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Attempts to meaningfully engage people with serious mental illnesses (SMI) as allies in conducting research have often failed because researchers tend to decide on the research topic without including community members. Academic researchers can avoid this pitfall by collaborating with community members to conduct a needs assessment to identify relevant research topics and build trust. Here, we report on the results of a psychosocial needs assessment for adult mental health service users in Massachusetts conducted by an academic-peer research team. The project was initiated as part of an academic mental health center’s efforts to conduct community-based participatory research (CBPR) with a group of people with SMI. People with SMI were hired and trained to co-lead research projects and the development of the listening group guide, and they conducted 18 listening groups with 159 adults with mental health conditions. The data were transcribed, and rapid analysis employing qualitative and matrix classification methods was used to identify service need themes. Six themes emerged from qualitative analysis: reduce community and provider stigma, improve access to services, focus on the whole person, include peers in recovery care, have respectful and understanding clinicians, and recruit diverse staff. The policy and practice implications of these findings include creating a stronger culture of innovation within provider organizations, developing specific plans for improving recruitment and retention of peer workers and a multicultural workforce, enhancing training and supervision in cultural humility, communicating respectfully with clients, and including peers in quality improvement activities.

Background The growing opioid epidemic in the United States has led to increasingly high rates of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). Preliminary studies have shown that buprenorphine maintenance treatment (BMT) may lead to better outcomes for infants than methadone maintenance treatment (MMT). Objectives The authors gathered recent evidence to answer the following PICO (population, intervention, comparison, and outcome) question: In opioid-dependent pregnant women, how does buprenorphine compared with methadone administration affect NAS? Data sources A literature search was completed in PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and Web of Science databases and limited to the past 5 years. The following parameters were analyzed in the articles: NAS occurrence, length of hospital stay in days, NAS treatment length, and amount of pharmacotherapy administered to treat NAS. Conclusions In comparison to methadone, buprenorphine exposure in utero is associated with significantly shorter hospital stays for the infant after delivery, shorter length of NAS treatment, and decreased frequency/duration of pharmacotherapy for NAS symptoms in the infant. Implications for practice Based on the findings, a weak recommendation can be made for the use of BMT over MMT in opioid-dependent pregnant women. However, further research is necessary to definitively recommend buprenorphine over methadone use in this population, especially regarding the effect of maternal severity of addiction on adherence to BMT, and long-term effects of in utero buprenorphine exposure.

Commercial Precise Point Positioning (PPP) services provide high accuracy in real-time with operational flexibility for a wide range of applications. There is an increasing need to go beyond high accuracy and to deliver solutions with higher levels of availability and trust. Within traditional markets, such as precision agriculture and land-survey, users require centimetre level accuracy near-instantaneously. In emerging markets, particularly those focused on autonomous operations, the key is to provide solutions which are accurate, continuously available and most of all, safe. This paper will present the TerraStar X technologies and commercial services which Hexagon Positioning Intelligence (HPI) is developing to meet these needs. To provide fast and accurate positioning the service delivers global and regional corrections over LBand and IP channels to NovAtel receivers. Results will be presented showing that horizontal accuracies of 2cm are routinely achieved with a convergence time of a few seconds from an operational service. To achieve similar performances on a wider scale without extensive ground infrastructure, research is focusing on ambiguity resolution techniques taking advantage of diverse frequencies and modern signal structures. These approaches offer the promise of highly accurate global solutions with fast convergence, but there are significant challenges to deliver this consistently across a range of operating conditions. In a separate HPI development, the regional solution is also being extended to provide the levels of integrity required for autonomous applications. Updates, results and future perspectives on both of these initiatives will be presented.

Interference is a growing concern among GNSS users, particularly in parts of the world where radio frequency (RF) transmission is not strictly regulated. Intentional interference and jamming is cheap and relatively easy to obtain in the form of Personal Privacy Devices (PPD). These devices can sometime cause unintended interference and jamming to important infrastructure like an airport (Mitch, et. al. 2013). This paper describes a method for creating an interference map using NovAtel OEM7 Interference Tool Kit (ITK). ITK can be used to measure the power of a received interferer. When data is collected for an area around a static and continuously operating interference source then it can be used to map out the interference over the affected area. This paper describes a method for mapping the interference and, using a model of power loss over distance, create a map of the likelihood of the position of the interferer. This paper includes simulated results and three case studies with live (real-data) interference sources from India, Canada, and Japan.

Antimalarials are used to treat dermatomyositis (DM) and cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE). Although hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is frequently used, addition of quinacrine (QC) has shown additional clinical effects when combined with HCQ. To quantify the effects of HCQ versus QC in suppressing secretion of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and IFN-α from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of DM and CLE patients, lipopolysaccharide-stimulated and control peripheral blood mononuclear cells from DM and CLE patients and control subjects were analyzed for the effect of HCQ and QC on TNF-α and IFN-α production using ELISA testing. Flow cytometry showed the effects of these therapies on intracellular TNF-α in myeloid dendritic cells and monocytes of DM patients and control subjects. QC significantly suppressed TNF-α relative to HCQ from unstimulated and lipopolysaccharide-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells of DM and CLE patients (P < 0.0001). It suppressed IFN-α as significantly as HCQ from cytosine phosphodiester guanine—stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells of DM and CLE patients (P < 0.0001). Flow cytometry showed that QC significantly suppressed intracellular expression of TNF-α from the lipopolysaccharide-stimulated myeloid dendritic cells and monocytes of DM patients (P-values≤0.0008). In conclusion, QC likely has a different mechanism of action than HCQ, given the broader inhibition of proinflammatory cytokines, including both TNF-α and IFN-α.

Summary The objective of this paper is the investigation and evaluation of the performance and life expectancy of NPT threaded connections as applied to a particular type of reciprocating compressor unit. The study focused on the assessment of the levels of excitation forces acting on the threaded connections and the resulting stress. These forces and stresses were determined from field vibration measurement results applied to a mechanical model of the system. As an extensive literature search did not yield satisfactory data for specific fatigue properties of NPT connections, we applied a first-principles approach to the problem and calculated the stress concentration factors from a detailed finite element study of the thread engagement under axial and circumferential loads. The results and details are reported here. Stress levels determined by this methodology were compared to the allowable fatigue limits for the piping and valves materials and a life expectancy was calculated. The same methodology can be applied to other situations involving threaded connections.

Lighter structures, specialty materials, higher rotational speeds, greater flows, higher temperatures and horsepower, all lead to higher efficiencies and less pollution. The designs of mechanical systems are being pushed to great extremes and therefore call for much greater accuracy in modeling the systems. The work of the design engineer has been facilitated immensely over the past few years by the introduction of computerized modeling tools. Stress Finite Element Modeling, Rotordynamic Analysis, Computerized Fluid Dynamics and Modal Analysis are some of these tools. They are also used extensively in the audit of designs if troubleshooting of a dynamic system becomes a requirement. The primary intent of this paper is to give the reader, the ability to coordinate the modeling work in an intelligent and authoritative way when he/she is not the one actually entering the numbers. It should also offer a clear idea of what the objectives of such analyses are, and an understanding of how these modeling techniques work, with their limitations and requirements, and sufficient knowledge to make decisions about the acceptability of the design.