Embodied Queerness: Exploring Cultural Dimensions of Asian Queer Body Narratives, A Literature Review

The author explores the Asian queer narrative by investing in related articles and literature on body art in this capstone thesis. In the thesis, body art is identified as a way of self-expression that serves as a creative outlet for play, artistic expression, and advocacy. The concept of body modifications, such as tattoos or piercings, can be viewed as acts of resistance to challenging societal norms. In a larger scope, it can also include changing body shape, such as fitness and cosmetic surgery (Pitts, 2000). People engage in body modification practices to express themselves to the world, show creativity, and cooperate with their ideas of society (Lu & Hu, 2021; Pitts, 2000; Weiler et al., 2021). However, the interpretation of body modifications within the queer community is far from straightforward, given the diverse motivations and contexts shaping individual choices (Klesse, 2007). This complexity is particularly pronounced when examining queer cultures in Asian countries, where research simplifies the idea of “a culture of Western versus Eastern” and fails to capture the intricate dynamics at play (Lu & Hu, 2021; Henley & Porath, 2021). According to Liu (2021), these Western versus Eastern binary opposition approaches overlook crucial factors, such as class, origin, race, and power dynamics inherent in Asian societies. Thus, a more comprehensive understanding of queer body expression in Asia necessitates a holistic consideration of these multifaceted influences

Constitutive upregulation of transcription factors underlies permissive bradyzoite differentiation in a natural isolate of Toxoplasma gondii

UNLABELLED: IMPORTANCE

Mendelian segregation and high recombination rates facilitate genetic analyses in Cryptosporidium parvum

Very little is known about the process of meiosis in the apicomplexan parasite Cryptosporidium despite the essentiality of sex in its life cycle. Most cell lines only support asexual growth of Cryptosporidium parvum (C. parvum), but stem cell derived intestinal epithelial cells grown under air-liquid interface (ALI) conditions support the sexual cycle. To examine chromosomal dynamics during meiosis in C. parvum, we generated two transgenic lines of parasites that were fluorescently tagged with mCherry or GFP on chromosomes 1 or 5, respectively. Infection of ALI cultures or Ifngr1-/- mice with mCherry and GFP parasites resulted in cross-fertilization and the formation of yellow oocysts, which contain 4 haploid sporozoites that are the product of meiosis. Recombinant oocysts from the F1 generation were purified and used to infect HCT-8 cultures, and phenotypes of the progeny were observed by microscopy. All possible phenotypes predicted by independent segregation were represented equally (~25%) in the population, indicating that C. parvum chromosomes exhibit a Mendelian inheritance pattern. The most common pattern observed from the outgrowth of single oocysts included all possible parental and recombinant phenotypes derived from a single meiotic event, suggesting a high rate of crossover. To estimate the frequency of crossover, additional loci on chromosomes 1 and 5 were tagged and used to monitor intrachromosomal crosses in Ifngr1-/- mice. Both chromosomes showed a high frequency of crossover compared to other apicomplexans with map distances (i.e., 1% recombination) of 3-12 kb. Overall, a high recombination rate may explain many unique characteristics observed in Cryptosporidium spp. such as high rates of speciation, wide variation in host range, and rapid evolution of host-specific virulence factors

Prevalence and associated factors of depressive and anxiety symptoms among healthcare workers in the post-pandemic era of COVID-19 at a tertiary hospital in Shenzhen, China: A cross-sectional study

BackgroundHealthcare workers were at high risk of psychological problems during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it remains not well-investigated in the post-pandemic era of COVID-19, with regular epidemic prevention and control embedded in burdened healthcare work. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and potential risk factors of the symptoms of depression and anxiety among healthcare workers at a tertiary hospital in Shenzhen.MethodOur cross-sectional study was conducted among 21- to 64-year-old healthcare workers in December 2021 at a tertiary hospital in Shenzhen, using a simple random sampling strategy. A wide range of socio-demographic characteristics, individual information, and psychological condition of the subjects were extracted. Healthcare workers' psychological conditions were tested with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CESD-10), General Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7), Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), Work-Family Conflict Scale (WFCS), 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10), and 17-item of Maslach's Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS-17). Data were collected based on these questionnaires. Descriptive statistics were used to assess the difference between healthcare workers with depressive and anxiety symptoms among different groups. Hierarchical logistic regression analyses were conducted to investigate the association between focused variables and mental health outcomes.ResultsA total of 245 healthcare workers were enrolled. The proportion of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and their co-occurrence were 34.7, 59.6, and 33.1%, respectively. Logistic regression showed that for the three outcomes, no history of receiving psychological help and self-rated good or higher health were protective factors, whereas more severe insomnia and job burnout were risk factors. Junior or lower job title and higher psychological resilience were related to a lower prevalence of depressive symptoms, while relatively longer working hours and larger work-family conflict were positively associated with the anxiety symptoms. Psychological resilience was inversely associated with the co-occurrence of depressive and anxiety symptoms.ConclusionsOur study revealed a high proportion of psychological problems and proved that several similar factors which were significant during the pandemic were also associated with the symptoms of depression and anxiety among healthcare workers in the post-pandemic era of COVID-19. These results provide scientific evidence for psychological interventions for healthcare workers

Secondary Production of Gaseous Nitrated Phenols in Polluted Urban Environments

Nitrated phenols (NPs) are important atmospheric pollutants that affect air quality, radiation, and health. The recent development of the time-of-flight chemical ionization mass spectrometer (ToF-CIMS) allows quantitative online measurements of NPs for a better understanding of their sources and environmental impacts. Herein, we deployed nitrate ions as reagent ions in the ToF-CIMS and quantified six classes of gaseous NPs in Beijing. The concentrations of NPs are in the range of 1 to 520 ng m(-3). Nitrophenol (NPh) has the greatest mean concentration. Dinitrophenol (DNP) shows the greatest haze-to-clean concentration ratio, which may be associated with aqueous production. The high concentrations and distinct diurnal profiles of NPs indicate a strong secondary formation to overweigh losses, driven by high emissions of precursors, strong oxidative capacity, and high NOx levels. The budget analysis on the basis of our measurements and box-model calculations suggest a minor role of the photolysis of NPs (Peer reviewe

The Views of Mental Health Manager Towards the Use of a Family Work Model for Psychosis in Guangzhou, China

Family Interventions in Psychosis (FIP) have been promoted internationally but have been criticised for being based on western cultural models. This paper reports on a focus group study with 10 Integrated Mental Health Service Managers in Guangzhou, China using thematic analysis. Managers believed FIP might benefit families but identified potential difficulties due to (a) families avoiding services due to the ‘shame’ of mental illness (b) unrealistic expectations of services amongst families (c) deferral to ‘key decision-makers’ within families when discussing family issues with workers. The findings indicate that FIP work should focus on interaction between carers in the first instance with service users being introduced into sessions at a later date and that more attention needs to be given by the research community to how FIP may be adapted to cultural norms within China

Diagnostic Evaluation For Abnormal Uterine Bleeding At Emergence Departments In The United States

Objectives: To examine the pattern of diagnostic evaluation for abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB) in a national sample of women seeking care at emergency departments (ED) and to identify potential influencing factors with a focus on race and ethnicity. Methods: We identified 1,049 (unweighted, or 7,900,653 weighted) women without previous cancer diagnosis who visited ED for non-pregnancy related AUB from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey during 2014-2021. The primary outcomes were whether an ultrasound was provided/ordered and whether a referral/return for follow-up consultation was recommended. Multivariable logistic regressions were conducted to assess the association of race and ethnicity with diagnostic evaluations, while accounting for other characteristics of the visit. Results: Compared to non-Hispanic White women, non-Hispanic Black women were less likely to receive or have an ultrasound ordered (42.5% vs. 34.9%, P = 0.004; adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 0.58, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.36-0.92) nor to have a referral/return recommended (84.4% vs. 82.5%, P = 0.58; adjusted OR = 0.54, 95% CI 0.31-0.94). Hispanic women did not differ significantly from non-Hispanic White women in these measures. Other factors associated with these measures included age, obesity status, involvement of a consulting physician during the ED visit, and metropolitan/non-metropolitan area location. Conclusions: When women presented with AUB at ED, provision or ordering of ultrasound and referral/return for follow-ups varied by their race and ethnicity as well as other characteristics. These variations should be addressed in future efforts to improve care quality and equity

Recommendation of what-to-buy

Recommender systems has always been a hot research topic due to its prevalent usage in the ever-blooming e-commerce business. The exponential growth of available choices in e-commerce websites has brought about the information overload problem. With the help of recommender systems, high quality and personalized recommendations are provided to the users which help them easily locate items that match their preferences among numerous online products. This project intends to study the effectiveness of various recommender techniques in a real-world business setting and visualize the recommendation accuracy obtained from user feedback. To serve this purpose, an e-commerce website is developed through the course of the project using Django Oscar framework. Four recommendation algorithms, namely MostPop, UserKNN, PMF, and ReMF, are incorporated into the website. User ratings fetched from database are fed into the algorithms and recommendation results based on calculated prediction scores are displayed below the product catalogue for user reference. Feedback buttons are also implemented to register user feedback on the accuracy of recommendations. These user feedbacks are retained in the database and are used as inputs to calculate the recommendation accuracies for each algorithm. The results are visualized in a multi-bar chart to be displayed at the bottom of the catalogue page. The multi-bar chart always reflects the most up-to-date accuracy values to aid the users’ understanding of performance differences for different algorithms.Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Science