Pivotal Time Research Articles

Stigma following acquired brain injury and spinal cord injury: relationship to psychological distress and community integration in the first-year post-discharge

Purpose This study aimed to compare stigma levels after acquired brain injury (ABI) and spinal cord injury (SCI) during the first 12-months post-discharge and investigate relationships between stigma, psychological distress and community integration. Methods 110 adults with ABI (55%) or SCI (45%) were recruited from brain and spinal cord injury inpatient rehabilitation units of a tertiary healthcare facility. They were administered Neuro-QOL Stigma subscale and Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS-21) at discharge, 3-months and 12-months post-discharge, and Community Integration Measure at 12-months post-discharge. Results Stigma levels did not significantly differ between individuals with ABI and SCI. However, stigma significantly decreased between discharge and 12-months post-discharge for the total sample. Stigma was positively associated with psychological distress at discharge and 3-months post-discharge, but not at 12-months post-discharge. Lower functional status and power wheelchair use were associated with higher stigma at 12-months post-discharge. Stigma at 3-months post-discharge predicted community integration at 12-months post-discharge, controlling for psychological distress and functional status. Conclusion Experience of stigma in the first few months post-discharge may negatively impact individuals’ community reintegration. The early post-discharge period may be a pivotal time for supporting individuals to explore disability and injury-related appraisals and enhance connection to their community.

Reading the Mysterious Disappearance of Agatha Christie as an Incubation of an Independent Woman

Although the works of mystery writer Agatha Christie are known and respected worldwide, as time passes, the facts about the author’s life are less and less familiar, especially one event in 1926 that involved an unexplained disappearance mystery. It is that event that is the focus of Kathleen Tynan’s novel Agatha (1979) and the novel’s film adaptation directed by Michael Apted from a 1970s perspective in the information about Agatha’s long and adventurous life. Tynan wrote Agatha based on speculation of what happened during the mysterious 11-day disappearance of Agatha Christie. More commonly known than the novel, the film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design Oscar and received the National Society of Film Critics Award in 1980.BR Unfortunately, today the novel and film are not widely available even though they hold a place in literature and film history as a reminder that Agatha was a real person whose life experiences helped shape her writings. They reflect the decade after the First World War which was a pivotal time in British history. By examining the novel Agatha and its film adaptation, this article connects elements of Tynan’s story to historical and cultural women’s issues in Britain during a significant societal transition. Grounded in factual reports of Agatha Christie’s disappearance and life, the fictional story presents a growth or incubation of a woman who changes from a wife who feels a total emotional dependence on her husband to a woman who develops a strong self-reliance.

Sexual Behavior and Multiple Sclerosis (P13-3.018)

<h3>Objective:</h3> We sought to determine if engaging in same-sex high risk sexual behavior correlates with higher likelihood of diagnosis of MS. <h3>Background:</h3> Adolescence is a pivotal time window during which lifestyle and environmental factors impact the lifetime risk of multiple sclerosis (MS). Sexual behavior is one personal factor that is relevant in adolescence and young-adulthood; however, it is unclear the relationship that sexual behavior has to lifetime risk of MS. Early identification and treatment of MS is a crucial factor in predicting health outcomes of patients with MS. <h3>Design/Methods:</h3> This study is a retrospective secondary analysis of cross-sectional data in the TriNetX health database. High risk sexual behavior (HRSB) includes: unprotected intercourse, intercourse under influence of substances, intercourse with persons with intravenous drug use, multiple sexual partners, early age of sexual intercourse, and intercourse with sex workers. ICD-10 separates HRSB into same-sex (Z72.52-53) and opposite-sex (Z72.51) behavior. <h3>Results:</h3> We identified 13,595 males and 9,589 females with same-sex HRSB, and 64,409 males and 137,450 females with opposite-sex HRSB. Cohorts were balanced on age, race, and ethnicity. Males engaging in same-sex behavior had a 2.80-fold higher risk of MS diagnosis (95% CI: 1.66–4.73). Females engaging in same-sex behavior had a 2.30-fold higher risk (95% CI: 1.65–3.20). There was no significant risk difference between adults engaging in any form of high-risk sexual behavior compared to adults not engaging in high-risk sexual behavior (p = 0.41). <h3>Conclusions:</h3> Our findings advance the understanding of MS prevalence in a unique patient population that may be at an increased baseline risk for more negative health outcomes. <b>Disclosure:</b> Mr. Kennis has received personal compensation for serving as an employee of Neurocrine Biosciences. Mr. Hale has nothing to disclose.

Obituary for James Pelkey

James Lee Pelkey was a unique combination of entrepreneur, investor, and historian at a pivotal time in the evolution of early networking technologies. A business executive who led both hardware and software startups and later managed funds investing in early networking startups, Pelkey turned a passion for discovering emerging markets for new technologies into a lifelong pursuit of documenting the early history of computer communications. He died on February 16 on his home island of Maui, Hawaii at the age of 77.

The Impact of Lunch Program on Obesity among School-Age Children: A Scoping Review

Context: Obesity is one of the most significant issues among school ages children from both developed and developing countries. Poor eating behavior and lack of physical activity are among the main causes of obesity in school ages children. It is known that the school period is the pivotal time for adopting interventions such as healthy eating and more physical activities for a long time.&#x0D; Aim: This review was conducted to evaluate the impact of the school-lunch program on obesity among school-aged children.&#x0D; Methods: Five databases, such as Google Scholar, PubMed, ScienceDirect, CINAHL, and MEDLINE, were employed to search the research studies conducted on the interventions that had school lunch programs to decrease the obesity issue among children. Ten relevant studies were extracted and included in this review. The inclusion criteria for the research study in this review were the research papers published after 2010. The exclusion criterion was the research studies that did not provide relevant information about the study's objectives.&#x0D; Results: The findings of the studies indicated several interventions to improve the eating behavior of the children as well as physical fitness. The practical-based interventions include the food items in the school lunches, such as more intake of fruits and vegetables and avoiding the intake of packed items that were found useful in the intake of nutrients. Besides, the interventions related to increasing physical activities, such as sports, were provided with positive results in preventing obesity among children. In addition, the education programs for the parents and children were also useful in reducing obesity issues as they increased the children's and the parent's knowledge about healthy eating.&#x0D; Conclusion: Most reviewed studies targeting obesity prevention focused on dietary and exercise behaviors affecting anthropometric measures. Most school-based intervention programs positively affect the school children's healthy lifestyle and anthropometric measurements. Future studies are needed to include behavioral therapy interventions for children and education for the parents, as they are the main agents for improving the children's nutrition habits.

The Angelic Brethren and Everyday Sacredness: A Protestant Theologian's Journey from Berlin to Leiden in 1717*

In the summer of 1717, a private teacher named Jacob Michelmann travelled from Berlin to Leiden to meet the head of a Protestant community known as the Angelic Brethren. During a pivotal time in European religious and intellectual history, Johann Wilhelm Überfeld sought to inculcate in his followers, including Michelmann, a powerful sense of everyday sacredness. Überfeld criticised what he perceived as the markedness of religious speech and acts compared to unmarked everyday activities. Implicitly, this state of affairs rendered the bulk of daily life profane, that is, largely detached and irrelevant to religious life and spiritual progress. For Überfeld and his followers, however, the divine spirit could communicate even through seemingly mundane trivialities, if believers had eyes to see and ears to hear. Accordingly, they paid great attention to household chores and domestic spaces. During his journey, Michelmann successfully acquired this mindset. Yet several years later he started neglecting the lessons of his journey, which caused conflict with Überfeld. Based on the visitor's own travelogue and a wealth of other sources, this article describes Michelmann's journey from its inception to its aftermath while probing Überfeld's notion of everyday sacredness.

Immigrant families' experience of the Canadian food and nutrition environment.

Upon arrival, immigrants are thrust into the Canadian food environment, which is at an advanced stage of the nutrition transition continuum, encompassing reduced physical activity, sedentary lifestyles, and energy dense diets. In addition to the influence of readily available energy dense foods, immigrant children's food environments may also be impacted by limited availability of traditional foods, economic-constraints, time-constraints, parents' cooking skills, parents' child feeding styles, and school food environments. The study involved in-depth interviews with 19 immigrant parents regarding their family experiences of the Canadian food and nutrition environment, along with 22 participants from settlement agencies, community schools, English-as-a-Second-Language programs, and healthcare organizations. Many newcomers shared experiences that highlighted drastic changes to their food environment upon arrival, including reduced access to open air fresh produce markets, increased access to large supermarkets, fast-paced lifestyles, and the pervasive presence of fast foods and snack foods. Some parents indicated that food purchase decisions were impacted by children's demands and that their children's school environments affected the types of foods their children would eat. A few service providers mentioned negative impacts on breastfeeding, and the change in physical environment as part of the nutrition environment due to association with vitamin D status. The early years are a pivotal time in the development of eating patterns so supportive food and nutrition environments in homes, communities, and schools can ensure that children develop healthy eating habits to support long-term health.

A Symposium to Mark the Publication, by New York University Press, of Ian O’Donnell's Prison Life: Pain, Resistance, and Purpose

Recognizing the major scholarly contributions to criminology by the noted Irish criminologist, Ian O’Donnell, The Prison Journal invited seven contemporary corrections and punishment scholars to offer insights into O’Donnell’s new book, Prison Life: Pain, Resistance, and Purpose. Offering contextually rich descriptions of prisoner life, the text features four case study prisons—H Blocks, Northern Ireland; Eastham Unit, Texas; Isir Bet, Ethiopia; and ADX Florence, Colorado, in pivotal time periods and through an individual's custodial career in each institution. The symposium discussants focus on O’Donnell's conceptual framework—the degree of prison integration, system and staff regulation, and legitimacy—and how these reflect the key interactions between punishment and society across time and culture.

Industry update, December 2022.

Industry update, December 2022.

Use of digital technologies for public health surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a variety of digital technologies have been leveraged for public health surveillance worldwide. However, concerns remain around the rapid development and deployment of digital technologies, how these technologies have been used, and their efficacy in supporting public health goals. Following the five-stage scoping review framework, we conducted a scoping review of the peer-reviewed and grey literature to identify the types and nature of digital technologies used for surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic and the success of these measures. We conducted a search of the peer-reviewed and grey literature published between 1 December 2019 and 31 December 2020 to provide a snapshot of questions, concerns, discussions, and findings emerging at this pivotal time. A total of 147 peer-reviewed and 79 grey literature publications reporting on digital technology use for surveillance across 90 countries and regions were retained for analysis. The most frequently used technologies included mobile phone devices and applications, location tracking technologies, drones, temperature scanning technologies, and wearable devices. The utility of digital technologies for public health surveillance was impacted by factors including uptake of digital technologies across targeted populations, technological capacity and errors, scope, validity and accuracy of data, guiding legal frameworks, and infrastructure to support technology use. Our findings raise important questions around the value of digital surveillance for public health and how to ensure successful use of technologies while mitigating potential harms not only in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also during other infectious disease outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics.

Effectiveness of Saturated Buffers on Water Pollutant Reduction from Agricultural Drainage

Highlights Saturated buffers redistribute tile drainage water below riparian buffers to reduce nitrate-nitrogen loading. NRCS Conservation Practice Standard 604 guides saturated buffer design in the USA. Annual edge-of-field nitrate-nitrogen loss reductions averaged 46 ± 24% and 9.4 ± 5.9 kg N/ha/y. Further research on design, siting, and mechanisms will enhance performance. Abstract. It is a pivotal time in the development of saturated buffers as a conservation drainage practice. Field data have demonstrated that this practice can effectively reduce nitrate loads in subsurface drainage. The compilation and assessment of current knowledge for this relatively new practice is timely to help identify future opportunities. This review summarizes the state of the science for saturated buffers in the US within the context of this special collection’s emphasis on performance and cost. Suggested research areas are identified to improve understanding of saturated buffer function and performance and to refine design processes and criteria to accelerate adoption. As currently designed, saturated buffers removed an average of 46 ± 24% (mean ± sd) of the N load that would have otherwise entered receiving waters (9.4 ± 5.9 kg N removed/ha-y; n = 30 site-years). Cost efficiencies, which generally trended around $3 to $5/kg N removed per year, were considered relatively efficient compared to similar nitrate removal practices (range: $1.20 to $9.20/kg N/y), with planning level costs between $25 and $66/ha treated/y. As adoption is scaled, engineering design costs need to be considered unless the design model can be simplified. Future research should refine design processes, management, and siting criteria to facilitate scaled adoption for water quality goals. Additional studies on nutrient cycling within saturated buffers are needed to fill gaps about nitrogen and phosphorus dynamics and the role of buffer vegetation. Saturated buffers have significant nitrate reduction potential for tile-drained landscapes, but design adaptations may be needed to facilitate adoption in varied landscapes. Keywords: Denitrification, Edge-of-Field, Nitrate, Nonpoint-source pollution, Saturated riparian buffer, Subsurface drainage, Tile drainage, Water quality.

Supporting First Generation Latinx Freshmen: The Importance of University Resources, Faculty, and Peers

ABSTRACT The rise of Latinx college enrollment has resulted in a corresponding increase in colleges identifying as Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI). Yet, Latinx students’ degree attainment continues to lag, with a noteworthy drop in attendance after the first year of college. Freshman year is a pivotal time as students adjust to a new environment and must learn how to successfully navigate college. During this developmental transition, campus support is key in helping students successfully transition and persist in college. This qualitative study examined first generation Latinx students at an HSI to assess students’ navigation of college, explore their knowledge and utilization of campus services, and examine their engagement with peers and faculty. Although many students acknowledged the presence of campus resources, there remained a disconnect in how to become integrated within the campus community. Universities can better support first generation Latinx students by reflecting on how institutional practices can be more visible to students, and promoting opportunities for relational exchanges between students, their peers, and professors to increase students’ sense of belonging and retention over time.

A Moral Duty to Uphold the Family Farm”: The Religious Response to the 1980s Farm Crisis

Abstract The 1980s Farm Crisis began receiving national attention in the middle of the decade in large part because of Hollywood films such as Country and the star-studded Farm Aid concert. However, religious leaders and organizations had already started to warn of an impending crisis as early as 1978. They were motivated by a scriptural belief in land stewardship as well as empathy for their struggling rural parishioners. Throughout a series of noteworthy conferences, position statements, and protest actions coordinated by religious organizations across the denominational spectrum, Midwest-based leaders increasingly attempted to raise awareness, influence public policy, and bear witness to the escalating crisis. This article documents these ecumenical efforts during a pivotal time in America's rural history and provides a new angle on the farm crisis of the 1980s.

Expanding High School Counseling in a Social Media World: Improving Student and Community Well-Being.

Adolescent competence and resilience are indicators of adulthood behavior. High school is a pivotal time for adolescents to foster a stable temperament for adult development. The contemporary state of adolescent depression prevalence and an increase in social media-related risky behavior calls for an update to mental health services. We review the nature of modern social comparison that is fueled by social media, mental health help-seeking stigma that prevents individuals from seeking services, and provide mental health advances to remedy the severity of mental health concerns in a social media society. Social media distortions of normative life promote a standard of expectations that can decrease self-esteem and increase depressive tendencies. Expanding high school counseling such that students see a counselor multiple times a year in a proactive rather than reactive school counseling system can provide transformative changes to community mental health.

Mouse tissue harvest-induced hypoxia rapidly alters the in vivo metabolome, between-genotype metabolite level differences, and 13C-tracing enrichments

ObjectiveMetabolomics as an approach to solve biological problems is exponentially increasing in use. Thus, this a pivotal time for the adoption of best practices. It is well known that disrupted tissue oxygen supply rapidly alters cellular energy charge. However, the speed and extent to which delayed mouse tissue freezing after dissection alters the broad metabolome is not well described. Furthermore, how tissue genotype may modulate such metabolomic drift and the degree to which traced 13C-isotopologue distributions may change have not been addressed. MethodsBy combined liquid chromatography (LC)- and gas chromatography (GC)-mass spectrometry (MS), we measured how levels of 255 mouse liver metabolites changed following 30-second, 1-minute, 3-minute, and 10-minute freezing delays. We then performed test-of-concept delay-to-freeze experiments evaluating broad metabolomic drift in mouse heart and skeletal muscle, differential metabolomic change between wildtype (WT) and mitochondrial pyruvate carrier (MPC) knockout mouse livers, and shifts in 13C-isotopologue abundances and enrichments traced from 13C-labled glucose into mouse liver. ResultsOur data demonstrate that delayed mouse tissue freezing after dissection leads to rapid hypoxia-driven remodeling of the broad metabolome, induction of both false-negative and false-positive between-genotype differences, and restructuring of 13C-isotopologue distributions. Notably, we show that increased purine nucleotide degradation products are an especially high dynamic range marker of delayed liver and heart freezing. ConclusionsOur findings provide a previously absent, systematic illustration of the extensive, multi-domain metabolomic changes occurring within the early minutes of delayed tissue freezing. They also provide a novel, detailed resource of mouse liver ex vivo, hypoxic metabolomic remodeling.

The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America

The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America

178P Awareness of modifiable lifestyle risk factors and acceptability of secondary risk reduction services amongst Irish breast cancer survivors and oncology clinicians

Many patients (>75%) diagnosed with breast cancer in Ireland today will be cured and are at risk of dying from other cancers and non-communicable diseases. Breast cancer diagnosis provides a pivotal time point for education on modifiable risk factors and engagement with secondary risk reduction services. Our study set out to establish the level of awareness and acceptability of these areas, respectively.

Twitter and the Faces of Whiteness: Investigating Official Responses to the Death of George Floyd

Republican politicians unabashedly condemn the use of critical race theory (CRT) as a pedagogical framework for educators. While most Democrats have quickly come to the defense of CRT, even they are socialized through White supremacist practices. Connecting CRT to the theory of impression management, this paper reveals how Minnesota politicians (both Republicans and Democrats) and government officials used Twitter during a pivotal time in U.S. history—the murder of George Floyd. Examining these theories in relation to the faces of whiteness, we reveal how language of support by government officials and Republican and Democrat politicians may perpetuate White supremacy in overt and camouflaged ways.

Emerging Adult LGB+ Romantic Relationships: Narratives about Met and Unmet Relationship Needs

ABSTRACTAlthough emerging adulthood is recognized as a pivotal time for relationship development, most studies concern heterosexual youth or older sexual minority partners. Using narratives from 40 college student emerging adults, we sought to understand the particularities and generalities of lesbian, gay, bisexual and other sexual minority (LGB+) relationship experiences. Positive experiences particular to being in a LGB+ relationship concerned partner support for coming and being out; support from family members for the relationship was rarely mentioned. Negative experiences were twice as likely to be mentioned as positive ones. They concerned how partners being at different levels of outness and problems with family support stressed the relationship. Generalities pertaining to positive relationship factors included meeting needs for support and using perspective taking to deal with conflict. Negative factors included unmet needs for companionship and intimacy and breakup anxiety about whether the relationship had a future. Our findings suggest the importance of developing strength-based LGB+ affirmative education for emerging adults to promote core relationship processes and strengthen skills to cope with stressors specific to sexual minority romantic partnerships.

Pandemic Scholars Circle: Deepening Community during Isolation

Pandemic Scholars Circle: Deepening Community during Isolation