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BackgroundResearch is needed to fully investigate the differential mechanisms racial and ethnic groups use to deal with ongoing intersectional racism in women's lives. The aim of this paper was to understand how Asian American and Pacific Islander, Black, Latina, and Middle Eastern women experience racism-from personal perceptions and interactions to coping mechanisms and methods of protection.MethodsA purposive sample of 52 participants participated in 11 online racially/ethnically homogeneous focus groups conducted throughout the USA. A team consensus approach was utilized with codebook development and thematic analysis.ResultsThe findings relate to personal perceptions and interactions related to race and ethnicity, methods of protection against racism, vigilant behavior based on safety concerns, and unity across people of color. A few unique concerns by group included experiences of racism including physical violence among Asian American Pacific Islander groups, police brutality among Black groups, immigration discrimination in Latina groups, and religious discrimination in Middle Eastern groups. Changes in behavior for safety and protection include altering methods of transportation, teaching their children safety measures, and defending their immigration status. They shared strategies to help racial and ethnic minorities against racism including mental health resources and greater political representation. All racial and ethnic groups discussed the need for unity, solidarity, and allyship across various communities of color but for it to be authentic and long-lasting.ConclusionGreater understanding of the types of racism specific groups experience can inform policies and cultural change to reduce those factors.

We investigated the content of liberal and conservative news media Facebook posts on race and ethnic health disparities. A total of 3,327,360 liberal and conservative news Facebook posts from the United States (US) from January 2015 to May 2022 were collected from the Crowd Tangle platform and filtered for race and health-related keywords. Qualitative content analysis was conducted on a random sample of 1750 liberal and 1750 conservative posts. Posts were analyzed for a continuum of hate speech using a newly developed method combining faceted Rasch item response theory with deep learning. Across posts referencing Asian, Black, Latinx, Middle Eastern, and immigrants/refugees, liberal news posts had lower hate scores compared to conservative posts. Liberal news posts were more likely to acknowledge and detail the existence of racial/ethnic health disparities, while conservative news posts were more likely to highlight the negative consequences of protests, immigration, and the disenfranchisement of Whites. Facebook posts from liberal and conservative news focus on different themes with fewer discussions of racial inequities in conservative news. Investigating the discourse on race and health in social media news posts may inform our understanding of the public’s exposure to and knowledge of racial health disparities, and policy-level support for ameliorating these disparities.

Purpose To evaluate if nudges delivered by text message prior to an upcoming primary care visit can increase influenza vaccination rates. Design Randomized, controlled trial. Setting Two health systems in the Northeastern US between September 2020 and March 2021. Subjects 74,811 adults. Interventions Patients in the 19 intervention arms received 1-2 text messages in the 3 days preceding their appointment that varied in their format, interactivity, and content. Measures Influenza vaccination. Analysis Intention-to-treat. Results Participants had a mean (SD) age of 50.7 (16.2) years; 55.8% (41,771) were female, 70.6% (52,826) were White, and 19.0% (14,222) were Black. Among the interventions, 5 of 19 (26.3%) had a significantly greater vaccination rate than control. On average, the 19 interventions increased vaccination relative to control by 1.8 percentage points or 6.1% ( P = .005). The top performing text message described the vaccine to the patient as “reserved for you” and led to a 3.1 percentage point increase (95% CI, 1.3 to 4.9; P < .001) in vaccination relative to control. Three of the top five performing messages described the vaccine as “reserved for you.” None of the interventions performed worse than control. Conclusions Text messages encouraging vaccination and delivered prior to an upcoming appointment significantly increased influenza vaccination rates and could be a scalable approach to increase vaccination more broadly.

BackgroundDespite persistent racial disparities in maternal health in the USA, there is limited qualitative research on women's experiences of discrimination during pregnancy and childbirth that focuses on similarities and differences across multiple racial groups.MethodsEleven focus groups with Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI), Black, Latina, and Middle Eastern women (N = 52) in the USA were conducted to discuss the extent to which racism and discrimination impact pregnancy and birthing experiences.ResultsParticipants across groups talked about the role of unequal power dynamics, discrimination, and vulnerability in patient-provider relationships. Black participants noted the influence of prior mistreatment by providers in their healthcare decisions. Latinas expressed fears of differential care because of immigration status. Middle Eastern women stated that the Muslim ban bolstered stereotypes. Vietnamese participants discussed how the effect of racism on mothers' mental health could impact their children, while Black and Latina participants expressed constant racism-related stress for themselves and their children. Participants recalled better treatment with White partners and suggested a gradient of treatment based on skin complexion. Participants across groups expressed the value of racial diversity in healthcare providers and pregnancy/birthing-related support but warned that racial concordance alone may not prevent racism and emphasized the need to go beyond "band-aid solutions."ConclusionWomen's discussions of pregnancy and birthing revealed common and distinct experiences that varied by race, skin complexion, language, immigration status, and political context. These findings highlight the importance of qualitative research for informing maternal healthcare practices that reduce racial inequities.

Biofortification is a revolutionary technique for improving plant nutrition and alleviating human micronutrient deficiency. Fertilizers can help increase crop yield and growth, but applying too much fertilizer can be a problem because it leads to the release of greenhouse gases and eutrophication. One of the major global hazards that affects more than two million people globally is the decreased availability of micronutrients in food crops, which results in micronutrient deficiencies or "hidden hunger" in people. Micronutrients, like macronutrients, perform a variety of roles in plant and human nutrition. This review has highlighted the importance of micronutrients as well as their advantages. The uneven distribution of micronutrients in geological areas is not the only factor responsible for micronutrient deficiencies, other parameters including soil moisture, temperature, texture of the soil, and soil pH significantly affects the micronutrient concentration and their availability in the soil. To overcome this, different biofortification approaches are assessed in the review in which microbes mediated, Agronomic approaches, Plant breeding, and transgenic approaches are discussed. Hidden hunger can result in risky health conditions and diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, neurological disorders, and many more. Microbes-mediated biofortification is a novel and promising solution for the bioavailability of nutrients to plants in order to address these problems. Biofortification is cost effective, feasible, and environmentally sustainable. Bio-fortified crops boost our immunity, which helps us to combat these deadly viruses. The studies we discussed in this review have demonstrated that they can aid in the alleviation of hidden hunger.

Many Americans fail to get life-saving vaccines each year, and the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 makes the challenge of encouraging vaccination more urgent than ever. We present a large field experiment ( N = 47,306) testing 19 nudges delivered to patients via text message and designed to boost adoption of the influenza vaccine. Our findings suggest that text messages sent prior to a primary care visit can boost vaccination rates by an average of 5%. Overall, interventions performed better when they were 1) framed as reminders to get flu shots that were already reserved for the patient and 2) congruent with the sort of communications patients expected to receive from their healthcare provider (i.e., not surprising, casual, or interactive). The best-performing intervention in our study reminded patients twice to get their flu shot at their upcoming doctor’s appointment and indicated it was reserved for them. This successful script could be used as a template for campaigns to encourage the adoption of life-saving vaccines, including against COVID-19.

An accurate creatinine (Cr) estimate is pivotal for the assessment of renal function. Both patient- and practice-spawned factors palliate the test accuracy of serum creatinine (sCr) and can erratically represent actual kidney function. This study evaluated the caregivers’ awareness of enzymatic serum creatinine (E-sCr) assay interfering in dopamine/dobutamine (DD)-infused patient samples and the frequency of such interference in a critical care setting. We conducted an sCr awareness survey among UT Southwestern physicians, nurses, and pharmacists. We then performed a cross-sectional E-sCr comparison against the kinetic Jaffe method using the DD-infused patient samples collected from central venous catheters (CVC), peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) lines, and the peripheral vein (PV). We retrospectively compared the longitudinal E-sCr results of the CVC/PICC draws with the corresponding blood urea nitrogen (BUN) levels. The survey results show a significant lack of awareness among caregivers about the negative interference of DD infusions on E-sCr. Cross-sectional E-sCr assessment relative to the Jaffe method displayed a negative interference in 12% of CVC/PICC line samples (7/57 DD-infused patients) compared to none in the PV draws. A longitudinal assessment of E-sCr, BUN, and potassium (K) levels from CVC/PICC line samples further confirmed a spurious decrease for E-sCr in about 12/50 (24%) patients who did not show a concurrent BUN or K decrease. The results suggest that a direct PV sampling accompanied by clinical laboratory-directed proactive discussion/activities can foster awareness among caregivers and eschew the false E-sCr estimates in DD-infused patients.

Includes abstract., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-111)., This study examines the histopathological response to injury following both balloon angioplasty and endovascular stenting in the Zucker rat, a model that allows interpretation of the role of obesity as well as progressive glucose intolerance and hyperinsulimaemia. Lean and obese Zucker fatty rats and Zucker diabetic fatty rat (ZDF) were subjected to balloon injury with or without stenting. The development of IH, along with the histological response to injury was analyzed.

Thesis (M.A. (Sociology))--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2003 Hierdie skripsie fokus op die stres wat blanke mans ervaar as gevolg van regstellende aksie. Die outeur het besluit om hierdie navorsing van regstellende aksie en stres te bespreek vanaf 'n post-moderne, sosiale konstruktivistiese perspektief. Die doel van hierdie studie is: Om die sosiale konstruktivistiese perspektief toe te pas op die kwessies van stres wat verwant is aan regstellende aksie, om te bepaal of die konstruksie wat blanke mans het oor regstellende aksie hulle ervaring van stres sal affekteer. Om die doe1 van hierdie studie te bereik, het die navorser van kwantitatiewe en kwalitatiewe ondersoek metodes gebruik gemaak. Die kwalitatiewe ondersoek sluit in die gebruik van 'n geformuleerde vraelys tesame met onderhoude wat met die respondente gevoer is. Hulle reaksies is bespreek vanaf 'n sosiale konstruktivistiese perspektief om sodoende ondersoek in te stel na hoe die individu sy realiteit gekonstrueer het met betrekking tot regstellende aksie. Sosiale konstruktivisme suggereer dat die manier waarop die individu sy konstruksie van regstellende aksie formuleer. 'n belangerik rol kan speel in die individu se ervaring van stres. Die implikasie hiervan is dat dit nie noodwendig regstellende aksie per sé is wat na stres kan lei nie, maar dat die konstruksie van regstellende aksie iets is wat tot stres kan lei. Deur die bogenoemde in gedagte te hou, kan dit moontlik wees om die negatiewe konstruksie van regstellende aksie af te breek deur middel van de-konstruksie, om sodoende 'n meer positiewe konstruksie te vorm. Deur 'n persoon se konstruksie sodoende te verander, kan meegebring word dat stres dalk sal verminder en selfs geëlimineer kan word. Masters

When an organism's DNA replication machinery encounters a lesion in the DNA that, for a variety of reasons, was not repaired by accurate repair pathways, it stalls, leading to one of two possible outcomes: (i) damage avoidance, a poorly understood set of processes, including daughter strand gap repair, that appear to utilize the information in the newly synthesized daughter strand of the DNA duplex to somehow bypass the lesion (17) or (ii) translesion synthesis (TLS), in which a specialized DNA polymerase is recruited for bypassing the damaged site (17, 21, 67, 69). The latter pathway is potentially mutagenic due to the miscoding or noncoding nature of the DNA lesion (17). TLS in Escherichia coli is dependent on the umuDC and recA gene products (17, 23, 61). The umuDC operon encodes a DNA polymerase, DNA polymerase V, with the unique ability to replicate over particular types of DNA lesions, including abasic sites and thymine-thymine cyclobutane dimers (55, 64, 65). Recent work indicates that UmuC is the founding member of a diverse and ubiquitous family of DNA polymerases capable of copying imperfect templates (16, 18, 21, 69). In addition to their role in TLS, the umuDC gene products also participate in cell cycle checkpoint control (41, 46). In response to DNA damage, RecA protein nucleates on single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) that is generated by the cell's failed attempts to bypass lesions in its genome (17, 57). These RecA-ssDNA nucleoprotein filaments act to mediate the cleavage of the LexA repressor (33, 34). Cleavage of LexA inactivates it as a repressor, leading to the expression of the SOS regulon, a collection of ∼30 unlinked genes whose expression is coordinately regulated (11, 17, 25). The umuDC operon is among these ∼30 LexA-regulated genes (9, 17). Importantly, UmuD also undergoes RecA-ssDNA-mediated cleavage. This cleavage serves to remove its amino-terminal 24 residues to produce UmuD′ (5, 43, 58). It has been proposed that cleavage of UmuD serves to regulate the two physiological roles of the umuDC gene products so that they act in a temporally ordered fashion (41, 46), first by participating in a DNA damage checkpoint control system and second by participating in TLS. UmuD is related to three distinct classes of proteins: (i) other UmuD-like proteins involved in mutagenesis, which also undergo RecA-ssDNA-facilitated cleavage (17, 29, 30, 52), (ii) transcriptional repressors belonging to the LexA-like family, which undergo RecA-ssDNA-facilitated cleavage (17, 52), and (iii) signal peptidases (49). Interestingly, despite the fact that UmuD′ and E. coli signal peptidase have little sequence identity apart from their lysine-serine dyad, they have a remarkable degree of structural identity. Comparison of their crystal structures revealed that 69 C-α atoms of UmuD′ are superimposable (with a root mean squared of 1.6 Å) on the E. coli signal peptidase crystal structure (49). The E. coli UmuD and UmuD′ proteins interact with each other to form homo- and heterodimers (1, 5, 22) and also interact with UmuC (4, 22, 70), RecA-ssDNA nucleoprotein filaments (5, 32), and three components of the replicative DNA polymerase (62). Given the rather small sizes of UmuD and UmuD′, an important question is which part(s) of UmuD and UmuD′ is involved in interaction with each of these other proteins? A detailed understanding of these interactions will be required for a complete understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the roles of the umuDC gene products in checkpoint control and TLS. Determination of the crystal (10, 50) and solution (A. E. Ferentz, G. C. Walker, and G. Wagner, unpublished data) structures of the UmuD′2 homodimer and genetic studies (39, 45) have identified the residues involved in its dimerization interface. Furthermore, biochemical characterizations of single-cysteine derivatives of UmuD and UmuD′ by analyzing homo- and heterodimer cross-linking efficiency using thiol-specific cross-linking reagents and by studies of spin-labeled derivatives by electron spin resonance have identified important components of the dimerization interfaces of the UmuD-UmuD′ heterodimer and the UmuD2 homodimer (unpublished data). Finally, these single-cysteine derivatives of UmuD have also been used, in conjunction with the thiol-specific, photoactivatable, heterobifunctional cross-linking agent p-azidoiodoacetanilide (71), to identify residues of UmuD able to cross-link efficiently to RecA-ssDNA nucleoprotein filaments (32) (Fig. ​(Fig.1).1). Taken together, these studies have begun to provide a detailed molecular understanding of the roles of the umuD gene products in regulation of the cell cycle and TLS. FIG. 1 Side (A) and top (B) views of the UmuD′2 homodimer crystal structure reported by Peat et al. (50) with the homodimer interface reported by Ferentz et al. (10). Leu101 and Arg102 are shown in red. Val34, Ser57, Ser67, Ser81, and Ser112 are shown ... As part of our ongoing effort to better understand how UmuD and UmuD′ interact with other proteins to enable checkpoint control and TLS, we have embarked on a site-directed mutational analysis of the umuD gene products (1, 45). Comparison of the deduced amino acid sequences of members of the UmuD-like mutagenesis proteins to those of the LexA-like transcriptional repressor family identified a small number of residues that were well conserved exclusively among the UmuD-like mutagenesis proteins (1) (see Fig. ​Fig.2).2). This observation suggested that these might be residues that are important for the biological roles of the umuD gene products rather than for the RecA-ssDNA-facilitated cleavage of UmuD. Mutations affecting most of these highly conserved positions have already been characterized (19, 39, 45). Here we describe our construction and genetic and biochemical characterizations of a UmuD derivative in which two such highly conserved residues, leucine-101 (Leu101) and arginine-102 (Arg102), have been replaced with glycines. Our characterizations of this mutant UmuD protein, which we unexpectedly found to be deficient in RecA-ssDNA-facilitated cleavage, suggest a possible mechanism for how the interaction of UmuD2 with the RecA-ssDNA nucleoprotein filament results in the cleavage of one UmuD molecule by its intradimer partner to yield UmuD′ (10, 37). FIG. 2 Partial amino acid alignment of proteins similar to E. coli UmuD. Shown is the region between amino acids 94 and 108 of UmuD. This figure is modified from references 1 and 51. UmuD-like mutagenesis proteins (I) and LexA-like transcriptional repressors ...