Bostonia

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

Senior Recital:Jennifer Kramer, Soprano

Kemp Recital Hall Saturday Afternoon April 16, 2005 5:30p.m

Nausea and vomiting in pregnancy : prevalence and relationship with psychosocial determinants of health

Nausea and vomiting are commonly experienced by women in pregnancy (NVP). Symptoms are usually limited to the first trimester, but can persist until birth. Both mild and more severe symptoms can have negative effects for the mother, her unborn child, and the family. Despite the frequency of NVP and associated distress, the exact cause is unknown and the condition remains poorly understood. This secondary analysis explores nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, as determined by the Nausea and Vomiting in Pregnancy Instrument (NVPI), in a cohort of Canadian pregnant women at two gestational time points. The data analyzed in this study were originally from a longitudinal and epidemiological study of depression in pregnancy and into the postpartum. A population health approach has been used to examine psychosocial determinants of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy. During the second trimester, the prevalence of nausea and vomiting in this sample of 551 women was 63.3%, with 24% of women reporting moderate nausea and vomiting and 18.9% reporting severe symptoms. These rates are similar to other studies of women during the first and second trimester of pregnancy. In the final model, nausea and vomiting in pregnancy was associated with gestation (weeks), antiemetic medication use, employment status, worry, and symptoms of major depression. During the third trimester, the prevalence of NVP in this sample of 575 women was 45.4%, with 8.2% reporting moderate nausea and vomiting and 14.3% reporting severe symptoms. These results exceed previous reports on prevalence beyond 20 weeks in pregnancy. In the final model, nausea and vomiting in pregnancy was associated with antiemetic medication use, worry, and symptoms of major depression. The presence of support and maternal smoking were found to have a protective effect. The co-morbidity of nausea and vomiting, worry, and symptoms of major depression in this sample of pregnant women represents a significant public and mental health problem. Care providers need to screen pregnant women for nausea and vomiting and also screen women for depression in the presence of more severe NVP symptoms. Supportive measures that address both conditions may be necessary in order to improve the quality of life of pregnant women, their families, and to protect the unborn child from the effects of both nausea and vomiting and depression in pregnancy

Tips for Conducting Difficult Classroom Discussions

Discussing difficult issues in the classroom is necessary preparation for engaged citizenship. A number of pedagogical practices used by the authors have produced open and constructive conversation. These practices, combined with modeling and encouragement by the professor and trust among classmates, give students opportunities to practice effective interpersonal conflict management, civility, and expand their understanding of the topic at hand

Materials for soft robotic applications

Soft robotics has been recently gaining interest and momentum, as soft, functional systems offer levels of flexibility, robustness, wearability, and safety that their rigid counterparts cannot match. To date, most soft robots are made from polymers that exhibit nonlinear behaviors and viscoelastic creep. However, the most common polymers -employed in soft robotic applications have not been critically evaluated in high-strain environments over many cycles. We have performed tension experiments on representative material samples, including stress/strain relations up to rupture and cyclic loading. We also demonstrate a unique relaxation effect in polymer systems, where material properties change significantly from the first stress cycle to the subsequent cycles. Our experimental results are useful for creating material models for soft robot designers. We demonstrate that the unique properties of soft materials cannot be captured with linear models and that failing to account for these complex effects can significantly affect the design performance

Scalable manufacturing processes with soft materials

The emerging field of soft robotics will benefit greatly from new scalable manufacturing techniques for responsive materials. Currently, most of soft robotic examples are fabricated one-at-a-time, using techniques borrowed from lithography and 3D printing to fabricate molds. This limits both the maximum and minimum size of robots that can be fabricated, and hinders batch production, which is critical to gain wider acceptance for soft robotic systems. We have identified electrical structures, including both resistance-based sensors and inter connects, as a critical starting point for developing more complex soft robotic structures. In this talk, we present our study on scalable manufacturing processes with soft materials, focusing on direct patterning of micro channels with laser ablation and layer-to-layer bonding of hyper elastic polymer substrates. The use of direct laser fabrication has three major advantages. First, it allows for rapid design iterations, because molds are not required. Second, it is scalable to larger substrates than mold-based approaches, because a laser-based system can pattern a continuous substrate. Third, a laser-based approach removes the challenges associated with incomplete material removal in through-layer structures that are encountered in mold-based approaches. Using this approach, we have fabricated strain gauges, layer-to-layer electrical interconnects, and comb capacitors, all by injecting liquid metal into closed microchannels embedded in polymer films

Genetic modifiers of cognitive maintenance among older adults.

ObjectiveIdentify genetic factors associated with cognitive maintenance in late life and assess their association with gray matter (GM) volume in brain networks affected in aging.MethodsWe conducted a genome-wide association study of ∼2.4 M markers to identify modifiers of cognitive trajectories in Caucasian participants (N = 7,328) from two population-based cohorts of non-demented elderly. Standardized measures of global cognitive function (z-scores) over 10 and 6 years were calculated among participants and mixed model regression was used to determine subject-specific cognitive slopes. "Cognitive maintenance" was defined as a change in slope of ≥ 0 and was compared with all cognitive decliners (slope < 0). In an independent cohort of cognitively normal older Caucasians adults (N = 122), top association findings were then used to create genetic scores to assess whether carrying more cognitive maintenance alleles was associated with greater GM volume in specific brain networks using voxel-based morphometry.ResultsThe most significant association was on chromosome 11 (rs7109806, P = 7.8 × 10(-8)) near RIC3. RIC3 modulates activity of α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, which have been implicated in synaptic plasticity and beta-amyloid binding. In the neuroimaging cohort, carrying more cognitive maintenance alleles was associated with greater volume in the right executive control network (RECN; PFWE  = 0.01).ConclusionsThese findings suggest that there may be genetic loci that promote healthy cognitive aging and that they may do so by conferring robustness to GM in the RECN. Future work is required to validate top candidate genes such as RIC3 for involvement in cognitive maintenance

Spreading a positive message about work, earnings and benefits through peer networking: Findings from the Peer Employment Benefits Network

Misunderstanding and fears about the impact of earnings on benefits represent a significant barrier in the return-to-work efforts of people with disabilities. This pilot project evaluated an approach to spreading a positive message about work and dispelling myths about the effects of work on Social Security benefits through outreach and networking in the disability community. A peer leadership project was developed by enlisting 33 people with disabilities, mainly through disability advocacy organizations, who had experience with disability benefits. They received several days of basic training about work incentives, networking strategies, and community resources that support employment. These peer leaders then developed and pursued outreach plans in their communities. Peer leaders reported making 1046 contacts through their personal networks. 130 of the people contacted participated in a survey rating the quality of the interaction and their activities involving employment. The majority of respondents reported they had received helpful information from the peer leaders and had less concern about the negative effects of work on benefits; approximately one-quarter took some steps toward going to work. The evidence from this project suggests that a peer to peer approach may be effective in promoting a positive message about and creating interest in employment

Optimization of Single-Hop SAMAC Network and Characterization of Antenna Effects for Multi-Hop Network

Wireless sensor networks are becoming more prevalent in today’s world and being used for such tasks as monitoring borders, intrusion detection and even to control different switches/controls in vehicles. With any wireless system, several issues exist, which can affect the performance of the network such as power level, receiver thresholds, environment the nodes are in and objects/obstructions near the network. The main problems with wireless sensor networks are dropped packets, noise, power consumption and lack of reliability. The goal of the project is to study networks in different environments and look at how the network performance changes. The first goal is to optimize the network for low power consumption, and minimal data transmit time. To achieve these optimal conditions, the timeslot duration, power level, and inter-arrival time are modified in several combinations. The tests are run on a single-hop, contention-based wireless network with one to eight nodes competing for transmission depending on the given test. The nodes are separated at a distance of five feet from the sink node. The antennas on the wireless sensor network nodes are stated as being almost omni-directional [5]. Since the power pattern of the antenna will affect quality of network communications if not perfect, the orientation of the nodes is examined to see how a change in orientation affects how the network is created in a multi-hop setting. The second goal is to analyze the effects of three different node orientations on how the network is formed. The SAMAC code is run for each orientation and the network topology is recorded. This topology will be examined to see if a difference exists in how the nodes communicate when oriented differently. Lastly, using the results from testing, guidelines for optimization of the networks will be created. Recommendations will be given on how to set up both the single-hop and multi-hop networks for ideal communications. Future research topics related to current research will also be suggested.ETRINo embarg

Visualizing Archival Collections

The proposed project will build on the research and prototype development work done in the creation of ArchivesZ. This project has two goals. The first is to design and evaluate interfaces for visualizing aggregated data harvested from EAD encoded archival finding aids. The second is to analyze and develop recommendations for handling issues related to the lack of subject term standardization in the description of archival collections. This will lay the foundation for future work to develop a tool for use in visualizing archival collections from institutions using EAD to encode their finding aids. A tool for visualizing this broad range of archival collections would support both experienced and amateur researchers in their efforts to locate new materials. Any set of archival collections could be evaluated an an aggregated manner. Visualization tools can support discovery of relationships among time periods and subjects that otherwise may never be detected