Monochrome males and colorful females:do gender and age influence the color and content of drawings?

Influences of educational level and gender were examined through free drawings. A total of 216 participants were recruited ranging from nursery school to university students. Using an adaptation of Turgeon’s methodology, participants were given a standardized set of colored pens and asked to draw a picture. Pictures were analyzed for the area of the page covered, colors used, number of colors used, and content. Overall, females covered more of the page, and used more colors than males. Females drew significantly more sky, flowers/trees and buildings (in most cases houses), and males drew more people and vehicles. In relation to educational level, nursery children used fewer colors than the other groups and secondary school children used more colors than primary school children. It was concluded that gender differences in content, and color, of drawings exist and these differences remain stable into adulthood. Results are discussed in terms of social and evolutionary theory

Another America is Possible: The Impact of NAFTA on the U.S. Latino Community and Lessons for Future Trade Agreements

A joint report by Labor Council for Latin American Advancement and Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. The Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) and Public Citizen celebrate the promise of increased interaction and cross-border cooperation among different nationalities on pressing global concerns. This is why we are concerned about the current model of corporate globalization being fostered by "free trade" agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Negotiated behind closed doors by unelected and largely unaccountable bureaucrats who represent mainly business interests, these trade agreements invariably fail to promote equitable regional integration and cooperation. Instead, this model of corporate globalization explicitly benefits large multinational corporations at the expense of workers, farmers, immigrants, women, people of color, the environment and democratic governance. As the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. population, Latinos are and will continue to be among the groups most affected by this model of corporate globalization. Whether newcomers from El Salvador or fifth-generation Mexican-Americans, U.S. Latinos are seeing adverse effects on their job security, health and environment. Many are immigrants who left their homelands due to the economic and social devastation caused by the current globalization model. In both the United States and in their countries of origin, Latinos have seen their environment and their livelihoods harmed by the status quo globalization package of free trade, investment and finance liberalization, new protections for foreign investors and intellectual property, and new powers that enable multinational corporations to attack state, local and federal public interest laws. In this report, we examine the impact of NAFTA on Latino communities throughout the United States. Implemented in 1994, NAFTA is the most fully realized version of the corporate globalization model. It is currently being used as the blueprint for other trade and investment agreements that the Bush Administration is pushing in the hemisphere, such as the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and an array of bilateral free trade agreements with the Andean countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) and Panama. Although we support trade, we feel that NAFTA is not the model to follow and should not be copied in these agreements

What constitutes a high quality discharge summary?:A comparison between the views of secondary and primary care doctors

This study aimed to identify any differences in opinion between UK hospital junior doctors and community General Practitioners (GPs) with respect to the ideal content and characteristics of discharge summaries, and to explore junior doctors' training for and awareness of post-discharge requirements of GPs

The Role of Information Provision in Economic Evaluations of Newborn Bloodspot Screening: A Systematic Review

BACKGROUND: The extent to which economic evaluations have included the healthcare resource and outcome-related implications of information provision in national newborn bloodspot screening programmes (NBSPs) is not currently known. OBJECTIVES: To identify if, and how, information provision has been incorporated into published economic evaluations of NBSPs. METHODS: A systematic review of economic evaluations of NBSPs (up to November 2014) was conducted. Three electronic databases were searched (Ovid: Medline, Embase, CINAHL) using an electronic search strategy combining a published economic search filter with terms related to national NBSPs and screening-related technologies. These electronic searches were supplemented by searching the NHS Economic Evaluations Database (NHS EED) and hand-searching identified study reference lists. The results were tabulated and summarised as part of a narrative synthesis. RESULTS: A total of 27 economic evaluations [screening-related technologies (n = 11) and NBSPs (n = 16)] were identified. The majority of economic evaluations did not quantify the impact of information provision in terms of healthcare costs or outcomes. Five studies did include an estimate of the time cost associated with information provision. Four studies included a value to reflect the disutility associated with parental anxiety caused by false-positive results, which was used as a proxy for the impact of imperfect information. CONCLUSION: A limited evidence base currently quantifies the impact of information provision on the healthcare costs and impact on the users of NBSPs; the parents of newborns. We suggest that economic evaluations of expanded NBSPs need to take account of information provision otherwise the impact on healthcare costs and the outcomes for newborns and their parents may be underestimated. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s40258-015-0177-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Src Kinase Inhibition Attenuates Morphine Tolerance without Affecting Reinforcement or Psychomotor Stimulation

BACKGROUND: Prolonged opioid administration leads to tolerance characterized by reduced analgesic potency. Pain management is additionally compromised by the hedonic effects of opioids, the cause of their misuse. The multifunctional protein β-arrestin2 regulates the hedonic effects of morphine and participates in tolerance. These actions might reflect µ opioid receptor up-regulation through reduced endocytosis. β-Arrestin2 also recruits kinases to µ receptors. We explored the role of Src kinase in morphine analgesic tolerance, locomotor stimulation, and reinforcement in C57BL/6 mice.METHODS: Analgesic (tail withdrawal latency; percentage of maximum possible effect, n = 8 to 16), locomotor (distance traveled, n = 7 to 8), and reinforcing (conditioned place preference, n = 7 to 8) effects of morphine were compared in wild-type, µ, µ, and β-arrestin2 mice. The influence of c-Src inhibitors dasatinib (n = 8) and PP2 (n = 12) was examined.RESULTS: Analgesia in morphine-treated wild-type mice exhibited tolerance, declining by day 10 to a median of 62% maximum possible effect (interquartile range, 29 to 92%). Tolerance was absent from mice receiving dasatinib. Tolerance was enhanced in µ mice (34% maximum possible effect; interquartile range, 5 to 52% on day 5); dasatinib attenuated tolerance (100% maximum possible effect; interquartile range, 68 to 100%), as did PP2 (91% maximum possible effect; interquartile range, 78 to 100%). By contrast, c-Src inhibition affected neither morphine-evoked locomotor stimulation nor reinforcement. Remarkably, dasatinib not only attenuated tolerance but also reversed established tolerance in µ mice.CONCLUSIONS: The ability of c-Src inhibitors to inhibit tolerance, thereby restoring analgesia, without altering the hedonic effect of morphine, makes c-Src inhibitors promising candidates as adjuncts to opioid analgesics.</p

The Predictive Validity of a Text-Based Situational Judgment Test in Undergraduate Medical and Dental School Admissions

PROBLEM: Situational judgment tests (SJTs) can be used to assess the nonacademic attributes necessary for medical and dental trainees to become successful practitioners. Evidence for SJTs' predictive validity, however, relates predominantly to selection in postgraduate settings or using video-based SJTs at the undergraduate level; it may not be directly transferable to text-based SJTs in undergraduate medical and dental school selection. This preliminary study aimed to address these gaps by assessing the validity of the UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT) text-based SJT. APPROACH: Study participants were 218 first-year medical and dental students from four UK undergraduate schools who completed the first UKCAT text-based SJT in 2013. Outcome measures were educational supervisor ratings of in-role performance in problem-based learning tutorial sessions-mean rating across the three domains measured by the SJT (integrity, perspective taking, and team involvement) and an overall judgment of performance-collected in 2015. OUTCOMES: There were significant correlations between SJT scores and both mean supervisor ratings (uncorrected r = 0.24, P < .001; corrected r = 0.34) and overall judgments (uncorrected rs = 0.16, P < .05; corrected rs = 0.20). SJT scores predicted 6% of variance in mean supervisor ratings across the three nonacademic domains. NEXT STEPS: The results provide evidence that a well-designed text-based SJT can be appropriately integrated, and add value to, the selection process for undergraduate medical and dental school. More evidence is needed regarding the longitudinal predictive validity of SJTs throughout medical and dental training pathways, with appropriate outcome criteria

Menthol reduces phototoxicity pain in a mouse model of photodynamic therapy

Phototoxicity-induced pain is a major clinical problem triggered by light acting on photosensitising drugs or endogenous porphyrins, notably protoporphyrin IX (PpIX), an intermediary in heme biosynthesis. PpIX accumulates in individuals with erythropoietic protoporphyria and is elevated during photodynamic therapy subsequent to application of 5- aminolevulinic acid (ALA). Pain occurs during irradiation of PpIX and responds poorly to conventional analgesics. Our objective was to develop a model of PpIX phototoxicity pain and investigate the potential of menthol as an analgesic. Application of ALA to the tails of C57 black and SWISS white mice caused PpIX accumulation and nociception during irradiation (630 nm at 3.7 J/cm2 ). Despite similar PpIX accumulation, C57 mice exhibited less pain behavior compared to SWISS mice due to light absorption by pigmentation. Irradiation of ALA-treated dorsal root ganglion neurons caused phototoxicity-evoked action potentials (APs) in both mouse strains. The antioxidant L-tryptophan increased the light dose required to elicit such APs. By contrast, the addition of keratinocytes to neuronal cultures decreased the threshold for APs, suggesting a requirement for proliferating cells. Inhibition of fatty acid amide hydrolase, selective antagonism of TRPV1 or the application of lidocaine or its quaternary derivative QX-314, reduced AP frequency, while antagonism of TRPA1 had no effect. These results suggest that products of singlet O2-mediated lipid peroxidation trigger nociceptor activation via TRPV1. Menthol inhibited phototoxicity-evoked APs and reduced pain behavior when applied topically to mice. These findings suggest that menthol might provide pain relief in patients experiencing PpIXphototoxicity pain caused by photodynamic therapy or erythropoietic protoporphyria

Looking back, looking forward: recovery journeys in a high secure hospital

A qualitative study of staff and service users’ views of recovery was undertaken in a UK high secure hospital working to implement recovery practices. 30 staff and 25 service users participated in semi-structured interviews or focus groups. Thematic analysis identified four broad accounts of how recovery was made sense of in the high secure environment: the importance of meaningful occupation; valuing relationships; recovery journeys and dialogue with the past; and recovery as personal responsibility. These themes are discussed with an emphasis on service user strategies of cooperation or resistance, respectively advancing or impeding progress through the system. In this context the notion of cooperation is, for many, commensurate with compliance with a dominant medical model. The policy framing of recovery opens up contemplation of treatment alternatives, more participatory approaches to risk management, and emphasise the value of relational skills, but may not elude the overarching bio-psychiatric episteme

West Coast

Scholarships & Prizes Office. University of Sydne

Staging the suburb : imagination, transformation and suburbia in Australian poetry

The suburbs are an important element in the physical and imaginary landscapes of this country. They are where more than 95% of the population lives and makes its home; and they have become integral to our imagining of the average citizen and their hopes, dreams and political inclinations. But this formulation does not capture the imaginative and dramatic uses to which the suburbs have been put, or their changing representation in literature and criticism. The two Australian poets that I consider in this thesis – Gwen Harwood and Dorothy Porter – were writing about suburbia in different eras, and against different conceptions of the space, yet both use the suburbs in passionate and theatrical ways. Harwood was writing mostly in the conservative Menzies era, when literary depictions of the suburb tended to portray it as stultifying, homogenous and dull. She often works with pseudonymous personae – including a suburban housewife, exiled academics from Old Europe and a young radical – and with recurring characters to satirise assumptions about suburbia and the people who inhabit it; or charges her more personal suburban poems with a range of competing and contradictory emotions, and with claims for the coexistence there of art and domesticity, transcendence and routine. Porter’s poetry mostly dates from the 1980s to the turn of the millennium, an era with a more sympathetic view of the suburbs, and their ordinariness and diversity. Her theatricality plays out in the dramatic monologues and masks that she uses to draw attention to the extreme experiences and conditions that are always a part of everyday life, and to the wild energies and vitality which can spring from ordinary objects and spaces. The thesis begins by charting the shifting cultural and historical perspectives on the Australian suburb, before moving to a close analysis of the poetry of Harwood and Porter, in order to examine each poet’s complex and often ambivalent response to suburban space and the lives lived within it; the claims each makes for the imaginative perspectives, emotions and intensities that are contained within domestic environments; and the ways in which the stuff of the everyday can be used to dramatise the self and its endeavours. The argument then moves to my creative examination of these themes in the book-length collection of poems titled ‘Domestic Interior.’ In these poems I explore the interplay between memory, experience and place, with how places become symbolic and poetic, and how this process intersects with ideas of belonging, identity, the everyday and the imaginary, the public and the private worlds. They explore what I see as a ‘featurist aesthetic’ – drawing on and subverting Robin Boyd’s description of the superficial elaborations of Australian suburban architecture. I see this suburban aesthetic as employing small details to build lively and multivalent spaces and scenes, by surrounding them with layers of symbolic objects, apprehended details, memories and sensations