Exploring the Effect of Menstrual Hygiene Management Spaces on Academic Achievement: Evidence From Young Lives' School Survey in Ethiopia

Background: Ethiopian schools require improved school environments in order to improve educational outcomes. Evidence suggests that a lack of sanitation spaces, specifically private areas to for girls to change and manage menstruation hygienically, comfortably, and with dignity, leads to school absenteeism, distraction, and disengagement. Objective: The objective of the study was to explore the effects of menstrual hygiene management (MHM) spaces (a private place to wash menstrual rag and/or a place where female student can wash themselves privately) on math and English achievement scores and the extent in which environmental factors at the individual- , home-, and school/community levels can help explain those differences. Data and Methods: 3844 adolescent girls, between the ages of 14 and 19 years, from the Young Lives 2016-2017 Ethiopian School Survey were included in the study. Math and English test scores were measured at Wave 1 to Wave 2. To account for the change in scores across time and the effect of MHM spaces on math and English scores, a mixed between-within subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used. A mixed between-within subject analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to assess the effects of MHM spaces on math and English scores while accounting for individual- , home-, and school/community factors. Results and Discussion: The study found evidence that the availability of MHM spaces had a significant, yet very small effect on performance of math and English achievement tests in unadjusted analysis. However, adjusting for individual-, home-, and school- level covariates removed the effect between MHM spaces and achievement scores that were found in unadjusted analysis. While the potential effects of MHM spaces on achievement tests in this study are small, other individual, family, and school characteristics measured in this study were found to be more important. Conclusion: This study examined MHM spaces and its impact on academic achievement. Though an important first step, providing MHM spaces does not, on its own, enable education for girls to fulfill its transformative potential. The potential for improving the Ethiopian girls’ education requires comprehensive consideration and interventions that operate on various environmental levels found in the ecological framework. Further research may expand on the findings of the study by improving the methodologies which include using direct menstruation data, consideration of the quality of MHM spaces, and the use of multilevel linear modeling analyses.GLODE33

Investigating Exogenous Stressors Impact on Transcription in Population With Down Syndrome

The cell's ability to regulate gene transcription in response to external stimuli is crucial for proper cell function.Throughout this thesis, I will delve into the intricacies of cellular responses to external stimuli, specifically focusing on Trisomy 21 (T21) cells. Down syndrome, the most prevalent human autosomal aneuploidy, is caused by triplicate copies of chromosome 21. The first half of this thesis explores the effects of a type I interferon (IFN-&beta;) on T21 and euploid disomic (D21) cells, focusing on both immediate-early transcriptional shifts and subsequent gene expression changes. Though Down syndrome has been linked to heightened interferon activity arising from the extra interferon receptors on chromosome 21, my research suggests that an individual's genetic makeup plays a more decisive role in the earliest responses to IFN-&beta;&nbsp;than the trisomy itself. Next, I explore the heat shock response in T21 cells, a response pathway not explicitly tied to chromosome 21. Given the enhanced inflammatory response typical of Down syndrome, we hypothesized an amplified heat shock response in T21 cells. Our data shows a marginally enhanced heat shock response in Down syndrome, pointing to a broadened stress response mechanism. Through these investigations, we provide a deeper understanding of the impact of T21 on gene regulation.&nbsp;</p

Does the Proportion of Same-Day and 24-Hour Appointments Impact Patient Satisfaction?

Background: The relationship between open access and patient satisfaction is mixed. Our study is the first to assess the relationship between open access appointment scheduling and patient satisfaction in the Military Health System (MHS). It is also unique in that we examine both same-day and 24-hour access through a relationship with satisfaction. Methods: We conducted a panel time-series analysis with general estimating equations on the Army population of outpatient facilities (N = 32), with 32 364 957 total observations. Our primary independent variables were the proportion of a facility’s appointments within 24 hours and same day from July 2013 to May 2015. Results: We identified that a higher proportion of same-day appointments is associated with increased patient satisfaction with the ability to see their provider when needed. We did not find the same result when examining access within 24 hours. Conclusions: Open access appointment scheduling appears to have a greater impact on patient satisfaction with timeliness of care if that appointment is made the same day the patient presents to the facility. Facilities should consider opening more of their schedule to accommodate same-day appointments. This can result in less costly primary care instead of emergency department usage

Epitope-Specific Anti-C1q Autoantibodies in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

OBJECTIVE: In patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) complement C1q is frequently targeted by autoantibodies (anti-C1q), that correlate best with active renal disease. Anti-C1q bind to largely unknown epitopes on the collagen-like region (CLR) of this highly functional molecule. Here we aimed at exploring the role of epitope-specific anti-C1q in SLE patients. METHODS: First, 22 sera of SLE patients, healthy controls and anti-C1q positive patients without SLE were screened for anti-C1q epitopes by a PEPperMAP(®) microarray, expressing CLR of C1q derived peptides with one amino acid (AA) shift in different lengths and conformations. Afterwards, samples of 378 SLE patients and 100 healthy blood donors were analyzed for antibodies against the identified epitopes by peptide-based ELISA. Relationships between peptide-specific autoantibodies and SLE disease manifestations were explored by logistic regression models. RESULTS: The epitope mapping showed increased IgG binding to three peptides of the C1q A- and three of the C1q B-chain. In subsequent peptide-based ELISAs, SLE sera showed significantly higher binding to two N-terminally located C1q A-chain peptides than controls (p < 0.0001), but not to the other peptides. While anti-C1q were associated with a broad spectrum of disease manifestations, some of the peptide-antibodies were associated with selected disease manifestations, and antibodies against the N-terminal C1q A-chain showed a stronger discrimination between SLE and controls than conventional anti-C1q. CONCLUSION: In this large explorative study anti-C1q correlate with SLE overall disease activity. In contrast, peptide-antibodies are associated with specific aspects of the disease suggesting epitope-specific effects of anti-C1q in patients with SLE

The Pipeline System of ASR and NLU with MLM-based Data Augmentation toward STOP Low-resource Challenge

This paper describes our system for the low-resource domain adaptation track (Track 3) in Spoken Language Understanding Grand Challenge, which is a part of ICASSP Signal Processing Grand Challenge 2023. In the track, we adopt a pipeline approach of ASR and NLU. For ASR, we fine-tune Whisper for each domain with upsampling. For NLU, we fine-tune BART on all the Track3 data and then on low-resource domain data. We apply masked LM (MLM) -based data augmentation, where some of input tokens and corresponding target labels are replaced using MLM. We also apply a retrieval-based approach, where model input is augmented with similar training samples. As a result, we achieved exact match (EM) accuracy 63.3/75.0 (average: 69.15) for reminder/weather domain, and won the 1st place at the challenge.Comment: To be appeared at ICASSP202

Tensor decomposition for minimization of E2E SLU model toward on-device processing

Spoken Language Understanding (SLU) is a critical speech recognition application and is often deployed on edge devices. Consequently, on-device processing plays a significant role in the practical implementation of SLU. This paper focuses on the end-to-end (E2E) SLU model due to its small latency property, unlike a cascade system, and aims to minimize the computational cost. We reduce the model size by applying tensor decomposition to the Conformer and E-Branchformer architectures used in our E2E SLU models. We propose to apply singular value decomposition to linear layers and the Tucker decomposition to convolution layers, respectively. We also compare COMP/PARFAC decomposition and Tensor-Train decomposition to the Tucker decomposition. Since the E2E model is represented by a single neural network, our tensor decomposition can flexibly control the number of parameters without changing feature dimensions. On the STOP dataset, we achieved 70.9% exact match accuracy under the tight constraint of only 15 million parameters.Comment: Accepted by INTERSPEECH 202

A National Survey Comparing Patients' and Transplant Professionals' Research Priorities in the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study

We aimed to identify, assess, compare and map research priorities of patients and professionals in the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study. The project followed 3 steps. 1) Focus group interviews identified patients' (n = 22) research priorities. 2) A nationwide survey assessed and compared the priorities in 292 patients and 175 professionals. 3) Priorities were mapped to the 4 levels of Bronfenbrenner's ecological framework. The 13 research priorities (financial pressure, medication taking, continuity of care, emotional well-being, return to work, trustful relationships, person-centredness, organization of care, exercise and physical fitness, graft functioning, pregnancy, peer contact and public knowledge of transplantation), addressed all framework levels: patient (n = 7), micro (n = 3), meso (n = 2), and macro (n = 1). Comparing each group's top 10 priorities revealed that continuity of care received highest importance rating from both (92.2% patients, 92.5% professionals), with 3 more agreements between the groups. Otherwise, perspectives were more diverse than congruent: Patients emphasized patient level priorities (emotional well-being, graft functioning, return to work), professionals those on the meso level (continuity of care, organization of care). Patients' research priorities highlighted a need to expand research to the micro, meso and macro level. Discrepancies should be recognized to avoid understudying topics that are more important to professionals than to patients

Improving food systems: A participatory consultation exercise to determine priority research and action areas in Viet Nam

With increased burden of malnutrition on global health, there is a need to set clear and transparent priorities for action in food systems at a global and local level. While priority settings methods are available for several adjacent domains, such as nutrition and health policies, setting priorities for food system research has not been documented and streamlined. The challenges involve food systems’multisector,multi-stakeholder and multi-outcome nature. Where data exists, it is not easy to aggregate data from across food system dimensions and stakeholders to make an informed analysis of the overall picture of the food system, as well as current and potential food system trade-offs to informresearch and policy. Once research priorities are set, they risk staying on paper and never make their ways to concrete outputs and outcomes. In this paper, we documented and assessed the inclusive process of setting research priorities for a local food system, taking Vietnamese food systems as a case study. From this exercise, we examined how priority setting for food systems research could learn from and improve upon earlier priority setting research practices in other domains. We discussed the lessons for research and policies in local food systems, such as th