The Stigmatization of Trauma: A Reflection on Mahesh Dattani's Select Works

Trauma is a response to an experience that devastates a person mentally. It frequently causes shock, denial, and changes in the body, mind, and behavior. People witness difficult circumstances and long-lasting repercussions on their psychological and physical well-being due to trauma. The chosen plays Tara and 30 Days in September are examined using trauma theory. The traumatic stigma of victimized characters and their offenders are explored and brought to light in the present study. The paper maps out the common aspects of trauma in Mahesh Dattani's plays and creates a portal for scholarly reflections on the author's ideology of trauma. It attempts to explore the reason behind the abnormal behavior of the characters and argues that childhood plays a major role in shaping the behavioral attributes of the adults. The researcher has made thematic analysis on the select plays through attentive reading. The study aims to develop an in-depth understanding on the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder on the characters taken for study and the possible ways to liberate from traumatic disorder. It strives to cease the stigmatization of trauma and emphasizes the fact that proper counseling, care and support will help the trauma affected characters to recover from the disorder

An Exploratory Study of Web-Based Electronic Commerce Applications

This study explores the use of the Web in electronic commerce (EC) applications and proposes a framework for classifying such applications. The framework is based on three widely used models of organizations that identify application categories. The ability of each of these models to classify thirty common EC applications was then examined. The Value Chain model provided the best schema and is used as a basis for the proposed framework. This new framework was evaluated with the observed EC applications from a random sample of Fortune 500 firms. The results of this classification process are presented along with an industry analysis of the observations. The analysis suggests that adoption of particular EC applications can be explained both by the nature of the industry and the nature of the application. The framework and tests suggest fruitful avenues for future research. In particular, testing a broader set of firms and refinement of the methodology would be advantageous

Updating ACSM's Recommendations for Exercise Preparticipation Health Screening

The purpose of the American College of Sports Medicine's (ACSM) exercise preparticipation health screening process is to identify individuals who may be at elevated risk for exercise-related sudden cardiac death and/or acute myocardial infarction. Recent studies have suggested that using the current ACSM exercise preparticipation health screening guidelines can result in excessive physician referrals, possibly creating a barrier to exercise participation. In addition, there is considerable evidence that exercise is safe for most people and has many associated health and fitness benefits; exercise-related cardiovascular events are often preceded by warning signs/symptoms; and the cardiovascular risks associated with exercise lessen as individuals become more physically active/fit. Consequently, a scientific roundtable was convened by the ACSM in June 2014 to evaluate the current exercise preparticipation health screening recommendations. The roundtable proposed a new evidence-informed model for exercise preparticipation health screening on the basis of three factors: 1) the individual's current level of physical activity, 2) presence of signs or symptoms and/or known cardiovascular, metabolic, or renal disease, and 3) desired exercise intensity, as these variables have been identified as risk modulators of exercise-related cardiovascular events. Identifying cardiovascular disease risk factors remains an important objective of overall disease prevention and management, but risk factor profiling is no longer included in the exercise preparticipation health screening process. The new ACSM exercise preparticipation health screening recommendations reduce possible unnecessary barriers to adopting and maintaining a regular exercise program, a lifestyle of habitual physical activity, or both, and thereby emphasize the important public health message that regular physical activity is important for all individuals

The Effects of Warm-up Duration on Cycling Time Trial Performance in Trained Cyclists

. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of three different warm-up condi-tions on a 5K cycling time trial (TT). Sixteen trained cyclists completed the study. At the first testing session, participants completed a maximal graded exercise test to assess maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) and a familiarization of the TT. At three subse-quent visits, the participants completed the TT after no warm up, short warm-up of three minutes at 60% VO2max, or long warm-up of ten minutes at 60% VO2max. The warm-up was assigned in randomized order. VO2, heart rate (HR), lactate, power, and speed were assessed after the warm-up, 1K, and completion of the 5K TT. There was no dif-ference between type of warm-up for time, power, cadence, speed, VO2, HR, or lactate levels at the end of the TT. There was no significant difference between type of warm-up for time, VO2 or HR at the end of the 1K split. Warm-up length was not impactful on 5K TT performance or during the first km of the TT in trained cyclists. These results con-flict with previous evidence indicating that a warm-up in endurance events primarily improved VO2 kinetics at the onset of the exercise

Objective and Subjective Factors as Predictors of Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms in Parents of Children with Cancer – A Longitudinal Study

BACKGROUND: Parents of children with cancer report post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) years after the child's successful treatment is completed. The aim of the present study was to analyze a number of objective and subjective childhood cancer-related factors as predictors of parental PTSS. METHODS: Data were collected from 224 parents during and after their child's cancer treatment. Data sources include self-report questionnaires and medical records. RESULTS: In a multivariate hierarchical model death of the child, parent's perception of child psychological distress and total symptom burden predicted higher levels of PTSS. In addition, immigrants and unemployed parents reported higher levels of PTSS. The following factors did not predict PTSS: parent gender, family income, previous trauma, child's prognosis, treatment intensity, non-fatal relapse, and parent's satisfaction with the child's care. CONCLUSIONS: Although medical complications can be temporarily stressful, a parent's perception of the child's distress is a more powerful predictor of parental PTSS. The vulnerability of unemployed parents and immigrants should be acknowledged. In addition, findings highlight that the death of a child is as traumatic as could be expected

Regional Adoption of Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce in China: Role of E-Readiness

Adoption of B2B e-commerce is a powerful driver of economic success in developed and developing countries. However, adoption rates in developing countries lag far behind. This paper draws on the Perceived eReadiness Model and research on the influence of inter-organizational relationships and economic-cultural contexts to explain the importance of three factors—inter-organizational power dependence, cooperativeness, and regional economic-cultural differences—for achieving higher levels of Internet-based Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in the developing country of China. We employ survey data to empirically test both the individual and joint influence of these factors. The findings suggest that beyond intra-organizational and external factors, managers and policy makers wanting to promote Internet-based EDI adoption in developing countries must also account for the inter-organizational relationships of firms and the economic and cultural circumstances of the regions in which they operate

A Path Integral Approach to Age Dependent Branching Processes

Age dependent population dynamics are frequently modeled with generalizations of the classic McKendrick-von Foerster equation. These are deterministic systems, and a stochastic generalization was recently reported in [1,2]. Here we develop a fully stochastic theory for age-structured populations via quantum field theoretical Doi-Peliti techniques. This results in a path integral formulation where birth and death events correspond to cubic and quadratic interaction terms. This formalism allows us to efficiently recapitulate the results in [1,2], exemplifying the utility of Doi-Peliti methods. Furthermore, we find that the path integral formulation for age-structured moments has an exact perturbative expansion that explicitly relates to the hereditary structure between correlated individuals. These methods are then generalized with a binary fission model of cell division

Daphnia revisited: Local stability and bifurcation theory for physiologically structured population models explained by way of an example

We consider the interaction between a general size-structured consumer population and an unstructured resource. We show that stability properties and bifurcation phenomena can be understood in terms of solutions of a system of two delay equations (a renewal equation for the consumer population birth rate coupled to a delay differetial equation for the resource concentration). As many results for such systems are available, we can draw rigorous conclusions concerning dynamical behaviour from an analysis of a characteristic equation. We derive the characteristic equation for a fairly general class of population models, including those based on the Kooijman-Metz Daphnia model and a model introduced by Gurney-Nisbet and Jones et al., and next obtain various ecological insights by analytical or numerical studies of special cases

Human Papillomavirus-16 E7 Interacts with Glutathione S-Transferase P1 and Enhances Its Role in Cell Survival

Background:Human Papillomavirus (HPV)-16 is a paradigm for "high-risk" HPVs, the causative agents of virtually all cervical carcinomas. HPV E6 and E7 viral genes are usually expressed in these tumors, suggesting key roles for their gene products, the E6 and E7 oncoproteins, in inducing malignant transformation.Methodology/Principal Findings:By protein-protein interaction analysis, using mass spectrometry, we identified glutathione S-transferase P1-1 (GSTP1) as a novel cellular partner of the HPV-16 E7 oncoprotein. Following mapping of the region in the HPV-16 E7 sequence that is involved in the interaction, we generated a three-dimensional molecular model of the complex between HPV-16 E7 and GSTP1, and used this to engineer a mutant molecule of HPV-16 E7 with strongly reduced affinity for GSTP1.When expressed in HaCaT human keratinocytes, HPV-16 E7 modified the equilibrium between the oxidized and reduced forms of GSTP1, thereby inhibiting JNK phosphorylation and its ability to induce apoptosis. Using GSTP1-deficient MCF-7 cancer cells and siRNA interference targeting GSTP1 in HaCaT keratinocytes expressing either wild-type or mutant HPV-16 E7, we uncovered a pivotal role for GSTP1 in the pro-survival program elicited by its binding with HPV-16 E7.Conclusions/Significance:This study provides further evidence of the transforming abilities of this oncoprotein, setting the groundwork for devising unique molecular tools that can both interfere with the interaction between HPV-16 E7 and GSTP1 and minimize the survival of HPV-16 E7-expressing cancer cells. © 2009 Mileo et al