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Exploring Social Media Usage and Its Effects on College Students\u27 Mental Health: A Mixed-Methods, Intervention Study
Get PDFBackground: Social media can cause detrimental effects to college students’ mental wellbeing. The purpose of this study was to examine UT Tyler students’ social media usage and its effects on mental health such as depression, anxiety, stress, self-esteem, and the fear of missing out (FoMO). The researcher wanted to see if one specific social media site, Instagram, had more deleterious effects compared to other social media platforms and if reducing time usage would help improve mental health.
Methods: A mixed-methods, intervention design was used. An online quantitative survey link, which contained questions about demographics, social media usage, and mental health cognitions, was emailed to all UT Tyler students enrolled in the Fall 2021 semester. Statistical tests were run to find relevant associations. The intervention consisted of a social media detoxification phase, a post-intervention questionnaire, and journal responses. Thematic analysis was conducted on the qualitative journal responses. The initial survey had 462 responses (4.2% response rate).
Results: In the quantitative results, stress showed frequent significant results. Participants who continued using social media had higher stress. Participants who limited Instagram use had the lowest stress. Depression and anxiety were also found to have some significance. FoMO was notable in the literature. Age played an important role in which as one gets older, he or she experienced less FoMO, depression, anxiety, stress, and social norms with increasing self-efficacy in relation to social media. In the qualitative results, the main themes from the journal responses were curiosity, awareness of social media use, and desire to spend less time on social media.
Conclusion: Participants were given a chance to engage in a social media detoxification intervention to see how social media affected them cognitively. While stress was the most important result, along with depression, anxiety, and FoMO to a lesser extent, there seemed to be associations between increased social media usage and poor mental health cognitions. Future research can delve into social media related to guilt, sleep, worldview, or the epidemic of misinformation
MICRO-RNA ANALYSIS OF EXTRACELLULAR VESICLES SECRETED BY ALVEOLAR MACROPHAGES AND EPITHELIAL CELLS IN RESPONSE TO CADMIUM
Get PDFInhalation of cadmium (Cd) has been an environmental health concern with the increase in industrial activities and smoking. Cd exposure is known to affect several organs such as lungs, kidneys, and liver. In this study, we wanted to understand if Cd inhalation exposure can affect the lungs and other organs in the body. Exosomes are extracellular vesicles secreted by all living cells and are known to carry toxicants between organs. We investigated whether Cd exposure could affect exosome biogenesis and their composition. Cd exposure did not affect the viability of A549, a lung epithelial cell line and macrophages derived from THP-1 monocytes. There was no difference in size distribution of exosomes following Cd exposure. However, there was an increase in exosome concentration following Cd exposure in THP-1 macrophages. We observed significant difference in miRNAs composition in exosomes after Cd treatment. There were 8 and 2 differentially expressed miRNAs in exosomes from A549 cells and THP-1 macrophages, respectively. Our findings indicate that the response to heavy metal exposure varies cell to cell, The changes in exosome concentration and miRNAs indicates the exosomes may play a role in cell-to-cell communication
Development of a Companion Assay to Assist in the Study of Fibrinolytic Therapy for Retained Hemothorax
Get PDFHemothorax is a condition where blood and pleural fluid become trapped between the lung(s) and chest wall [1-3], typically from blunt or penetrating trauma [3]. Intrapleural fibrinolytic therapy (IPFT) is a less invasive treatment option that is used to treat retained hemothorax, allowing it to be broken down and drained through tube thoracostomy. IPFT has been successfully modeled in a rabbit system, thus allowing the examination of various treatment options pre-clinically. To help support the use of this animal model, blood halo assay (BHA) was developed to assess the efficacy of various plasminogen activators for use with IPFT. The BHA was optimized in a 96-well format using rabbit as well as human blood with both tPA or uPA and it was found that a blood volume of 10 µL/well was optimal for reproducible halo clot formation. In addition, comparison of halo clots formed with Tissue factor (Innovin) versus thrombin/Ca2+ indicated the latter as providing the most reproducible results. Efficacy of human tPA versus uPA (5 nM) in lysis of human and rabbit halo clots (with or without exogenous human PLG 0-29 nM) was examined by monitoring the increase in the optical density within the well at 510 nm (OD510) over time. Rates of clot lysis induced by tPA were found to be higher than those obtained with uPA for both human and rabbit clots and were independent of the presence of exogenously added PLG. Prepared clot halos in BHA plates were found to be stable at 4ºC from 24 hrs to 6 days as determined by the similar rates of clot lysis obtained. The rate of clot lysis was found to be reduced on day 7, and blood halos were found to be unstable on day 8, possibly due to changes in the fibrin clot structure. The use of an I.DOT system to prepare BHA plates was found to increase productivity, stability, and reproducibility. Overall, the BHA allows rapid in vivo/ex vivo testing of different types of IPFT treatments and shows potential for facilitating personalized treatment of retained hemothorax in a clinical setting
Deep Convolution Neural Networks for Image Classification
Get PDFDeep learning is a highly active area of research in machine learning community. Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs) present a machine learning tool that enables the computer to learn from image samples and extract internal representations or properties underlying grouping or categories of the images. DCNNs have been used successfully for image classification, object recognition, image segmentation, and image retrieval tasks. DCNN models such as Alex Net, VGG Net, and Google Net have been used to classify large dataset having millions of images into thousand classes. In this paper, we present a brief review of DCNNs and results of our experiment. We have implemented Alex Net on Dell Pentium processor using MATLAB deep learning toolbox. We have classified three image datasets. The first dataset contains four hundred images of two types of animals that was classified with 99.1 percent accuracy. The second dataset contains four thousand images of five types of flowers that was classified with 86.64 percent accuracy. In the first and second dataset seventy percent randomly chosen samples from each class were used for training. The third dataset contains forty images of stained pleura tissues from rat-lungs are classified into two classes with 75 percent accuracy. In this data set eighty percent randomly chosen samples were used in training the model
NH125 Sensitizes Staphylococcus aureus to Cell Wall-Targeting Antibiotics through the Inhibition of the VraS Sensor Histidine Kinase
Get PDFStaphylococcus aureus utilizes the two-component regulatory system VraSR to receive and relay environmental stress signals, and it is implicated in the development of bacterial resistance to several antibiotics through the upregulation of cell wall synthesis. VraS inhibition was shown to extend or restore the efficacy of several clinically used antibiotics. In this work, we study the enzymatic activity of the VraS intracellular domain (GST-VraS) to determine the kinetic parameters of the ATPase reaction and characterize the inhibition of NH125 under in vitro and microbiological settings. The rate of the autophosphorylation reaction was determined at different GST-VraS concentrations (0.95 to 9.49 μM) and temperatures (22 to 40°C) as well as in the presence of different divalent cations. The activity and inhibition by NH125, which is a known kinase inhibitor, were assessed in the presence and absence of the binding partner, VraR. The effects of inhibition on the bacterial growth kinetics and gene expression levels were determined. The GST-VraS rate of autophosphorylation increases with temperature and with the addition of VraR, with magnesium being the preferred divalent cation for the metal-ATP substrate complex. The mechanism of inhibition of NH125 was noncompetitive in nature and was attenuated in the presence of VraR. The addition of NH125 in the presence of sublethal doses of the cell wall-targeting antibiotics carbenicillin and vancomycin led to the complete abrogation of Staphylococcus aureus Newman strain growth and significantly decreased the gene expression levels of pbpB, blaZ, and vraSR in the presence of the antibiotics
DNP Final Report: Implementation of An Electronic Clinical Placement System for Improving Faculty Workflow and Accreditation Compliance
Get PDFHealthcare today is continually evolving and requires healthcare providers to coordinate and work together to provide quality care. Among healthcare changes is the increasing expansion of technological improvements assisting in mainstreaming processes. In the academic setting, these changes are currently needed to help improve faculty workflow and assist in regulatory compliance. The purpose of this paper is to discover if implementing technology in a clinical nursing setting through an evidence-based practice approach will improve nursing faculty workload and aid in accreditation compliance. The design and methodology for this project were developed using the Iowa model of evidence-based practice, the Donabedian model of examining health services and healthcare quality, and Roger\u27s five-stage change theory.
Based on the evidence and the program outcomes, the project revealed that by applying technology in a clinical setting, faculty workflow could produce improvements and further assist in increasing regulatory compliance
Mandated Nurse-Patient Ratios are a Necessity
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This paper\u27s purpose is to show that there is a dire need to mandate staffing ratios in an acute hospital setting. In addition, an attempt is made to show that retention numbers will increase with the continued increase in nurse satisfaction directly related to fewer patients per nurse. The plan to get to the amount of 1:5 nurse-to-patient ratio will have substantial cost savings for the facility. These savings could be used to onboard new nurses while keeping as many seasoned nurses as possible. Multiple scholarly studies were used to show that this project would be a successful one
Congestive Heart Failure Educational Approach Benchmark Study
Get PDFHeart failure continues to burden the American healthcare system. Disease management programs and transitional care services are used by hospitals to help patients living with congestive heart failure (CHF) transition from the hospital to home life. Twelve articles were chosen to evaluate the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary approach in reducing hospital readmission rates, cost, and death. One article was chosen to see how a nurse-led 1:1 patient educational approach was effective, and one article evaluated patients’ perception on living with CHF. This paper aims to evaluate the best educational approach on reducing hospital readmission rates, death, and cost in CHF patients
AEROACOUSTIC ANALYSES FOR NOISE REDUCTION APPLICATION
Get PDFIn this study, we examine the hypothesis that airflow noise can be reduced by adding metamaterials. The introduction of any obstacle will generate more disturbance in the airflow and therefore add noise. Hence an efficient metamaterial design is required, capable of reducing noise even at higher flow disturbance. In order to examine this hypothesis, we developed a platform to perform isogeometric aeroacoustic analyses to solve Navier stokes equations first. We obtained the velocity fields from fluid-structure analyses and utilized the light-hill analogy to calculate the noise generated as a result of airflow. Then the Helmholtz equation was solved to perform wave propagation analyses using the calculated flow-induced source of the noise. Hence, the disturbance due to the introduction of the metamaterial was included in the analyses. The fluid-structure analyses were performed for the unsteady, in-compressible Naiver–Stokes problem to estimate velocity and pressure fields. The assumptions made can be viewed as Lid-driven cavity flow. The pressure stabilization technique was used for the treatment of the incomprehensibility constraint for unsteady flow cases. Results are obtained for a benchmark lid-driven cavity flow. The results were compared with published numerical and experimental finite element analysis studies for validation
Comparison of Traditional and Virtual Reality-Based Episodic Memory Performance in Clinical and Non-Clinical Cohorts
Get PDFThe California Verbal Learning Test, Second Edition (CVLT-II) and the Virtual Environment Grocery Store (VEGS) use list learning and recognition tasks to assess episodic memory. This study aims to: (1) Replicate prior construct validity results among a new sample of young adults and healthy older adults; (2) Extend this work to a clinical sample of older adults with a neurocognitive diagnosis; (3) Compare CVLT-II and VEGS performance among these groups; and (4) Validate the independence of CVLT and VEGS episodic memory performance measures from executive functioning performance measures. Typically developing young adults (n = 53) and older adults (n = 85), as well as older adults with a neurocognitive diagnosis (n = 18), were administered the CVLT-II, VEGS, and D-KEFS CWIT. Results found that (1) the relationship of the VEGS and CVLT-II measures was highly correlated on all variables, (2) compared to the CVLT-II, participants (particularly older adults) recalled fewer items on the VEGS, and (3) the CVLT-II and VEGS were generally independent of D-KEFS CWIT. It appeared that the VEGS may be more difficult than the CVLT-II, possibly reflecting the word length effect. Performance may have also been impacted by the presence of everyday distractors in the virtual environment