Institutionalizing Femininity: A History of Medical Malpractice and Oppression of Women Through 19th century American Mental Asylums

“Institutionalizing Femininity” explores the origins of the medicalization of gender norms in 19th century mental asylums. This paper examines the connections between rampant medical malpractice in 19th century American mental asylums, and how these abuses were a symptom of the patriarchy in the medical community acting to oppress the female psyche. One of the major issues this paper examines is the indistinguishability between psychiatry and gynecology in this time period. Gynecologists created the notion that women’s reproductive organs made them insane, by arguing that issues in the uterus or reproductive organs, or simply possessing female reproductive organs could cause insanity. These gynecologists may not have actually believed that the female reproductive system caused insanity, but instead used their status as medical professionals to create a narrative that upheld male dominance by creating a distinction between the “superior” male sex and the naturally insane female. The medical system of institutionalization also allowed husbands to have total control over their wives. In many cases, husbands could have their wives institutionalized simply for holding different religious beliefs and after marriage, assumed the legal rights of his wife. Beginning with the muckraking journalism of Dorothea Dix and ending with an examination of increased mental health legislation and the DSM’s creation of diagnostic categories for mental illness in the mid 20th century, this paper outlines the changes in medical malpractice and societal attitudes that have led to the formation and increased standards of modern medical practice

Airborne Sound and Substrate-borne Vibration in Orthopteran Communication

The challenge of attracting and locating potential mates has driven the evolution of diverse mate-finding signaling systems. These systems can be complex, with multiple signals or signal components spread across different sensory modalities. When multiple modalities are combined in one communication system, features of each can be important to individual fitness; over evolutionary time, these can shape investment in different parts of a signal repertoire. One group of animals that commonly uses multiple signal modalities is Orthoptera. Cricket and katydid species within this order often produce airborne sound calls to advertise to potential mates. Many also produce substrate-borne vibrational signals. I describe three investigations into the patterns of sound and vibration use by orthopteran insects with a combination of long focal recordings of individual callers and playback experiments to receivers. In the first chapter, I quantify the total diel sound and vibrational calling activity of ten species of katydid (Tettigoniidae: Pseudophyllinae) to investigate whether these signal types trade off with each other. I find that species that use more vibration tend to use less sound, and that other traits like sound call bandwidth may mediate this relationship. In the second chapter, I investigate intraspecific variation in one of these species (Docidocercus gigliotosi), recording the calling activity of recently mated vs. unmated males over several weeks. I find evidence for positive within-individual, but not among-individual, correlations between sound and vibrational signaling, with mating having large initial effects and more subtle, lingering ones on signal production. In the third chapter, I assess how duetting female crickets (Lebinthus bitaeniatus, Gryllidae: Eneopterinae) respond to different components of male calls, finding that callers strike a balance between calling signal attractiveness and efficacy in duet timing. Increasing the length of a typically stereotyped sound call component results in vibrational replies that are higher amplitude and likely more perceptible—yet incorrectly timed. Together, these projects reveal patterns of differential investment in multiple signal modalities in orthopteran insects. Quantifying these differences is key to understanding how complex signaling systems function and how they might affect responses to environmental change

Moderating role of social competence in the association between adolescent mental health symptomatology and substance use, The

2022 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.During adolescence, substance misuse and mental health problems often co-occur, yet there have been few studies testing for whom the association between mental health and substance use is the strongest. The purpose of this study was to gain a comprehensive understanding of the moderating role of social competence on the association between adolescent anxiety and depression symptomology and nicotine and cannabis use. This study used data from 3,383 ninth grade students who participated in the University of Southern California Health and Happiness study. Participants completed a self-report survey during the fall semester of the ninth grade. Main effects and moderating associations were tested using hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Results demonstrated significant associations between depressive symptomatology and lifetime nicotine and cannabis use, however, no significant associations were found between substance use and anxiety. Social competence as an independent variable was associated with cannabis and nicotine use, yet interaction terms were not associated with substance use. Results from this study suggest that both depression and social competence are uniquely associated with lifetime nicotine and cannabis use in adolescence. Therefore, substance use treatment programs should focus on both decreasing depression and increasing social competence. Future studies should test these associations beyond ninth graders in one large metropolitan area in the United States

People, Penguins and Petri Dishes: Adapting Object Counting Models To New Visual Domains And Object Types Without Forgetting

In this paper we propose a technique to adapt a convolutional neural network (CNN) based object counter to additional visual domains and object types while still preserving the original counting function. Domain-specific normalisation and scaling operators are trained to allow the model to adjust to the statistical distributions of the various visual domains. The developed adaptation technique is used to produce a singular patch-based counting regressor capable of counting various object types including people, vehicles, cell nuclei and wildlife. As part of this study a challenging new cell counting dataset in the context of tissue culture and patient diagnosis is constructed. This new collection, referred to as the Dublin Cell Counting (DCC) dataset, is the first of its kind to be made available to the wider computer vision community. State-of-the-art object counting performance is achieved in both the Shanghaitech (parts A and B) and Penguins datasets while competitive performance is observed on the TRANCOS and Modified Bone Marrow (MBM) datasets, all using a shared counting model.Comment: 10 page

Hearing voices, dissociation and the self: a functional-analytic perspective

Item does not contain fulltextIn the current paper, we review existing models of the aetiology of voice hearing. We summarise the argument and evidence that voice hearing is primarily a dissociative process, involving critical aspects of self. We propose a complementary perspective on these phenomena that is based on a modern behavioural account of complex behaviour, known as Relational Frame Theory (RFT). This type of approach to voice hearing concerns itself with: the functions served for the individual by this voice hearing; the necessary history, such as trauma, that establishes these functions; and the relevant dissociative processes involving self and others. In short, we propose a trauma-dissociation developmental trajectory in which trauma impacts negatively on the development of self, through the process of dissociation. Using the RFT concept of relations of perspective-taking, our dissociation model purports that trauma gives rise to more co-ordination than distinction relations between self and others, thus weaking an individual's sense of a distinct self. Voice hearing experiences, therefore, reflect an individual's perceptions of self and others, and may indicate impairments in the natural psychological boundaries between these critical related concepts. One clinical implication suggested by this model is that therapeutic 'intervention' should understand the behaviours associated with a sense of self that is fragile and threatened by others. Relations with self and others should be a key focus of therapy, as well as interventions designed to enhance a coherent distinct sense of self.20 p

The invalidity of a strong capacity for a quantum channel with memory

The strong capacity of a particular channel can be interpreted as a sharp limit on the amount of information which can be transmitted reliably over that channel. To evaluate the strong capacity of a particular channel one must prove both the direct part of the channel coding theorem and the strong converse for the channel. Here we consider the strong converse theorem for the periodic quantum channel and show some rather surprising results. We first show that the strong converse does not hold in general for this channel and therefore the channel does not have a strong capacity. Instead, we find that there is a scale of capacities corresponding to error probabilities between integer multiples of the inverse of the periodicity of the channel. A similar scale also exists for the random channel.Comment: 7 pages, double column. Comments welcome. Repeated equation removed and one reference adde

Comparing the Minimum Celeration Line and the Beat Your Personal Best Goal-Setting Approaches During the Mathematical Practice of Students Diagnosed with Autism

This study compared two goal-setting approaches found in the Precision Teaching literature, namely the minimum celeration line and the beat your personal best during the mathematical practice of three male students diagnosed with autism, aged 8–9. An adapted alternating treatments design with a control condition was embedded in a concurrent multiple baseline across participants design. Each approach was randomly allocated to either the multiplication/division (×÷) table of 18 or 19, while no approach was allocated to the ×÷14 table that acted as a control. Instruction utilized number families and consisted of (a) untimed practice, (b) frequency-building, (c) performance criteria, (d) graphing, and (e) a token economy. Upon practice completion, an assessment of maintenance, endurance, stability, and application (MESA) was conducted. Participants improved with both conditions and maintained their performance well, while improvements with the control condition were weak. The beat your personal best approach was highlighted as slightly more effective in terms of average performance and more efficient in terms of timings needed to achieve criterion. No differences were identified in terms of learning rate (i.e., celeration) or performance on the MESA. More research is warranted to identify which goal-setting procedure is more appropriate for students in special education.</p

Targeted delivery of anti-inflammatory therapy to rheumatoid tissue by fusion proteins containing an IL-4-linked synovial targeting peptide

We provide first-time evidence that the synovial endothelium-targeting peptide (SyETP) CKSTHDRLC successfully delivers conjugated IL-4 to human rheumatoid synovium transplanted into SCID mice. SyETP, previously isolated by in vivo phage display and shown to preferentially localize to synovial xenografts, was linked by recombinant technology to hIL-4 via an MMP-cleavable sequence. Both IL-4 and the MMP-cleavable sequence were shown to be functional. IL-4-SyETP augmented production of IL-1ra by synoviocytes stimulated with IL-1[beta] in a dose-dependent manner. In vivo imaging confirmed increased retention of SyETP-linked-IL-4 in synovial grafts which was enhanced by increasing number of copies (one to three) in the constructs. Strikingly, SyETP delivered bioactive IL-4 in vivo as demonstrated by increased pSTAT6 in synovial grafts. Thus, this study provides proof of concept for peptide-tissue-specific targeted immunotherapy in rheumatoid arthritis. This technology is potentially applicable to other biological therapies providing enhanced potency to inflammatory sites and reducing systemic toxicity

A Precision Teaching Framework for Improving Mathematical Skills of Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a precision teaching (PT) framework on the mathematical ability of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We also examined if students of moderate mathematical ability could perform as well as their peers with fewer difficulties with their math skills. Sixteen students participated and were divided into three groups. One group engaged in PT, and the other two groups functioned as comparisons. The PT group practiced six skills introduced linearly. An A-B design was used for the five component skills, and a multiple baseline across participants design was used for the composite skill (addition). The intervention led to a significant improvement in all skills, including addition, and this was associated with a large effect size; student performance met or exceeded that of their peers. Overall, the findings suggest that PT is an efficient and effective approach for teaching students with IDDs

Protection of personal information Act No. 4 of 2013: Implications for biobanks

The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) No. 4 of 2013 is the first comprehensive data-protection regulation to be passed in South Africa (SA). Its objectives include giving effect to the constitutional right to privacy by regulating the way in which personal information must be processed, balancing the right to privacy against other rights, and establishing an Information Regulator to ensure that the rights protected by POPIA are respected. POPIA will have an impact on health research, including biobanks. As sharing of samples and data is a central feature of biobanks, POPIA could change the way in which data are obtained, shared and exported. In particular, the provisions regarding data minimisation, requirements pertaining to the transfer of data abroad, consent provisions and identification of the 'responsible person' will impact the operation of biobanks in SA. With POPIA soon to come into force, it is now time to consider its implications for biobanks in SA