Mechanical Interventions In Soft Tissue Repair

This body of work sets to investigate some of these mechanical interventions that are designed to promote wound healing, repair, or even replace an injured tissue. By investigating three separate tissues and three separate mechanical interventions, we can draw conclusions about the implications of including mechanical interventions in biomedical research and clinical treatments. The use of sutures to close wounds is highly common, however the effects of sutures on the tensile mechanics of human skin are largely unknown. To evaluate how sutures may affect uniaxial tensile mechanics, human skin samples were sutured and loaded in tension in multiple orientations. The data suggested that the sutured skin had a lower fracture strength and higher elastic modulus than the intact skin, particularly when loaded in-line with the injury. Next, the inflammatory effects of a decellularized ECM patch in a myocardial infarction model were analyzed. A commercially available decellularized material, porcine small intestine submucosa, was evaluated as a patch treatment in a rat myocardial infarction model, a treatment that is common in cardiac research. As anticipated, the addition of the patch in the injury area increased local inflammation as indicated by gene expression and leukocyte population and density. However, the patch did not appear to extend the inflammation response nor affect the response in a manner that would suggest hindrance to wound healing. Thirdly, a unique biochemical and mechanical approach was used to direct human adipose stem cells to differentiate towards a meniscus-like phenotype. By using a variety of media formulations and a variation of uniaxial tensile parameters, a protocol to maximize meniscus gene expression was concluded. A chondrogenic media formulation with 10% uniaxial strain at 1 Hz for 3 hours was found to have the greatest increase in meniscus gene expression of all of the parameters tested. Together, each of these individual works contributes to the conclusion that mechanical interventions can have a significant impact on the restructuring, repair, and replacement of soft tissues

A Literature Review of Paternal Involvement in Prenatal Care

Pregnancy and the transition to parenthood are critical periods for parents to be provided with relevant care, information, and assistance. Unfortunately, fathers do not receive the same guidance and support by the health care system, policymakers, or programs as their partners do. This paper reviews twelve studies that address father transition to parenthood and involvement in prenatal care, the positive outcomes of father involvement on child well-being, and the current state of prenatal father involvement. Recommendations for increased paternal involvement in prenatal care include creating a more father friendly environment in the health care setting, providing prevention-oriented care for men during their partner\u27s pregnancy, and furthering research and policy changes to support a more holistic approach to family health

Membrane anchors for the bacterial tubulin FtsZ regulate cell shape during Caulobacter crescentus cell division

Bacterial cell shape is genetically hardwired and critical for fitness as well as, in certain cases, pathogenesis. In most bacteria, a semi-rigid structure called the cell wall surrounds the inner membrane, offering protection against cell lysis while simultaneously maintaining cell shape. A highly dynamic macromolecular structure, the cell wall undergoes extensive remodeling as bacterial cells grow and divide. In the majority of bacteria, the tubulin-like GTPase FtsZ is essential for division and forms an annulus at midcell (the Z-ring) which recruits the division machinery and regulates cell wall remodeling. Although both activities require membrane attachment of FtsZ, few membrane anchors have been characterized. In the model α-proteobacterium Caulobacter crescentus, the division proteins FzlC and FtsEX arrive at midcell shortly after FtsZ and likely function as early FtsZ membrane anchors. As membrane attachment is important for FtsZ form and function, we sought to characterize the activities of FzlC and FtsEX toward FtsZ during cytokinesis. We demonstrate that FzlC associates with membranes directly in vivo and in vitro and recruits FtsZ to membranes in vitro. In vivo, overproduction of FzlC results in cytokinesis defects whereas deletion of fzlC causes synthetic defects with cell wall hydrolysis factors. Our characterization of FzlC as a novel membrane anchor for FtsZ expands our understanding of FtsZ regulators and establishes a role for membrane-anchored FtsZ in the control of cell wall hydrolysis. We also investigated the membrane anchoring function of the broadly conserved complex, FtsEX, and demonstrate that in C. crescentus FtsEX relays signals from the cytoplasm to the cell wall to regulate key developmental shape changes. Consistent with studies in diverse bacteria, we observe strong synthetic interactions between ftsE and cell wall hydrolytic factors, suggesting that regulation of cell wall remodeling is a conserved function of FtsEX. Intriguingly, without FtsE, cells frequently fail to separate and instead elaborate a thin, tubular structure between cell bodies, a growth mode observed in other α-proteobacteria. Overall, our results highlight the plasticity of bacterial cell shape and demonstrate how altering the activity of one morphogenetic program can produce diverse morphologies resembling those of other bacteria in nature

Lexical Derivation of the PINT Taxonomy of Goals: Prominence, Inclusiveness, Negativity Prevention, and Tradition

What do people want? Few questions are more fundamental to psychological science than this. Yet, existing taxonomies disagree on both the number and content of goals. We thus adopted a lexical approach and investigated the structure of goal-relevant words from the natural English lexicon. Through an intensive rating process, 1,060 goal-relevant English words were first located. In Studies 1-2, two relatively large and diverse samples (total n = 1,026) rated their commitment to approaching or avoiding these goals. Principal component analyses yielded 4 replicable components: Prominence, Inclusiveness, Negativity prevention, and Tradition (the PINT Taxonomy). Study 3-7 (total n = 1,396) supported the 4-factor structure of an abbreviated scale and found systematic differences in their relationships with past goal-content measures, the Big 5 traits, affect, and need satisfaction. This investigation thus provides a data-driven taxonomy of higher-order goal-content and opens up a wide variety of fascinating lines for future research

Fairview Cancer Rehab Program Outcomes and Effectiveness: a Pilot Study

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: One million people in the United States of America are diagnosed with cancer each year. Many cancer patients are surviving and managing residual effects of cancer, including, but not limited to pain, muscle weakness, depression, anxiety, fatigue and decreased activity tolerance. The purpose of this study is to initiate data compilation to determine the effectiveness and outcomes of the Fairview Cancer Rehabilitation program. METHODS: Participants included 7 patients with a wide variety of cancer diagnoses who were consecutively recruited from Fairview Cancer Rehabilitation program. This program included physical and/or occupational therapy targeted to each patient’s individual impairments. Outcome measures included FACIT-Fatigue, Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12), Six-Minute Walk Test (6MWT), Timed Up and Go (TUG), bilateral grip strength, Numerical Pain Rating Scale (NPRS) and a follow-up survey inquiring about current health status, activity level and pain rating. Outcome measures were administered within the first 2 physical therapy visits and re-administered at time of discharge. The follow-up survey along with the SF-12 were mailed to each participant at 2 months post discharge. Since the number of subjects included in this study was low, changes in scores were examined for trends. RESULTS: The participants ranged in age from 24 to 66 years with an average age of 51.4 ± 14.3 years. Patients participated in an average of 9.6 physical therapy visits ranging from 4-17 visits. Patients participated in an average of 3.1 occupational therapy visits, ranging from 0-12 visits. Mean FACIT-F, SF-12 physical and mental composite scores, 6MWT, TUG scores, bilateral grip strength and NPRS demonstrated impairments at initial evaluation and demonstrated improvement at post-intervention assessment. SF-12 mental composite scores and NPRS continued to improve from the post-intervention to follow-up measures. CONCLUSION: Patients with cancer and cancer survivors are living with a variety of side effects. This pilot study supports the effectiveness of Fairview Cancer Rehabilitation program in improving patient’s quality of life and functional abilities. Further research is indicated with a larger sample size and increased follow-up time.

Integrating Service-Learning in the Public Speaking Course

This best-practices article endorses incorporating service-learning into the foundational public speaking course. The article explains connections between service-learning and the rhetorical tradition, highlights pedagogical approaches that would benefit from a service-learning component, and discusses the benefits of service-learning for community partners and students. The remainder of the article focuses on how to implement servicelearning in a public speaking course, including reflection and assessment recommendations

Gershgorin Disc-based Voltage Stability Regions for DER Siting and Control in Distribution Grids

As a consequence of the transition to distributed and renewable energy systems, some distribution system operators are increasingly concerned about power quality, including steady-state voltage volatility. In this paper, we study the control of real and reactive power injections by inverter-based distributed energy resources to regulate voltage magnitudes and phase angles measured by sensors positioned across 3-phase unbalanced distribution grids. Our proposed controllers are agnostic to the location and type of communications supporting energy resource operations. To design the controllers, we apply the Gershgorin Disc Theorem and determine analytic stability regions in terms of renewable energy operating parameters and grid impedances. The stability regions yield direct relationships between renewable energy system siting and the convergence of voltage phasors to references. Beyond defining stability regions, we compute ranges of stable operating parameters for renewable energy systems that promote operational flexibility by including customer economics. By means of a case study on the IEEE 123-node test circuit, we observe our approach to coordinating renewable energy systems achieves non-oscillatory voltage regulation and reduces the duration of voltage violations by 26%.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Power System

Video Observations of Student and Facilitator Processes in Intergroup Dialogues.

This dissertation draws on data from a nine university research project exploring how to effectively leverage diversity on college campuses to produce educational benefits. This dissertation uses qualitative and quantitative video-research methods to explore communication and affective processes occurring among a subset of the dialogue facilitators and undergraduate students who participated in this larger-scale study. The larger-scale randomized controlled trial tested the efficacy of an intergroup dialogue pedagogical model with a specific focus on understanding the communication, affective and cognitive processes that occur between individuals of different race/ethnic or gender groups that produce positive intergroup outcomes. In total, 40 facilitators and 264 students participated in this dissertation study. This sample included 20 experimental dialogue courses: ten gender dialogues, and ten race/ethnicity dialogues. Each semester-long dialogue course was video-taped on three occasions. Approximately 35 minutes of common dialogue-based activities were selected for coding across each of the three (early, mid, and late semester) video-taped sessions. Thus, each dialogue course had over 100 minutes of video selected and qualitatively coded on a minute-by-minute basis for team facilitation style and three individual student processes: engagement, anxiety, and openness. Results from type III omnibus linear mixed-effect model analyses of the quantitative video coding data indicate that student engagement, anxiety, and openness varied by dialogue topic (gender or race/ethnicity), as well as by interactions between dialogue topic and the following predictive factors: the size of the dialogue, the video session (one, two, or three); and the type of common activity being coded. Additional analyses revealed an association between facilitator use of advocacy and increased levels of student anxiety, as well as decreased levels of student engagement and openness. In contrast, facilitator use of reflection and redirection, or listening and support, was associated with lower levels of student anxiety. Facilitator listening and support was also associated with higher levels of student engagement and openness. This dissertation concludes with a discussion of potential implications of these results for future research, dialogue facilitator training, community organizing, and social work practice.Ph.D.Social Work and PsychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78873/1/emeier_1.pd