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Happiness Reflected: A Community Poetry Project is a chapbook collection of original poems that were submitted by University of Alberta community members as they explored perspectives and questions about their own happiness. Intentionally curated by Days of Action for International Day of Happiness 2023, it is a component of the Happiness Reflected community arts initiative which included displaying the poems on posters across all campus libraries from March 20-31, and a 4-episode Happiness Reflected podcast which reflected on what the poems in the collection can help us learn about happiness and how how we can cultivate meaningful happiness in our lives. The Happiness Reflected Community Poetry Project has been made possible through partnership with University of Alberta Library and the Sound Studies Institute.

For decades, cluster initiatives and funding programmes have been used as instruments of industrial and innovation policy—addressing system failures by strengthening linkages among actors, fostering innovation, and developing more effective innovation systems. More recently, a growing segment of these initiatives are also focused on driving system-level transformation and contributing to broader societal benefits. This segment is characterized by larger-scale and longer-term strategic efforts involving a variety of stakeholders across different parts of society, aimed at contributing to addressing societal challenges. These characteristics are shared with the emerging frame of transformative innovation policy, which highlights the importance of embedded practices of learning and reflexivity to enable continuous monitoring of progress and inform and adapt the direction of systemic change processes—requiring new approaches to governance and evaluation. Despite deep experience with implementing cluster programmes and other systemic innovation policy instruments, practitioners still struggle with monitoring and evaluation. Current approaches focus on evidencing strengthened innovation (and economic effects) on the level of firms and research actors, and fail to capture contributions on the level of the broader system. This article presents an evolving approach for tracking system transformation in clusters and collaborative innovation initiatives. Through an interactive, co-development process with initiatives in the Swedish Vinnväxt programme, this research proposes a definition and set of system effect categories for cluster initiatives. It tests a participatory approach for tracking their contribution to system-level change over time, providing an initial case on which to build and apply in other transformative innovation programmes.

The postpartum period is a time of high unmet contraception need. Providing long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), particularly in the immediate postpartum period, is one strategy to meet contraceptive needs. This practice may also prevent unintended and short interpregnancy interval pregnancies. In recent years, state Medicaid programs have implemented reimbursement policies for LARC use in the inpatient setting. The purpose of this study was to assess the uptake of inpatient postpartum LARCs at a large urban hospital with a sizable Medicaid population, before and after policy implementation. Using billing records from January 2015 and December 2017, we extracted data on patient demographics and LARC uptake before Medicaid policy change (2015) and after policy change (2016 and 2017). Implant and intrauterine device insertions were classified as inpatient postpartum (0–7 days after birth), outpatient postpartum (1–8 weeks after) or interval (9+ weeks after). In the 3-year study period, 2091 LARC insertions occurred, of which 700 (33.5%) were inpatient postpartum, 429 (20.5%) outpatient postpartum, and 962 (46.0%) interval. After policy implementation, inpatient postpartum LARC insertions increased from 2.6 per 100 deliveries to 16.8 per 100 deliveries. Significant differences in uptake were seen in Black and Hispanic populations. The number of outpatient postpartum LARCs remained stable and tubal sterilizations decreased. Implementation of reimbursement policies contributed to a sharp uptake of inpatient postpartum LARCs. Improved access to effective, reversible contraception could reduce the number of unplanned and short interpregnancy interval pregnancies, ultimately lowering rates of maternal morbidity and mortality.

Regions around the world employ cluster-based policies as part of their industrial,\ud innovation and development policy mixes. They have become a key tool in smart\ud specialisation strategies and are increasingly used to address societal challenges.\ud Given their popularity and longevity, there is significant demand to better measure and\ud understand the impacts of cluster policies. Yet the diversity of cluster policies employed\ud in different regional competitiveness policy mixes, a complex effect logic and a variety\ud of (mostly intangible) outcomes, as well as few recognised norms for guiding cluster\ud policy evaluation, all hamper a more holistic understanding of their patterns of effects\ud and broader impacts. There lacks a common frame to guide cluster policy evaluation.\ud This paper reviews international evidence on the effects of cluster policy programmes\ud from academic and policy literature, which is then used as an input into a co-creation\ud process with groups of cluster policy-makers, practitioners and researchers. The result\ud is a proposal for a generalised framework of effects for cluster policies to support the\ud structuring of cluster policy evaluations and strengthen international policy learning\ud possibilities.

Cluster policies are widely used to strengthen regional competitiveness, yet difficult to evaluate. While academic approaches to cluster evaluation are often ignorant of the needs of policy-makers and practitioners, practitioner-led approaches often lack structure and rigour. As such, there remain significant gaps between theory and practice. The contribution of this paper is to reflect on a unique methodological approach that has regularly brought together academics, policy-makers and practitioners from around the world to collectively address the challenges of cluster evaluation. A participatory process of integrating theory and practice highlights the importance of triple helix engagement to co-design evaluation of what is a triple helix policy proposition. (Less)

Inside mammalian cells, single genes are known to be transcribed in stochastic bursts leading to the synthesis of nuclear RNAs that are subsequently exported to the cytoplasm to create mRNAs. We systematically characterize the role of export processes in shaping the extent of random fluctuations (i.e. noise) in the mRNA level of a given gene. Using the method of Partitioning of Poisson arrivals, we derive an exact analytical expression for the noise in mRNA level assuming that the nuclear retention time of each RNA is an independent and identically distributed random variable following an arbitrary distribution. These results confirm recent experimental/theoretical findings that decreasing the nuclear export rate buffers the noise in mRNA level, and counterintuitively, decreasing the noise in the nuclear retention time enhances the noise in the mRNA level. Next, we further generalize the model to consider a dynamic extrinsic disturbance that affects the nuclear-to-cytoplasm export. Our results show that noise in the mRNA level varies non-monotonically with the disturbance timescale. More specifically, high- and low-frequency external disturbances have little impact on the mRNA noise level, while noise is amplified at intermediate frequencies. In summary, our results systematically uncover how the coupling of bursty transcription with nuclear export can both attenuate or amplify noise in mRNA levels depending on the nuclear retention time distribution and the presence of extrinsic fluctuations.

Objective The aim of this study was to determine if there is a difference in Pelvic Floor Disability Index Questionnaire (PFDI-20) scores between black and white women seeking surgical management for pelvic organ prolapse (POP). Methods A retrospective cohort study of 232 women who underwent pelvic reconstructive surgery with apical suspension for POP was performed. Demographic and clinical data were collected. All women completed the PFDI-20 and had a Pelvic Organ Prolapse Quantification examination at the initial consultation. Appropriate statistical tests were used to compare black and white women. Multivariable regression models adjusting for demographic and clinical variables were developed to determine the independent relationship between race and POP symptoms. Results In our cohort, 174 (75%) were white and 58 (25%) were black. Compared with white women, black women had higher parity, body mass index, Charlson Comorbidity Index score, and anterior POP stage. White women had higher total PFDI-20 scores corresponding to higher scores on all symptom subscales. After controlling for potential confounders, white race and prior anti-incontinence surgery remained associated with higher total PFDI scores. Higher Urogenital Distress Inventory 6 scores were significantly associated with white race, prior anti-incontinence procedures, and increasing body mass index, whereas higher CRADI-8 scores were associated with prior anti-incontinence surgery and higher POP stages. Conclusions White women appeared to have more overall symptom bother from prolapse, as well as urinary symptoms, as compared with black women, when assessed by validated questionnaire tools in a cohort of patients who underwent prolapse surgery. Further research is required to determine if racial differences in symptoms translate to differences in outcomes.

OBJECTIVES The primary aim was to compare the incidence of transient voiding dysfunction (TVD) between vaginal uterosacral ligament suspension, sacrospinous ligament fixation, and robotic sacrocolpopexy. Secondarily, we identified risk factors for TVD and associated postoperative complications. METHODS This was a retrospective cohort study of women who underwent apical repair at 1 institution. Data were collected from electronic medical records and were presented as means (SD) or numbers (percent) as appropriate. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify risk factors for TVD and its associated postoperative complications. RESULTS Three hundred sixty women were included in analysis. Two hundred nineteen (60.8%) passed their voiding trial and 141 (39.2%) experienced TVD. The TVD group demonstrated a higher age, age-adjusted Charlson Comorbidity Index score, and preoperative postvoid residual (all P < 0.05). Univariate analysis demonstrated higher rates of TVD in the vaginal uterosacral ligament suspension and sacrospinous ligament fixation groups compared with the robotic sacrocolpopexy group (P = 0.012). Transient voiding dysfunction occurred more frequently with a concomitant anti-incontinence procedure, anterior repair, and/or posterior repair (all P < 0.05). In multivariate analysis, only an anti-incontinence procedure and concomitant anterior repair were independently associated with a risk of TVD (odds ratio [OR], 2.23; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.37-3.62, and OR, 2.20; CI, 1.14-4.27, respectively). Transient voiding dysfunction was associated with a culture-proven urinary tract infection within 6 weeks (OR, 3.2; CI, 1.3-8.55). CONCLUSIONS There was no difference in TVD between types of apical repair. Concomitant anti-incontinence procedure and anterior repair were associated with TVD. Women with TVD have an increased risk of postoperative urinary tract infections.

Digital platforms like Facebook offer marginalized individuals an appealing opportunity: to connect with others like them on a global scale. Transgender and nonbinary individuals, for example, can join ‘support groups’. However, these individuals also risk being ‘outed’ or targeted with hate-speech on a platform that offers visibility and connection. Excellent scholarship has critiqued the ways platforms perpetuate inequalities. However, few have examined the labor of human administrators who build support groups for gender identity minorities, despite these inequalities. This article asks how admin labor processes, both tangible and emotional, expose the cost of constructing a community on Facebook. Using a queer studies lens, it explores how administrators construct felt-belonging, sustain support, and defend members from being outed or targeted. Vetting new members and moderating group content act as repetitive labor processes which reiterate shared cultural ideologies of the community. This research finds something paradoxical: the feeling of disappointment fuels administrators’ commitment to continue difficult emotional labor. Paying attention to labor, especially emotional labor, reveals new tools for theorizing digital subjects and digitally-mediated social life. These tools refocus scholarly attention on why users turn to digital spaces and the human cost of sustaining community processes online. The case of gender identity support groups reveal that emotion, particularly disappointment, serves as an important lens with which to critique the sort of community digital contexts can offer “Normative conventions and our own creative repetitions are there along the way to help quell the panic we might feel at the prospect of becoming exhausted or dead before we can make sense of ourselves.”-Lauren Berlant, Cruel Optimism (2011) p.125 .

We consider a mechanistic stochastic model of an autoregulatory genetic circuit with time delays. More specifically, a protein is expressed in random bursts from its corresponding gene. The synthesized protein is initially inactive and becomes active after a time delay. Rather than considering a deterministic delay, a key aspect of this work is to incorporate stochastic time delays, where the delay is an independent and identically distributed random variable. The active protein inhibits its own production creating a negative feedback loop. Our analysis reveals that for an exponentially-distributed time delay, the noise in protein levels decreases to the Poisson limit with increasing mean time delay. Interestingly, for a gamma-distributed time delay contrasting noise behaviors emerge based on the negative feedback strength. At low feedback strengths the protein noise levels monotonically decrease to the Poisson limit with increasing average delay. At intermediate feedback strengths, the noise levels first increase to reach a maximum, and then decrease back to the Poisson limit with increasing average delay. Finally, with strong feedback the protein noise levels monotonically increase with increasing average delay. For each of these scenarios we provide approximate analytical formulas for the protein mean and noise levels, and validate these results by performing exact Monte Carlo simulations. In conclusion, our results uncover a counter-intuitive feature where inclusion of stochastic delays in a negative feedback circuit can play a beneficial role in buffering deleterious fluctuations in the level of a protein.

The United States is experiencing an opioid epidemic, and orthopedists prescribe a large proportion of these drugs. Patients often become dependent on painkillers and face barriers to treatment. Given that many joint arthroplasty patients are enrolled in Medicare, we aimed to examine the ease of orthopedic patients with various insurance types to access addiction and pain specialists.Using three web-based directories, we identified addiction specialists within a 5-mile radius of our hospital. We contacted these practices and inquired as to whether they treated addiction, types of insurance they accepted, and appointment availability.We identified 190 addiction and pain management specialists and were able to reach 134/190 (70.5%). Nine (6.7%) of the 134 reachable physicians accepted Medicare or Medicaid, which is nine (4.7%) of the 190 physicians initially located. The average wait time to an appointment was 4.2 days, and a significant difference in wait time existed across insurance types (p = 0.0284).Orthopedic patients face many barriers to receiving treatment for painkiller addiction. Wait time to see an addiction specialist also varied based on insurance type. Online directories may not be useful for certain patient populations to identify physicians. Orthopedic surgeons should partner with addiction and pain specialists to help alleviate the barriers that patients face.

Background Informing policy and practice with up-to-date evidence on the social determinants of health is an ongoing challenge. One limitation of traditional approaches is the time-lag between identification of a policy or practice need and availability of results. The Right Here Right Now (RHRN) study piloted a near-real-time data-collection process to investigate whether this gap could be bridged. Methods A website was developed to facilitate the issue of questions, data capture and presentation of findings. Respondents were recruited using two distinct methods – a clustered random probability sample, and a quota sample from street stalls. Weekly four-part questions were issued by email, Short Messaging Service (SMS or text) or post. Quantitative data were descriptively summarised, qualitative data thematically analysed, and a summary report circulated two weeks after each question was issued. The pilot spanned 26 weeks. Results It proved possible to recruit and retain a panel of respondents providing quantitative and qualitative data on a range of issues. The samples were subject to similar recruitment and response biases as more traditional data-collection approaches. Participants valued the potential to influence change, and stakeholders were enthusiastic about the findings generated, despite reservations about the lack of sample representativeness. Stakeholders acknowledged that decision-making processes are not flexible enough to respond to weekly evidence. Conclusion RHRN produced a process for collecting near-real-time data for policy-relevant topics, although obtaining and maintaining representative samples was problematic. Adaptations were identified to inform a more sustainable model of near-real-time data collection and dissemination in the future.

Objectives: Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocols involve judicious intravenous fluid resuscitation and routine administration of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Potential consequences could include a rise in incidence of acute kidney injury (AKI). A perioperative AKI can further result in increased short-term complications and in-hospital mortality for the patient. A recent study in patients undergoing colorectal surgery showed an increase in postoperative kidney injury from 2.27% to 11.36% after ERAS implementation. There have been no studies to date investigating development of AKI with ERAS in Gynecologic Oncology. Therefore, the primary aim of the current study is to measure the trend of postoperative renal function and the incidence of clinically significant acute kidney injury after ERAS implementation. The secondary outcomes are to identify independent predictors that may increase risk for development of a perioperative AKI. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed at Abington-Jefferson Hospital in gynecologic oncology, where ERAS was established in 2014. All women who underwent an exploratory laparotomy for benign and malignant etiologies prior to and after implementation of an ERAS protocol were included. Demographic, perioperative and surgical characteristics were collected. All patients above age 18, regardless of comorbid conditions, BMI or baseline kidney function were included. Stage 1 AKI was defined by KDIGO criteria of > 0.3 mg/dl increase within 48 hours. A p-value Results: A total of 274 patients were included in this study: 143 in the non-ERAS cohort and 131 patients in the ERAS group. No significant difference was seen in creatinine levels or glomerular filtration rate after surgical intervention between the two cohorts (p=0.054 and p=0.588, respectively). Similarly, there was no difference in rate of AKI among patients after ERAS within the first 72 hours of surgery (0.021 vs 0.023, p=0.869). Clinically significant kidney injury occurred in six patients. AKI was associated with receipt of a postoperative blood transfusion (p=0.002). However on multivariate analysis, no patient or surgical characteristics including hypertension, blood transfusions, diabetes, intraoperative mean arterial blood pressure, complexity of procedure, age, and length of surgery were predictive of development of AKI. Conclusions: No difference in rates of acute kidney injury was detected before and after ERAS implementation in gynecologic oncology. Acute kidney injury seemed to be associated with receipt of postoperative blood products. No other independent predictors of kidney injury were identified. Nonetheless, attention should be paid to patients that may be at an increased of AKI. Further studies are required to determine to whether modification of ERAS protocols for select groups of patients could decrease rates of AKI in the perioperative setting.

Date Presented Accepted for AOTA INSPIRE 2021 but unable to be presented due to online event limitations. This study will provide knowledge for OTs in the United States about how OTs can potentially assist survivors to reintegrate into society as well as how OT can contribute to the prevention efforts in the antitrafficking movement. Increased understanding of OTs' role in providing services to human-trafficking survivors will contribute to the advancement of care provision to human-trafficking survivors overall. Primary Author and Speaker: Sarbinaz Bekmuratova Contributing Authors: Nicole Amato, Taran Pottebaum, Amanda Ruether, Madeline Smith, and Monica Williams

Inflammation in the urinary tract results in a urinary proteome characterized by a high dynamic range of protein concentrations and high variability in protein content. This proteome encompasses plasma proteins not resorbed by renal tubular uptake, renal secretion products, proteins of immune cells and erythrocytes derived from trans-urothelial migration and vascular leakage, respectively, and exfoliating urothelial and squamous epithelial cells. We examined how such proteins partition into soluble urine (SU) and urinary pellet (UP) fractions by analyzing 33 urine specimens 12 of which were associated with a urinary tract infection (UTI). Using mass spectrometry-based metaproteomic approaches, we identified 5,327 non-redundant human proteins, 2,638 and 4,379 of which were associated with SU and UP fractions, respectively, and 1,206 non-redundant protein orthology groups derived from pathogenic and commensal organisms of the urogenital tract. Differences between the SU and UP proteomes were influenced by local inflammation, supported by respective comparisons with 12 healthy control urine proteomes. Clustering analyses showed that SU and UP fractions had proteomic signatures discerning UTIs, vascular injury, and epithelial cell exfoliation from the control group to varying degrees. Cases of UTI revealed clusters of proteins produced by activated neutrophils. Network analysis supported the central role of neutrophil effector proteins in the defense against invading pathogens associated with subsequent coagulation and wound repair processes. Our study expands the existing knowledge of the urinary proteome under perturbed conditions, and should be useful as reference dataset in the search of biomarkers.

We consider a mechanistic stochastic model of an autoregulatory genetic circuit with time delays. More specifically, a protein is expressed in random bursts from its corresponding gene. The synthesized protein is initially inactive and becomes active after a time delay. Rather than considering a deterministic delay, a key aspect of this work is to incorporate stochastic time delays, where delay is an independent and identically distributed random variable. The active protein inhibits its own production creating a negative feedback loop. Our analysis reveals that for an exponentially-distributed time delay, the noise in the protein levels decreases to the Poisson limit with increasing mean time delay. Interesting, for a gamma-distributed time delay contrasting noise behaviors emerge based on the negative feedback strength. At low feedback strengths the protein noise levels monotonically decreases to the Poisson limit with increasing average delay. At intermediate feedback strengths, the noise levels first increase to reach a maximum, and then decease back to the Poisson limit with increasing average delay. Finally, for strong feedbacks the protein noise levels monotonically increase with the average delay. For each of these scenarios we provide approximate analytical formulas for the protein mean and noises levels, and validate these results by performing exact Monte Carlo simulations. In conclusion, our results uncover a counter intuitive feature where inclusion of stochastic delays in a negative feedback circuit can play a beneficial role in buffering deleterious fluctuations in the level of a protein.

Stochastic variation in the level of a protein among cells of the same population is ubiquitous across cell types and organisms. These random variations are a consequence of low-copy numbers, amplified by the characteristically probabilistic nature of biochemical reactions associated with gene-expression. We systematically compare and contrast negative feedback architectures in their ability to regulate random fluctuations in protein levels. Our stochastic model consists of gene synthesizing pre-mRNAs in transcriptional bursts. Each pre-mRNA transcript is exported to the cytoplasm and is subsequently translated into protein molecules. In this setup, three feedbacks architectures are implemented: protein inhibiting transcription of its own gene (I), protein enhancing the nuclear pre-mRNA decay rate (II), and protein inhibiting the export of pre-mRNAs (III). Explicit analytic expressions are developed to quantify the protein noise levels for each feedback strategy. Mathematically controlled comparisons provide insights into the noise-suppression properties of these feedbacks. For example, when the protein half-life is long, or the pre-mRNA decay is fast, then feedback architecture I provides the best noise attenuation. In contrast, when the timescales of export, mRNA, and protein turnover are similar, then III is superior to both II and I. We finally discuss biological relevance of these findings in context of noise suppression in an HIV cell-fate decision circuit.

No abstract available

The development of novel bio-based polymers from inexpensive and renewable materials has the potential to greatly impact our current economy, the environment, and our energy matrix. The replacement of petroleum-based materials with bio-based counterparts can be greatly advantageous. The advantages of bio-based materials are the ready availability of large quantities of renewable starting materials at insignificant costs, the potential of producing more bio-degradable materials than the virtually indestructible petroleum-based polymers, the possibility of obtaining properties not currently available in commercial petroleum-based products, and their overall intrinsic low toxicity. This chapter presents the reader with an overview of the major accomplishments in bio-based polyurethane research, with a special focus on polyhydroxyurethanes (PHUs). Alternative polyurethane (PU) systems from nonisocyanate sources are briefly described in this chapter, and concluding remarks give a perspective on the future of bio-based PHUs.

Economic development agencies worldwide have eagerly embraced clusters as a strategy to boost local economic development. When implementing cluster-based interventions, one of the main issues encountered by many public sector bodies is that the majority of cluster analysis and measurement techniques only give a partial overview of how they actually operate. Often it is the dynamics of collaboration within a cluster that has the biggest influence on overall success. This paper adopts a system thinking approach to help us understand cluster development and inter-firm collaboration. The outcome of this work was the development of a basic five stage conceptual model that helps explain how a cluster develops, together with the changes in company behaviour and company interaction that might be seen at different stages of this developmental trajectory. Using Scotland as an empirical test case, this article highlights the model and examines the problems associated with the adoption of this approach. This methodological approach was shared with other regions working to support clusters to ascertain the relevance of this approach elsewhere. Overall this paper concludes that the model proves to be a useful tool in assessing the varying stages of a cluster's development both within and outside Scotland.

Innovation, the successful exploitation of new ideas, is an important driver of economic growth. The traditional view of innovation as a pipeline process based around commercialising scientific or technological invention has today been replaced by a broader understanding that innovation is not necessarily linear and reaches far beyond the production of products to be focused on successful market outcomes. Based on the authors' experience of innovation policy development in Scotland, this paper concludes that there needs to be a dramatic change in approach to innovation policy if Scotland is to sustain long-term economic growth and competitive advantage.

Stochastic variation in the level of protein among cells of the same population is ubiquitous across cell types and organisms. These random variations are a consequence of low-copy numbers, amplified by the characteristically probabilistic nature of biochemical reactions associated with gene-expression. We systematically compare and contrast negative feedback architectures in their ability to regulate random fluctuations in protein levels. Recent studies have revealed the role of unspliced, precursor mRNA versus stable, cytoplasmic mRNA in gene-expression regulation and noise. Our work takes advantage of this distinction and creates a model describing mRNA as two separate species: pre-mRNA inside the nucleus and cytoplasmic mRNA outside the nucleus. Each gene synthesizes pre-mRNAs in transcriptional bursts. Then, each pre-mRNA transcript is exported to the cytoplasm and is subsequently translated into protein molecules. In this setup, three feedback architectures are implemented: protein inhibiting transcription of its own gene (I), protein enhancing the nuclear pre-mRNA degradation rate (II), and protein inhibiting the export of pre-mRNAs (III). Explicit analytic expressions are developed to quantify the protein noise levels for each feedback strategy. Mathematically controlled comparisons provide insights into the noise-suppression properties of these feedback architectures. For example, when the pre-mRNA export rate is greater than its degradation rate, then feedback architecture I provides the best noise attenuation. In contrast, when mRNA is highly unstable, feedback architecture III is superior to both II and I. We finally discuss biological relevance of these findings in context of precursor mRNA and noise suppression in HIV.