New and Innovative Ways of Engaging Data: A Review of Davies’ Listening to Children: Being and Becoming

The growing use of diverse qualitative approaches in the social sciences has lead qualitative researchers to seek new and innovative ways of engaging their data. Davies’ book Listening to Children: Being and Becoming is just that. Listening to Children is a scholarly text intended for an academic audience. Davies applies guiding principles of new materialism in her research and demonstrates how this approach is rich with potential when researching with children. Akin to a how-to-book for new materialism and childhood research, Davies walks her audience through the diverse analytic possibilities of new materialism within the setting of child studies. In this review, I share my thoughts and interpretations of Davies’ book and address principal concepts discussed in the text

A Poetic Gaze into Gay Aging

The shift toward embracing creativity in qualitative research has opened up new possibilities for researchers who seek to represent themselves and their findings in ways that capture the complexities of human life. This case study on gay aging combined life history interviewing with arts-based techniques to explore how one individual made sense of his sexual orientation at a time when gay men were criminalized and pathologized. Using principles from poetic inquiry, interview data were transformed into a short poem that captures the emotional and affective undertones of gay aging. The findings reveal the utility of poetics as both a process and product that generates deeper understanding about complex social phenomena. The value of arts-based research as relational, embodied, and affective praxis are discussed. This research highlights the need for ongoing training of emerging qualitative researchers in arts-based techniques

Surgical management of vesicoureteral reflux in children

Vesicoureteral reflux (VUR) is the most common uropathy affecting children. Compared to children without VUR, those with VUR have a higher rate of pyelonephritis and renal scarring following urinary tract infection (UTI). Options for treatment include observation with or without antibiotic prophylaxis and surgical repair. Surgical intervention may be necessary in patients with persistent reflux, renal scarring, and recurrent or breakthrough febrile UTI. Both open and endoscopic approaches to reflux correction are successful and reduce the occurrence of febrile UTI. Estimated success rates of open and endoscopic reflux correction are 98.1% (95% CI 95.1, 99.1) and 83.0% (95% CI 69.1, 91.4), respectively. Factors that affect the success of endoscopic injection include pre-operative reflux grade and presence of functional or anatomic bladder abnormalities including voiding dysfunction and duplicated collecting systems. Few studies have evaluated the long-term outcomes of endoscopic injection, and with variable results. In patients treated endoscopically, recurrent febrile UTI occurred in 0–21%, new renal damage in 9–12%, and recurrent reflux in 17–47.6% of treated ureters with at least 1 year follow-up. These studies highlight the need for standardized outcome reporting and longer follow-up after endoscopic treatment

A call for transparent reporting to optimize the predictive value of preclinical research

The US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke convened major stakeholders in June 2012 to discuss how to improve the methodological reporting of animal studies in grant applications and publications. The main workshop recommendation is that at a minimum studies should report on sample-size estimation, whether and how animals were randomized, whether investigators were blind to the treatment, and the handling of data. We recognize that achieving a meaningful improvement in the quality of reporting will require a concerted effort by investigators, reviewers, funding agencies and journal editors. Requiring better reporting of animal studies will raise awareness of the importance of rigorous study design to accelerate scientific progress

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Queering Age-Friendly New York City

Background and aims: The global population is aging and becoming more culturally diverse. As such, scholars, practitioners, and policymakers are expected to think critically about strategies to improve the quality of life of people as they age. In 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Age-Friendly Cities movement to improve the well-being and meaningful engagement of older adults living in the community. New York City (NYC) was the first city in the world to be designated “age-friendly” by the WHO, and is possibly viewed as a model for other cities to emulate. Few empirical studies have examined the age-friendly cities movement from an intersectional lens inclusive of sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, class, disability, and neighborhood. The aim of this dissertation research is to critically examine NYC’s age-friendly policies and program structuring by centering the dreams, desires, and demands of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer plus (LGBTQ+) elders of color. Methods: This multi-methods, three-paper dissertation research employs three distinct qualitative approaches to critically examine NYC’s age-friendly strategic plan. The first paper applies critical discourse analysis to examine over 800 pages of public records on the Age- Friendly NYC initiative from 2007 through 2021. The second paper centers researcher reflexivity to critically analyze my position within the historical context of scientific inquiry involving LGBTQ+ elders of color. The third paper employs ethnographic methods to examine the processes of building a research coalition comprised of LGBTQ+ elders of color to critically examine the meaning of age-friendliness during the Covid-19 pandemic. Findings: Findings from the first paper illustrate the marginalizing of older people by race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender in Age-Friendly NYC programming and policies. Findings from the second paper describe a conceptual framework for social scientists interested in healing the epistemic wounds inflicted upon marginalized communities by centering critical reflexivity and restorative justice in knowledge building and sharing. Findings from the third paper highlight the barriers and facilitators of conducting critical Participatory Action Research (PAR) with LGBTQ+ elders of color during Covid-19. Implications: This research offers a critique of the age-friendly movement by critically analyzing NYC’s age-friendly plan from different methods and points of view. Findings demonstrate serious inequities in who matters and benefits from age-friendly policies and programs rooted in epistemic injustice towards marginalized older adults. This research may help build momentum for a critical turn in age-friendly initiatives by interrogating hidden ideologies and hegemonic structures that limit the potential of the age-friendly movement for marginalized communities like LGBTQ+ elders of color