Transgender and Gender Diverse Clients’ Experiences in Therapy: Responses to Sociopolitical Events and Helpful and Unhelpful Experiences

We examined transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) people’s reports of their therapy experiences over the course of a year. We explored how participants’ therapists integrated discussions about current events, as well as their more general perspectives on helpful and unhelpful experiences. A total of 107 participants provided data on these questions at least once over 12 months of surveys (M age = 33.79; 70.1% White), reflecting on their current therapy experiences. Through thematic analysis of qualitative data, the following themes were constructed regarding discussing sociopolitical events: (a) facilitating coping via bearing witness to clients’ internal experiences and implementing other therapeutic interventions; (b) moving beyond the individual by integrating identity, systems, or contexts; (c) feeling disconnected and misunderstood. We grouped participants’ helpful experiences into the following themes: (1) availability, connection, and therapeutic approaches facilitate positive experiences; (2) the necessity of knowledge, education, and affirmation of TGD identities; (3) helpful therapy means seeing the world in which clients live. We grouped participants’ unhelpful experiences into the following themes: (1) logistical issues can interfere with therapy; (2) lack of depth and disconnection results in subpar therapy; (3) insufficient understandings of TGD identities results in potentially harmful practices. These findings deepen understandings of how to integrate discussions about current events into therapy and provide competent and affirming care to TGD clients

Sudden cardiac death due to deficiency of the mitochondrial inorganic pyrophosphatase PPA2

We have used whole exome sequencing to identify biallelic missense mutations in the nuclearencoded mitochondrial inorganic pyrophosphatase (PPA2) in ten individuals from four unrelated pedigrees that are associated with mitochondrial disease. These individuals show a range of severity, indicating that PPA2 mutations may cause a spectrum of mitochondrial disease phenotypes. Severe symptoms include seizures, lactic acidosis and cardiac arrhythmia and death within days of birth. In the index family, presentation was milder and manifested as cardiac fibrosis and an exquisite sensitivity to alcohol, leading to sudden arrhythmic cardiac death in the second decade of life. Comparison of normal and mutated PPA2 containing mitochondria from fibroblasts showed the activity of inorganic pyrophosphatase significantly reduced in affected individuals. Recombinant PPA2 enzymes modeling hypomorphic missense mutations had decreased activity that correlated with disease severity. These findings confirm the pathogenicity of PPA2 mutations, and suggest that PPA2 is a new cardiomyopathy-associated protein, which has a greater physiological importance in mitochondrial function than previously recognized

Tumor Associated Stromal Cells Play a Critical Role on the Outcome of the Oncolytic Efficacy of Conditionally Replicative Adenoviruses

The clinical efficacy of conditionally replicative oncolytic adenoviruses (CRAd) is still limited by the inefficient infection of the tumor mass. Since tumor growth is essentially the result of a continuous cross-talk between malignant and tumor-associated stromal cells, targeting both cell compartments may profoundly influence viral efficacy. Therefore, we developed SPARC promoter-based CRAds since the SPARC gene is expressed both in malignant cells and in tumor-associated stromal cells. These CRAds, expressing or not the Herpes Simplex thymidine kinase gene (Ad-F512 and Ad(I)-F512-TK, respectively) exerted a lytic effect on a panel of human melanoma cells expressing SPARC; but they were completely attenuated in normal cells of different origins, including fresh melanocytes, regardless of whether cells expressed or not SPARC. Interestingly, both CRAds displayed cytotoxic activity on SPARC positive-transformed human microendothelial HMEC-1 cells and WI-38 fetal fibroblasts. Both CRAds were therapeutically effective on SPARC positive-human melanoma tumors growing in nude mice but exhibited restricted efficacy in the presence of co-administered HMEC-1 or WI-38 cells. Conversely, co-administration of HMEC-1 cells enhanced the oncolytic efficacy of Ad(I)-F512-TK on SPARC-negative MIA PaCa-2 pancreatic cancer cells in vivo. Moreover, conditioned media produced by stromal cells pre-infected with the CRAds enhanced the in vitro viral oncolytic activity on pancreatic cancer cells, but not on melanoma cells. The whole data indicate that stromal cells might play an important role on the outcome of the oncolytic efficacy of conditionally replicative adenoviruses

A global inventory of stratospheric NOy from ACE-FTS

The Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS) on board the Canadian SCISAT-1 satellite (launched in August 2003) measures over 30 different atmospheric species, including six nitrogen trace gases that are needed to quantify the stratospheric NOy budget. We combine volume mixing ratio (VMR) profiles for NO, NO2, HNO3, N2O5, ClONO2, and HNO4 to determine a zonally averaged NOy climatology on monthly and 3 month combined means (December–February, March–May, June–August, and September–November) at 5° latitude spacing and on 33 pressure surfaces. Peak NOy VMR concentrations (15–20 ppbv) are situated at about 3 hPa (∼40 km) in the tropics, while they are typically lower at about 10 hPa (∼30 km) in the midlatitudes. Mean NOy VMRs are similar in both the northern and southern polar regions, with the exception of large enhancements periodically observed in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere. These are primarily due to enhancements of NO due to energetic particle precipitation and downward transport. Other features in the NOy budget are related to descent in the polar vortex, heterogeneous chemistry, and denitrification processes. Comparison of the ACE-FTS NOy budget is made to both the Odin and ATMOS NOy data sets, showing in both cases a good level of agreement, such that relative differences are typically better than 20%. The NOy climatological products are available through the ACE website and are a supplement to the paper. - A middle-atmosphere NOy climatology has been produced using ACE-FTS measurements; - A robust method for quality controlling the input data has been developed - Good agreement is found between ACE-FTS NOy climatology and other climatologie

“My name is my identity”: Understanding Conceptualizations of Gender Identity to Improve Measurement

Existing measures of gender identity have some inconsistencies that lead to researchers missing out on the comprehensive image of an individual’s gender. The purpose of the present study was to assess how individuals who do not identify with the gender assigned to them at birth conceptualize their gender identity. To understand which aspects are important to an individual’s gender identity, semi-structured interviews were conducted with four undergraduate students who identified as non-cisgender (e.g., transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, etc.). Results of the qualitative analysis identified two themes within conceptualizations of gender identity: (1) personal and (2) social. The importance of these two domains as well as the alignment between them is abundantly apparent in the participants’ responses and should be the focus of future measures of gender identity

“My name is my identity”: Understanding Conceptualizations of Gender Identity to Improve Measurement

Existing measures of gender identity have some inconsistencies that lead to researchers missing out on the comprehensive image of an individual’s gender. The purpose of the present study was to assess how individuals who do not identify with the gender assigned to them at birth conceptualize their gender identity. To understand which aspects are important to an individual’s gender identity, semi-structured interviews were conducted with four undergraduate students who identified as non-cisgender (e.g., transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, etc.). Results of the qualitative analysis identified two themes within conceptualizations of gender identity: (1) personal and (2) social. The importance of these two domains as well as the alignment between them is abundantly apparent in the participants’ responses and should be the focus of future measures of gender identity

Evaluating ecosystem processes in willow short rotation coppice bioenergy plantations

Despite a growing body of research linking bioenergy cultivation to changing patterns of biodiversity, there has been remarkably little interest in how bioenergy plantations affect key ecosystem processes underpinning important ecosystem services. In this study, we compare how the processes of predation by ground arthropods and litter decomposition varied between Short Rotation Coppice (SRC) willow bioenergy plantations and alternative land-uses: arable and set-aside (agricultural land taken out of production). We deployed litter bags to measure variation in decomposition, and a prey removal assay coupled with pitfall traps and direct searches to investigate variation in predation pressure. Decomposition rate was higher in willow SRC and set-aside than in cereal crops. Willow SRC had the highest abundance and diversity of ground-dwelling arthropod predators, but land-use had no detectable influence on predation of fly pupae or the combined activity-density of the two principal Coleoptera families (carabids and staphylinids). Overall, our study demonstrates that the conversion of arable land to SRC may have implications for the rate of some, but not all, ecosystem processes, and highlights the need for further research in this are