MSIT No’Kmaq: An Indigenous framework for understanding children’s social emotional attachment

MSIT No’Kmaq is a core Indigenous philosophy that understands life as a broad series of interconnectedness.  This article highlights principles of MSIT No’Kmaq in order to understand the philosophy as an Indigenous framework for understanding children’s social emotional development.  MSIT No’Kmaq is explored in the context of the contemporary social issues that Indigenous families face, and implications on implementing MSIT No’Kmaq as a framework for promoting healthy social emotional outcomes for children are explored

Functional and Biochemical Alterations of the Medial Frontal Cortex in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Context: The medial frontal cortex (MFC), including the dorsal anterior cingulate (dAC) and supplementary motor area (SMA), is critical for adaptive and inhibitory control of behaviour. Abnormally high MFC activity has been a consistent finding in functional neuroimaging studies of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, the precise regions and the neural alterations associated with this abnormality remain unclear. Objective: To examine the functional and biochemical properties of the MFC in patients with OCD. Design: Cross-sectional design combining volume localized proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) and functional MRI (fMRI) with an inhibitory control paradigm (the Multi-Source Interference Task; MSIT) designed to activate the MFC. Setting: Healthy control participants and OCD patients recruited from the general community. Participants: Nineteen OCD patients (10 male, and 9 female) and nineteen age, gender, education and intelligence-matched healthy control participants. Main Outcome Measures: Psychometric measures of symptom severity, MSIT behavioural performance, blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) activation and 1H-MRS brain metabolite concentrations. Results: MSIT behavioural performance did not differ between OCD patients and control subjects. Reaction-time interference and response errors were correlated with BOLD activation in the dAC region in both groups. Relative to control subjects, OCD patients showed hyper- activation of the SMA during high response-conflict (incongruent > congruent) trials and hyper-activation of the rostral anterior cingulate (rAC) region during low response- conflict (incongruent < congruent) trials. OCD patients also showed reduced levels of neuronal N-acetylaspartate in the dAC region, which was negatively correlated with their BOLD activation of the region. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that hyper-activation of the medial frontal cortex in OCD patients may be a compensatory response to neural pathology in the region. This relationship may partly explain the nature of inhibitory control deficits that are frequently seen in this group and may serve as a focus of future treatment studies

Charge and Spin Gap Formation in Exactly Solvable Hubbard Chains with Long-Rang Hopping

We discuss the transition from a metal to charge or spin insulating phases characterized by the opening of a gap in the charge or spin excitation spectra, respectively. These transitions are addressed within the context of two exactly solvable Hubbard and tJ chains with long range, $1/r$ hopping. We discuss the specific heat, compressibility, and magnetic susceptibility of these models as a function of temperature, band filling, and interaction strength. We then use conformal field theory techniques to extract ground state correlation functions. Finally, by employing the $g$-ology analysis we show that the charge insulator transition is accompanied by an infinite discontinuity in the Drude weight of the electrical conductivity. While the magnetic properties of these models reflect the genuine features of strongly correlated electron systems, the charge transport properties, especially near the Mott-Hubbard transition, display a non-generic behavior.Comment: 47 pages, REVTEX 3.0, 14 postscript figures available form [email protected] (submitted using the figures-command

Prehypertensive blood pressures and regional cerebral blood flow independently relate to cognitive performance in midlife

Background High blood pressure is thought to contribute to dementia in late life, but our understanding of the relationship between individual differences in blood pressure ( BP ) and cognitive functioning is incomplete. In this study, cognitive performance in nonhypertensive midlife adults was examined as a function of resting BP and regional cerebral blood flow ( rCBF ) responses during cognitive testing. We hypothesized that BP would be negatively related to cognitive performance and that cognitive performance would also be related to rCBF responses within areas related to BP control. We explored whether deficits related to systolic BP might be explained by rCBF responses to mental challenge. Methods and Results Healthy midlife participants (n=227) received neuropsychological testing and performed cognitive tasks in a magnetic resonance imaging scanner. A pseudocontinuous arterial spin labeling sequence assessed rCBF in brain areas related to BP in prior studies. Systolic BP was negatively related to 4 of 5 neuropsychological factors (standardized β&gt;0.13): memory, working memory, executive function, and mental efficiency. The rCBF in 2 brain regions of interest was similarly related to memory, executive function, and working memory (standardized β&gt;0.17); however, rCBF responses did not explain the relationship between resting systolic BP and cognitive performance. Conclusions Relationships at midlife between prehypertensive levels of systolic BP and both cognitive and brain function were modest but suggested the possible value of midlife intervention. </jats:sec

Teachers' Sickness Absence in Primary Schools: A Panel Data Multilevel Analysis

This paper uses longitudinal employer–employee data and multilevel models to examine both observed and unobserved variation of the probability and length of certified and self-certified sickness absence for Norwegian primary school teachers. We argue that self-certified absences are particularly prone to moral hazard. We find that most of the observed teacher, school and municipality characteristics are significantly associated with the probability and the length of sickness absence. However, most of the unexplained variation is attributed to teacher factors rather than influenced by variation at the school or municipality levels. Teacher characteristics that may be associated with less attachment to the workplace increase the probability of self-certified absences. Moreover, the unexplained variation in schools and at municipality level is higher for self-certified than for certified sickness absence. There may be some scope for reducing self-certified absence by improving work conditions or changing administrative practices, but our main policy conclusion is that to reduce sickness absence, the main focus must be on individual health and the incentives to report sick.sickness absence; employer-employee data; multilevel analysis

Sickness Absence and the Effects of Having a Spouse - Can twins reveal the selection effect?

Individuals that are married are often found to be healthier than singles. A crucial issue is to distinguish if this is due to a selection effect or due to a true protective effect of partnership. The purpose of this study is to distinguish these effects as explanations for a lower risk of having long-term sickness among individuals with a spouse. In this study an innovative method based on information on twins is developed to reveal the selection effect into partnership that provides a lower risk for long-term sickness absence. Important selections are found for both male and female samples.sickness absence; spouse; heterogeneity; selection; twins

Marital Status and Unobserved Heterogeneity - Do twins suggest a genetic inheritance?

The purpose of this study is to reveal the importance of unobserved heterogeneity on marital status. The results for monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic twins indicate an important genetic component in marital status. Simply controlling for marital status could be misleadingmarriage; divorce; heterogeneity; selection; twins