspectives. At Pyramid Lake, tribal members are using pesa sooname to make positive change, and hope to find pesa sooname on the other side of that important work

Network structure determines patterns of network reorganization during adult neurogenesis

New cells are generated throughout life and integrate into the hippocampus via the process of adult neurogenesis. Epileptogenic brain injury induces many structural changes in the hippocampus, including the death of interneurons and altered connectivity patterns. The pathological neurogenic niche is associated with aberrant neurogenesis, though the role of the network-level changes in development of epilepsy is not well understood. In this paper, we use computational simulations to investigate the effect of network environment on structural and functional outcomes of neurogenesis. We find that small-world networks with external stimulus are able to be augmented by activity-seeking neurons in a manner that enhances activity at the stimulated sites without altering the network as a whole. However, when inhibition is decreased or connectivity patterns are changed, new cells are both less responsive to stimulus and the new cells are more likely to drive the network into bursting dynamics. Our results suggest that network-level changes caused by epileptogenic injury can create an environment where neurogenic reorganization can induce or intensify epileptic dynamics and abnormal integration of new cells.Comment: 28 pages, 10 figure

The Circumgalactic Medium of Submillimeter Galaxies. II. Unobscured QSOs within Dusty Starbursts and QSO Sightlines with Impact Parameters below 100 Kiloparsec

We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) 870um observations of 29 bright Herschel sources near high-redshift QSOs. The observations confirm that 20 of the Herschel sources are submillimeter-bright galaxies (SMGs) and identify 16 new SMG-QSO pairs that are useful to studies of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of SMGs. Eight out of the 20 SMGs are blends of multiple 870um sources. The angular separations for six of the Herschel-QSO pairs are less than 10", comparable to the sizes of the Herschel beam and the ALMA primary beam. We find that four of these six "pairs" are actually QSOs hosted by SMGs. No additional submillimeter companions are detected around these QSOs and the rest-frame ultraviolet spectra of the QSOs show no evidence of significant reddening. Black hole accretion and star formation contribute almost equally in bolometric luminosity in these galaxies. The SMGs hosting QSOs show similar source sizes, dust surface densities, and SFR surface densities as other SMGs in the sample. We find that the black holes are growing $\sim$3$\times$ faster than the galaxies when compared to the present-day black-hole-galaxy mass ratio, suggesting a QSO duty cycle of $\lesssim$30% in SMGs at z ~ 3. The remaining two Herschel-detected QSOs are undetected at 870um but each has an SMG "companion" only 9" and 12" away (71 and 95 kpc at z = 3). They could be either merging or projected pairs. If the former, they would represent a rare class of "wet-dry" mergers. If the latter, the QSOs would, for the first time, probe the CGM of SMGs at impact parameters below 100 kpc.Comment: ApJ accepte

Psychological distress by type of fertility barrier

BACKGROUND: We examined fertility-specific distress (FSD) and general distress by type of fertility barrier (FB). METHODS: In a random sample telephone survey, 580 US women reported their fertility intentions and histories. Six groups of women were identified: (i) no FBs, (ii) infertile with intent, (iii) infertile without intent, (iv) other fertility problems, (v) miscarriages and (vi) situational barriers. Multiple regression analyses were used to compare groups with FBs. RESULTS: Sixty-one percent reported FBs and 28% reported an inability to conceive for at least 12 months. The infertile with intent group had the highest FSD, which was largely explained by (a) self-identification as infertile and (b) seeking medical help for fertility. The no FB group had a mean Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale score above the commonly used cut-off of 16, although 23% of the women with FBs did score above 16. CONCLUSIONS: FBs are common. Self-identification as infertile is the largest source of FSD. More women with FBs had elevated general distress than women without FBs; mean general distress was below 16 for all FB groups. It may be that, for some women (even those with children), FBs can have lasting emotional consequences, but many women do heal from the emotional distress that may accompany fertility difficulties

Opportunities and Challenges for Rural Broadband Infrastructure Investment

Insufficient internet access is holding back local economies, reducing educational outcomes, and creating health disparities in rural areas of the U.S. At present, federal and state funding is available for rural broadband infrastructure deployment, but existing efforts have not invested in analytical work to maximize efficiency and minimize cost. In this study, we use a state-of-the-art matrix (SAM) to identify key challenges and opportunities facing rural broadband infrastructure from previous research and government reports. We focus on six themes: (1) technology, (2) hardware costs, (3) financing, (4) adoption, (5) regulatory/legal, and (6) management. We highlight key issues to be addressed by both private and public decision-makers to effectively manage broadband investment as well as engage stakeholders to improve access and adoption. Much of the challenge for rural broadband infrastructure is related to a low return on investment due to high capital costs and low population densities. However, there are many innovative approaches to overcoming this barrier from technical, policy, and social perspectives. Unfortunately, adoption and management are understudied and would benefit from additional research to design effective decision-making tools and programs. From a systems perspective, solutions that leverage tools from a diverse set of perspectives, rather than purely focusing on technology deployment, are more likely to be sustainable in the long-term. We outline an agenda for future work based on the needs of rural communities as well as local and state governments

Fluorescence of Dietary Porphyrins as a Basis for Real-Time Detection of Fecal Contamination on Meat

Digestion of green plants in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract produces degradation products from chlorophyll that cause ingesta and feces to be highly fluorescent. This property was exploited for development and construction of instruments to noninvasively detect minute quantities of feces on meat samples in real time. The presence of feces on meat products is a primary source of foodborne pathogens, such as Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella. This new technology provides a rapid and accurate alternative to the practice of visual inspection and augments more time-consuming biological testing methods. This innovation can assist meat processors and government inspectors in their efforts to provide safe and wholesome food to consumers

Fluorescence Spectroscopy of the Retina for Diagnosis of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies

The feasibility of exploiting fluorescence spectra of the eye for diagnosis of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) was examined. Retinas from scrapie-positive sheep were compared with scrapie-negative sheep using fluorescence spectroscopy, and distinct differences in the fluorescence intensity and spectroscopic signatures were observed. The characteristic fluorescent signatures are thought to be the result of an accumulation of lipofuscin in the retina. It appears that the eye, in particular the retina, is a useful tissue for noninvasive examination of some neurological pathologies such as scrapie. The development of procedures based on examinations of the eye that permit the detection of neurological disorders in animals holds great promise

DockoMatic - Automated Ligand Creation and Docking

Background: The application of computational modeling to rationally design drugs and characterize macro biomolecular receptors has proven increasingly useful due to the accessibility of computing clusters and clouds. AutoDock is a well-known and powerful software program used to model ligand to receptor binding interactions. In its current version, AutoDock requires significant amounts of user time to setup and run jobs, and collect results. This paper presents DockoMatic, a user friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) application that eases and automates the creation and management of AutoDock jobs for high throughput screening of ligand to receptor interactions. Results: DockoMatic allows the user to invoke and manage AutoDock jobs on a single computer or cluster, including jobs for evaluating secondary ligand interactions. It also automates the process of collecting, summarizing, and viewing results. In addition, DockoMatic automates creation of peptide ligand .pdb files from strings of single-letter amino acid abbreviations. Conclusions: DockoMatic significantly reduces the complexity of managing multiple AutoDock jobs by facilitating ligand and AutoDock job creation and management

The Waiting And Mating Game: Condition Dependent Mate Sampling In Female Gray Treefrogs (Hyla Versicolor)

Strong sexual selection by receivers can lead to the evolution of elaborate courtship behaviors in signalers. However the process by which receivers sample signalers and execute mate choice under complex signaling conditions—and thus the realized strength of sexual section—is poorly understood. Moreover, receivers can vary in condition, which can further influence mate sampling strategies. Using wild female frogs we tested two hypotheses at the intersection of these important problems: that some of the individual variation in mate sampling is explained by (1) the reproductive urgency hypothesis, which predicts that receivers in a more urgent reproductive state will sample mates less and/or (2) the reproductive investment hypothesis, which predicts that receivers that have invested less in the current reproductive effort will sample mates less. Eastern gray treefrogs, Hyla versicolor, were collected in amplexus and repeatedly tested for phonotaxis behavior using a dynamic playback assay. To evaluate if hormonal mechanisms explained variation in the mate sampling, three steroid hormones, estradiol, progesterone, and corticosterone, were collected using a noninvasive water-borne hormone assay, validated for this species in the present study. Finally, we measured clutch size (investment) and the duration of time required for each female to oviposit after being reunited with their male mate (urgency). We found repeatability in many of the behaviors, including mate sampling. We found that females with higher concentrations estradiol and corticosterone made quicker choices, and that females with higher progesterone sampled mates more. We also found that female frogs in a more urgent reproductive state had lower concentrations of progesterone and estradiol, thereby providing the first evidence of a relationship between gonadal hormones and reproductive urgency. Collectively we found some support for the reproductive urgency but not the investment hypothesis. Thus, even though a female frog\u27s reproductive readiness is a highly transient life history stage, fine scale variation in her reproductive timeline could mitigate the strength of directional selection

Intrinsic symmetry groups of links with 8 and fewer crossings

We present an elementary derivation of the "intrinsic" symmetry groups for knots and links of 8 or fewer crossings. The standard symmetry group for a link is the mapping class group \MCG(S^3,L) or \Sym(L) of the pair $(S^3,L)$. Elements in this symmetry group can (and often do) fix the link and act nontrivially only on its complement. We ignore such elements and focus on the "intrinsic" symmetry group of a link, defined to be the image $\Sigma(L)$ of the natural homomorphism \MCG(S^3,L) \rightarrow \MCG(S^3) \cross \MCG(L). This different symmetry group, first defined by Whitten in 1969, records directly whether $L$ is isotopic to a link $L'$ obtained from $L$ by permuting components or reversing orientations. For hyperbolic links both \Sym(L) and $\Sigma(L)$ can be obtained using the output of \texttt{SnapPea}, but this proof does not give any hints about how to actually construct isotopies realizing $\Sigma(L)$. We show that standard invariants are enough to rule out all the isotopies outside $\Sigma(L)$ for all links except $7^2_6$, $8^2_{13}$ and $8^3_5$ where an additional construction is needed to use the Jones polynomial to rule out "component exchange" symmetries. On the other hand, we present explicit isotopies starting with the positions in Cerf's table of oriented links which generate $\Sigma(L)$ for each link in our table. Our approach gives a constructive proof of the $\Sigma(L)$ groups.Comment: 72 pages, 66 figures. This version expands the original introduction into three sections; other minor changes made for improved readabilit