Autistic College Students and COVID-19: Anxiety, Support Needs and Responses by Specialized Programs

Providing resources and support to college students during the COVID-19 global pandemic has produced unique challenges for all students, particularly those with autism. In March 2020, halfway through the spring term, the COVID-19 global pandemic forced most institutions of higher education across the country to move all instruction and support to an online, remote format, including those for students with autism. Colleges and autism support programs are now grappling with how to effectively support students amid a global pandemic. Yet there is little information available about how students’ needs have changed with this new environment. In this exploratory study, 76 college students with autism from across the country answered a series of questions (both Likert scale and open-ended) about their anxieties related to COVID-19 and attending college. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. Results revealed that students are most anxious about getting sick or spreading COVID-19 to others and least anxious about wearing masks and needing to socially distance. This paper also profiles the adjustments made to several college autism support programs (led by the authors) in order to accommodate the changes to college campuses and the impact on student needs. The survey results and recent experiences across programs will inform recommendations for colleges as they build toward more inclusive, supportive campus environments and respond to crises like the pandemic

Legal Rights and Issues Surrounding Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth

Advances in medicine are reported almost daily in the media. Medical researchers have developed and are continuing to develop new methods of creating, saving, and prolonging life. This Special Project examines the impact that rapidly advancing medical technology has on the law governing conception, pregnancy, and birth. Although medical techniques have advanced rapidly during the past decades, state and federal legislatures have responded in-adequately to the legal consequences of these new birth technologies. The resulting lag between technology and the law has forced courts to confront new situations that do not fit neatly into the statutory framework created to deal with past fact situations. For example, courts have applied statutes prohibiting child bartering to surrogate parenting cases and statutes prohibiting fetal experimentation to artificial insemination cases although it is clear that the legislators never considered such fact patterns when passing the statutes. A lag is inevitable because the law can only respond to, rather than predict, emerging medical developments. Nonetheless, legislators must respond promptly by confronting the new legal issues that result from new medical technologies. One impediment to prompt legislative response to the lag between medical technology and the law is the controversial nature of the legal problems posed. Abortion continues to be an extremely controversial issue thirteen years after the Supreme Court legalized it in the landmark decision Roe v. Wade. The Baby Doe issue of whether to force hospitals and parents of severely deformed newborns to provide medical care is another extremely controversial issue. Baby Doe has become highly politicized as the Reagan administration, Congress, right-to-life groups, disability groups, medical professionals, and other groups have taken stances. Surrogate parenting also has produced controversial situations. In one incident, a New York couple contracted with a California surrogate mother. When the surrogate mother breached the agreement, the couple brought suit. The court discovered that the couple consisted of a man and a transsexual, thus raising the issue of whether transsexuals or homosexuals should be allowed to adopt children by contracting with surrogate mothers

Interpretation of Digital Mammograms: Comparison of Speed and Accuracy of Soft-Copy versus Printed-Film Display

PURPOSE: To compare the speed and accuracy of the interpretations of digital mammograms by radiologists by using printed-film versus soft-copy display. MATERIALS AND METHODS: After being trained in interpretation of digital mammograms, eight radiologists interpreted 63 digital mammograms, all with old studies for comparison. All studies were interpreted by all readers in soft-copy and printed-film display, with interpretations of images in the same cases at least 1 month apart. Mammograms were interpreted in cases that included six biopsy-proved cancers and 20 biopsy-proved benign lesions, 20 cases of probably benign findings in patients who underwent 6-month follow-up, and 17 cases without apparent findings. Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (Az), sensitivity, and specificity were calculated for soft-copy and printed-film display. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in the speed of interpretation, but interpretations with soft-copy display were slightly faster. The differences in Az, sensitivity, and specificity were not significantly different; Az and sensitivity were slightly better for interpretations with printed film, and specificity was slightly better for interpretations with soft copy. CONCLUSION: Interpretation with soft-copy display is likely to be useful with digital mammography and is unlikely to significantly change accuracy or speed

Implementation of a diabetes in pregnancy clinical register in a complex setting: findings from a process evaluation

Background: Rates of diabetes in pregnancy are disproportionately higher among Aboriginal than non-Aboriginal women in Australia. Additional challenges are posed by the context of Aboriginal health including remoteness and disadvantage. A clinical register was established in 2011 to improve care coordination, and as an epidemiological and quality assurance tool. This paper presents results from a process evaluation identifying what worked well, persisting challenges and opportunities for improvement. Methods: Clinical register data were compared to the Northern Territory Midwives Data Collection. A cross-sectional survey of 113 health professionals across the region was also conducted in 2016 to assess use and value of the register; and five focus groups (49 healthcare professionals) documented improvements to models of care. Results: From January 2012 to December 2015, 1,410 women were referred to the register, 48% of whom were Aboriginal. In 2014, women on the register represented 75% of those on the Midwives Data Collection for Aboriginal women with gestational diabetes and 100% for Aboriginal women with pre-existing diabetes. Since commencement of the register, an 80% increase in reported prevalence of gestational diabetes among Aboriginal women in the Midwives Data Collection occurred (2011-2013), prior to adoption of new diagnostic criteria (2014). As most women met both diagnostic criteria (81% in 2012 and 74% in 2015) it is unlikely that the changes in criteria contributed to this increase. Over half (57%) of survey respondents reported improvement in knowledge of the epidemiology of diabetes in pregnancy since establishment of the register. However, only 32% of survey respondents thought that the register improved care-coordination. The need for improved integration and awareness to increase use was also highlighted. Conclusion: Although the register has not been reported to improve care coordination, it has contributed to increased reported prevalence of gestational diabetes among high risk Aboriginal women, in a routinely collected jurisdiction-wide pregnancy dataset. It has therefore contributed to an improved understanding of epidemiology and disease burden and may in future contribute to improved management and outcomes. Regions with similar challenges in context and high risk populations for diabetes in pregnancy may benefit from this experience of implementing a register.Renae Kirkham, Cherie Whitbread, Christine Connors, Elizabeth Moore, Jacqueline A. Boyle, Richa Richa, Federica Barzi, Shu Li, Michelle Dowden, Jeremy Oats, Chrissie Inglis, Margaret Cotter, Harold D. McIntyre, Marie Kirkwood, Paula Van Dokkum, Stacey Svenson, Paul Zimmet, Jonathan E. Shaw, Kerin O'Dea, Alex Brown, Louise Maple-Brown, on behalf of the Northern Territory Diabetes in Pregnancy Partnershi

2017 Research & Innovation Day Program

A one day showcase of applied research, social innovation, scholarship projects and activities.https://first.fanshawec.ca/cri_cripublications/1004/thumbnail.jp

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Para-infectious brain injury in COVID-19 persists at follow-up despite attenuated cytokine and autoantibody responses

To understand neurological complications of COVID-19 better both acutely and for recovery, we measured markers of brain injury, inflammatory mediators, and autoantibodies in 203 hospitalised participants; 111 with acute sera (1–11 days post-admission) and 92 convalescent sera (56 with COVID-19-associated neurological diagnoses). Here we show that compared to 60 uninfected controls, tTau, GFAP, NfL, and UCH-L1 are increased with COVID-19 infection at acute timepoints and NfL and GFAP are significantly higher in participants with neurological complications. Inflammatory mediators (IL-6, IL-12p40, HGF, M-CSF, CCL2, and IL-1RA) are associated with both altered consciousness and markers of brain injury. Autoantibodies are more common in COVID-19 than controls and some (including against MYL7, UCH-L1, and GRIN3B) are more frequent with altered consciousness. Additionally, convalescent participants with neurological complications show elevated GFAP and NfL, unrelated to attenuated systemic inflammatory mediators and to autoantibody responses. Overall, neurological complications of COVID-19 are associated with evidence of neuroglial injury in both acute and late disease and these correlate with dysregulated innate and adaptive immune responses acutely