Potential Dysfunctions Occurring in the Postpartum Years

There are several dysfunctions that may affect a woman after childbirth. Women · often accept the physical changes that occur after delivering a baby and are unaware that treatment is available. The purpose of this literature review is to educate women in the postpartum period on the dysfunctions that may occur, and possible treatment options. An educational pamphlet describing these dysfunctions and treatments was designed to be given to these women before they leave the hospital. First, the anatomy and physiology of the female pelvic floor is reviewed. This is followed by a description of several physical dysfunctions occurring in the postpartum period and possible treatment options in physical therapy. Pelvic floor dysfunctions, incontinence, episiotomy and cesarean scars, and musculoskeletal dysfunctions are common problems women experience after having a baby, and are addressed in this literature review. The hope for this literature review is to educate women about the physical dysfunctions that may occur after giving birth and inform them of possible treatment options. Distribution of the pamphlet to women before they leave the hospital will help them to recognize problems in their early stages and seek timely treatment to avoid lifelong problems

Religiousness and Political Attitudes in Adolescence

Adolescent civic engagement has been shown to uniquely develop in certain contexts. However, few studies have examined the potential role of religiousness on youth\u27s budding political attitudes about social issues. Religious organizations provide a particular atmosphere for civic development as these institutions and their members often have unique political outlooks. Youth who are associated with religious organizations (i.e. institutional religion), feel connected to a higher power (i.e. spirituality), or have certain religious beliefs (i.e. religious conservatism) may hold specific political attitudes about social issues including capital punishment, euthanasia, abortion, and environmentalism. Further, Social Domain Theory posits that informational assumptions, or what people believe to be factually true about the world, influence their attitudes about these issues. These informational assumptions may mediate the association between adolescent religiousness and political attitudes. The current study sought to investigate the potential link between youth religiousness and political attitudes as explained by informational assumptions. Participants included 481 high school students from three East Coast states. Structural equation modeling was used to examine direct pathways between religiousness and political attitudes as well as indirect pathways between key variables via informational assumptions. Results indicated that institutional religion was associated with less positive views of capital punishment and religious conservativism was associated with less positive views of abortion and environmentalism. Associations between spirituality and political attitudes was mixed, yet informational assumptions were shown to link spirituality and political attitudes toward capital punishment and euthanasia. Finally, informational assumptions regarding belief in climate change and the impact of humans on the environment were shown to mediate the association between religious conservativism and less positive views of environmentalism. Findings highlight the important role of religiousness on adolescent views toward capital punishment, euthanasia, abortion, and environmentalism

Disaggregating Behavioral and Psychological Components of Religious and Spiritual Development across Adolescence: Variations by Geographic Location

Religious behavior and spirituality have been consistently found to be associated with a host of positive youth outcomes including increased grade point average (Ferris, Oosterhoff, & Metzger, 2013) and community service (Paxton, Reith, & Glanville, 2014) and decreased substance use (Milot & Ludden, 2009). However, few studies have investigated how religious behavior and spirituality uniquely and interactively predict these outcomes, as well as how these associations vary across city and rural contexts. The current study sought to investigate how religious behavior and spirituality predict youth outcomes in both rural and city youth populations. Participants included 743 youth from a mid-sized University city community (n = 367) and rural community (n = 376) in a mid-Atlantic state (Mage= 15.87, 90% Caucasian, 44% male). Participants completed measures of religious behavior, spirituality, grade point average, community service, substance use, and basic demographic information. Results indicated that religious behavior was positively associated with GPA, but only for youth who were high in spirituality. Religious behavior was also positively associated with community service. Finally, religious behavior was positively associated with substance use for youth who lived in a city and were also low in spirituality

Comparing Clustering Algorithms for Use with Genomic and Proteomic Data

The Human Genome Project and related projects have resulted in the development of a number of new experimental and analytic tools for use in genomic and proteomic research. In the area of toxicogenomics, researchers are concerned with how genes react to exposure to certain chemicals. The United States Air Force is interested in the effect of exposure to mission-essential chemicals. Although military personnel may come into contact with chemicals such as hydrazine, risk assessment is usually very limited. On the genomic level, risk assessment is a multi-stop and multi-disciplinary process. The process begins with an experiment that exposes cells to the chemical. Data from the experiment are obtained using gene chips. The data can then be analyzed. This research explores the methods of pre-processing and analyzing data. Several different data sets are used to compare the effectiveness of various clustering algorithms and their implementations. Genomic and proteomic data obtained from a hydrazine exposure experiment are then analyzed. A relationship is established between the genomic and proteomic data sets and is used in further analyses

How can video-reflexive ethnographers anticipate positive impact on healthcare practice?

Evidence suggests that studies aiming to improve healthcare practice should be flexible and prioritise patient, family and clinician engagement. Video-reflexive ethnography (VRE), a form of qualitative research often employed in healthcare settings, is well-suited to these aims. VRE supplements ethnographic techniques with video-recordings of in situ practices, allowing practitioners to reflect on taken-for-granted practices. Its prioritisation of collaboration, affective entanglement, theory-driven analysis and flexibility – aligned with participatory and post-qualitative inquiry (PQI) – can facilitate re-flexivity among researchers and participants for local practice improvement. Yet paradoxically, flexibility can hinder the predictability of impact, and demonstrating likely impact is crucial to securing research funding. This article offers practical advice to qualitative researchers facing this methodological challenge. Using three exemplars, we examine how differing onto-epistemological groundings, conceptualisations of participant engagement and researcher positionings affect the timing, predictability, scalability and transferability of each study’s impact. We show how prioritising affective engagement, flexible goals and collaboration can enable local healthcare practice improvement; prioritising theory generation via consultation can lead to traditional, more transferable, forms of impact. We share insights for researchers seeking to improve healthcare using methods inspired by PQI such as VRE. While predicting impact is fraught, optimising conditions for impactful VRE research can be accomplished by: foregrounding epistemology; prioritising affective engagement; aligning research and stakeholder goals; assessing timing and organisational readiness; and considering researcher and participant positioning

Time to Feel: Understanding Cancer Carers: Emotions and Support Preferences

Family carers assume responsibility for much of patients' treatment coordination and emotional support, saving medical systems billions by reducing the number and duration of hospital admissions. However, in doing so, they tend to suffer high rates of psychosocial morbidity. While much is known about the experiences of cancer patients and carers of a family member with other diseases, little is known about the experiences and support services preferences of people caring for a spouse with cancer. Past research on this population is largely psycho-oncology based and emphasises carers' stress, burden and coping strategies. Using qualitative methods including participant observation, questionnaires, interviews and a focus group, this research provides an experience-driven understanding of these carers' experiences and support service preferences. Findings suggest that these carers experience a distinct kind of anticipatory grief: indefinite loss and indefinite grief. These concepts, referring to vacillating and uncertain anticipatory loss and grief, are presented as a more accurate conceptualisation of these carers' experiences of mourning and uncertainty about the future. Findings also show that carers of a spouse with cancer experience temporal anomie, a challenged sense of orientation towards the future. Using Hochschild's concepts of 'emotion work' and 'feeling rules' during analysis allowed for an interactive and social complement to the focus on individual coping strategies that dominates within psycho-oncology. Using this approach to analyse carers' emotions revealed the sense of lost direction towards the future that challenges carers' positive outlooks and showed that to overcome this temporal anomie, carers manage their own and their spouse's emotions towards their illness or the future. Further, interview accounts indicate that some carers' responsibilities are so time-consuming, they are unable to experience and explore their own emotions; they do not have time to feel. Much of the poorly understood variation in carers' needs and support preferences can be explained using a time-sovereignty framework. Those carers who do have time for emotions valued support groups and counselling as a means of emotion management clarification. Practical support, such as financial aid and respite care, however, is rarely accessible to those who need it most: carers who lack time-sovereignty. Current Australian medical system practices do not ameliorate this strain, as medical professionals tend to exclude carers from the consumer-role while relying on carers to provide patient care. Thus, caring for a spouse with cancer often entails a sense of confusion about complex and contradictory emotions, but little time to reflect on these emotions. These experiences are, in part, a product of a medical system which simultaneously relies on carers - thus increasing their burden - and excludes carers from important information, leaving them under-resourced to deal with their partners' needs and their own emotions

Differential Microglial Responses Induced by N-a-Synuclein-Specific Effector T Cell Clones

Parkinson\u27s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative movement disorder in which symptoms derive from deficits in dopamine neurotransmitter levels secondary to loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) associated with misfolding and accumulation of α−synuclein. Neuroinflammation via microglia and T effector cells (Teffs) contribute to dopaminergic neuronal cell death. Recognition of cytokine profiles of pro-inflammatory microglia is not well understood and serve as potential therapeutic targets to reduce neuroinflammation. Recent studies demonstrated a novel Th17.1 Teff clonotype increases neurotoxicity. The aim of this study was to demonstrate in vitro cytokine responses by BV-2 microglia induced by Th1, Th17, and Th17.1 clonotypes to assess neuroinflammation mechanisms in PD. Cytokine responses by BV-2 microglia co-cultured with activated Teff clonotypes were analyzed using a cytokine membrane array. Co-culture with Teffs led to significant increases in the majority of cytokine responses from BV-2 microglia compared to control. Cross group analysis relative expression demonstrated variation in cytokine profiles produced between microglia treated with different Teff clonotypes, especially with regard to IFNγ, MIG, MIP-1α, TIMP-1, RANTES, SDF-1, and IL-12 p40/p70. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) of cytokines displaying significant relative expression levels for each Teff clonotype showed Th1- and Th17- treated BV-2 microglia demonstrated pathways related to cellular movement, hematological development and function, and immune trafficking while Th17.1-treated microglia upregulated pathways related to disorders of connective tissues, inflammation, and organismal injury. In conclusion, Th1, Th17, and Th17.1 Teffs treatment of BV-2 microglia led to upregulation of most pro-inflammatory cytokines and pathways. However, specific Teff clonotype culture with BV-2 microglia displayed different cytokine profile responses through varying relative expression profiles with significant differences related to IFNγ, MIG, MIP-1α, TIMP-1, RANTES, SDF-1, and IL12 p40/p70 delineating alternative inflammatory pathways. These results provide relevant targets for strategies to attenuate neuroinflammation and protect dopaminergic neurons in PD.https://digitalcommons.unmc.edu/emet_posters/1005/thumbnail.jp

Early Verb Learning: How Do Children Learn How to Compare Events?

An important problem verb learners must solve is how to extend verbs. Children could use cross-situational information to guide their extensions, however comparing events is difficult. Two studies test whether children benefit from initially seeing a pair of similar events (‘progressive alignment’) while learning new verbs, and whether this influence changes with age. In Study 1, 2 ½- and 3 ½-year-old children participated in an interactive task. Children who saw a pair of similar events and then varied events were able to extend verbs at test, differing from a control group; children who saw two pairs of varied events did not differ from the control group. In Study 2, events were presented on a monitor. Following the initial pair of events that varied by condition, a Tobii x120 eye tracker recorded 2 ½-, 3 ½- and 4 ½-year-olds’ fixations to specific elements of events (AOIs) during the second pair of events, which were the same across conditions. After seeing the pair of events that were highly similar, 2 ½-year-olds showed significantly longer fixation durations to agents and to affected objects as compared to the all varied condition. At test, 3 ½-year-olds were able to extend the verb, but only in the progressive alignment condition. These results are important because they show children\u27s visual attention to relevant elements in dynamic events is influenced by their prior comparison experience, and they show that young children benefit from seeing similar events as they learn to compare events to each other