An Exploration of Social Participation for Young Adults Following a First Psychotic Episode

Individuals with mental illness continue to be among the most excluded in society. Adolescents and young adults with psychotic disorders often fare worse than their peers in areas such as education and the adoption of adult social and occupational roles. Although various factors have been identified that influence this exclusion and impairment, studies have predominantly focused on stigma with insufficient attention paid to other societal factors influencing participation (e.g., socioeconomic status, normative age expectations, and social institutions). In addition, there is a notable gap in the literature studying participation beyond that of employment for individuals with first episode psychosis (FEP). Numerous studies have shown that the ability to participate and interact with others is vital to recovery for people with mental illness. Indeed, participation and social interaction promote the development of social networks to support the recovery process, encourage engagement in meaningful activity, and foster community integration. A thorough understanding of how social participation shifts for individuals following their first psychotic break is needed to develop interventions targeting social integration and participation. The objective of this collaborative ethnography was to explore participation in social life for young adults following their first psychotic episode. To meet this objective, the study adopted two specific aims: 1) explore the sociocultural mechanisms that facilitate or hinder the experience of social participation for young adults following FEP; and 2) explore perceived opportunities for participation for young adults following FEP. The transactional perspective, in conjunction with the life course model and theories of action, were used as guiding theoretical frameworks for this study. Semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and discourse elicitation were used for data collection. Seven factors were revealed that impacted consultants’ social participation: 1) social norms and expectations; 2) a sense of responsibility to others; 3) consultants’ occupational histories and prior routines, including their relationships prior to the illness; 4) change in the physical and social environment; 5) the types of participation available; 6) the need to manage the illness; and 7) consultants’ self-perception and the associated perception of occupational possibilities. These factors transacted in a complex way to impact consultants’ experiences of belonging and their life trajectories following FEP. Consultants reported experiencing a space of liminality, wherein they struggled with new identities and negotiated new life trajectories. Participation in occupation facilitated movement through the liminal space and promoted belonging after FEP. The study findings offer new insights into theories of belonging, including how belonging is impacted in varying spaces of belonging. Implications for occupational science and occupational therapy are discussed, including recommendations for continued research related to belonging and the use of occupation as a conduit for identity work and movement through liminal spaces.Doctor of Philosoph

Exploring the Baccalaureate Origin of Domestic Ph.D. Students in Computing Fields

Increasing the number of US students entering graduate school and receiving a Ph.D. in computer science is a goal as well as a challenge for many US Ph.D. granting institutions. Although the total computer science Ph.D. production in the U.S. has doubled between 2000 and 2010 (Figure 1), the fraction of domestic students receiving a Ph.D. from U.S. graduate programs has been below 50% since 2003 (Figure 2). The goal of the Pipeline Project of CRA-E (PiPE) is to better understand the pipeline of US citizens and Permanent Residents (henceforth termed domestic students ) who apply, matriculate, and graduate from doctoral programs in computer science. This article is the first of two articles from CRA-E examining this issue. This article provides an initial examination of the baccalaureate origins of domestic students who have matriculated to Ph.D. programs in computer science. We hope that trends and patterns in these data can be useful both in recruiting and, ultimately, in improving the quality and quantity of the domestic Ph.D. pipeline

ACVIM consensus statement guidelines for the classification, diagnosis, and management of cardiomyopathies in cats

Cardiomyopathies are a heterogeneous group of myocardial disorders of mostly unknown etiology, and they occur commonly in cats. In some cats, they are well-tolerated and are associated with normal life expectancy, but in other cats they can result in congestive heart failure, arterial thromboembolism or sudden death. Cardiomyopathy classification in cats can be challenging, and in this consensus statement we outline a classification system based on cardiac structure and function (phenotype). We also introduce a staging system for cardiomyopathy that includes subdivision of cats with subclinical cardiomyopathy into those at low risk of life-threatening complications and those at higher risk. Based on the available literature, we offer recommendations for the approach to diagnosis and staging of cardiomyopathies, as well as for management at each stage

Nebulae: A Proposed Concept of Operation for Deep Space Computing Clouds

In this paper, we describe an ongoing multi-institution study in using emplaced computational resources such as high-volume storage and fast processing to enable instruments to gather and store much more data than would normally be possible, even if it cannot be downlinked to Earth in any reasonable time. The primary focus of the study is designing science pipelines for on-site summarization, archival for future downlink, and multisensor fusion. A secondary focus is on providing support for increasingly autonomous systems, including mapping, planning, and multi-platform collaboration. Key to both of these concepts is treating the spacecraft not as an autonomous agent but as an interactive batch processor, which allows us to avoid “quantum leaps” in machine intelligence required to realize the concepts. Our goal is to discuss preliminary results and technical directions for the community, and identify promising new opportunities for multi-sensor fusion with the help of planetary researchers

The impact of using computer decision-support software in primary care nurse-led telephone triage:Interactional dilemmas and conversational consequences

Telephone triage represents one strategy to manage demand for face-to-face GP appointments in primary care. Although computer decision-support software (CDSS) is increasingly used by nurses to triage patients, little is understood about how interaction is organized in this setting. Specifically any interactional dilemmas this computer-mediated setting invokes; and how these may be consequential for communication with patients. Using conversation analytic methods we undertook a multi-modal analysis of 22 audio-recorded telephone triage nurse-caller interactions from one GP practice in England, including 10 video-recordings of nurses' use of CDSS during triage. We draw on Goffman's theoretical notion of participation frameworks to make sense of these interactions, presenting 'telling cases' of interactional dilemmas nurses faced in meeting patient's needs and accurately documenting the patient's condition within the CDSS. Our findings highlight troubles in the 'interactional workability' of telephone triage exposing difficulties faced in aligning the proximal and wider distal context that structures CDSS-mediated interactions. Patients present with diverse symptoms, understanding of triage consultations, and communication skills which nurses need to negotiate turn-by-turn with CDSS requirements. Nurses therefore need to have sophisticated communication, technological and clinical skills to ensure patients' presenting problems are accurately captured within the CDSS to determine safe triage outcomes. Dilemmas around how nurses manage and record information, and the issues of professional accountability that may ensue, raise questions about the impact of CDSS and its use in supporting nurses to deliver safe and effective patient care

Frequent Cross-Species Transmission of Parvoviruses among Diverse Carnivore Hosts

Although parvoviruses are commonly described in domestic carnivores, little is known about their biodiversity in nondomestic species. A phylogenetic analysis of VP2 gene sequences from puma, coyote, gray wolf, bobcat, raccoon, and striped skunk revealed two major groups related to either feline panleukopenia virus (“FPV-like”) or canine parvovirus (“CPV-like”). Crossspecies transmission was commonplace, with multiple introductions into each host species but, with the exception of raccoons, relatively little evidence for onward transmission in nondomestic species

A machine learning toolkit for CRISM image analysis

Hyperspectral images collected by remote sensing have played a significant role in the discovery of aqueous alteration minerals, which in turn have important implications for our understanding of the changing habitability on Mars. Traditional spectral analyzes based on summary parameters have been helpful in converting hyperspectral cubes into readily visualizable three channel maps highlighting high-level mineral composition of the Martian terrain. These maps have been used as a starting point in the search for specific mineral phases in images. Although the amount of labor needed to verify the presence of a mineral phase in an image is quite limited for phases that emerge with high abundance, manual processing becomes laborious when the task involves determining the spatial extent of detected phases or identifying small outcrops of secondary phases that appear in only a few pixels within an image. Thanks to extensive use of remote sensing data and rover expeditions, significant domain knowledge has accumulated over the years about mineral composition of several regions of interest on Mars, which allow us to collect reliable labeled data required to train machine learning algorithms. In this study we demonstrate the utility of machine learning in two essential tasks for hyperspectral data analysis: nonlinear noise removal and mineral classification. We develop a simple yet effective hierarchical Bayesian model for estimating distributions of spectral patterns and extensively validate this model for mineral classification on several test images. Our results demonstrate that machine learning can be highly effective in exposing tiny outcrops of specific phases in orbital data that are not uncovered by traditional spectral analysis. We package implemented scripts, documentation illustrating use cases, and pixel-scale training data collected from dozens of well-characterized images into a new toolkit. We hope that this new toolkit will provide advanced and effective processing tools and improve community’s ability to map compositional units in remote sensing data quickly, accurately, and at scale

An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing: Version 0.5 (Draft for Comment)

Background: At the Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) Membership Meeting at the 2017 Library Publishing Forum in Baltimore, Maryland, the community discussed how the LPC can respond to the current political climate. The discussion was wide-ranging, but kept coming back to the importance of library values and our responsibility as library publishers to center our publishing practice around them. A number of those present offered to devise a way for the conversation to continue beyond the Forum. That group included Marilyn Billings, Jason Boczar, Rebel Cummings-Sauls, Harrison W. Inefuku, Joshua Neds-Fox, Matt Ruen, Emily Stenberg, and Monica Westin, who proposed a task force to tackle the issues raised. This task force was charged with creating an Ethical Framework for Library Publishing . From July of 2017 to June of 2018, the task force members (listed on the title page as authors of this document) identified the topics to be covered in the framework, and then worked in subgroups to review the literature on those topics and identify existing resources of particular relevance to the community of library publishers. The subgroups then drafted the sections you see in this document. Throughout this process, they worked iteratively to devise a structure and format for the framework—a challenging task, and one for which there were many inspirations, but no clear models. In the end, they decided that the most effective structure for the document would break each section into an introduction , a scope statement , a review of existing resources , and a set of recommendations for library publishers. Some sections also include a note about new resources that are needed and/or further readings on the topic. Context: library publishing and ethics: Academic libraries have entered the publishing space due to changes in ways of disseminating information and in response to faculty members’ desire to control their own publishing destiny. This work has been enabled by the emergence of open source or low-cost technologies for publishing, but the motivations for it are broad and deep—for example, library publishers are also deeply engaged with emerging forms of scholarship (and emerging disciplines) that do not yet have a voice within the traditional publishing environment. These motivations often include a desire for increased openness and sustainability in the scholarly communication landscape. Unlike commercial publishers and traditional presses, the work of library publishers is largely funded through existing library budgets without a profit motive. The goal is instead to increase the impact of scholarship created by faculty and students affiliated with an institution and to disseminate that scholarship as broadly as possible, by emphasizing open access as a means of distribution. Because these publishing activities for academic libraries are a relatively recent endeavor, education and training for librarians as publishers is not fully established and thus one of the objectives for preparing this guide. Publishing as a role for librarians is increasing in importance for all academic libraries and is not limited to just research libraries, but also includes community colleges and four-year undergraduate institutions. Library publishers are also uniquely positioned to look beyond traditional prestige publishing priorities to partner with faculty, students, and organizations in order provide services such as data preservation and engage in publishing as pedagogy. As relative newcomers to the world of publishing, libraries are able to draw on a wealth of resources and expertise developed by more established players. To avoid reinventing the wheel, this document is structured primarily around existing resources. The framework pulls together existing publishing codes of ethics (many of which are included in the Publishing Practice section), along with resources from librarianship and other related fields, and contextualizes them for library publishers. The recommendations in each section attempt to distill a wealth of knowledge and guidance into a small set of actionable steps meant to answer the question, “But how do I get started?” They are by no means the only steps to be taken in these areas, but they may help library publishers begin to incorporate these important ethical considerations into their work. Future plans for the framework From the beginning of this project, the taskforce designed An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing to be an iterative document, more formal than a wiki but less so than a monograph or white paper. The founding group of authors worked on the framework with an understanding that every topic could not be covered, especially with a goal to create a document in less than a year. This framework was always envisioned as a starting place. In light of an iterative approach, we have decided to call this version 1 from the outset. The definitive version of An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing will always be the most current version. Versioning the document will also help make visible the historical transition. Version 2, the taskforce hopes, can be started by a new group of library publishing professionals with new views and ideas. In this way, we hope, An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing will never be a static, antiquated document created only from the viewpoint of a small group of people. It can, and should, be a community project

Rapid discrimination between methicillin-sensitive and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus by intact cell mass spectrometry

Rapid, accurate discrimination between methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strains is essential for appropriate therapeutic management and timely intervention for infection control. A rapid method involving intact cell mass spectrometry (ICMS) is presented that shows promise for identification, discrimination of MSSA from MRSA and typing. In ICMS, cells from a bacterial colony are emulsified in a chemical matrix, added to a sample slide, dried and analysed by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). This technique examines the chemistry of the intact bacterial cell surface, yielding spectra consisting of a series of peaks from 500 to 10 000, which represent the mass:charge (m:z) ratios. Each peak corresponds to a molecular fragment released from the cell surface during laser desorption. Specimens can be prepared in a few seconds from plate cultures and a spectrum can be obtained within 2 min. ICMS spectra for 20 staphylococcal isolates showed characteristic peaks, some of which were conserved at species level, some at strain level and some were characteristic of the methicillin susceptibility status of the strain. ICMS may have potential for MRSA identification and typing, and may improve infection control measures