Measuring depression in autistic adults : psychometric validation of the Beck Depression Inventory–II

Depressive disorders are common in autistic adults, but few studies have examined the extent to which common depression questionnaires are psychometrically appropriate for use in this population. Using item response theory, this study examined the psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory–II (BDI-II) in a sample of 947 autistic adults. BDI-II latent trait scores exhibited strong reliability, construct validity, and moderate ability to discriminate between depressed and nondepressed adults on the autism spectrum (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.796 [0.763, 0.826], sensitivity = 0.820 [0.785, 0.852], specificity = 0.653 [0.601, 0.699]). These results collectively indicate that the BDI-II is a valid measure of depressive symptoms in autistic adults, appropriate for quantifying depression severity in research studies or screening for depressive disorders in clinical settings. A free online score calculator has been created to facilitate the use of BDI-II latent trait scores for clinical and research applications (available at https://asdmeasures.shinyapps.io/bdi_score/ )

Backlash against Gender Stereotype-violating Preschool Children

While there is substantial evidence that adults who violate gender stereotypes often face backlash (i.e. social and economic penalties), less is known about the nature of gender stereotypes for young children, and the penalties that children may face for violating them. We conducted three experiments, with over 2000 adults from the US, to better understand the content and consequences of adults’ gender stereotypes for young children. In Experiment 1, we tested which characteristics adults (N = 635) believed to be descriptive (i.e. typical), prescriptive (i.e. required), and proscriptive (i.e. forbidden) for preschool-aged boys and girls. Using the characteristics that were rated in Experiment 1, we then constructed vignettes that were either ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’, and manipulated whether the vignettes were said to describe a boy or a girl. Experiment 2 (N = 697) revealed that adults rated stereotype-violating children as less likeable than their stereotype-conforming peers, and that this difference was more robust for boys than girls. Experiment 3 (N = 731) was a direct replication of Experiment 2, and revealed converging evidence of backlash against stereotype-violating children. In sum, our results suggest that even young children encounter backlash from adults for stereotype violations, and that these effects may be strongest for boys

Detection of siRNA induced mRNA silencing by RT-qPCR: considerations for experimental design

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>RNA interference (RNAi) has been one of the most rapidly expanding areas of biological research in the past decade, revolutionizing the ability to analyze gene function. Thorough validation of siRNA duplexes is required prior to use in experimental systems, ideally by western blotting to show a reduction in protein levels. However, in many cases good antibodies are not available, and researchers must rely on RT-qPCR to detect knockdown of the mRNA species.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>We have observed a phenomenon that gives a disparity between analyzing small interfering RNA (siRNA) efficacy by western blotting of the protein levels and real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) measurement of mRNA levels. Detection of this phenomenon was dependent upon the location of the target amplicon for PCR primers within the mRNA.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our data suggests that for certain mRNAs, degradation of the 3' mRNA fragment resulting from siRNA mediated cleavage is blocked, leaving an mRNA fragment that can act as a template for cDNA synthesis, giving rise to false negative results and the rejection of a valid siRNA duplex. We show that this phenomenon may be avoided by the careful design of RT-qPCR primers for each individual siRNA experiment.</p

Early Postoperative Death in Patients Undergoing Emergency High-Risk Surgery:Towards a Better Understanding of Patients for Whom Surgery May Not Be Beneficial

The timing, causes, and quality of care for patients who die after emergency laparotomy have not been extensively reported. A large database of 13,953 patients undergoing emergency laparotomy, between July 2014 and March 2017, from 28 hospitals in England was studied. Anonymized data was extracted on day of death, patient demographics, operative details, compliance with standards of care, and 30-day and in-patient mortality. Thirty-day mortality was 8.9%, and overall inpatient mortality was 9.8%. Almost 40% of postoperative deaths occurred within three days of surgery, and 70% of these early deaths occurred on the day of surgery or the first postoperative day. Such early deaths could be considered nonbeneficial surgery. Patients who died within three days of surgery had a significantly higher preoperative lactate, American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status (ASA-PS) grade, and Physiological and Operative Severity Score for the enumeration of Mortality and morbidity (P-POSSUM). Compliance with perioperative standards of care based on the Emergency Laparotomy Collaborative care bundle was high overall and better for those patients who died within three days of surgery. Multidisciplinary team involvement from intensive care, care of the elderly physicians, and palliative care may help both the communication and the burden of responsibility in deciding on the risk&ndash;benefit of operative versus nonoperative approaches to care

Leveraging arbitrary mobile sensor trajectories with shallow recurrent decoder networks for full-state reconstruction

Sensing is one of the most fundamental tasks for the monitoring, forecasting and control of complex, spatio-temporal systems. In many applications, a limited number of sensors are mobile and move with the dynamics, with examples including wearable technology, ocean monitoring buoys, and weather balloons. In these dynamic systems (without regions of statistical-independence), the measurement time history encodes a significant amount of information that can be extracted for critical tasks. Most model-free sensing paradigms aim to map current sparse sensor measurements to the high-dimensional state space, ignoring the time-history all together. Using modern deep learning architectures, we show that a sequence-to-vector model, such as an LSTM (long, short-term memory) network, with a decoder network, dynamic trajectory information can be mapped to full state-space estimates. Indeed, we demonstrate that by leveraging mobile sensor trajectories with shallow recurrent decoder networks, we can train the network (i) to accurately reconstruct the full state space using arbitrary dynamical trajectories of the sensors, (ii) the architecture reduces the variance of the mean-square error of the reconstruction error in comparison with immobile sensors, and (iii) the architecture also allows for rapid generalization (parameterization of dynamics) for data outside the training set. Moreover, the path of the sensor can be chosen arbitrarily, provided training data for the spatial trajectory of the sensor is available. The exceptional performance of the network architecture is demonstrated on three applications: turbulent flows, global sea-surface temperature data, and human movement biomechanics.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 2 table

What Are the Factors that Influence Caregiver/Parent Co-sleeping Education?

poster abstractBackground: In the United States, 13% of infants routinely co-sleep with a caregiver, and 50% of infants share a bed with a caregiver for part of the night. Co-sleeping has been identified as a risk factor for infant death by Sudden Unexplained Infant Death Syndrome (SUIDS). The purpose of this research was to carry out a systematic review for determining best practices related to education to caregivers on the risks of co-sleeping. Method: After a rigorous multi-database search, we accessed 100 research articles related to SUIDS from years 2002-2015 for inclusion for this review. A total of 20 papers related to co-sleeping and SUIDS met the inclusion criteria and were assessed for validity by a primary and secondary reviewer via standardized critical appraisal instruments from the Joanna Briggs Institute. Due to the articles’ descriptive methods, NOTARI (Narrative, Opinion, and Text Assessment and Review Instrument) was used to appraise, extract data, and thematically organize the findings resulting in meta-aggregation. Results: The data extracted included specific details for co-sleeping. We identified that a) educational, b) family dynamics, c) racial/cultural, and d) socioeconomic factors were the significant concepts that influenced the caregivers’ attitude toward co-sleeping and their likelihood to co-sleep. Heterogeneity for the study’s methods was represented in the results. Conclusions: Many caregivers and families that practice co-sleeping display resistance to education about the discontinuation of co-sleeping based on the belief that healthcare providers do not take into account the family’s personal situation. The caregivers are more likely to be receptive to advice regarding safer co-sleeping practices as opposed to omitting the practice of co-sleeping. Family-centered interventions and tailored education delivered by nurses should be identified. Caregiver safe practices for sleep, taking into account situational factors such as socioeconomic level, race, culture, and core beliefs, should be encouraged

Comparative quasi-static mechanical characterization of fresh and stored porcine trachea specimens

Abstract: Tissues of the upper airways of critically ill patients are particularly vulnerable to mechanical damage associated with the use of ventilators. Ventilation is known to disrupt the structural integrity of respiratory tissues and their function. This damage contributes to the vulnerability of these tissues to infection. We are currently developing tissue models of damage and infection to the upper airways. As part of our studies, we have compared how tissue storage conditions affect mechanical properties of excised respiratory tissues using a quasi-static platform. Data presented here show considerable differences in mechanical responses of stored specimens compared to freshly excised specimens. These data indicate that implementation of storage and maintenance procedures that minimize rapid degradation of tissue structure are essential for retaining the material properties in our tissue trauma models

In silico analyses of maleidride biosynthetic gene clusters

Maleidrides are a family of structurally related fungal natural products, many of which possess diverse, potent bioactivities. Previous identification of several maleidride biosynthetic gene clusters, and subsequent experimental work, has determined the ‘core’ set of genes required to construct the characteristic medium-sized alicyclic ring with maleic anhydride moieties. Through genome mining, this work has used these core genes to discover ten entirely novel putative maleidride biosynthetic gene clusters, amongst both publicly available genomes, and encoded within the genome of the previously un-sequenced epiheveadride producer Wicklowia aquatica CBS 125634. We have undertaken phylogenetic analyses and comparative bioinformatics on all known and putative maleidride biosynthetic gene clusters to gain further insights regarding these unique biosynthetic pathways. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40694-022-00132-z