Not “just a bad period”— The impact of a co-created endometriosis social media health campaign: a mixed methods study

Objective: The goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of a visual social media health campaign. The #1in10 campaign was co-created by the Danish Endometriosis Patient Association and women with endometriosis. Methods: Seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with campaign participants to evaluate their experience of participating. The interviews were then analyzed thematically. Social media metrics on the reach of the campaign were gathered to assess how the campaign had performed. Results: Seven themes were identified in the interviews: (1) Taboo, (2) Visibility, (3) Awareness, (4) Acknowledgment, (5) Empowerment, (6) Patient Experts, and (7) Community. Throughout the interviews, the women conveyed that they found their participation in the campaign meaningful, as it contributed to creating awareness and recognition of a disease otherwise surrounded by taboo and stigma. Social media metrics show how the #1in10 campaign reached both people inside and outside the endometriosis community. Across the FEMaLe Project's three social media platforms, 208 (51.5%) of engagements were with patients with endometriosis, 96 (23.7%) were with FEMaLe employees and advisers, 94 (23.3%) were with the general public, and 6 (1.5%) were with policymakers. In the month the #1in10 campaign was released, the FEMaLe Project's Twitter and Instagram accounts had more impressions than almost any other month that year (except January on Twitter and November on Instagram). The FEMaLe Project's LinkedIn had the same number of impressions as in other months. Discussion: The study shows that the #1in10 social media campaign had an impact on three levels: on an individual level for the participating patients, on a communal level for people with endometriosis, and on a wider societal level. The participating patients felt empowered by their involvement with the campaign and the act of coming forward. The participants acted on behalf of their community of people with endometriosis, in the hopes that it would raise awareness and acknowledgment. In return, the community engaged with the campaign and added significantly to the dissemination of its message. On a societal level the campaign has caught particular attention and engagement compared to other posts made on the same social media accounts. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this study has demonstrated that the #1in10 campaign had an impact on three different levels: individual, communal, and societal. On an individual level the campaign fostered empowerment for the participating women, because they felt that their participation contributed to making their struggles visible, known, and acknowledged. The participants took part in the campaign on behalf of their community of people with endometriosis, in the hopes that their activistic actions would benefit future members of the community. That the campaign resonated with the community is evident by the fact that 51.5% (N = 208) of the engagement with the campaign was made by members of the community. As such, the community was vital for both the creation and the dissemination of the campaign. The #1in10 campaign performed comparatively well with regards to creating engagements on social media- not just within the community but also in the wider society. While this does not necessarily entail a change in attitude or behavior, it suggests that the co-created and visual nature of the campaign had an impact on the audience

Synthesis and tomographic characterization of the displaced Fock state of light

Displaced Fock states of the electromagnetic field have been synthesized by overlapping the pulsed optical single-photon Fock state |1> with coherent states on a high-reflection beamsplitter and completely characterized by means of quantum homodyne tomography. The reconstruction reveals highly non-classical properties of displaced Fock states, such as negativity of the Wigner function and photon number oscillations. This is the first time complete tomographic reconstruction has been performed on a highly non-classical optical state

Synovial incorporation of polyacrylamide hydrogel after injection into normal and osteoarthritic animal joints

Polyacrylamide hydrogel (PAAG) is a non-toxic, non-degradable synthetic product, used for years in the augmentation of soft tissues. Preliminary results in animals and humans have suggested long-lasting beneficial effects on symptoms of osteoarthritis (OA). The aim of this histopathological study was to investigate whether intra-articular injection of PAAG is integrated into synovial tissue in normal and OA animal joints, and if this integration is sustained.(A) A prospective, controlled, longitudinal study of normal knee joints injected with PAAG was performed in 10 rabbits, following the animals up to 1 year, and (B) a post mortem examination was carried out up to 2 years post-injection on 18 horse joints which had previously been treated with 1-2 injections of 2 ml PAAG for clinically and radiologically diagnosed OA.Integration of the injected gel was evident at day 10 in the rabbit and by day 14 in the horse, with proliferation and invasion of synovial cells into the gel. By day 90 in rabbit joints and day 30 in horse joints, the gel had formed a sub-synovial layer, which was traversed by thin strands of connective tissue with vessels and covered by a synovial lining facing the joint cavity. This histological appearance persisted up to 2 years post-injection in horse joints.Intra-articular injection of PAAG results in a stable, long-lasting sub-synovial layer of gel traversed with thin strands of connective tissue. Further studies to explore potential effects on synovial inflammation and pain are warranted

Using the past to constrain the future: how the palaeorecord can improve estimates of global warming

Climate sensitivity is defined as the change in global mean equilibrium temperature after a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration and provides a simple measure of global warming. An early estimate of climate sensitivity, 1.5-4.5{\deg}C, has changed little subsequently, including the latest assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The persistence of such large uncertainties in this simple measure casts doubt on our understanding of the mechanisms of climate change and our ability to predict the response of the climate system to future perturbations. This has motivated continued attempts to constrain the range with climate data, alone or in conjunction with models. The majority of studies use data from the instrumental period (post-1850) but recent work has made use of information about the large climate changes experienced in the geological past. In this review, we first outline approaches that estimate climate sensitivity using instrumental climate observations and then summarise attempts to use the record of climate change on geological timescales. We examine the limitations of these studies and suggest ways in which the power of the palaeoclimate record could be better used to reduce uncertainties in our predictions of climate sensitivity.Comment: The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Progress in Physical Geography, 31(5), 2007 by SAGE Publications Ltd, All rights reserved. \c{opyright} 2007 Edwards, Crucifix and Harriso

Multiple Andreev Reflection and Giant Excess Noise in Diffusive Superconductor/Normal-Metal/Superconductor Junctions

We have studied superconductor/normal metal/superconductor (SNS) junctions consisting of short Au or Cu wires between Nb or Al banks. The Nb based junctions display inherent electron heating effects induced by the high thermal resistance of the NS boundaries. The Al based junctions show in addition subharmonic gap structures in the differential conductance dI/dV and a pronounced peak in the excess noise at very low voltages V. We suggest that the noise peak is caused by fluctuations of the supercurrent at the onset of Josephson coupling between the superconducting banks. At intermediate temperatures where the supercurrent is suppressed a noise contribution ~1/V remains, which may be interpreted as shot noise originating from large multiple charges.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, extended versio

Scaling in Small-World Resistor Networks

We study the effective resistance of small-world resistor networks. Utilizing recent analytic results for the propagator of the Edwards-Wilkinson process on small-world networks, we obtain the asymptotic behavior of the disorder-averaged two-point resistance in the large system-size limit. We find that the small-world structure suppresses large network resistances: both the average resistance and its standard deviation approaches a finite value in the large system-size limit for any non-zero density of random links. We also consider a scenario where the link conductance decays as a power of the length of the random links, $l^{-\alpha}$. In this case we find that the average effective system resistance diverges for any non-zero value of $\alpha$.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure

Material screening and selection for XENON100

Results of the extensive radioactivity screening campaign to identify materials for the construction of XENON100 are reported. This Dark Matter search experiment is operated underground at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS), Italy. Several ultra sensitive High Purity Germanium detectors (HPGe) have been used for gamma ray spectrometry. Mass spectrometry has been applied for a few low mass plastic samples. Detailed tables with the radioactive contaminations of all screened samples are presented, together with the implications for XENON100.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur

Weather, disease, and wheat breeding effects on Kansas wheat varietal yields, 1985 to 2011.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) yields in Kansas have increased due to wheat breeding and improved agronomic practices, but are subject to climate and disease challenges. The objective of this research is to quantify the impact of weather, disease, and genetic improvement on wheat yields of varieties grown in 11 locations in Kansas from 1985 to 2011. Wheat variety yield data from Kansas performance tests were matched with comprehensive location-specific disease and weather data, including seasonal precipitation, monthly air temperature, air temperature and solar radiation around anthesis, and vapor pressure deficit (VPD). The results show that wheat breeding programs increased yield by 34 kg ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹. From 1985 through 2011, wheat breeding increased average wheat yields by 917 kg ha⁻¹, or 27% of total yield. Weather was found to have a large impact on wheat yields. Simulations demonstrated that a 1°C increase in projected mean temperature was associated with a decrease in wheat yields of 715 kg ha⁻¹, or 21%. Weather, diseases, and genetics all had significant impacts on wheat yields in 11 locations in Kansas during 1985 to 2011

Large-scale pathways-based association study in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a devastating neurodegenerative disease, most likely results from complex genetic and environmental interactions. Although a number of association studies have been performed in an effort to find genetic components of sporadic ALS, most of them resulted in inconsistent findings due to a small number of genes investigated in relatively small sample sizes, while the replication of results was rarely attempted. Defects in retrograde axonal transport, vesicle trafficking and xenobiotic metabolism have been implicated in neurodegeneration and motor neuron death both in human disease and animal models. To assess the role of common genetic variation in these pathways in susceptibility to sporadic ALS, we performed a pathway-based candidate gene case-control association study with replication. Furthermore, we determined reliability of whole genome amplified DNA in a large-scale association study. In the first stage of the study, 1277 putative functional and tagging SNPs in 134 genes spanning 8.7 Mb were genotyped in 822 British sporadic ALS patients and 872 controls using whole genome amplified DNA. To detect variants with modest effect size and discriminate among false positive findings 19 SNPs showing a trend of association in the initial screen were genotyped in a replication sample of 580 German sporadic ALS patients and 361 controls. We did not detect strong evidence of association with any of the genes investigated in the discovery sample (lowest uncorrected P-value 0.00037, lowest permutation corrected P-value 0.353). None of the suggestive associations was replicated in a second sample, further excluding variants with moderate effect size. We conclude that common variation in the investigated pathways is unlikely to have a major effect on susceptibility to sporadic ALS. The genotyping efficiency was only slightly decreased (∼1%) and genotyping quality was not affected using whole genome amplified DNA. It is reliable for large scale genotyping studies of diseases such as ALS, where DNA sample collections are limited because of low disease prevalence and short survival time. © 2007 The Author(s)