733 research outputs found
Young Women Imaging God: Educating for a Prophetic Imagination in Catholic Girlsâ Schools
Thesis advisor: Jane E. ReganThis dissertation considers adolescent girls and what they need from an all-girlsâ Catholic school that will prepare them, not just for college and career, but for life in a world that marginalizes girls and women. More than simply trying to make a case for single-sex schooling for girls, it suggests that the single-sex school is an important site for conversations about what it means for adolescent girls to be adolescent girls. This project names the patriarchal forces that marginalize girls and calls for a pedagogical approach that is rooted in the theological affirmation that adolescent girls are created in the image of God and called to exercise a prophetic imagination. Chapter one introduces the history of all-girlsâ Catholic secondary schools, a history rooted in the story of womenâs religious orders and the ministries of these women religious as educators at a time when the education of girls was not valued. Todayâs all-girlsâ Catholic schools are informed by this history and the Catholic Churchâs commitment to honoring the dignity of each student, thus grounding a commitment to a caring and liberative educational approach. Chapter two argues that contemporary adolescent girls, including those who attend these all-girlsâ Catholic secondary schools, are growing up in a cultural milieu that makes them vulnerable to the effects of the conflicting and impossible expectations to which girls and women are held. Chapter three investigates the imago Dei symbol as a theological foundation for fighting this toxic cultural milieu. Taking a cue from feminist theologians who have explored embodiment and relationality as central expressions of the imago Dei, this chapter proposes that creating communities of Godâs hesed (loving-kindness) and resisting injustice are two ways that the imago Dei symbol can be expressed so as to best include adolescent girls. Chapter four suggests that, in order to realize this goal of affirming the imago Dei in adolescent girls by creating communities of Godâs hesed and resistance to injustice, a feminist prophetic imagination is needed. Drawing on Walter Brueggemannâs identification of the prophetic imagination as the twinned process of denouncing the oppressive forces of the dominant culture and announcing a new and more just way of being in the world, it proposes a feminist prophetic imagination that engages in a feminist critique of the cultural milieu that girls experience and the construction of communities based in hesed and resistance to injustice. Chapter five takes up the pedagogical challenges of teaching with and for a feminist prophetic imagination. The liberative pedagogy of Paulo Freire and the caring pedagogy of Nel Noddings provide the resources for educating adolescent girls to participate in communities of Godâs hesed and in practices of resistance to injustice. Chapter six returns to the concrete situation of all-girlsâ Catholic secondary schools and imagines how these schools can speak to a commitment to educating for a feminist prophetic imagination in their mission and reflects on how a feminist prophetic imagination can be expressed and formalized in all Catholic schools
Spiritual Transcendence and Burnout Rate Among Psychologists and Social Workers Working with Severely Mentally Ill Patients
Burnout is a psychological syndrome caused by occupational stress, which often manifests in mental health professionals who experience demanding and emotionally charged relationships with clients. Guided by the equity theory, this study examined the relationship between spiritual transcendence and burnout in psychologists and social workers who work with severely mentally ill patients after accounting for specific personality traits. Constructs were measured via the Spiritual Transcendence scale (STS), Maslach Burnout inventory (MBI), and the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). Sixty eight psychologists and social workers were selected from psychiatric hospitals, community centers, and private practice in Nevada to participate in the study. A quantitative approach using hierarchical regression was used for statistical analysis. The results suggest that, after controlling for the NEO-FFI scales, STS was not significantly related to burnout. The results also suggest that, as the personality factor of neuroticism increases, burnout rates also increase and as the personality factors of extraversion and agreeableness increase, burnout tends to decrease. The social change implication of this research is identifying personality factors that contribute to, or are protective factors of, burnout. For example, individuals who score high on neuroticism scales can be aware of their susceptibility to burnout, and those with high scores on agreeableness and extraversion can be conscientious of those factors and potentially put protective factors in place. These findings are beneficial to employers of mental health professionals, program developers, and mental health professionals themselves
Blogging About Feminist lnterdisciplinarity in the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender
This article provides information about several blog posts discussed during a round-table discussion on feminist interdisciplinary studies in relation to communication, language, and gender. Topics under discussion include the nature of interdisciplinarity and its relevance to feminist studies, intercultural communication, and the study and teaching of gender in women\u27s studies programs in higher education
A Randomized Greedy Algorithm for Near-Optimal Sensor Scheduling in Large-Scale Sensor Networks
We study the problem of scheduling sensors in a resource-constrained linear
dynamical system, where the objective is to select a small subset of sensors
from a large network to perform the state estimation task. We formulate this
problem as the maximization of a monotone set function under a matroid
constraint. We propose a randomized greedy algorithm that is significantly
faster than state-of-the-art methods. By introducing the notion of curvature
which quantifies how close a function is to being submodular, we analyze the
performance of the proposed algorithm and find a bound on the expected mean
square error (MSE) of the estimator that uses the selected sensors in terms of
the optimal MSE. Moreover, we derive a probabilistic bound on the curvature for
the scenario where{\color{black}{ the measurements are i.i.d. random vectors
with bounded norm.}} Simulation results demonstrate efficacy of the
randomized greedy algorithm in a comparison with greedy and semidefinite
programming relaxation methods
Preliminary evidence of increased striatal dopamine in a nonhuman primate model of maternal immune activation.
Women exposed to a variety of viral and bacterial infections during pregnancy have an increased risk of giving birth to a child with autism, schizophrenia or other neurodevelopmental disorders. Preclinical maternal immune activation (MIA) models are powerful translational tools to investigate mechanisms underlying epidemiological links between infection during pregnancy and offspring neurodevelopmental disorders. Our previous studies documenting the emergence of aberrant behavior in rhesus monkey offspring born to MIA-treated dams extends the rodent MIA model into a species more closely related to humans. Here we present novel neuroimaging data from these animals to further explore the translational potential of the nonhuman primate MIA model. Nine male MIA-treated offspring and 4 controls from our original cohort underwent in vivo positron emission tomography (PET) scanning at approximately 3.5-years of age using [18F] fluoro-l-m-tyrosine (FMT) to measure presynaptic dopamine levels in the striatum, which are consistently elevated in individuals with schizophrenia. Analysis of [18F]FMT signal in the striatum of these nonhuman primates showed that MIA animals had significantly higher [18F]FMT index of influx compared to control animals. In spite of the modest sample size, this group difference reflects a large effect size (Cohen's dâ=â0.998). Nonhuman primates born to MIA-treated dams exhibited increased striatal dopamine in late adolescence-a hallmark molecular biomarker of schizophrenia. These results validate the MIA model in a species more closely related to humans and open up new avenues for understanding the neurodevelopmental biology of schizophrenia and other neurodevelopmental disorders associated with prenatal immune challenge
N,N-diethylaminobenzaldehyde (DEAB) as a substrate and mechanism-based inhibitor for human ALDH isoenzymes
N,N-diethylaminobenzaldehyde (DEAB) is a commonly used "selective" inhibitor of aldehyde dehydrogenase isoenzymes in cancer stem cell biology due to its inclusion as a negative control compound in the widely utilized Aldefluor assay. Recent evidence has accumulated that DEAB is not a selective inhibitory agent when assayed in vitro versus ALDH1, ALDH2 and ALDH3 family members. We sought to determine the selectivity of DEAB toward ALDH1A1, ALDH1A2, ALDH1A3, ALDH1B1, ALDH1L1, ALDH2, ALDH3A1, ALDH4A1 and ALDH5A1 isoenzymes and determine the mechanism by which DEAB exerts its inhibitory action. We found that DEAB is an excellent substrate for ALDH3A1, exhibiting a Vmax/KM that exceeds that of its commonly used substrate, benzaldehyde. DEAB is also a substrate for ALDH1A1, albeit an exceptionally slow one (turnover rate âŒ0.03 min(-1)). In contrast, little if any turnover of DEAB was observed when incubated with ALDH1A2, ALDH1A3, ALDH1B1, ALDH2 or ALDH5A1. DEAB was neither a substrate nor an inhibitor for ALDH1L1 or ALDH4A1. Analysis by enzyme kinetics and QTOF mass spectrometry demonstrates that DEAB is an irreversible inhibitor of ALDH1A2 and ALDH2 with apparent bimolecular rate constants of 2900 and 86,000 M(-1) s(-1), respectively. The mechanism of inactivation is consistent with the formation of quinoid-like resonance state following hydride transfer that is stabilized by local structural features that exist in several of the ALDH isoenzymes
Qualitative method validation and uncertainty evaluation via the binary output: I â Validation guidelines and theoretical foundations
Qualitative methods have an important place in forensic toxicology, filling central needs in, amongst others, screening and analyses linked to per se legislation. Nevertheless, bioanalytical method validation guidelines either do not discuss this type of method, or describe method validation procedures ill adapted to qualitative methods. The output of qualitative methods are typically categorical, binary results such as âpresenceâ/âabsenceâ or âabove cut-offâ/âbelow cut-offâ. Since the goal of any method validation is to demonstrate fitness for use under production conditions, guidelines should evaluate performance by relying on the discrete results, instead of the continuous measurements obtained (e.g. peak height, area ratio).
We have developed a tentative validation guideline for decision point qualitative methods by modeling measurements and derived binary results behaviour, based on the literature and experimental results. This preliminary guideline was applied to an LC-MS/MS method for 40 analytes, each with a defined cut-off concentration. The standard deviation of measurements at cut-off ( ) was estimated based on 10 spiked samples. Analytes were binned according to their %RSD (8.00%, 16.5%, 25.0%). Validation parameters calculated from the analysis of 30 samples spiked at and (false negative rate, false positive rate, selectivity rate, sensitivity rate and reliability rate) showed a surprisingly high failure rate. Overall, 13 out of the 40 analytes were not considered validated. Subsequent examination found that this was attributable to an appreciable shift in the standard deviation of the area ratio between different batches of samples analyzed. Keeping this behaviour in mind when setting the validation concentrations, the developed guideline can be used to validate qualitative decision point methods, relying on binary results for performance evaluation and taking into account measurement uncertainty. An application of this method validation scheme is presented in the accompanying paper (II â Application to a multi-analyte LC-MS/MS method for oral fluid)
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