PREGNANCY, WOMEN’S MENTAL HEALTH AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEPRIVATION: A PARTICIPATORY QUALITATIVE STUDY

Background/objectives Women’s mental health during pregnancy is important for individual and family well-being. British public health and academic policy and guidance promotes service user involvement in health care and research, however collaborative research remains underrepresented in literature relating to pregnant women’s mental health. The aim of this participatory research was to explore women’s and professionals’ perspectives on mental health and on services for pregnant women. Method This qualitative research was undertaken with the involvement of three community members who had firsthand experience of mental health problems during pregnancy. All members of the team were involved in study design, recruitment, data generation and different stages of thematic analysis. Data were transcribed individual and group discussions with 17 women who self-identified as experiencing mental health problems during pregnancy and 16 professionals who work with this group. Means of establishing trustworthiness included triangulation, researcher reflexivity, peer debriefing and comprehensive data analysis. Findings Commonalities and differences between women’s and professionals’ perspectives were examined with particular reference to contexts of relational, systemic and ecological conditions in women’s and professionals’ lives. There were significant areas of commonality including: • Factors that undermine women’s mental health during pregnancy • Levels of formal and informal support available to women • Professionals’ knowledge and organisational pressures • Accessibility of specialist services • What is needed to support women’s mental health Conclusions and Recommendations Women’s mental health is predominantly undermined or supported by relational, experiential and material factors. The local context of socio-economic deprivation is a significant influence on women’s mental health and service demand, capacity and resources. Recommendations are made in relation to community and service developments, staff support and training, and future research

Inorganic Phosphor Coatings for Ultraviolet Responsive Image Detectors

Typical CCD digital imaging sensors are insensitive to ultraviolet ( UV ) radiation by virtue of the very shallow ( 2 nm ) penetration depth in silicon. This warrants the use of a post-packaging coating to up-covert the UV radiation to longer wavelengths. In this thesis, A light-converting inorganic coating has been developed to improve the responsivity of gated CCD image sensors in the UV ( from 250 - 400 nm ). The coating consists of a plastic acrylic layer doped with inorganic phosphors. The coating is deposited using a spin-coater typically used by the IC fabrication industry. Inorganic phosphors were selected over organic phosphors since they are quite well established and are typically used to coat light bulbs, an application that requires a long lifetime. In contrast, organic phosphors rapidly degrade upon exposure to UV radiation. The parameters associated with the coating and coated sensor are presented here. They include coating conversion effciency, penetration depth, photostability; and coated sensor quantum effciency, contrast transfer function and photo-response non-uniformity. The coatings presented here are a viable, cost-effective alternative to other UV response CCD designs

Teredinibacter turnerae gen. nov., sp. nov., a dinitrogen-fixing, cellulolytic, endosymbiotic c-proteobacterium isolated from the gills of wood-boring molluscs (Bivalvia: Teredinidae)

Author Posting. © Society for General Mircobiology, 2002. This article is posted here by permission of Society for General Mircobiology for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology 52 (2002): 2261-2269, doi:10.1099/ijs.0.02184-0.A cellulolytic, dinitrogen-fixing bacterium isolated from the gill tissue of a wood-boring mollusc (shipworm) Lyrodus pedicellatus of the bivalve family Teredinidae and 58 additional strains with similar properties, isolated from gills of 24 bivalve species representing 9 of 14 genera of Teredinidae, are described. The cells are Gram-negative, rigid, rods (0<4–0<6x3–6 lm) that bear a single polar flagellum. All isolates are capable of chemoheterotrophic growth in a simple mineral medium supplemented with cellulose as a sole source of carbon and energy. Xylan, pectin, carboxymethylcellulose, cellobiose and a variety of sugars and organic acids also support growth. Growth requires addition of combined nitrogen when cultures are vigorously aerated, but all isolates fix dinitrogen under microaerobic conditions. The pH, temperature and salinity optima for growth were determined for six isolates and are approximately 8<5, 30–35 °C and 0<3 M NaCl respectively. The isolates are marine. In addition to NaCl, growth requires elevated concentrations of Ca2M and Mg2M that reflect the chemistry of seawater. The DNA GMC content ranged from 49 to 51 mol%. Four isolates were identical with respect to small-subunit rRNA sequence over 891 positions compared and fall within a unique clade in the c-subclass of the Proteobacteria. Based on morphological, physiological and phylogenetic characteristics and specific symbiotic association with teredinid bivalves, a new genus and species, Teredinibacter turnerae gen. nov., sp. nov., is proposed. The type strain is T7902T (vATCC 39867TvDSM 15152T).This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation no. NSF DEB-9420051 and IBN- 9982982, the Maine Science and Technology Foundation's Center for Innovation in Biotechnology, and the University of Maine's Faculty Research program

Microfluidics/CMOS orthogonal capabilities for cell biology

The study of individual cells and cellular networks can greatly benefit from the capabilities of microfabricated devices for the stimulation and the recording of electrical cellular events. In this contribution, we describe the development of a device, which combines capabilities for both electrical and pharmacological cell stimulation, and the subsequent recording of electrical cellular activity. The device combines the unique advantages of integrated circuitry (CMOS technology) for signal processing and microfluidics for drug delivery. Both techniques are ideally suited to study electrogenic mammalian cells, because feature sizes are of the same order as the cell diameter, ∼ 50 μm. Despite these attractive features, we observe a size mismatch between microfluidic devices, with bulky fluidic connections to the outside world, and highly miniaturized CMOS chips. To overcome this problem, we developed a microfluidic flow cell that accommodates a small CMOS chip. We simulated the performances of a flow cell based on a 3-D microfluidic system, and then fabricated the device to experimentally verify the nutrient delivery and localized drug delivery performance. The flow-cell has a constant nutrient flow, and six drug inlets that can individually deliver a drug to the cells. The experimental analysis of the nutrient and drug flow mass transfer properties in the flowcell are in good agreement with our simulations. For an experimental proof-of-principle, we successfully delivered, in a spatially resolved manner, a ‘drug' to a culture of HL-1 cardiac myocyte

Women’s mental health during pregnancy: A participatory qualitative study

Background/objectives: British public health and academic policy and guidance promotes service user involvement in health care and research, however collaborative research remains underrepresented in literature relating to pregnant women’s mental health. The aim of this participatory research was to explore mothers’ and professionals’ perspectives on the factors that influence pregnant women’s mental health. Method: This qualitative research was undertaken in England with the involvement of three community members who had firsthand experience of mental health problems during pregnancy. All members of the team were involved in study design, recruitment, data generation and different stages of thematic analysis. Data were transcribed for individual and group discussions with 17 women who self-identified as experiencing mental health problems during pregnancy and 15 professionals who work with this group. Means of establishing trustworthiness included triangulation, researcher reflexivity, peer debriefing and comprehensive data analysis. Findings: Significant areas of commonality were identified between mothers’ and professionals’ perspectives on factors that undermine women’s mental health during pregnancy and what is needed to support women’s mental health. Analysis of data is provided with particular reference to contexts of relational, systemic and ecological conditions in women’s lives. Conclusions: Women’s mental health is predominantly undermined or supported by relational, experiential and material factors. The local context of socio-economic deprivation is a significant influence on women’s mental health and service requirements

Precision Medicine in Diabetes: A Consensus Report From the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD)

The convergence of advances in medical science, human biology, data science, and technology has enabled the generation of new insights into the phenotype known as "diabetes." Increased knowledge of this condition has emerged from populations around the world, illuminating the differences in how diabetes presents, its variable prevalence, and how best practice in treatment varies between populations. In parallel, focus has been placed on the development of tools for the application of precision medicine to numerous conditions. This Consensus Report presents the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Precision Medicine in Diabetes Initiative in partnership with the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), including its mission, the current state of the field, and prospects for the future. Expert opinions are presented on areas of precision diagnostics and precision therapeutics (including prevention and treatment), and key barriers to and opportunities for implementation of precision diabetes medicine, with better care and outcomes around the globe, are highlighted. Cases where precision diagnosis is already feasible and effective (i.e., monogenic forms of diabetes) are presented, while the major hurdles to the global implementation of precision diagnosis of complex forms of diabetes are discussed. The situation is similar for precision therapeutics, in which the appropriate therapy will often change over time owing to the manner in which diabetes evolves within individual patients. This Consensus Report describes a foundation for precision diabetes medicine, while highlighting what remains to be done to realize its potential. This, combined with a subsequent, detailed evidence-based review (due 2022), will provide a roadmap for precision medicine in diabetes that helps improve the quality of life for all those with diabetes.This article is freely available via Open Access. Click on the publisher URL to access it via the publisher's site.R01 HD094150/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States DP3 DK111906/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States U01 DK105535/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States R01 DK104942/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States U54 DK118612/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States R21 AI142483/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States R01 DK122586/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States P30 DK026687/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States WT_/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom R01 DK052431/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States UL1 TR001873/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States R01 DK104351/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United Statesaccepted version, submitted versio

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe