Workload, Work–Family Conflict, and Job Satisfaction for Women in Science

Job dissatisfaction among women working in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields costs the United States up to $1.5 billion per year. Understanding work-life balance is important for pharmaceutical leaders to assist in enhancing job satisfaction for women in science. Grounded in the work-life balance theory, the purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine workload and work-family conflict in predicting job satisfaction for women in science. Survey data were collected from 76 women employed in the pharmaceutical industry who completed a combined Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire and Warr-Cook-Wall job satisfaction questionnaire. The multiple linear regression results were significant, F(2, 75) = 7.62, p = .001, R2= .173, with work-family conflict providing the only significant contribution (β = -.39, p = .03). A key recommendation is for leaders to develop strategies to regularly assess the diversity of their human resources, the advantage of diversification to their innovation goals, and employees’ overall job satisfaction. The implications for positive social change may include adding insight to the under-researched pharmaceutical industry dynamics in the United States, the working dynamics of women in STEM occupations and providing a glimpse at job satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic

La inseguridad alimentaria y el cambio climático en el Paraguay

Los cambios en los patrones climáticos como consecuencia del cambio climático podrían poner en riesgo la seguridad alimentaria, afectando así principalmente a familias vulnerables y pobres. En este capítulo se examina el impacto que podría tener el cambio climático en la seguridad alimentaria de hogares agrícolas en Paraguay.CONACYT – Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y TecnologíaPROCIENCI

Cardiovascular Damage in Alzheimer Disease: Autopsy Findings From the Bryan ADRC

Autopsy information on cardiovascular damage was investigated for pathologically confirmed Alzheimer disease (AD) patients (n = 84) and non-AD control patients (n = 60). The 51 relevant items were entered into a grade-of-membership model to describe vascular damage in AD. Five latent groups were identified “I: early-onset AD,” “II: controls, cancer,” “III: controls, extensive atherosclerosis,” “IV: late-onset AD, male,” and “V: late-onset AD, female.” Expectedly, Groups IV and V had elevated APOE ϵ4 frequency. Unexpectedly, there was limited atherosclerosis and frequent myocardial valve and ventricular damage. The findings do not indicate a strong relationship between atherosclerosis and AD, although both are associated with the APOE ϵ4. Instead, autopsy findings of extensive atherosclerosis were associated with possible, not probable or definite AD, and premature death. They are consistent with the hypothesis that brain hypoperfusion contributes to dementia, possibly to AD pathogenesis, and raise the possibility that the APOE allele ϵ4 contributes directly to heart valve and myocardial damage

Seismic Bearing Selection for Economic Prestressed Concrete Bridge Pier Construction

060502.303951.01In this review of seismic bearings, a compendium of public domain resources provides off-the-shelf, state-of-the-art bearing types, manufacturers, researchers, and load-deformation response data. Performance of two select seismic bearings, one generally available and one proprietary, is then assessed using finite element modeling and simulation. The influence of seismic bearing effective stiffness is evaluated in terms of reduction of peak in-plane bending moments computed in critical elements of select multi-column pier and trestle substructures used in highway bridges in north Mississippi for a simulated scenario earthquake event

Cervical Screening and General Physical Examination Behaviors of Women Exposed In Utero to Diethylstilbestrol

Objective. To estimate whether women exposed in utero to diethylstilbestrol (DES) report receiving more cervical and general physical examinations compared to unexposed women. Materials and Methods. 1994 Diethylstilbestrol Adenosis cohort data are used to assess the degree of recommended compliance of cervical screenings found in 3,140 DES-exposed and 826 unexposed women. Participants were enrolled at 4 sites: Houston, Boston, Rochester, and Los Angeles. Logistic regression modeling was used to analyze mailed questionnaire data, which included reported frequency over the preceding 5 years (1990-1994) of Papanicolaou smears and general physical examinations. Results. Diethylstilbestrol-exposed women exceeded the recommended frequency of Papanicolaou smear screenings [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 2.15, 95% CI (confidence interval) = 1.60-2.88] compared to the unexposed. This association held among those without a history of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (aOR = 1.88, 95% CI = 1.35-2.62). Diethylstilbestrol-exposed women exceeded annual recommendations for physical examinations (aOR = 2.27, 95% CI = 1.16-4.43) among women without a history of chronic disease when compared to unexposed women. Conclusions. Most DES-exposed women are receiving cervical cancer screening at least at recommended intervals, but one third of the women are not receiving annual Papanicolaou smear examinations

In Vivo and In Vitro Pharmacological Studies of Methoxycarbonyl-Carboetomidate

Background—We previously developed two etomidate analogs that retain etomidate’s favorable hemodynamic properties, but whose adrenocortical effects are reduced in duration or magnitude. Methoxycarbonyl-etomidate (MOC-etomidate) is rapidly metabolized and ultra-short acting whereas (R)-ethyl 1-(1-phenylethyl)-1H-pyrrole-2-carboxylate (carboetomidate) does not potently inhibit 11?-hydroxylase. We hypothesized that MOC-etomidate’s labile ester could be incorporated into carboetomidate to produce a new agent that possesses favorable properties individually found in each agent. We describe the synthesis and pharmacology of methoxycarbonyl-(R)-ethyl 1-(1-phenylethyl)-1H-pyrrole-2-carboxylate (MOC-carboetomidate), a “soft” analog of carboetomidate. Methods—MOC-carboetomidate’s octanol:water partition coefficient was determined chromatographically and compared with those of etomidate, carboetomidate, and MOC-etomidate. MOC-carboetomidate’s EC50 and ED50 for loss of righting reflexes (LORR) were measured in tadpoles and rats, respectively. Its effect on gamma-aminobutyric acid A (GABAA) receptor function was assessed using two-microelectrode voltage clamp electrophysiological techniques and its metabolic stability was determined in pooled rat blood using high performance liquid chromatography. Its duration of action and effects on arterial blood pressure and adrenocortical function were assessed in rats. Results—MOC-carboetomidate’s octanol:water partition coefficient was 3300 ± 280, whereas those for etomidate, carboetomidate, and MOC-etomidate were 800 ± 180, 15000 ± 3700, and 190 ± 25, respectively. MOC-carboetomidate’s EC50 for LORR in tadpoles was 9 ± 1 µM and its EC50 for LORR in rats was 13 ± 5 mg/kg. At 13 µM, MOC-carboetomidate enhanced GABAA receptor currents by 400 ± 100%. Its metabolic half-life in pooled rat blood was 1.3 minutes. The slope of a plot of the duration of LORR in rats versus the logarithm of the hypnotic dose was significantly shallower for MOC-carboetomidate than for carboetomidate (4 ± 1 vs. 15 ± 3, respectively; p = 0. 0004123). At hypnotic doses, the effects of MOC-carboetomidate on arterial blood pressure and adrenocortical function were not significantly different from those of vehicle alone. Conclusions—MOC-carboetomidate is a GABAA receptor modulator with potent hypnotic activity that is more rapidly metabolized and cleared from the brain than carboetomidate, maintains hemodynamic stability similar to carboetomidate, and does not suppress adrenocortical function

Acquiring and processing verb argument structure : distributional learning in a miniature language

Adult knowledge of a language involves correctly balancing lexically-based and more language-general patterns. For example, verb argument structures may sometimes readily generalize to new verbs, yet with particular verbs may resist generalization. From the perspective of acquisition, this creates significant learnability problems, with some researchers claiming a crucial role for verb semantics in the determination of when generalization may and may not occur. Similarly, there has been debate regarding how verb-specific and more generalized constraints interact in sentence processing and on the role of semantics in this process. The current work explores these issues using artificial language learning. In three experiments using languages without semantic cues to verb distribution, we demonstrate that learners can acquire both verb-specific and verb-general patterns, based on distributional information in the linguistic input regarding each of the verbs as well as across the language as a whole. As with natural languages, these factors are shown to affect production, judgments and real-time processing. We demonstrate that learners apply a rational procedure in determining their usage of these different input statistics and conclude by suggesting that a Bayesian perspective on statistical learning may be an appropriate framework for capturing our findings

The One with the Feminist Critique: Revisiting Millennial Postfeminism with Friends

In the aftermath of its initial broadcast run, iconic millennial sitcom Friends (NBC, 1994–2004) generated some quality scholarship interrogating its politics of gender. But as a site of analysis, it remains a curious, almost structuring absence from the central canon of the first wave of feminist criticism of postfeminist culture. This absence is curious not only considering the place of Friends at the forefront of millennial popular culture but also in light of its long-term syndication in countries across the world since that time. And it is structuring in the sense that Friends was the stage on which many of the familiar tropes of postfeminism interrogated across the body of work on it appear in retrospect to have been tried and tested. This article aims to contribute toward redressing this absence through interrogation and contextualization of the series’ negotiation of a range of structuring tropes of postfeminist media discourse, and it argues for Friends as an unacknowledged ur-text of millennial postfeminism

nucleAIzer : A Parameter-free Deep Learning Framework for Nucleus Segmentation Using Image Style Transfer

Single-cell segmentation is typically a crucial task of image-based cellular analysis. We present nucleAIzer, a deep-learning approach aiming toward a truly general method for localizing 2D cell nuclei across a diverse range of assays and light microscopy modalities. We outperform the 739 methods submitted to the 2018 Data Science Bowl on images representing a variety of realistic conditions, some of which were not represented in the training data. The key to our approach is that during training nucleAIzer automatically adapts its nucleus-style model to unseen and unlabeled data using image style transfer to automatically generate augmented training samples. This allows the model to recognize nuclei in new and different experiments efficiently without requiring expert annotations, making deep learning for nucleus segmentation fairly simple and labor free for most biological light microscopy experiments. It can also be used online, integrated into CellProfiler and freely downloaded at www.nucleaizer.org. A record of this paper's transparent peer review process is included in the Supplemental Information.Peer reviewe

The immediate and long-term effects of exercise and patient education on physical, functional, and quality-of-life outcome measures after single-level lumbar microdiscectomy: a randomized controlled trial protocol

BACKGROUND: Low back pain remains a costly quality-of-life-related health problem. Microdiscectomy is often the surgical procedure of choice for a symptomatic, single-level, lumbar disc herniation in younger and middle-aged adults. The question of whether a post-microdiscectomy exercise program enhances function, quality of life, and disability status has not been systematically explored. Thus, the overall purpose of this study is to assess immediate and long-term outcomes of an exercise program, developed at University of Southern California (USC), targeting the trunk and lower extremities (USC Spine Exercise Program) for persons who have undergone a single-level microdiscectomy for the first time. METHODS/DESIGN: One hundred individuals between the ages of 18 and 60 who consent to undergo lumbar microdiscectomy will be recruited to participate in this study. Subjects will be randomly assigned to one of two groups: 1) one session of back care education, or 2) a back care education session followed by the 12-week USC Spine Exercise Program. The outcome examiners (evaluators), as well as the data managers, will be blinded to group allocation. Education will consist of a one-hour "one-on-one" session with the intervention therapist, guided by an educational booklet specifically designed for post-microdiscectomy care. This session will occur four to six weeks after surgery. The USC Spine Exercise Program consists of two parts: back extensor strength and endurance, and mat and upright therapeutic exercises. This exercise program is goal-oriented, performance-based, and periodized. It will begin two to three days after the education session, and will occur three times a week for 12 weeks. Primary outcome measures include the Oswestry Disability Questionnaire, Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire, SF-36(® )quality of life assessment, Subjective Quality of Life Scale, 50-foot Walk, Repeated Sit-to-Stand, and a modified Sorensen test. The outcome measures in the study will be assessed before and after the 12-week post-surgical intervention program. Long-term follow up assessments will occur every six months beginning one year after surgery and ending five years after surgery. Immediate and long-term effects will be assessed using repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). If significant interactions are found, one-way ANOVAs will be performed followed by post-hoc testing to determine statistically significant pairwise comparisons. DISCUSSION: We have presented the rationale and design for a randomized controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of a treatment regimen for people who have undergone a single-level lumbar microdiscectomy