Investigation of Oncogenic RAS and Endoplasmic Reticulum-Mitochondria Calcium Flux and their Relationship in the Context of Tumorigenesis

Intracellular calcium as a signaling molecule is a pervasive feature of cellular pathways, especially those that manage internal homeostasis and transitions through the cell cycle, so much so that regulated, responsive calcium flux between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and the mitochondria has been suggested to play a major role in cancer development. Another factor commonly implicated in tumorigenesis is RAS, an oncogene that controls signaling for many pathways that are also regulated by calcium. While both calcium and oncogenic RAS signaling are implicated in cancer development, possible links between them have yet to be determined. The identification of these links will provide a further understanding of the mechanisms of cancer development and potential therapeutic targets for cancer treatment

A Case Study of Oncological Aphasia: Clinical Profile and Response to Integrated Language Treatment

Purpose: A large body of research addresses the best methods and practices to treat individuals with aphasia. Much of this research focuses on individuals who have aphasia secondary to stroke. While the most common cause of aphasia is stroke, aphasia can also result from other brain diseases or injury. Relatively little research has focused on oncological aphasia resulting from brain cancer. This research examined aphasia treatment efficacy in an individual with aphasia following removal of a brain tumor. Methods: Standardized testing was used to evaluate the clinical profile of an individual with oncological aphasia. An integrated language treatment approach was implemented with one participant with fluent aphasia using a multiple baseline across behaviors design. CIUs/utterances and percentage of CIUs produced were compared across baseline, treatment and post-treatment phases with four different conversational partners. Treatment effect size was calculated with each conversational partner. Standardized assessments were also administered before and after treatment. Results: Small treatment effect sizes were found with three of the four conversational partners. The participant showed generalization of skills acquired on standardized motor speech, spoken language, memory, and functional communication measures. Discussion: Findings add to evidence in support of integrated treatment approaches and add to the knowledge of the baseline performance of individuals with aphasia due to brain tumor removal. Findings suggest that effects of integrated treatment extend to functional communication

An Investigation of the Relationships Among Religiousness, Stress, and Collegiate Athlete Satisfaction

In this 2023 study, collegiate athletes at Bridgewater College were examined for their athlete satisfaction. Due to minimal research in collegiate athletes and athlete satisfaction, this research focused on if religiousness was a predictor of athlete satisfaction. 72 athletes participated in the survey. Using the Athlete Satisfaction Questionnaire (Reimer & Chelladurai, 1998), there were eleven facets of interest to examine if religiousness predicted satisfaction. Results showed that Non-Organizational Religious Activity is a significant predictor for Team Integration and Ethics over and above gender and perceived vulnerability to stress. These findings are important to Sports Psychology and coaches because it will help to further understand what contributes to the satisfaction of collegiate athletes

Comparison of the generic neuronal differentiation and neuron subtype specification functions of mammalian achaete-scute and atonal homologs in cultured neural progenitor cells

In the vertebrate peripheral nervous system, the proneural genes neurogenin 1 and neurogenin 2 (Ngn1 and Ngn2), and Mash1 are required for sensory and autonomic neurogenesis, respectively. In cultures of neural tube-derived, primitive PNS progenitors NGNs promote expression of sensory markers and MASH1 that of autonomic markers. These effects do not simply reflect enhanced neuronal differentiation, suggesting that both bHLH factors also specify neuronal identity like their Drosophila counterparts. At high concentrations of BMP2 or in neural crest stem cells (NCSCs), however, NGNs like MASH1 promote only autonomic marker expression. These data suggest that that the identity specification function of NGNs is more sensitive to context than is that of MASH1. In NCSCs, MASH1 is more sensitive to Notch-mediated inhibition of neurogenesis and cell cycle arrest, than are the NGNs. Thus, the two proneural genes differ in other functional properties besides the neuron subtype identities they can promote. These properties may explain cellular differences between MASH1- and NGN-dependent lineages in the timing of neuronal differentiation and cell cycle exit

Technology-Enhanced Teaching: A Technology Acceptance Model to Study Teachers’ Intentions to Use Digital Games in the Classroom

This research to practice paper uses a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to explore the factors that affect teachers’ intentions to use digital educational games in the classroom. Research shows that using computers and other digital technologies like digital games is one way to influence young people’s career aspirations and improve their digital literacy. This is particularly important as the world of work is changing and emerging jobs becoming more intensive in their use of digital technologies. In the developing world and in particular Nigeria, there have been calls to improve the digital literacy skills of young people to help them make informed career choices, and fully participate effectively and equally in the digital world. However, many of the computing and digital technology education initiatives have not produced the positive results intended. The lack of awareness, readiness and buy-in of the relevant stakeholders are some of the factors that has been identified as a barrier here. For example, for computing and digital technology-based projects in schools, the success largely depends on the support and attitude of teachers. As one of the major stakeholders in the classroom, teachers need to be consulted in decisions that affect the way they deliver their lessons; especially when novel ideas and approaches that challenge tradition are introduced. It is therefore important to consider their acceptance or otherwise of digital games in the classroom. A Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was modified to include constructs previously identified by teachers that potentially influence their intention to use digital games in the classroom. The extended TAM was developed into a questionnaire and tested with 220 teachers in Nigeria. Analyses of the results show that syllabus connectedness, perceived usefulness and self-efficacy are significant predictors of the intention of teachers to adoptdigital game-based learning in the classroom. Furthermore, the teachers' demographics including experience of teaching, age and gender all mediated the intention of the teachers to use digital game-based learning. The results and findings present recommendations for school leaders and developers of digital educational games. The practical insights from this are also important here and helpful for guiding the deployment of such games particularly in areas where such technological interventions have not been used before

Making Waves: An Exploration In Learning Through Art, Science, And Making

For nearly one hundred years, from progressive education to critical pedagogy, philosophers, researchers, and educators have advocated for listening, respecting, and providing space for the learner’s voice within education. When teaching challenging science content, it is vital to provide both a context for the knowledge and a reason for learning the content. It can be difficult to provide a learning environment that allows learners to gain an understanding of demanding content while being able to have creative self-expression—agency—without turning youth culture into a static banal concept. This study aimed to tackle the challenge of providing context, a reason for learning, and space for youth voice for a diverse group of teenagers. I explored how a multidisciplinary art and science maker workshop focused on sound encouraged a diverse set of young people to understand sound as energy and creatively express themselves. As part of outreach programming for a large, northeastern science museum in the United States, ten rising sophomores participated in a workshop where they created original sound pieces and built homemade speakers as part of an art exhibit. This mixed-methods early stage/exploratory study found youth exerting their agency through the sound pieces, homemade speakers, and artist statements. There is also evidence of youth gaining understanding of the science of sound. In the discussion, I address how these findings begin to push against two criticisms of the maker movement: what artifacts count as maker projects, and who is considered to be a maker. I go on to examine how, for some youth, learning the science of sound through a multidisciplinary workshop led to having a purpose for understanding challenging science content

“You can actually choose to be happy at any time”: A critical discursive psychological analysis of accounts of happiness in ‘expert’ and ordinary discourse

In recent years, an interest in measuring and increasing citizens’ happiness has characterised many Western democracies, including the UK. At the same time, the new scientific discipline of positive psychology has produced a set of knowledges, techniques and instruments that encourage people to work on and understand themselves in specific ways. While there is a substantial body of work critiquing this turn to happiness, there is a lack of empirical research that examines what it looks like at an everyday level, and how it may inform ideas about successful citizenship. To address this gap, this thesis takes a critical discursive psychological approach to analysing two datasets – four best-selling books, and interviews with 30 UK residents on the subject of happiness. It was found that the books worked to generate a public health-style narrative around happiness, positioning it as “threatened” due to a mismatch between humans’ “fallible” brains and the challenges of the modern world, such as consumerism. To counter this universalised danger, individualised solutions of working on one’s habits, thoughts and choices were proposed, with happiness constructed as an ongoing practice. There were considerable similarities in the interview data, with participants forming affective-discursive practices of cultivating appreciation, being mindful and making ‘good’ choices. However, participants took up a range of complex and shifting subject positions during the interviews, and their talk was dilemmatic, argumentative and occasionally troubled, particularly when they mobilised taken-for-granted, culturally dominant ideas about happiness in personal narratives. The thesis concludes that engaging with the rhetoric of positive psychology risks living out unresolvable contradictions. However, there were also resistances to the idea of being responsible for one’s happiness and to the habit of individualism, suggesting that alternatives are possible to the apparent dominance of neoliberal models of selfhood

Genetic research in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities : continuing the conversation

Genetics is at the forefront of medical research, but it is rarely used in Indigenous health research projects. This discussion paper is the outcome of the first ever national discussion of the conduct of genetic research in Indigenous communities in Australia convened by the Lowitja Institute in 2010. It reviews the ethical issues relevant to genetic research in an Australian Indigenous context; existing guidelines for genetic research in indigenous communities internationally; and literature on genetic literacy in Indigenous contexts. Finally, the discussion paper presents a summary of the productive and challenging conversations at the round table

One lithium level >1.0 mmol/L causes an acute decline in eGFR: findings from a retrospective analysis of a monitoring database

Objectives Lithium is a mainstay of bipolar disorder treatment, however, there are still differences in opinion on the effects of lithium use on renal function. The aim of this analysis was to determine if there is an association between short-term exposure to various elevated lithium levels and estimated-glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) at ≤3 months, 6 months (±3 months) and 1 year (±3 months) follow-up. Setting Norfolk-wide (UK) lithium register and database. Participants 699 patients from the Norfolk database. Primary outcome measures eGFR change from baseline at ≤3 months, 6 months (±3 months) and 1 year (±3 months) after exposure to a lithium level within these ranges: 0.81–1.0 mmol/L (group 2), 1.01–1.2 mmol/L (group 3) and 1.21–2.0 mmol/L (group 4). The reference group was patients whose lithium levels never exceeded 0.8 mmol/L. Results Compared to the reference group, groups 3 and 4 showed a significant decrease in eGFR in the first 3 months after exposure (p=0.047 and p=0.040). At 6 months (±3 months) postexposure group 4 still showed a decline in eGFR, however, this result was not significant (p=0.298). Conclusions These results show for the first time that a single incident of a lithium level >1.0 mmol/L is associated with a significant decrease in eGFR in the following 3 months when compared to patients whose lithium levels never exceeded 0.8 mmol/L. It is still not known whether the kidneys can recover this lost function and the impact that more than a single exposure to a level within these ranges can have on renal function. These results suggest that lithium level monitoring should be undertaken at least every 3 months, in line with current UK guidelines and not be reduced further until the impact of more than one exposure to these lithium levels has been fully established