Queering The Birth Experience: Documenting Queer Individuals\u27 Labor & Delivery Experiences

This research developed as a qualitative analysis of the experiences of queer individuals who have given birth in Washington State. Until recently, there has been little literature documenting the pregnancy and birth experience of transmasculine and nonbinary individuals, making this a unique project. Pregnancy and Birth are highly feminized and associated with womanhood, leaving pregnant people who do not fall under those designations marginalized. This study utilized grounded theory to analyze interviews to gain insight into the themes that emerged from the experiences of two queer individuals and how their experiences could have better affirmed their identities. The result of this is advocating for greater education and awareness around the care for transmasculine and nonbinary birthing individuals using perceived control theory to ensure greater satisfaction with birth outcomes and experiences

Cybersickness Following Repeated Exposure to DOME and HMD Virtual Environments

Virtual environments (VE) offer unique training opportunities, including training astronauts to preadapt them to the novel sensory conditions of microgravity. However, one unresolved issue with VE use is the occurrence of cybersickness during and following exposure to VE systems. Most individuals adapt and become less ill with repeated interaction with VEs. The goal of this investigation was to compare motion sickness symptoms (MSS) produced by dome and head-mounted (HMD) displays and to examine the effects of repeated exposures on MSS. Sixty-one subjects participated in the study. Three experimental sessions were performed each separated by one day. The subjects performed a navigation and pick and place task in either a dome or HMD VE. MSS were measured using a Simulator Sickness Questionnaire before, immediately after, and at 1, 2, 4 and 6 hours following exposure to the VEs. MSS data were normalized by calculating the natural log of each score and an analysis of variance was performed. We observed significant main effects for day and time and a significant day by time interaction for total sickness and for each of the subscales, nausea, oculomotor and disorientation. However, there was no significant main effect for device. In conclusion, subjects reported a large increase in MSS immediately following exposure to both the HMD and dome, followed by a rapid recovery across time. Sickness severity also decreased over days, which suggests that subjects become dual-adapted over time making VE training a viable pre-flight countermeasure for space motion sickness

Semi-automated surface water detection with synthetic aperture radar data: A wetland case study

In this study, a new method is proposed for semi-automated surface water detection using synthetic aperture radar data via a combination of radiometric thresholding and image segmentation based on the simple linear iterative clustering superpixel algorithm. Consistent intensity thresholds are selected by assessing the statistical distribution of backscatter values applied to the mean of each superpixel. Higher-order texture measures, such as variance, are used to improve accuracy by removing false positives via an additional thresholding process used to identify the boundaries of water bodies. Results applied to quad-polarized RADARSAT-2 data show that the threshold value for the variance texture measure can be approximated using a constant value for different scenes, and thus it can be used in a fully automated cleanup procedure. Compared to similar approaches, errors of omission and commission are improved with the proposed method. For example, we observed that a threshold-only approach consistently tends to underestimate the extent of water bodies compared to combined thresholding and segmentation, mainly due to the poor performance of the former at the edges of water bodies. The proposed method can be used for monitoring changes in surface water extent within wetlands or other areas, and while presented for use with radar data, it can also be used to detect surface water in optical images

The impact of inclusion, dose and duration of pyrazinamide (PZA) on efficacy and safety outcomes in tuberculosis: systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

BACKGROUND:Pyrazinamide (PZA) is a key component of current and future regimens for tuberculosis (TB). Inclusion of PZA at higher doses and for longer durations may improve efficacy outcomes but must be balanced against the potential for worse safety outcomes. METHODS:We will search for randomised and quasi-randomised clinical trials in adult participants with and without the inclusion of PZA in TB treatment regimens in the Cochrane infectious diseases group's trials register, Cochrane central register of controlled trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, the metaRegister of Controlled Trials (mRCT) and the World Health Organization (WHO) international clinical trials registry platform. One author will screen abstracts and remove ineligible studies (10% of which will be double-screened by a second author). Two authors will review full texts for inclusion. Safety and efficacy data will be extracted to pre-piloted forms by one author (10% of which will be double-extracted by a second author). The Cochrane risk of bias tool will be used to assess study quality. The study has three objectives: the association of (1) inclusion, (2) dose and (3) duration of PZA with efficacy and safety outcomes. Risk ratios as relative measures of effect for direct comparisons within trials (all objectives) and proportions as absolute measures of effect for indirect comparisons across trials (for objectives 2 and 3) will be calculated. If there is insufficient data for direct comparisons within trials for objective 1, indirect comparisons between trials will be performed. Measures of effect will be pooled, with corresponding 95% confidence intervals and p values. Meta-analysis will be performed using the generalised inverse variance method for fixed effects models (FEM) or the DerSimonian-Laird method for random effects models (REM). For indirect comparisons, meta-regression for absolute measures against dose and duration data will be performed. Heterogeneity will be quantified through the I2-statistic for direct comparisons and the τ2 statistic for indirect comparisons using meta-regression. DISCUSSION:The current use of PZA for TB is based on over 60 years of clinical trial data, but this has never been synthesised to guide rationale use in future regimens and clinical trials. Systematic review registration: International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) CRD42019138735

Genomic Analysis of Molecular Bacterial Mechanisms of Resistance to Phage Infection

[Abstract] To optimize phage therapy, we need to understand how bacteria evolve against phage attacks. One of the main problems of phage therapy is the appearance of bacterial resistance variants. The use of genomics to track antimicrobial resistance is increasingly developed and used in clinical laboratories. For that reason, it is important to consider, in an emerging future with phage therapy, to detect and avoid phage-resistant strains that can be overcome by the analysis of metadata provided by whole-genome sequencing. Here, we identified genes associated with phage resistance in 18 Acinetobacter baumannii clinical strains belonging to the ST-2 clonal complex during a decade (Ab2000 vs. 2010): 9 from 2000 to 9 from 2010. The presence of genes putatively associated with phage resistance was detected. Genes detected were associated with an abortive infection system, restriction–modification system, genes predicted to be associated with defense systems but with unknown function, and CRISPR-Cas system. Between 118 and 171 genes were found in the 18 clinical strains. On average, 26% of these genes were detected inside genomic islands in the 2000 strains and 32% in the 2010 strains. Furthermore, 38 potential CRISPR arrays in 17 of 18 of the strains were found, as well as 705 proteins associated with CRISPR-Cas systems. A moderately higher presence of these genes in the strains of 2010 in comparison with those of 2000 was found, especially those related to the restriction–modification system and CRISPR-Cas system. The presence of these genes in genomic islands at a higher rate in the strains of 2010 compared with those of 2000 was also detected. Whole-genome sequencing and bioinformatics could be powerful tools to avoid drawbacks when a personalized therapy is applied. In this study, it allows us to take care of the phage resistance in A. baumannii clinical strains to prevent a failure in possible phage therapy.This study was funded by grants PI16/01163 and PI19/00878 awarded to MT within the State Plan for R + D + I 2013–2016 (National Plan for Scientific Research, Technological Development and Innovation 2008–2011) and co-financed by the ISCIII-Deputy General Directorate of evaluation and Promotion of Research-European Regional Development Fund “A way of Making Europe” and Instituto de Salud Carlos III FEDER. MT was financially supported by the Miguel Servet Research Programme (SERGAS and ISCIII

Impact of Virtual Environments on Sensorimotor Coordination and User Safety

One critical unresolved issue related to the safe use of virtual environments (VEs) is maladaptive sensorimotor coordination following exposure to VEs. Moving visual displays used in VEs, especially in the absence of concordant vestibular signals leads to adaptive responses during VE exposure, but maladaptive responses following return to the normal environment. In the current set of investigations, we examined the effect of HMD and dome VE displays on eye-head-hand coordination, gaze holding and postural equilibrium. Subjects (61) performed a navigation and a pick and place task. Further, we compared 30 min and 60 min exposures across 3 days (each separated by 1 day). A subset of these results will be presented. In general, we found significant decrements in all three measures following exposure to the VEs. In addition, we found that these disturbances generally recovered within 1-2 hrs and decreased across days. These findings suggest the need for post-VE monitoring of sensorimotor coordination and for developing a set of recommendations for users concerning activities that are safe to engage in following use of a VE