West Virginia needle exchange program

Introduction: Needle Exchange Programs (NEPs) have been controversial aspects of public healthcare due to conflicting beliefs and opinions for public policies. NEPs allow Injection Drug Users (IDUs) the ability to exchange their used equipment for clean, unused supplies. Purpose: The purpose of this literature review was to determine the effectiveness of needle exchange programs and the impact it has had on the reduction of HIV and viral hepatitis infections in people who inject drugs. It further explores if these strategies have had a positive impact on the reduction of HIV and viral hepatitis C in West Virginia. Methodology: The hypothesis for this study was: the incorporation of the West Virginia Needle Exchange Program will create a substantial decrease in the number of diseases spread through needle sharing among injection drug users. The research was conducted through a literature review of needle exchange programs within the U.S. and West Virginia in Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, Point of View Reference Center, Alt-Health Watch, PubMed, and Google Scholar. Results: The literature reviewed consisted of studies regarding the demographics of injection drug users and effectiveness of needle exchange programs across the U.S. The need for needle exchange is great in West Virginia. IDUs have accounted for 10% of HIV transmission cases in West Virginia, and the state has been ranked #1 for cases of Hepatitis C. Discussion/Conclusion: NEPs have had success at decreasing the number of individuals sharing syringes and spreading diseases. It has been shown that the shorter amount of time injection drug equipment is in rotation, the less likely individuals are to share their syringes. Because NEPs are new, further research is needed to determine the full effect these programs have on lowering the rate of diseases spread

Herbicide Effects on the Feeding Behavior of the Wolf Spider Pardosa milvina

Herbicides can potentially impact feeding behavior of beneficial predators in agricultural systems and subsequently compromise integrated pest management efficacy. We measured variation in feeding behaviors of an agriculturally abundant wolf spider, Pardosa milvina, when exposed to soil with field-relevant concentrations of five commonly used herbicides. Tested herbicides included atrazine, S-metolachlor, rimsulfuron, mesotrione, glyphosate, a mixture of all five herbicides, and a distilled water control. Spiders were housed individually in containers with topsoil previously sprayed with a recommended herbicide dosage or water control. Tested spiders were collected from two adjacent fields: one kept under continuous crop rotation for over twenty years and sprayed with various combinations of all these herbicides while the other was an alfalfa field with no pesticides applied for the last 12 years. Adult males and females from each plot were exposed to the seven treated soil substrates (N=1,214, n=43). Spiders were maintained on these treated substrates for 14 days and fed crickets (Gryllodes sigillatus). Their predatory behaviors toward an individual cricket were observed on untreated substrates. Individual spiders from each herbicide treatment were standardized for hunger then presented a cricket one week and two weeks after initial treatment exposure. We found no significant differences in prey capture latency for spiders across herbicide treatments during the first week of exposure, but large differences emerged by the second week. We also found large sex and collecting site differences in prey capture efficiency and weight change across treatments. Mesotrione and rimsulfuron-treated spiders showed the greatest weight loss between the first and second week of exposure while atrazine, glyphosate and s-metalachlor treated spiders gained more weight than the control group. Our results show that some herbicides can significantly reduce or increase feeding responses in this important agriculturally abundant predator and should be considered in integrated pest management decisions

The effectiveness of needle exchange programs in the United States and West Virginia

Needle Exchange Programs (NEPs) have been controversial aspects of public health care due to conflicting beliefs and opinions for public policies. NEPs have allowed Injection Drug Users the ability to exchange their used equipment for clean, unused supplies. Research into the effectiveness of needle exchange programs and the impact it has had on the reduction of HIV and viral hepatitis infections in people who inject drugs. Injection Drug Users have accounted for 10% of HIV transmission cases in West Virginia, and this state has been ranked as the highest in the whole United States for incidents of Hepatitis C. NEPs have had success at decreasing the number of individuals sharing syringes and spreading diseases. Because NEPs are recent initiatives, further research is needed to determine their full effect on lowering the rate of infection spread

A review of the Caregiver\u27s Feeding Style Questionnaire (CFSQ): Differences in parent-child feeding styles across geographic location, caregiver roles, and Head Start samples

Introduction: The Caregiver’s Feeding Style Questionnaire (CFSQ) is a measure of parent feeding styles developed for low-income minority families. It is made up of four main categories which are associated with different child outcomes including childhood obesity. This review sought to describe the differences in child outcomes among international populations, maternal caregivers, and Head Start samples. Method: This review examined 683 publications that cited the 2005 Hughes article introducing the CFSQ measure. Of these, only 44 were relevant to our review because they met the inclusion criteria of 1) using the CFSQ measure and 2) providing a categorical breakdown of feeding styles. Results: A handful of these studies (k=5) were made up of international populations including England, Sri Lanka, and Mexico. The categorical breakdown for these studies was as follows (Authoritative=14.34%, Authoritarian=40.73%, Indulgent=30.01%, Uninvolved=14.94%). Studies including mothers (k=11) were categorized into different parent-feeding styles: (Michigan mothers: Authoritative=25%,American Indian mothers: Indulgent=52.2%). For studies involving populations of Head Start children there was a clear polarization where participants mainly fell into the categories of Authoritarian (30.8%) and Indulgent (32.5%). Discussion: The authoritative feeding style is associated with the most positive outcomes and Indulgent parenting styles are most consequential in terms of obesity risk. For many studies included in this review, parents less often fell into the category of authoritative, thus pointing to the importance in working with these populations to develop more effective and healthy feeding patterns

Faculty and Student Online Mentoring Preferences

Isolation of online doctoral students intensifies when they transition from coursework to the dissertation/capstone phase, limiting them to interacting with their mentors. A three-round modified Delphi study was conducted to examine mentoring preferences of online doctoral students and faculty. The first round provided qualitative data regarding the preferred mentoring practices for faculty and alumni. Round 1 qualitative data were organized into Likert questions and used in the second round, which resulted in data about frequency of mentoring practices for the same participants from Round 1. The third round provided data about importance of each preference rated by faculty and current students. Findings indicated a dichotomy was present in that mentees’ academic self-esteem appeared to be tied to faculty being responsive. Faculty emphasized mentee autonomy while mentees wanted frequent contact with faculty

Development of a ‘Universal’ Rubric for Assessing Undergraduates’ Scientific Reasoning Skills Using Scientific Writing

We developed a rubric for measuring students’ ability to reason and write scientifically. The Rubric for Science Writing (Rubric) was tested in a variety of undergraduate biology laboratory courses (total n = 142 laboratory reports) using science graduate students (teaching assistants) as raters. Generalisability analysis indicates that the Rubric provides a reliable measure of students’ abilities (g = 0.85) in these conditions. Comparison of student performance in various biology classes indicated that some scientific skills are more challenging for students to develop than others and identified a number of previously unappreciated gaps in the curriculum. Our findings suggest that use of the Rubric provides three major benefits in higher education: (1) to increase substance and consistency of grading within a course, particularly those staffed by multiple instructors or graduate teaching assistants; (2) to assess student achievement of scientific reasoning and writing skills; and (3) when used in multiple courses, to highlight gaps in alignment among course assignments and provide a common metric for assessing to what extent the curriculum is achieving programmatic goals. Lastly, biology graduate students reported that use of the Rubric facilitated their teaching and recommended that training on the Rubric be provided to all teaching assistants

Factors that differentiate distressed and non-distressed marriages in army soldiers

Data from U.S. Army soldiers (N = 697) were analyzed to determine the factors that differentiate distressed from non-distressed relationships. Results show that most soldiers had relationship satisfaction scores that categorized them as non-distressed. In addition, soldiers in dual-military marriages had relationship satisfaction scores similar to those of soldiers in military-civilian marriages. Finally, several variables including rank, relocation status, relationship length, and relationship status differentiated distressed from non-distressed relationships. Implications for intervention programming and future research directions are discussed

Heterogeneous burden of the COVID-19 pandemic in central Texas

The heterogeneous burden of the COVID-19 pandemic within and across US cities has been linked to myriad risk factors including occupation, socioeconomic status, and race [1-3]. Here we use fine-grain, anonymized hospitalization data to estimate the heterogeneous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Austin, Texas across age groups and ZIP codes. We provide estimates for (1) the percent of the population infected as of January 11, 2021 and (2) the reporting rate of infections, and relate these estimates to the CDC Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) for each ZIPIntegrative Biolog

Coming unmoored: Disproportionate increases in obesity prevalence among young, disadvantaged white women

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/109980/1/oby20913.pd

Early expression of pregnancy-specific glycoprotein 22 (PSG22) by trophoblast cells modulates angiogenesis in mice.

Mouse and human pregnancy-specific glycoproteins (PSG) are known to exert immunomodulatory functions during pregnancy by inducing maternal leukocytes to secrete anti-inflammatory cytokines that promote a tolerogenic decidual microenvironment. Many such anti-inflammatory mediators also function as proangiogenic factors, which, along with the reported association of murine PSG with the uterine vasculature, suggest that PSG may contribute to the vascular adaptations necessary for successful implantation and placental development. We observed that PSG22 is strongly expressed around the embryonic crypt on Gestation Day 5.5, indicating that trophoblast giant cells are the main source of PSG22 during the early stages of pregnancy. PSG22 treatment up-regulated the secretion of transforming growth factor beta 1 and vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) in murine macrophages, uterine dendritic cells, and natural killer cells. A possible role of PSGs in uteroplacental angiogenesis is further supported by the finding that incubation of endothelial cells with PSG22 resulted in the formation of tubes in the presence and absence of VEGFA. We determined that PSG22, like human PSG1 and murine PSG17 and PSG23, binds to the heparan sulfate chains in syndecans. Therefore, our findings indicate that despite the independent evolution and expansion of human and rodent PSG, members in both families have conserved functions that include their ability to induce anti-inflammatory cytokines and proangiogenic factors as well as to induce the formation of capillary structures by endothelial cells. In summary, our results indicate that PSG22, the most abundant PSG expressed during mouse early pregnancy, is likely a major contributor to the establishment of a successful pregnancy.Fil: Blois, Sandra M.. University Medicine of Berlin; AlemaniaFil: Tirado González, Irene. University Medicine of Berlin; AlemaniaFil: Wu, Julie. Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; Estados UnidosFil: Barrientos, Gabriela Laura. University Medicine of Berlin; Alemania. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Johnson, Briana. Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; Estados UnidosFil: Warren, James. Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; Estados UnidosFil: Freitag, Nancy. University Medicine of Berlin; AlemaniaFil: Klapp, Burghard F.. University Medicine of Berlin; AlemaniaFil: Irmak, Ster. University of Duisburg Essen; AlemaniaFil: Ergun, Suleyman. Julius Maximilians Universitat Wurzburg. Biozentrum; AlemaniaFil: Dveskler, Gabriela S.. Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; Estados Unido