Digital cinema--an environment for multi-threaded stories

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1993.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-86).by Mark David Halliday.M.S

Factors Influencing Mid Career Redirection Decisions in Professionals

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship of factors affecting a professional’s decision to change the direction of their career in during mid career and develop a comprehensive model incorporating each of these factors. There are four hypotheses in this study: la) higher scores in the personality attributes of openness to experience and extraversión will be correlated with a larger change in career redirection than those professionals with lower scores; lb) a higher score in the career attitude of risk-taking style and a lower score in the career attitude of career worries will be correlated with a larger change in career redirection; 2) career redirection contemplation mediates the relationship between the personality variables and career attitudes and the degree of career redirection or change a person makes; 3) a person’s financial, support and personal context moderates the relationship between career redirection contemplation and the degree of career redirection; and 4) a life changing event moderates the relationship between career redirection contemplation and the degree of career redirection. To test the hypotheses, 22 professionals between the ages of 40-60 participated in the study. The NEO-FFI was used to test personality variables, the Career Attitudes and Strategies Inventory was used to test career attitudes, all other variables were coded from interview materials. It was found that career redirection contemplation was related to actual change in career redirection. All other relationships were not significant. Research limitations and future directions for research are discussed in detail

Prions: generation and spread versus neurotoxicity.

Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by the aggregation of misfolded proteins in the brain. Among these disorders are the prion diseases, which are transmissible, and in which the misfolded proteins ("prions") are also the infectious agent. Increasingly, it appears that misfolded proteins in Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases and the tauopathies also propagate in a "prion-like" manner. However, the association between prion formation, spread, and neurotoxicity is not clear. Recently, we showed that in prion disease, protein misfolding leads to neurodegeneration through dysregulation of generic proteostatic mechanisms, specifically, the unfolded protein response. Genetic and pharmacological manipulation of the unfolded protein response was neuroprotective despite continuing prion replication, hence dissociating this from neurotoxicity. The data have clear implications for treatment across the spectrum of these disorders, targeting pathogenic processes downstream of protein misfolding

Negotiating capture, resistance, errors, and identity: Confessions from the operating suite.

Conducting research in medical settings can pose particular challenges for research on adoption and adaptation to new technologies, especially when medical errors are a subject of the research, or the research necessitates capture of user behaviors and interactions. A case study of research in a clinical setting explores the experience of the researcher as they negotiate the practical challenges of research and research participants’ acts of resistance. The researcher’s identity, as constructed in the medical setting, serves to make this negotiation more complex. However, this case also illustrates the practical and theoretical approaches that can be applied to overcome these challenges

P83 A pilot study to assess peak systolic velocity as a possible marker of atherosclerotic burden using ultrasound

Introduction: Ischemic heart disease (IHD) has been associated with lower peak systolic velocity (PSV) on penile Doppler measurements [1]. This study establishes whether carotid ultrasound (US) PSV was associated with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) outputs, which in turn may contribute to IHD pathogenesis. Methods: A sample of 57 subjects (with IHD: 27, without IHD: 30) had US velocity profiles (left- common carotid artery) determined between 10e12 equispaced points. Bezier curve fitting was used to fit the profile through the measured velocity points for a normalised diameter. PSV was correlated against CFD results such as wall shear stress (WSS) [2]. Difference in PSV between individuals with/without IHD was studied via t-test. Linear regression was carried out to see if peak systolic velocity was associated with CFD outputs. Any significant associations were analysed within stratified groups (with/without IHD). Results: PSV was significantly lower (p Z 0.042) in subjects with IHD (with IHD: 53.6 17.3 cm/s, without IHD: 62.8 16.1 cm/s). PSV was associated with carotid bulb average pressure drop (p < 0.001), area of average bulb WSS (<1 Pa: p Z 0.016, <2 Pa: p Z 0.006, <3 Pa: p Z 0.001). All the above associations remained significant in individuals with IHD (average bulb pressure drop: p Z 0.001, average bulb WSS (<1 Pa: p Z 0.013, <2 Pa: p Z 0.008, <3 Pa: p Z 0.003). In subjects without IHD, PSV was associated with only average bulb pressure drop (p Z 0.016). Conclusions: This study suggests that further work on PSV and its associations with CFD outputs is required in individuals with and without IHD in various vascular beds

Donor-recipient HLA-A mismatching is associated with hepatic artery thrombosis, sepsis, graft loss and reduced survival after liver transplantation

HLA matching is not routinely performed for liver transplantation as there is no consistent evidence of benefit, however the impact of HLA mismatching remains uncertain. We explored the effect of class I and II HLA mismatching on graft failure and mortality. 1042 liver transplants performed at a single centre, between 1999 and 2016 with available HLA typing data were included. Median follow up period was 9.38 years (IQR 4.9-14) and 350/1042 (33.6%) transplants resulted in graft loss and 280/1042 (26.9%) in death. Graft loss and mortality were not associated with the overall number of mismatches at HLA-A, -B, -C, -DR and -DQ loci. However, graft failure and mortality were both increased in the presence of one (p = 0.004 and p = 0.01) and two (p = 0.01 and p = 0.04) HLA-A mismatches. Elevated hazard ratios for graft failure and death were observed with HLA-A mismatches in univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard models. Excess graft loss with HLA-A mismatch (138/940 (14.7%) of mismatched compared to 6/102 (5.9%) matched transplants) occurred within the first-year following transplantation (OR 2.75, p = 0.02). Strikingly, all grafts lost due to hepatic artery thrombosis were in HLA-A mismatched transplants (31/940 vs. 0/102), as were those lost due to sepsis (35/940 vs. 0/102). In conclusion, HLA-A mismatching was associated with increased graft loss and mortality. The poorer outcome for The HLA mismatched group was due to hepatic artery thrombosis and sepsis and these complications occurred exclusively with HLA-A mismatched transplants. This suggests that HLA-A mismatching is important for post-transplant outcomes and knowledge of HLA-A status may enable enhanced surveillance and interventions to reduce risk of complications or stratified HLA-A matching in high-risk recipients