Data Driven: An Autoethnographic Short Story

In this paper, I use an autoethnographic short story (Jago, 2005, 2011) to examine data-driven life in media culture (Kellner, 1995) and the emergence of a quantified self (Wolf, 2010)

Increased target reinnervation by rescued cervical motoneurons after ventral root avulsion: the effects of spinal cord-brachialis plexus reconnection and riluzole treatment

Although adult motoneurons do not die if their axons are injured at some distance from the cell body, they are vulnerable to injury inflicted on the axons close to the cell body. Ventral root avulsion injury induces death of the vast majority of the affected adult motoneurons. However, some of these cells can be rescued if the avulsed ventral root or a peripheral nerve graft is inserted into the spinal cord. The freshly injured axons of the motoneurons can enter this conduit and are able to grow along the way to the muscles originally innervated by the damaged motoneurons. The neuroprotective effect of riluzole has also been previously proven on the injured motoneurons: they can be rescued even if they have no possibility to regenerate their axons. Here we investigated the strategies that could be used to rescue injured motoneurons and compared their effects. The cervical 7th ventral root (C7) was avulsed and several therapeutic approaches were applied to induce the survival and regeneration of injured motoneurons. Avulsion of the root without reimplantation resulted in very low numbers of surviving motoneurons (65 ± 7.5 SEM), while treatment of the injured motoneurons with riluzole, a potent presynaptic glutamate release inhibitor resulted in significantly higher numbers of surviving motoneurons (637 ± 25.5 SEM). When the C7 ventral root was reimplanted or a peripheral nerve implant was used to guide the regenerating axons to a muscle considerable numbers of motoneurons sent their axons into the vacated endoneural sheaths (211 ± 14.8 SEM and 274 ± 27.8 SEM, respectively). Much greater numbers of axons regenerated when reimplantation was followed by riluzole treatment (573 ± 8.6 SEM). Avulsion and immediate reconnection of the motoneuron pool to the spinal nerve resulted in moderate reinnervation of the spinal nerve (281± 23 SEM retrogradely labelled motoneurons), while treatment of the injured motoneurons with riluzole yielded considerably higher numbers of reinnervating motoneurons (548± 18 SEM). The clinical relevance of our study is given by the brachial plexus injuries that involve the complete or partial avulsion of one or more cervical ventral roots. These injuries can be treated successfully only if satisfactory numbers of motoneurons remain alive following such an injury at the time of reconstructive surgery. In order to that we designed the next step in our study to investigate the capacity of injured motoneurons rescued by riluzole pretreatment to reinnervate denervated forelimb muscles in a model where surgical reconnection with a peripheral nerve graft between the affected spinal cord segment and the C7 spinal nerve was established immediately or with 1 and 3-week-delay after avulsion. Reconnection of the motor pool with the C7 spinal nerve with 1-week-delay allowed fewer motor axons to reinnervate their targets in control and riluzole-treated animals (159± 21 vs 395 ± 16 SEM). A clinically relevant 3-week-delay in reconnection further reduced the number of reinnervating motoneurons (76±22 SEM), but riluzole pretreatment still enabled a significant number of rescued motoneurons (396±17 SEM) to regenerate their axons into the C7 spinal nerve. These results show that adult motoneurons damaged by a brachial plexus injury can be rescued by riluzole treatment even if they cannot regenerate their axons. Reinnervation of the peripheral targets can also be achieved by providing a peripheral conduit for the motoneurons and the extent of reinnervation can be further improved with riluzole treatment. Motoneurons rescued by riluzole are able to reinnervate their targets even if they are provided with a conduit several weeks after the primary injury. This finding suggests that rescuing injured motoneurons with riluzole in patients who suffered a brachial plexus avulsion injury may provide an available pool of surviving motoneurons for late reconnection/reimplantation surgeries

The Healing Power of Play: therapeutic work with chronically neglected and abused children

This article concerns a therapeutic intervention with a group of abandoned children living in a Romanian pediatric hospital. The children, ranging in age from one to ten years old, had suffered chronic neglect and abuse. They had previously spent most of their lives tied in the same cot in the same hospital ward. They were poorly fed and their nappies were rarely changed. Although able to see and hear the other abused children, they experienced little in the way of social interaction. The article focuses on the play-based methods that were employed to aid the children’s recovery, while at the same time highlighting the general benefits of this very specific therapeutic approach to children’s recovery and development. In particular, there is an exploration of concepts such as symbolic representation, negative capability, joining, and the significance of play cues. However, despite the clear value of these individually focused techniques, the article proposes the tentative hypothesis that the most powerful healing factor was the unfettered playful interaction between the children themselves. In other words, the children in a very real sense may have healed each other while playing

Always a Student of Autoethnography

In this paper, I examine the role of a specific place, Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, as a particular grounding space on my autoethnographic journey. I assert this grounding space calls me to remember that I am, and will always be, a student of autoethnography

Change in Everyday Life and in the Communication World: A Co-Constructed Performance Autoethnography

In this paper, we use a co-constructed performance autoethnography to explore change in everyday life and in the communication world

Egyházi felsőoktatás az ezredforduló után = Christian Higher Education After the Millenium

In the international discourse universities connected with different churches are scored as “private” institutions. Thus  it is difficult to characterise them. We can detect only  the “Christian” and “Catholic” universities, with their  special and defined mission. In Hungary these kinds of institutions are recorded as “universities sustained by  churches” with special legal and financial circumstances.  They represent relatively precisely the social status of  religious people, and add some interesting value to the  whole system of higher education. Míg a nemzetközi felsőoktatásban az egyházi fenntartás fogalma nem halmazalkotó, a keresztény, illetve katolikus  egyetemek identitása és küldetése biztosan megragadható. Az egyházi egyetemek magyarországi státusza ilyen  szempontból sajátos. A tanulmány rámutat, hogy ezek viszonylag pontosan, tehát organikus módon  reprezentálják a hazai vallásosság szociológiai viszonyait,  bizonyos területeken azonban jelentős általános hozzáadott értéket nyújtanak a felsőoktatásban.

A portugál oktatási reformok nemzetközi sikerének háttere

Portugália és Magyarország 2010-es évektől folyó kormányzati oktatásirányítási reformjának időbeli és tartalmi párhuzamrendszere sajátos jelentőséggel bír. A hasonló kondíciókkal rendelkező két ország közül Portugália ezredfordulón mért oktatási teljesítménye a hazainál alacsonyabb színvonalról indulva a 2018-as PISA-mérések időszakára nem csupán Magyarország, de az OECD átlagát is túlszárnyalta. Az elsősorban 2011 és 2015 között bevezetett reformok a magyarországi folyamatoktól, de a nemzetközi szakpolitikai diskurzustól is némileg eltérő példákkal szolgálnak, elsősorban a központi tantervi szabályozás területén

A single-arm trial indirect comparison investigation: a proof-of-concept method to predict venous leg ulcer healing time for a new acellular synthetic matrix matched to standard care control

To compare data on time to healing from two separate cohorts: one treated with a new acellular synthetic matrix plus standard care (SC) and one matched from four large UK pragmatic, randomised controlled trials [venous leg ulcer (VLU) evidence network]. We introduce a new proof-of-concept strategy to a VLU clinical evidence network, propensity score matching and sensitivity analysis to predict the feasibility of the new acellular synthetic matrix plus SC for success in future randomised, controlled clinical trials. Prospective data on chronic VLUs from a safety and effectiveness study on an acellular synthetic matrix conducted in one wound centre in the UK (17 patients) and three wound centres in Australia (36 patients) were compared retrospectively to propensity score-matched data from patients with comparable leg ulcer disease aetiology, age, baseline ulcer area, ulcer duration, multi-layer compression bandaging and majority of care completed in specialist wound centres (average of 1 visit per week), with the outcome measures at comparable follow-up periods from patients enrolled in four prospective, multicentre, pragmatic, randomised studies of venous ulcers in the UK (the comparison group; VLU evidence network). Analysis using Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed a mean healing time of 73·1 days for ASM plus SC (ASM) treated ulcers in comparison with 83·5 days for comparison group ulcers treated with SC alone (Log rank test, χ(2) 5·779, P = 0·016) within 12 weeks. Sensitivity analysis indicates that an unobserved covariate would have to change the odds of healing for SC by a factor of 1·1 to impact the baseline results. Results from this study predict a significant effect on healing time when using a new ASM as an adjunct to SC in the treatment of non-healing venous ulcers in the UK, but results are sensitive to unobserved covariates that may be important in healing time comparison

The Writing Exercise: An Autoethnographic Short Story

This paper is an autoethnography about writing as a form of communication in the age of new media