The usefulness of procalcitonin in aiding physician assessment and treatment of potential serious bacterial infections

Background: Procalcitonin (PCT) is used as a biomarker for the diagnosis of serious bacterial infections (SBI). To date, studies have not compared PCT to clinical judgment and it remains unclear whether PCT adds to the physician’s clinical judgment when diagnosing SBI. Purpose: To evaluate the diagnostic usefulness of PCT in comparison to blood culture results and the physician’s clinical judgment in patients presenting to the emergency department with signs of SBI. Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted with 400 patients suspected of having an SBI who presented to the emergency department at 2 community hospitals in Wisconsin from 2016 to 2018. PCT was performed on all patients in addition to the standard of care (SOC) for suspected SBI. PCT results were not available to the physicians throughout the duration of the study. Physicians completed a brief survey that asked if they thought the patient was septic upon ordering SOC labs and again after they reviewed the SOC lab results. Data were collected to determine if patients were diagnosed with an SBI during their stay. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine factors associated with an SBI diagnosis. Results:Among the patients, 186 (46.5%) were diagnosed with an SBI during their hospital stay. High serum levels of PCT (≥0.25 ng/ mL) were an independently significant predictor for an SBI diagnosis in patients with signs of infection (odds ratio [OR]: 1.96, 95% CI: 1.13–3.39; P=0.016). In addition, patients suspected of having an SBI are 2.62 times more likely to be diagnosed with an SBI when the blood culture result is positive (OR: 2.62, 95% CI: 1.19–5.77; P=0.017) and 7.13 times more likely to be diagnosed with an SBI when the physician believes the patient is septic after reviewing the SOC lab results (OR: 7.13, 95% CI: 3.64–13.97; P Conclusion: Procalcitonin, blood culture results, and clinician judgment after reviewing standard-of-care labs provide important diagnostic value when diagnosing serious bacterial infections. Clinician judgment before reviewing SOC lab results was not associated with an SBI diagnosis; thus, SOC labs do have added value in aiding physician assessment of potential SBI. This study offers a unique perspective as, to date, no other studies have compared PCT results to clinical judgment

between Gods & Dogs

between Gods & Dogs is an exhibition, comprised of two installations, that raises questions about belief, authority, knowledge, and power. The Word That Binds Them is an interactive installation involving books that have been put in positions of authority or treated as sacred by religions, political parties, academic institutions, and other communities. As viewers navigate the work, they are faced with questions surrounding power and ideological belief. The project involves consultations with the Internet Sacred Text Archive, research of citation rankings, and discussions with followers of various belief systems to inform the selections of books. All of these texts play an important role in historical and present-day power structures. The work demonstrates how art—specifically interactive art—is rich territory for questioning and deconstructing systematic ideologies and our interactions with them as humans. While The Word That Binds Them questions the beliefs, knowledge, and power we acquire from books, Most Retrieved Words questions what we might learn from an unexpected source—our canine companions. The project began by engaging the general public in order to collect sounds of their dogs barking and short writings describing what they have learned from their dogs. What can dogs teach us about freedom, play, curiosity, love, forgiveness, risk, danger, and other important concepts? The collected sounds are altered so that they embody qualities of sacred choral music. Visual content in the work is comprised of hundreds of videos of dogs that have been extracted from found footage. These individual videos are composited into an immersive four-channel video projection that contains thousands of dogs running in mass along the walls of the gallery. This paper outlines the methodologies used to create an art experience that inspects theological, political, academic, and nonanthropological sources of belief

An investigation of credit usage among young married couples in western Oregon

This study was designed (1) to examine credit usages as they relate to financial problems of young married couples, (2) to investigate the similarities of financial practices of two populations, (3) to determine the sources of educational financial assistance and guidance used by young couples, and (4) to compare demographic characteristics of one sample known to have had financial difficulties and one group whose financial position was unknown at the time of the interview. The sample consisted of 30 young married couples who were being professionally counseled because of financial problems (group one) and 30 couples selected from a mailing list supplied by the Marion County Extension Service (group two). The total sample was drawn from the Salem, Oregon area. The couples were married at least one year and not more than five years, 11 months and the husbands were no more than 30 years of age. Data for the study were obtained through personal interviews. Hollingshead's Two Factor Index of Social Position, based on education and occupation of the head of household was used to classify the subjects into five social positions, by groups. The distributions for both groups were skewed heavily toward the lower social levels on the scale. The four null hypotheses that were set forth to assist in the organization of data were rejected. H₁ Young married couples in group one wit; show no differences in financial practices from those in group two. H₂ Married couples in group one will possess records with detail no greater than that in records possessed by group two. H₃ Formal educational training will not vary between group one and group two. H₄ Financial counseling sought by young couples will not differ between group one and group two. Analysis of the data indicated that couples in the uncounseled group kept records in a more readily accessable manner; they kept them in ledger or check stub form; and a larger percentage of group two kept track of how they spent their money. A higher number of husbands in group one took complete charge of financial management than the husbands in group two. There were inconsistencies in the responses of the wives in group one. Eighty-seven per cent of the respondents stated that they and their husbands combined their money. However, responses by 40 per cent of the wives in group one indicated that their husbands paid the bills and handled the finances. Couples in both groups used a variety of credit sources. Couples in group one held more credit cards, had a larger number of open charge accounts, more loans from banks and consumer finance companies, as well as a larger number of hospital, doctor and dentists bills than did the couples in group two. Department store and oil company credit cards were the two categories most frequently listed when respondents were asked about credit cards held. Both banks and consumer finance companies loaned to couples in group one, however, the consumer finance company had a higher incidence of repeat loans issued to these young couples than did banks. Ninety per cent of the young couples in the counseled group responded that they were being counseled and looked to the professional counselor for guidance in personal finance. The uncounseled group turned to parents most frequently as sources of information and guidance. Wives in group one perceived themselves as poorer users of credit or just equal when comparing themselves to their peers. It was apparent from this study that young couples feel inadquately prepared for the responsibilities faced in money management during the early years of marriage. With an affluent credit society predicted by many for the future, young people will need to use their total resources of time, energy and income in order to maintain financial solvency. Educators, both adult and secondary along with parents and all others interested in the welfare of families will need to be innovative in communicating sound personal finance principles

“There Are Many Social Evils...and Only We Can Cure It”: A Thematic Content Analysis of Privileged Indian Youth’s Perspective on Social Issues

This study aimed to investigate how socioeconomically privileged students at a private school in India understood social issues in their communities, and it explored whether their understanding of and discourse about working against social and economic oppression changed after they took a field trip to a nearby under-resourced village. The sample included 75 youth from high-income backgrounds in Bhubaneswar, India, most of whom reported never having spent time in a poverty-stricken village. Students responded in writing to reflection prompts before and after the field trip. Participants’ responses were thematically coded to capture their perspectives of social injustice and ideas of change. A codebook of participants’ reflections was then developed, consisting of thirty-five themes and seven overarching domains: (1) positionality; (2) discrimination; (3) structural issues; (4) village-level issues; (5) strategies for problem solving; (6) experiences of helping; and (7) reasons for or barriers to problem solving. Descriptive frequencies revealed the prevalence of themes before and after the field trip. Implications and limitations of the study and directions for future research on enhancing awareness of privilege and social oppression are discussed

The elusiveness of progressive masculinity: Gender differences in conceptualizations of nontraditional gender roles

Traditional masculinity has been thoroughly explored in psychological research, but its counterpart, progressive masculinity, has undergone relatively little scientific investigation. To determine whether this lack of attention to or understanding of progressive masculinity is mirrored more largely in mainstream culture, we examined how men and women conceptualize and experience gender roles in their everyday lives. Participants were randomly assigned to describe a time in which they had behaved either traditionally or progressively with regard to their gender. Over 80% of men and women in the traditional condition and women in the progressive condition provided condition-appropriate examples. However, men in the progressive condition only provided progressive examples 17% of the time, suggesting that many men may not have an understanding of progressive masculinity. Additional themes, implications, and directions for research on progressive masculinity are discusse

Examining mindfulness and its relation to self-differentiation and alexithymia

Published online first in 10 July 2013Research supports the association between mindfulness, emotion regulation, stress reduction, and interpersonal/relational wellness. The present study evaluated the potential effect of mindfulness on some indicators of psychological imbalance such as low self-differentiation and alexithymia. In this cross-sectional study, a sample of 168 undergraduates (72 % women) completed measures of perceived mindfulness (CAMS-R and PHLMS), self-differentiation (SIPI), and alexithymia (TAS-20). Results revealed positive correlations between the different dimensions of mindfulness and negative correlations between those dimensions, selfdifferentiation, and alexithymia. The dimensions of quality of mindfulness and acceptance were mediators in the relationship between self-differentiation and alexithymia. A nonsignificant interaction between gender and alexithymia was found. All mindfulness dimensions, but self-differentiation, contributed to explain the allocation of the non-alexithymic group. These results indicate that mindfulness seems to be a construct with great therapeutic and research potential at different levels, suggesting that some aspects of mindfulness seem to promote a better self-differentiation and prevent alexithymia

Multi-location wheat stripe rust QTL analysis: genetic background and epistatic interactions

Stripe rust is a foliar disease of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) caused by the air-borne fungus Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici and is present in most regions around the world where commercial wheat is grown. Breeding for durable resistance to stripe rust continues to be a priority, but also is a challenge due to the complexity of interactions among resistance genes and to the wide diversity and continuous evolution of the pathogen races. The goal of this study was to detect chromosomal regions for resistance to stripe rust in two winter wheat populations, ‘Tubbs’/‘NSA-98-0995’ (T/N) and ‘Einstein’/‘Tubbs’ (E/T), evaluated across seven environments and mapped with diversity array technology and simple sequence repeat markers covering polymorphic regions of ≈1480 and 1117 cM, respectively. Analysis of variance for phenotypic data revealed significant (P < 0.01) genotypic differentiation for stripe rust among the recombinant inbred lines. Results for quantitative trait loci/locus (QTL) analysis in the E/T population indicated that two major QTL located in chromosomes 2AS and 6AL, with epistatic interaction between them, were responsible for the main phenotypic response. For the T/N population, eight QTL were identified, with those in chromosomes 2AL and 2BL accounting for the largest percentage of the phenotypic variance

Breast is best: Positive mealtime interactions in breastfeeding mothers from Israel and the United Kingdom

We examined mealtime interactions to assess whether they varied according to maternal body mass index, country and mode of feeding in 41 Israeli and UK mother–infant dyads. Feeding behaviours were coded using the Simple Feeding Element Scale. Significantly, more UK mothers breastfed during the filmed meal compared to Israeli mothers. Mealtime interactions did not vary according to maternal body mass index or country. Women who breastfed (as opposed to those who bottle fed or fed solids) provided fewer distractions during the meal, a more ideal feeding environment and fed more responsively