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Community engagement in research (CEnR) is fundamental to recruitment and retention in research studies. CEnR study closure, with a view to promote subsequent interactions with participants, can foster long-term relationships between research teams and participants. We detail the principles, procedures and outcomes of respectful closure in a study focused on scaling-up tools to measure DNA integrity in population samples.
Methods:
The study incorporated CEnR principles and practices, engaging a Community Advisory Board (CAB) to guide most study procedures. The CAB-designed closure protocol included 1) attempts at one-on-one contact via telephone, followed by a letter, if no contact was established; 2) provision of a study closure packet; 3) periodic mailing of study updates; and 4) a request for sustained interaction with the Community Engagement Team (CE Team), including participants’ approval to receive invitations for future projects. Items 3 and 4 were framed as choices to further interaction and its extent.
Results:
Among 191 participants enrolled, 119 were contacted at closure (62% retention rate). Most frequently (97.5%), contacted participants agreed to receive information about new research projects, while 90.8% agreed to receive ongoing information about the DNA integrity study. Subsequently, the CE Team implemented two study update mailings and two CEnR studies, enrolling 18 participants in a consultative role and four in a collaborative role.
Conclusions:
Respectful study closure offers avenues for sustained interaction between CEnR teams and study participants, beyond the discrete boundaries of specific research projects. It can support the long-term connections that enable the positive outcomes of CEnR.
Verse epitaphs are our main and very abundant source for responses to individual deaths. We can almost never know exactly whose attitudes or values they express, but we can assume that they embody attitudes and values that it was acceptable to express publicly. Many at all dates seek merely to commemorate the dead person or convey grief, but, from about 400 bce onwards, others adopt a position on the fate of the dead person, though often hedged with a cautious ‘if’. Very many possibilities emerge: they range from a plain denial that anything survives death, via claims that the dead person is now (e.g.) in the aither/in the home of the blessed/on Olympos/with the heroes, to, very rarely, declarations that s/he is now actually a god. Strangely enough, support for such claims is never sought in the fact of the dead person being an initiate in a cult that promised advantage in the afterlife. In all this we see not so much individual choices as the range of options available for individuals to believe in. But we must also suspect that belief in the more optimistic options can seldom have been as firm as in a society where such options were authoritatively endorsed and alternatives not publicly countenanced.
A passage in Eunapius (476–7, pp. 440–2 Loeb) draws an interesting contrast between the attitudes to divination of the two sophists Maximus and Chrysanthius: Maximus, who manipulates the omens until they say what he wants, and Chrysanthius, who scrupulously obeys their apparent meaning. But a passage a little later (500–1, pp. 542–4 Loeb) apparently ascribes to Chrysanthius the opposite attitude. This article suggests a transposition to restore coherence to the text. Even if the transposition is wrong, the contrast drawn in the first passage between two attitudes to divination, one rigorous and literalist, one manipulative, is important.
Family involvement in the lives of people who have dementia and live in long-term care is important, but family members may face challenges communicating and connecting with their loved one as dementia progresses. A type of therapeutic humor (Laughter Care) delivered by trained specialists aims to engage people with dementia who reside in long-term care through creative play and laughter. This study aimed to explore the perceptions of Laughter Care Specialists (LCSs) regarding families’ engagement with the program.
Methods
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with LCSs (n = 8) and analyzed inductively using thematic analysis.
Results
Family members were reported to initially have varied degrees of openness toward Laughter Care, but often become more accepting after observing positive engagement with the person with dementia. Family members were perceived to benefit from the program through witnessing the person with dementia enjoy joyous and light interactions, learn new ways of communicating and connecting with the person with dementia, and engage in positive interactions at end of life.
Significance of results
Laughter Care may provide family members with novel ways of communicating and connecting with people who have dementia at end of life as well as comfort into bereavement.
Diffuse Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy was used to monitor both molecular interactions and concentrations of volatile organic chemicals adsorbed on a commercial montmorillonite. Chemicals tested included propanoic acid, hexanal, heptanal, trimethylamine, dimethylsulfide and dimethyldisulfide. Diffuse Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy had several advantages over other infrared techniques including ease of sample preparation, greater numbers of useful bands and the ability to detect both major and minor components from the same spectra. Evidence for the formation of organo-clay complexes was found for all chemicals except dimethylsulfide. Spectra of mixed chemicals on the clay showed numerous overlapping bands. Organic concentrations were determined by multicomponent analysis using a least squares curve fitting technique. Significant correlation (P < 0.01) between actual and determined concentrations of added organics was obtained for all except dimethylsulfide. Here the weak spectral contribution appeared to be overshadowed by the strongly adsorbing montmorillonite with consequent decrease in sensitivity. Diffuse Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy of organo-montmorillonite complexes could be used both as a means of studying molecular interactions and for the determination of adsorbed organic concentrations.
The partnership between a research community engagement team (CE Team) and a community advisory board (CAB) formed the basis for bidirectional communication in developing resources for participant recruitment in a DNA integrity study. Engaging with a minoritized community, this partnership focused on respect, accessibility, and expanded engagement.
Methods:
A ten-member CAB, working in two groups defined by meeting time convenience, provided insight and feedback to the CE Team in the creation of recruitment and consent materials, via an iterative design process in which one CAB group reviewed and enhanced materials, and the second group tested and refined them further. The continuous analysis of CE Team notes from CAB meetings captured information needed both for materials refinement and implementation of CAB-suggested activities.
Results:
The partnership resulted in the co-creation of recruitment and consent materials that facilitated the enrollment of 191 individuals into the study. The CAB encouraged and assisted in expanded engagement inclusive of community leaders. This broader engagement provided information about the DNA integrity study to community decision-makers as well as responded to questions and concerns about the research. The bidirectional communication between the CAB and the CE Team encouraged the researchers to consider topics and research interests related to the current study but also responsive to community concerns.
Conclusions:
The CAB helped the CE Team develop a better understanding of the language of partnership and respect. In this way, the partnership opened doors for expanded community engagement and effective communication with potential study participants.
The quenching of cluster satellite galaxies is inextricably linked to the suppression of their cold interstellar medium (ISM) by environmental mechanisms. While the removal of neutral atomic hydrogen (H i) at large radii is well studied, how the environment impacts the remaining gas in the centres of galaxies, which are dominated by molecular gas, is less clear. Using new observations from the Virgo Environment traced in CO survey (VERTICO) and archival H i data, we study the H i and molecular gas within the optical discs of Virgo cluster galaxies on 1.2-kpc scales with spatially resolved scaling relations between stellar ($\Sigma_{\star}$), H i ($\Sigma_{\text{H}\,{\small\text{I}}}$), and molecular gas ($\Sigma_{\text{mol}}$) surface densities. Adopting H i deficiency as a measure of environmental impact, we find evidence that, in addition to removing the H i at large radii, the cluster processes also lower the average $\Sigma_{\text{H}\,{\small\text{I}}}$ of the remaining gas even in the central $1.2\,$kpc. The impact on molecular gas is comparatively weaker than on the H i, and we show that the lower $\Sigma_{\text{mol}}$ gas is removed first. In the most H i-deficient galaxies, however, we find evidence that environmental processes reduce the typical $\Sigma_{\text{mol}}$ of the remaining gas by nearly a factor of 3. We find no evidence for environment-driven elevation of $\Sigma_{\text{H}\,{\small\text{I}}}$ or $\Sigma_{\text{mol}}$ in H i-deficient galaxies. Using the ratio of $\Sigma_{\text{mol}}$-to-$\Sigma_{\text{H}\,{\small\text{I}}}$ in individual regions, we show that changes in the ISM physical conditions, estimated using the total gas surface density and midplane hydrostatic pressure, cannot explain the observed reduction in molecular gas content. Instead, we suggest that direct stripping of the molecular gas is required to explain our results.
OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Methods for recruitment and retention of participants in research have been extensively discussed, but procedures to end studies in a way that is respectful to participants and keeps them engaged are seldom described. We relate the procedures to close a study focused on genomic DNA damage and DNA repair capacity in a longitudinal population sample. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Data collection, which included the provision of 30 ml blood sample along with a health status survey and anthropometric measurements, was discontinued earlier than anticipated during the fourth of a five-year Community Engaged Research (CEnR) study focused on residents of historically marginalized, low wealth communities. In collaboration with the project’s Community Advisory Board, we devised a strategy to inform study participants of the study closure, which included: 1) attempts at one-on-one contact via phone, 2) provision of a study closure packet, 3) periodic mailing of study updates through study year five, 4) sustained interaction with participants through invitations to participate in additional research projects. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Among 149 participants (65% female, 99% of African American descent), 106 (71%) have been reached by phone. The communication included: 1) expressions of gratitude for their participation; 2) explanation of study findings to date; and 3) assurance that data analysis continued. Among those reached, 96% agreed to ongoing communication and 97% agreed to be contacted about future studies. We continue procedures to reach the remaining 43 participants. Over the study closure period, two qualitative studies offered opportunities for participants to join in focus groups (FG). The first one queried perceptions of community-based research. The response rate was 66% among 65 persons invited. The second study, focused on COVID-19 knowledge and invited 39 individuals with 24 scheduled to participate (62% response rate). DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Translational research views the participant as an active partner. Study closure offers an opportunity to foster a long-lasting participant-research institution partnership, while also promoting participants’ broad engagement and familiarity with research. Respectful research closure is an important step in CEnR.
This essay is an attempt to test against the Greek evidence the broad assumption of most students of divination that, other things being equal, oracles and diviners want to give clients good news, to tell them what they want to hear or, if not that, what they expect to hear, what they will accept as a reasonable, plausible answer for a god or a god’s intermediary to give. Two related issues that obviously arise are those of how the oracle/diviner could know the client’s wishes and how responsive they could be even where those wishes were known, particularly now that we know that a technique comparable to the ticket oracles of Egypt, requiring a randomly chosen yes/no answer, was one method used at Dodona. Conventions governing the kinds of questions that could be asked and the terms in which they were framed emerge as crucially important. An appendix discusses ‘Two Functions of Divination: Advice and Prediction’. Advice relating to a decision was clearly what was sought from oracles and diviners throughout the Classical and Hellenistic periods, but a shift towards prediction can perhaps be observed in later antiquity.
This paper examines the emergence of a pattern that Stump and Finkel () dub Marginal Detraction: a tendency in inflection class systems for low type frequency (i.e., irregular) classes to disproportionately detract from the predictability of regular classes. We ask: What factors lead to the emergence (and sometimes non-emergence) of Marginal Detraction? We use an iterated agent-based Bayesian learning model to simulate the conditions for analogical restructuring of inflection classes over time. Input to the model consists of artificial inflection class systems that vary in how the classes overlap — their network structure. We find that network properties predict whether the Marginal Detraction distribution emerges within the model. We conclude that languagespecific network properties shape local interactions among words and thereby likely play a significant role in analogical inflection class restructuring and the emergence (or non-emergence) of global properties of inflectional systems.
The use of online platforms for pediatric healthcare research is timely, given the current pandemic. These platforms facilitate trial efficiency integration including electronic consent, randomization, collection of patient/family survey data, delivery of an intervention, and basic data analysis.
Methods:
We created an online digital platform for a multicenter study that delivered an intervention for sleep disorders to parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). An advisory parent group provided input. Participants were randomized to receive either a sleep education pamphlet only or the sleep education pamphlet plus three quick-tips sheets and two videos that reinforced the material in the pamphlet (multimedia materials). Three measures – Family Inventory of Sleep Habits (FISH), Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire modified for ASD (CSHQ-ASD), and Parenting Sense of Competence (PSOC) – were completed before and after 12 weeks of sleep education.
Results:
Enrollment exceeded recruitment goals. Trial efficiency was improved, especially in data entry and automatic notification of participants related to survey completion. Most families commented favorably on the study. While study measures did not improve with treatment in either group (pamphlet or multimedia materials), parents reporting an improvement of ≥3 points in the FISH score showed a significantly improved change in the total CSHQ (P = 0.038).
Conclusion:
Our study demonstrates the feasibility of using online research delivery platforms to support studies in ASD, and more broadly, pediatric clinical and translational research. Online platforms may increase participant inclusion in enrollment and increase convenience and safety for participants and study personnel.
The first demonstration of laser action in ruby was made in 1960 by T. H. Maiman of Hughes Research Laboratories, USA. Many laboratories worldwide began the search for lasers using different materials, operating at different wavelengths. In the UK, academia, industry and the central laboratories took up the challenge from the earliest days to develop these systems for a broad range of applications. This historical review looks at the contribution the UK has made to the advancement of the technology, the development of systems and components and their exploitation over the last 60 years.
ABSTRACT IMPACT: Our work is demonstrative of the value embedded in community engagement as a vehicle to facilitate and expand the focus of translational research. OBJECTIVES/GOALS: To develop a community-informed recruitment process for a population-based DNA integrity longitudinal study aiming to document the average amount of DNA damage as well as DNA repair capacity in a cohort of community-dwelling individuals. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: The three-member Community Engagement team (CE Team) partnered with a ten-person Community Advisory Board (CAB) to develop recruitment procedures and materials. Through an iterative process taking place over 13 meetings, CAB members answered questions about community context, appropriate recruitment approaches, and tone of communication with potential study participants. They also collaborated in the creation of outreach materials, informational booklets, and the informed consent document. The CAB’s input was recorded in meeting notes that informed successive versions of the materials. The CE Team held post-meeting debriefs to develop consensus on lessons learned and next steps. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: CAB input generated a five-step recruitment process. It informed approaches to communications with potential participants and resulted in a set of printed recruitment materials. Furthermore, the CAB pushed the CE Team and laboratory scientists to think beyond study participation to a comprehensive view of respectful engagement including notification of elected officials and other community institutions. By sharing personal anecdotes and asking how this study would reflect their lived experiences and/or contribute to their communities, CAB members inspired the university team to recognize the environmental context that may underlie DNA damage in residents of an underserved community. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF FINDINGS: The CAB was very effective in generating tools for recruitment. Moreover, CAB members provided insights beyond those originally sought by the CE Team, regarding broader engagement and a focus of future research relevant to the needs of both the community and the university researchers.
This essay introduces the understudied archive of early Native American poetry by reading a series of little-known poems that face the routines of ordinary life, including the observation of nature, scientific curiosity, complicity with Manifest Destiny, work, curiosity, resistance to and complicity with ideologies that exoticize Indigenous peoples, sexual anxiety, and self-critical reflection on environmental devastation. These poems speak with a shifting blend of irony, doubt, pride, political resistance or complacency, and resentment or embrace of stereotypes, while each poem also models how lyrical cultural interpretation can confront internal contradictions and competing impulses. In these ways, poetry’s capacity to represent intense literacy moves beyond colonialist, demeaning views of American Indian cultures and histories and invites us to see American Indians not only as topics of literary history but also as its creators.
A full time urgent consult clinic was opened for adolescents presenting with risk to self or others. To date these adolescents have presented to ERs, held in the ER or admitted to the ward added to waitlists. This study is a part of a 1 year outcome study to examine whether urgent assessment and brief crisis intervention reduce ER visits, admissions and reduce the waiting lists.
Aims
a) examine 3 month outcome after urgent clinic assessment
b) examine variables that may affect outcome
c) examine effect of urgent consult assessment and intervention on ER visits, admission, repeat presentation and waitlist for other child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinics.
Method
Adolescents 12 -17 years of age seen in the UCC will be given information sheet and consent form to participate. Data will be gathered on demographic variables and a number of other pertinent variables including reason for referral, suicidality previous contact with MH services, past psychiatric history, family history of psychiatric disorders, diagnosis and management. The patients will complete a mental health screen, CDI and Connors Questionnaire Parents will complete the CBCL. The data will be checked against ER contact,admissions and wait lists at 3 month post assessment. Data analysis will be conducted using SPSS.
Results
It is expected that there will be a decrease in the number of adolescents presentating to the ERs, a reduction in ER admission to the ward and a decrease in the numbers of patients on the Outpatient wait list.
National guidance cautions against low-intensity interventions for people with personality disorder, but evidence from trials is lacking.
Aims
To test the feasibility of conducting a randomised trial of a low-intensity intervention for people with personality disorder.
Method
Single-blind, feasibility trial (trial registration: ISRCTN14994755). We recruited people aged 18 or over with a clinical diagnosis of personality disorder from mental health services, excluding those with a coexisting organic or psychotic mental disorder. We randomly allocated participants via a remote system on a 1:1 ratio to six to ten sessions of Structured Psychological Support (SPS) or to treatment as usual. We assessed social functioning, mental health, health-related quality of life, satisfaction with care and resource use and costs at baseline and 24 weeks after randomisation.
Results
A total of 63 participants were randomly assigned to either SPS (n = 33) or treatment as usual (n = 30). Twenty-nine (88%) of those in the active arm of the trial received one or more session (median 7). Among 46 (73%) who were followed up at 24 weeks, social dysfunction was lower (−6.3, 95% CI −12.0 to −0.6, P = 0.03) and satisfaction with care was higher (6.5, 95% CI 2.5 to 10.4; P = 0.002) in those allocated to SPS. Statistically significant differences were not found in other outcomes. The cost of the intervention was low and total costs over 24 weeks were similar in both groups.
Conclusions
SPS may provide an effective low-intensity intervention for people with personality disorder and should be tested in fully powered clinical trials.
There is limited research that explores the association between exclusion from school and mental health, but it seems intuitively plausible that the recognition of mental difficulties by key teachers and parents would influence the likelihood of exclusion from school.
Methods
A secondary analysis of the British Child and Adolescent Mental Health survey 2004, (n = 7997) and the 2007 follow-up (n = 5326) was conducted. Recognition of difficulty was assessed via a derived variable that combined the first item of the Impact supplement of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire which asked parents and teachers if they thought that the child has difficulties with emotions, behaviour and concentration, and the presence/absence of psychiatric disorder measured by the Development and Well-being Assessment.
Results
Adjusted logistic regression models demonstrated that children with recognised difficulties were more likely to be excluded [adjusted odds ratio (OR) 5.78, confidence interval 3.45–9.64, p < 0.001], but children with unrecognised difficulties [adjusted OR 3.58 (1.46–8.81) p < 0.005] or recognised subclinical difficulties [adjusted OR 3.42 (2.04–5.73) p < 0.001] were also more likely to be excluded than children with no difficulties. Children with conduct disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder were most likely to be excluded compared with other types of disorder.
Conclusion
Exclusion from school may result from a failure to provide timely and effective support rather than a failure to recognise psychopathology.
Leaf samples from Utah State University herbarium specimens of Astragalus were analyzed qualitatively for organic nitrites. Of 324 species and varieties examined, 69 (21%) were positive for nitrites. Excluding varieties, 251 species were examined, of which 56 (22%) contained nitrites. Organic nitrites were found to be stable in dried specimens for decades. Both recently collected and 80- to 90-year-old specimens of the same species or variety tested positive for organic nitrites. Astragalus species known to cause the loco syndrome in livestock did not contain nitrites. Only one seleniferous species, A. toanus Jones, synthesized moderate amounts of organic nitrites.
Chlorsulfuron, thifensulfuron, bromoxynil, 2,4-D, glyphosate, and a combination of 2,4-D plus glyphosate were applied on newly planted and established ‘Lemberger’ wine grape at 1/3, 1/10, 1/33, and 1/100 of the maximum labelled rate in wheat or fallow to simulate exposure to drifted herbicides. All herbicides produced symptoms on grape but the most severe symptoms were with 2,4-D and the least severe with bromoxynil. Newly planted grape was more sensitive to herbicides than established grape. Although established grape recovered from injury caused by all treatments except 2,4-D and the highest rate of chlorsulfuron and glyphosate, newly planted grape recovered only from lower rates of bromoxynil. All herbicides resulted in diagnostic symptoms, but other symptoms were very similar to those caused by other stresses.
It has been suggested that soil treated with a herbicide and subsequently carried by wind and deposited on plant foliage can cause crop injury. This study compared foliar uptake and translocation of herbicides applied to plants as an aqueous solution or in herbicide-treated soil. Leaves of 3-wk-old seedling alfalfa, grape, and pea were treated with 14C-labeled thifensulfuron, chlorsulfuron, glyphosate, 2,4-D, and bromoxynil. Significant amounts of all herbicides were absorbed by pea, alfalfa, and grape from the aqueous solutions, whereas very limited absorption occurred from herbicide-treated soil. Prolonged and multiple exposure to herbicide-treated soil did not increase herbicide uptake. High relative humidity enhanced herbicide absorption from aqueous solutions but not from herbicide-treated soil. All herbicides except bromoxynil were readily translocated in alfalfa, grape, and pea. Limited quantities of herbicides were absorbed from herbicide-treated soil by plant foliage, and this small amount is unlikely to cause crop damage.