67 research outputs found
Conceptualization of children and adolescents with Tourette syndrome and a complex presentation of comorbidity
No full textTourette Syndrome (TS) is a disorder that begins in childhood. Children and adolescents with TS are commonly affected by a complex picture of comorbid disorders. Psychological conceptualization and treatment of children and adolescents with TS is a challenge for many clinicians. In response to this challenge, this project serves as a Conceptualization Guide for mental health clinicians who are working with children and adolescents with TS. The Guide is intended to aid the psychological treatment of individuals with TS by providing detailed instructions on how to conceptualize a TS case. To do so, the Guide provides information that is intended to foster an understanding of the etiological and maintaining factors of reported problems. Also, the Guide describes a structured approach to assessing, formulating, and treatment planning for a TS case. This approach includes the administration of a detailed assessment questionnaire that consists of a General Questionnaire and five Modules that are administered based on clinical judgment of necessity. The General Questionnaire consists of questions that help the clinician to gain a comprehensive picture of the history and current functioning of the child with TS. The five modules address the following comorbidities: ADHD, OCD, Anxiety Disorders, Depression and Behavioral Problems. Lastly, the Guide discusses how the assessment questionnaire forms can be used in conjunction with a computer database to track individual client data on the various targeted problems as a means to measure treatment progress and results.Psy.DIncludes bibliographical referencesby Shawn Christopher Ewban
Nitrate Photochemistry and Interrelated Chemical Phenomena in Ice
No full textThe detailed photochemistry of nitrate ions trapped within polycrystalline ice has been investigated. Using a variety of experimental techniques, the photolysis of NO3- within ice is shown to produce NO, HONO, NO2- and NO2 as stable and metastable products. The gaseous products are released to the overlying gas phase. Implications of these results for chemical transformations in polar regions are discussed.
The isotopic composition of nitrate in polar ice cores exhibits mass-independent fractionation (?????~ 25 ‰). However, in this study it is shown that nitrate photolysis is a mass-dependent process and that nitrate can be a conservative tracer for past atmospheric conditions.
Photolysis of NO3- produces nitrite ion within ice and the rate of photolysis increases with increasing temperature. A linear Arrhenius temperature dependence for the measured quantum yield, , was found both above and below the normal melting point of water ice. These results indicate that nitrate photochemistry occurs primarily in the quasi-liquid layer (QLL), which is a disordered layer of ice that has chemical properties closer to water than solid crystalline ice.
The photochemical production of gas-phase NO and NO2 from ice-phase nitrate was determined in real-time using laser-induced fluorescence, two-photon laser-induced fluorescence, and chemiluminescence. These results showed that NO and NO2, which was produced at lower temperatures is released in much larger quantities at ?7 ± 2 oC from subsurface regions of the QLL or at the ice/vapor interface. These results highlight the importance of the QLL and sub-eutectic sub-surface solutions at grain boundaries in polycrystalline ice. In addition, it was shown that the total amount of NO2 that is photodesorbed scales nonlinearly with [NO3?]o or the heating rate. Evidence for extensive chemical and photochemical losses of NO2 before release into the gas-phase is presented. In the case of NO, photo-induced desportion occured at ~ ?20 oC, which suggests a preferential retention of NO2 over NO in the nanoporous water channels of the QLL domains.
The impact of the specific nature of the chemical solutes in water on the nominal pH of the QLL was explored using the temperature dependence of 19F-NMR chemical shifts of 3-fluorobenzoic acid. The 19F-NMR measurements during the freezing of NaCl, NaNO2 and KNO3 solutions indicated that the QLL domains within the polycrystalline ice were shifted to higher pH values, while the freezing of NH4OH or Na2SO4 solutions produced QLL domains that showed a drop in pH (i.e., protons were released from the ice-phase to the QLL). These results help explain the release of HONO which is formed by protonation of NO2- within the QLL domains and are relevant to the observed release of nitrous acid to the atmospheric boundary layer in the Arctic and Antarctic.</p
Harmony and discord within the English ‘counter-culture’, 1965-1975, with particular reference to the ‘rock operas’ Hair, Godspell, Tommy and Jesus Christ Superstar
No full textPhDThis thesis considers the discrete, historically-specific theatrical and musical sub-genre of ‘Rock Opera’ as a lens through which to examine the cultural, political and social changes that are widely assumed to have characterised ‘The Sixties’ in Britain. The musical and dramatic texts, creation and production of Hair (1967), Tommy (1969), Godspell (1971), Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) and other neglected ‘Rock Operas’ of the period are analysed. Their great popularity with ‘mainstream’ audiences is considered and contrasted with the overwhelmingly negative and often internally contradictory reaction towards them from the English ‘counter-culture’. This examination offers new insights into both the ‘counter-culture’ and the ‘mainstream’ against which it claimed to define and differentiate itself.
The four ‘Rock Operas’, two of which are based upon Christian scriptures, are considered as narratives of spiritual quest. The relationship between the often controversial quests for re-defined forms of faith and the apparently precipitous ‘secularization’ and ‘de-Christianization’ of British society during the 1960s and 1970s is considered.
The thesis therefore analyses the ‘Rock Operas’ as significant, enlightening prisms through which to view many of the profound societal debates – over ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ in the widest senses, sexuality, the Vietnam war, generational conflict, drugs and ‘spiritual enlightenment’, and race – which were, to some considerable extent, elevated onto the national, political agenda by the activities of the broadly-defined ‘counter-culture’. It considers subsequent representations of the ‘counter-culture’ as the root of a contested but enduring popular legacy of ‘The Sixties' as a period of profound cultural change
Beyond baseline and follow-up : the case for more t in experiments
No full textThe vast majority of randomized experiments in economics rely on a single baseline and single follow-up survey. If multiple follow-ups are conducted, the reason is typically to examine the trajectory of impact effects, so that in effect only one follow-up round is being used to estimate each treatment effect of interest. While such a design is suitable for study of highly autocorrelated and relatively precisely measured outcomes in the health and education domains, this paper makes the case that it is unlikely to be optimal for measuring noisy and relatively less autocorrelated outcomes such as business profits, household incomes and expenditures, and episodic health outcomes. Taking multiple measurements of such outcomes at relatively short intervals allows the researcher to average out noise, increasing power. When the outcomes have low autocorrelation, it can make sense to do no baseline at all. Moreover, the author shows how for such outcomes, more power can be achieved with multiple follow-ups than allocating the same total sample size over a single follow-up and baseline. The analysis highlights the large gains in power from ANCOVA rather than difference-in-differences when autocorrelations are low and a baseline is taken. The paper discusses the issues involved in multiple measurements, and makes recommendations for the design of experiments and related non-experimental impact evaluations.Scientific Research&Science Parks,Science Education,Statistical&Mathematical Sciences,Disease Control&Prevention,Economic Theory&Research
Shifting ground: Can community development loan funds continue to serve the neediest borrowers?
No full textCommunity development financial institutions (CDFIs) are designed to improve economic conditions for low-income individuals and communities by providing a range of financial products and services that often are not available from mainstream lenders and financiers. ; Part I of this paper reviews CDLF origins, structures, and current activities. Part II discusses the field’s historic sources of subsidized capital and why they have shrunk. Part III reviews potential new sources of capital and the organizational ways that CDLFs are responding to their changed environment. The paper concludes with recommendations for CDLFs, funders, and policy makers.Community development ; Loans
Landscape of Gene Regulatory Network Motifs
No full textabstract: The human transcriptional regulatory machine utilizes hundreds of transcription factors which bind to specific genic sites resulting in either activation or repression of targeted genes. Networks comprised of nodes and edges can be constructed to model the relationships of regulators and their targets. Within these biological networks small enriched structural patterns containing at least three nodes can be identified as potential building blocks from which a network is organized. A first iteration computational pipeline was designed to generate a disease specific gene regulatory network for motif detection using established computational tools. The first goal was to identify motifs that can express themselves in a state that results in differential patient survival in one of the 32 different cancer types studied. This study identified issues for detecting strongly correlated motifs that also effect patient survival, yielding preliminary results for possible driving cancer etiology. Second, a comparison was performed for the topology of network motifs across multiple different data types to identify possible divergence from a conserved enrichment pattern in network perturbing diseases. The topology of enriched motifs across all the datasets converged upon a single conserved pattern reported in a previous study which did not appear to diverge dependent upon the type of disease. This report highlights possible methods to improve detection of disease driving motifs that can aid in identifying possible treatment targets in cancer. Finally, networks where only minimally perturbed, suggesting that regulatory programs were run from evolved circuits into a cancer context.Dissertation/ThesisMasters Thesis Biomedical Engineering 202
Circadian Phase-Shifting Effects of Bright Light, Exercise, and Bright Light + Exercise
No full textabstract: Limited research has compared the circadian phase-shifting effects of bright light and exercise and additive effects of these stimuli. The aim of this study was to compare the phase-delaying effects of late night bright light, late night exercise, and late evening bright light followed by early morning exercise. In a within-subjects, counterbalanced design, 6 young adults completed each of three 2.5-day protocols. Participants followed a 3-h ultra-short sleep-wake cycle, involving wakefulness in dim light for 2h, followed by attempted sleep in darkness for 1 h, repeated throughout each protocol. On night 2 of each protocol, participants received either (1) bright light alone (5,000 lux) from 2210–2340 h, (2) treadmill exercise alone from 2210–2340 h, or (3) bright light (2210–2340 h) followed by exercise from 0410–0540 h. Urine was collected every 90 min. Shifts in the 6-sulphatoxymelatonin (aMT6s) cosine acrophase from baseline to post-treatment were compared between treatments. Analyses revealed a significant additive phase-delaying effect of bright light + exercise (80.8 ± 11.6 [SD] min) compared with exercise alone (47.3 ± 21.6 min), and a similar phase delay following bright light alone (56.6 ± 15.2 min) and exercise alone administered for the same duration and at the same time of night. Thus, the data suggest that late night bright light followed by early morning exercise can have an additive circadian phase-shifting effect.The final version of this article, as published in Journal of Circadian Rhythms, can be viewed online at: http://www.jcircadianrhythms.com/article/10.5334/jcr.137
The effect of training background and acute exercise type on the cytokine response to exercise
No full textAcute aerobic and resistance training exercise provide different stimulus to the body. Chronic training in either of these modalities leads to adaptations that alter the body’s response to acute exercise bouts. Growth Hormone (GH), Interleukin-6 (IL-6), and Interleukin-10 (IL-10) are all well studied biomarkers in regard to both their acute response to exercise, as well as the adaptations to that response from chronic training. Purpose: To compare the effect of chronic endurance (END) or resistance (RES) training on the acute GH, IL-6 and IL-10 responses to trained versus novel exercise bouts. Methods: Chronically END (n=10; Mage= 24.8±4.92 years; Mht= 177.3±5.8 cm; Mwt= 68.9±4 kg; M%BF = 10.1±4.1%) and RES (n=10; Mage= 23.2±2.8 years; Mht= 173.1±8.1 cm; Mwt= 76.8±8.8 kg; M%BF = 15.5±6%) trained men were taken through separate prescribed weight training (WT) and aerobic (AER) exercise bouts based on earlier testing. Subjects arrived 2hr fasted and euhydrated and had blood drawn pre- (T0), 5 minutes (T1) and 60 minutes (T2) post exercise bout. Blood was then processed, and GH, IL-6, and IL-10 values were ascertained by hormone specific ELISA and custom human cytokine panels, respectively. Results: GH ad a significant main effect for time (P<.05) and a significant effect for time by condition (P<.05). For IL-6, there was a trend for a main effect of time (P<.10), with no significant differences between groups for either condition. IL-10 had a trend for a main effect of condition as well as time (P<.10), with the RES group having no difference in response between bouts and the END group only differing at T2 with the AE bout eliciting a greater response (P<.05). Conclusions: GH’s role as a differential energy sensor was demonstrated by the difference in responses between conditions, while the lack of response by IL-6 provides insights to other factors that may need to be controlled for in future studies. The unexpected disconnect between the IL-6 and IL-10 response also demonstrates the need for continued exploration into the cytokine signaling mechanisms in response to exercise.M.S.Includes bibliographical reference
Hepatic mTORC1 Opposes Impaired Insulin Action to Control Mitochondrial Metabolism in Obesity
No full textSummaryDysregulated mitochondrial metabolism during hepatic insulin resistance may contribute to pathophysiologies ranging from elevated glucose production to hepatocellular oxidative stress and inflammation. Given that obesity impairs insulin action but paradoxically activates mTORC1, we tested whether insulin action and mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) contribute to altered in vivo hepatic mitochondrial metabolism. Loss of hepatic insulin action for 2 weeks caused increased gluconeogenesis, mitochondrial anaplerosis, tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle oxidation, and ketogenesis. However, activation of mTORC1, induced by the loss of hepatic Tsc1, suppressed these fluxes. Only glycogen synthesis was impaired by both loss of insulin receptor and mTORC1 activation. Mice with a double knockout of the insulin receptor and Tsc1 had larger livers, hyperglycemia, severely impaired glycogen storage, and suppressed ketogenesis, as compared to those with loss of the liver insulin receptor alone. Thus, activation of hepatic mTORC1 opposes the catabolic effects of impaired insulin action under some nutritional states
Author response: The rate of transient beta frequency events predicts behavior across tasks and species
No full text- …
