Aggression in Thinkers and Feelers

This research team would like to elaborate on the aggressive tendencies of people and how they correlate with the personality types Thinkers and Feelers. We are interested in whether aggression is more apparent in a Thinker or a Feeler. Our hypothesis is as follows: the personality type of Thinker is more aggressive than the personality type of Feeler

The Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine by Adults and Children in the South

A community of students, at different ranks, and two faculty members engaged in the development of a research project aimed at studying the consumption of complementary and/or alternative medicine (CAM) in the South. A well-established store in the community was identified for the study because of its focus on natural products and well-being. The students and faculty developed a CAM survey and the store owners provided feedback and gave approval to conduct the study on their patrons. The survey explored CAM use among adults and children in comparison to CAM uses in other regions of the country. Challenges and lessons learned from the engaged project are discussed, along with the findings that included family remedies and folklore recipes used in the South for varying ailments and symptoms

Ethics in Professional Practice: An Education Resource for Health Science Students

Ethical practice is a core health science graduate attribute yet ethical reasoning is rarely explicitly taught during professional placements. Our aim was to design an educational resource for health science students to 1) engage students in the topic of ethics and 2) facilitate their skills to identify, manage and communicate ethical issues during professional placements. The Ethics in Professional Practice (EPP) resource was developed using collaborative design-based research by an interprofessional, Work Integrated Learning team. We drew upon Barab and Squire’s (2004) approach, with cycles of design, analysis, redesign and feedback informing resource development. The EPP resource comprises five video case studies that reflect ethical issues from diverse professional practice environments and include perspectives from students, clinical educators, clients and caregivers. The student is cast as a central character who must decide what actions may be taken to resolve ethical conflict. Complementary ethics education resources include reflective questions, guides to ethical reasoning and goal-setting resources. The resource was implemented with a cohort of 15 graduate-entry exercise physiology students and 59 undergraduate speech pathology students from the University of Sydney. Student feedback was utilised to inform resource redesign. Findings indicated that students valued the authentic ethics scenarios but experienced challenges when navigating online learning activities. Redesign focussed on enhancing interactive design features and improving accessibility of learning activities. This project achieved our goals to address ethical sensitivity, reasoning, communication and goals for future ethical practice

Public involvement in research: Assessing impact through a realist evaluation

BackgroundThis study was concerned with developing the evidence base for public involvement in research in health and social care. There now is significant support for public involvement within the National Institute for Health Research, and researchers applying for National Institute for Health Research grants are expected to involve the public. Despite this policy commitment, evidence for the benefits of public involvement in research remains limited. This study addressed this need through a realist evaluation.Aim and objectivesThe aim was to identify the contextual factors and mechanisms that are regularly associated with effective public involvement in research. The objectives included identifying a sample of eight research projects and their desired outcomes of public involvement, tracking the impact of public involvement in these case studies, and comparing the associated contextual factors and mechanisms.DesignThe research design was based on the application of realist theory of evaluation, which argues that social programmes are driven by an underlying vision of change – a ‘programme theory’ of how the intervention is supposed to work. The role of the evaluator is to compare theory and practice. Impact can be understood by identifying regularities of context, mechanism and outcome. Thus the key question for the evaluator is ‘What works for whom in what circumstances . . . and why?’ (Pawson R. The Science of Evaluation. London: Sage; 2013). We therefore planned a realist evaluation based on qualitative case studies of public involvement in research.Setting and participantsEight diverse case studies of research projects in health and social care took place over the calendar year 2012 with 88 interviews from 42 participants across the eight studies: researchers, research managers, third-sector partners and research partners (members of the public involved in research).ResultsCase study data supported the importance of some aspects of our theory of public involvement in research and led us to amend other elements. Public involvement was associated with improvements in research design and delivery, particularly recruitment strategies and materials, and data collection tools. This study identified the previously unrecognised importance of principal investigator leadership as a key contextual factor leading to the impact of public involvement; alternatively, public involvement might still be effective without principal investigator leadership where there is a wider culture of involvement. In terms of the mechanisms of involvement, allocating staff time to facilitate involvement appeared more important than formal budgeting. Another important new finding was that many research proposals significantly undercosted public involvement. Nurturing good interpersonal relationships was crucial to effective involvement. Payment for research partner time and formal training appeared more significant for some types of public involvement than others. Feedback to research partners on the value of their contribution was important in maintaining motivation and confidence.ConclusionsA revised theory of public involvement in research was developed and tested, which identifies key regularities of context, mechanism and outcome in how public involvement in research works. Implications for future research include the need to further explore how leadership on public involvement might be facilitated, methodological work on assessing impact and the development of economic analysis of involvement.Funding detailsThe National Institute for Health Research Health Service and Delivery programme

Collaboration With Deaf Communities to Conduct Accessible Health Surveillance

Introduction Populations of deaf sign language users experience health disparities unmeasured by current public health surveillance. Population-specific health data are necessary to collaboratively identify health priorities and evaluate interventions. Standardized, reproducible, and language-concordant data collection in sign language is impossible via written or telephone surveys. Methods Deaf and hearing researchers, community members, and other stakeholders developed a broad computer-based health survey based on the telephone-administered Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. They translated survey items from English to sign language, evaluated the translations, and filmed the survey items for inclusion in their custom software. They initiated the second Rochester Deaf Health Survey in 2013 (n=211). Analyses (conducted in 2015) compared Rochester Deaf Health Survey 2013 findings with those of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System with the general adult population in the same community (2012, n=1,816). Results The Rochester Deaf Health Survey 2013 participants’ mean age was 44.7 (range, 18—87) years. Most were deaf since birth or early childhood (87.1%) and highly educated (53.6% with ≥4 years of college). The median household income was \u3c $35,000. The prevalence of current smokers was low (8.1%). Nearly all (93.8%) reported having health insurance, yet barriers to appropriate health care were evident, with high emergency department use (16.2% with two or more past-year visits) and 22.7% forgoing needed health care in the past year because of cost. Conclusions Community-engaged research with deaf populations identifies strengths and priorities, providing essential information otherwise missing from existing public health surveillance, and forming a foundation for collaborative dissemination to facilitate broader inclusion of deaf communities

Combinatorial CRISPR-Cas9 screens for de novo mapping of genetic interactions.

We developed a systematic approach to map human genetic networks by combinatorial CRISPR-Cas9 perturbations coupled to robust analysis of growth kinetics. We targeted all pairs of 73 cancer genes with dual guide RNAs in three cell lines, comprising 141,912 tests of interaction. Numerous therapeutically relevant interactions were identified, and these patterns replicated with combinatorial drugs at 75% precision. From these results, we anticipate that cellular context will be critical to synthetic-lethal therapies

High-resolution African HLA resource uncovers HLA-DRB1 expression effects underlying vaccine response

How human genetic variation contributes to vaccine effectiveness in infants is unclear, and data are limited on these relationships in populations with African ancestries. We undertook genetic analyses of vaccine antibody responses in infants from Uganda (n = 1391), Burkina Faso (n = 353) and South Africa (n = 755), identifying associations between human leukocyte antigen (HLA) and antibody response for five of eight tested antigens spanning pertussis, diphtheria and hepatitis B vaccines. In addition, through HLA typing 1,702 individuals from 11 populations of African ancestry derived predominantly from the 1000 Genomes Project, we constructed an imputation resource, fine-mapping class II HLA-DR and DQ associations explaining up to 10% of antibody response variance in our infant cohorts. We observed differences in the genetic architecture of pertussis antibody response between the cohorts with African ancestries and an independent cohort with European ancestry, but found no in silico evidence of differences in HLA peptide binding affinity or breadth. Using immune cell expression quantitative trait loci datasets derived from African-ancestry samples from the 1000 Genomes Project, we found evidence of differential HLA-DRB1 expression correlating with inferred protection from pertussis following vaccination. This work suggests that HLA-DRB1 expression may play a role in vaccine response and should be considered alongside peptide selection to improve vaccine design

CpG Islands Undermethylation in Human Genomic Regions under Selective Pressure

DNA methylation at CpG islands (CGIs) is one of the most intensively studied epigenetic mechanisms. It is fundamental for cellular differentiation and control of transcriptional potential. DNA methylation is involved also in several processes that are central to evolutionary biology, including phenotypic plasticity and evolvability. In this study, we explored the relationship between CpG islands methylation and signatures of selective pressure in Homo Sapiens, using a computational biology approach. By analyzing methylation data of 25 cell lines from the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) Consortium, we compared the DNA methylation of CpG islands in genomic regions under selective pressure with the methylation of CpG islands in the remaining part of the genome. To define genomic regions under selective pressure, we used three different methods, each oriented to provide distinct information about selective events. Independently of the method and of the cell type used, we found evidences of undermethylation of CGIs in human genomic regions under selective pressure. Additionally, by analyzing SNP frequency in CpG islands, we demonstrated that CpG islands in regions under selective pressure show lower genetic variation. Our findings suggest that the CpG islands in regions under selective pressure seem to be somehow more “protected” from methylation when compared with other regions of the genome