An AAPI Haven: A Virtual Sanctuary and Brand Empowerment Initiative

The project focuses on creating a brand identity for the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community of San Luis Obispo (SLO). The branding begins with research and analysis of the target audience and the organization\u27s mission statement and values. This information is used to develop a brand strategy that aligns with the organization\u27s goals and resonates with the AAPI community. The brand identity, including the logo, colors, and visual elements, is then created to reflect the organization\u27s brand strategy and appeal to the target audience (Tarver, 2023). The brand guidelines ensure consistency in all marketing and communication materials. Overall, creating a strong and cohesive brand for the AAPI SLO organization is crucial for building trust and engagement with the community and achieving the organization\u27s goals of unity and visibility. The second component of the proposed project aims to create a safe space for Asian American individuals to anonymously report hate incidents they have experienced. The primarily virtual platform will provide a safe space for AAPI folks in the community to submit details of the incident, including the type of incident, location, and any other relevant information. Focusing on designing with the environment in mind, the AAPI brand and space will be welcoming and safe, reflecting the purpose that the organization and platform are created to serve. The submissions will be stored safely with the AAPI SLO organization and resources for support will be provided. Additionally, the platform will feature resources for Asian American individuals, including information on legal rights and mental health support. This project aims to address the rising incidence of hate crimes against Asian Americans and empower individuals to speak out against discrimination in a county where they may not feel empowered to

Streams of fun and cringe: Talking about Snapchat as mediated affective practice

How do young people interpret and negotiate their sense of being affected in the context of social media use? Our study draws on recent theorizing that views affective practices as discursive, relational and imbued with power. We specifically address practices that users engage in as they pursue forms of digitally mediated emotional involvement when using Snapchat, an image-based social media application. Our data consist of focus group dialogues with Norwegian students aged 16–19, recruited from schools selected for socio-economic and multicultural diversity. Excerpts exemplify how Snapchat use is not only engagingly talked about, but also affects non-digital everyday interactions. The analysis illustrates how young people’s talk about Snapchat deploys various discursive objects that convey promises of happiness and well-being, and affords particular forms of subjectivity. Image-sharing practices, and how they are communicated and felt, are embedded in and reproduce social norms, yet also provide spaces of belonging.acceptedVersio

Metastatic Cardiac Angiosarcoma to the Lung, Spine, and Brain: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Background Metastatic angiosarcoma to the brain is a rare entity without an established management protocol. Case Description A man with primary cardiac angiosarcoma presented with a rare brain metastasis. The patient underwent successful resection of the brain metastasis and was initiated on chemotherapy only for his systemic disease. The patient did not develop local recurrence. A review of primary and metastatic central nervous system angiosarcoma, its pathologic features, clinical disease course, treatment strategies, and genomics is also provided. Conclusions Angiosarcomas are rare tumors that are difficult to treat. Gross total resection of a central nervous system metastasis is recommended before initiation of adjuvant chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Close follow-up is still required given the propensity for continued metastasis of these tumors. Future treatments may be developed based on the genomics of angiosarcomas

By protecting against cutaneous inflammation, epidermal pigmentation provided an additional advantage for ancestral humans.

Pigmentation evolved in ancestral humans to protect against toxic, ultraviolet B irradiation, but the question remains: "what is being protected?" Because humans with dark pigmentation display a suite of superior epidermal functions in comparison with their more lightly pigmented counterparts, we hypothesized and provided evidence that dark pigmentation evolved in Africa to support cutaneous function. Because our prior clinical studies also showed that a restoration of a competent barrier dampens cutaneous inflammation, we hypothesized that resistance to inflammation could have provided pigmented hominins with yet another, important evolutionary benefit. We addressed this issue here in two closely related strains of hairless mice, endowed with either moderate (Skh2/J) or absent (Skh1) pigmentation. In these models, we showed that (a) pigmented mice display a markedly reduced propensity to develop inflammation after challenges with either a topical irritant or allergen in comparison with their nonpigmented counterparts; (b) visible and histologic evidence of inflammation was paralleled by reduced levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (i.e., IL-1α and INFα); (c) because depigmentation of Skh2/J mouse skin enhanced both visible inflammation and pro-inflammatory cytokine levels after comparable pro-inflammatory challenges, the reduced propensity to develop inflammation was directly linked to the presence of pigmentation; and (d) furthermore, in accordance with our prior work showing that pigment production endows benefits by reducing the surface pH of skin, acidification of albino (Skh1) mouse skin also protected against inflammation, and equalized cytokine levels to those found in pigmented skin. In summary, pigmentation yields a reduced propensity to develop inflammation, consistent with our hypothesis that dark pigmentation evolved in ancestral humans to provide a suite of barrier-linked benefits that now include resistance to inflammation

Novel Mutation in a Patient with Cholesterol Ester Storage Disease

Cholesterol ester storage disease (CESD) is a chronic liver disease that typically presents with hepatomegaly. It is characterized by hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, high-density lipoprotein deficiency, and abnormal lipid deposition within multiple organs. It is an autosomal recessive disease that is due to a deficiency in lysosomal acid lipase (LAL) activity, which is coded by the lysosomal acid lipase gene (LIPA). We describe the case of a 5-year-old south Asian female incidentally found to have hepatomegaly, and subsequent workup confirmed the diagnosis of CESD. DNA sequencing confirmed the presence of a novel hepatic mutation. It is a four-nucleotide deletion c.57_60delTGAG in exon 2 of the LIPA gene. This mutation is predicted to result in a premature translation stop downstream of the deletion (p.E20fs) and, therefore, is felt to be a disease-causing mutation

How and When Service Beneficiaries' Gratitude Enriches Employees' Daily Lives

Conventional research on gratitude has focused on the benefits of expressing or experiencing gratitude for the individual. However, recent theory and research have highlighted that there may too be benefits associated with receiving others’ gratitude. Grounded in the Work–Home Resources model, we develop a conceptual model to understand whether, how, and for whom service providers (i.e., healthcare professionals) benefit from receiving service beneficiaries’ (i.e., patients) gratitude in their daily work. We hypothesize that perceived gratitude from service beneficiaries enhances service providers’ relational energy at work, which spills over to benefit their family lives later in the day. In addition, we hypothesize that the effect of gratitude on relational energy and its subsequent spillover effect to the family are contingent on employees’ occupational identity. Two experience sampling studies with data collected from healthcare professionals and their spouses for two consecutive weeks (each) provided support for our hypothesized model. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our work

A Tale of Two Metrics: Simultaneous Bounds on Competitiveness and Regret

We consider algorithms for “smoothed online convex optimization” (SOCO) problems, which are a hybrid between online convex optimization (OCO) and metrical task system (MTS) problems. Historically, the performance metric for OCO was regret and that for MTS was competitive ratio (CR). There are algorithms with either sublinear regret or constant CR, but no known algorithm achieves both simultaneously. We show that this is a fundamental limitation – no algorithm (deterministic or randomized) can achieve sublinear regret and a constant CR, even when the objective functions are linear and the decision space is one dimensional. However, we present an algorithm that, for the important one dimensional case, provides sublinear regret and a CR that grows arbitrarily slowly

'Does anyone else have this?' The role of emotion in forum discussions about medical conditions affecting sex characteristics

When people experience rare medical conditions or variations, searching online may be the only way to find others with similar experiences. This study examines what happens when people do just that. The dataset for the research has been generated from online posts by people living with variations of sex characteristics, which some call intersex variations. Our analysis focuses on how emotion appears in online posts, how affect becomes embodied in digital contexts, and how norms are negotiated as people relate to one another about the variations that some of them experience. We offer an analysis grounded in digital affect theory to contribute to health research literature. We suggest how health researchers and healthcare providers might develop more nuanced understandings of the emotional realities of people living with variations of sex characteristics

Adjuvant Chemotherapy Use and Health Care Costs After Introduction of Genomic Testing in Breast Cancer

Genomic testing in patients with early-stage breast cancer is associated with decreased use of chemotherapy and lower costs in younger patients, and slightly increased use of chemotherapy and higher costs in older patients. Genomic testing in actual practice may “rule out” chemotherapy in younger women, and “rule in” chemotherapy in older women