The Female Librarian in Film: Has the Image Changed in 60 Years?

The stereotypical image of the female librarian as an uptight spinster has prevailed in popular culture. This paper examines the portrayal of the librarian stereotype in movies from two different eras: the 1940s/1950s and the 2000s. The historical antecedents, social and economic status of women are examined, and the influence of computers and technology in the library is considered. Common traits that typify the film librarian, along with the inclusions of computers in the library, are identified and analyzed. Approaches to combatting the stereotypes are discussed and applied to the movies in order to discover any progression of the image in 60 years. It is concluded that while there has been some progress in the characterization of librarians in movies, overall there has been little change in 60 years

Design of a randomized superiority trial of a brief couple treatment for PTSD.

Interpersonal difficulties are common among veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and are associated with poorer treatment response. Treatment outcomes for PTSD, including relationship functioning, improve when partners are included and engaged in the therapy process. Cognitive-behavioral conjoint therapy for PTSD (CBCT) is a manualized 15-session intervention designed for couples in which one partner has PTSD. CBCT was developed specifically to treat PTSD, engage a partner in treatment, and improve interpersonal functioning. However, recent research suggests that an abbreviated CBCT protocol may lead to sufficient gains in PTSD and relationship functioning, and yield lower dropout rates. Likewise, many veterans report a preference for receiving psychological treatments through clinical videoteleconferencing (CVT) rather than traditional face-to-face modalities that require travel to VA clinics. This manuscript describes the development and implementation of a novel randomized controlled trial (RCT) that examines the efficacy of an abbreviated 8-session version of CBCT ("brief CBCT," or B-CBCT), and compares the efficacy of this intervention delivered via CVT to traditional in-person platforms. Veterans and their partners were randomized to receive B-CBCT in a traditional Veterans Affairs office-based setting (B-CBCT-Office), CBCT through CVT with the veteran and partner at home (B-CBCT-Home), or an in office-delivered, couple-based psychoeducation control condition (PTSD Family Education). This study is the first RCT designed to investigate the delivery of B-CBCT specifically to veterans with PTSD and their partners, as well as to examine the delivery of B-CBCT over a CVT modality; findings could increase access to care to veterans with PTSD and their partners

Neurology

Contains reports on eight research projects.United States Air Force (AF33(616)-7588, AF49(638)-1130)National Science Foundation (Grant G-16526)United States Army Chemical Corps (DA-18-108-405-Cml-942)United States Public Health Service (B-3055, B-3090)United States Navy, Office of Naval Research (Contract Nonr-1841(70)

Immunization expands B cells specific to HIV-1 V3 glycan in mice and macaques.

Broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies protect against infection with HIV-1 in animal models, suggesting that a vaccine that elicits these antibodies would be protective in humans. However, it has not yet been possible to induce adequate serological responses by vaccination. Here, to activate B cells that express precursors of broadly neutralizing antibodies within polyclonal repertoires, we developed an immunogen, RC1, that facilitates the recognition of the variable loop 3 (V3)-glycan patch on the envelope protein of HIV-1. RC1 conceals non-conserved immunodominant regions by the addition of glycans and/or multimerization on virus-like particles. Immunization of mice, rabbits and rhesus macaques with RC1 elicited serological responses that targeted the V3-glycan patch. Antibody cloning and cryo-electron microscopy structures of antibody-envelope complexes confirmed that immunization with RC1 expands clones of B cells that carry the anti-V3-glycan patch antibodies, which resemble precursors of human broadly neutralizing antibodies. Thus, RC1 may be a suitable priming immunogen for sequential vaccination strategies in the context of polyclonal repertoires

Iron Status and Analysis of Efficacy and Safety of Ferric Carboxymaltose Treatment in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Background and Aims:We analyzed iron deficiency and the therapeutic response following intravenous ferric carboxymaltose in a large single-center inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) cohort. Methods: 250 IBD patients were retrospectively analyzed for iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia. A subgroup was analyzed regarding efficacy and side effects of iron supplementation with ferric carboxymaltose. Results: In the cohort (n = 250), 54.4% of the patients had serum iron levels 60 mu g/dl, 61.6% had ferritin >100 ng/ml, and 90.7% reached Hb >12/13 g/dl at follow-up (p < 0.0001 for all parameters vs. pretreatment values). The most frequent adverse event was a transient increase of liver enzymes with male gender as risk factor (p = 0.008, OR 8.62, 95% CI 1.74-41.66). Conclusions: Iron deficiency and anemia are frequent in IBD patients. Treatment with ferric carboxymaltose is efficious, safe and well tolerated in iron-deficient IBD patients. Copyright (C) 2011 S. Karger AG, Base

Associations Among Stress, Anxiety, Depression, and Emotional Intelligence Among Veterinary Medicine Students

Background: Veterinary students are faced with immense pressures and rigors during school. These pressures have contributed to elevated levels of stress, anxiety, and depression (SAD) among veterinary students relative to the general population. One proposed concept to help students combat SAD is that of emotional intelligence (EI). We explored the relationship between EI and SAD among veterinary students at a college in the Southeast United States. Methods: A crosssectional study design was implemented among a convenience sample of 182 veterinary medical students. The survey instrument contained 56 items that elicited information about students’ demographics, perceived stress, anxiety, and depression, and emotional intelligence levels. Data analysis included univariate statistics, Pearson’s correlations, and multiple regression and independent samples t‐tests. Results: The study revealed a statistically significant, negative correlation between EI levels and stress, anxiety, and depression. Additionally, a statistically significant, positive correlation was found between stress and anxiety as well as both stress and anxiety and depression. Multiple linear regression showed that EI was a statistically significant predictor of stress (b = −0.239, p \u3c 0.001), anxiety (b = −0.044, p \u3c 0.001), and depression (b = −0.063, p \u3c 0.001), after controlling for sociodemographic variables. Students’ t‐test results revealed a statistically significant mean difference in EI scores among students screening positive versus negative for depression, with students screening negative having a mean EI score of 10.81 points higher than students who screened positive for depression. Conclusion: There is a scientifically supported need for interventions in veterinary school to integrate EI into the veterinary medical curriculum and consider the EI levels of veterinary student candidates

Nature’s contribution to poverty alleviation, human wellbeing and the SDGs

Millions of households globally rely on uncultivated ecosystems for their livelihoods. However, much of the understanding about the broader contribution of uncultivated ecosystems to human wellbeing is still based on a series of small-scale studies due to limited availability of large-scale datasets. We pooled together 11 comparable datasets comprising 232 settlements and 10,971 households in ten low-and middle-income countries, representing forest, savanna and coastal ecosystems to analyse how uncultivated nature contributes to multi-dimensional wellbeing and how benefits from nature are distributed between households. The resulting dataset integrates secondary data on rural livelihoods, multidimensional human wellbeing, household demographics, resource tenure and social-ecological context, primarily drawing on nine existing household survey datasets and their associated contextual information together with selected variables, such as travel time to cities, population density, local area GDP and land use and land cover from existing global datasets. This integrated dataset has been archived with ReShare (UK Data Service) and will be useful for further analyses on nature-wellbeing relationships on its own or in combination with similar datasets

The use of nanovibration to discover specific and potent bioactive metabolites that stimulate osteogenic differentiation in mesenchymal stem cells

Bioactive metabolites have wide-ranging biological activities and are a potential source of future research and therapeutic tools. Here, we use nanovibrational stimulation to induce osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells, in the absence of off-target, nonosteogenic differentiation. We show that this differentiation method, which does not rely on the addition of exogenous growth factors to culture media, provides an artifact-free approach to identifying bioactive metabolites that specifically and potently induce osteogenesis. We first identify a highly specific metabolite, cholesterol sulfate, an endogenous steroid. Next, a screen of other small molecules with a similar steroid scaffold identified fludrocortisone acetate with both specific and highly potent osteogenic-inducing activity. Further, we implicate cytoskeletal contractility as a measure of osteogenic potency and cell stiffness as a measure of specificity. These findings demonstrate that physical principles can be used to identify bioactive metabolites and then enable optimization of metabolite potency can be optimized by examining structure-function relationships

Registration of 3D fetal neurosonography and MRI.

We propose a method for registration of 3D fetal brain ultrasound with a reconstructed magnetic resonance fetal brain volume. This method, for the first time, allows the alignment of models of the fetal brain built from magnetic resonance images with 3D fetal brain ultrasound, opening possibilities to develop new, prior information based image analysis methods for 3D fetal neurosonography. The reconstructed magnetic resonance volume is first segmented using a probabilistic atlas and a pseudo ultrasound image volume is simulated from the segmentation. This pseudo ultrasound image is then affinely aligned with clinical ultrasound fetal brain volumes using a robust block-matching approach that can deal with intensity artefacts and missing features in the ultrasound images. A qualitative and quantitative evaluation demonstrates good performance of the method for our application, in comparison with other tested approaches. The intensity average of 27 ultrasound images co-aligned with the pseudo ultrasound template shows good correlation with anatomy of the fetal brain as seen in the reconstructed magnetic resonance image