Calls to a home birth helpline: empowerment in childbirth

In the UK a woman has the right to decide to give birth at home, irrespective of whether she is expecting her first or a subsequent child and of any perceived ‘risk’ factors. However, the rate of home births in the UK is very low (around 2%), varies widely across the country and many women do not know how to arrange midwifery cover. The Home Birth helpline is a UK-based voluntary organisation offering support and information for women planning a home birth. In order to gain direct access to the issues that are of concern to women when planning a home birth, 80 calls to the helpline were recorded. The aims of this paper are to document the problems that callers to this helpline report having when trying to arrange home births and to explore the strategies the call-taker uses in helping women to exercise their right to birth at home. The paper concludes that women are not easily able to exercise their right to choose the place of birth and suggests a number of recommendations for action

Remote Research and Online Coursework: Complimentary Experiences Prove Valuable for Graduate Students

Technology has enabled many collaborations across the globe, allowing people to work together in entirely new ways. Some industries have embraced remote interaction whether they are conducting day to day business or teaching courses online. Since 1999 library and information science programs have offered online distance learning courses and now entire graduate programs. With the increase in remote, interactive, and collaborative learning, more graduate students have had a chance for online graduate assistantships. In 2019 three MLIS graduate students located in different states began work on a remote research project on health and wellness headed by several professors also located in various states. Each are pursuing their degrees online and have not worked in a professional capacity in a library setting. This study summarizes the preliminary experiences these students encountered while managing remote course and grant work. The preliminary findings highlight challenges including: asynchronous correspondence, analyzing second hand collected data, finding adequate collaborative software, and synchronizing data coding. What the graduate students learned from this experience suggests that regardless of where students plan to work after graduation, they have transferable skills they can take away from graduate assistantships that compliment their coursework and offer invaluable field experience

The Reliability of Rating via Audio- Recording Using the Mindfulness-Based Interventions: Teaching Assessment Criteria (MBI:TAC)

BackgroundThe Mindfulness-Based Interventions: Teaching Assessment Criteria (MBI:TAC) is an important tool for assessing teacher skill and aspects of the fidelity of mindfulness-based interventions, but prior research on and implementation of the MBI:TAC has used video recordings, which can be difficult to obtain, share for assessments, and which increase privacy concerns for participants. Audio-only recordings might be a useful alternative, but their reliability is unknown.ObjectiveTo assess evaluator perception of the rating process and inter-rater reliability of MBI:TAC ratings using audio-only recordings.MethodsWe prepared audio-only files from video recordings of 21 previously rated Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teachers. Each audio recording was rated by 3 trained MBI:TAC assessors drawn from a pool of 12 who had previously participated in rating the video recordings. Teachers were rated by evaluators who had not viewed the video recording and did not know the teacher. We then conducted semi-structured interviews with evaluators.ResultsOn the 6 MBI:TAC domains, the intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for audio recordings ranged from .53 to .69 using an average across 3 evaluators. Using a single rating resulted in lower ICCs (.27-.38). Bland-Altman plots showed audio ratings had little consistent bias compared to video recordings and agreed more closely for teachers with higher ratings. Qualitative analysis identified 3 themes: video recordings were particularly helpful when rating less skillful teachers, video recordings tended to provide a more complete picture for rating, and audio rating had some positive features.ConclusionsInter-rater reliability of the MBI:TAC using audio-only recordings was adequate for many research and clinical purposes, and reliability is improved when using an average across several evaluators. Ratings using audio-only recordings may be more challenging when rating less experienced teachers

In vitro culture of previously uncultured oral bacterial phylotypes

Around a third of oral bacteria cannot be grown using conventional bacteriological culture media. Community profiling targeting 16S rRNA and shotgun metagenomics methods have proved valuable in revealing the complexity of the oral bacterial community. Studies investigating the role of oral bacteria in health and disease require phenotypic characterizations that are possible only with live cultures. The aim of this study was to develop novel culture media and use an in vitro biofilm model to culture previously uncultured oral bacteria. Subgingival plaque samples collected from subjects with periodontitis were cultured on complex mucin-containing agar plates supplemented with proteose peptone (PPA), beef extract (BEA), or Gelysate (GA) as well as on fastidious anaerobe agar plus 5% horse blood (FAA). In vitro biofilms inoculated with the subgingival plaque samples and proteose peptone broth (PPB) as the growth medium were established using the Calgary biofilm device. Specific PCR primers were designed and validated for the previously uncultivated oral taxa Bacteroidetes bacteria HOT 365 and HOT 281, Lachnospiraceae bacteria HOT 100 and HOT 500, and Clostridiales bacterium HOT 093. All agar media were able to support the growth of 10 reference strains of oral bacteria. One previously uncultivated phylotype, Actinomyces sp. HOT 525, was cultivated on FAA. Of 93 previously uncultivated phylotypes found in the inocula, 26 were detected in in vitro-cultivated biofilms. Lachnospiraceae bacterium HOT 500 was successfully cultured from biofilm material harvested from PPA plates in coculture with Parvimonas micra or Veillonella dispar/parvula after colony hybridization-directed enrichment. The establishment of in vitro biofilms from oral inocula enables the cultivation of previously uncultured oral bacteria and provides source material for isolation in coculture

Hypertension in adults: summary of updated NICE guidance

Hypertension is a leading global cause of morbidity and mortality. More than 25% of the adult UK population has hypertension, and in about 30% blood pressure remains uncontrolled.1 In August, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published its updated guideline on the diagnosis and management of hypertension. The guideline reviews further evidence that has emerged since it was last updated in 2011 from randomised trials investigating the initiation, monitoring, and choice of antihypertensive treatment. The scope of the updated guideline has increased to also include people with type 2 diabetes, but does not make recommendations for people with chronic kidney disease, established cardiovascular disease, or hypertension in pregnancy.This article summarises the most recent recommendations from NICE and includes information considered to be most relevant to primary care clinicians. Key changes to current practice include offering drug treatment to people at a lower threshold for 10 year risk of cardiovascular disease, emphasis on maintaining blood pressure below target, and clarifying criteria for same day specialist review in people with accelerated hypertension

“12pm Eastern, 11am Central, 10am Mountain”: Student Contributions to Research on Rural and Small Public Libraries

This paper discusses the role and contributions of master’s students as members of the research team on an IMLS-funded research project on health and wellness programming in rural and small libraries. On this project, students learn myriad aspects of both research and practice, including how to collaborate on a complex project, how libraries function, particularly in this case, rural and small libraries, how to analyze, plan, and evaluate, and how to develop programming

Investigation of CTBT OSI Radionuclide Techniques at the DILUTED WATERS Nuclear Test Site

Under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), a verification regime that includes the ability to conduct an On-Site Inspection (OSI) will be established. The Treaty allows for an OSI to include many techniques, including the radionuclide techniques of gamma radiation surveying and spectrometry and environmental sampling and analysis. Such radioactivity detection techniques can provide the “smoking gun” evidence that a nuclear test has occurred through the detection and quantification of indicative recent fission products. An OSI faces restrictions in time and manpower, as dictated by the Treaty; not to mention possible logistics difficulties due to the location and climate of the suspected explosion site. It is thus necessary to have a good understanding of the possible source term an OSI will encounter and the proper techniques that will be necessary for an effective OSI regime. One of the challenges during an OSI is to locate radioactive debris that has escaped an underground nuclear explosion (UNE) and settled on the surface near and downwind of ground zero. To support the understanding and selection of sampling and survey techniques for use in an OSI, we are currently designing an experiment, the Particulate Release Experiment (PRex), to simulate a small-scale vent from an underground nuclear explosion. PRex will occur at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). The project is conducted under the National Center for Nuclear Security (NCNS) funded by the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA). Prior to the release experiment, scheduled for Spring of 2013, the project scheduled a number of activities at the NNSS to prepare for the release experiment as well as to utilize the nuclear testing past of the NNSS for the development of OSI techniques for CTBT. One such activity—the focus of this report—was a survey and sampling campaign at the site of an old UNE that vented: DILUTED WATERS. Activities at DILUTED WATERS included vehicle-based survey, in situ measurements with high-purity germanium (HPGe) and hand-held LaBr3 systems, soil sampling with a variety of tools, and laboratory gamma spectrometric analysis of those samples. A further benefit of the measurement campaign was to gain familiarity with the many logistical aspects of performing radiological field work at NNSS ahead of the PRex. Many practical lessons concerning the proper methodologies and logistics of using the surveying and sampling equipment were noted. These Lessons Learned are compiled together in Appendix A. The vehicle-based survey was successful in that it found a previously unknown hotspot (determined to be 232Th) while it demonstrated that a better method for keeping a serpentine track without staking was needed. Some of the soil sampling equipment was found to be impractical for the application, though core sampling would not be the correct way to take soil samples for a fresh vent deposit (as opposed to an old site like DILUTED WATERS). Due to the site’s age, 137Cs was the only fission radioisotope identified, though others were searched for. While not enough samples were taken and analyzed to definitively link the 137Cs to DILUTED WATERS as opposed to other NNSS activities, results were consistent with the historical DILUTED WATERS plume. MDAs were compared for soil sampling and in situ measurements

Mesofluidic Devices for DNA-Programmed Combinatorial Chemistry

Hybrid combinatorial chemistry strategies that use DNA as an information-carrying medium are proving to be powerful tools for molecular discovery. In order to extend these efforts, we present a highly parallel format for DNA-programmed chemical library synthesis. The new format uses a standard microwell plate footprint and is compatible with commercially available automation technology. It can accommodate a wide variety of combinatorial synthetic schemes with up to 384 different building blocks per chemical step. We demonstrate that fluidic routing of DNA populations in the highly parallel format occurs with excellent specificity, and that chemistry on DNA arrayed into 384 well plates proceeds robustly, two requirements for the high-fidelity translation and efficient in vitro evolution of small molecules