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COVID-19 related complete blood count changes among asymptomatic pregnant women
Full text linkObjective: To evaluate complete blood count (CBC) changes that suggest coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) among asymptomatic pregnant women attending routine antenatal care
Methods: A cross-sectional study included 187 healthy pregnant women who were attending the antenatal care clinic of a tertiary University hospital between March and June 2020. After a thorough history and examinations, a venous blood sample was taken from each participant for complete and differential blood counts. Those who showed CBC findings suggestive of COVID-19 were further scheduled for a nasopharyngeal swab for detection of SARS-CoV-2 specific antigens through polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
Results: We found 5.3% (n=10) of the study population showed CBC changes that are suggestive of COVID-19. When they were scheduled for nasopharyngeal swab for a PCR confirmatory test, 30% (n=3) of them were PCR positive (which represented 1.6% of the entire study population). The most frequently encountered COVID-19-suggestive change in peripheral blood leukocyte differential counts was leucopenia (100%), followed by decreased eosinophil count (50%), then neutropenia and lymphocytopenia (30%).
Conclusions: Certain differential leucocyte count changes (leucopenia, neutropenia, lymphocytopenia and decreased eosinophil count) among asymptomatic pregnant women might be related to COVID-19 infection and may indicate a need for further testing
Precarious Manhood: Adolescence and Group Rape in Late Medieval Europe
No full textSexual assault, through coercion or violence, was omnipresent at every level of medieval society and perpetrated by males from all socio-economic backgrounds. This article argues that a specific type of sexual violence—group rape—committed by two or more individuals, was a phase of men’s social development. It explores the connection between adolescence and sexual aggression to show that collective rape was a feature of male youth culture used a form of recreation to gain sexual experience, forge bonds with peers, and publicly prove masculinity as adolescents transitioned from childhood to adulthood. Many young males first learned to rape in groups before committing lone rape. Thus, as a form of sport that perpetuated a rape culture, sexual violence became a significant mode of interaction with women. This article proposes that group rape was not only an expression of manliness due to the precariousness of masculine identity but also functioned to redirect male homoerotic desire onto the bodies of women
Miraculous Monstrosity: Birth and Female Sexuality in the Illuminated Scivias and Cloisters Apocalypse
Full text linkThis paper compares the illuminations in two medieval apocalypses, the Cloisters Apocalypse and Hildegard von Bingen’s Scivias, to inspect their similar constructions of female sexuality, motherhood, and monstrosity. It first analyzes the monstrosity of female sexual organs found in Hildegard’s portrayal of the Church and the Mother of the Antichrist. The paper then goes on to consider the uncanny slippage between images of birth and death in the Cloisters’s depiction of John and the Woman of Revelation 12. Ultimately, the paper not only explores the monstrosity of female bodies in apocalyptic manuscripts, but also concludes that medieval women’s circular experience of time and memory corresponds with medieval conceptions of circular apocalyptic time, thereby making women’s bodies an apt metaphorical vehicle for apocalyptic narratives
“To Follow the Bright Star”: American Involvement in the Spanish Civil War and the Shaping of the U.S. Popular Front, 1937-1938
Full text linkThis thesis explores how American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War worked to create a unified Popular Front, a coalition of left-leaning political groups, in the United States in the late 1930s. Between 1937 and 1938, approximately 2800 Americans volunteered in the Spanish Republican Army to defend the Spanish Republic in the civil war that followed General Francisco Franco’s Nationalist coup. At the start of the war, Germany, Portugal, and Italy declared support for the insurgents and turned an isolated civil war into an international conflict centered around fascism. While the United States established a policy of non-intervention, the Soviet Union and International Communist Party officially supported the Spanish Republicans. Because of this, American involvement in the Spanish Civil War was largely coordinated by the International Communist Party and the Soviet Union. This, coupled with the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States following World War II, has created the tendency to equate American volunteers in Spain with an arm of the Soviet Union. Examining their correspondence during the Spanish Civil War, however, reveals a diversity of political motivations for volunteering in Spain. This thesis argues that volunteers minimized political differences within the Popular Front in order to appeal to moderates back in the United States and persuade the U.S. government to end its position of neutrality. United States volunteers intentionally unified the American Left during the Spanish Civil War in response to the threat of fascism, a threat that volunteers believed included domestic concerns regarding race, ethnicity, and class oppression
The Rhetoric of Big Data: Collecting, Interpreting, and Representing in the Age of Datafication
Full text linkRhetorical studies of science, technology, and medicine (RSTM) have provided critical understanding of how argument and argument norms within a field shape what we mean by “data.” Work has also examined how questions that shape data collection are asked, how data is interpreted, and even how data is shared. Understood as a form of argument, data reveals important insights into rhetorical situations, the motives of rhetorical actors, and the broader appeals that shape everything from the kinds of technologies built, to their inclusion in our daily lives, to the infrastructures of cities, the medical practices and policies concerning public health, etc. Big data merits continued attention from RSTM scholars as our understanding of its pervasive use and its ethos grows, but its arguments remain elusive (Salvo, 2012). To unpack the elusivity of big data, we explore one particularly illustrative case of big data and political, democratic influence: the Cambridge Analytica scandal. To understand the case, we turn to social studies of data to explore the range of ethical issues raised by big data, and to examine the rhetorical strategies that entail big data
Competition, Comparison, and Pressure to Perform: An Analysis of the Impact of the Advanced Placement Program on Suicidality Among High Achieving Adolescents
Full text linkExcessive competition and social comparison among high achieving students is a well-documented phenomenon which is particularly existent withing accelerated high school programs such as the Advanced Placement (AP) Program. Hyper-competitiveness, social comparison, and excessive pressure to perform at a high level, among other mechanism, have been shown to positively impact a score of negative mental health outcomes by increasing their incidence. This analysis examines the effect of expansion of the AP Program to additional high schools and exam scores sent to more colleges on adolescent suicide rates. I utilize data on the AP program from the College Board and data on suicide rates from the Center for Disease Control, and use a two-way fixed effects framework to estimate the effects of the AP program on suicide rates for 15-18 year old adolescents. Overall, I find that for both specifications, increases in the number of schools offering AP exams and colleges receiving scores each predict significantly higher suicide rates among 15-18 year olds with joint significance levels of around 1%. The results indicate that the specifications had a combined effect of raising the suicide rate among high school students by nearly three quarters of a standard deviation, which amounts to nearly 30% of the sample average suicide rate. Further, I examined the effect on males and females separately and found that expansion of the program to more schools positively and significantly impacted male suicide rates, which account for nearly 80% of suicides within this age group
Offensive to the Majority: The Formation, Activism, and Survival of the Iowa City Gay Liberation Front, 1970-1999
Full text linkThe formation of the Gay Liberation Front in Iowa City in 1970 was a watershed moment for the gay liberation movement, both nationally—as the first gay organization to be officially recognized as a student group by a state university—and locally, as a militant force within the Iowa City community. Using local newspaper articles, correspondence between the Gay Liberation Front (hereafter GLF), the University of Iowa, and the Iowa City community, and oral histories, photographs, and promotional material created by the GLF, this thesis explores how the GLF navigated its relationships with the University of Iowa, outside community members, and other LGBT+ and minority groups. Using sources that have never before been systematically analyzed, this thesis argues that the GLF successfully reinvented itself and created its own safe spaces and programs for queer people. This continual reinvention was necessary for the organization to survive in a community that actively discriminated against it
Therapeutic Recreation as an Alternative Mental Health Treatment in Local and Global Corrections
Full text linkAround the world, nations are incarcerating individuals at alarmingly high rates. The over-incarceration of individuals for drugs and nonviolent crimes in recent history has led to an epidemic of incarceration, hindering the overall wellbeing of millions of individuals in every corner of the globe. Overcrowding, limited staffing, and underfunding represent just a few of the health and human rights challenges of international prison systems. As strategies of reformative justice through inmate rehabilitation and reintegration have gained prominence, prison systems are starting to focus on the high rates of mental illness in incarcerated populations which are further exasperated by internal prison conditions that are harmful to mental health. Societies must develop dynamic solutions to address these global health concerns. Because of the culture of recreation in carceral environments, therapeutic recreation programming with treatment goals in mental health, including both emotional and social wellbeing, is a viable solution that can be applied to save costs and better utilize existing resources. International program examples establish therapeutic recreation as a cross-cultural treatment option that can be altered to fit many different environments. Existing initiatives in the local context of Coralville, Iowa, and the global context of the Colombian National Prison System demonstrate the possible applications of therapeutic recreation in combatting the global prison epidemic