We\u27re All We Have : Envisioning the Future of Mutual Aid from Queer and Trans Perspectives

Mutual aid has prevailed for as long as humans have existed. However, the concept of mutual aid became popularized in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the racial uprisings in response to the continued police brutality toward Black people, and an increase in global climate crises. Mutual aid spread as a way of survival and collective care when formal systems, such as federal and local governments within the U.S., were failing to meet people\u27s needs. Using a subset of data from semi-structured interviews, the current study relied on a desire-based research framework and foresight lens to capture the perspectives of queer and trans individuals (n=10) and how they envision mutual aid in the future. Findings show how queer and trans participants of mutual aid envision the structure of the future of mutual aid and the need for a system overhaul to world build. Implications for social work practice and education will be discussed

Operation Program for the Spatially Phase-Shifted Digital Speckle Pattern Interferometer - SPS-DSPI

SPS-DSPI software has been revised so that Goddard optical engineers can operate the instrument, instead of data programmers. The user interface has been improved to view the data collected by the SPS-DSPI, with a real-time mode and a play-back mode. The SPS-DSPI has been developed by NASA/GSFC to measure the temperature distortions of the primary-mirror backplane structure for the James Webb Space Telescope. It requires a team of computer specialists to run successfully, because, at the time of this reporting, it just finished the prototype stage. This software improvement will transition the instrument to become available for use by many programs that measure distortio

“We Are Doing the Absolute Most That We Can, and No One Is Listening”: Barriers and Facilitators to Health Literacy Within Transgender and Nonbinary Communities

Transgender and nonbinary (TNB) individuals face disparities in nearly every aspect of health. One factor associated with poor health outcomes in other marginalized populations is health literacy, yet no identified studies examine health literacy in TNB samples. Moreover, most health literacy frameworks focus primarily on the capacities of individual patients to understand and use healthcare information, with little attention given to provider literacy and environmental factors. In partnership with a statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization, we recruited 46 transgender and nonbinary individuals to participate in seven focus groups conducted in urban, suburban, and rural locations throughout Colorado. TNB participants consistently engaged in efforts to increase their own health literacy and that of their medical providers yet faced multiple barriers to improve care. Difficulty identifying and physically reaching care, insurance and out-of-pocket expenses, negative experiences with healthcare providers and staff, provider incompetence, discriminatory and oppressive practices, and exclusionary forms and processes emerged as barriers to enacted health literacy among participants. Conversely, facilitators of enacted healthcare literacy included positive experiences with healthcare providers and staff, and inclusive forms and processe

VUV frequency combs from below-threshold harmonics

Recent demonstrations of high-harmonic generation (HHG) at very high repetition frequencies (~100 MHz) may allow for the revolutionary transfer of frequency combs to the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV). This advance necessitates unifying optical frequency comb technology with strong-field atomic physics. While strong-field studies of HHG have often focused on above-threshold harmonic generation (photon energy above the ionization potential), for VUV frequency combs an understanding of below-threshold harmonic orders and their generation process is crucial. Here we present a new and quantitative study of the harmonics 7-13 generated below and near the ionization threshold in xenon gas. We show multiple generation pathways for these harmonics that are manifested as on-axis interference in the harmonic yield. This discovery provides a new understanding of the strong-field, below-threshold dynamics under the influence of an atomic potential and allows us to quantitatively assess the achievable coherence of a VUV frequency comb generated through below threshold harmonics. We find that under reasonable experimental conditions temporal coherence is maintained. As evidence we present the first explicit VUV frequency comb structure beyond the 3rd harmonic.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Renal Effects of Aliskiren Compared With and in Combination With Irbesartan in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes, Hypertension, and Albuminuria

Objective: We investigated if the antiproteinuric effect of the direct renin inhibitor aliskiren is comparable to irbesartan, and the effect of the combination. Research Design and Methods: Double-blind, randomized, cross-over trial. After a one-month washout period 26 patients with type 2 diabetes, hypertension and albuminuria (>100mg/day) were randomized to four 2-month treatment periods in random order with placebo, aliskiren 300 mg once daily, irbesartan 300 mg once daily or the combination using identical doses. Patients received furosemide in a stable dose throughout the study. Primary endpoint was change in albuminuria. Secondary measures included change in 24h blood pressure (24h BP) and glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Results: Placebo geometric mean albuminuria was 258 mg/day (range 84-2361), mean 24h BP was 140/73 (SD 15/8) mmHg, GFR was 89 (SD 27) ml/min/1.73 m(2). Aliskiren treatment reduced albuminuria by 48% (95% confidence interval 27-62) compared to placebo (p<0.001), not significantly different from irbesartan treatment (58% (42-70) (p<0.001 vs. placebo)). Combination treatment reduced albuminuria by 71% (59-79), more than either monotherapy (p<0.001 and p=0.028). Fractional clearances of albumin were significantly reduced (46, 56 and 67% reduction vs. placebo). 24h BP was reduced 3/4 mmHg by aliskiren (NS/p=0.009), 12/5 mmHg by irbesartan (p<0.001/p=0.002) and 10/6 mmHg by the combination (p=0.001/p<0.001). GFR was significantly reduced 4.6 (0.3, 8.8) ml/min/1.73m(2) by aliskiren, 8.0 (3.6, 12.3) ml/min/1.73m(2) by irbesartan and 11.7 (7.4, 15.9) ml/min/1.73m(2) by the combination. Conclusions: Combining aliskiren and irbesartan is more antiproteinuric in type 2 diabetic patients with albuminuria as compared to monotherapy

Pavement Markings and Delineation for Older Drives. Volume I: Final Report

DTFH61-90-R-00062The objectives of this project were: (1) to identify the needs of older drivers and to evaluate the situations in which older driver performance might be improved through enhanced pavement markings and delineation; (2) to identify the range of potentially useful enhanced treatments; (3) to determine the effectiveness of those treatments judged to be most useful for the older driver; and (4) to assess the costs and benefits of the treatment shown to be most effective. Following a literature review to identify older driver deficiencies, 25 delineation/pavement marking treatments (including several "control" treatments) were identified for testing. A laboratory simulator study was used as a means to determine the most effective among the group. The treatments shown to produce better recognition distance, along with several control treatments, were then subjected to field testing. The field tests were conducted on a closed test track facility, and recognition distance and visual occlusion time were used as dependent measures. Of the 66 subjects who participated in the field study, half were over 65 years of age and half were 45 years of age or less. All subjects were involved in both types of measures. Following the field test performance assessment, the treatments were subjected to a cost benefit analysis and recommendations were made regarding the treatments that could benefit older drivers

Post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis is a strong risk factor for chronic kidney disease in later life

Although unusual in western countries and in Australia in general, post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis (PSGN) is still common in Australian Aboriginal children living in remote communities. Here, we evaluated whether episodes of acute PSGN increased the risk for chronic kidney disease in later life in 1519 residents of a remote Aboriginal community (85% of those age eligible), with high rates of renal and cardiovascular disease, who participated in a health screen over a 3-year period. Of these, 200 had had at least one episode of PSGN, with 27 having had multiple episodes, usually in childhood. High levels of albuminuria (albumin/creatinine ratio) with increasing age were confirmed. All PSGN episodes were associated with group A streptococcal skin infections, often related to scabies. In both genders, aged 10-39 years at screening, about one in five had such a history. Among them, PSGN (5 years or more earlier) was significantly associated with higher levels of albuminuria than those without. In women, aged 30-39 years, a history of PSGN was associated with a significantly higher frequency of estimated glomerular filtration rates < 60 ml/min. The adjusted odds ratios for an albumin/creatinine ratio over 34 g/mol (overt albuminuria) in males and females with a history of PSGN were 4.6 and 3.1, respectively, compared with those without a history. Thus, PSGN contributes to the very serious burden of chronic kidney disease in this community. Rigorous strategies to prevent scabies and Group A streptococcal infections will reduce this burden

Increased pain intensity is associated with greater verbal communication difficulty and increased production of speech and co-speech gestures

Effective pain communication is essential if adequate treatment and support are to be provided. Pain communication is often multimodal, with sufferers utilising speech, nonverbal behaviours (such as facial expressions), and co-speech gestures (bodily movements, primarily of the hands and arms that accompany speech and can convey semantic information) to communicate their experience. Research suggests that the production of nonverbal pain behaviours is positively associated with pain intensity, but it is not known whether this is also the case for speech and co-speech gestures. The present study explored whether increased pain intensity is associated with greater speech and gesture production during face-to-face communication about acute, experimental pain. Participants (N = 26) were exposed to experimentally elicited pressure pain to the fingernail bed at high and low intensities and took part in video-recorded semi-structured interviews. Despite rating more intense pain as more difficult to communicate (t(25) = 2.21, p = .037), participants produced significantly longer verbal pain descriptions and more co-speech gestures in the high intensity pain condition (Words: t(25) = 3.57, p = .001; Gestures: t(25) = 3.66, p = .001). This suggests that spoken and gestural communication about pain is enhanced when pain is more intense. Thus, in addition to conveying detailed semantic information about pain, speech and co-speech gestures may provide a cue to pain intensity, with implications for the treatment and support received by pain sufferers. Future work should consider whether these findings are applicable within the context of clinical interactions about pain

Implementing Fault-tolerant Entangling Gates on the Five-qubit Code and the Color Code

We compare two different implementations of fault-tolerant entangling gates on logical qubits. In one instance, a twelve-qubit trapped-ion quantum computer is used to implement a non-transversal logical CNOT gate between two five qubit codes. The operation is evaluated with varying degrees of fault tolerance, which are provided by including quantum error correction circuit primitives known as flagging and pieceable fault tolerance. In the second instance, a twenty-qubit trapped-ion quantum computer is used to implement a transversal logical CNOT gate on two [[7,1,3]] color codes. The two codes were implemented on different but similar devices, and in both instances, all of the quantum error correction primitives, including the determination of corrections via decoding, are implemented during runtime using a classical compute environment that is tightly integrated with the quantum processor. For different combinations of the primitives, logical state fidelity measurements are made after applying the gate to different input states, providing bounds on the process fidelity. We find the highest fidelity operations with the color code, with the fault-tolerant SPAM operation achieving fidelities of 0.99939(15) and 0.99959(13) when preparing eigenstates of the logical X and Z operators, which is higher than the average physical qubit SPAM fidelities of 0.9968(2) and 0.9970(1) for the physical X and Z bases, respectively. When combined with a logical transversal CNOT gate, we find the color code to perform the sequence--state preparation, CNOT, measure out--with an average fidelity bounded by [0.9957,0.9963]. The logical fidelity bounds are higher than the analogous physical-level fidelity bounds, which we find to be [0.9850,0.9903], reflecting multiple physical noise sources such as SPAM errors for two qubits, several single-qubit gates, a two-qubit gate and some amount of memory error