43618 research outputs found
Sort by
Identification of Neural Deficits Associated with Upper Extremity Dysfunction in Persons with Multiple Sclerosis
Full text linkMultiple Sclerosis is a demyelinating neurodegenerative disease prevalent in approximately 2.8 million people worldwide. The heterogeneous presentation of symptoms arising from demyelination and lesions within the central nervous system creates challenges in understand how underlying pathophysiology is related to disabilities common in persons with Multiple Sclerosis (PwMS). Upper extremity dysfunction, present in up to 80% of PwMS, makes it difficult to achieve daily life activities such as brushing teeth or working on a computer. Currently there is little consensus as to how the underlying functional neural interactions manifest as upper extremity dysfunction in PwMS. This dissertation aims to better understand the disruption in neural pathways which mediate sensorimotor control during visually guided reach to identify common deficits across levels of upper extremity impairment in PwMS. To do this, PwMS and unimpaired adults completed a visually guided reach task with electroencephalography collected simultaneously. The specific aims of this study were to: 1) Determine how sensorimotor control is altered during goal-directed movement in people with Multiple Sclerosis; 2) Identify how increased visual feedback processing delays in people with Multiple Sclerosis are related to cortical-cerebellar functional connectivity; 3) Characterize how Multiple Sclerosis impacts the brain networks that mediate visually guided reach. We show that increased visual response delays differentially impact the neural response in PwMS with more and less impairment via decreased amplitude and latency respectfully. During movement phases more reliant on visual feedback processing, increased functional connectivity of sensory processing regions is common across PwMS but those with greater motor impairment also have motor processing correlates to behavioral measures of dysfunction. Finally increased demand on sensory processing regions throughout movement help mitigate motor deficits for less impaired PwMS while those with more impairment require additional recruitment from sensory, motor, and frontal regions to complete a visually guided movement. These results can be used to facilitate future rehabilitative efforts in reducing motor impairments in PwMS
Clients\u27 Preferences for Their Therapists\u27 Relational Styles in Psychotherapy: A Consensual Qualitative Research Study
Full text linkBackground
Accommodating clients\u27 preferences is a cornerstone of evidence-based practice. However, little is known of clients\u27 preferences for their therapists\u27 relational styles. Methods
We conducted a secondary analysis focused on identifying clients\u27 preferences for their therapists\u27 relational styles, using original data from Cooper et al.\u27s (2023) consensual qualitative research (CQR) study. Initial data collection involved conducting semi-structured interviews with a cohort of 13 clients who had completed up to 24 sessions of pluralistic psychotherapy. Of these participants, 10 identified as female and three identified as male. Findings
Four themes and six sub-themes emerged: (1) Clients preferred their therapist to be active/not passively disengaged and to provide input, challenge and guidance (n = 10); (2) Clients preferred their therapist to display relatedness, warmth and validation (n = 8); (3) Clients preferred some flexibility, attunement and for their therapist to adapt the therapy to their unique needs (n = 5); (4) Clients preferred to be listened to, having a space to talk and to explore (n = 4). Implications for Practice
The themes offer insights that can serve as a foundational framework for future research and contribute to the development of training programmes tailored to enhance counselling psychologists\u27 preference work and relational styles
The Truth Is Out There: UFO Conspiracy and Science Fiction
Full text linkThe origin point of UFO subculture is typically dated to June 24, 1947, when an initial report of a flying saucer near Mount Rainier by Washingtonian Kenneth Arnold quickly sparked hundreds of similar reports nationwide (with varying degrees of irony, earnestness, originality, and reliability). The most famous of these claims is almost certainly one originating in Roswell, New Mexico, that July: a purported crash of an alien spacecraft that has remained a source of paranoid fascination for UFO watchers all over the world ever since. Many of the other 1947 claims also retain continued importance in the UFO community, like the so-called Maury Island hoax (which Arnold himself helped investigate), in which one of the claimants was said to have been contacted by a man in a dark suit and told not to discuss the matter further with anyone. This is now recognized as one of the earliest known formulations of what would ultimately become the Men in Black submyth
Using Expert Knowledge and Peer Review to Create a Reproducible Process for the NAHRS Nursing Essential Resources List (NNERL)
Full text linkBackground: Librarians have relied on resource lists for developing nursing collections, but these lists are usually in static or subscription-based formats. An example of this is the 26th edition of the Essential Nursing Resources last published in 2012. The Nursing and Allied Health Resources and Services (NAHRS) Caucus Nursing Essential Resources List (NNERL) Task Force has been working on a new list since Fall 2020. The goal of the Task Force is to create a nursing resource list that represents current materials and formats, uses a selection process that is transparent and reproducible, and will be available to a broad audience.
Case Presentation: Working from the Essential Nursing Resources 26th edition, the NNERL Task Force updated the purpose statement then began reviewing the resources on the list. Two working groups were formed: 1) an evaluation rubric working group developed a tool to evaluate the resources and 2) a tagging work group developed guidelines for creating metadata and “tags.” Volunteers were recruited from the NAHRS Caucus to tag the resources. Lastly, the Task Force finalized the list of resources in the NNERL then cleaned and reconciled the data.
Conclusions: The final version of the NNERL will be published in Airtable, a cloud-based project management product, that will include metadata for every item on the list. The NNERL will be copyrighted to the NAHRS NNERL Task Force and made available through the Open Science Framework (OSF) under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Creative Commons License
Visible-Light Driven Copper Catalyzed Dehalogenation Transformations
No full textThroughout the last several decades, photochemistry has received widespread research interest due to its mild conditions and its ability to generate highly reactive radical intermediates that demonstrate unprecedented reactivity, and selectivity. The vast majority of recent photochemistry literature utilize common Ir and Ru photosensitizers that have long-lived excited states. While such photosensitizers are efficient photooxidants and/or photoreductants, there has been an increase in research dedicated to developing earth-abundant transition metals as potential photocatalysts. Interestingly, Cu has demonstrated itself to be a successful candidate for photocatalysis. Many Cu-catalyzed light-driven processes that have been recently investigated operate through a different mechanism than the established photosensitizers. Instead of being limited to substrate activation, Cu photocatalysts have demonstrated that in addition to harnessing visible light, they are also involved in key bond-breaking and bond-forming steps in the mechanism. Further research of Cu photocatalytic mechanisms will likely lead to an enhanced understanding of the roles of Cu photocatalysts, and as a result these Cu photocatalysts can further be applied to other visible light driven organic reactions. Herein, this thesis presents three research projects dedicated to studying copper’s role in different visible-light-driven organic reactions. A developed Cu (II) system was able to successfully dechlorinate trichloroacetic acid to dichloroacetic acid through visible-light driven catalysis. Next, a catalytic method, which features Cu (I) photocatalysis, environmentally benign ascorbic acid as the hydrogen atom source and water/ethanol as the solvent, was further applied to the dehalogenation of a variety of halocarboxylic acids and amides. Finally, a method was developed to synthesize γ-lactams and γ-lactones through visible-light driven Cu (I) catalysis via [3+2] cycloaddition of α-chlorocarbonyl species and alkenes
(WP 2025-05) Expanding Black Reparations with Human and Social Capital Investments
Full text linkDisadvantaged social groups in the US suffered disproportionately in the covid pandemic and Great Recession, worsening high levels of inequality associated with their post-1980 declining intergenerational income mobility. For black Americans this reflects the long history of racial discrimination beginning with slavery. Reparations paid to descendants of enslaved individuals to eliminate the black-white wealth gap is a step toward addressing this history. A further needed step is to build predominantly black communities human and social capital through public investments in community health care centers (CHCs) and historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). There is considerable evidence that investments in early childhood education positively affect later school performance, income and earnings, higher education, crime, and other well-being outcomes. CHCs and HBCUs promote early childhood education. This paper argues compensation is due to both individuals and their communities, and reparations payments should be accompanied by public investments in those communities
A Heterogeneous Graph-Based Multi-Task Learning for Fault Event Diagnosis in Smart Grid
Full text linkPrecise and timely fault diagnosis is a prerequisite for a distribution system to ensure minimum downtime and maintain reliable operation. This necessitates access to a comprehensive procedure that can provide the grid operators with insightful information in the case of a fault event. In this paper, we propose a heterogeneous multi-task learning graph neural network (MTL-GNN) capable of detecting, locating and classifying faults in addition to providing an estimate of the fault resistance and current. Using a graph neural network (GNN) allows for learning the topological representation of the distribution system as well as feature learning through a message-passing scheme. We investigate the robustness of our proposed model using the IEEE-123 test feeder system. This work also proposes a novel GNN-based explainability method to identify key nodes in the distribution system which then facilitates informed sparse measurements. Numerical tests validate the performance of the model across all tasks