I\u27ll Just Weight on the Lord: Spirituality and Health Behaviors in Obese African American Women

Obesity is one of the fastest growing health concerns impacting all racial, ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic groups in the United States of America. More than one-third of the U.S. adult population is classified as being obese (Obesity Society, 2021). Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in all races and genders within the US with African American women comprising a majority of those impacted by this chronic health condition. Obesity rates are well documented within the literature but what is lacking is the role spirituality may play in obese African American women and their health behaviors. The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore and describe the lived experiences of obese African American women with attention and focus on weight, health behaviors, and spirituality. This study consisted of participant recruitment from various social organizations, beauty salons, and faith-based organizations. A naturalistic setting with a descriptive approach was taken to interview the participants and all recorded interviews were transcribed and utilized for data analysis. The analysis method for this study was the qualitative content analysis process. Upon completion of data analysis, the identification of three themes, who I am, the weight I bear, and power struggles, assisted with recognizing the gaps and concerns that supported the researcher in painting a picture of the lived experiences of obese African American women. Recommendations included diversifying healthcare providers, implementing community based interventions and research, and completing knowledge assessments before education

A facility for high resolution spectroscopy: Laboratory and ground based observations in support of upper atmospheric research

This research task consists of operating a facility for making spectroscopic observations in support of upper atmospheric research. The facility responds to the needs and interests of the visiting investigators. Therefore, the research objectives are not predetermined except in broad outline. The emphasis is on studies that take advantage of the particular strengths of the Fourier Transform Spectrometer on Kitt Peak: high spectral resolution combined with wide spectral range and low noise

I\u27ll Just Weight on the Lord: Spirituality and Health Behaviors in Obese African American Women

Obesity is one of the fastest growing health concerns impacting all racial, ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic groups in the United States of America. More than one-third of the U.S. adult population is classified as being obese (Obesity Society, 2021). Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in all races and genders within the US with African American women comprising a majority of those impacted by this chronic health condition. Obesity rates are well documented within the literature but what is lacking is the role spirituality may play in obese African American women and their health behaviors. The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore and describe the lived experiences of obese African American women with attention and focus on weight, health behaviors, and spirituality. This study consisted of participant recruitment from various social organizations, beauty salons, and faith-based organizations. A naturalistic setting with a descriptive approach was taken to interview the participants and all recorded interviews were transcribed and utilized for data analysis. The analysis method for this study was the qualitative content analysis process. Upon completion of data analysis, the identification of three themes, who I am, the weight I bear, and power struggles, assisted with recognizing the gaps and concerns that supported the researcher in painting a picture of the lived experiences of obese African American women. Recommendations included diversifying healthcare providers, implementing community based interventions and research, and completing knowledge assessments before education

Outflow and dense gas emission from massive Infrared Dark Clouds

Infrared Dark Clouds are expected to harbor sources in different, very young evolutionary stages. To better characterize these differences, we observed a sample of 43 massive Infrared Dark Clouds, originally selected as candidate high-mass starless cores, with the IRAM 30m telescope covering spectral line tracers of low-density gas, high-density gas, molecular outflows/jets and temperature effects. The SiO(2-1) observations reveal detections toward 18 sources. Assuming that SiO is exclusively produced by sputtering from dust grains, this implies that at least in 40% of this sample star formation is on-going. A broad range of SiO line-widths is observed (between 2.2 and 65km/s), and we discuss potential origins for this velocity spread. While the low-density tracers 12CO(2-1) and 13CO(1-0) are detected in several velocity components, the high-density tracer H13CO+(1--0) generally shows only a single velocity component and is hence well suited for kinematic distance estimates of IRDCs. Furthermore, the H13CO+ line-width is on average 1.5 times larger than that of previously observed NH3(1,1). This is indicative of more motion at the denser core centers, either due to turbulence or beginning star formation activity. In addition, we detect CH3CN toward only six sources whereas CH3OH is observed toward approximately 40% of the sample. Estimates of the CH3CN and CH3OH abundances are low with average values of 1.2x10^{-10} and 4.3x10^{-10}, respectively. These results are consistent with chemical models at the earliest evolutionary stages of high-mass star formation. Furthermore, the CH3OH abundances compare well to recently reported values for low-mass starless cores.Comment: 22 pages (ApJ referee style), 7 figures, accepted for Ap

Inhalation exposure of animals.

Relative advantages and disadvantages and important design criteria for various exposure methods are presented. Five types of exposures are discussed: whole-body chambers, head-only exposures, nose or mouth-only methods, lung-only exposures, and partial-lung exposures. Design considerations covered include: air cleaning and conditioning; construction materials; losses of exposure materials; evenness of exposure; sampling biases; animal observation and care; noise and vibration control, safe exhausts, chamber loading, reliability, pressure fluctuations; neck seals, masks, animal restraint methods; and animal comfort. Ethical considerations in use of animals in inhalation experiments are also discussed

The Endogenous Th17 Response in NO<inf>2</inf>-Promoted Allergic Airway Disease Is Dispensable for Airway Hyperresponsiveness and Distinct from Th17 Adoptive Transfer

Severe, glucocorticoid-resistant asthma comprises 5-7% of patients with asthma. IL-17 is a biomarker of severe asthma, and the adoptive transfer of Th17 cells in mice is sufficient to induce glucocorticoid-resistant allergic airway disease. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is an environmental toxin that correlates with asthma severity, exacerbation, and risk of adverse outcomes. Mice that are allergically sensitized to the antigen ovalbumin by exposure to NO2 exhibit a mixed Th2/Th17 adaptive immune response and eosinophil and neutrophil recruitment to the airway following antigen challenge, a phenotype reminiscent of severe clinical asthma. Because IL-1 receptor (IL-1R) signaling is critical in the generation of the Th17 response in vivo, we hypothesized that the IL-1R/Th17 axis contributes to pulmonary inflammation and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) in NO2-promoted allergic airway disease and manifests in glucocorticoid-resistant cytokine production. IL-17A neutralization at the time of antigen challenge or genetic deficiency in IL-1R resulted in decreased neutrophil recruitment to the airway following antigen challenge but did not protect against the development of AHR. Instead, IL-1R-/- mice developed exacerbated AHR compared to WT mice. Lung cells from NO2-allergically inflamed mice that were treated in vitro with dexamethasone (Dex) during antigen restimulation exhibited reduced Th17 cytokine production, whereas Th17 cytokine production by lung cells from recipient mice of in vitro Th17-polarized OTII T-cells was resistant to Dex. These results demonstrate that the IL-1R/Th17 axis does not contribute to AHR development in NO2-promoted allergic airway disease, that Th17 adoptive transfer does not necessarily reflect an endogenously-generated Th17 response, and that functions of Th17 responses are contingent on the experimental conditions in which they are generated. © 2013 Martin et al

A 2000-year annual record of snow accumulation rates for Law Dome, East Antarctica

Accurate high-resolution records of snow accumulation rates in Antarctica are crucial for estimating ice sheet mass balance and subsequent sea level change. Snowfall rates at Law Dome, East Antarctica, have been linked with regional atmospheric circulation to the mid-latitudes as well as regional Antarctic snowfall. Here, we extend the length of the Law Dome accumulation record from 750 years to 2035 years, using recent annual layer dating that extends to 22 BCE. Accumulation rates were calculated as the ratio of measured to modelled layer thicknesses, multiplied by the long-term mean accumulation rate. The modelled layer thicknesses were based on a power-law vertical strain rate profile fitted to observed annual layer thickness. The periods 380–442, 727–783 and 1970–2009 CE have above-average snow accumulation rates, while 663–704, 933–975 and 1429–1468 CE were below average, and decadal-scale snow accumulation anomalies were found to be relatively common (74 events in the 2035-year record). The calculated snow accumulation rates show good correlation with atmospheric reanalysis estimates, and significant spatial correlation over a wide expanse of East Antarctica, demonstrating that the Law Dome record captures larger-scale variability across a large region of East Antarctica well beyond the immediate vicinity of the Law Dome summit. Spectral analysis reveals periodicities in the snow accumulation record which may be related to El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) frequencies

’Team GB’ and London 2012: The Paradox of National and Global Identities

This article explores the problems associated with ’national identity’ in the UK and examines the tensions arising between the international and local dimensions of the games through examples of domestic (UK) and international (Brazil, Chicago) media coverage of the key debates relating to London’s period of preparation. The chapter proposes a conception of London 2012 as exemplar of an event poised to generate insights and experiences connected to a new politics of ’cosmopolitan’ identity; insights central to grasping the cultural politics of contemporary urban development-and the paradoxes of national identity in current discourses of Olympism. Properly speaking, cosmopolitanism suits those people who have no country, while internationalism should be the state of mind of those who love their country above all, who seek to draw to it the friendship of foreigners by professing for the countries of those foreigners an intelligent and enlightened sympathy. © 2010 Taylor & Francis

Visual onset expands subjective time

We report a distortion of subjective time perception in which the duration of a first interval is perceived to be longer than the succeeding interval of the same duration. The amount of time expansion depends on the onset type defining the first interval. When a stimulus appears abruptly, its duration is perceived to be longer than when it appears following a stationary array. The difference in the processing time for the stimulus onset and motion onset, measured as reaction times, agrees with the difference in time expansion. Our results suggest that initial transient responses for a visual onset serve as a temporal marker for time estimation, and a systematic change in the processing time for onsets affects perceived time