2,942 research outputs found
Helping Middle School Students Acknowledge and Navigate Anxiety: An Action Research
Teachers and school counselors have the responsibility not only to build a positive school climate in which students want to perform and stretch themselves academically and socially, but also to create an environment in which students know that their teachers and school counselors are aware of their needs, anxiety, and other factors preventing them from reaching their potential. In the present study, we used an action research design to help students acknowledge their anxiety and know how to navigate it. The results indicate that most students exhibited lower anxiety before and during the test, while their anxiety level was the highest after taking a test. Moreover, the power analysis (p-value) shows that studentsâ anxiety levels before, during, and after a test did not did not significantly impact each other. Challenges regarding anxiety interventions include: 1) students who used fidgets as toys rather than sensory tools, 2) teachers reluctant to implement coping skills continuously for fear of losing instructional time, and 3) the schoolâs limited funding for purchasing a wider variety of coping strategies. Suggestions to school administrators and future research studies are discussed
Uncertainty as a Key Influence in the Decision To Admit Patients with Transient Ischemic Attack
Background
Patients with transient ischemic attacks (TIA) are at high risk of subsequent vascular events. Hospitalization improves quality of care, yet admission rates for TIA patients vary considerably.
Objectives
We sought to identify factors associated with the decision to admit patents with TIA.
Design
We conducted a secondary analysis of a prior studyâs data including semi-structured interviews, administrative data, and chart review.
Participants
We interviewed multidisciplinary clinical staff involved with TIA care. Administrative data included information for TIA patients in emergency departments or inpatient settings at VA medical centers (VAMCs) for fiscal years (FY) 2011 and 2014. Chart reviews were conducted on a subset of patients from 12 VAMCs in FY 2011.
Approach
For the qualitative data, we focused on intervieweesâ responses to the prompt: âTell me what influences you in the decision to or not to admit TIA patients.â We used administrative data to identify admission rates and chart review data to identify ABCD2 scores (a tool to classify stroke risk after TIA).
Key Results
Providersâ decisions to admit TIA patients were related to uncertainty in several domains: lack of a facility TIA-specific policy, inconsistent use of ABCD2 score, and concerns about facilitiesâ ability to complete a timely workup. There was a disconnect between staff perceptions about TIA admission and facility admission rates. According to chart review data, staff at facilities with higher admission rates in FY 2011 reported consistent reliance on ABCD2 scores and related guidelines in admission decision-making.
Conclusions
Many factors contributed to decisions regarding admitting a patient with TIA; however, cliniciansâ uncertainty appeared to be a key driver. Further quality improvement interventions for TIA care should focus on facility adoption of TIA protocols to address uncertainty in TIA admission decision-making and to standardize timely evaluation of TIA patients and delivery of secondary prevention strategies
Associations of the initial Covid-19 lockdown on self-reported happiness and worry about developing loneliness : a cross-sectional analysis of rural, regional, and urban Australian communities
Australia adopted hard lockdown measures to eliminate community transmission of COVID-19. Lockdown imposes periods of social isolation that contributes to increased levels of stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and worry. We examined whether lockdowns have similar psychosocial associations across rural and urban areas and whether associations existed between happiness and worry of loneliness in the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. Data were collected using the âCOVID-19 Living Surveyâ between 13 and 20 May 2020 by BehaviourWorks Australia at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute. The mean self-reported feeling of happiness and anxiousness (N = 1593), on a 10-point Likert scale with 0 being least happy or highly anxious, was 6.5 (SD = 2.4) and 3.9 (2.9), respectively. Factors associated with happiness were older age and having a postgraduate education. Participants worried about becoming lonely also exhibited reduced happiness (estimate = â1.58, 95%CI = â1.84ââ1.32) and higher anxiousness (2.22, 1.93â2.51) scores, and these conditions remained associated after adjusting for demographics. Interestingly, worry about loneliness was greater in rural areas than in urban communities. The negative impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on rural youth and those less-educated was evident. Participants in rural Australia who were worried about becoming lonely were reportedly less happy than participants in major cities. This dataset provides a better understanding of factors that influence psychological well-being and quality of life in the Australian population and helps to determine whether happiness may be an associative factor that could mitigate self-feelings of anxiety and worry about loneliness. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland
Resonant tunneling through a C60 molecular junction in liquid environment
We present electronic transport measurements through thiolated C
molecules in liquid environment. The molecules were placed within a
mechanically controllable break junction using a single anchoring group per
molecule. When varying the electrode separation of the C-modified
junctions, we observed a peak in the conductance traces. The shape of the
curves is strongly influenced by the environment of the junction as shown by
measurements in two distinct solvents. In the framework of a simple resonant
tunneling model, we can extract the electronic tunneling rates governing the
transport properties of the junctions.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures. To appear in Nanotechnolog
Processes of Care Associated With Risk of Mortality and Recurrent Stroke Among Patients With Transient Ischemic Attack and Nonsevere Ischemic Stroke
Importance:
Early evaluation and management of patients with transient ischemic attack (TIA) and nonsevere ischemic stroke improves outcomes.
Objective:
To identify processes of care associated with reduced risk of death or recurrent stroke among patients with TIA or nonsevere ischemic stroke.
Design, Setting, and Participants:
This cohort study included all patients with TIA or nonsevere ischemic stroke at Department of Veterans Affairs emergency department or inpatient settings from October 2010 to September 2011. Multivariable logistic regression was used to model associations of processes of care and without-fail care, defined as receiving all guideline-concordant processes of care for which patients are eligible, with risk of death and recurrent stroke. Data were analyzed from March 2018 to April 2019.
Main Outcomes and Measures:
Risk of all-cause mortality and recurrent ischemic stroke at 90 days and 1 year was calculated. Overall, 28 processes of care were examined. Without-fail care was assessed for 6 processes: brain imaging, carotid artery imaging, hypertension medication intensification, high- or moderate-potency statin therapy, antithrombotics, and anticoagulation for atrial fibrillation.
Results:
Among 8076 patients, the mean (SD) age was 67.8 (11.6) years, 7752 patients (96.0%) were men, 5929 (73.4%) were white, 474 (6.1%) had a recurrent ischemic stroke within 90 days, 793 (10.7%) had a recurrent ischemic stroke within 1 year, 320 (4.0%) died within 90 days, and 814 (10.1%) died within 1 year. Overall, 9 processes were independently associated with lower odds of both 90-day and 1-year mortality after adjustment for multiple comparisons: carotid artery imaging (90-day adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.49; 95% CI, 0.38-0.63; 1-year aOR, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.52-0.72), antihypertensive medication class (90-day aOR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.45-0.74; 1-year aOR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.60-0.83), lipid measurement (90-day aOR, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.51-0.90; 1-year aOR, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.53-0.78), lipid management (90-day aOR, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.33-0.65; 1-year aOR, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.53-0.85), discharged receiving statin medication (90-day aOR, 0.51; 95% CI, 0.36-0.73; 1-year aOR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.55-0.88), cholesterol-lowering medication intensification (90-day aOR, 0.47; 95% CI, 0.26-0.83; 1-year aOR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.41-0.77), antithrombotics by day 2 (90-day aOR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.40-0.79; 1-year aOR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.55-0.87) or at discharge (90-day aOR, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.41-0.86; 1-year aOR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.54-0.88), and neurology consultation (90-day aOR, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.52-0.87; 1-year aOR, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.63-0.87). Anticoagulation for atrial fibrillation was associated with lower odds of 1-year mortality only (aOR, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.40-0.85). No processes were associated with reduced risk of recurrent stroke after adjustment for multiple comparisons. The rate of without-fail care was 15.3%; 1216 patients received all guideline-concordant processes of care for which they were eligible. Without-fail care was associated with a 31.2% lower odds of 1-year mortality (aOR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.55-0.87) but was not independently associated with stroke risk.
Conclusions and Relevance:
Patients who received 6 readily available processes of care had lower adjusted mortality 1 year after TIA or nonsevere ischemic stroke. Clinicians caring for patients with TIA and nonsevere ischemic stroke should seek to ensure that patients receive all guideline-concordant processes of care for which they are eligible
Olfactory ensheathing cell-conditioned medium reverts 3 Ab25â35-induced oxidative damage in SH-SY5Y cells 4 by modulating the mitochondria-mediated apoptotic pathway.
Olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) are a type of
10 glia from the mammalian olfactory system, with neuro-
11 protective and regenerative properties. b-Amyloid peptides
12 are a major component of the senile plaques characteristic
13 of the Alzheimer brain. The amyloid beta (Ab) precursor
14 protein is cleaved to amyloid peptides, and Ab25â35 is
15 regarded to be the functional domain of Ab, responsible for
16 its neurotoxic properties. It has been reported that Ab25â35
17 triggers reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated oxidative
18 damage, altering the structure and function of mitochon-
19 dria, leading to the activation of the mitochondrial intrinsic
20 apoptotic pathway. Our goal is to investigate the effects of
21 OECs on the toxicity of aggregated Ab25â35, in human
22 neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells. For such purpose, SH-
23 SY5Y cells were incubated with Ab25â35 and OEC-conditioned medium (OECCM). OECCM promoted the 24
cell viability and reduced the apoptosis, and decreased the 25
intracellular ROS and the lipid peroxidation. In the pres- 26
ence of OECCM, mRNA and protein levels of antioxidant 27
enzymes (SOD1 and SOD2) were upregulated. Concomi- 28
tantly, OECCM decreased mRNA and the protein expres- 29
sion levels of cytochrome c, caspase-9, caspase-3, and Bax 30
in SH-SY5Y cells, and increased mRNA and the protein 31
expression level of Bcl-2. However, OECCM did not alter 32
intracellular Ca 33 2? concentration in SH-SY5Y cells. Taken
together, our data suggest that OECCM ameliorates 34
Ab25â35-induced oxidative damage in neuroblastoma SH- 35
SY5Y cells by inhibiting the mitochondrial intrinsic path- 36
way. These data provide new insights into the functional 37
actions of OECCM on oxidative stress-induced cell 38
damage.pre-print2138 K
Boosting output performance of contact-separation mode triboelectric nanogenerators by adopting discontinuity and fringing effect: experiment and modelling studies
Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are promising self-powering supplies for
a diverse range of intelligent sensing and monitoring devices, especially due
to their capability of harvesting electric energy from low frequency and
small-scale mechanical motions. Inspired by the fact that contact-separation
mode TENGs with small contact areas harvest high electrical outputs due to
fringing effect, this study employed discontinuity on the dielectric side of
contact-separation mode TENGs to promote fringing electric fields for the
enhancement of electrical outputs. The results reveal that the TENGs with more
discontinuities show higher overall electric performance. Compared to pristine
TENGs, the TENGs with cross discontinuities increased the surface charge by 50%
and the power density by 114%. However, one should avoid generating
discontinuities on tribonegative side of TENGs using metal blade within a
positive-ion atmosphere due to the neutralization through electrically
conductive metal blade. The computational simulation validated that the TENGs
with discontinuities obtained higher electrical outputs, and further
investigated the effect of discontinuity gap size and array distance on TENGs
performance. This study has provided a promising method for the future design
of TENGs using discontinuous structures.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figure
Configurational Entropy of Folded Proteins and its Importance for Intrinsically Disordered Proteins
Many pairwise additive force fields are in active use for intrinsically
disordered proteins (IDPs) and regions (IDRs), some of which modify energetic
terms to improve description of IDPs/IDRs, but are largely in disagreement with
solution experiments for the disordered states. We have evaluated
representative pairwise and many-body protein and water force fields against
experimental data on representative IDPs and IDRs, a peptide that undergoes a
disorder-to-order transition, and for seven globular proteins ranging in size
from 130-266 amino acids. We find that force fields with the largest
statistical fluctuations consistent with the radius of gyration and universal
Lindemann values for folded states simultaneously better describe IDPs and IDRs
and disorder to order transitions. Hence the crux of what a force field should
exhibit to well describe IDRs/IDPs is not just the balance between protein and
water energetics, but the balance between energetic effects and configurational
entropy of folded states of globular proteins
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