A Mother\u27s Trauma in the Face of Child Removal

The crisis of the involuntary removal of a child from their parent can be traumatic for both child and parent. A child’s biological mother who is undergoing the process of removal experiences a traumatic event as she feels a range of emotions. Those emotions cause depression, loss, and emotional shock that can dissociate the mother from her goal and priority of reunification with her child. Research has been limited concerning parent’s perceptions and experiences of removal with most studies being conducted emphasizing trauma for the child. The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study is to understand the impact of trauma levels with mothers whose children have been or are currently removed from their care by social services and to explore their needs for sources of support to benefit them during this time. This study will be rooted in psychological trauma theory as developed by Pierre Janet and how trauma affects the mother during the removal process. Data collection will follow the conceptual mapping task process, utilizing interviews with participants, and data analysis will be conducted under that same framework while grouping themes together in context. Multiple contextual factors also come into play hindering a parent from learning parenting responsibilities and regaining custody of the child. Partnerships with social services and child protective services can go a long way to ensure the parent recovers from the trauma of removal and develops a healthier relationship with support systems

Once Were Science Teachers

This paper explores the development of three pre-service science teacher educators\u27 understandings of some critical incidents in their development of science teachers that has impacted on the manner in which they teach about teaching in a teacher preparation program. The study draws on self-study methodology by situating their reflection on practice within a critical discourse whereby reframing has been important in learning through a reconsideration from particular critical incidents in their high school science teaching experiences. The authors argue that through critical reflection on practice, as illustrated in this paper, that the beginnings of the articulation and documentation of a knowledge base of teaching about teaching might be initiated. They therefore offer some of their emerging views on what that knowledge base might encompass through some assertions of practice that they believe impact on their teaching about teaching

The Drosophila caspase Ice is important for many apoptotic cell deaths and for spermatid individualization, a nonapoptotic process

Caspase family proteases play important roles in the regulation of apoptotic cell death. Initiator caspases are activated in response to death stimuli, and they transduce and amplify these signals by cleaving and thereby activating effector caspases. In Drosophila, the initiator caspase Nc (previously Dronc) cleaves and activates two short-prodomain caspases, Dcp-1 and Ice (previously Drice), suggesting these as candidate effectors of Nc killing activity. dcp-1-null mutants are healthy and possess few defects in normally occurring cell death. To explore roles for Ice in cell death, we generated and characterized an Ice null mutant. Animals lacking Ice show a number of defects in cell death, including those that occur during embryonic development, as well as during formation of adult eyes, arista and wings. Ice mutants exhibit subtle defects in the destruction of larval tissues, and do not prevent destruction of salivary glands during metamorphosis. Cells from Ice animals are also markedly resistant to several stresses, including X-irradiation and inhibition of protein synthesis. Mutations in Ice also suppress cell death that is induced by expression of Rpr, Wrinkled (previously Hid) and Grim. These observations demonstrate that Ice plays an important non-redundant role as a cell death effector. Finally, we demonstrate that Ice participates in, but is not absolutely required for, the non-apoptotic process of spermatid differentiation

The Disposal Mode of Maine’s Waste Governance

Maine’s materials management system is stuck in a disposal mode of waste governance. Despite significant investments in programs and policies designed to reduce the amount of waste the state buries each year, recent shocks and uncertainties have resulted in increased waste generation and disposal. This paper analyzes specific ways through which materials management in Maine has become locked in to a disposal mode of waste governance. We build a framework to help understand various forms of lock-in and how they might be unlocked. This framework is applied to the extended producer responsibility packaging law that is presently under the rule-making process in Maine, the first state to adopt such a policy in the United States

Vaccination with live attenuated simian immunodeficiency virus causes dynamic changes in intestinal CD4+CCR5+ T cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Vaccination with live attenuated SIV can protect against detectable infection with wild-type virus. We have investigated whether target cell depletion contributes to the protection observed. Following vaccination with live attenuated SIV the frequency of intestinal CD4+CCR5+ T cells, an early target of wild-type SIV infection and destruction, was determined at days 3, 7, 10, 21 and 125 post inoculation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In naive controls, modest frequencies of intestinal CD4+CCR5+ T cells were predominantly found within the LPL T_TrM-1and IEL T_TrM-2subsets. At day 3, LPL and IEL CD4+CCR5+ T_EMcells were dramatically increased whilst less differentiated subsets were greatly reduced, consistent with activation-induced maturation. CCR5 expression remained high at day 7, although there was a shift in subset balance from CD4+CCR5+ T_EMto less differentiated T_TrM-2cells. This increase in intestinal CD4+CCR5+ T cells preceded the peak of SIV RNA plasma loads measured at day 10. Greater than 65.9% depletion of intestinal CD4+CCR5+ T cells followed at day 10, but overall CD4+ T cell homeostasis was maintained by increased CD4+CCR5- T cells. At days 21 and 125, high numbers of intestinal CD4+CCR5- naive T_Ncells were detected concurrent with greatly increased CD4+CCR5+ LPL T_TrM-2and IEL T_EMcells at day 125, yet SIV RNA plasma loads remained low.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This increase in intestinal CD4+CCR5+ T cells, following vaccination with live attenuated SIV, does not correlate with target cell depletion as a mechanism of protection. Instead, increased intestinal CD4+CCR5+ T cells may correlate with or contribute to the protection conferred by vaccination with live attenuated SIV.</p

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Undergraduate Clinical Education Programs

Medical schools should use a variety of measures to evaluate the effectiveness of their clinical curricula. Both outcome measures and process measures should be included, and these can be organized according to the four-level training evaluation model developed by Donald Kirkpatrick. Managing evaluation data requires the institution to employ deliberate strategies to monitor signals in real-time and aggregate data so that informed decisions can be made. Future steps in program evaluation includes increased emphasis on patient outcomes and multi-source feedback, as well as better integration of existing data sources

A New Mouse Model for the Study of Human Breast Cancer Metastasis

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, and this prevalence has a major impact on health worldwide. Localized breast cancer has an excellent prognosis, with a 5-year relative survival rate of 85%. However, the survival rate drops to only 23% for women with distant metastases. To date, the study of breast cancer metastasis has been hampered by a lack of reliable metastatic models. Here we describe a novel in vivo model using human breast cancer xenografts in NOD scid gamma (NSG) mice; in this model human breast cancer cells reliably metastasize to distant organs from primary tumors grown within the mammary fat pad. This model enables the study of the entire metastatic process from the proper anatomical site, providing an important new approach to examine the mechanisms underlying breast cancer metastasis. We used this model to identify gene expression changes that occur at metastatic sites relative to the primary mammary fat pad tumor. By comparing multiple metastatic sites and independent cell lines, we have identified several gene expression changes that may be important for tumor growth at distant sites