Differences in Perceptual-motor Functioning Between Blind and Sighted Adults: a Neuropsychological Perspective.

The purpose of the study was to explore perceptual-motor differences between blind and sighted adults from a neuropsychological perspective, and to analyze differences within the blind group. Perceptual-motor abilities were examined using the Comprehensive Vocational Evaluation System (CVES), a vocational rehabilitation and neuropsychological battery designed for use with blind populations. The data were processed using Analysis of Covariance. Results showed that sighted persons had better motor abilities, while persons with blindness were more skilled at haptic identification of shape and texture. Analysis within the blind group showed that texture identification skills are better when blindness occurs earlier in life and to the extent that the blindness is total. Later onset blindness and the retention of some functional vision may not lead to a refocusing of attentional states necessary to develop haptic images. New neural connections may develop in persons with congenital/total blindness, a hypothesis in line with recent neuroradiological findings that occipital lobe activation occurs when congenitally blind individuals engage in tactile processing tasks. One implication of the findings is that teaching individuals who retain some functional vision to read Braille is probably counterproductive. These individuals would be better served by learning to use a CCTV and large print books. Future researchers should examine blindness from a multivariate perspective, examining subsets of blind groups based on age at onset, visual status, and other pertinent variables. Other implications are discussed and recommendations for future research are provided

Banks’ Governance, Capital Structure and Performance in Ghana

The paper explores the mechanisms through which banks rely on good governance to attract more equity capital towards the improvement of their profitability. The study employed a panel data for twenty-nine commercial banks in Ghana between the years from 2003 to 2015, using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), Fixed Effects and Random Effects estimators. The results are robust notwithstanding the estimation method employed, that bank governance affects banks’ performance in Ghana. Larger board size improves return on the banks’ equity just as large proportion of directors with finance expertise induces bank performance. All estimates also show that equity funding has a negative and significant effect on bank performance. The paper also found evidence that good bank governance attracts equity capital which, in turn, induces greater profitability. The study recommends for managers and policymakers of banks to adopt policies that will position the banks to improve governance structure, to improve managerial expertise to drive bank performance. Admonitions to expand bank capitalisation should not be encouraged without recourse to the improvement in bank governance effectiveness

Evaluating Children’s Advocacy Centers’ Response to Child Sexual Abuse

Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) play an increasingly significant role in the response to child sexual abuse and other child maltreatment in the United States. First developed in the 1980s, CACs were designed to reduce the stress on child abuse victims and families created by traditional child abuse investigation and prosecution procedures and to improve the effectiveness of the response. According to several experts (Fontana, 1984; Pence and Wilson, 1992; Whitcomb, 1992), child victims were subjected to multiple, redundant interviews about their abuse by different agencies, and were questioned by professionals who had no knowledge of children’s developmental limitations or experience working with children. Child interviews would take place in settings like police stations that would further stress already frightened children. Moreover, the response was hampered because the multiple agencies involved did not coordinate their investigations, and children’s need for services could be neglected

A construção discursiva da histerização do corpo feminino no campo psi: uma análise foucaultiana a partir das noções de norma e verdade

Este trabalho tem como objetivo desenvolver uma análise da construção discursiva da sexualidade com enfoque na histerização do corpo feminino e como esta influenciou a formação do campo da psicologia

Can Enhanced Diffusion Improve Helioseismic Agreement for Solar Models with Revised Abundances?

Recent solar photospheric abundance analyses (Asplund et al. 2004, 2005; Lodders 2003) have revised downward the C, N, O, Ne, and Ar abundances by 0.15 to 0.2 dex compared to previous determinations of Grevesse & Sauval (1998). With these revisions, the photospheric Z/X decreases to 0.0165 (0.0177 Lodders), and Z to ~0.0122 (0.0133 Lodders). A number of papers report that solar models evolved with standard opacities and diffusion treatment using these new abundances give poor agreement with helioseismic inferences. Here we explore evolved solar models with varying diffusion treatments to reduce the photospheric abundances while keeping the interior abundances about the same as earlier standard models. While enhanced diffusion improves agreement with some helioseismic constraints compared to a solar model evolved with the new abundances using nominal input physics, the required increases in thermal diffusion rates are unphysically large, and none of the variations tried restores the good agreement attained using the earlier abundances. A combination of modest opacity increases, diffusion enhancements, and abundance increases near the level of the uncertainties, while somewhat contrived, remains the most physically plausible means to restore agreement with helioseismology. The case for enhanced diffusion would be improved if the inferred convection-zone helium abundance could be reduced; we recommend reconsidering this derivation in light of new equations of state with modified abundances and other improvements. We also recommend considering, as a last resort, diluting the convection zone, which contains only 2.5% of the sun's mass, by accretion of material depleted in these more volatile elements C, N, O, Ne, & Ar after the sun arrived on the main sequence.Comment: Version 2: 24 pages, 3 figures; Accepted to ApJ with omission of g-mode predictions and discussion that are included in this preprin

The Impact of Quantitative Easing on UK Bank Lending: Why Banks Do Not Lend to Businesses?

The growing proportion of UK bank lending to the financial sector reached a peak in 2007 just before the onset of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). This marks a trend in the dwindling amount of bank lending to private sector non-financial corporations (PNFCs), which was exacerbated with the Great Recession. Many central banks aimed to revive bank lending with quantitative easing (QE) and unconventional monetary policy. We propose an agent based computational economics (ACE) model which combines the main factors in the economic environment of QE and Basel regulatory framework to analyse why UK banks do not prioritize lending to non-financial businesses. The lower bond yields caused by QE encourage big firms to substitute away from bank borrowing to bond issuance. In addition, the risk weight regime of Basel I/II on capital induces banks to favour mortgages over business loans to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The combination of lower bond yields and Basel II/III capital requirements on banks, which, respectively, impact demand and supply of credit in the UK, plays a role in the drop of bank loans to businesses. The ACE model aims to reinstate policy regimes that form constraints and incentives for the behaviour of market participants to provide the causal factors in observed macro-economic phenomena

A population of gut epithelial enterochromaffin cells is mechanosensitive and requires Piezo2 to convert force into serotonin release

Enterochromaffin (EC) cells constitute the largest population of intestinal epithelial enteroendocrine (EE) cells. EC cells are proposed to be specialized mechanosensory cells that release serotonin in response to epithelial forces, and thereby regulate intestinal fluid secretion. However, it is unknown whether EE and EC cells are directly mechanosensitive, and if so, what the molecular mechanism of their mechanosensitivity is. Consequently, the role of EE and EC cells in gastrointestinal mechanobiology is unclear. Piezo2 mechanosensitive ion channels are important for some specialized epithelial mechanosensors, and they are expressed in mouse and human EC cells. Here, we use EC and EE cell lineage tracing in multiple mouse models to show that Piezo2 is expressed in a subset of murine EE and EC cells, and it is distributed near serotonin vesicles by superresolution microscopy. Mechanical stimulation of a subset of isolated EE cells leads to a rapid inward ionic current, which is diminished by Piezo2 knockdown and channel inhibitors. In these mechanosensitive EE cells force leads to Piezo2-dependent intracellular Ca(2+) increase in isolated cells as well as in EE cells within intestinal organoids, and Piezo2-dependent mechanosensitive serotonin release in EC cells. Conditional knockout of intestinal epithelial Piezo2 results in a significant decrease in mechanically stimulated epithelial secretion. This study shows that a subset of primary EE and EC cells is mechanosensitive, uncovers Piezo2 as their primary mechanotransducer, defines the molecular mechanism of their mechanotransduction and mechanosensitive serotonin release, and establishes the role of epithelial Piezo2 mechanosensitive ion channels in regulation of intestinal physiology

Rapid generation of hypomorphic mutations

Hypomorphic mutations are a valuable tool for both genetic analysis of gene function and for synthetic biology applications. However, current methods to generate hypomorphic mutations are limited to a specific organism, change gene expression unpredictably, or depend on changes in spatial-temporal expression of the targeted gene. Here we present a simple and predictable method to generate hypomorphic mutations in model organisms by targeting translation elongation. Adding consecutive adenosine nucleotides, so-called polyA tracks, to the gene coding sequence of interest will decrease translation elongation efficiency, and in all tested cell cultures and model organisms, this decreases mRNA stability and protein expression. We show that protein expression is adjustable independent of promoter strength and can be further modulated by changing sequence features of the polyA tracks. These characteristics make this method highly predictable and tractable for generation of programmable allelic series with a range of expression levels

Molecular Determinants of the Intrinsic Efficacy of the Antipsychotic Aripiprazole

Partial agonists of the dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) have been developed to treat the symptoms of schizophrenia without causing the side effects elicited by antagonists. The receptor-ligand interactions that determine the intrinsic efficacy of such drugs, however, are poorly understood. Aripiprazole has an extended structure comprising a phenylpiperazine primary pharmacophore and a 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinolin-2-one secondary pharmacophore. We combined site-directed mutagenesis, analytical pharmacology, ligand fragments and molecular dynamics simulations to identify the D2R-aripiprazole interactions that contribute to affinity and efficacy. We reveal that an interaction between the secondary pharmacophore of aripiprazole and a secondary binding pocket defined by residues at the extracellular portions of transmembrane segments 1, 2 and 7 determine the intrinsic efficacy of aripiprazole. Our findings reveal a hitherto unappreciated mechanism through which to fine-tune the intrinsic efficacy of D2R agonists