What is boredom? We review environmental, attentional, and functional theories and present a new model that describes boredom as an affective indicator of unsuccessful attentional engagement in ...valued goal-congruent activity. According to the Meaning and Attentional Components (MAC) model, boredom is the result of (a) an attentional component, namely mismatches between cognitive demands and available mental resources, and (b) a meaning component, namely mismatches between activities and valued goals (or the absence of valued goals altogether). We present empirical support for four novel predictions made by the model: (a) Deficits in attention and meaning each produce boredom independently of the other; (b) there are different profiles of boredom that result from specific deficits in attention and meaning; (c) boredom results from two types of attentional deficits, understimulation and overstimulation; and (d) the model explains not only when and why people become bored with external activities, but also when and why people become bored with their own thoughts. We discuss further implications of the model, such as when boredom motivates people to seek interesting versus enjoyable activities.
In 11 studies, we found that participants typically did not enjoy
spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but
think, that they enjoyed doing mundane external activities ...much more,
and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves
instead of being left alone with their thoughts. Most people seem to
prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something
is negative.
Efforts to prevent
infection continue to expand across the health care spectrum in the United States. Whether these efforts are reducing the national burden of
infection is unclear.
The Emerging ...Infections Program identified cases of
infection (stool specimens positive for
in a person ≥1 year of age with no positive test in the previous 8 weeks) in 10 U.S. sites. We used case and census sampling weights to estimate the national burden of
infection, first recurrences, hospitalizations, and in-hospital deaths from 2011 through 2017. Health care-associated infections were defined as those with onset in a health care facility or associated with recent admission to a health care facility; all others were classified as community-associated infections. For trend analyses, we used weighted random-intercept models with negative binomial distribution and logistic-regression models to adjust for the higher sensitivity of nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) as compared with other test types.
The number of cases of
infection in the 10 U.S. sites was 15,461 in 2011 (10,177 health care-associated and 5284 community-associated cases) and 15,512 in 2017 (7973 health care-associated and 7539 community-associated cases). The estimated national burden of
infection was 476,400 cases (95% confidence interval CI, 419,900 to 532,900) in 2011 and 462,100 cases (95% CI, 428,600 to 495,600) in 2017. With accounting for NAAT use, the adjusted estimate of the total burden of
infection decreased by 24% (95% CI, 6 to 36) from 2011 through 2017; the adjusted estimate of the national burden of health care-associated
infection decreased by 36% (95% CI, 24 to 54), whereas the adjusted estimate of the national burden of community-associated
infection was unchanged. The adjusted estimate of the burden of hospitalizations for
infection decreased by 24% (95% CI, 0 to 48), whereas the adjusted estimates of the burden of first recurrences and in-hospital deaths did not change significantly.
The estimated national burden of
infection and associated hospitalizations decreased from 2011 through 2017, owing to a decline in health care-associated infections. (Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.).
Young transgender women (trans women) experience poor health in part due to discrimination. Factors that promote resilience may help young trans women positively adapt to discrimination, resulting in ...attenuation of poor health outcomes. While religion is sometimes a source of stigma and transphobia, qualitative studies have identified religiosity as an important resilience resource for young trans women. The goals of this study were to quantitatively measure religiosity and resilience among young trans women and to assess whether they are associated.
From 2012-2013, 300 young trans women between the ages of 16-24 years were enrolled in a longitudinal study; we examined the cross-sectional baseline data on demographics, religiosity, and resilience. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analysis examined the correlation between demographics (age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, income) and religiosity among young trans women. Additionally, bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analysis examined the association between religiosity and resilience among young trans women, controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, and income.
Participants who reported high religiosity had significantly greater odds (aOR 1.78, 95% CI 1.05-3.01, p = .03) of reporting high resilience compared to those reporting low religiosity. Black/African American participants had significantly higher odds (aOR 6.16, 95% CI 2.34-16.20, p = < .001) of reporting high religiosity compared to those who identified as White.
Religiosity may be an important resilience resource for young trans women. Gender affirming religious and spiritual interventions may promote resilience among some young trans women.
Safe and effective HIV prevention strategies are needed for transwomen. Transwomen in the US have a 34 times greater odds of being infected with HIV than all adults age 15-49, and in San Francisco, ...California 42.4% of transwomen are estimated to be infected with HIV. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is the first biomedical intervention with promise for reducing HIV acquisition in transwomen. However, little is known about whether transwomen know about PrEP, are taking PrEP and would be good candidates for PrEP based on their risk profile and behaviors. A population-based dataset was analyzed to determine how many transwomen in San Francisco knew about PrEP by the end of 2013 - more than a year after iPrex results demonstrated efficacy of PrEP in preventing HIV. We found that of 233 transwomen, only 13.7% had heard of PrEP. Transwomen who were living with HIV compared to those who were HIV-negative, and those who recently injected drugs compared to non-injection drug users were more likely to have heard of PrEP. Based on CDC guidelines for PrEP among MSM and IDU, 45 (30.2%) transwomen of the 149 HIV-negative transwomen in the sample were candidates for PrEP. This estimate based on CDC criteria is arguably low. Given that almost half of transwomen in San Francisco are living with HIV, this findings points to a need for further consideration of PrEP criteria that are specific and tailored to the risks for HIV faced by transwomen that are different from MSM and injection drug users. Research to scale up access and test the effectiveness of PrEP for transwomen is also urgently needed.
Minority stress frameworks seek to explain how stress impacts the health of minorities. Examining the social location of trans women in society is critical to understand the unique forms of ...oppression that engender stress and microaggression for trans women. This article uses intersectionality to examine the lived experiences of young trans women and develop new theoretical concepts to understand the social process of trans-misogyny. We use grounded theory to analyze semistructured, in-depth interviews conducted with 38 young trans women ages 16-24 in Los Angeles and Chicago. Our findings describe key concepts: trans-misogyny, cis-sexism, the passing complex, and transition work. We describe how trans-misogyny acts as an intersectional, interlocking structure of oppression, fueling the passing complex, and, as a result, how trans women experience overt and covert forms of discrimination.
Highlights • Substance use was highly prevalent among trans*female youth. • Psychosocial risk factors were associated with increased odds of substance use. • Understanding these psychosocial ...mechanisms can inform substance use interventions. • Targeting substance use represents a possible avenue to mitigate health disparities.
Abstract
During haematopoiesis, haematopoietic stem cells differentiate into restricted potential progenitors before maturing into the many lineages required for oxygen transport, wound healing and ...immune response. We have updated Haemopedia, a database of gene-expression profiles from a broad spectrum of haematopoietic cells, to include RNA-seq gene-expression data from both mice and humans. The Haemopedia RNA-seq data set covers a wide range of lineages and progenitors, with 57 mouse blood cell types (flow sorted populations from healthy mice) and 12 human blood cell types. This data set has been made accessible for exploration and analysis, to researchers and clinicians with limited bioinformatics experience, on our online portal Haemosphere: https://www.haemosphere.org. Haemosphere also includes nine other publicly available high-quality data sets relevant to haematopoiesis. We have added the ability to compare gene expression across data sets and species by curating data sets with shared lineage designations or to view expression gene vs gene, with all plots available for download by the user.
We assessed whether multiple psychosocial factors are additive in their relationship to sexual risk behavior and self-reported HIV status (i.e., can be characterized as a syndemic) among young ...transgender women and the relationship of indicators of social marginalization to psychosocial factors.
Participants (n = 151) were aged 15 to 24 years and lived in Chicago or Los Angeles. We collected data on psychosocial factors (low self-esteem, polysubstance use, victimization related to transgender identity, and intimate partner violence) and social marginalization indicators (history of commercial sex work, homelessness, and incarceration) through an interviewer-administered survey.
Syndemic factors were positively and additively related to sexual risk behavior and self-reported HIV infection. In addition, our syndemic index was significantly related to 2 indicators of social marginalization: a history of sex work and previous incarceration.
These findings provide evidence for a syndemic of co-occurring psychosocial and health problems in young transgender women, taking place in a context of social marginalization.
The magnitude and scope of Clostridium difficile infection in the United States continue to evolve.
In 2011, we performed active population- and laboratory-based surveillance across 10 geographic ...areas in the United States to identify cases of C. difficile infection (stool specimens positive for C. difficile on either toxin or molecular assay in residents ≥ 1 year of age). Cases were classified as community-associated or health care-associated. In a sample of cases of C. difficile infection, specimens were cultured and isolates underwent molecular typing. We used regression models to calculate estimates of national incidence and total number of infections, first recurrences, and deaths within 30 days after the diagnosis of C. difficile infection.
A total of 15,461 cases of C. difficile infection were identified in the 10 geographic areas; 65.8% were health care-associated, but only 24.2% had onset during hospitalization. After adjustment for predictors of disease incidence, the estimated number of incident C. difficile infections in the United States was 453,000 (95% confidence interval CI, 397,100 to 508,500). The incidence was estimated to be higher among females (rate ratio, 1.26; 95% CI, 1.25 to 1.27), whites (rate ratio, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.56 to 2.0), and persons 65 years of age or older (rate ratio, 8.65; 95% CI, 8.16 to 9.31). The estimated number of first recurrences of C. difficile infection was 83,000 (95% CI, 57,000 to 108,900), and the estimated number of deaths was 29,300 (95% CI, 16,500 to 42,100). The North American pulsed-field gel electrophoresis type 1 (NAP1) strain was more prevalent among health care-associated infections than among community-associated infections (30.7% vs. 18.8%, P<0.001).
C. difficile was responsible for almost half a million infections and was associated with approximately 29,000 deaths in 2011. (Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.).
PDF
