#Medical Research Program

[d0nutzgg]

Hey all, so the crowdfund is up for ReachAI. If anyone wants to go check it out it would mean a lot to me! Also you can watch the video there on IndieGOGO or here:

It should give you a bit of an idea on what ReachAI is and what the nonprofit will be doing as well as the benefits of becoming a donor (which there are even more than I talked about in the video including Webinars, 1-on-1 sessions with me, a newsletter update on research the organization is working on or right now that I am). I am excited to be bringing ReachAI closer to launch day, I am really hoping I can raise the money to get it started! I know it could do so much good in the world :3

[tsotc]

always on my seperate timelines shit. one person in different universes. bigender woman who keeps doing shit Wrong

[uefb]

Why do you think there’s a pattern of Theseus being abusive/overly aggressive in Fantastic Beasts fanfic? It’s been driving me up the wall trying to find Newt and Theseus fanfic that doesn’t make them OOC especially Theseus, and idk, in the context of Newt being Autistic I find it disturbing. Like sure, Theseus is hot-headed and loses his temper, he doesn’t always understand Newt, but those traits seem overtly exaggerated in a lot of fandom content.

Obsessed with this ask. I have been thinking about it all day, and am just now getting to write it up! Thinking about it in the background of my statistics class almost singularly got me through its sensory and anxiety hell. /sweat-laugh emoji/ So thank you!

Please remember, all of this is based on my own perspectives, knowledge, and headcanons, as well as canon clues. Nothing here is definitive and is open for respectful conversation! (Not directed specifically at you, salamander, just since this is a public blog I like to cover my bases. ^_^)

Buckle up: major autistic info dump incoming

Alright, so, my initial thoughts are that...

Obviously, there was a decent chunk of Newt fic written between 2016 and 2018 before CoG came out, that first film where we really got to see Theseus as a character, for who he really is (especially since they cut that letter from him to Newt at beginning of FBWTFT, that starts with "little brother," which is just pretty endearing). IMHO, this two-year gap means people had a wide open playing field to build the character themselves. Here's a few thoughts on that:

The framework for the entire Wizarding World, narratively, is the Harry Potter series. Boy wizard, shunned by family, isolated from socialization -- Outcasts have always been the backbone of She-who-must-not-be-named's stories. It's compelling. We love it, we lap it up. With only one FB film out before 2018 and Newt being such a unique protagonist, I think it's likely people fell back on the more typical Harry-Dudley trope to create a compelling backstory for Newt, using that tried-and-true fantasy Cinderella-type trope.

Second, from what I can tell, there was a lot less serious consideration of Newt actually being autistic in the early years of the fandom. (I only "joined" relatively recently myself, despite going to the first 2 movies on opening day, but I'm nothing if not fastidious in consuming every scrap of historical content when I develop a new interest, lol.) I've read pages of threads and plenty of "think pieces" attributing Newt's behavior to trauma-related social anxiety and/or his profession as a magizoologist. I absolutely buy the latter (adjusting body language for one's profession), but not entirely the former. (Personally, Newt doesn't strike me as an inherently anxious person--he strikes me as an inherently autistic one who also sometimes experiences anxiety. Discomfort and anxiety aren't the same thing, but people often conflate them, imho.) Anyway, THAT BEING SAID, I've noticed in quite a few fics that people write Theseus as being part of that implied social trauma, via sibling bullying that rises beyond typical sibling harassment. People perhaps tried to explain Newt's behavior by making him, at the very least, overshadowed by Theseus (and ashamed of it) or, at the very worst, abused and/or neglected by his family.

Also, quite simply: people process their own family trauma via fic. I think it's highly likely Theseus just served a sibling or parental role for some people in stories. (The abundance of abusive!Thranduil fic in the LotR fandom in the early 00s is another example of this.) Nothing wrong with using fic to process feelings and life experiences (god knows I do, it's horrifically obvious and always has been lmao), but this bulletpoint is still one explanation for the pre-CoG "Theseus being a dick in fic" phenomenon.

Plus, fanfic doesn't occur in a vacuum. Even when new canon info comes out, existing fic and whatever the going/contemporary fanon is often impact how new writers write their characters, even post-CoG. (And how those characterizations are received by the larger fandom--that reception may subsequently impact how writers maintain or change their characters in the future, imho.)

As for the current reasons Theseus is often OOC in post-CoG fic...

Well, I have my theories, but I am also not entirely sure. However, I feel pretty confident it has to do, primarily, with points 1 and 4.

Leta Lestrange and the Scamander Brothers - Honestly, I think people likely are pretty offended on Newt's behalf for the Leta/Theseus marriage. In mainstream media, we're kind of trained to think that dating your friend's ex is ultimate betrayal--it's difficult for people to imagine a world in which a person who marries their brother's ex is a good person. (...I was once in a friend group where we had all dated the same girl at some point, but we were all either ridiculously honest or autistic so we just--wait for it--talked about it and moved on.) That being said, I never read Leta & Newt as overtly romantic (then again, I also didn't know Bunty liked Newt until the 4th time I watched CoG), so I don't entirely get this one to the degree that I think some people viscerally feel this. But I expect some people see that and assume it says something much larger about Theseus' character than it does. (I do think it says a lot about Theseus that he loves Leta, but I don't think it says the same things about him that some other people do -- I think it speaks more to his similarities to Newt [compassion and positive outlook] than it does to stealing Newt's Hogwarts sweetheart. But I digress.)

Something Did Happen at Some Point - Now, there is undeniably a distance between the brothers that we, as viewers, don't necessarily know the origin of. (So I think I may have mentioned in my letters that [my brother & I] have quite a complicated relationship. // Does he want to kill you? // Frequently.) Have they always been like that? Is it new? Is it because of the age difference? Because they have different personalities? (Though I will argue until I'm blue in the face that they're actually extraordinarily similar people, at their cores.) Is it because Newt got expelled, or because Theseus scooped up Leta, or because Theseus expresses emotion through touch & Newt jerks away from touch he doesn't initiate himself, or because because because because because? I don't know. But there is something there and, based on the "complicated relationship" comment, it sounds like it is something that likely developed over time. So imho - I think some people see that and just lean in way too hard. Like, pedal to the medal, 0 to 60 too hard.

Theseus is Snarky to Newt on Multiple Occasions - Mostly based around how Newt directs his life, carries himself, etc etc. For example, it would be easy to take that whole scene before and after Newt's travel hearing in CoG and assume Theseus is an overprotective, condescending, and ableist prick. But if we look below the surface (and the stage directions in the screenplay help, too. When he says "maybe a little less... / like me. / well, it can't hurt" the instructions say 'not without fondness', or something like that), it's pretty glaringly obvious he doesn't mean to be that way. Even condescending behaviors usually have causal correlates, even if we can't see them on the surface. (Believe me -- and this is something we both touched on in DMs, salamander, I'm just repeating for the sake of the ask -- well-meaning pep talks and encouragement can still drip with condescension when loved ones think you need guidance because they "love you and know better " and you're just too autistic or too idealistic or too naive or whatever.) Ultimately, whether due to a failure to approach these snarky exchanges with grace and nuance, or because it can make a good fic to put brothers at odds, IDK -- but I expect this particular point plays into some people's decisions to interpret Theseus in a way I view as OOC.

Ease of Narrative ~ Nuance is hard - I mean, this one explains itself. Writing characters in a nuanced manner that allows digging into the messy horrible confusion of relationships--embedded as they are within families and societies and personal & general history--is not easy. It takes not only patience and significant effort as a writer, but it also takes a degree of self-awareness and maturity that we all reach at different points. I'm not there yet myself (there's no real arrival -- life's not a perfect graph), but still: My fic writing is very different now at 32 (with 14 years of 'adulthood' and 12 years of therapy under my belt) than it was when I was writing about adults when I was 15. (And, yes, I still have my first posted HP fic up on MuggleNet and FFnet, so you don't just have to take my word for it lmao.) To be very clear, this isn't me being ageist or whatever: I'm just saying that I often get the sense while reading fic where Theseus is reallllly overly aggressive that the writer is sometimes either very new to creative writing (and good for them! we love new writers! keep writing, lovelies!), or else quite young, and thus still acquiring life experience that is going to improve their work as they age, every single day.**

Sibling Experience - Not having personal or narrative experience with an age gap like Newt and Theseus have. I'm an older sibling by 7.5 years, which is close to Theseus & Newt's age difference. I basically half-raised my younger brother, so I have a real soft spot for that kind of sibling relationship, which comes across in most of my fics (LotR & FB). It's hard to imagine the sort of borderline sibling-parental love, responsibility, and anxiety that can permeate those kind of relationships if you haven't experienced or seen it represented in media yourself. This is just a theory, of course---I have no actual data on this being actually related to his OOCness.

What else? What do you or others think?

Final very random thought

I also think a lot of people forget that autism runs in families. So yes, Theseus doesn't always "get" Newt (god, no, lol) and he doesn't have guidance on what to do when he doesn't, but it is highly unlikely he hasn't seen behavior similar to Newt's before, whether in a parent or cousins, an aunt/uncle or something else. People *also* tend to forget, IMHO, that subclinical traits are often present in direct family members of an autistic person--Theseus' rigid thinking, for example, isn't necessarily "autistic", but he may get Newt better than people think for certain reasons we never have an opportunity to see in the script. (Not that the movies are paying *that* much attention to the actual research or autism presentations lmao, but I'm just saying it is a possibility). Being able to relate to a smaller version of someone's struggles can simultaneously make one both a better support and a worse one in a lot of ways. (And certain autistic traits can even rub up against each other poorly in different people--I have a few acquaintances that rub me the wrong way because our "symptoms" manifest in very different ways and their natural behavior triggers some of my own sensory issues or overdeveloped sense of justice or whatever. Conversely, my ADHD tendency to be 20 minutes late to every hang gives one of my autistic friends a panic attack every time -- I feel terrible, but all we can both do is try to adjust the behavior around our symptoms. And sometimes the same traits--firmly held beliefs, for example--bump into each other explosively, which I have experienced in fandom myself: two autistic people w diametrically opposing views interacting, but because we process information in similar ways even with very different perspectives, no progress can be made before someone shuts down.) BUT I BRING THIS UP BECAUSE, I do think it's possible to headcanon that some of Newt and Theseus' conflict (which does exist) could even be rooted in differing forms of neurodivergence or presentation of subclinical symptoms.

The world is a big place and there's so many possibilities. These are just some of my thoughts on why Theseus is often portrayed in a way I find to be OOC!

Asterisked footnote under cut -

**I'm trying to convey what Sandra Cisneros does much better in her short story "Eleven." That we, all of us, carry our entire lives and what we have seen inside of us at all times, and I think that's what we bring to our writing.

What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you don’t feel eleven at all. You feel like you’re still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven. Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s the part of you that’s still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama’s lap because you’re scared, and that’s the part of you that’s five. And maybe one day when you’re all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you’re three, and that’s okay. That’s what I tell Mama when she’s sad and needs to cry. Maybe she’s feeling three. Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is.

[harrypotterfuryroad]

i met this guy at a conference a few years ago who was like right in the middle of failing out of his phd program and now he's one of the loudest tras on twitter so i guess he found something to do with all his sudden spare time

[sopranoentravesti]

Sorry to be a member of the intelligentsia on main, but I’m really not interested in hearing your takes on psychology or neuroscience when you get all your information from YouTube videos and refuse to read a book or a paper on whatever your chosen topic du jour is

[angelfrommontgomery]

Also on the topic of WVU programs, the chem department is under review while then university is clinging to the claim that it’s a GREAT program for forensics which just shows how out of touch admin is which the actual programs. You cannot possibly have a solid forensic chemistry and forensic biology program without an extremely solid chem department. A deeper understanding of the material is made possible through chemistry

[bitcoinversus]

Meharry Medical College and Global Partners Build Largest African Ancestry Genomic Database

Meharry Medical College, in collaboration with Regeneron Genetics Center, AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk, and Roche, has launched an initiative to create the world’s largest genomic database of individuals with African ancestry. The project aims to collect genetic material from 500,000 participants to develop a new reference genome that better represents Black populations, potentially leading to…

[sohaibsmart]

A take a look at how a few of Trump's picks to guide well being companies may assist perform Kennedy's overhaul

The group that President-elect Donald Trump has chosen to guide federal well being companies in his second administration features a retired congressman, a surgeon and a former talk-show host. All may play pivotal roles in fulfilling a political agenda that might change how the federal government goes about safeguarding Individuals’ well being — from well being care and medicines to meals…

[reasonsforhope]

"The first modern attempt at transferring a uterus from one human to another occurred at the turn of the millennium. But surgeons had to remove the organ, which had become necrotic, 99 days later. The first successful transplant was performed in 2011 — but even then, the recipient wasn’t immediately able to get pregnant and deliver a baby. It took three more years for the first person in the world with a transplanted uterus to give birth. 

More than 70 such babies have been born globally in the decade since. “It’s a complete new world,” said Giuliano Testa, chief of abdominal transplant at Baylor University Medical Center.

Almost a third of those babies — 22 and counting — have been born in Dallas at Baylor. On Thursday, Testa and his team published a major cohort study in JAMA analyzing the results from the program’s first 20 patients. All women were of reproductive age and had no uterus (most having been born without one), but had at least one functioning ovary. Most of the uteri came from living donors, but two came from deceased donors.

Fourteen women had successful transplants, all of whom were able to have at least one baby.  

“That success rate is extraordinary, and I want that to get out there,” said Liza Johannesson, the medical director of uterus transplants at Baylor, who works with Testa and co-authored the study. “We want this to be an option for all women out there that need it.”

Six patients had transplant failures, all within two weeks of the procedure. Part of the problem may have been a learning curve: The study initially included only 10 patients, and five of the six with failed transplants were in that first group. These were “technical” failures, Testa said, involving aspects of the surgery such as how surgeons connected the organ’s blood vessels, what material was used for sutures, and selecting a uterus that would work well in a transplant. 

The team saw only one transplant fail in the second group of 10 people, the researchers said. All 20 transplants took place between September 2016 and August 2019.

Only one other cohort study has previously been published on uterus transplants, in 2022. A Swedish team, which included Johannesson before she moved to Baylor, performed seven successful transplants out of nine attempts. Six women, including the first transplant recipient to ever deliver a baby back in 2014, gave birth.

“It’s hard to extract data from that, because they were the first ones that did it,” Johannesson said. “This is the first time we can actually see the safety and efficacy of this procedure properly.”

So far, the signs are good: High success rates for transplants and live births, safe and healthy children so far, and early signs that immunosuppressants — typically given to transplant recipients so their bodies don’t reject the new organ — may not cause long-term harm, the researchers said. (The uterine transplants are removed after recipients no longer need them to deliver children.) And the Baylor team has figured out how to identify the right uterus for transfer: It should be from a donor who has had a baby before, is premenopausal, and, of course, who matches the blood type of the recipient, Testa said...

“They’ve really embraced the idea of practicing improvement as you go along, to understand how to make this safer or more effective. And that’s reflected in the results,” said Jessica Walter, an assistant professor of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who co-authored an editorial on the research in JAMA...

Walter was a skeptic herself when she first learned about uterine transplants. The procedure seemed invasive and complicated. But she did her fellowship training at Penn Medicine, home to one of just four programs in the U.S. doing uterine transplants. 

“The firsts — the first time the patient received a transplant, the first time she got her period after the transplant, the positive pregnancy test,” Walter said. “Immersing myself in the science, the patients, the practitioners, and researchers — it really changed my opinion that this is science, and this is an innovation like anything else.” ...

Many transgender women are hopeful that uterine transplants might someday be available for them, but it’s likely a far-off possibility. Scientists need to rewind and do animal studies on how a uterus might fare in a different “hormonal milieu” before doing any clinical trials of the procedure with trans people, Wagner said.

Among cisgender women, more long-term research is still needed on the donors, recipients, and the children they have, experts said.

“We want other centers to start up,” Johannesson said. “Our main goal is to publish all of our data, as much as we can.”"

-via Stat, August 16, 2024

[polycrallc]

Have you ever dreamt of a career where you can make a real difference in people’s lives? Dive into the exciting world of medical research! As a Clinical Research Associate (CRA), you’ll play a pivotal role in bringing new treatments and therapies from the lab to patients who need them most. But what if you crave more than the day-to-day grind of a traditional clinical setting? We offer a dynamic environment where you can expand your horizons and explore various facets of medical research.

[nancymcl]

Just enrolled in this research program. Filled out questionnaires online and had a 15-20 minutes visit to draw blood and take body measurements. Please read and consider joining. Biggest bonus for me is the genetic testing. Like a combo of 23 and Me plus medical genetic issues screenings. The genetic testing which would cost hundreds of dollars is free as part of the program.

Look it over and consider if you would like to be included. Oh, and $25 gift card after in person appointment.

https://allofus.nih.gov/

[d0nutzgg]

Analyzing An Ataxic Dysarthria Patient's Speech with Computer Vision and Audio Processing

Hey everyone, so as you know I have been doing research on patients like myself who have Ataxic Dysarthria and other neurological speech disorders related to diseases and conditions that affect the brain. I was analyzing this file

with a few programs that I have written.

The findings are very informative and I am excited that I am able to explain this to my Tumblr following as I feel it not only promotes awareness but provides an understanding of what we go through with Ataxic Dysarthria.

Analysis of the audio file with an Intonation Visualizer I built

As you can tell this uses a heatmap to visualize loudness and softness of a speaker's voice. I used it to analyze the file and I found some really interesting and telling signs of Ataxic Dysarthria

At 0-1 seconds it is mostly pretty quiet (which is normal because it is harder for patients with AD to start their speaking off. You can notice that around 1-3 seconds it gets louder, and then when she speaks its clearer and louder than the patients voice. However the AD makes the patients speech constantly rise and fall in loudness from around -3 to 0 decibels most of the audio when the patient is speaking. The variation though between 0 and -3 varies quickly though which is a common characteristic in AD

The combination of the constant rising and falling in loudness and intonation as well as problems getting sentences started is one of the things that makes it so hard for people to understand those with Ataxic Dysarthria.

The second method I used is using a line graph (plotted) that gives an example of the rate of speech and elongated syllables of the patient.

As you can see I primarily used the Google Speech Recognition library to transcribe and count the syllables using Pyphen via "hyphenated" (elongated) words in the speech of the patient. This isn't the most effective method but it worked well for this example and here is the results plotted out using Matplotlib:

As you can see when they started talking at first there was a rise from the softer speech, as the voice of the patient got louder, they were speaking faster (common for those with AD / and HD) my hypothesis (and personal experience) is that this is how we try to get our words out where we can be understood by "forcing" out words resulting in a rise and fall of syllables / rate of speech that we see at the first part. The other spikes typically happen when she speaks but there is another spike at the end which you can see as well when the patient tries to force more words out.

This research already indicates a pretty clear pattern what is going on in the patients speech. As they try to force out words, their speech gets faster and thus gets louder as they try to communicate.

I hope this has been informative for those who don't know much about speech pathology or neurological diseases. I know it's already showing a lot of exciting progress and I am continuing to develop scripts to further research on this subject so maybe we can all understand neurological speech disorders better.

As I said, I will be posting my research and findings as I go. Thank you for following me and keeping up with my posts!

[cactidu]

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[emed123]

HIV/AIDs Research and Treatment Breakthroughs

Explore the latest breakthroughs in HIV/AIDS research and treatment, that have the potential to reshape the landscape of HIV/AIDS management.

[tenth-sentence]

The directions were provided, the advice followed, and in the thirties the Medical Research Council came to foster much of the research program in human genetics that seemed so opportune to Hogben, Fisher, Haldane, and their reform-eugenic colleagues.

"In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity" - Daniel J. Kevles

[market-insider]

Navigating the Landscape of Medical Rehabilitation Services

The global medical rehabilitation services market size is expected to reach USD 385.9 billion by 2030. Medical rehabilitation services are intended to reduce disability and optimize functioning in individuals with specific health conditions.

Gain deeper insights on the market and receive your free copy with TOC now @: Medical Rehabilitation Services Market Report

The growth of the market is attributed to the rising geriatric population, the increasing prevalence of chronic conditions among adults, and the increasing number of children with developmental conditions. These factors are anticipated to increase the demand for the services due to the need for rehabilitation to prevent, treat, and manage these conditions. Rehabilitation services help to either minimize or slow down the disabling effects of chronic conditions in patients. For instance, according to the WHO as of July 2022, 1.71 billion people suffer from musculoskeletal conditions globally. These injuries are a leading cause of disability globally that limit the mobility and agility of patients leading to early retirement.

Medical rehabilitation helps to reduce hospital stays, thereby reducing healthcare expenditure, which is anticipated to boost market growth. Further, the increasing adoption of telerehabilitation services is projected to further drive the market due to the increased affordability and reduced costs. Increasing initiatives are undertaken by the government to increase the adoption of these services to fuel the growth of the market. For instance, Community Based Inclusive Development (CBID) program launched by the Indian Government in May 2021 aimed at providing training to rehabilitation workers with ground knowledge for managing cross-disability issues in disabled individuals working with ASHA and Anganwadi workers.

The increasing number of initiatives undertaken by the key players in the market in order to provide innovative solutions to the user is estimated to further drive the market during the forecast period. For instance, in October 2021, MindMaze Healthcare announced a partnership with Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital (RBH) for its MindPod platform targeted to treat motor and cognitive restoration in stroke patients. MindPod is an animated gaming environment developed by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Department of Neurology that helps to repair the nervous systems after a stroke.