Exploring the Lived Experiences of Marriage and Family Therapy Students Who Study Bowen Family Systems Theory, and Relating Those Experiences to Concepts of Differentiation of Self and Emotional Intelligence: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Bowen Family Systems Theory’s (BFST) concept of differentiation of self has the ability to contribute to the self-development of the therapist, and is considered the technique of this theory (Kerr & Bowen, 1988). Emotional intelligence is an essential skill for Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTs), as it provides the ability to accurately perceive, express, and evaluate emotions in one’s self and others to facilitate thought, and the regulation of emotions in order to enhance emotional and intellectual growth (Salovey & Mayer, 1997). This study explored the lived experiences of Marriage and Family Therapy students who studied BFST and related those experiences to concepts of differentiation of self and emotional intelligence. This qualitative study utilized Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to gather, process, and analyze the essence of students’ experiences. This process included semi-structured open-ended interviewing of six doctoral students, transcribing, and analyzing the data in accordance with IPA. This study led to the outcome of the coined term differentiated intelligent emotion. The findings of the study produced nine themes: (1) BFST impact on clinical work, (2) BFST impact on personal development, (3) Differentiation of self, (4) Emotional intelligence, (5) Anxiety, (6) Nuclear family emotional process, (7) Multigenerational transmission process, (8) Triangulation, and (9) Individuality and Togetherness. The findings suggest the study of BFST resulted in awareness and an increase in the differentiation of self supported by an increase in emotional intelligence. This led to improvements in personal development, professional development in therapeutic relationships, anxiety, nuclear family functioning, multigenerational transmission process, detriangulation, and sense of individuality. This study contributes to the existing training and development literature concerning MFT’s in terms of their differentiation of self and emotional intelligence. The research presents implications for future research, clinical practice and training

Earlobe hypertrophy correction

INTRODUCTION: The ear is a structure of the face with important aesthetic value. The dimensions of the ear and the appearance of its anatomical components change with age, disease and cultural practices which can result in an aesthetically unpleasant form over time. The earlobe is an important anatomical part of the ear and is considerably influenced by the factors above. It is made of fatty tissue and skin and can undergo changes in its proportion and flaccidity, which may be improved by surgical procedures to make it more aesthetically pleasing, providing a more proportional or younger appearance. This article reports the case of a 30-year-old patient who considered his earlobes disproportionate in relation to the rest of his ears and underwent surgery to have them reduced. METHODS: A simple and fast recovery surgical procedure was carried out delineating and resecting a part of each of the patient's earlobes. RESULTS: The results proved to be satisfactory as the patient had more proportional earlobes in relation to the rest of his ears achieving aesthetic improvement. CONCLUSION: The technique described in this article to reduce hypertrophied earlobes proved to be efficient

High-Throughput Characterization of Viral and Cellular Protein Expression Patterns During JC Polyomavirus Infection

JC polyomavirus (JCPyV) is a ubiquitous human pathogen and the causative agent of a fatal demyelinating disease in severely immunocompromised individuals. Due to the lack of successful pharmacological interventions, the study of JCPyV infection strategies in a rapid and highly sensitive manner is critical for the characterization of potential antiviral therapeutics. Conventional methodologies for studying viral infectivity often utilize the detection of viral proteins through immunofluorescence microscopy-based techniques. While these methodologies are well established in the field, they require significant time investments and lack a high-throughput modality. Scanning imager-based detection methods like the In-cell Western (ICW)TM have been previously utilized to overcome these challenges incurred by traditional microscopy-based infectivity assays. This automated technique provides not only rapid detection of viral infection status, but can also be optimized to detect changes in host-cell protein expression during JCPyV challenge. Compared to traditional manual determinations of infectivity through microscopy-based techniques, the ICW provides an expeditious and robust determination of JCPyV infection. The optimization of the ICW for the detection of viral and cellular proteins during JCPyV infection provides significant time and cost savings by diminishing sample preparation time and increasing resource utilization. While the ICW cannot provide single-cell analysis information and is limited in the detection of quantitation of low-expressing proteins, this assay provides a high-throughput system to study JCPyV, previously unavailable to the field. Thus, the high-throughput nature and dynamic experimental range of the ICW can be applied to the study of JCPyV infection

Descriptive and experimental analysis of the dispersion of neural crest cells along the dorsolateral path and their entry into ectoderm in the chick embryo

We have characterized the dispersion of neural crest cells along the dorsolateral path in the trunk of the chicken embryo and experimentally investigated the control of neural crest cell entry into this path. The distribution of putative neural crest cells was analyzed in plastic sections of embryos that had been incubated for 24 hr in HNK-1 antibody, a procedure that we show successfully labels neural crest cells in the dorsolateral path and ectoderm. In accord with earlier observations, crest cells delay entering the dorsolateral path until a day or more after their counterparts have colonized the ventral path. However, once crest cells enter, they disperse rapidly through the path dorsal to the somite but still delay migrating dorsal to the intersegmental space. During dispersion, crest cells invade the ectoderm at sites associated with local disruptions in the basal lamina which may be caused by crest cells. Finally, deleting the dermamyotome releases an inhibition of neural crest cell migration: crest cells enter the dorsolateral path precociously. We speculate that the epithelial dermatome may transiently produce inhibitory substances and that emerging dermis may provide a long-distance, stimulatory cue.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/30077/1/0000447.pd

Marine biodiversity baseline for Área de Conservación Guanacaste, Costa Rica: published records

The diversity of tropical marine organisms has not been studied as intensively as the terrestrial biota worldwide. Additionally, marine biodiversity research in the tropics lags behind other regions. The 43,000 ha Sector Marino of Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG, Marine Sector of Guanacaste Conservation Area), on the North Pacific coast of Costa Rica is no exception. For more than four decades, the terrestrial flora and fauna has been studied continuously. The ACG marine biodiversity was studied in the 1930’s by expeditions that passed through the area, but not much until the 1990’s, except for the marine turtles. In the mid 1990’s the Center for Research in Marine Science and Limnology (CIMAR) of the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) initiated the exploration of the marine environments and organisms of ACG. In 2015, ACG, in collaboration with CIMAR, started the BioMar project whose goal is to inventory the species of the marine sector of ACG (BioMar ACG project). As a baseline, here I have compiled the published records of marine ACG species, and found that 594 marine species have been reported, representing 15.5% of the known species of the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The most diverse groups were the crustaceans, mollusks and cnidarians comprising 71.7% of the ACG species. Some taxa, such as mangroves and fish parasites are well represented in ACG when compared to the rest of the Costa Rican coast but others appear to be greatly underrepresented, for example, red algae, polychaetes, copepods, equinoderms, and marine fishes and birds, which could be due to sampling bias. Thirty species have been originally described with specimens from ACG, and 89 species are not known from other localities on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica except ACG. Most of the sampling has been concentrated in a few localities in Sector Marino, Playa Blanca and Islas Murciélago, and in the nearby waters of Bahía Santa Elena. In an effort to fill this gap, CIMAR is collaborating with ACG and a private foundation to start an inventory of the marine organisms of the conservation area. The project will be assisted by two marine parataxonomists, and all samples will be catalogued, photographed, bar coded and voucher specimens deposited at the Museo de Zoología, UCR. All the information will be available through Internet. It is anticipated that the BioMar project will fill many of the knowledge gaps and significantly more marine species will be encountered. This project could become a viable model for marine biodiversity inventories in other Costa Rican Conservation Areas (Áreas de Conservación) and in other countries.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Básicas::Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología (CIMAR

Range extensions for Terebra robusta Hinds, 1844 and for Terebra formosa Deshayes, 1857

Volume: 5Start Page: 159End Page: 15

A checklist of mollusks for Puertecitos, Baja California, Mexico

Volume: 5Start Page: 39End Page: 5

“Mere Matter:” Causality, Subjectivity and Aesthetic Form in Erasmus Darwin

In his two-part medical treatise Zoonomia (1794-1796), Erasmus Darwin—physician, scientist, popular poet and grandfather of Charles Darwin—begins with a conception of living matter in order to envision an organic system of nature, in which the individual and the environment are not only interdependent, but also reciprocally determining. This essay contextualizes Darwin’s materialism within a wider debate over the status of “mere matter” in the Romantic era through a reading of section 39 of Zoonomia, “Of Generation,” alongside David Hartley’s psychological theories and Joseph Priestley’s thinking on the nature of matter. I argue that the perceived threat of materialism lies in the ways in which these systems of thought rethink the operation of causality, reorient conceptions of teleology, and thus rewrite the nature of the relationship between the human subject and material nature. A reading of the critical contemporary reactions to Darwin’s popular poetry further suggests that the same shifting conceptions of teleology, causality, and subjectivity drive Romantic era revolutions in aesthetic form