The effects of caregiving robots on mortality salience with the elderly

As the world’s population of elderly persons rises (He, Goodkind, & Kowal, 2016), there is an increasing demand for people to care for the elderly. Caregiving robots are a potential solution to this problem. Research (i.e. MacDorman, 2005) suggests that uncanny, humanlike robots may elicit death anxiety, but it remains unclear whether non-humanlike caregiving robots also elicit death anxiety. This study expands on MacDorman’s study and investigates the effects of caregiving robots on death thought accessibility (DTA) and death anxiety in the institutionalized elderly. This research focuses on how caregiving robots affect the close relationship buffer against death anxiety, as well as looking at self-esteem and locus of control as potential covariates of DTA and death anxiety. A video of a non-humanlike caregiving robot as a mortality salience induction and a video of a human caregiver as a control video are used as stimuli. The results showed no significant differences in death anxiety and DTA between the human and robot caregivers. There were no interactions involving self-esteem and locus of control. Implications are discussed

Deep Infiltrating Endometriosis and Adenomyosis: Implications on Pregnancy and Outcome

Endometriosis (EM), especially deep infiltrating endometriosis (DIE) and adenomyosis (AM), are known to cause pain and sterility in young women. More recently, they have also been described as risk factors for obstetric complications. While the pathophysiology is not yet completely understood, they seem to share a common origin: archimetrosis. Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted to summarize the existing evidence on DIE and AM as risk factors for obstetric complications. Results: Preterm birth, caesarean section delivery (CS) and placental abnormalities are associated with the diagnosis of DIE and AM. Women with AM seem to experience more often hypertensive pregnancy disorders, premature rupture of membranes and their children are born with lower birth weights than in the control groups. However, many of the studies tried to evaluate AM, EM and DIE as separate risk factors. Moreover, often they did not adjust for important confounders such as multiple pregnancies, parity, mode of conception and maternal age. Therefore, prospective studies with larger numbers of cases and appropriate adjustment for confounders are needed to explore the pathophysiology and to prove causality

Air Carrier Training Recommendations to Address Limitations of Pilot Procedures during Unexpected Events in NextGen Operations. Task 3: Pilot Needs Analysis

692M151940001This report is one of three from a Research Grant / Cooperative Agreement number 692M151940001 entitled, \u201cAir Carrier Training Recommendations to Address Limitations of Pilot Procedures during Unexpected Events in NextGen Operations\u201d. The related reports are also available in this repository.We present the results of a Subject Matter Expert knowledge elicitation study conducted with US Air Carrier pilots, instructor pilots, and evaluators through a semi-structured interview process. The goal of the study was to support or refute the body of research on pilot performance in responding to unexpected events presented in Task 2 from this research program. The objective of this phase was to obtain experts\u2019 input on the current level of pilot performance in line operations as well as what might be done to improve pilots\u2019 reactions to unexpected events. The analysis of the information elicited from the experts shows support for the concepts, procedures, and challenges of training to respond to unexpected events. The participant narratives were detailed in their descriptions of constructs associated with resilience and were in line with previously identified procedures, methods, and in some cases shortcomings of the pilot training as currently deployed. This study also suggests that more research is needed to determine how these constructs could be promoted during training in a way that elicits resilient behaviors during any unexpected events

Human-in-the-Loop Method to Test the Effectiveness of Training Pilot Responses to Unexpected Events. Task 4: Training Development Plan

692M151940001This report is one of three from a Research Grant / Cooperative Agreement number 692M151940001 entitled, \u201cAir Carrier Training Recommendations to Address Limitations of Pilot Procedures during Unexpected Events in NextGen Operations\u201d. The related reports are also available in this repository.This report provides a primer as to how to conduct human-in-the-loop (HITL) research in which pilots\u2019 responses to unexpected events can be explored for potential mitigations through training. The results of this effort conclude the following findings and recommendations: Identification of key independent and dependent variables for assessing pilot responses during unexpected events; recommendations on types of training interventions and measurable skills and behaviors that pilots may exhibit during unexpected events; recommendations for HITL scenario selection criteria and candidate scenario examples; recommendations for conducting a HITL; and a recommended performance assessment method for measuring pilots\u2019 behaviors during unexpected events. Research results can ultimately lead to testing and validation to inform FAA personnel who develop evaluation criteria for pilot tasks, skills, knowledge, and proficiency and incorporate this information into human factors related documentation

Relevant Research Assessment Concerning Pilot Response to Unexpected Events. Task 2: Relevant Research Assessment

692M151940001This report is one of three from a Research Grant / Cooperative Agreement number 692M151940001 entitled, \u201cAir Carrier Training Recommendations to Address Limitations of Pilot Procedures during Unexpected Events in NextGen Operations\u201d. The related reports are also available in this repository.This report provides a review of the existent information pertinent to the response to novel, unexpected, surprising, and/or unanticipated events, primarily focused on the context of aviation. The primary effort here is to identify ways in which to mitigate the brittleness of accepted traditional forms of response and to foster both adaptive and resilient response capacities throughout the whole of the operational systems. We have examined existing information and have assembled a series of definitions of terms and concepts, primarily revolving around resilient response. We look to knit these terms together and evaluate how the synthetic understanding can be used as a foundational basis for advance. This is a proactive perspective and one that looks to anticipate future threats to aerospace safety to counteract their more adverse influences. The work also provides the foundation for subsequent empirical evaluations of possible challenges by those experiencing unexpected events

The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment: Evidence from the First Year

In 2008, a group of uninsured low-income adults in Oregon was selected by lottery to be given the chance to apply for Medicaid. This lottery provides an opportunity to gauge the effects of expanding access to public health insurance on the health care use, financial strain, and health of low-income adults using a randomized controlled design. In the year after random assignment, the treatment group selected by the lottery was about 25 percentage points more likely to have insurance than the control group that was not selected. We find that in this first year, the treatment group had substantively and statistically significantly higher health care utilization (including primary and preventive care as well as hospitalizations), lower out-of-pocket medical expenditures and medical debt (including fewer bills sent to collection), and better self-reported physical and mental health than the control group.National Institutes of Health. Department of Health and Human ServicesCalifornia HealthCare FoundationJohn D. and Catherine T. MacArthur FoundationNational Institute on Aging (P30AG012810)National Institute on Aging (RC2AGO36631)National Institute on Aging (R01AG0345151)Robert Wood Johnson FoundationAlfred P. Sloan FoundationSmith Richardson FoundationUnited States. Social Security Administration (grant 5 RRC 08098400-03-00 to the National Bureau of Economic Research as part of the SSA Retirement Research Consortium)Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (U.S.

Bacterial Symbiosis Maintenance in the Asexually Reproducing and Regenerating Flatworm Paracatenula galateia

Bacteriocytes set the stage for some of the most intimate interactions between animal and bacterial cells. In all bacteriocyte possessing systems studied so far, de novo formation of bacteriocytes occurs only once in the host development, at the time of symbiosis establishment. Here, we present the free-living symbiotic flatworm Paracatenula galateia and its intracellular, sulfur-oxidizing bacteria as a system with previously undescribed strategies of bacteriocyte formation and bacterial symbiont transmission. Using thymidine analogue S-phase labeling and immunohistochemistry, we show that all somatic cells in adult worms – including bacteriocytes – originate exclusively from aposymbiotic stem cells (neoblasts). The continued bacteriocyte formation from aposymbiotic stem cells in adult animals represents a previously undescribed strategy of symbiosis maintenance and makes P. galateia a unique system to study bacteriocyte differentiation and development. We also provide morphological and immunohistochemical evidence that P. galateia reproduces by asexual fragmentation and regeneration (paratomy) and, thereby, vertically transmits numerous symbiont-containing bacteriocytes to its asexual progeny. Our data support the earlier reported hypothesis that the symbiont population is subjected to reduced bottleneck effects. This would justify both the codiversification between Paracatenula hosts and their Candidatus Riegeria symbionts, and the slow evolutionary rates observed for several symbiont genes

Cohesin-mediated interactions organize chromosomal domain architecture

To ensure proper gene regulation within constrained nuclear space, chromosomes facilitate access to transcribed regions, while compactly packaging all other information. Recent studies revealed that chromosomes are organized into megabase-scale domains that demarcate active and inactive genetic elements, suggesting that compartmentalization is important for genome function. Here, we show that very specific long-range interactions are anchored by cohesin/CTCF sites, but not cohesin-only or CTCF-only sites, to form a hierarchy of chromosomal loops. These loops demarcate topological domains and form intricate internal structures within them. Post-mitotic nuclei deficient for functional cohesin exhibit global architectural changes associated with loss of cohesin/CTCF contacts and relaxation of topological domains. Transcriptional analysis shows that this cohesin-dependent perturbation of domain organization leads to widespread gene deregulation of both cohesin-bound and non-bound genes. Our data thereby support a role for cohesin in the global organization of domain structure and suggest that domains function to stabilize the transcriptional programmes within them. Chromosomal compartmentalization has been recognized as important for genome function. High-resolution techniques such as Hi-C, ChIP- and 4C-seq offer novel insights into cohesin's dynamic role in shaping the nuclear architecture

Mira Gruber's Quick Files

The Quick Files feature was discontinued and it’s files were migrated into this Project on March 11, 2022. The file URL’s will still resolve properly, and the Quick Files logs are available in the Project’s Recent Activity