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Trust and Hope
Get PDFRileyspork/Jean DrzyzgulaTrust and Hope, 2024Fandom: Multifandom: Chuck, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek Lower Decks, Star Trek Strange New WorldsProseN/ACollection of the author
Rating: General AudiencesTags: Chuck Bartowski,Bryce Larkin, Chuck Bartowski/Bryce Larkin, Bryce Larkin/Sarah Walker, Chuck Bartowski has PTSD, Bryce Larkin has PTSD, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Imperialism, War, Set in present day
Creator\u27s Notes: I started rewatching Chuck right before I saw the project and prompts. I had last seen it in college, in like 2009. Watching it in 2024, it feels very much like it\u27s about the cost of US military and covert operations, and war and greed generally, overall and to individuals, and how it breaks down trust and divides people who care about each other. Within the show the characters canonically turn to stories to confirm trust and guide their futures. The Identity prompt description really connected with what I was feeling and wanting to express
Design and Verification of a Planar, Programmable, Compliant Hand for Use in General Open-Loop Constrained Manipulation
Get PDFConventional robots are adept at performing tasks where the desired absolute position of the robot\u27s end effector is well defined. However, these robots will struggle with tasks in which the desired position is poorly defined, subject to variation, or determined by contact with a constraint with positional uncertainty. This problem can be solved by introducing compliance to the system, either active or passive. Active compliance uses force feedback to make corrective motions, but is limited in speed and experiences higher contact forces than passive systems. Passively compliant systems are capable of realizing the necessary compliance for a given task but currently require specialized end effectors. This paper presents a programmable, 3-fingered, antagonistic, compliant hand (P3ACH) capable of realizing a large space of multi-directional compliant behaviors. Manipulation dexterity is determined by performing different tasks faster, more robustly, and with lower contact forces than active systems realizing the same compliant behavior. The P3ACH demonstrates the proof of concept in the use of variable passive end effectors for creating a future fully dexterous spatial manipulator
African American Women’s Writing: A Critical Edition of a Narrative of the Life and Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince (1856)
No full textThis dissertation expands on current knowledge of how Black women of the early nineteenth century not only participated in political and social movements within the United States but were instrumental in effecting fundamental social and economic progress both domestically and abroad. They did this while grappling with what their US citizenship meant to them within a gendered and race-based hierarchy. In the process, they had their own labor to sustain their livelihood and apprenticed the future labor of others. Centering on Nancy Gardner Prince (1799-1859), a Black activist born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, I explore how Prince was not an exception among Black Northern women but part of a small and burgeoning class who were not born with “slave” status,— and who were educated in religious schools,— and who represented the beginnings of a Black middle class in the antebellum United States. Using the 1856 edition of Prince’s A Narrative of the Life and Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince as the copy-text, and as the last text, to our current knowledge, that Prince had editorial control over, I have annotated her work with historical and biographical details to better understand her restraints, and conversely, where she received encouragement. Further, I seek circumstances linked to environmental factors, events that were the result of international relations and subsequent wars, and activism from more well-known people to show how these occurrences acted upon Prince and how she responded to them. By providing an in-depth critical introduction that includes original biographical research pertaining to Prince’s family tree, I relay the timeline of her Narrative through a historicist lens, identifying how other activists either supported or tried to obstruct her activism. The annotated 1856 edition then follows, and the edition concludes with a publishing history and comparative textual analysis of the work’s three editions. I also include newspaper articles about or written by Prince along with correspondence relating to Prince’s activism. Through this scholarly edition of Prince’s 1856 Narrative, we can learn from her experience as businesswoman, educator, and missionary to inform a truer United States history
Understanding Foster Parents\u27 Experiences of Secondary Traumatic Stress
Get PDFSecondary traumatic stress, which has been studied across many helping professions, refers to symptoms similar to posttraumatic stress disorder which an individual may develop as a result of indirect exposure to another individual’s trauma (Sprang et al., 2019). Foster parents may be particularly susceptible to developing secondary traumatic stress due to their exposure to their foster child’s trauma history and trauma symptoms, which has been confirmed in recent studies (Bridger et al., 2020; Whitt-Woosley et al., 2020). Importantly, foster parents’ experiences of secondary traumatic stress may differ from those of other helping professionals given their unique role. The purpose of the present study was to develop an in-depth understanding of foster parents’ experiences of secondary traumatic stress through the use of qualitative interviews. The sample included fourteen foster parents who had fostered a child with trauma and experienced symptoms of secondary traumatic stress within the last year. Data from the semi-structured interviews were analyzed using Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR). Findings suggest that participants were experiencing significant secondary traumatic stress symptoms in the domains of intrusion, avoidance, alterations in mood and cognition, and alterations in arousal and reactivity. Concerningly, negative impacts from secondary traumatic stress were identified by participants across different areas of their life, including work, self-care, and relationships. Participants’ parenting of their foster child was also negatively impacted, as participants described experiencing interpersonal difficulties with their foster child, wanting to stop trying to parent their child, and feeling like they were not being a good parent. While most participants planned to continue engaging as a foster parent after this experience, participants also shared that they stopped or reduced their fostering, were unsure about future fostering, or planned to be more selective about future placements. Factors that were helpful and challenging as they managed this experience were also discussed by participants. Unfortunately, most participants indicated that secondary traumatic stress was not adequately addressed by the child welfare system. Findings also include participants’ recommendations for ways that the child welfare system could better support foster parents experiencing secondary traumatic stress. Additionally, limitations, implications, and directions for future research are discussed
Effects of Posttraumatic Cognitions, Working Alliance, and Relational Intimacy Skills in PTSD Treatment
Get PDFCognitive theories have been proposed to explain the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Social-cognitive theories, as one of two major categories of cognitive theories (Brewin et al., 1996), emphasize the role of trauma-related beliefs in the development of PTSD, which led to the incorporation of modifying maladaptive trauma-related cognitions in psychological treatments of PTSD. Although extant studies have provided empirical evidence for the efficacy of these treatments, questions regarding active therapeutic components still exist. To that end, this study examined the effects of social-cognitive factors (i.e., posttraumatic cognitions, relational intimacy skills, and working alliance) on PTSD symptomatology in an exposure-based treatment program. Data collected from 697 participants were included in this study. First, a serial mediation analysis was conducted. The results showed posttraumatic cognitions were directly associated with PTSD severity rather than through relational intimacy skills and working alliance at admission. Second, reliable change indices were calculated, suggesting posttraumatic cognitions and PTSD severity decreased from admission to discharge. Third, after the measurement models of four variables were tested through confirmatory factor analyses, latent regressions were estimated to examine if posttraumatic cognitions, relational intimacy skills, and working alliance at admission predicted the severity of PTSD symptom clusters at discharge. Negative cognitions about self and the world, interpersonal courage, and overall working alliance were identified as significant predictors. Last, latent growth curves, including intercepts and slopes (linear and quadratic), were estimated for posttraumatic cognitions, relational intimacy skills, and PTSD severity. Quadratic models were retained for posttraumatic cognitions and PTSD severity, and the linear model was retained for relational intimacy skills. Latent growth regressions showed the linear coefficients of posttraumatic cognitions and relational intimacy skills were significant predictors for the linear coefficient of PTSD severity. These findings suggest posttraumatic cognitions play critical roles in initial PTSD severity and the efficacy of treatment in symptom reduction. Although relational intimacy skills did not predict PTSD severity prior to treatment, the rate of increase in those skills predicted the rate of decrease in PTSD severity throughout treatment. Lastly, the findings indicate that working alliance established early in treatment predicted PTSD severity at discharge
Health Sciences Students’ Career Commitment, Mental Health, and Physical Activity During the COVID-19 Pandemic
No full textObjective: To understand the biopsychosocial dimensions of university health sciences students’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Participants: Health sciences students (n = 297) from two universities in July and August 2020.
Methods: Participants completed a Web-based survey asking about depression, anxiety, physical activity, coronavirus threat, and career commitment.
Results: Moderate or severe depression and anxiety were reported by 28.6% and 31.3% of respondents, respectively. Depression and anxiety were positively correlated with perceived coronavirus threat and negatively correlated with career commitment and strenuous physical activity. A change in career commitment interests during the COVID-19 pandemic was reported by 11% of respondents.
Conclusions: Identified factors that could be targeted by universities to support their students and secure career commitment include online learning challenges, ability to secure clinical placements, mental health (anxiety and depression), financial challenges, family pressure, and promotion of physical activity
Point of Care Ultrasounds Obtained by Novice Physician Assistant Residents (POCUS ON PAR)
Get PDFIntroduction
The integration of Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) into the care of trauma patients, specifically the E-FAST, has improved the accuracy of initial diagnoses and improved time to surgical intervention in critically ill patients. Physician assistants (PAs) are critically important members of any military trauma resuscitation team and are often team leaders in a pre-hospital setting. They may receive training in ultrasound but there are little data to support their use or evaluate their effectiveness in using POCUS. We designed a study to evaluate the image quality of an E-FAST Exam performed by Emergency Medicine Physician Assistant (EMPA) Fellows and Emergency Medicine (EM) Interns following identical training. Our hypothesis is that image quality obtained by EMPAs will be non-inferior to those images obtained by EM Interns.
Materials and Methods
This is a prospective single-blinded study comparing the image quality of E-FAST exams performed by first year EM interns and first year EMPA fellows. All participants completed standard POCUS training prior to enrollment in the study. A total of 8 EMPAs and 8 EM first year residents completed 10 recorded E-FAST exams to be used as study images. Participants also viewed a 15-question slide show containing images of positive (6) and negative (9) E-FAST exams and recorded their interpretations. Images were reviewed by expert reviewers who were blinded to which images were collected by which group. An image quality score was recorded for each view as well as an overall image quality score. Image quality was rated on a 1 to 5 image quality scale.
Results
For overall image quality, the mean score for EMPAs was 3.6 ± 0.5 and for EM residents was 3.2 ± 0.5 with statistical significance favoring better image quality from the EMPAs. The time to completion for the EFAST exam for EMPAs was 4.8 ± 1.3 minutes and for interns it was 3.4 ± 1.4 minutes (P value = 0.02). There was no difference in image interpretation quiz scores between the groups (mean score 92% among interns and 95% among PAs).
Conclusions
POCUS is an imaging modality which is very portable and relatively inexpensive which makes it ideal for military medicine. PAs are essential members of military trauma teams, and often run an initial trauma resuscitation. Being able to correctly identify patients who have free fluid early in the course of treatment allows for more correct evacuation criteria to ensure the sickest patients get to care the fastest. Although there are limited data to support POCUS use by non-physicians, our data support a growing body of evidence that it is not the profession or baseline medical education that determines an individual’s ability to use and incorporate ultrasound into bedside and clinical practice. Our study shows that with training and experience PAs or other members of the military health care team can use the EFAST to better care for trauma patients
Identifying Primary Proximal Caries Lesions in Pediatric Patients from Bitewing Radiographs Using Artificial Intelligence
Get PDFPurpose: To develop a no-code artificial intelligence (AI) model capable of identifying primary proximal surface caries using bitewings among pediatric patients.
Methods: One hundred bitewing radiographs acquired at pediatric dental clinics were anonymized and reviewed. The inclusion criteria encompassed bitewing radiographs of adequate diagnostic quality of primary and mixed-dentition stages. The exclusion criteria included artifacts related to sensors’ quality, positioning errors, and motion. Sixty-six bitewing radiographs were selected. Images were uploaded to LandingLens™, a no-code AI platform. A calibrated consensus panel determined the presence or absence of proximal caries lesions on all surfaces (using ground truth labeling). The radiographs were divided into training (70 percent), development (20 percent), and testing (10 percent) subsets. Data augmentation techniques were applied to artificially increase the sample size. Sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, precision, F1-score, and receiver operating characteristic area under the curve (ROC-AUC) were calculated.
Results: Among the 755 proximal surfaces identified from 66 bitewings, 178 were annotated as caries lesions by experts. The model achieved the following metrics: 88.8 percent sensitivity, 98.8 percent specificity, 95.8 percent precision, 96.4 percent accuracy, and an F1‐score of 92 percent by surface. The ROC-AUC was 0.965.
Conclusions: The developed model demonstrated strong performance despite the limited dataset size. This may be attributed to the exclusion of unsuitable radiographs and the use of expert-labeled ground truth annotations. The utilization of no-code artificial intelligence may improve outcomes for computer vision tasks