Search

This article reports on a survey of the use of buses in Santa Barbara, California, by 55 persons who are visually impaired (including those who are blind and those who have low vision). Findings on users’ frustrations, potential use of technological aids for travel, and perceptions of and attitudes toward the characteristics of bus services are presented. In addition, differences in the responses of those to whom household cars were and were not available are analyzed, and suggestions for dealing with the participants’ major concerns are provided.

To date, most attention and compliance to the ADA mandates for equal access to transportation has been focused on the non-ambulatory/wheelchair bound traveler. These modification costs have been tremendous. Buses and trains have had to be retrofitted or new equipment purchased to provide wheelchair lifts and designated seating areas. Much transit infrastructure has been totally rebuilt to allow for elevators to bypass struts, level access boarding and other costly structural modifications. Not so subtle grumbling is heard when few wheelchair users are seen in these facilities or on the expensive retrofitted buses. The blind and visually impaired in this country represent a significantly large group of disabled persons (almost three times the number of wheelchair users) who also need help with transportation modifications The good news, uncovered in the empirical analysis resulting from our survey, is that their needs do not seem to require anywhere near the massive financial outlays required by the adaptations for wheelchair users. Traveling for visually impaired people means moving through a world lacking many or all of the visual cues that sighted travelers, and many transit providers, take for granted. The absence of visual cues such as bus stop signs, bus numbers, bus schedules, and street signs are the main barriers to equal access to transportation reported in this study. This group’s main need is simply more and better INFORMATION.

Our purpose is to explore the travel behavior of blind or vision impaired people, focusing in particular on travel by bus. We differentiate the sample depending on the availability of a household car. We examine perceptions of and attitudes toward existing transit and various transit characteristics, highlighting features that seem to be frustrating or difficult. Finally, we have travelers evaluate the potential usefulness of various assistive devices, including electronic information that gives navigational assistance.

This project (MOU276) represents the first third of a longer project concerning making cities more accessible to some disabled groups by addressing some problems associated with the use of public transit. (The other two-thirds of the larger project is continued as MOU343). The disabled groups targeted in this project include the vision impaired or blind, those with low vision who have difficulty reading distant signs, those who are developmentally disabled, dyslexic, or otherwise print handicapped, those who do not read the English language, the illiterate, and small children. The blind or vision impaired group alone represents about 4 million persons in the USA - about 4 times as many as the 1 million wheelchair users whose mobility needs have dominated ADA related expenditures to date on public transit. Consequently, we focused only on this particular population. Working in conjunction with a business partner, Talking Signs (r) Inc., we rented infra- red transmitters and receivers and set up experiments designed to test: (a) the ability of blind and vision impaired travelers to use the equipment; (b) to establish base line abilities for performing certain path following tasks; (c) to establish the nature of the difference between each subject's usual mode of guidance when traveling and movement guided by the auditory TS (r) technology; (d) to evaluate the ability of subjects to identify a particular bus among a stream of incoming buses; (e) to determine the extent to which the auditory TS (r) technology facilitated identification of a specific bus from among a set of buses waiting at a transfer point, and (f) to evaluate subjects perceptions of the use or difficulty of using auditory signs, to get their assessment of where such auditory signage should be located so as to make transit more accessible and to make other locations in the city more accessible. In this first phase 10 blind or vision impaired subjects were used as well as 10 blindfolded subjects whose usual guidance system was vision. The latter group simulated the performance of early blind people; the blind or vision impaired group represented people who used current state of the art mobility aids - such as guide dogs, cane users, and those who used echo location to identify obstacles. The initial base line experiments took place in an open field. Participants were guided three times around either a 60' x 60' square or 60' x 30' rectangle whose corners were identified by stanchions. In one condition, usual guidance aids were used (called WTS - "Without Talking Signs"), in the other, each stanchion was equipped with a Talking Signs (r) transmitter (called the TS condition). The two subject groups were termed "Blindfolded Sighted" (BS) and "Blind or Vision Impaired (B). In this experiment the blind or vision impaired group (B) found more stanchions and completed the task quicker than did members of the blindfolded sighted (BS) group, but neither performed well, finding only 14/120 (BS group) and 35/120 (B group) stanchions respectively. Using TS (r) technology, all subjects in both groups found all the stanchions and significantly reduced response times (i.e. travel time). In the second experiment, each member of the two groups was taken to the UCSB bus circle. Again WTS (Without Talking Signs) and a TS (with Talking Signs (r) ) conditions were defined. The task was to identify a particular bus (for Route 9) from among the incoming buses entering the bus circle, then to access either usual guidance mode or TS (r)

This article reports on a survey of the use of buses in Santa Barbara, California, by 55 persons who are visually impaired (including those who are blind and those who have low vision). Findings on users’ frustrations, potential use of technological aids for travel, and perceptions of and attitudes toward the characteristics of bus services are presented. In addition, differences in the responses of those to whom household cars were and were not available are analyzed, and suggestions for dealing with the participants’ major concerns are provided.

Our purpose is to explore the travel behavior of blind or vision impaired people, focusing in particular on travel by bus. We differentiate the sample depending on the availability of a household car. We examine perceptions of and attitudes toward existing transit and various transit characteristics, highlighting features that seem to be frustrating or difficult. Finally, we have traveler evaluate the potential usefulness of various assistive devices, including electronic information that gives navigational assistance.

This paper examines characteristics of the activity patterns of blind and vision impaired non-driving populations. The employability and movement potential of the disabled non-driving group is evaluated. Survey results of impaired public transit users are reported. Possible assistive technologies to aid in making travel decisions and undertaking travel are discussed. This paper examines characteristics of the activity patterns of blind and vision impaired non-driving populations. The employability and movement potential of the disabled non-driving group is evaluated. Survey results of impaired public transit users are reported. Possible assistive technologies to aid in making travel decisions and undertaking travel are discussed. This paper examines characteristics of the activity patterns of blind and vision impaired non-driving populations. The employability and movement potential of the disabled non-driving group is evaluated. Survey results of impaired public transit users are reported. Possible assistive technologies to aid in making travel decisions and undertaking travel are discussed. This paper examines characteristics of the activity patterns of blind and vision impaired non-driving populations. The employability and movement potential of the disabled non-driving group is evaluated. Survey results of impaired public transit users are reported. Possible assistive technologies to aid in making travel decisions and undertaking travel are discussed. This paper examines characteristics of the activity patterns of blind and vision impaired non-driving populations. The employability and movement potential of the disabled non-driving group is evaluated. Survey results of impaired public transit users are reported. Possible assistive technologies to aid in making travel decisions and undertaking travel are discussed. This paper examines characteristics of the activity patterns of blind and vision impaired non-driving populations. The employability and movement potential of the disabled non-driving group is evaluated. Survey results of impaired public transit users are reported. Possible assistive technologies to aid in making travel decisions and undertaking travel are discussed.

This paper examines further characteristics of the activity patterns of blind and vision impaired non-driving populations previously discussed in PATH Database Reference No. The report begins with an exploration of the activity patterns of blind or vision impaired people, followed by an evaluation of the impact of non-driving on employability and movement potential of the disabled non-driving group. The results of a survey of blind and vision impaired users of public transit facilities are then examined. Travel behavior characteristics and travel modes are studied. Possible assistive technologies to aid in making travel decision and undertaking travel are discussed.

Abstract Background Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is an aggressive tumor, difficult to treat pharmacologically because of the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which is rich in ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters and tight junction (TJ) proteins. The BBB is disrupted within GBM bulk, but it is competent in brain-adjacent-to-tumor areas, where eventual GBM foci can trigger tumor relapse. How GBM cells influence the permeability of BBB is poorly investigated. Methods To clarify this point, we co-cultured human BBB models with 3 patient-derived GBM cells, after separating from each tumor the stem cell/neurosphere (SC/NS) and the differentiated/adherent cell (AC) components. Also, we set up cultures of BBB cells with the conditioned medium of NS or AC, enriched or depleted of IL-6. Extracellular cytokines were measured by protein arrays and ELISA. The intracellular signaling in BBB cells was measured by immunoblotting, in the presence of STAT3 pharmacological inhibitor or specific PROTAC. The competence of BBB was evaluated by permeability assays and TEER measurement. Results The presence of GBM cells or their conditioned medium increased the permeability to doxorubicin, mitoxantrone and dextran-70, decreased TEER, down-regulated ABC transporters and TJ proteins at the transcriptional level. These effects were higher with AC or their medium than with NS. The secretome analysis identified IL-6 as significantly more produced by AC than by NS. Notably, AC-conditioned medium treated with an IL-6 neutralizing antibody reduced the BBB permeability to NS levels, while NS-conditioned medium enriched with IL-6 increased BBB permeability to AC levels. Mechanistically, IL-6 released by AC GBM cells activated STAT3 in BBB cells. In turn, STAT3 down-regulated ABC transporter and TJ expression, increased permeability and decreased TEER. The same effects were obtained in BBB cells treated with STA-21, a pharmacological inhibitor of STAT3, or with a PROTAC targeting STAT3. Conclusions Our work demonstrates for the first time that the degree of GBM differentiation influences BBB permeability. The crosstalk between GBM cells that release IL-6 and BBB cells that respond by activating STAT3, controls the expression of ABC transporters and TJ proteins on BBB. These results may pave the way for novel therapeutic tools to tune BBB permeability and improve drug delivery to GBM.

Abstract Background Solid tumors subjected to intermittent hypoxia are characterized by resistance to chemotherapy and immune-killing by effector T-lymphocytes, particularly tumor-infiltrating Vγ9Vδ2 T-lymphocytes. The molecular circuitries determining this double resistance are not known. Methods We analyzed a panel of 28 human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) lines, using an in vitro system simulating continuous and intermittent hypoxia. Chemosensitivity to cisplatin and docetaxel was evaluated by chemiluminescence, ex vivo Vγ9Vδ2 T-lymphocyte expansion and immune-killing by flow cytometry. Targeted transcriptomics identified efflux transporters and nuclear factors involved in this chemo-immuno-resistance. The molecular mechanism linking Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α), CCAAT/Enhancer Binding Protein-β (C/EBP-β) isoforms LAP and LIP, ABCB1, ABCC1 and ABCA1 transporters were evaluated by immunoblotting, RT-PCR, RNA-IP, ChIP. Oxidative phosphorylation, mitochondrial ATP, ROS, depolarization, O2 consumption were monitored by spectrophotometer and electronic sensors. The role of ROS/HIF-1α/LAP axis was validated in knocked-out or overexpressing cells, and in humanized (Hu-CD34+NSG) mice bearing LAP-overexpressing tumors. The clinical meaning of LAP was assessed in 60 NSCLC patients prospectively enrolled, treated with chemotherapy. Results By up-regulating ABCB1 and ABCC1, and down-regulating ABCA1, intermittent hypoxia induced a stronger chemo-immuno-resistance than continuous hypoxia in NSCLC cells. Intermittent hypoxia impaired the electron transport chain and reduced O2 consumption, increasing mitochondrial ROS that favor the stabilization of C/EBP-β mRNA mediated by HIF-1α. HIF-1α/C/EBP-β mRNA binding increases the splicing of C/EBP-β toward the production of LAP isoform that transcriptionally induces ABCB1 and ABCC1, promoting the efflux of cisplatin and docetaxel. LAP also decreases ABCA1, limiting the efflux of isopentenyl pyrophosphate, i.e. the endogenous activator of Vγ9Vδ2 T-cells, and reducing the immune-killing. In NSCLC patients subjected to cisplatin-based chemotherapy, C/EBP-β LAP was abundant in hypoxic tumors and was associated with lower response to treatment and survival. LAP-overexpressing tumors in Hu-CD34+NSG mice recapitulated the patients’ chemo-immuno-resistant phenotype. Interestingly, the ROS scavenger mitoquinol chemo-immuno-sensitized immuno-xenografts, by disrupting the ROS/HIF-1α/LAP cascade. Conclusions The impairment of mitochondrial metabolism induced by intermittent hypoxia increases the ROS-dependent stabilization of HIF-1α/LAP complex in NSCLC, producing chemo-immuno-resistance. Clinically used mitochondrial ROS scavengers may counteract such double resistance. Moreover, we suggest C/EBP-β LAP as a new predictive and prognostic factor in NSCLC patients.

Isavuconazole is a new triazole with an expanded-spectrum and potent activity against moulds and yeasts. It has been authorized for use in adults for the treatment of invasive aspergillosis and for mucormycosis. The only commercially available isavuconazole susceptibility test is the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) strip isavuconazole test. The objective of this study was to assess the in vitro activity of isavuconazole using gradient concentration MIC strips, compared with the EUCAST broth microdilution reference method. A total of 147 clinically relevant fungal isolates comprising 120 Aspergillus sp. and 27 Scedosporium apiospermum complex were tested for susceptibility to isavuconazole using the EUCAST broth microdilution method and by the MIC strip isavuconazole test. The percent essential agreement between the two methods was calculated within a 1-fold dilution. The geometric means for the MICs using the EUCAST reference methods and the strip test were respectively: 0.60 mg/l and 0.65 mg/l for A. fumigatus, 0.70 mg/l and 0.77 mg/l for A. flavus, 1.50 mg/l and 1.25 mg/l for A. niger, 0.41 mg/l and 0.38 mg/l for A. terreus, 1.22 mg/l and 1.08 mg/l for S. apiospermum complex. The isavuconazole MIC strips showed good agreement with the EUCAST reference method. Isavuconazole MIC strips could be useful for susceptibility testing of Aspergillus sp. and S. apiospermum complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Italy, most female immigrant workers, mainly Romanians, are employed in care sectors. This is the reason why many scholars have dealt with the impact of domestic work in Romanians’ lives: looking after our family results, according to them, in depression, anxiety, panic. Our job, on the contrary, aims at demonstrating that working in this sector improves post-soviet women’s social status, rescuing them from a subordinate condition in their native country.