Defining Attachment and Bonding: Overlaps, Differences and Implications for Music Therapy Clinical Practice and Research in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)

Preterm birth and the subsequent hospitalization in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is a challenging life event for parents and babies. Stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, limitations in holding or touching the baby, and medical complications during the NICU stay can negatively affect parental mental health. This can threaten the developing parent-infant relationship and might adversely impact child development. Music therapy in the NICU is an internationally growing field of clinical practice and research and is increasingly applied to promote relationship building between parents and babies. The two most commonly used concepts describing the early parent-infant relationship are ‘attachment’ and ‘bonding’. While frequently used interchangeably in the literature, they are actually not the same and describe distinctive processes of the early relationship formation. Thus, it is important to discuss the overlaps and differences between attachment and bonding and the implications for music therapy clinical practice and research. Whereas providing examples and possible scenarios for music therapists working on either bonding or attachment, the distinction between both concepts is relevant for many health care professionals concerned with early parenting interventions in the NICU. This will hopefully lead to a more precise use of theory, and ultimately, to a more informed clinical practice and research.publishedVersio

Multicultural Considerations in Music Therapy Research

Our society has become more diverse in the past decade, as evidenced by the influx of immigrants, multiracial and minority groups, and the increasing age gap between generations (Population Reference Bureau, 2015). Consequently, culture has been regarded as a significant construct among researchers. By proposing Culture-Centered Music Therapy, Stige (2002) encourages “all music therapists [to be] more culture-centered in their work and thinking, not by labeling their work as such but integrating cultural perspectives in their thinking” (p. 5). As our own worldviews influence all aspects of music therapy (Dileo, 2000; Wheeler & Baker, 2010), cultural factors provide a significant foundation to all music therapy research. With this perspective, music therapy researchers are essentially multicultural researchers. Moreover, this professional role is not only part of a scholarly endeavor, but also “our ethical and moral obligation” (Vera & Speight, 2003, p. 270)

Climate Impacts to Groundwater Ponding and Salinity – Stillaguamish and Snohomish

Climate Impacts to Groundwater Ponding and Salinity – This engineering and geomorphology team collaborated with the Snohomish Conservation District (SCD) to assess localized and regional climate impacts to groundwater in the lower Stillaguamish and Snohomish River basins. The work contributed to a larger land use and community planning framework seeking solutions that promote both salmon and agricultural resiliency. Results of the assessment were presented to the local community via a series of sessions intentionally designed to facilitate climate change communication and education between the conservation district, flood control districts, Snohomish County, farmers, conservationists, scientists, and engineers. Each session began with presentations from scientists and engineers and ended with collaborative mapping tasks that identified habitat restoration and infrastructure improvement opportunities that could mitigate flood risk, address declining salmon populations, and adapt to rising sea levels and changing hydrology. The climate impacts assessment focused on the effects of localized relative sea level rise (RSLR) and predicted extents of rising groundwater tables and increased salinity intrusion to crop root zones. Tidal attenuation into the groundwater table was predicted using conductivity and water table elevation time series from current and historical groundwater monitoring wells. Increased groundwater ponding due to RSLR was predicted for two aquatic environments (groundwater tables dominated by tidal versus upstream fluvial inputs) via two different methods resulting in summer groundwater ponding maps and spring agricultural cropping access delay maps for existing conditions and future years 2050, 2080, and 2100. Salinity intrusion effects due to RSLR were extrapolated spatially and temporally for the future. Decision-relevant results were synthesized then presented for interpretation by county, farmer, tribal, and other stakeholder groups. Implications for coastal systems, shoreline management, and transportation infrastructure were focused locally on the lower Stillaguamish and Snohomish Rivers

Competition of spin-flip and spin-flop dominated processes in magnetic multilayers: Magnetization reversal, magnetotransport, and domain structure in the NiFe/Cu system

Changes in the magnetization structure of an antiferromagnetically (afm)-coupled metallic multilayer as a function of the applied field H along the easy axis may involve both spin-flip and spin-flop events. The latter are widely discussed as the origin of the characteristic shapes of the magnetization M(H) and giant magnetoresistance (GMR) curves. In this work, we demonstrate the influence of spin-flip processes, which result in very different magnetization reversal and resistivity characteristics as compared to the spin-flop case: sharp, steplike GMR and magnetization changes for both the surface and internal layers-including magnetic viscosity effects-are observed. By means of Kerr microscopy, Kerr magnetometry, GMR, and magnetization measurements we show that spin-flip transitions via domain wall displacement constitute the relevant mechanism of magnetization reversal, provided that the anisotropy field H-K in the multilayer surpasses the antiferromagnetic coupling field H-afm. In this case, a linear dependence of the GMR on the magnetization is observed, whereas for fields applied along the hard axis magnetization rotation results in a quadratic dependence. The strong change of the ratio H-K/H-afm could be realized for measuring temperatures between 4.2 and 470 K in a series of wedge-type NiFe/Cu multilayers prepared by dc magnetron sputtering and showing GMR amplitudes of up to 12% (300 K) and 28% (4.2 K) in the second afm coupling maximum with extremely low values of the afm coupling strength

Microarray Analysis Uncovers a Role for Tip60 in Nervous System Function and General Metabolism

Background: Tip60 is a key histone acetyltransferase (HAT) enzyme that plays a central role in diverse biological processes critical for general cell function; however, the chromatin-mediated cell-type specific developmental pathways that are dependent exclusively upon the HAT activity of Tip60 remain to be explored. Methods and Findings: Here, we investigate the role of Tip60 HAT activity in transcriptional control during multicellular development in vivo by examining genome-wide changes in gene expression in a Drosophila model system specifically depleted for endogenous dTip60 HAT function. Conclusions: We show that amino acid residue E431 in the catalytic HAT domain of dTip60 is critical for the acetylation of endogenous histone H4 in our fly model in vivo, and demonstrate that dTip60 HAT activity is essential for multicellular development. Moreover, our results uncover a novel role for Tip60 HAT activity in controlling neuronal specific gene expression profiles essential for nervous system function as well as a central regulatory role for Tip60 HAT function in general metabolism