Do Disease Stories Need a Hero? Effects of Human Protagonists on a Narrative Visualization about Cerebral Small Vessel Disease

Authors use various media formats to convey disease information to a broad audience, from articles and videos to interviews or documentaries. These media often include human characters, such as patients or treating physicians, who are involved with the disease. While artistic media, such as hand-crafted illustrations and animations are used for health communication in many cases, our goal is to focus on data-driven visualizations. Over the last decade, narrative visualization has experienced increasing prominence, employing storytelling techniques to present data in an understandable way. Similar to classic storytelling formats, narrative medical visualizations may also take a human character-centered design approach. However, the impact of this form of data communication on the user is largely unexplored. This study investigates the protagonist's influence on user experience in terms of engagement, identification, self-referencing, emotional response, perceived credibility, and time spent in the story. Our experimental setup utilizes a character-driven story structure for disease stories derived from Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. Using this structure, we generated three conditions for a cerebral small vessel disease story that vary by their protagonist: (1) a patient, (2) a physician, and (3) a base condition with no human protagonist. These story variants formed the basis for our hypotheses on the effect of a human protagonist in disease stories, which we evaluated in an online study with 30 participants. Our findings indicate that a human protagonist exerts various influences on the story perception and that these also vary depending on the type of protagonist.publishedVersio

Flexible access to conformationally-locked bicyclic morpholines

A preparatively accessible route to a series of conformationally-locked bicyclic morpholines has been developed. This flexible approach allows for diversification in order for a small array of lead-like scaffolds to be synthesised from readily available key building blocks

The lncRNA HOTAIR transcription is controlled by HNF4α-induced chromatin topology modulation

The expression of the long noncoding RNA HOTAIR (HOX Transcript Antisense Intergenic RNA) is largely deregulated in epithelial cancers and positively correlates with poor prognosis and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma and gastrointestinal cancers. Furthermore, functional studies revealed a pivotal role for HOTAIR in the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, as this RNA is causal for the repressive activity of the master factor SNAIL on epithelial genes. Despite the proven oncogenic role of HOTAIR, its transcriptional regulation is still poorly understood. Here hepatocyte nuclear factor 4-α (HNF4α), as inducer of epithelial differentiation, was demonstrated to directly repress HOTAIR transcription in the mesenchymal-to epithelial transition. Mechanistically, HNF4α was found to cause the release of a chromatin loop on HOTAIR regulatory elements thus exerting an enhancer-blocking activity

Role of Adsorption Phenomena in Cubic Tricalcium Aluminate Dissolution

The workability of fresh Portland cement (PC) concrete critically depends on the reaction of the cubic tricalcium aluminate (C₃A) phase in Ca- and S-rich pH >12 aqueous solution, yet its rate-controlling mechanism is poorly understood. In this article, the role of adsorption phenomena in C₃A dissolution in aqueous Ca-, S-, and polynaphthalene sulfonate (PNS)-containing solutions is analyzed. The zeta potential and pH results are consistent with the isoelectric point of C₃A occurring at pH ∼12 and do not show an inversion of its electric double layer potential as a function of S or Ca concentration, and PNS adsorbs onto C₃A, reducing its zeta potential to negative values at pH >12. The S and Ca <i>K</i>-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) data obtained do not indicate the structural incorporation or specific adsorption of SO₄^2– on the partially dissolved C₃A solids analyzed. Together with supporting X-ray ptychography and scanning electron microscopy results, a model for C₃A dissolution inhibition in hydrated PC systems is proposed whereby the formation of an Al-rich leached layer and the complexation of Ca–S ion pairs onto this leached layer provide the key inhibiting effect(s). This model reconciles the results obtained here with the existing literature, including the inhibiting action of macromolecules such as PNS and polyphosphonic acids upon C₃A dissolution. Therefore, this article advances the understanding of the rate-controlling mechanism in hydrated C₃A and thus PC systems, which is important to better controlling the workability of fresh PC concrete

Pseudoaneurysm overlying an osteochondroma: a noteworthy complication

Pseuodaneurysms are an extremely rare complication of osteochondromas. We describe a case of traumatic pseudoaneurysm of the brachial artery presenting as a soft tissue mass in a patient who was treated for an osteochondroma 3 years earlier. This case demonstrates that radiographic follow-up of large osteochondromas is mandatory and that, in patients with soft tissue masses and a history of osteochondroma, pseudoaneurysms should be included in the differential diagnosis

Organ donation in the United States

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72348/1/j.1600-6143.3.s4.4.x.pd

Potential of a suite of robot/computer-assisted motivating systems for personalized, home-based, stroke rehabilitation

BACKGROUND: There is a need to improve semi-autonomous stroke therapy in home environments often characterized by low supervision of clinical experts and low extrinsic motivation. Our distributed device approach to this problem consists of an integrated suite of low-cost robotic/computer-assistive technologies driven by a novel universal access software framework called UniTherapy. Our design strategy for personalizing the therapy, providing extrinsic motivation and outcome assessment is presented and evaluated. METHODS: Three studies were conducted to evaluate the potential of the suite. A conventional force-reflecting joystick, a modified joystick therapy platform (TheraJoy), and a steering wheel platform (TheraDrive) were tested separately with the UniTherapy software. Stroke subjects with hemiparesis and able-bodied subjects completed tracking activities with the devices in different positions. We quantify motor performance across subject groups and across device platforms and muscle activation across devices at two positions in the arm workspace. RESULTS: Trends in the assessment metrics were consistent across devices with able-bodied and high functioning strokes subjects being significantly more accurate and quicker in their motor performance than low functioning subjects. Muscle activation patterns were different for shoulder and elbow across different devices and locations. CONCLUSION: The Robot/CAMR suite has potential for stroke rehabilitation. By manipulating hardware and software variables, we can create personalized therapy environments that engage patients, address their therapy need, and track their progress. A larger longitudinal study is still needed to evaluate these systems in under-supervised environments such as the home

The Genome of Caenorhabditis bovis

The free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a key laboratory model for metazoan biology. C. elegans has also become a model for parasitic nematodes despite being only distantly related to most parasitic species. All of the ∼65 Caenorhabditis species currently in culture are free-living, with most having been isolated from decaying plant or fungal matter. Caenorhabditis bovis is a particularly unusual species that has been isolated several times from the inflamed ears of Zebu cattle in Eastern Africa, where it is associated with the disease bovine parasitic otitis. C. bovis is therefore of particular interest to researchers interested in the evolution of nematode parasitism. However, as C. bovis is not in laboratory culture, it remains little studied. Here, by sampling livestock markets and slaughterhouses in Western Kenya, we successfully reisolated C. bovis from the ear of adult female Zebu. We sequenced the genome of C. bovis using the Oxford Nanopore MinION platform in a nearby field laboratory and used the data to generate a chromosome-scale draft genome sequence. We exploited this draft genome sequence to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships of C. bovis to other Caenorhabditis species and reveal the changes in genome size and content that have occurred during its evolution. We also identified expansions in several gene families that have been implicated in parasitism in other nematode species. The high-quality draft genome and our analyses thereof represent a significant advancement in our understanding of this unusual Caenorhabditis species

Empirical Legal Studies Before 1940: A Bibliographic Essay

The modern empirical legal studies movement has well-known antecedents in the law and society and law and economics traditions of the latter half of the 20th century. Less well known is the body of empirical research on legal phenomena from the period prior to World War II. This paper is an extensive bibliographic essay that surveys the English language empirical legal research from approximately 1940 and earlier. The essay is arranged around the themes in the research: criminal justice, civil justice (general studies of civil litigation, auto accident litigation and compensation, divorce, small claims, jurisdiction and procedure, civil juries), debt and bankruptcy, banking, appellate courts, legal needs, legal profession (including legal education), and judicial staffing and selection. Accompanying the essay is an extensive bibliography of research articles, books, and reports

Return of Genomic Results to Research Participants: The Floor, the Ceiling, and the Choices In Between

As more research studies incorporate next-generation sequencing (including whole-genome or whole-exome sequencing), investigators and institutional review boards face difficult questions regarding which genomic results to return to research participants and how. An American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics 2013 policy paper suggesting that pathogenic mutations in 56 specified genes should be returned in the clinical setting has raised the question of whether comparable recommendations should be considered in research settings. The Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research (CSER) Consortium and the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network are multisite research programs that aim to develop practical strategies for addressing questions concerning the return of results in genomic research. CSER and eMERGE committees have identified areas of consensus regarding the return of genomic results to research participants. In most circumstances, if results meet an actionability threshold for return and the research participant has consented to return, genomic results, along with referral for appropriate clinical follow-up, should be offered to participants. However, participants have a right to decline the receipt of genomic results, even when doing so might be viewed as a threat to the participants’ health. Research investigators should be prepared to return research results and incidental findings discovered in the course of their research and meeting an actionability threshold, but they have no ethical obligation to actively search for such results. These positions are consistent with the recognition that clinical research is distinct from medical care in both its aims and its guiding moral principles