The subjective lived experience that patients have with chronic renal disease

本研究では慢性腎疾患を有する若い成人の内的経験世界を検討した｡5名の患者が疾病に関してどのようなことを経験しているのかについて非組織的な深層面接を受けた｡分析の結果,患者の内的経験世界は,(1)患者が経験している感情や思考,(2)疾病や自己についての解釈,(3)重要な他者への信頼,(4)自己の変化と発達(成長)という4つに特徴づけられることが明らかになった｡しかるべき質の高い看護を提供するためには,看護者は,患者の内的経験世界を理解することが必要である｡This study explored the inner experiences of young adults with chronic renal disease. Five patients received an in-depth and non-structured interview for what they were experiencing as related to the disease. Analyses showed that the patients' inner experiences could be characterized as follows : (1) feelings and thoughts the patients experience, (2) interpretations they give to the disease and to their self, (3) reliance they place on significant others surrounding them and (4) change and development they make in their self-concept. Nurses are required to understand the inner experiences of patients in order to provide them with due care of high quality

Interaction Gardens and Butterfly Catalogues: a Joint Strategy to Promote Capacity Development in Protected Areas and Reduce the Extinction of Experience in Cities

More than half of the world’s population live in cities. Increasing numbers of generations are now born and raised in urban landscapes with decreasing opportunities towards interacting with natural environments. This extinction of experience leads to environmental apathy and lack of bioliteracy, which is a central aspect to be tackled in conservation strategies. At the same time, people who live near or at non-urban settings are closer to natural habitats but do not have similar access to concepts of environmentalism and may lack incentives to lean towards nature conservation, instead of its exploitation or even illegal activities. We here propose that interaction gardens, that is, gardens with multiple trophic levels (primary producers, herbivores, predators, and parasitoids), can tackle these issues, especially if planned with incentives, such as butterfly catalogues, aimed as a common goal of the garden community. It can also bring benefits to human health and well-being, increase the survival chances of local biodiversity, and strengthen the front line of conservation by promoting income strategies to people who live near protected areas. Our specific aims are to 1) share a case study of capacity development at the Intervales State Park in the Atlantic Forest, Southeast Brazil; 2) present the butterfly catalogue of this protected area; 3) present guidelines for interaction gardens at both urban and non-urban settings; and 4) discuss alternative perspectives about Neotropical conservation. We provide a translated version of the text in Portuguese to encourage students, educators, NGOs and local communities of other protected areas to venture in our proposed joint strategy of interaction gardens with butterfly catalogues

A preliminary study of orbitofrontal activation and hypersociability in Williams Syndrome

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) demonstrate an abnormally positive social bias. However, the neural substrates of this hypersociability, i.e., positive attribution bias and increased drive toward social interaction, have not fully been elucidated. Methods: We performed an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study while individuals with WS and typically developing controls (TD) matched positive and negative emotional faces. WS compared to TD showed reduced right amygdala activation during presentation of negative faces, as in the previous literature. In addition, WS showed a unique pattern of right orbitofrontal cortex activation. While TD showed medial orbitofrontal cortex activation in response to positive, and lateral orbitofrontal cortex activation to negative, WS showed the opposite pattern. In light of the general notion of a medial/lateral gradient of reward/punishment processing in the orbitofrontal cortex, these findings provide an additional biological explanation for, or correlate of positive attribution bias and hypersociability in WS

Parthenogenetic mosaicism: generation via second polar body retention and unmasking of a likely causative PER2 variant for hypersomnia

Background Parthenogenetic mosaicism is an extremely rare condition identified only in five subjects to date. The previous studies indicate that this condition is mediated by parthenogenetic activation and is free from a specific phenotype ascribed to unmaking of a maternally inherited recessive variant in the parthenogenetic cell lineage. Results We examined a 28-year-old Japanese 46,XX female with Silver-Russell syndrome and idiopathic hypersomnia. The results revealed (1) predominance of maternally derived alleles for all the differentially methylated regions examined; (2) no disease-related copy-number variant; (3) two types of regions for all chromosomes, i.e., four BAF (B-allele frequency) band regions with single major microsatellite peaks of maternal origin and single minor microsatellite peaks of non-maternal (paternal) origin, and six BAF band regions with single major microsatellite peaks of maternal origin and two minor microsatellite peaks of maternal and non-maternal (paternal) origin; (4) an unmasked extremely rare PER2 variant (c.1403G>A:p.(Arg468Gln)) with high predicted pathogenicity; (5) mildly affected local structure with altered hydrogen bonds of the p.Arg468Gln-PER2 protein; and (6) nucleus-dominant subcellular distribution of the p.Arg468Gln-PER2 protein. Conclusions The above findings imply that the second polar body retention occurred around fertilization, resulting in the generation of the parthenogenetic cell lineage by endoreplication of a female pronucleus and the normal cell lineage by fusion of male and female pronuclei, and that the homozygous PER2 variant in the parthenogenetic cells is the likely causative factor for idiopathic hypersomnia

Plasticity in plant defense and the role of phytochemical dissimilarity in limiting specialist herbivory

Phytochemical diversity is an effective plant defensive attribute, but much more research has focused on genetic and environmental controls of specific defensive compounds than phytochemical diversity per se. Documenting plasticity in phytochemical richness and plant chemical composition as opposed to individual compounds is important for understanding plant defense. This study outlines a multi-site transplant experiment in Cerrado gallery forests in central Brazil, utilizing Piper arboreum (Piperaceae), a prevalent and widespread neotropical shrub. Clones from four distinct populations were planted either at their origin site or in a different forest. Secondary metabolite composition varied between populations initially and then changed after transplanting. Interestingly, clones with chemical profiles that were distinct from the populations where they were introduced experienced reduced specialist chrysomelid herbivory compared to clones that were more chemically similar to the existing P. arboreum populations where they were planted. Specialist Lepidoptera herbivory also declined in clones transplanted to a new forest, but this change could not be ascribed to chemical profiles. In contrast, generalist herbivory was unaffected by chemical dissimilarity and transplanting. This research adds to the expanding body of evidence suggesting that phytochemical diversity is a dynamic trait exerting unique effects on different herbivore guilds

臨地実習における看護技術経験状況 : 1999年度及び2000年度3年次生の「看護技術の実習経験リスト」からの検討

本学では、学生に対し看護への学習意識の動機づけ、及び経験状況の把握を目的とし、平成11年度に「看護技術の実習経験リスト」を作成し、平成11年度及び平成12年度に臨地実習で活用した。今回、「看護技術の実習経験リスト」に記載された学生の自己評価を基に、平成11年度及び12年度の3年次生を対象として、本学の卒業時における看護技術経験状況の実態を調査した。その結果、観察・計測、食事、清潔、排泄など主に生活援助に関わる項目は経験状況が高く、処置、検査時の介助などの項目は未経験である学生が多い傾向であった。また、見学のみ、未経験の学生が多い技術項目は、患者の状態、治療内容が関与するものが多かった。今後、本学の基礎教育における看護技術教育の充実に向けての取り組みが必要であることが示唆された