“OMG, Yes!”: Feasibility, Acceptability, and Preliminary Efficacy of an Online Intervention for Female Sexual Pleasure

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary efficacy of using an online educational resource that presents research-informed strategies for women’s pleasure, OMGyes.com, as a resource to empower women to broaden the ways in which they understand, advocate for, and enjoy sexual pleasure. A cohort of 870 adult women was given access to OMGyes.com and asked to explore the resource over a four-week period and complete online pre/post questionnaires. Participants reported a high level of satisfaction with the relatability, usefulness, and functionality of OMGyes.com. We observed statistically significant, large effect size increases in participants’ knowledge about their own pleasure preferences, their confidence and positivity about that knowledge, as well as how pleasurable their sexual experiences were during both masturbation and partner sex. Many participants reported that after using OMGyes.com they felt more motivated to explore their preferences and more confident to explain their preferences to their partners. Our data suggest that OMGyes.com may be useful for positively impacting how women think about sexual pleasure, how they understand their own specific preferences, how they advocate for what they enjoy with partners, and how they actually experience pleasure

Prevalence and descriptive epidemiology of Turner syndrome in the United States, 2000-2017: A report from the National Birth Defects Prevention Network

The lack of United States population-based data on Turner syndrome limits assessments of prevalence and associated characteristics for this sex chromosome abnormality. Therefore, we collated 2000-2017 data from seven birth defects surveillance programs within the National Birth Defects Prevention Network. We estimated the prevalence of karyotype-confirmed Turner syndrome diagnosed within the first year of life. We also calculated the proportion of cases with commonly ascertained birth defects, assessed associations with maternal and infant characteristics using prevalence ratios (PR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI), and estimated survival probability. The prevalence of Turner syndrome of any pregnancy outcome was 3.2 per 10,000 female live births (95% CI = 3.0-3.3, program range: 1.0-10.4), and 1.9 for live birth and stillbirth (≥20 weeks gestation) cases (95% CI = 1.8-2.1, program range: 0.2-3.9). Prevalence was lowest among cases born to non-Hispanic Black women compared to non-Hispanic White women (PR = 0.5, 95% CI = 0.4-0.6). Coarctation of the aorta was the most common defect (11.6% of cases), and across the cohort, individuals without hypoplastic left heart had a five-year survival probability of 94.6%. The findings from this population-based study may inform surveillance practices, prenatal counseling, and diagnosis. We also identified racial and ethnic disparities in prevalence, an observation that warrants further investigation

Tracking a Medically Important Spider: Climate Change, Ecological Niche Modeling, and the Brown Recluse (Loxosceles reclusa)

Most spiders use venom to paralyze their prey and are commonly feared for their potential to cause injury to humans. In North America, one species in particular, Loxosceles reclusa (brown recluse spider, Sicariidae), causes the majority of necrotic wounds induced by the Araneae. However, its distributional limitations are poorly understood and, as a result, medical professionals routinely misdiagnose brown recluse bites outside endemic areas, confusing putative spider bites for other serious conditions. To address the issue of brown recluse distribution, we employ ecological niche modeling to investigate the present and future distributional potential of this species. We delineate range boundaries and demonstrate that under future climate change scenarios, the spider's distribution may expand northward, invading previously unaffected regions of the USA. At present, the spider's range is centered in the USA, from Kansas east to Kentucky and from southern Iowa south to Louisiana. Newly influenced areas may include parts of Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, South Dakota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. These results illustrate a potential negative consequence of climate change on humans and will aid medical professionals in proper bite identification/treatment, potentially reducing bite misdiagnoses

Mixed Finite Element Models for Laminated Composite Plates

Mixed finite element models of the classical and shear deformation plate theories are described, and their relative advantages, disadvantages and limitations are discussed. Numerical results showing the accuracy of the mixed finite elements are presented. Two main advantages of mixed models are the relaxation of continuity requirements on the interpolation functions and the accurate determination of the stress resultants. The disadvantages of mixed formulations are the difficulty in establishing convergence, accuracy and stability of finite element approximations and the computational expense.</jats:p