Analyses of Dental Pulp in Restored Teeth

Restored teeth were extracted from test animals at four time intervals (1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, and 3 months) following amalgam insertion. Extracted teeth were frozen in liquid nitrogen, cryo-fractured so as to expose the pulps and then freeze-dried. Pulps were analyzed for mercury content by energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS) and atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS). Mercury levels appeared below the detection limits of EDS but could be detected by AAS which showed the highest readings seven days after amalgam insertion

Coping with type 2 diabetes in the family context: a communal coping perspective

Type 2 diabetes is a chronic condition affecting more than 25 million adults in the United States (National Institutes of Health, 2011). The impact of diabetes is far reaching, influencing the lives of both the patient and his or her family. Accordingly, both people with type 2 diabetes and their family members cope with the illness in the context of their relationships with one another. In this dissertation, I explore the coping efforts of individuals with type 2 diabetes and their families using communal coping as a framework for the investigation (Afifi et al., 2006; Lyons et al., 1998). The communal coping model argues that people cope with stress in the context of their relationships and that coping responses are both cognitive and behavioral in nature. According to the model, communal coping exists along two continuous dimensions: (a) appraisal, which assesses whether people's cognitions are individual or shared, and (b) action, which pertains to whether people engage in sole or joint behavior to diminish the negative effects of their stress. Theoretically, the dimensions of communal coping cross to create four distinct types of coping: individual coping, parallelism, support-seeking, and communal coping. In this dissertation, I address two limitations of the communal coping model using two studies. First, the appraisal dimension of communal coping has not been explicated in extant research, so the in the first study, I interviewed 28 individuals with type 2 diabetes and their family members with a goal of conceptualizing what it means for people to appraise their stress as individual or shared. The results of the study revealed that appraisal consists of two elements: problem ownership and problem influence. Second, the typology proposed by communal coping theorists has not been systematically validated, so a second objective of this dissertation was to assess the typology quantitatively. The second study consisted of individuals with type 2 diabetes (N = 159) completing a survey assessing their family characteristics, their coping efforts, and their diabetes-related outcomes. Findings from the second study suggested that three distinct types of coping exist in these data, rather than the four proposed in the original communal coping typology. Results also indicated that generally, individuals fared better in terms of their self-care and their adherence when they coped alongside their family members. The conclusions from the two studies have theoretical implications for communal coping and practical implications for managing the type 2 diabetes

Naval Narratives of Re-enactment: In Which We Serve and Sea of Fire

This essay examines two narrative examples of the Royal Navy and naval combat on screen, exploring their resemblances in the reenactment of naval history and their portrayal of the past through consistent representational strategies. In Which We Serve (Noel Coward and David Lean, 1942) and Sea of Fire (Ian Duncan, 2007) use deliberate and self-conscious recreations of the past to authenticate their interpretations of British naval history, and evince comparably conservative stances towards the Royal Navy and perceptions of its traditions. The similarity of their narratives, which describe the events leading up to the loss of two Navy destroyers, helps to reveal and reinforce the tonal, structural and stylistic parallels in their depictions. The correspondence in their portrayal of naval combat and the institution of the Royal Navy illustrates the consistencies of representation which characterise the naval war film as a distinctive, definable narrative form. Above all, their commitment to the recreation and reenactment of identifiable historical events underpins their importance in the representation and commemoration of the national, naval past. It is this aspect of both productions which is significant in the exploration of the role of visual representations to construct, affirm and broadcast pervasive and persuasive versions of popular history

Intranasal Acellular Pertussis Vaccine Provides Mucosal Immunity and Protects Mice from Bordetella Pertussis

Current acellular pertussis vaccines fall short of optimal protection against the human respiratory pathogen Bordetella pertussis resulting in increased incidence of a previously controlled vaccine- preventable disease. Natural infection is known to induce a protective mucosal immunity. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to use acellular pertussis vaccines to recapitulate these mucosal immune responses. We utilized a murine immunization and challenge model to characterize the efficacy of intranasal immunization (IN) with DTaP vaccine or DTaP vaccine supplemented with curdlan, a known Th1/Th17 promoting adjuvant. Protection from IN delivered DTaP was compared to protection mediated by intraperitoneal injection of DTaP and whole-cell pertussis vaccines. We tracked fluorescently labeled DTaP after immunization and detected that DTaP localized preferentially in the lungs while DTaP with curdlan was predominantly in the nasal turbinates. IN immunization with DTaP, with or without curdlan adjuvant, resulted in anti-B. pertussis and anti-pertussis toxin IgG titers at the same level as intraperitoneally administered DTaP. IN immunization was able to protect against B. pertussis challenge and we observed decreased pulmonary pro-inflammatory cytokines, neutrophil infiltrates in the lung, and bacterial burden in the upper and lower respiratory tract at day 3 post challenge. Furthermore, IN immunization with DTaP triggered mucosal immune responses such as production of B. pertussis-specific IgA, and increased IL-17A. Together, the induction of a mucosal immune response and humoral antibody-mediated protection associated with an IN administered DTaP and curdlan adjuvant warrant further exploration as a pertussis vaccine candidate formulation

Metabolomics to unveil and understand phenotypic diversity between pathogen populations

Visceral leishmaniasis is caused by a parasite called Leishmania donovani, which every year infects about half a million people and claims several thousand lives. Existing treatments are now becoming less effective due to the emergence of drug resistance. Improving our understanding of the mechanisms used by the parasite to adapt to drugs and achieve resistance is crucial for developing future treatment strategies. Unfortunately, the biological mechanism whereby Leishmania acquires drug resistance is poorly understood. Recent years have brought new technologies with the potential to increase greatly our understanding of drug resistance mechanisms. The latest mass spectrometry techniques allow the metabolome of parasites to be studied rapidly and in great detail. We have applied this approach to determine the metabolome of drug-sensitive and drug-resistant parasites isolated from patients with leishmaniasis. The data show that there are wholesale differences between the isolates and that the membrane composition has been drastically modified in drug-resistant parasites compared with drug-sensitive parasites. Our findings demonstrate that untargeted metabolomics has great potential to identify major metabolic differences between closely related parasite strains and thus should find many applications in distinguishing parasite phenotypes of clinical relevance

The Jellyfish Cassiopea Exhibits a Sleep-like State

Do all animals sleep? Sleep has been observed in many vertebrates, and there is a growing body of evidence for sleep-like states in arthropods and nematodes. Here we show that sleep is also present in Cnidaria, an earlier-branching metazoan lineage. Cnidaria and Ctenophora are the first metazoan phyla to evolve tissue-level organization and differentiated cell types, such as neurons and muscle. In Cnidaria, neurons are organized into a non-centralized radially symmetric nerve net that nevertheless shares fundamental properties with the vertebrate nervous system: action potentials, synaptic transmission, neuropeptides, and neurotransmitters . It was reported that cnidarian soft corals and box jellyfish exhibit periods of quiescence, a pre-requisite for sleep-like states, prompting us to ask whether sleep is present in Cnidaria. Within Cnidaria, the upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea spp. displays a quantifiable pulsing behavior, allowing us to perform long-term behavioral tracking. Monitoring of Cassiopea pulsing activity for consecutive days and nights revealed behavioral quiescence at night that is rapidly reversible, as well as a delayed response to stimulation in the quiescent state. When deprived of nighttime quiescence, Cassiopea exhibited decreased activity and reduced responsiveness to a sensory stimulus during the subsequent day, consistent with homeostatic regulation of the quiescent state. Together, these results indicate that Cassiopea has a sleep-like state, supporting the hypothesis that sleep arose early in the metazoan lineage, prior to the emergence of a centralized nervous system

The Jellyfish Cassiopea Exhibits a Sleep-like State

Do all animals sleep? Sleep has been observed in many vertebrates, and there is a growing body of evidence for sleep-like states in arthropods and nematodes. Here we show that sleep is also present in Cnidaria, an earlier-branching metazoan lineage. Cnidaria and Ctenophora are the first metazoan phyla to evolve tissue-level organization and differentiated cell types, such as neurons and muscle. In Cnidaria, neurons are organized into a non-centralized radially symmetric nerve net that nevertheless shares fundamental properties with the vertebrate nervous system: action potentials, synaptic transmission, neuropeptides, and neurotransmitters . It was reported that cnidarian soft corals and box jellyfish exhibit periods of quiescence, a pre-requisite for sleep-like states, prompting us to ask whether sleep is present in Cnidaria. Within Cnidaria, the upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea spp. displays a quantifiable pulsing behavior, allowing us to perform long-term behavioral tracking. Monitoring of Cassiopea pulsing activity for consecutive days and nights revealed behavioral quiescence at night that is rapidly reversible, as well as a delayed response to stimulation in the quiescent state. When deprived of nighttime quiescence, Cassiopea exhibited decreased activity and reduced responsiveness to a sensory stimulus during the subsequent day, consistent with homeostatic regulation of the quiescent state. Together, these results indicate that Cassiopea has a sleep-like state, supporting the hypothesis that sleep arose early in the metazoan lineage, prior to the emergence of a centralized nervous system