Blue

Bridget Davis is a senior from Andover, Minnesota pursuing a BA in English and a BA in art at the College of Saint Benedict. She is also an artist who works in a variety of media, as well as an aspiring writer

Quiet

Bridget Davis is a senior from Andover, Minnesota pursuing a BA in English and a BA in art at the College of Saint Benedict. She is also an artist who works in a variety of media, as well as an aspiring writer

Sunlit

Bridget Davis is a senior from Andover, Minnesota pursuing a BA in English and a BA in art at the College of Saint Benedict. She is also an artist who works in a variety of media, as well as an aspiring writer

A qualitative exploration of the effect of visual field loss on daily life in home-dwelling stroke survivors

Objective: To explore the effect of visual field loss on the daily life of community-dwelling stroke survivors. Design: A qualitative interview study. Participants: Adult stroke survivors with visual field loss of at least six months’ duration. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a non-purposive sample of 12 stroke survivors in their own homes. These were recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed with the framework method, using an inductive approach. Results: Two key analytical themes emerged. ‘Perception, experience and knowledge’ describes participant’s conflicted experience of having knowledge of their impaired vision but lacking perception of that visual field loss and operating under the assumption that they were viewing an intact visual scene when engaged in activities. Inability to recognize and deal with visual difficulties, and experiencing the consequences, contributed to their fear and loss of self-confidence. ‘Avoidance and adaptation’ were two typologies of participant response to visual field loss. Initially, all participants consciously avoided activities. Some later adapted to vision loss using self-directed head and eye scanning techniques. Conclusions: Visual field loss has a marked impact on stroke survivors. Stroke survivors lack perception of their visual loss in everyday life, resulting in fear and loss of confidence. Activity avoidance is a common response, but in some, it is replaced by self-initiated adaptive techniques

Improved targeting of miRNA with antisense oligonucleotides

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of 20–24 nt noncoding RNAs that regulate target mRNAs post-transcriptionally by binding with imperfect complementarity in the 3′-untranslated region (3′-UTR) and inhibiting translation or RNA stability. Current understanding of miRNA biology is limited, and antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) inhibition is a powerful technique for miRNA functionalization in vitro and in vivo, and for therapeutic targeting of miRNAs. Identification of optimal ASO chemistries for targeting miRNAs is therefore of great interest. We evaluated a number of 2′-sugar and backbone ASO modifications for their ability to inhibit miR-21 activity on a luciferase reporter mRNA. ASO modifications that improved target affinity improved miRNA ASO activity, yet the positioning of high-affinity modifications also had dramatically different effects on miRNA activity, suggesting that more than affinity determined the effectiveness of the miRNA ASOs. We present data in which the activity of a modified miRNA ASO was inversely correlated to its tolerability as an siRNA passenger strand, suggesting that a similar mechanism could be involved in the dissociation of miRNA ASOs and siRNA passenger strands. These studies begin to define the factors important for designing improved miRNA ASOs, enabling more effective miRNA functionalization and therapeutic targeting

Haloes gone MAD: The Halo-Finder Comparison Project

[abridged] We present a detailed comparison of fundamental dark matter halo properties retrieved by a substantial number of different halo finders. These codes span a wide range of techniques including friends-of-friends (FOF), spherical-overdensity (SO) and phase-space based algorithms. We further introduce a robust (and publicly available) suite of test scenarios that allows halo finder developers to compare the performance of their codes against those presented here. This set includes mock haloes containing various levels and distributions of substructure at a range of resolutions as well as a cosmological simulation of the large-scale structure of the universe. All the halo finding codes tested could successfully recover the spatial location of our mock haloes. They further returned lists of particles (potentially) belonging to the object that led to coinciding values for the maximum of the circular velocity profile and the radius where it is reached. All the finders based in configuration space struggled to recover substructure that was located close to the centre of the host halo and the radial dependence of the mass recovered varies from finder to finder. Those finders based in phase space could resolve central substructure although they found difficulties in accurately recovering its properties. Via a resolution study we found that most of the finders could not reliably recover substructure containing fewer than 30-40 particles. However, also here the phase space finders excelled by resolving substructure down to 10-20 particles. By comparing the halo finders using a high resolution cosmological volume we found that they agree remarkably well on fundamental properties of astrophysical significance (e.g. mass, position, velocity, and peak of the rotation curve).Comment: 27 interesting pages, 20 beautiful figures, and 4 informative tables accepted for publication in MNRAS. The high-resolution version of the paper as well as all the test cases and analysis can be found at the web site http://popia.ft.uam.es/HaloesGoingMA

Challenges to access and provision of palliative care for people who are homeless : a systematic review of qualitative research

Background: People who are homeless or vulnerably housed are a marginalized group who often experience high rates of morbidity and die young as a result of complex problems. Access to health care and support can be challenging, with access to palliative care even more so. This review presents a synthesis of published qualitative research exploring from the perspective of homeless people and those working to support them, current challenges to palliative care access and provision, in addition to suggestions for what may improve palliative care for this population. Methods: Systematic review of qualitative research analysed using thematic synthesis. PsycINFO, Medline, Sociological Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts, Science citations index and CINAHL were searched up to September 2016. Thematic synthesis involved a three-step inductive process to develop a deeper understanding of the challenges to and suggestions for the access and provision of palliative care for homeless people. Results: Thirteen qualitative articles, reporting nine studies were identified. The challenges to access and provision to palliative care were drawn from the data covering three broad areas, namely “the chaotic lifestyles sometimes associated with being homeless”, “the delivery of palliative care within a hostel for homeless people” and provision within “mainstream health care systems”. Obstacles were related to homeless persons competing day-to-day priorities, their experience of stigma in mainstream settings, the high burden on hostel staff in supporting residents at the end of life and inflexibility in mainstream health care systems. Suggestions for improving access to palliative care include building trust between homeless persons and health professionals, increasing collaboration between and flexibility within services, and providing more training and support for all professionals. Conclusions: The provision of palliative care can be complicated for all populations, however delivering palliative care for people who are homeless is influenced by a potentially greater and more varied range of factors, on both individual and systemic levels, than providing palliative care for the housed population. Careful consideration and potentially great changes will be needed within health care systems to ensure homeless populations have equitable access to palliative care

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Teenage Pregnancy: Perspectives from Teens and Community Members in Connecticut

BACKGROUND: Teenage pregnancy has negative consequences for mother and baby, for example, high school drop out and low birth weight, respectively. Overall, Connecticut (CT) has one of the lowest teen pregnancy rates in the United States. However, a great disparity exists between whites and other ethnicities. Black teens are 4 – 5 times as likely to give birth than their white counterparts and Latino teens are 8 times as likely to give birth as white teens. Planned Parenthood of Southern New England (PPSNE) has identified this disparity and seeks the assistance of our research team in developing targets and programming to prevent teen pregnancies. METHODS: Teen focus groups and key informant interviews were used to examine barriers to teen birth reduction among ethnic minorities in three cities (Hartford, New London, and New Haven, CT). We develop ed an action plan for PPSNE that identifies potential barriers to preventing teenage pregnancy, identifies potential community partnerships , and includes population attributable risk estimation s to demonstrate potential decreases in teen pregnancy by race/ethnicity. RESULTS: Three focus group sessions were completed with a total of 22 adolescent participants (14 females and 8 males) between the ages of 15 and 21. Focus group respondents attributed teen pregnancy to desire for pregnancy, perceived invincibility, lack of knowledge/sexual education and family precedent. The teens indicated that a more substantial presence from peer educators and improved sex education in schools could have an impact on reducing teen pregnancy in minorities. Two key informant interviews with community organization staff members revealed overlapping themes of inadequate education, inadequate support to stay in school, and lack of support for pregnancy prevention programs. Overall, respondents had positive perceptions of Planned Parenthood. IMPLICATIONS: Results from this research will provide information to PPSNE regarding the necessary steps to design programs aimed at reducing disparities in teen birth rates in Connecticut. By focusing on Black and Latino teens, we hope to facilitate the development of culturally competent initiatives that result in the elimination of disparities surrounding teen births. Partnership development between PPSNE and community organizations can foster successful and sustainable programs in our populations of interest.https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ysph_pbchrr/1038/thumbnail.jp

Opioids and Young Adults in Alaska: Access, Consumption, Consequences, and Perceptions

Over the past 5 years, numerous state and local activities have targeted opioid prevention among Alaskans, particularly youth and young adults. While surveillance data exists for youth, no specific data exists for opioid behaviors and perceptions among Alaskan young adults. Researchers at the University of Alaska Anchorage Center for Behavioral Health Research and Services conducted surveys in 2016 and 2019 to gather information on awareness, opioid and heroin use, social and retail access, and risk perceptions. At each timepoint, Alaskans age 18-27 were randomly selected and invited to participate. Response rates for the surveys were 10.4% and 12.8%, respectively. Survey data were weighted for gender and borough in order to represent Alaska’s population of young adults. Changes from 2016 to 2019: Increase in seeing awareness messages about opioids Increase in rating prescription opioid misuse and heroin use as problems in community. Increase in perceived risk from misusing opioids or using heroin. Among those who had been prescribed opioids in the past three years: Decrease in reported conversations with doctor of pharmacist when receiving prescription The percentage who had leftover pills remained high. Of those, increase in bringing leftover pills to pharmacy or other permanent disposal site. Survey findings indicate success at disseminating opioid prevention messages in the community and promoting disposal of leftover opioids. Additionally, increasing perceived risk among young adults in Alaska may predict future reductions in opioid and heroin use behaviors. Findings indicate opportunities for broader media messaging and communication with healthcare providers