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Quality of life, gastrointestinal symptoms, sleep problems, social support, and social functioning in adults with autism spectrum disorder
No full textThe purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between sleep problems, gastrointestinal symptoms, social functioning, autism traits, and social support on quality of life (QoL) in 107 adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Questionnaires included the Autism Spectrum Quotient-10 (Adult), Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Social Functioning Questionnaire, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Gastrointestinal Symptom Inventory, and World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF.
GI symptoms were a common comorbidity with 86 % of participants presenting with them. Sleep problems were also frequent issues with 89 % of participants being classified as poor sleepers. Greater sleep problems were correlated with poorer QoL in the physical health and environment domains. Specifically, the sleep problem of daytime dysfunction was correlated with poorer QoL in physical health. Daytime dysfunction and sleep duration were correlated with poorer QoL in the environment domain. Better social support was correlated with greater QoL in the psychological, social and environment domains. Poorer social functioning was correlated with poorer QoL in each of the four domains.
This research indicated that GI symptoms and sleep problems are common comorbid conditions in the adult ASD population. This paper expanded upon the existing literature by highlighting unexplored factors influencing QoL in adults with ASD
Age of Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis and comorbidity in children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder
No full textResearch is required to study the relationship between age of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis and the presence of comorbidities.
The Gastrointestinal Symptom Inventory, Autism Spectrum Disorder-Comorbid for Children, Behavior Problem Inventory-Short Form and Social Communication Questionnaire were completed by parents of 129 children and adolescents with a diagnosis of ASD.
Results revealed significant relationships between the age of ASD diagnosis, the presence of comorbidities and intellectual disability. Significant correlations were found between the age of ASD diagnosis and self-injurious and stereotyped behavior. Comorbid psychopathology significantly predicted the presence of GI symptoms. In addition, the relationship between comorbid psychopathology and challenging behavior in this study was reported as bi-directional as both comorbidities predicted one another in the sample.
Future research needs to consider the role of comorbidities in relation to ASD diagnosis
Comorbid psychopathology, challenging behavior, sensory issues, adaptive behavior and quality of life in children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder
No full textAim: Comorbid psychopathology refers to having a diagnosis of two or more co-occurring psychological disorders. The current study investigated the differences between children and adolescents with no-mild, moderate and severe comorbid psychopathology in children and adolescents with ASD.Method: Parents of 133 children completed the Autism Spectrum Disorder-Comorbid for Children, Behavior Problems Inventory-Short Form, Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory, Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Social Communication Questionnaire, Short Sensory Profile, and Behavioral/Educational Interventions and Complementary/Alternative Medicine (CAM) Interventions of the Autism Treatment Network Registry Parent Baseline Assessment.Results: A significant difference was found between severity of comorbid psychopathology and all types of challenging behavior and all sensory issues except movement. A small effect size was also found between comorbid psychopathology and quality of life.Conclusion: The findings from this study show significant difficulties associated with those with comorbid psychopathology in ASD in challenging behavior, sensory issues and quality of life.2022-03-1
Green nanosilicas for monoaromatic hydrocarbons removal from air
No full textWe demonstrate a novel application of green nanosilicas (GN), prepared via an environmentally friendly route, in removing volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Herein, we aim to establish GN as viable alternatives to traditional mesoporous silicas for the removal of monoaromatic hydrocarbons (MAHC). The results show that the GN have high extraction efficiencies comparable to those previously reported for mesoporous silicas. It was demonstrated that bespoke GN can be syntheised readily with the ability to tailor their physical properties and MAHC adsorption. In order to understand the MAHC adsorption by GN, their porosity, morphology and pore structure were characterised. It was observed that the combination of broad pore size distribution and, in particular, the presence of meso- and micro-porosity in GN contributed to high MAHC extraction efficiencies and selectivity. Although from a commercial viewpoint, further optimisation of GN is desirable in order to replace traditional sorbents, this work clearly highlights a new family of “green” sorbents, which can be prepared with a substantial reduction in secondary pollution with potential applications in selective gas separation
Facilitation as an act of love: a self-study of how a facilitator’s pedagogy changed over time in the process of supporting a community of learners
No full textPurpose: This study aims to understand how a facilitator’s pedagogy changed over time in the process of supporting a community of learners to teach using an activist sport approach. Methods: Self-study framed this four-semester research project. Participants included the lead author, two critical friends, 10 preservice teachers, and 110 youth. Data collected included lead researcher’s field notes and debriefing meetings between the lead author and the two critical friends. Results: Findings identified the facilitator’s: (a) struggles to create a democratic learning space in a university context, (b) discomfort with giving up control and allowing for various degrees of preservice teachers’ engagement, and (c) negotiation of feeling of saudade (the love that remains after someone is gone) while creating a group identity. Discussion/Conclusion: A pedagogy of facilitation as an act of love offers genuine possibilities for decolonizing and reinventing reality by naming, critiquing, and challenging/negotiating forms of oppression
Random Forest-based Algorithm for Sleep Spindle Detection in Infant EEG
No full textThe Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC 2020), Virtual Conference, 20-24 July 2020Sleep spindles are associated with normal brain development, memory consolidation and infant sleep-dependent brain plasticity and can be used by clinicians in the assessment of brain development in infants. Sleep spindles can be detected in EEG, however, identifying sleep spindles in EEG recordings manually is very time-consuming and typically requires highly trained experts. Research on the automatic detection of sleep spindles in infant EEGs has been limited to-date. In this study, we present a novel supervised machine learning-based algorithm to detect sleep spindles in infant EEG recordings. EEGs collected from 141 ex-term born infants and 6 ex-preterm born infants, recorded at 4 months of age (adjusted), were used to train and test the algorithm. Sleep spindles were annotated by experienced clinical physiologists as the gold standard. The dataset was split into training (81 ex-term), validation (30 ex-term), and testing (30 ex-term + 6 ex-preterm) set. 15 features were selected for input into a random forest algorithm. Sleep spindles were detected in the ex-term infant EEG test set with 92.1% sensitivity and 95.2% specificity. For ex-preterm born infants, the sensitivity and specificity were 80.3% and 91.8% respectively. The proposed algorithm has the potential to assist researchers and clinicians in the automated analysis of sleep spindles in infant EEG.Science Foundation Irelan
Temperature Management of Outborn Preterm Infants During Inter-hospital Transfer After Birth
No full textPreterm infants have higher mortality rates compared to Infants born at term, and require support after birth. Maintaining normal body temperature (normothermia, temperature 36.5°C-37.5°C) after birth is a challenge for preterm infants and abnormal temperature is associated with increased mortality. Preterm infants are at high risk hypothermia (temperature 37.5°C). Preterm infants who are transferred to another hospital after birth for their ongoing care (outborn) are at greater risk of morbidities and mortality than comparable inborn infants. I wished to study how effectively newly born preterm infants’ temperature is kept within the normal range during inter-hospital transport in Ireland. I reviewed the literature concerning temperature control in neonatal transport and identified issues relating to how infant temperature is measured, how thermal supports are used to assist preterm newborns, and inconsistencies in how thermal outcomes are reported. This review also highlights an increase in mortality for infants that are hypothermic following inter-hospital transfer. I performed a retrospective review and a prospective study of preterm infants undergoing inter-hospital transport after birth by the National Neonatal Transport Program. Infants rectal temperature was measured for the prospective study. We identified improved rates of hypothermia at all stages of transport by our transport service. However, this was offset by increasing rates of infant hyperthermia. In the study cohort, skin and axillary temperature were unreliable for detecting abnormal core (rectal) temperature. Thermal supports were infrequently used. Accurately measuring and appropriately managing infant temperature during neonatal transfer is crucial. Improved temperature monitoring during transport of preterm infants, and the use of polyethylene wraps for preterm infants during neonatal transport require further study to improve thermal outcomes
Printable G-putty for Frequency and Rate Independent, High Performance Strain Sensors
No full textWhile nanocomposite electromechanical sensors are expected to display reasonable conductivity and high sensitivity, little consideration is given to eliminating hysteresis and strain rate/frequency dependence from their response. For example, while G-putty, a composite of graphene and polysiloxane, has very high electromechanical sensitivity, its extreme viscoelasticity renders it completely unsuitable for real sensors due to hysteretic and rate-/frequency-dependent effects. Here it is shown that G-putty can be converted to an ink and printed into patterned thin films on elastic substrates. A partial graphene-polymer phase segregation during printing increases the thin-film conductivity by ×106 compared to bulk, while the mechanical effects of the substrate largely suppress hysteresis and completely remove strain rate and frequency dependence. This allows the fabrication of practical, high-gauge-factor, wearable sensors for pulse measurements as well as patterned sensors for low-signal vibration sensing
Energy-efficient coordinated beamforming with rate dependent processing power
No full textThe 2016 IEEE 17th International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC 2016), Edinburgh, England, 3-6 July 2016This paper studies energy-efficient coordinated beamforming in multi-cell multi-user multiple-input single-output (MISO) system. On contrary to the existing approaches where the power consumption of a base station is modeled as a convex or linear function, we consider a more practical model where part of the processing power depends on the rate provided by the base stations. Two optimization criteria are considered, namely network energy efficiency maximization and weighted sum energy efficiency maximization. We develop successive convex approximation based algorithms to tackle these difficult nonconvex problems. The numerical results illustrate that the rate dependent power consumption has a large impact on the energy efficiency, and, thus, has to be taken into account when devising energy-efficient transmission strategies.European Commission - European Regional Development FundScience Foundation IrelandInfotech Oulu Doctoral ProgramAcademy of Finlan
Environmental DNA monitoring of oncogenic viral shedding and genomic profiling of sea turtle fibropapillomatosis reveals unusual viral dynamics
No full textPathogen-induced cancers account for 15% of human tumors and are a growing concern for endangered wildlife. Fibropapillomatosis is an expanding virally and environmentally
coinduced sea turtle tumor epizootic. Chelonid herpesvirus 5 (ChHV5) is implicated as a
causative virus, but its transmission method and specific role in oncogenesis and progression is unclear. We applied environmental (e)DNA-based viral monitoring to assess viral shedding as a direct means of transmission, and the relationship between tumor burden, surgical resection and ChHV5 shedding. To elucidate the abundance and transcriptional status of ChHV5 across early, established, regrowth and internal tumors we conducted genomics and transcriptomics. We determined that ChHV5 is shed into the water column, representing a likely transmission route, and revealed novel temporal shedding dynamics and tumor burden correlations. ChHV5 was more abundant in the water column than in marine leeches. We also revealed that ChHV5 is latent in fibropapillomatosis, including early stage, regrowth and internal tumors; higher viral transcription is not indicative of poor patient outcome, and high ChHV5 loads predominantly arise from latent virus. These results expand our knowledge of the cellular and shedding dynamics of ChHV5 and can provide insights into temporal transmission dynamics and viral oncogenesis not readily investigable in tumors of terrestrial
species