The Pursuit of Housing: Chronically Homeless Men and Their Experiences Seeking Affordable Housing

Homelessness, or the lack of consistent and safe shelter, is a byproduct of nearly every social justice issue in the United States, including racism, sexism, income disparities, and inadequate education and healthcare. Chronic homelessness is a term used to describe an individual who has spent at least one year or repeated events totaling one year in homelessness, coupled with a disabling condition such as mental illness, physical disability, or substance use. Chronically homeless men deserve study because they make up the largest subgroup of the homeless population, are disproportionately men of color, and experience significant levels of traumatic stress. While this subpopulation of homeless individuals makes up 20% of the general homeless population and utilizes most of the homeless services resources, little is known about their experiences from their perspective. This study sought to understand the lived experiences of chronically homeless men pursuing affordable housing, particularly what enables them to persist. The findings were derived from nine semi-structured interviews with photo-elicitation with chronically homeless men who were actively pursuing housing or had recently obtained it. All participants named challenges to obtaining housing that resulted in re-traumatizing experiences for them. They also shared strategies they utilize to cope with and overcome these challenges, including emotional, relational, and task-oriented strategies. Black participants discussed their experiences of racism during their housing search. The findings support the need for culturally responsive and trauma-informed care within homeless services. Utilizing this approach, organizations, case managers, and counselors can support clients’ resiliency and minimize re-traumatization

Stability, Structure and Scale: Improvements in Multi-modal Vessel Extraction for SEEG Trajectory Planning

Purpose Brain vessels are among the most critical landmarks that need to be assessed for mitigating surgical risks in stereo-electroencephalography (SEEG) implantation. Intracranial haemorrhage is the most common complication associated with implantation, carrying signi cant associated morbidity. SEEG planning is done pre-operatively to identify avascular trajectories for the electrodes. In current practice, neurosurgeons have no assistance in the planning of electrode trajectories. There is great interest in developing computer assisted planning systems that can optimise the safety pro le of electrode trajectories, maximising the distance to critical structures. This paper presents a method that integrates the concepts of scale, neighbourhood structure and feature stability with the aim of improving robustness and accuracy of vessel extraction within a SEEG planning system. Methods The developed method accounts for scale and vicinity of a voxel by formulating the problem within a multi-scale tensor voting framework. Feature stability is achieved through a similarity measure that evaluates the multi-modal consistency in vesselness responses. The proposed measurement allows the combination of multiple images modalities into a single image that is used within the planning system to visualise critical vessels. Results Twelve paired datasets from two image modalities available within the planning system were used for evaluation. The mean Dice similarity coe cient was 0.89 ± 0.04, representing a statistically signi cantly improvement when compared to a semi-automated single human rater, single-modality segmentation protocol used in clinical practice (0.80 ±0.03). Conclusions Multi-modal vessel extraction is superior to semi-automated single-modality segmentation, indicating the possibility of safer SEEG planning, with reduced patient morbidity

Associations Between the Big Five Personality Traits and a Medical School Admission Interview

INTRODUCTION: Personality has became popular in medical student's selection. However, few research exists about the association between the big five personality traits and the existent medical school selection tools. Our aim was to study which personality traits were selected by a medical school admission interview. MATERIAL AND METHODS: One hundred ninety four graduate applicants that had applied to the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto through the graduate entry approach, after ranked on previous achievement, were interviewed between the academic years of 2011 and 2013. From these, 181 (93.3%) answered to the NEO Five-Factor Inventory that assesses high order personality traits of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Admission interview corresponded to the second phase of the seriation process. Every applicant was interviewed and scored by three interviewers on seven dimensions asesssed by Lickert scale (1-10). Interview score was the sum of the dimensions. Linear mixed effects model and respective regression coefficients were used to estimate the association between personality traits from each interviewer's score. Final models were adjusted for gender, interviewers and previous achievement. RESULTS: Openness to experience (Beta = 0.18: CI 95%: 0.05; 0.30) had the strongest association with interview score followed by the interaction effect between the extraversion and conscientiousness traits (Beta = 0.14; CI 95%: 0.02; 0.25). Also, applicants scored higher when their gender was opposite to the interviewers. DISCUSSION: Previous achievement and interview score had no association. CONCLUSION: Our admission interview selected different personality traits when compared to other selection tools. Medical schools should be aware of the implications of the adopted selection tools on the admitted medical student's personality because it can help providing beneficial interventions

Grey matter sublayer thickness estimation in the mouse cerebellum

The cerebellar grey matter morphology is an important feature to study neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease or Down’s syndrome. Its volume or thickness is commonly used as a surrogate imaging biomarker for such diseases. Most studies about grey matter thickness estimation focused on the cortex, and little attention has been drawn on the morphology of the cerebellum. Using ex vivo highresolution MRI, it is now possible to visualise the different cell layers in the mouse cerebellum. In this work, we introduce a framework to extract the Purkinje layer within the grey matter, enabling the estimation of the thickness of the cerebellar grey matter, the granular layer and molecular layer from gadolinium-enhanced ex vivo mouse brain MRI. Application to mouse model of Down’s syndrome found reduced cortical and layer thicknesses in the transchromosomic group

Elementos para el debate e interpretación del Buen vivir/Sumak kawsay

Resumen: Elementos para el debate e interpretación del Buen vivir/Sumak kawsay es un trabajo que reflexiona sobre el origen, historia, elementos constitutivos e interpretaciones del Buen vivir (Sumak kawsaySuma qamaña). Esta formulación de pensamiento que logró desarrollarse en los países andinos, particularmente en Ecuador y Bolivia; plasmarse en sus respectivas constituciones (Ecuador 2008 y Bolivia 2009) y convertirse en una propuesta que desde América Latina cada día adquiere mayor trascendencia, y poco a poco se convierte en un tema de reflexión universal. Estudiamos sus elementos esenciales y las diversas interpretaciones que hasta el momento se han formulado, incorporando elementos que desde pueblos originarios de diversas latitudes enriquecen el concepto. Por tratarse de no solo de una propuesta filosófico-política, sino de una cosmovisión general que articula las constituciones referidas, con sus implicaciones, estudiamos el Buen vivir en la Constitución Ecuatoriana de 2008 y hacemos un esfuerzo por descender hasta niveles más concretos como las políticas migratorias del gobierno ecuatoriano en el marco del concepto antedicho. Finalmente, incorporamos a vista de pájaro, algunos elementos coincidentes, como la visión del pueblo Jñatjo, del Municipio de San Felipe del Progreso en el Estado de México. Este trabajo tiene como finalidad contribuir al debate y difusión de un tema de trascendencia y actualidad, que por diversos motivos se desconoce grandemente en México y otros países de la región, aunque poco a poco se va convirtiendo en un tópico de su interés

Community Gardens: An Exploration of Urban Agriculture in the Bronx, New York City

Urban agriculture/community gardening in the Bronx has multiple roles, including health-promoting, economic, environmental, and cultural. These roles are particularly important in light of urban sustainability issues and environmental justice concerns, such as differential access to open space, recreation, and fresh produce in poorer communities and communities of color, as well as differential environmental and health impacts of unsustainable practices on these communities. The gardens generally help promote a sense of place - a focus for communities - which often have little access to safe parks or recreational space within their neighborhoods, and create a center for community cultural and educational activities. The Bronx currently has about 175 community gardens administered by Operation Green Thumb, as well as a number of community gardens operated by non-profit entities, such as the Parks Council, and community gardens on private property. On average, the Bronx community gardens use about 75% of their land for growing vegetables, and many gardens supply the farming families and others in the neighborhood with much of their vegetables for the year. This study investigates urban agricultural practices in the Bronx to assess how community gardens improve quality-of-life for the proximate populations. Through semi-structured interviews of the gardeners, visits to observe the gardens, and a spatial analysis of community socio-demographic characteristics using Geographic Information System (GIS), we examine the social, political, cultural, environmental, food security, and health benefits of community gardening. This is part of a larger study comparing urban agricultural practices in the Bronx and Curitiba, Brazil

Mothers' food choices and consumption of ultra-processed foods in the Brazilian Amazon: A grounded theory study

In recent decades, an increase in consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPF), a type of product frequently associated with diet-related obesity, chronic diseases, decrease of eating traditions and loss of culinary diversity, has been observed in middle-income countries. However, there is lack of information on factors related to choosing UPF. In this study, we aimed to understand the factors promoting UPF choices and consumption among mothers living in an urban context in the Brazilian Amazon, and to present a conceptual model grounded on their experiences that illustrates the dynamics between the observed factors. For this qualitative study, we used a constructive grounded theory approach, with a theoretical sampling of 40 women, to choose mothers with high and low consumption of ultra-processed foods. Data production and the first steps of analysis were performed concomitantly, followed by four steps of coding focused on creating conceptual categories and explaining the interactions between them. Our findings highlighted the importance of context in promoting UPF choice and consumption, particularly the “food environment”, physical and virtual, and the “sociocultural environment”. These contextual aspects interacted with the two main personal aspects influencing participants' UPF consumption, one concerning practices, “cooking behaviors”, and the other concerning preferences, “food tastes”. Factors such as economic and time constraints were also important and competed to shape eating practices through interactions with participants’ health valorization. Findings are discussed in relation to food choice theories, social roles and the food environment. Implications for public health initiatives include the importance of considering environmental changes, sociocultural and economic influences, the reliance on UPF, and the role of women in the home, when promoting healthy diets

Constraints on Finite Soft Supersymmetry-Breaking Terms

Requiring the soft supersymmetry-breaking (SSB) parameters in finite gauge-Yukawa unified models to be finite up to and including two-loop order, we derive a two-loop sum rule for the soft scalar-masses. It is shown that this sum rule coincides with that of a certain class of string models in which the massive string states are organized into N=4 supermultiplets. We investigate the SSB sector of two finite SU(5) models. Using the sum rule which allows the non-universality of the SSB terms and requiring that the lightest superparticle particleis neutral, we constrain the parameter space of the SSB sector in each model.Comment: 34 page