School uniform and other costs of schooling: views and experiences in Wales (technical report & final report)

"The overall aim of the research was... to explore the views of parents/carers and young people in Wales on the validity, usefulness and benefits of having school uniforms and their experiences and views on the cost and availability of buying uniforms, and to explore how the wider costs of schooling impacts on children, families and schools." - research aims & objectives

Combined Treatment With Npy Y5 Antagonists and Nan-190 Attenuates Transients in Light-induced Phase Shifts and Potentiates Phase Shifts Only During the Late Subjective Night

Circadian rhythms in physiology and behavior are synchronized by a central pacemaker, the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) of the hypothalamus. Shift work, jet lag and sleep disorders can disrupt circadian rhythms, negatively impacting health and well-being. The SCN pacemaker resets rapidly in response to changes in the daily light cycle, however, adjustment of peripheral oscillators to changing time zones or work shifts is more gradual, leading to internal desynchrony. In addition, many diseases can impair the SCN’s ability to adjust to changes in the light cycle. My research investigated whether combined pharmacological inhibition of neuropeptide Y and serotonin could enhance resetting and attenuate transient cycles in locomotor activity following a sudden change in light exposure. I found that simultaneously blocking neuropeptide Y and serotonin receptors potentiated phase shifts during the late subjective night and significantly reduced transient cycles of locomotor activity in hamsters. Development of treatments that enhance the circadian system’s response to light may alleviate some of the negative health consequences experienced by travelers, shift workers and individuals with disease-related circadian desynchrony

Newly Identified Vitamin K-producing Bacteria Isolated from the Neonatal Faecal Flora

Fat-soluble vitamin K is an essential component of the blood clotting process. Menaquinones are the naturally occurring form of vitamin K identified in bacteria. Lipid extracts were made from three bacteria originally isolated from the human neonatal gut and identified as Enterobacter agglomerans, Serratia marcescens and Enterococcus faecium. Following preparative thin layer chromatography (TLC), the lipid extracts were subjected to liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis. Peak analysis of the LC-MS data showed that the three bacteria produce various forms of menaquinone

Improved Cultural Competence Through Simulation

Our quality improvement project focused on increasing the cultural competency of undergraduate nursing students at the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University. In nursing culturally competent care is defined as having the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that support caring for patients across different languages and cultures. Caring for culturally diverse patients was first identified as an area of improvement during our capstone seminar while discussing our own clinical experiences. Subsequently we conducted a student survey that displayed strong interest in increasing practice caring for culturally diverse patients. Based on current research we identified simulation experiences as an advantageous method for students to experience caring for culturally diverse patients. The simulation takes students through different aspects of how culture can affect the nursing process and care they are delivering. During the simulation students are able to discuss how they would try to approach the situation giving them ideas of what to do when they are in these difficult situations as RNs

An evaluation of the potential effectiveness of tobacco-related health messages among Inuit in Nunavut, Canada: What types of messages work best at promoting smoking cessation among Inuit smokers?

Background. Inuit experience some of the highest rates of tobacco use and of tobacco-related diseases in Canada. Communication strategies, such as health warnings on tobacco products, are seen as a necessary means of informing the public of tobacco-related health risk and motivating smokers to want to quit smoking. However, there is little evidence to suggest how such strategies might be working among Inuit nor is there evidence to suggest how best to communicate tobacco-related health risk to and promote smoking cessation among Inuit smokers. Objectives. (1) To systematically examine the effects of textual message frame (i.e., loss- vs. gain-framed), graphic type (i.e., gruesome vs. personal suffering), and narrative style (i.e., testimonial vs. didactic) on measures of message acceptance (i.e., personal relevance and perceived credibility), affective response, and potential message effectiveness. (2) To examine fear as a potential mediator of the relation between textual message frame and measures of potential message effectiveness, as well as of the relation between graphic type and measures of potential message effectiveness. (3) To examine the potential impact of the message spokesperson (i.e., Caucasian, middle-aged male/female vs. Inuit middle-aged male/female vs. Inuit Elder male/female) on measures of message acceptance and potential message effectiveness. Experimental design. A repeated measures (i.e., within-subject) 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design was used to examine the effects of textual message frame, graphic type and narrative style. A separate ranking task assessed the potential impact of the message spokesperson. Methods. Eligible participants (Inuit, aged 18 years of age or older, having smoked at least one cigarette in the previous 30 days and smoked over 100 cigarettes in their lifetime) were recruited in October 2012 from two communities in Nunavut (Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet). Participants completed a survey, an experimental procedure (i.e., a health warning rating task) and a health warning ranking task on a hand-held electronic device with a trained research assistant. With data from the health warning rating task, a series of multinomial regression models using the Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) method were fitted to examine the effects of three message characteristics on each of the outcome measures, controlling for known covariates. Outcome measures were categorized into 3-levels: (1) extremely, (2) somewhat, and (3) not really. The “not really” category was used as the comparison category for multinomial regression models. Multinomial regression was also used to examine the potential mediating effects of fear as it related to each of the measures of potential message effectiveness. With data from the health warning ranking task, frequencies of participant choices as related to the message spokesperson were examined. 129 participants were included in the analyses. Results. Participants were, on average, 37.3 years of age (STD = 12.7) and smoked 13.0 cigarettes per day (STD = 8.9). Just over half were female (56.6%) and most had less than a high school education (72.7%). Messages with gruesome images were more likely than those with images of personal suffering to be rated as extremely relevant (OR = 2.23, CI: 1.56-3.20), credible (OR = 2.46, CI: 1.67-3.62), emotionally arousing (OR = 3.40, CI: 2.27-5.08), and potentially effective (OR = 2.56, CI: 1.69-3.86). Loss-framed messages were more likely than gain-framed messages to be rated as extremely emotionally arousing (OR = 1.71, CI: 1.23-2.37), but no more likely to be rated as extremely relevant (OR = 1.03, CI: 0.61-1.74), credible (OR = 1.06, CI: 0.81-1.39), or potentially effective (OR = 1.24, CI: 0.98-1.58). Testimonial messages were no more likely than didactic messages to be rated as extremely relevant (OR = 0.90, CI: 0.60-1.35), credible (OR = 0.97, CI: 0.70-1.34), emotionally arousing (OR = 1.22, CI: 0.90-1.67), or potentially effective (OR = 1.08, CI: 0.85-1.37). Fear appeared to partially mediate the relation between textual message frame and all three indicators of potential message effectiveness suggesting loss-framed messages elicited greater feelings of fear, thereby enhancing the potential effectiveness of the message. There was also some evidence that fear partially mediated the relation between graphic type and some indicators of potential message effectiveness suggesting messages with gruesome images elicited greater feelings of fear, thereby enhancing the potential effectiveness of the messages. Finally, greater proportions of participants indicated health warnings with an Inuit Elder were most personally relevant (44.2%) and most credible (35.9%) compared to health warnings with middle-aged Inuit or Caucasian spokespersons. However, participants’ choice of which health warning was potentially most effective was split relatively evenly between all options. Conclusions. Findings from this study suggest health warnings accompanied by gruesome images are potentially more effective at communicating tobacco-related health risk and motivating cessation among Inuit compared to those with images of personal suffering. This provides some initial evidence that current communication strategies that use gruesome imagery, like some tobacco product health warnings in Canada, may be effective among Inuit populations. However, when a spokesperson is used in a communication campaign, Inuit Elders tend to be preferred. Together these findings suggest that an integrated communication strategy that includes complementary, targeted materials working synergistically alongside population-level approaches (like tobacco product warning labels) may work best among Inuit

Comparing the Gut Flora of Irish Breastfed and Formula-fed Neonates Aged Between Birth and 6 Weeks Old

The exact composition of the complex microsystem that constitutes the gut flora continues to be explored as molecular methodology supplements traditional microbiological studies. The current study reports a random analysis of the faecal flora composition for 31 neonates in the 0–1 day age group, 41 neonates aged 2–5 days and 33 6-week-old neonates. All infants, born at the National Maternity Hospital, Ireland, were considered healthy, full-term normal deliveries and were either exclusively breastfed or formula-fed from birth. Microbiological and biochemical analyses of the faecal samples were used to specifically enumerate Lactobacillus spp., Bifidobacterium spp., Enterococcus spp., Staphylococcus spp., Bacteroides spp., Clostridium spp. and coliforms present in the gut. The results were analysed for the presence, prevalence and dominance of each of the species. In general, there were no major statistical variations in the findings for the two feeding regimes. However, Escherichia coli was found to be more dominant (p=0.042) in the gut flora of 6-week-old formula-fed neonates, while there was a tendency for Bifidobacterium spp. to be more prevalent in the gut flora of breastfed neonates at 2–5 days (p=0.108)

"I Will Not Drink With You Today": A Topic-Guided Thematic Analysis of Addiction Recovery on Reddit

© {Robert P. Gauthier, Mary Jean Costello, and James R. Wallace | ACM} {2022}. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in { In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems }, https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3502076.Recovery from addiction is a journey that requires a lifetime of support from a strong network of peers. Many people seek out this support through online communities, like those on Reddit. However, as these communities developed outside of existing aid groups and medical practice, it is unclear how they enable recovery. Their scale also limits researchers' ability to engage through traditional qualitative research methods. To study these groups, we performed a topic-guided thematic analysis that used machine-generated topic models to purposively sample from two recovery subreddits: r/stopdrinking and r/OpiatesRecovery. We show that these communities provide access to an experienced and accessible support group whose discussions include consequences, reflections, and celebrations, but that also play a distinct metacommunicative role in supporting formal treatment. We discuss how these communities can act as knowledge sources to improve in-person recovery support and medical practice, and how computational techniques can enable HCI researchers to study communities at scale.NSERC Discovery Grant 2015-06585 || Ontario Graduate Scholarshi