The Relationship Between Resilience, Stress & PTSD

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized by intrusive thoughts or memories of the traumatic event that hinder daily life activities of individuals with a PTSD diagnosis. Stress exposure has further been shown to exacerbate PTSD symptoms. Given that resilience has been shown to buffer levels of stress, the current study investigated whether resilience may moderate the relationship between stress and PTSD symptoms. Eighty-one participants over the age of 18 were recruited from the University of Missouri-Saint Louis and St. Louis community. Participants completed 3 self-report measures of resilience, exposure to stressful life events (e.g., Have you ever been in a car accident before?), and PTSD symptoms. In support our first hypothesis, we found that stress exposure was associated with greater PTSD symptoms (b = 2.08, t(77) = 5.02, p \u3c .001). However, resilience did not moderate the relationship between stress exposure and PTSD symptoms (B = -0.01, p = .68). Future studies may examine the influence of medications on PTSD, chronic stress, and resilience

Corporal Punishment of Children in Nine Countries as a Function of Child Gender and Parent Gender

Background. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a global perspective on corporal punishment by examining differences between mothers' and fathers' use of corporal punishment with daughters and sons in nine countries. Methods. Interviews were conducted with 1398 mothers, 1146 fathers, and 1417 children (age range = 7 to 10 years) in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. Results. Across the entire sample, 54% of girls and 58% of boys had experienced mild corporal punishment, and 13% of girls and 14% of boys had experienced severe corporal punishment by their parents or someone in their household in the last month. Seventeen percent of parents believed that the use of corporal punishment was necessary to rear the target child. Overall, boys were more frequently punished corporally than were girls, and mothers used corporal punishment more frequently than did fathers. There were significant differences across countries, with reports of corporal punishment use lowest in Sweden and highest in Kenya. Conclusion. This work establishes that the use of corporal punishment is widespread, and efforts to prevent corporal punishment from escalating into physical abuse should be commensurately widespread

Ror2 Enhances Polarity and Directional Migration of Primordial Germ Cells

The trafficking of primordial germ cells (PGCs) across multiple embryonic structures to the nascent gonads ensures the transmission of genetic information to the next generation through the gametes, yet our understanding of the mechanisms underlying PGC migration remains incomplete. Here we identify a role for the receptor tyrosine kinase-like protein Ror2 in PGC development. In a Ror2 mouse mutant we isolated in a genetic screen, PGC migration and survival are dysregulated, resulting in a diminished number of PGCs in the embryonic gonad. A similar phenotype in Wnt5a mutants suggests that Wnt5a acts as a ligand to Ror2 in PGCs, although we do not find evidence that WNT5A functions as a PGC chemoattractant. We show that cultured PGCs undergo polarization, elongation, and reorientation in response to the chemotactic factor SCF (secreted KitL), whereas Ror2 PGCs are deficient in these SCF-induced responses. In the embryo, migratory PGCs exhibit a similar elongated geometry, whereas their counterparts in Ror2 mutants are round. The protein distribution of ROR2 within PGCs is asymmetric, both in vitro and in vivo; however, this asymmetry is lost in Ror2 mutants. Together these results indicate that Ror2 acts autonomously to permit the polarized response of PGCs to KitL. We propose a model by which Wnt5a potentiates PGC chemotaxis toward secreted KitL by redistribution of Ror2 within the cell

Adaptation and psychometric properties of the ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool for use in trials (ICAST-Trial) among South African adolescents and their primary caregivers

© 2018 The Authors. Child abuse prevention research has been hampered by a lack of validated multi-dimensional non-proprietary instruments, sensitive enough to measure change in abuse victimization or behavior. This study aimed to adapt the ICAST child abuse self-report measure (parent and child) for use in intervention studies and to investigate the psychometric properties of this substantially modified tool in a South African sample. First, cross-cultural and sensitivity adaptation of the original ICAST tools resulted in two preliminary measures (ICAST-Trial adolescents: 27 items, ICAST-Trial caregivers: 19 items). Second, ICAST-Trial data from a cluster randomized trial of a parenting intervention for families with adolescents (N = 1104, 552 caregiver-adolescent dyads) was analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis established the hypothesized 6-factor (adolescents) and 4-factor (caregivers) structure. Removal of two items for adolescents and five for caregivers resulted in adequate model fit. Concurrent criterion validity analysis confirmed hypothesized relationships between child abuse and adolescent and caregiver mental health, adolescent behavior, discipline techniques and caregiver childhood abuse history. The resulting ICAST-Trial measures have 25 (adolescent) and 14 (caregiver) items respectively and measure physical, emotional and contact sexual abuse, neglect (both versions), and witnessing intimate partner violence and sexual harassment (adolescent version). The study established that both tools are sensitive to measuring change over time in response to a parenting intervention. The ICAST-Trial should have utility for evaluating the effectiveness of child abuse prevention efforts in similar socioeconomic contexts. Further research is needed to replicate these findings and examine cultural appropriateness, barriers for disclosure, and willingness to engage in child abuse research

First results from the arcminute cosmology bolometer array receiver

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Dielectric Dispersion at Microwave Frequencies of Some Low Loss Mixed Oxide Perovskites This paper reports the dielectric permittivities of several low loss ceramics of A(B1 1/2 B2 1/2 )O 3 mixed oxide perovskites

/2 )O 3 (SGT), and their modified compositions 0.7Sr(Al 1/2 Nb 1/2 )O 3 -0.3NdGaO 3 (SAN-NG) and 0.7Sr(Al 1/2 Ta 1/2 )O 3 -0.3NdGaO 3 (SAT-NG), measured at microwave frequencies. Measurements of the frequency-dependent dielectric constant and loss tangent are reported. Their loss tangent values are on the order of 10 −4 to 10 −5 , which can not be evaluated by the traditional reflection/transmission spectra or impedance measurement techniques. A parallel-plate dielectric resonance method was adopted for dielectric measurements for such low loss materials. The frequency spectra of dielectric constants and loss tangents of were investigated by the well known classical oscillator model