The Health Status of Early 20th Century Blacks from the Providence Baptist Church Cemetery (40Sy619) in Shelby County, Tennessee

Paleopathological investigations of health are an important component in the construction of a population’s history. Such studies make possible analyses regarding Black health in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a time period where the availability of relevant and objective literature is limited. Also, these investigations permit a comparison between similar populations to determine the extent to which the demographic, social, economic, and political conditions of this time period affect a specific population. This study compares the Providence Baptist Church cemetery in Shelby County, Tennessee to two contemporary historic Black cemeteries in order to address an urban versus rural dichotomy suggested by Davidson et al. (2002). The Cedar Grove cemetery, located in rural Arkansas, and the late-period Freedman’s cemetery, located in Dallas, Texas, were used for the comparison. Comparisons of the skeletal and dental indicators of stress across these samples, using data from the Western Hemisphere Database (Steckel et al. 2002), help place the Providence Baptist Church skeletal series in relation to the other sites. A series of pair-wise chi-tests was employed to determine significant differences at the 95 percent confidence level, between the populations for the frequency and severity of each skeletal indicator of stress. The Providence Baptist Church cemetery demonstrates a high incidence of degenerative joint disease, moderate infectious lesions, few dietary or metabolic disorders, and little trauma. When compared to the other populations, the pathology frequencies indicate a population that is not clearly associated with either the rural or urban condition as defined by Davidson et al. (2002). Significant variation among the three sites was observed with each stress indicator examined. The Providence population demonstrated a relationship with the Cedar Grove Cemetery for osteoarthritis, and with Freedman’s Cemetery for indicators of metabolic stress. The results for trauma and infection were inconclusive, but a possible relationship between Cedar Grove and Providence for trauma and between Freedman’s and Providence for infection was noted. These pathological conditions indicate a rural community that is augmenting its health status by taking advantage of the resources at its disposal. This suggests that other factors, such as a direct church affiliation, an association with Masonic organizations, or the proximity to the Memphis metropolitan area affected the population’s health

Sex Differences in Behavioral Responses to Repeat Subconcussive Events

Although concussions, especially those in athletes and military, have become a popular focus of neurotrauma research, subconcussions occur with higher frequency and are less well-studied. A subconcussion is loosely defined as an impact to the head that does not result in a diagnosable concussion but can result in neuronal alterations. Repeat subconcussions have been shown to produce behavioral impairments along with neuropathology that is similar to or worse than those seen in a single concussion injury. These studies have primarily included male subjects. Given the potential effects of hormones and NIH’s call for sex-inclusion in biomedical research, assessing female responses to injury is essential. The current study was designed to model repeat subconcussions in the adult rat and examine sex differences in behavioral responses to injury. Using a model of closed head injury previously created in our lab, this study modified the intensity of the impact to create a subconcussive impact. All rats received a single concussion, single subconcussion, repeat subconcussion (five impacts, 24-hours apart), or sham (no impact) injury. The repeat subconcussive injury was patterned following preliminary data from our lab. Female rats received the first impact on the day of proestrus, when estrogen concentrations peak during the estrous cycle. Behavioral tests were administered two hours post impact through 31 days post-injury. All animals with a single concussion or repeat subconcussion showed deficits in locomotion, righting reflexes, and recognition memory, while animals with a single subconcussion did not. Repeat subconcussions produced deficits similar to a single concussion in righting reflex and recognition memory, but locomotor deficits were greater in rats with repeat subconcussions. When assessing sex differences in the behavioral responses to the repeat subconcussive model, female rats showed greater deficits than males in righting reflexes, locomotion, and vestibular function. Males showed greater increases in anxiety-like behaviors than the females. This study established a model of subconcussive impact where a single subconcussive impact resulted in little to no behavioral deficits but repeat subconcussive impacts resulted in deficits that are similar to or worse than a single concussion. Our data also suggest that females may experience more deleterious effects in certain outcomes following both concussive and subconcussive impacts, which supports some clinical findings. Further experiments will need to be done to examine sex differences in the neuropathology

High order magnon bound states in the quasi-one-dimensional antiferromagnet α\alpha-NaMnO2_2

Here we report on the formation of two and three magnon bound states in the quasi-one-dimensional antiferromagnet $\alpha$-NaMnO$_2$, where the single-ion, uniaxial anisotropy inherent to the Mn$^{3+}$ ions in this material provides a binding mechanism capable of stabilizing higher order magnon bound states. While such states have long remained elusive in studies of antiferromagnetic chains, neutron scattering data presented here demonstrate that higher order $n>2$ composite magnons exist, and, specifically, that a weak three-magnon bound state is detected below the antiferromagnetic ordering transition of NaMnO$_2$. We corroborate our findings with exact numerical simulations of a one-dimensional Heisenberg chain with easy-axis anisotropy using matrix-product state techniques, finding a good quantitative agreement with the experiment. These results establish $\alpha$-NaMnO$_2$ as a unique platform for exploring the dynamics of composite magnon states inherent to a classical antiferromagnetic spin chain with Ising-like single ion anisotropy.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Survey on Sociodemographic Bias in Natural Language Processing

Deep neural networks often learn unintended biases during training, which might have harmful effects when deployed in real-world settings. This paper surveys 209 papers on bias in NLP models, most of which address sociodemographic bias. To better understand the distinction between bias and real-world harm, we turn to ideas from psychology and behavioral economics to propose a definition for sociodemographic bias. We identify three main categories of NLP bias research: types of bias, quantifying bias, and debiasing. We conclude that current approaches on quantifying bias face reliability issues, that many of the bias metrics do not relate to real-world biases, and that current debiasing techniques are superficial and hide bias rather than removing it. Finally, we provide recommendations for future work.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figur

The financial costs of registered nurse-led relationship-centred care : a single-case Australian feasibility study

People with intellectual disability are accommodated and cared for in a variety of settings in Australia. Direct care is delivered by a mixture of qualified health professionals (nurses) and unlicenced disability support workers in varying combinations depending on the complexity and chronicity of comorbidities experienced by people with intellectual disability. Although some of these disability services continue to employ registered nurses, the size and specialised education of this workforce is decreasing due to a myriad of policy changes, which has the effect of compromising continuity of care and adverse effects on health outcomes. The objective of this study was to compare the differences on the financial cost of a single case using different models of care with, and without, specialised registered nursing input. The single case had profound intellectual disability and multiple chronic and complex health problems and was cared for by a model that included 24 h registered nurse care and support. Four financial scenarios are presented, and the differences both in terms of actual cost, and potential health outcomes are discussed. This study has set the scene for a large study where health economic data can be compared against multiple cases, across a range of care contexts, in order to advance evidence about which models provide the better health outcomes for people with intellectual disability and associated multiple chronic and complex health problems

Intimate Partner Violence and Women with Severe Mental Illnesses: Needs and Challenges from the Perspectives of Behavioral Health and Domestic Violence Service Providers

Women with severe mental illnesses face high rates of violence victimization, yet little is understood about the unique needs and challenges these women present to the domestic violence and behavioral health agencies that serve them. To help address this knowledge gap, focus groups were conducted with 28 staff members from local behavioral health and domestic violence service agencies. Results from this exploratory study suggest that women with severe mental illnesses who experience intimate partner violence face additional challenges that exacerbate behavioral health and domestic violence issues and put these women at greater risk for continued victimization. DV and behavioral health agency staff experience individual-, provider-, and system-level barriers to serving this high-risk, high-need population. Recommendations and implications for domestic violence and behavioral health providers are discussed