Playing with Aesthetics in Art Museums

Playing with Aesthetics in Art Museums presents a strategy for using design thinking to mediate engrossing art experiences for adult museum visitors. Built upon a substantiated family resemblance between art and play experiences, the study synthesizes a typology of aesthetic theories, ten germane tenets of game design, and a psychographic portrait of the archetypal museum visitor to create a practical framework for delivering engrossing art experiences to adult visitors who typically enter museums with limited art historical knowledge. The interdisciplinary approach used is intended to replace the singular methodologies (whether art historical, pedagogical or aesthetic) that have informed museum practice in the United States since the late nineteenth century

Effect of antenatal milk expression education on lactation outcomes in birthing people with pre-pregnancy body mass index ≥ 25: Protocol for a randomized, controlled trial

Background: Birthing people with pre-pregnancy body mass indices (BMIs) ≥ 25 kg/m2, particularly those without prior breastfeeding experience, are at increased risk for suboptimal lactation outcomes. Antenatal milk expression (AME) may be one way to counteract the negative effects of early infant formula supplementation common in this population. Methods: This ongoing, randomized controlled trial in the United States evaluates the efficacy of a telelactation-delivered AME education intervention versus an attention control condition on lactation outcomes to 1 year postpartum among 280 nulliparous-to-primiparous, non-diabetic birthing people with pre-pregnancy BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2. The assigned study treatment is delivered via four weekly online video consultations between gestational weeks 37-40. Participants assigned to AME meet with study personnel and a lactation consultant to learn and practice AME. Instructions are provided for home practice of AME between study visits. Control group participants view videos on infant care/development at study visits. Participants complete emailed surveys at enrollment (340/7-366/7 gestational weeks) and 2 weeks, 6 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months, and 12 months postpartum. Surveys assess lactation and infant feeding practices; breastfeeding self-efficacy, attitudes, and satisfaction; perception of insufficient milk; onset of lactogenesis-II; lactation support and problems; and reasons for breastfeeding cessation. Surveys also assess factors associated with lactation outcomes, including demographic characteristics, health problems, birth trauma, racial discrimination, and weight stigma. Health information and infant feeding data are abstracted from the pregnancy and birth center electronic health record. Milk samples are collected from the intervention group at each study visit and from both groups at each postpartum follow-up for future analyses. Qualitative interviews are conducted at 6 weeks postpartum to understand AME experiences. Primary outcomes of interest are breastfeeding exclusivity and breastfeeding self-efficacy scores at 2 weeks postpartum. Outcomes will be examined longitudinally with generalized linear mixed-effects modeling. Discussion: This is the first adequately powered trial evaluating the effectiveness of AME among U.S. birthing people and within a non-diabetic population with pre-pregnancy BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2. This study will also provide the first evidence of acceptability and effectiveness of telelactation-delivered AME. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04258709

Cardiovascular and metabolic health is associated with functional brain connectivity in middle-aged and older adults: Results from the Human Connectome Project-Aging study

Several cardiovascular and metabolic indicators, such as cholesterol and blood pressure have been associated with altered neural and cognitive health as well as increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer\u27s disease in later life. In this cross-sectional study, we examined how an aggregate index of cardiovascular and metabolic risk factor measures was associated with correlation-based estimates of resting-state functional connectivity (FC) across a broad adult age-span (36-90+ years) from 930 volunteers in the Human Connectome Project Aging (HCP-A). Increased (i.e., worse) aggregate cardiometabolic scores were associated with reduced FC globally, with especially strong effects in insular, medial frontal, medial parietal, and superior temporal regions. Additionally, at the network-level, FC between core brain networks, such as default-mode and cingulo-opercular, as well as dorsal attention networks, showed strong effects of cardiometabolic risk. These findings highlight the lifespan impact of cardiovascular and metabolic health on whole-brain functional integrity and how these conditions may disrupt higher-order network integrity

Geopolymers based on spent catalyst residue from a fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) process

This paper assesses the use of alkali activation technology in the valorization of a spent fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) catalyst, which is a residue derived from the oil-cracking process, to produce geopolymer binders. In particular, the effects of activation conditions on the structural characteristics of the spent catalyst- based geopolymers are determined. The zeolitic phases present in the spent catalyst are the main phases participating in the geopolymerization reaction, which is driven by the conversion of the zeolitic material to a highly Al-substituted aluminosilicate binder gel. Higher alkali content and SiO2/Na2O ratio lead to a denser structure with a higher degree of geopolymer gel formation and increased degree of crosslinking, as identified through 29Si MAS NMR. These results highlight the feasibility of using spent FCC catalyst as a precursor for geopolymer production.This study was sponsored by research scholarship BES-2008-002440 and EEBB-2011-43847 from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia of Spain, the European regional development fund (FEDER), and the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (Spain). The participation of SAB and JLP was funded by the Australian Research Council through the Discovery Projects program, and also including partial funding through the Particulate Fluids Processing Centre, a Special Research Centre of the ARC. The authors wish to acknowledge the Advanced Microscopy Facility at The University of Melbourne for assistance with the electron microscopy experiments conducted in this study.Rodriguez Martinez, ED.; Bernal, SA.; Provis, JL.; Gehman, JD.; Monzó Balbuena, JM.; Paya Bernabeu, JJ.; Borrachero Rosado, MV. (2013). Geopolymers based on spent catalyst residue from a fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) process. Fuel. 109:493-502. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2013.02.053S49350210

Gamma irradiation resistance of early age Ba(OH)₂-Na₂SO₄-slag cementitious grouts

The gamma irradiation resistance of early age Ba(OH)₂-Na₂SO₄-slag cementitious grouts, formulated for the immobilisation of sulfate bearing nuclear waste, was assessed. The observable crystalline phases were not modified upon heating (50 °C) or upon gamma irradiation up to a total dose of 2.9 MGy over 256 h, but the compressive strengths of the irradiated samples increased significantly. ²⁷Al and ²⁹Si MAS NMR spectroscopy showed that the main binding phase, a calcium aluminosilicate hydrate (C-A-S-H) type gel, had a more ordered and polymerised structure upon heating and irradiation compared to that identified in reference samples. This is associated with a higher degree of reaction of the slag. Samples formulated with the waste simulant Na₂SO₄, but without Ba(OH)₂, became porous and cracked upon heating and irradiation, but still retained their compressive strength. The Ba(OH)₂-Na₂SO₄-slag grouts evaluated in this work withstand gamma irradiation without showing identifiable damage, and are thus a technically feasible solution for immobilisation of sulfate-bearing nuclear wastes

Thermodynamic modelling of alkali-activated slag cements

This paper presents a thermodynamic modelling analysis of alkali-activated slag-based cements, which are high performance and potentially low-CO2 binders relative to Portland cement. The thermodynamic database used here contains a calcium (alkali) aluminosilicate hydrate ideal solid solution model (CNASH_ss), alkali carbonate and zeolite phases, and an ideal solid solution model for a hydrotalcite-like Mg-Al layered double hydroxide phase. Simulated phase diagrams for NaOH- and Na2SiO3-activated slag-based cements demonstrate the high stability of zeolites and other solid phases in these materials. Thermodynamic modelling provides a good description of the chemical compositions and types of phases formed in Na2SiO3-activated slag cements over the most relevant bulk chemical composition range for these cements, and the simulated volumetric properties of the cement paste are consistent with previously measured and estimated values. Experimentally determined and simulated solid phase assemblages for Na2CO3-activated slag cements were also found to be in good agreement. These results can be used to design the chemistry of alkali-activated slag-based cements, to further promote the uptake of this technology and valorisation of metallurgical slags

Production and hydration of calcium sulfoaluminate-belite cements derived from aluminium anodising sludge

Calcium sulfoaluminate-belite cement (CSAB) offers lower CO2 emissions in its production, compared with Portland cement. However, for the production of CSAB a high amount of alumina is required, and the scarcity and high cost of high-purity bauxite make these cements costly at present. In this study, the use of uncalcined aluminium anodising sludge (AAS) as the main source of alumina to produce CSAB clinkers, replacing bauxite, was assessed. The CSAB clinkers produced were mainly composed of ye’elimite and belite, along with minor traces of alite, and/or brownmillerite, depending on the alumina source. Clinkers derived from AAS as a source of aluminium showed a lower content of ye’elimite (35.5%), as well as the formation of alite (8.2%) when compared to a reference clinker produced with reagent-grade materials. Comparable hydration products were identified in the hydrated cements independent of the alumina source used. The use of AAS to produce CSAB cement was proven to be technically feasible, and the cement thus produced has desirable technical characteristics, presenting high mechanical strength (>40 MPa in paste samples)

Heritability of fractional anisotropy in human white matter: a comparison of Human Connectome Project and ENIGMA-DTI data

The degree to which genetic factors influence brain connectivity is beginning to be understood. Large-scale efforts are underway to map the profile of genetic effects in various brain regions. The NIH-funded Human Connectome Project (HCP) is providing data valuable for analyzing the degree of genetic influence underlying brain connectivity revealed by state-of-the-art neuroimaging methods. We calculated the heritability of the fractional anisotropy (FA) measure derived from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) reconstruction in 481 HCP subjects (194/287 M/F) consisting of 57/60 pairs of mono- and dizygotic twins, and 246 siblings. FA measurements were derived using (Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis) ENIGMA DTI protocols and heritability estimates were calculated using the SOLAR-Eclipse imaging genetic analysis package. We compared heritability estimates derived from HCP data to those publicly available through the ENIGMA-DTI consortium, which were pooled together from five-family based studies across the US, Europe, and Australia. FA measurements from the HCP cohort for eleven major white matter tracts were highly heritable (h2 = 0.53–0.90, p < 10− 5), and were significantly correlated with the joint-analytical estimates from the ENIGMA cohort on the tract and voxel-wise levels. The similarity in regional heritability suggests that the additive genetic contribution to white matter microstructure is consistent across populations and imaging acquisition parameters. It also suggests that the overarching genetic influence provides an opportunity to define a common genetic search space for future gene-discovery studies. Uniquely, the measurements of additive genetic contribution performed in this study can be repeated using online genetic analysis tools provided by the HCP ConnectomeDB web application

Defects in tRNA Modification Associated with Neurological and Developmental Dysfunctions in Caenorhabditis elegans Elongator Mutants

Elongator is a six subunit protein complex, conserved from yeast to humans. Mutations in the human Elongator homologue, hELP1, are associated with the neurological disease familial dysautonomia. However, how Elongator functions in metazoans, and how the human mutations affect neural functions is incompletely understood. Here we show that in Caenorhabditis elegans, ELPC-1 and ELPC-3, components of the Elongator complex, are required for the formation of the 5-carbamoylmethyl and 5-methylcarboxymethyl side chains of wobble uridines in tRNA. The lack of these modifications leads to defects in translation in C. elegans. ELPC-1::GFP and ELPC-3::GFP reporters are strongly expressed in a subset of chemosensory neurons required for salt chemotaxis learning. elpc-1 or elpc-3 gene inactivation causes a defect in this process, associated with a posttranscriptional reduction of neuropeptide and a decreased accumulation of acetylcholine in the synaptic cleft. elpc-1 and elpc-3 mutations are synthetic lethal together with those in tuc-1, which is required for thiolation of tRNAs having the 5′methylcarboxymethyl side chain. elpc-1; tuc-1 and elpc-3; tuc-1 double mutants display developmental defects. Our results suggest that, by its effect on tRNA modification, Elongator promotes both neural function and development