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The Role of Community Healthcare Professionals in Discussing Sexual Assault Experiences During Obstetrics and Gynecological Healthcare Appointments
Get PDFBackground
Nearly half of adult women in the US report experiencing sexual assault, with almost one-fifth reporting rape. For many sexual assault survivors, healthcare professionals are the first point of contact and disclosure. This study aimed to understand how healthcare professionals working in community settings perceived their role in discussing sexual violence experiences with women during obstetrical and gynecological healthcare appointments. The secondary purpose was to compare healthcare professionals’ perspectives with the patients’ to determine how sexual violence conversations should occur in these environments. Methods
Data were collected in two phases. Phase 1 consisted of 6 focus groups (Sept-Dec, 2019) with women aged 18–45 (n = 22) living in Indiana who sought community-based or private healthcare for women’s reproductive healthcare needs. Phase 2 included 20 key-informant interviews with non-physician healthcare professionals (i.e., NP, RN, CNM, doula, pharmacist, chiropractor) living in Indiana (September 2019-May 2020) who provided community-based women’s reproductive healthcare. Focus groups and interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analyses. HyperRESEARCH assisted in data management and organization. Results
There were three resulting themes: (1) healthcare professionals’ approaches to screening for a history of sexual violence varied depending on how they ask, what setting they work in, and type of professional asking; (2) healthcare experiences can compound traumatic experiences and create distrust with survivors; and (3) sexual violence impacts patient healthcare experiences through what services they seek, how professionals may interact with them, and what professionals they are willing to utilize. Conclusions
Findings offered insight into actionable and practical strategies for enhancing sexual violence screening and discussions in community-based women’s reproductive health settings. The findings offer strategies to address barriers and facilitators among community healthcare professionals and the people they serve. Incorporating healthcare professional and patient experiences and preferences for violence-related discussions during obstetrical and gynecological healthcare appointments can assist in violence prevention efforts, improve patient-professional rapport, and yield better health outcomes
Neural Mechanisms for the Localization of Unexpected External Motion
Get PDFTo localize objects during active sensing, animals must differentiate stimuli caused by volitional movement from real-world object motion. To determine a neural basis for this ability, we examined the mouse superior colliculus (SC), which contains multiple egocentric maps of sensorimotor space. By placing mice in a whisker-guided virtual reality, we discovered a rapidly adapting tactile response that transiently emerged during externally generated gains in whisker contact. Responses to self-generated touch that matched self-generated history were significantly attenuated, revealing that transient response magnitude is controlled by sensorimotor predictions. The magnitude of the transient response gradually decreased with repetitions in external motion, revealing a slow habituation based on external history. The direction of external motion was accurately encoded in the firing rates of transiently responsive neurons. These data reveal that whisker-specific adaptation and sensorimotor predictions in SC neurons enhance the localization of unexpected, externally generated changes in tactile space
Empathy with/for teammates in Engineering
Get PDFEmpathy with/for teammates in Engineering is a modified version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) instrument to measure perspective-taking and empathic concern in the context of engineering teams. This modification helps participants focus their answers on their empathic experiences with/for their teammates within their teams, allowing the researchers to explore individual empathic formation in Engineering Teams
It’s Not Paradise for the Dogs and Shelter Workers: Dog Welfare and Occupational Stress in Animal Shelters in Hawaii
Get PDFDog welfare and occupational stress of animal shelter workers at two sites on Hawaii Island were examined. The east side had higher euthanasia rates than the west side. The two sites are in locales that differ culturally and economically. The goal of this study is to (1) elucidate how dog culture differs at the two sites and how those differences affect the health of dogs, and (2) assess the stress levels of shelter workers who must simultaneously care for the dogs while often having to euthanize them. Interviews and cortisol were obtained from the shelter workers and cortisol was obtained from the shelter dogs. Cortisol is a stress hormone that can be measured in human and dog hair. The shelter workers and dogs in the east side of the island’s high-euthanasia shelter had significantly higher cortisol rates than their counterparts in the west side’s lower euthanasia shelter (t = 6.051, df = 13, p = 0.001 for the shelter workers and t = 2.412, df = 42, p = 0.010 for the dogs). Traditional and contemporary attitudes toward dogs as commodities to be kept as guard dogs or for hunting do not include spaying/neutering, resulting in unsustainably high numbers of discarded dogs entering shelters. Shelter employees care for animals that they are then forced to euthanize, referred to as the “caring-killing paradox.” Shelter workers consequently withstand the worst of negative public perceptions of the high euthanasia rate for what is in actuality a community problem. I suggest that differing cultures of attitudes toward dogs negatively affect the health and welfare of both shelter employees and dogs. Decreasing the dog overpopulation through spaying/neutering and a cultural shift in the attitude toward dogs would improve the health and well-being of the dogs and the shelter workers
Assessing the influence of glass properties on cabin solar heating and range of an electric vehicle using a comprehensive system model
Get PDFReview: Expanding Writing Center Research with Discourse Analysis
Get PDFCorpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) is a growing field of study that provides for holistic understandings of written texts, spoken discourse, rhetorical strategies, and the people who use them. Organized as a discussion of the topics, methods, and their potential applications for writing center research, this essay reviews three edited collections, Corpus Approaches to Discourse: A Critical Review by Charlotte Taylor and Anne Marchi (Routledge, 2018); The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Approaches to Discourse Analysis by Eric Friginal and Jack A. Hardy (Routledge, 2020); and Research Methods for Digital Discourse Analysis by Camilla Vásquez (Bloomsbury, 2022). Each introduces a range of practices, insights, and concerns for combining corpus and discourse analysis, which can be useful for developing writing center research, consultant training, and administrative outcomes
Imaging and Object Detection Under Extreme Lighting Conditions and Real World Adversarial Attacks
No full textImaging and computer vision systems deployed in real-world environments face the challenge of accommodating a wide range of lighting conditions. However, the cost, the demand for high resolution, and the miniaturization of imaging devices impose physical constraints on sensor design, limiting both the dynamic range and effective aperture size of each pixel. Consequently, conventional CMOS sensors fail to deliver satisfactory capture in high dynamic range scenes or under photon-limited conditions, thereby impacting the performance of downstream vision tasks. In this thesis, we address two key problems: 1) exploring the utilization of spatial multiplexing, specifically spatially varying exposure tiling, to extend sensor dynamic range and optimize scene capture, and 2) developing techniques to enhance the robustness of object detection systems under photon-limited conditions.In addition to challenges imposed by natural environments, real-world vision systems are susceptible to adversarial attacks in the form of artificially added digital content. Therefore, this thesis presents a comprehensive pipeline for constructing a robust and scalable system to counter such attacks
Utilization of Additive Manufacturing in the Development of Stationary Diffusion Systems for Aeroengine Centrifugal Compressors
No full textRising costs and volatility in aviation fuel and increased regulations resulting from climate change concerns have driven gas turbine engine manufacturers to focus on reducing fuel consumption. Implementing centrifugal compressors as the last stage in an axial engine architecture allows for reduced core diameters and higher fuel efficiencies. However, a centrifugal compressor\u27s performance relies heavily on its stationary diffusion system. Furthermore, the highly unsteady and turbulent flow field exhibited in the diffusion system often causes CFD models to fall short of reality. Therefore, rapid validation is required to match the speed at which engineers can simulate different diffuser designs utilizing CFD. One avenue for this is through the use of additive manufacturing in centrifugal compressor experimental research.This study focused on implementing a new generation of the Centrifugal Stage for Aerodynamic Research (CSTAR) at the Purdue Compressor Research Lab that utilizes an entirely additively manufactured diffusion system. In addition, the new configuration was used to showcase the benefits of additive manufacturing (AM) in evaluating diffusion components. Two diffusion systems were manufactured and assessed. The Build 2 diffusion system introduced significant modifications to the diffusion system compared to the Build 1 design. The modifications included changes to the diffuser vane geometry, endwall divergence, and increased deswirl pinch and vane geometries. The Build 2 diffusion system showed performance reductions in total and static pressure rise, flow range, and efficiencies. These results were primarily attributed to the changes made to the Build 2 diffuser. The end wall divergence resulted in end wall separation that caused increased losses. The changes to the diffuser vane resulted in increased throat blockage and lower pressure rise and mass flow rate.In addition to the experimental portion of this study, a computational study was conducted to study the design changes made to the Build 2 diffusion system. A speedline at 100% corrected rotational speed was solved, and the results were compared to experimental data. The simulated data matched the overall stage and diffusion system performance relatively well, but the internal flow fields of the diffusion components, namely the diffuser, were not well predicted. This was attributed to 16 using the SST turbulence model over BSL EARSM. The BSL EARSM model more accurately predicted the diffuser flow field to the SST model
One Macrocyclic Ring to Rule the Iron: Harnessing Macrocyclic Unsaturation to Tune the Properties of Organometallic Complexes
No full textThe present body of work has focused on the development of the chemistry of iron complexes of macrocyclic ligands, specifically HMC and HMTI. This has proceeded along two distinct, though related, lines. First, metal-alkynyl complexes have been synthesized, and the effects of the macrocyclic ligand on the metal center – and therefore on the metal-alkynyl bond – have been extensively explored. This is first described for a mono- and bis-alkynyl pair in Chapter 2, in which the general structural and electrochemical features of the Fe(HMTI) motif are delineated. In Chapter 3, the detailed characterization of an iron HMC/HMTI family of complexes is described, which is accompanied by spectroelectrochemical (SEC) analyses and extensive DFT and TD-DFT. Finally, as described in Chapter 4, the understanding gained in the aforementioned works is leveraged to control the properties of mixed-valent complexes based on Fe(HMC/HMTI) bis-alkynyl motif, with a motivation to explore fundamental questions for the development of molecular wires.The second realm of exploration has been concerned with understanding ferrous complexes of HMTI at a deeper level – which species have been previously reported but largely uninvestigated. Collaborative efforts have shown that these FeII(HMTI) species can have unusually long excited state lifetimes under the appropriate conditions, as discussed in Chapter 5. Further (unpublished) characterization of this family of complexes is the focus of Chapter 6, which highlights the relationship between the energy of the charge-transfer absorption band and the nature of the axial ligand.The novel work outlined above is preceded by introductory material (Chapter 1). This chapter serves to briefly contextualize the body which follows within the landscape of the earlier established (though limited) literature on Fe(HMTI) species. Chapter 1 thus represents an attempt to illustrate the ties throughout what might otherwise (and perhaps still does) appear a disjointed conglomerate of text