A qualitative study of perceived social barriers to care for eating disorders: Perspectives from ethnically diverse health care consumers

Objective: The study aim was to identify and describe health consumer perspectives on social barriers to care for eating disorders in an ethnically diverse sample. Method: We conducted an exploratory secondary analysis of qualitative data comprising transcripts from semi-structured interviews with past and prospective consumers of eating disorder treatment (n = 32). Transcripts were inputted into NVivo 8 for coding, sorting, and quantifying thematic content of interest within strata defined by ethnic minority and non-minority participants. We then examined the influence of key social barriers—including stigma and social stereotypes—on perceived impact on care. Results: The majority of respondents (78%) endorsed at least one social barrier to care for an eating or weight concern. Perceived stigma (or shame) and social stereotyping—identified both within social networks and among clinicians—had adversely impacted care for 59% and 19% of respondents, respectively. Discussion: Social barriers to care for eating and weight related concerns may be prevalent in the U.S. and impact both ethnic minority and non-minority health care consumers. © 2009 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Infection control and the significance of sputum and other respiratory secretions from adult patients with cystic fibrosis

BACKGROUND: There is limited data available on the environmental and public health impact of the microbiological hazards associated with sputa from patients with cystic fibrosis [CF]. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Burkholderia cenocepacia (formerly Burkholderia cepacia genomovar III), Staphylococcus aureus and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia are bacterial pathogens which are commonly found in the sputum of CF patients. A study was performed to ascertain the amount of sputum produced relating to microbial loading, as well as the diversity of bacteria present in a population of adult patients, with particular attention to pathogenic organisms. METHODS: Sputum from adult [>18 years old] CF patients [n = 20], chosen randomly from a population of 138 CF patients, was collected over a 24 h period on admission to the in-patient CF unit and enumerated quantitatively, as well as the sputa from 138 adult CF patients was examined qualitatively for the presence of infecting microflora. In addition, all different phenotypes from the sputum of each patient were identified phenotypically employing a combination of conventional identification methods [e.g. oxidase], as well as the API Identification schemes [API 20 NE, API 20 E]. RESULTS: This study demonstrated that patients with cystic fibrosis generate large numbers of bacteria in their sputum, approximating to 10(9 )organisms per patient per day. Although these organisms are introduced to the environment from the respiratory tract mainly via sputum, relatively few represent true bacterial pathogens and therefore are not clinically important to the general public who are immunocompotent. The greatest risk of such environmental microbial loading is to other patients with CF and therefore CF patients should be made aware of the hazards of acquiring such organisms from the environment, as well as socializing with other CF patients with certain transmissible types, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkholderia cenocepacia. CONCLUSIONS: Environmental health professionals should therefore be aware that CF patients are a greater risk to their peer grouping rather than to the general public or health care workers and that good personal hygiene practices with CF patients should be encouraged to minimize environmental contamination and potential acquistion

Vergence eye movements in patients with schizophrenia

AbstractPrevious studies have shown that smooth pursuit eye movements are impaired in patients with schizophrenia. However, under normal viewing conditions, targets move not only in the frontoparallel plane but also in depth, and tracking them requires both smooth pursuit and vergence eye movements. Although previous studies in humans and non-human primates suggest that these two eye movement subsystems are relatively independent of one another, to our knowledge, there have been no prior studies of vergence tracking behavior in patients with schizophrenia. Therefore, we have investigated these eye movements in patients with schizophrenia and in healthy controls. We found that patients with schizophrenia exhibited substantially lower gains compared to healthy controls during vergence tracking at all tested speeds (e.g. 0.25Hz vergence tracking mean gain of 0.59 vs. 0.86). Further, consistent with previous reports, patients with schizophrenia exhibited significantly lower gains than healthy controls during smooth pursuit at higher target speeds (e.g. 0.5Hz smooth pursuit mean gain of 0.64 vs. 0.73). In addition, there was a modest (r≈0.5), but significant, correlation between smooth pursuit and vergence tracking performance in patients with schizophrenia. Our observations clearly demonstrate substantial vergence tracking deficits in patients with schizophrenia. In these patients, deficits for smooth pursuit and vergence tracking are partially correlated suggesting overlap in the central control of smooth pursuit and vergence eye movements

Spatio-temporal changes in chimpanzee density and abundance in the Greater Mahale Ecosystem, Tanzania

Authors would like to acknowledge the Arcus Foundation, Jane Goodall Institute, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), The Nature Conservancy, and Frankfurt Zoological Society for supporting, facilitating, and funding this work.Species conservation and management require reliable information about animal distribution and population size. Better management actions within a species' range can be achieved by identifying the location and timing of population changes. In the Greater Mahale Ecosystem (GME), western Tanzania, deforestation due to the expansion of human settlements and agriculture, annual burning, and logging are known threats to wildlife. For one of the most charismatic species, the Endangered eastern chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii), about 75% of the individuals are distributed outside national park boundaries, requiring monitoring and protection efforts over a vast landscape of various protection statuses. These efforts are especially challenging when we lack data on trends in density and population size. To predict spatio-temporal chimpanzee density and abundance across the GME, we employed density surface modelling, fitting a generalised additive model to a ten-year time series data set of nest counts based on line transect surveys. Chimpanzee population declined at an annual rate of 2.41%, including declines of 1.72% in riparian forests (hereafter forests), 2.05% in miombo-woodlands (hereafter woodlands) and 3.45% in non-forests. These population declines were accompanied by ecosystem-wide declines in vegetation types of 1.36% and 0.32% per year for forests and woodlands, respectively; we estimated an annual increase of 1.35% for non-forests. Our model predicted the highest chimpanzee density in forests (0.86 chimpanzees/km2, 95% CI 0.60-1.23; as of 2020), followed by woodlands (0.19, 95% CI 0.12-0.30) and non-forests (0.18, 95% CI 0.10-1.33). Although forests represent only 6% of the landscape, they support nearly a quarter of the chimpanzee population (769 chimpanzees, 95% CI 536-1,103). Woodlands dominate the landscape (71%) and thus support more than a half of the chimpanzee population (2,294; 95% CI 1,420-3,707). The remaining quarter of the landscape is represented by non-forests and supports another quarter of the chimpanzee population (750; 95% CI 408-1,381). Given the pressures on the remaining suitable habitat in Tanzania and the need of chimpanzees to access both forest and woodland vegetation to survive, we urge future management actions to increase resources and expand the efforts to protect critical forest and woodland habitat and promote strategies and policies that more effectively prevent irreversible losses. We suggest that regular monitoring programmes implement a systematic random design to effectively inform and allocate conservation actions and facilitate inter-annual comparisons for trend-monitoring, measuring conservation success and guiding adaptive management.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Pressure Support in Galaxy Disks: Impact on Rotation Curves and Dark Matter Density Profiles

Rotation curves constrain a galaxy's underlying mass density profile, under the assumption that the observed rotation produces a centripetal force that exactly balances the inward force of gravity. However, most rotation curves are measured using emission lines from gas, which can experience additional forces due to pressure. In realistic galaxy disks, the gas pressure declines with radius, providing additional radial support to the disk. The measured tangential rotation speed will therefore tend to lag the true circular velocity of a test particle. The gas pressure is dominated by turbulence, and we evaluate its likely amplitude from recent estimates of the gas velocity dispersion and surface density. We show that where the amplitude of the rotation curve is comparable to the characteristic velocities of the interstellar turbulence, pressure support may lead to underestimates of the mass density of the underlying dark matter halo and the inner slope of its density profile. These effects may be significant for galaxies with rotation speeds <75km/s, but are unlikely to be significant in higher mass galaxies. We find that pressure support can be sustained over long timescales, because any reduction in support due to the conversion of gas into stars is compensated for by an inward flow of gas. However, we point to many uncertainties in assessing the importance of pressure support in galaxies. Thus, while pressure support may alleviate possible tensions between rotation curve observations and LambdaCDM on kiloparsec scales, it should not be viewed as a definitive solution at this time.Comment: Accepted to the Astrophysical Journal; 18 pages including 5 pages of figure

Barriers to SARS-CoV-2 Testing among U.S. Employers in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Analysis Conducted January through April 2021

During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. companies were seeking ways to support their employees to return to the workplace. Nonetheless, the development of strategies to support the access, use, and interpretation of SARS-CoV-2 testing was challenging. In the present study, we explore, from the perspective of owners and company leadership, the barriers to SARSCoV-2 testing among U.S. companies. Key informant interviews with company representatives were conducted during January--April 2021 about SARS-CoV-2 testing. A pre-interview survey assessed respondent socio-demographic and organizational characteristics. Interview sessions were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using MaxQDA. A total of twenty interviews were completed with at least two interviews conducted in each major U.S. industry sector. Ninety percent of participants represented companies in business \u3e10 years, comprising both small and large workforces. Using a grounded theory approach, six themes emerged: (1) access to and knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 tests; (2) strategies for symptomatic and asymptomatic testing of workers; (3) type/availability of personal protective equipment to mitigate coronavirus exposures; (4) return-to-work policies; (5) guidance and communication of SARS-CoV-2 Testing; and (6) use of contact tracing and SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. Various modifiable and non-modifiable challenges for SARS-CoV-2 testing among U.S. companies were identified and can inform work-related SARS-CoV-2 testing strategies

Astrometric Microlensing by Local Dark Matter Subhalos

High-resolution N-body simulations of dark matter halos indicate that the Milky Way contains numerous subhalos. When a dark matter subhalo passes in front of a star, the light from that star will be deflected by gravitational lensing, leading to a small change in the star's apparent position. This astrometric microlensing signal depends on the inner density profile of the subhalo and can be greater than a few microarcseconds for an intermediate-mass subhalo (Mvir > 10000 solar masses) passing within arcseconds of a star. Current and near-future instruments could detect this signal, and we evaluate SIM's, Gaia's, and ground-based telescopes' potential as subhalo detectors. We develop a general formalism to calculate a subhalo's astrometric lensing cross section over a wide range of masses and density profiles, and we calculate the lensing event rate by extrapolating the subhalo mass function predicted by simulations down to the subhalo masses potentially detectable with this technique. We find that, although the detectable event rates are predicted to be low on the basis of current simulations, lensing events may be observed if the central regions of dark matter subhalos are more dense than current models predict (>1 solar mass within 0.1 pc of the subhalo center). Furthermore, targeted astrometric observations can be used to confirm the presence of a nearby subhalo detected by gamma-ray emission. We show that, for sufficiently steep density profiles, ground-based adaptive optics astrometric techniques could be capable of detecting intermediate-mass subhalos at distances of hundreds of parsecs, while SIM could detect smaller and more distant subhalos.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, minor revisions made to match version to appear in Ap

The Lantern Vol. 54, No. 1, Fall 1987

• Darkside • Reflections on a Subway Ride • Demand for Love • Music Man • Something Wild • The Nice Guy\u27s Story • The Picnic • Internalize • Days When You Feel Like Wonder Bread • II • A Tear • In Pursuit of Beauty • A Walk Down Sycamore Lane • A Wish • Sins of Omission • Pessimism • And the Sky Cracked • The Clock Strikes • Invinciblehttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/lantern/1131/thumbnail.jp