Joachim Du Bellay\u27s Occasional Poetry: The Poetics of Female Patronage

This study seeks to demonstrate that female patrons at the Valois court--particularly Marguerite de France, and, to a lesser extent Diane de Poitiers--had a defining influence on both the career and the aesthetic choices of the sixteenth-century French poet Joachim Du Bellay. Although it has often been acknowledged that Du Bellay and Marguerite enjoyed a special relationship, the current study reveals the extent to which Marguerite served as an organizing principal for Du Bellay\u27s entire writing life. As an admired patron, she provided moral support and networking opportunities that encouraged and rewarded Du Bellay\u27s poetic production; her erudition and literary tastes shaped Du Bellay\u27s choice of forms. His more limited writing for Diane de Poitiers contrasts with the work he dedicated to Marguerite and reflects an equally careful attempt to match form to patron. Written in a period when definitions of form and genre were fluid and contradictory, Du Bellay\u27s rarely studied occasional poems to female patrons offer evidence that his poetic practice, examined in its social context, can provide useful insights into his conception of form

What Is Positive Disclosure and to Whom Do We Disclose? The Role of Topics, Gender and Type of Relationship in Positive Self-Disclosure

This study examined what topics (including experiences, feelings, and thoughts) people define as positive self-disclosure. The study also looked at reasons people generate for self-disclosing versus not disclosing something positive. Male and female students spontaneously described a past experience or feeling they perceive to be personal and positive. They then indicated whether or not they disclosed about these experiences or feelings to their father, mother, same-sex friend, and a past or present significant other/spouse. These descriptions were coded into one of eight categories: Religion, Family Development, Friendship, Sex, Romance, Self-Confidence, Achievement, and Helping Behavior, plus a Miscellaneous category. There were no gender differences in the self-descriptions provided by the participants and no gender differences in the frequency of disclosure of these positive self-descriptions. This study also examined differences in disclosure about various positive topics as a function of type of relationship. Disclosure generally was highest to a same-sex friend and dating partner, intermediate to a mother, and least common to a father

A Narrative Review of Scars After Surgery: What to Expect

Background and Objective: For most surgical procedures, postoperative scars are inevitable. Scars that heal with poor cosmetic appearance or physical symptoms such as pain, pruritis, or tethering can have a negative impact on a patient’s quality of life. This review aims to identify current techniques for prevention of unfavorable scar formation and treatment of unfavorable scars. Methods: A narrative review of the literature was conducted using our institution’s Primo search engine to search online databases including PubMed and EBSCO, among others. Included references were selected by the first author based on relevance to the subject matter and availability in English. Key Content and Findings: Wound healing occurs as a series of complex phases: hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and remodeling. Deviation from the normal progression through these phases can contribute to unfavorable scar formation. Intraoperatively, meticulous tissue handling as well as suture selection can help decrease the likelihood of unfavorable scar formation. Topical silicone and pressure dressings can be used to prevent unfavorable scars as well as to treat unfavorable scars in their early stages. Laser resurfacing, dermabrasion, and intralesional corticosteroid injections can improve unfavorable scars weeks to months after they occur. Finally, surgical excision and revision is an option for unfavorable scars that do not improve with more conservative therapies. Conclusions: There are preventative measures to consider in the intraoperative and early postoperative period to help prevent the formation of unfavorable scars. Despite these efforts, unfavorable scars can still form in some patients. Understanding normal wound healing and scar formation, factors that contribute to unfavorable scar formation, and the options to revise and improve unfavorable scars can help improve patient outcomes

Recovery of cognitive function in a substance abuse population

Background: Substance abuse is known to cause injury to the brain that may not be fully repaired by sobriety. The most commonly identified impairments are in attention, working memory, and executive functioning. Although research has found that most people do experience some level of cognitive improvement after stopping substance use, it is unclear how quickly this happens and if there is a particular pattern in improvement. This pilot study tested the natural rate of cognitive recovery in early substance abuse treatment.Methods: Participants were 28 adults newly admitted to a residential substance abuse treatment facility. All were post-detox. The majority were in treatment for polysubstance abuse, with 15 having primary opioid abuse. NIH Toolbox cognition battery was administered at intake and 4 weeks later.Results: Regarding cognition, primary weaknesses at baseline were in processing speed (Pattern Comparison mean t- score=41.96), attention and executive function (Flanker mean t- score=43.0) and working memory (List Sorting mean t- score=44.04). Cognitive recovery during the normal course of early inpatient treatment was significant in the areas of processing speed, attention and executive functioning and yielded significant improvement in the Cognitive Function Composite Score (p < .01).Conclusions: Consistent with previous research, this pilot study found that patients commonly enter inpatient treatment with inefficiencies in fluid cognition skills. Over the course of 1-month of inpatient treatment, this sample of patients experienced significant improvement across multiple domains, with significant improvements in composite Fluid and Total Cognition scores. Further study on the pattern of cognitive changes during substance abuse treatment may be used to help better match intervention strategy to cognitive level and possibly develop cognitive rehabilitation protocols to increase treatment engagement and extend abstinence via improvement in cognitive capacity

Cognitive recovery in early substance abuse treatment

Background: Substance abuse is known to cause injury to the brain that may not be fully repaired by sobriety. The most commonly identified impairments are in attention, working memory, and executive functioning. Although research has found that most people do experience some level of cognitive improvement after stopping substance use, it is unclear how quickly this happens and if there is a particular pattern in improvement. This pilot study tested the natural rate of cognitive recovery in early substance abuse treatment.Methods: Participants were 28 adults newly admitted to a residential substance abuse treatment facility. All were post- detox. The majority were in treatment for polysubstance abuse, with 15 having primary opioid abuse. NIH Toolbox cognition battery was administered at intake and 4 weeks later.Results: Regarding cognition, primary weaknesses at baseline were in processing speed (Pattern Comparison mean t- score=41.96), attention and executive function (Flanker mean t- score=43.0) and working memory (List Sorting mean t- score=44.04). Cognitive recovery during the normal course of early inpatient treatment was significant in the areas of processing speed, attention and executive functioning and yielded significant improvement in the Cognitive Function Composite Score (p<.01).Conclusions: Consistent with previous research, this pilot study found that patients commonly enter inpatient treatment with inefficiencies in fluid cognition skills. Over the course of 1-month of inpatient treatment, this sample of patients experienced significant improvement across multiple domains, with significant improvements in composite Fluid and Total Cognition scores. Further study on the pattern of cognitive changes during substance abuse treatment may be used to help better match intervention strategy to cognitive level and possibly develop cognitive rehabilitation protocols to increase treatment engagement and extend abstinence via improvement in cognitive capacity

Educating Future Nursing Scientists: Recommendations for Integrating Omics Content in PhD Programs

Preparing the next generation of nursing scientists to conduct high-impact, competitive, sustainable, innovative, and interdisciplinary programs of research requires that the curricula for PhD programs keep pace with emerging areas of knowledge and health care/biomedical science. A field of inquiry that holds great potential to influence our understanding of the underlying biology and mechanisms of health and disease is omics. For the purpose of this article, omics refers to genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, epigenomics, exposomics, microbiomics, and metabolomics. Traditionally, most PhD programs in schools of nursing do not incorporate this content into their core curricula. As part of the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science\u27s Idea Festival for Nursing Science Education, a work group charged with addressing omics preparation for the next generation of nursing scientists was convened. The purpose of this article is to describe key findings and recommendations from the work group that unanimously and enthusiastically support the incorporation of omics content into the curricula of PhD programs in nursing. The work group also calls to action faculty in schools of nursing to develop strategies to enable students needing immersion in omics science and methods to execute their research goals

Multi-omics of the gut microbial ecosystem in inflammatory bowel diseases.

Inflammatory bowel diseases, which include Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, affect several million individuals worldwide. Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are complex diseases that are heterogeneous at the clinical, immunological, molecular, genetic, and microbial levels. Individual contributing factors have been the focus of extensive research. As part of the Integrative Human Microbiome Project (HMP2 or iHMP), we followed 132 subjects for one year each to generate integrated longitudinal molecular profiles of host and microbial activity during disease (up to 24 time points each; in total 2,965 stool, biopsy, and blood specimens). Here we present the results, which provide a comprehensive view of functional dysbiosis in the gut microbiome during inflammatory bowel disease activity. We demonstrate a characteristic increase in facultative anaerobes at the expense of obligate anaerobes, as well as molecular disruptions in microbial transcription (for example, among clostridia), metabolite pools (acylcarnitines, bile acids, and short-chain fatty acids), and levels of antibodies in host serum. Periods of disease activity were also marked by increases in temporal variability, with characteristic taxonomic, functional, and biochemical shifts. Finally, integrative analysis identified microbial, biochemical, and host factors central to this dysregulation. The study's infrastructure resources, results, and data, which are available through the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Multi'omics Database ( http://ibdmdb.org ), provide the most comprehensive description to date of host and microbial activities in inflammatory bowel diseases

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy