The Experience of Being a Parent of a Child Who Stutters and Subsequent Involvement in Support Groups: A Narrative Study

INTRODUCTION: Developmental stuttering generally begins after a period of typical fluency and is highly variable in its presentation and persistence. This variability along with the lack of a definitive cause and social stigma often negatively impact both children who stutter (CWS) and their caregivers. However, research on the specific effects of stuttering on the caregiver is quite sparse compared to research into the caregiver experience in other disorders. Additionally, although social support has been identified as a primary protective factor for other caregivers, little evidence exists to show how support groups benefit caregivers of CWS. METHOD: Five parents participated in narrative interviews where they were asked vi to describe their involvement in support groups as well as their overall experience as a parent of a CWS. Interviews were analyzed using a modified version of Carol Gilligan’s Listening Guide. RESULTS: Parents shared many commonalities including their approach to their child’s stutter, therapy experiences, and support group benefits. Support groups provided connection, reduced feelings of isolation, fostered acceptance, and encouraged a shift in parental mindset and attitude away from a focus on fluency toward a focus on communication. IMPLICATIONS: Therapists should support the family alongside the child by providing resources, encouraging and providing social supports, and involving the family in treatment decisions. Therapy should seek to address the social-emotional aspects of stuttering and support effective communication regardless of fluency

Secondary Structures in Long Compact Polymers

Compact polymers are self-avoiding random walks which visit every site on a lattice. This polymer model is used widely for studying statistical problems inspired by protein folding. One difficulty with using compact polymers to perform numerical calculations is generating a sufficiently large number of randomly sampled configurations. We present a Monte-Carlo algorithm which uniformly samples compact polymer configurations in an efficient manner allowing investigations of chains much longer than previously studied. Chain configurations generated by the algorithm are used to compute statistics of secondary structures in compact polymers. We determine the fraction of monomers participating in secondary structures, and show that it is self averaging in the long chain limit and strictly less than one. Comparison with results for lattice models of open polymer chains shows that compact chains are significantly more likely to form secondary structure.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figure

FRILLS

This powerpoint presentation looks at Public access IT facilities in public libraries, “Open Gateway or Guarded Fortress” project, FRILLS project (“Forensic Readiness for Local Libraries in Scotland”

The influence of buoyant convection on the nucleation of n-propanol in thermal diffusion cloud chambers

A two-dimensional numerical model has been applied to three thermal diffusion cloud chamber (TDCC) investigations of n-propanol in helium taken by two different research groups to provide a quantitative example of how the results in these chambers can be affected by buoyant convection. In the first set of TDCC data, corrections for buoyancy resolve an apparent discontinuity in critical supersaturation data and also yield nucleation rate data that tend to agree better with higher rate, expansion-based studies at the same temperature. In the second TDCC study, the nucleation of propanol was studied over an extended pressure range. When the model was applied to these data, the possible variation in supersaturation values due to convection induced by conditions at the chamber sidewall was found to be comparable in magnitude to the experimentally observed range and may be responsible for some of this observed pressure dependence. In the third TDCC study, the combination of an error in a transport property and buoyant convection appear responsible for a perceived pressure effect in the experimental data. After correcting for this transport property and for buoyancy, the results at higher temperatures agree quite closely with the predictions of classical nucleation theory

Leveraging Your Local Resources and National Cyberinfrastructure Resources without Tears

Compute resources for conducting research inhabit a wide range from researchers' personal computers, servers in labs, campus clusters and condos, regional resource-sharing models, and national cyberinfrastructure. Researchers agree that there are not enough resources available on a broad scale, and significant barriers exist for getting analyses moved from smaller- to larger-scale cyberinfrastructure. The XSEDE Campus Bridging program disseminates a several tools that assist researchers and campus IT administrators in reducing barriers to the effective use of national cyberinfrastructure for research. Tools for data management, job submission and steering, best practices for building and administering clusters, and common documentation and training activities all support a flexible environment that allows cyberinfrastructure to be as simple to utilize as a plug-and-play peripheral. In this paper and the accompanying poster we provide an overview of Campus Bridging, including specific challenges and solutions to the problem of making the computerized parts of research easier. We focus particularly on tools that facilitate management of campus computing clusters and integration of such clusters with the national cyberinfrastructure

Disease activity flares and pain flares in an early rheumatoid arthritis inception cohort; characteristics, antecedents and sequelae

© 2019 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background: RA flares are common and disabling. They are described in terms of worsening inflammation but pain and inflammation are often discordant. To inform treatment decisions, we investigated whether inflammatory and pain flares are discrete entities. Methods: People from the Early RA Network (ERAN) cohort were assessed annually up to 11 years after presentation (n = 719, 3703 person-years of follow up). Flare events were defined in 2 different ways that were analysed in parallel; DAS28 or Pain Flares. DAS28 Flares satisfied OMERACT flare criteria of increases in DAS28 since the previous assessment (≥1.2 points if active RA or ≥ 0.6 points if inactive RA). A ≥ 4.8-point worsening of SF36-Bodily Pain score defined Pain Flares. The first documented episode of each of DAS28 and Pain Flare in each person was analysed. Subgroups within DAS28 and Pain Flares were determined using Latent Class Analysis. Clinical course was compared between flare subgroups. Results: DAS28 (45%) and Pain Flares (52%) were each common but usually discordant, with 60% of participants in DAS28 Flare not concurrently in Pain Flare, and 64% of those in Pain Flare not concurrently in DAS28 Flare. Three discrete DAS28 Flare subgroups were identified. One was characterised by increases in tender/swollen joint counts (14.4%), a second by increases in symptoms (13.1%), and a third displayed lower flare severity (72.5%). Two discrete Pain Flare subgroups were identified. One occurred following low disease activity and symptoms (88.6%), and the other occurred on the background of ongoing active disease and pain (11.4%). Despite the observed differences between DAS28 and Pain Flares, each was associated with increased disability which persisted beyond the flare episode. Conclusion: Flares are both common and heterogeneous in people with RA. Furthermore our findings indicate that for some patients there is a discordance between inflammation and pain in flare events. This discrete flare subgroups might reflect different underlying inflammation and pain mechanisms. Treatments addressing different mechanisms might be required to reduce persistent disability after DAS28 and Pain Flares.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Vapor transport within the thermal diffusion cloud chamber

A review of two different, one-dimensional models of the vapor transport within the thermal diffusion cloud chamber (TDCC) is presented. In one case the assumption is made that there are no convective fluxes within the chamber and that heat and mass transport occur by diffusion only. Although in this model there are no restrictions on the transport of the two components within the chamber, the assumption of no velocities within the chamber results in an incorrect flux boundary condition for the background, carrier gas. The second model is based on the typical, stagnant background gas assumption and the equations of this model closely follow those of the classical Stefan tube problem in which there is transport of a volatile species through a noncondensible, carrier gas. Unfortunately, this model of the TDCC also suffers from the same inconsistencies as noted by several researchers for the Stefan tube. When the convective contributions to the flux are low in the stagnant background gas model, the two models give reasonably close results. For more convective situations, the supersaturation results can differ by more than 50%. One interesting feature of the zero velocity model is that it predicts a change in the supersaturation profile with pressure, whereas no pressure dependence is predicted with the stagnant background gas model. Unfortunately, the direction of this pressure change is opposite to that seen in experimental observations

The effect of carrier gas pressure and wall heating on the operation of the thermal diffusion cloud chamber

Experimental observations indicate that the nucleation behavior within the thermal diffusion cloud chamber (TDCC) changes with increasing carrier gas pressure and applied sidewall heating, even though such an effect is not predicted by typical nucleation theories and it is not seen in typical expansion-based nucleation studies. In this work we present a model of the chamber which shows that both of these effects are likely due to buoyancy-induced convection within the TDCC. As the chamber pressure is increased, the calculated critical supersaturation within the chamber decreases. Results from a simple model of the chamber wall heating are also presented. Previously, it was argued that unheated chamber walls result in a significant, radial concentration gradient which lowers the vapor concentration and condensation flux within the chamber center. In contrast, we show that this reduction is due primarily to a convective flow induced by the sidewall concentration gradient. The model has been applied to recent experimental data for n-pentanol. Results indicate that, with respect to buoyancy-induced convection, the typical 1D model should be regarded as an upper limit to the maximum attainable supersaturation within the chamber

Usability and feasibility of consumer-facing technology to reduce unsafe medication use by older adults

Background Mobile health technology can improve medication safety for older adults, for instance, by educating patients about the risks associated with anticholinergic medication use. Objective This study's objective was to test the usability and feasibility of Brain Buddy, a consumer-facing mobile health technology designed to inform and empower older adults to consider the risks and benefits of anticholinergics. Methods Twenty-three primary care patients aged ≥60 years and using anticholinergic medications participated in summative, task-based usability testing of Brain Buddy. Self-report usability was assessed by the System Usability Scale and performance-based usability data were collected for each task through observation. A subset of 17 participants contributed data on feasibility, assessed by self-reported attitudes (feeling informed) and behaviors (speaking to a physician), with confirmation following a physician visit. Results Overall usability was acceptable or better, with 100% of participants completing each Brain Buddy task and a mean System Usability Scale score of 78.8, corresponding to “Good” to “Excellent” usability. Observed usability issues included higher rates of errors, hesitations, and need for assistance on three tasks, particularly those requiring data entry. Among participants contributing to feasibility data, 100% felt better informed after using Brain Buddy and 94% planned to speak to their physician about their anticholinergic related risk. On follow-up, 82% reported having spoken to their physician, a rate independently confirmed by physicians. Conclusion Consumer-facing technology can be a low-cost, scalable intervention to improve older adults’ medication safety, by informing and empowering patients. User-centered design and evaluation with demographically heterogeneous clinical samples uncovers correctable usability issues and confirms the value of interventions targeting consumers as agents in shared decision making and behavior change