Beaten into Submissiveness? An Investigation into the Protective Strategies used by Survivors of Domestic Abuse

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced pdf of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Interpersonal Violence following peer review. Laura Irving & Ben Chi-pun Liu, 'Beaten into Submissiveness? An investigation Into the Protective Strategies Used by Survivors of Domestic Abuse', Journal of Interpersonal Violence, first published online 14 December 2016, available online at doi: 10.1177/0886260516682520 © The Author(s) 2016 Published by SAGEThe aim of the study was to identify the prevalence and perceived helpfulness of a variety of protective strategies that were used by female survivors of domestic abuse and to explore factors that may have influenced strategy usage. Forty participants were recruited from a voluntary sector domestic abuse service, commissioned by an outer London local authority in the UK. The measurement tools used were the Intimate Partner Violence Strategies Index and the CAADA Domestic Abuse, Stalking and ‘Honour’-Based Violence (DASH) Risk Assessment Checklist. The average age was 33 (SD=7.9, range: 20-57), half reported to be of Asian ethnicity, 37.5% White and 12.5% Black or Mixed ethnicity. The average DASH score was 9.8 (SD=13.2, range: 0-18) and an average of 18 (SD=6.7, range: 1-29) protective strategies were utilised by each participant. All of the most commonly used strategies were from the Placating category. Though Safety Planning strategies were rated as the most helpful by all participants, Placating strategies were also rated as helpful by two-thirds of participants. Stepwise multiple regression showed that Placating was the only significant predictor of DASH score (β=0.375, p<0.05) and accounted for 14% of the variance of DASH score. Findings showed that women utilized a diverse range of protective strategies with placating strategies being most intensely used and rated as helpful. However, placating strategy usage could be a risk factor as opposed to a protective factor. This study has also demonstrated that greater placating strategies were used by White than South Asian women, and women who were employed used more formal strategies. This research has extended the knowledge base of protective strategies that professionals can draw from to underpin decisions and interventions when working with domestic abuse survivors.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

A novel experimental setup for evaluating the stiffness of ankle foot orthoses

Abstract Objective The purpose of this study was the construction of a new semi-automated experimental setup for the evaluation of the stiffness of ankle foot orthoses (AFOs) around an axis aligned to the anatomical ankle joint during the second rocker of the gait. The setup, developed in close collaboration with the orthopedic device company V!GO NV (Wetteren, Belgium), allows measurement of plantarflexion and dorsiflexion in the sagittal plane for a maximal range of motion of 50° (− 25° plantarflexion up to 25° dorsiflexion) in a non-destructive way. Results The mechanical properties of four 3D printed AFOs are investigated, based on the ranges of motion derived from the gait assessment of the patients when they walked with their AFO. The reliability of the stiffness measures was studied by the evaluation of the test–retest repeatability and the intra-tester and inter-tester variability. These studies revealed that the ankle stiffness can be measured with high reliability (ICC = 0.94–1.00). The obtained outcomes indicate that the experimental setup could be applied to measure the ankle stiffness of any topology of AFOs and, in the future, help finding the correlation with the information coming from the gait assessment of the patients

Determinants Involved in Hepatitis C Virus and GB Virus B Primate Host Restriction

International audienceHepatitis C virus (HCV) only infects humans and chimpanzees, while GB virus B (GBV-B), another hepatotropic hepacivirus, infects small New World primates (tamarins and marmosets). In an effort to develop an immunocompetent small primate model for HCV infection to study HCV pathogenesis and vaccine approaches, we investigated the HCV life cycle step(s) that may be restricted in small primate hepatocytes. First, we found that replication-competent, genome-length chimeric HCV RNAs encoding GBV-B structural proteins in place of equivalent HCV sequences designed to allow entry into simian hepatocytes failed to induce viremia in tamarins following intrahepatic inoculation, nor did they lead to progeny virus in permissive, transfected human Huh7.5 hepatoma cells upon serial passage. This likely reflected the disruption of interactions between distantly related structural and nonstructural proteins that are essential for virion production, whereas such cross talk could be restored in similarly designed HCV intergenotypic recombinants via adaptive mutations in NS3 protease or helicase domains. Next, HCV entry into small primate hepatocytes was examined directly using HCV-pseudotyped retroviral particles (HCV-pp). HCV-pp efficiently infected tamarin hepatic cell lines and primary marmoset hepatocyte cultures through the use of the simian CD81 ortholog as a coreceptor, indicating that HCV entry is not restricted in small New World primate hepatocytes. Furthermore, we observed genomic replication and modest virus secretion following infection of primary marmoset hepatocyte cultures with a highly cell culture-adapted HCV strain. Thus, HCV can successfully complete its life cycle in primary simian hepatocytes, suggesting the possibility of adapting some HCV strains to small primate hosts. IMPORTANCE: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an important human pathogen that infects over 150 million individuals worldwide and leads to chronic liver disease. The lack of a small animal model for this infection impedes the development of a preventive vaccine and pathogenesis studies. In seeking to establish a small primate model for HCV, we first attempted to generate recombinants between HCV and GB virus B (GBV-B), a hepacivirus that infects small New World primates (tamarins and marmosets). This approach revealed that the genetic distance between these hepaciviruses likely prevented virus morphogenesis. We next showed that HCV pseudoparticles were able to infect tamarin or marmoset hepatocytes efficiently, demonstrating that there was no restriction in HCV entry into these simian cells. Furthermore, we found that a highly cell culture-adapted HCV strain was able to achieve a complete viral cycle in primary marmoset hepatocyte cultures, providing a promising basis for further HCV adaptation to small primate hosts

Tables S4-S5 from Inhibition of METTL3 Results in a Cell-Intrinsic Interferon Response That Enhances Antitumor Immunity

Primer + shRNA + Taqman probe sequences</p

Figure S1 from Inhibition of METTL3 Results in a Cell-Intrinsic Interferon Response That Enhances Antitumor Immunity

Proliferation + Apoptosis assays</p