The status of music education in the public junior high schools of Massachusetts as of the year 1945-1955

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Aging, Emotion, Attention, and Binding in the Taboo Stroop Task: Data and Theories.

How does aging impact relations between emotion, memory, and attention? To address this question, young and older adults named the font colors of taboo and neutral words, some of which recurred in the same font color or screen location throughout two color-naming experiments. The results indicated longer color-naming response times (RTs) for taboo than neutral base-words (taboo Stroop interference); better incidental recognition of colors and locations consistently associated with taboo versus neutral words (taboo context-memory enhancement); and greater speed-up in color-naming RTs with repetition of color-consistent than color-inconsistent taboo words, but no analogous speed-up with repetition of location-consistent or location-inconsistent taboo words (the consistency type by repetition interaction for taboo words). All three phenomena remained constant with aging, consistent with the transmission deficit hypothesis and binding theory, where familiar emotional words trigger age-invariant reactions for prioritizing the binding of contextual features to the source of emotion. Binding theory also accurately predicted the interaction between consistency type and repetition for taboo words. However, one or more aspects of these phenomena failed to support the inhibition deficit hypothesis, resource capacity theory, or socio-emotional selectivity theory. We conclude that binding theory warrants further test in a range of paradigms, and that relations between aging and emotion, memory, and attention may depend on whether the task and stimuli trigger fast-reaction, involuntary binding processes, as in the taboo Stroop paradigm

Utilization of the Ballast Long Guiding Sheath for Neuroendovascular Procedures: Institutional Experience in 68 Cases

Background: The rise of neurointerventional devices has created a demand for guide systems capable of navigating to the carotid artery consistently regardless of tortuosity. The shift toward large distal access catheters (DACs) and desire for greater trackability have inspired the creation of flexible, supportive, large-lumen long guiding sheaths. Recently, the Ballast long guiding sheath was introduced to provide stability and flexibility while navigating neurointerventional devices through tortuous intracranial anatomy. Objective: To report our experience using the Ballast long guiding sheath in a series of patients undergoing a variety of neuroendovascular procedures. Methods: We retrospectively identified all patients who underwent neuroendovascular treatment with a long guiding sheath were selected from a prospectively maintained endovascular database from January 2019 to November 2019. Baseline clinical characteristics and procedural details were collected. Results: A total of 68 patients were included, mean patient age 67.6 ± 13.6 years. Of the patients treated, 52.9% (36/68) presented with stenosis, 25% (17/68) with aneurysms, 13.2% (9/68) with stroke or emboli, 1.5% (1/68) with a tumor, 1.5% (1/68) with an arteriovenous fistula (AVF), and 4.4% (3/68) with a carotid web. Of the patients with stenosis, 20/36 (55.6%) were extracranial, and 16/36 (44.4%) were intracranial. The Ballast long guiding sheath was used to deliver treatment devices for stenting (37/68, 54.4%), flow diversion (12/68, 17.6%), mechanical thrombectomy (8/68, 11.8%), endovascular coiling (5/68, 7.4%), liquid embolization (3/68, 4.4%), balloon angioplasty (2/68, 2.9%), and balloon angioplasty with stenting (1/68, 1.5%). No Ballast-related complications or adverse events were encountered. Conclusions: We demonstrate the feasibility of the Ballast long guiding sheath to successfully deliver modern neurointerventional treatment devices through tortuous anatomy

Adult Environmental Education and the Cultural Commons: A Study of Community Practices for a Just and Sustainable World

Ecojustice adult education, an extension of adult environmental education, has been spurred on by international efforts to educate adults about environmental issues. It is a new and evolving arm of the adult education field that studies the ways that dominant views are impacting human/earth relationships. Ecojustice education teaches about the natural and cultural commons that sustain all life. In this symposiusm, doctoral students investigated their own communities to find examples of the cultural commons

Africa faces difficult choices in responding to COVID-19.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is now established in Africa, with more than 63 000 cases and 2200 deaths in 53 countries, as of May 11, 2020.1 Fragile health systems leave African countries vulnerable to the anticipated surge in severely ill patients with COVID-19, despite much younger populations

Oral Corticosterone Administration Reduces Insulitis but Promotes Insulin Resistance and Hyperglycemia in Male Nonobese Diabetic Mice

© 2017 American Society for Investigative Pathology Steroid-induced diabetes is the most common form of drug-induced hyperglycemia. Therefore, metabolic and immunological alterations associated with chronic oral corticosterone were investigated using male nonobese diabetic mice. Three weeks after corticosterone delivery, there was reduced sensitivity to insulin action measured by insulin tolerance test. Body composition measurements revealed increased fat mass and decreased lean mass. Overt hyperglycemia (\u3e250 mg/dL) manifested 6 weeks after the start of glucocorticoid administration, whereas 100% of the mice receiving the vehicle control remained normoglycemic. This phenotype was fully reversed during the washout phase and readily reproducible across institutions. Relative to the vehicle control group, mice receiving corticosterone had a significant enhancement in pancreatic insulin-positive area, but a marked decrease in CD3+ cell infiltration. In addition, there were striking increases in both citrate synthase gene expression and enzymatic activity in skeletal muscle of mice in the corticosterone group relative to vehicle control. Moreover, glycogen synthase expression was greatly enhanced, consistent with elevations in muscle glycogen storage in mice receiving corticosterone. Corticosterone-induced hyperglycemia, insulin resistance, and changes in muscle gene expression were all reversed by the end of the washout phase, indicating that the metabolic alterations were not permanent. Thus, male nonobese diabetic mice allow for translational studies on the metabolic and immunological consequences of glucocorticoid-associated interventions in a mouse model with genetic susceptibility to autoimmune disease

The Host Galaxy and Redshift of the Repeating Fast Radio Burst FRB 121102

The precise localization of the repeating fast radio burst (FRB 121102) has provided the first unambiguous association (chance coincidence probability $p\lesssim3\times10^{-4}$) of an FRB with an optical and persistent radio counterpart. We report on optical imaging and spectroscopy of the counterpart and find that it is an extended ($0.6^{\prime\prime}-0.8^{\prime\prime}$) object displaying prominent Balmer and [OIII] emission lines. Based on the spectrum and emission line ratios, we classify the counterpart as a low-metallicity, star-forming, $m_{r^\prime} = 25.1$ AB mag dwarf galaxy at a redshift of $z=0.19273(8)$, corresponding to a luminosity distance of 972 Mpc. From the angular size, the redshift, and luminosity, we estimate the host galaxy to have a diameter $\lesssim4$ kpc and a stellar mass of $M_*\sim4-7\times 10^{7}\,M_\odot$, assuming a mass-to-light ratio between 2 to 3$\,M_\odot\,L_\odot^{-1}$. Based on the H$\alpha$ flux, we estimate the star formation rate of the host to be $0.4\,M_\odot\,\mathrm{yr^{-1}}$ and a substantial host dispersion measure depth $\lesssim 324\,\mathrm{pc\,cm^{-3}}$. The net dispersion measure contribution of the host galaxy to FRB 121102 is likely to be lower than this value depending on geometrical factors. We show that the persistent radio source at FRB 121102's location reported by Marcote et al (2017) is offset from the galaxy's center of light by $\sim$200 mas and the host galaxy does not show optical signatures for AGN activity. If FRB 121102 is typical of the wider FRB population and if future interferometric localizations preferentially find them in dwarf galaxies with low metallicities and prominent emission lines, they would share such a preference with long gamma ray bursts and superluminous supernovae.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, Published in ApJ Letters. V2: Corrected mistake in author lis

Thiobenzothiazole-modified hydrocortisones display anti-inflammatory activity with reduced impact on islet β-cell function

© 2015, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Inc. All rights reserved. Glucocorticoids signal through the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and are administered clinically for a variety of situations, including inflammatory disorders, specific cancers, rheumatoid arthritis, and organ/tissue transplantation. However, glucocorticoid therapy is also associated with additional complications, including steroid-induced diabetes. We hypothesized that modification of the steroid backbone is one strategy to enhance the therapeutic potential of GR activation. Toward this goal, two commercially unavailable, thiobenzothiazole-containing derivatives of hydrocortisone (termed MS4 and MS6) were examined using 832/13 rat insulinoma cells as well as rodent and human islets. We found that MS4 had transrepression properties but lacked transactivation ability, whereas MS6 retained both transactivation and transrepression activities. In addition, MS4 and MS6 both displayed anti-inflammatory activity. Furthermore, MS4 displayed reduced impact on islet β-cell function in both rodent and human islets. Similar to dexamethasone, MS6 promoted adipocyte development in vitro, whereas MS4 did not. Moreover, neither MS4 nor MS6 activated the Pck1 (Pepck) gene in primary rat hepatocytes. We conclude that modification of the functional groups attached to the D-ring of the hydrocortisone steroid molecule produces compounds with altered structure-function GR agonist activity with decreased impact on insulin secretion and reduced adipogenic potential but with preservation of anti-inflammatory activity

Information Needs and Requirements for Decision Support in Primary Care: An Analysis of Chronic Pain Care

Decision support system designs often do not align with the information environments in which clinicians work. These work environments may increase Clinicians’ cognitive workload and harm their decision making. The objective of this study was to identify information needs and decision support requirements for assessing, diagnosing, and treating chronic noncancer pain in primary care. We conducted a qualitative study involving 30 interviews with 10 primary care clinicians and a subsequent multidisciplinary systems design workshop. Our analysis identified four key decision requirements, eight clinical information needs, and four decision support design seeds. Our findings indicate that clinicians caring for chronic pain need decision support that aggregates many disparate information elements and helps them navigate and contextualize that information. By attending to the needs identified in this study, decision support designers may improve Clinicians’ efficiency, reduce mental workload, and positively affect patient care quality and outcomes