Barriers to mental health treatment for refugees in Maine : an exploratory study

The purpose of this study was to explore the barriers refugees face when it comes to accessing mental health treatment in Maine. Research suggests that refugees underutilize mental health services throughout the United States, despite equal to higher rates of mental health symptoms when compared to the general population. To acquire data, eight refugees were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. Participants were asked to share about their perceptions of mental illness and mental health treatment, discuss coping mechanisms that they find useful, and offer suggestions for providers working with refugees. Major findings included that stigma, fear, language, and cultural differences are the largest barriers for refugees when it comes to accessing treatment. Participants expressed that community, humor, and faith are coping mechanisms that are helpful when confronting hardships. Finally, participants felt that providers should reach out to refugee communities to educate refugees about available services and destigmatize mental illness

Still feeling like a spare piece of luggage : young disabled people's construction of embodied identities within physical education and sport

This thesis explores young peoples' experiences of physical education and sport and considers the ways in which these experiences contribute to identity formation and understandings of self. Ten young disabled people attending two secondary schools in the Midlands of England participated in a series of focus group discussions and completed free-time diaries. In this study, I focus on the insights of young disabled people as much physical education and sports research has failed to account for the insights of these young people. Theoretically, I draw on social and medical model understandings of disability and extend these understandings by employing Pierre Bourdieu's conceptual tools. In particular, these tools bridge the structure/agency dichotomy found within medical and social model understandings of disability. The data generated from this study reveals multifaceted relations between school, physical education, sport, the family, friends and role models. Within and between these spheres, young disabled people begin to understand themselves and the position and meaning of physical education and sport in relation to their lives. Within a school context, it is evident that a paradigm of normativity prevails and is expressed through informal and formal discursive practices. Indeed, the physical education habitus serves to affirm this normative presence and is manifest through conceptions of ability that recognise and value certain characteristics and competencies more than others. In this context, students measured themselves, and perceived they were measured by others, against a mesomorphic ideal. In addition, masculinity was expressed in a manner that valued competitive and aggressive forms of activity. Within physical education, value was also placed on high levels of motoric competence. For the focus group students, difference is embodied within physical education and serves to reinforce wider practices within school that distinguish disabled students as different from other students. Beyond a school context, this study explores students' understandings of their free-time experiences and, in particular, free-time sport. Although students had different experiences of free time, it is clear that this sphere of life is an important site for understanding and positioning themselves in relation to others. Indeed, there are similarities between free time and school (physical) education in relation to the ways in which normative values associated with the body and conceptions of performance prevail. For a small number of students, it appears that the family habitus has disrupted these normative values and constructed disability and sport positively. This study also highlights the limited extent to which different sites of participation and mediators interrelate in order to support any kind of continuity or progression in sport. Although the key mediator within multiple sites seem to be parents, their support remained isolated to specific issues within sites rather than providing support between sites. Taken together, these findings reveal a number of substantive issues that have emerged from this study, including the role schools and physical education play in reproducing social inequalities, disability as a fluid and contradictory construct and the notion of complex sporting identities. This thesis concludes by discussing the implications of this study in relation to researching with young disabled people, the practice of physical education and the provision of disability sport opportunities. This study demonstrates not only the complexities of identity formation but also the fluid position that disability has within this process.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Emotion recognition of static and dynamic faces in autism spectrum disorder

There is substantial evidence for facial emotion recognition (FER) deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The extent of this impairment, however, remains unclear, and there is some suggestion that clinical groups might benefit from the use of dynamic rather than static images. High-functioning individuals with ASD (n = 36) and typically developing controls (n = 36) completed a computerised FER task involving static and dynamic expressions of the six basic emotions. The ASD group showed poorer overall performance in identifying anger and disgust and were disadvantaged by dynamic (relative to static) stimuli when presented with sad expressions. Among both groups, however, dynamic stimuli appeared to improve recognition of anger. This research provides further evidence of specific impairment in the recognition of negative emotions in ASD, but argues against any broad advantages associated with the use of dynamic displays

Constitutive interferon signaling maintains critical threshold of MLKL expression to license necroptosis

Interferons (IFNs) are critical determinants in immune-competence and autoimmunity, and are endogenously regulated by a low-level constitutive feedback loop. However, little is known about the functions and origins of constitutive IFN. Recently, lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced IFN was implicated as a driver of necroptosis, a necrotic form of cell death downstream of receptor-interacting protein (RIP) kinase activation and executed by mixed lineage kinase like-domain (MLKL) protein. We found that the pre-established IFN status of the cell, instead of LPS-induced IFN, is critical for the early initiation of necroptosis in macrophages. This pre-established IFN signature stems from cytosolic DNA sensing via cGAS/STING, and maintains the expression of MLKL and one or more unknown effectors above a critical threshold to allow for MLKL oligomerization and cell death. Finally, we found that elevated IFN-signaling in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) augments necroptosis, providing a link between pathological IFN and tissue damage during autoimmunity

Working through whiteness, race and (anti) racism in physical education teacher education

Background: The persistent gaps between a largely white profession and ethnically diverse school populations have brought renewed calls to support teachers' critical engagement with race. Programmes examining the effects of racism have had limited impact on practice, with student teachers responding with either denial, guilt or fear; they also contribute to a deficit view of racialised students in relation to an accepted white ‘norm’, and position white teachers ‘outside’ of race. Recent calls argue for a shift in focus towards an examination of the workings of the dominant culture through a critical engagement with whiteness, positioning white teachers within the processes of racialisation. Teacher educators' roles are central, and yet, while we routinely expect student teachers to reflect critically on issues of social justice, we have been less willing to engage in such work ourselves. This is particularly the case within physical education teacher education (PETE), an overwhelmingly white, embodied space, and where race and racism as professional issues are largely invisible. Purpose: This paper examines the operation of whiteness within PETE through a critical reflection on the three co-authors' careers and experiences working for social justice. The research questions were twofold: How are race, (anti) racism and whiteness constructed through everyday experiences of families, schooling and teacher education? How can collective biography be used to excavate discourses of race, racism and whiteness as the first step towards challenging them? In beginning the process of reflecting on what it means for us ‘to do own work’ in relation to (anti) racism, we examine some of the tensions and challenges for teacher educators in PE attempting to work to dismantle whiteness. Methodology: As co-authors, we engaged in collective biography work – a process in which we reflected upon, wrote about and shared our embodied experiences and memories about race, racism and whiteness as educators working for social justice. Using a critical whiteness lens, these narratives were examined for what they reveal about the collective practices and discourses about whiteness and (anti)racism within PETE. Results: The narratives reveal the ways in which whiteness operates within PETE through processes of naturalisation, ex-denomination and universalisation. We have been educated, and now work within, teacher education contexts where professional discourse about race at best focuses on understanding the racialised ‘other’, and at worse is invisible. By drawing on a ‘racialised other’, deficit discourse in our pedagogy, and by ignoring race in own research on inequalities in PETE, we have failed to disrupt universalised discourses of ‘white-as-norm’, or addressed our own privileged racialised positioning. Reflecting critically on our biographies and careers has been the first step in recognising how whiteness works in order that we can begin to work to disrupt it. Conclusion: The study highlights some of the challenges of addressing (anti)racism within PETE and argues that a focus on whiteness might offer a productive starting point. White teacher educators must critically examine their own role within these processes if they are to expect student teachers to engage seriously in doing the same

Working towards inclusive physical education in a primary school: ‘some days I just don’t get it right’

© 2018 Association for Physical Education Background: In Aotearoa New Zealand, as it is internationally, there is a desire to ensure physical education is inclusive of all students regardless of their abilities. Yet, medical discourses associated with disability continue to position students who are perceived as not having the capacity to participate fully in traditional physical education programmes as the teacher’s ‘helper’, ‘helped’, or ‘helpless’. As a result, these students may have negative experiences of physical education and this can impact on future involvement in movement-related activities within school and community settings. Methodology: Drawing on the data from a larger critical participatory action research project, we explore how one primary school teacher, Joel, attempted to work more inclusively within physical education. Specifically, we draw from personal journaling, student work and records of dialogical conversations to shed light on Joel’s experiences. Conclusion: Joel’s experience demonstrates that there is not one singular solution to inclusion within physical education and it is a combination of actions that support this process. In Joel’s case, this included becoming a reflexive practitioner, getting to know his students, being receptive as opposed to respective to difference in positive ways rather than seeing this as limiting, working imaginatively to reconsider what constitutes learning in physical education, and sharing ownership for curriculum design and learning with his students. Working in this way illustrates how a multi-layered approach can make a difference to how all the students in a class experience inclusion, including students positioned as disabled

The ventilation of buildings and other mitigating measures for COVID-19: a focus on wintertime.

The year 2020 has seen the emergence of a global pandemic as a result of the disease COVID-19. This report reviews knowledge of the transmission of COVID-19 indoors, examines the evidence for mitigating measures, and considers the implications for wintertime with a focus on ventilation.This work was undertaken as a contribution to the Rapid Assistance in Modelling the Pandemic (RAMP) initiative, coordinated by the Royal Society

Narratives from the road to social justice in PETE: teacher educator perspectives

Developing teacher education programmes founded upon principles of critical pedagogy and social justice has become increasingly difficult in the current neoliberal climate of higher education. In this article, we adopt a narrative approach to illuminate some of the dilemmas which advocates of education for social justice face and to reflect upon how pedagogy for inclusion in the field of physical education (PE) teacher education (PETE) is defined and practiced. As a professional group, teacher educators seem largely hesitant to expose themselves to the researcher's gaze, which is problematic if we expect preservice teachers to engage in messy, biographical reflexivity with regard to their own teaching practice. By engaging in self- and collective biographical story sharing about ‘our’ teacher educator struggles in England and Norway, we hope that the reader can identify ‘her/his’ struggles in the narratives about power and domination, and the spaces of opportunity in between

Organoid cultures recapitulate esophageal adenocarcinoma heterogeneity providing a model for clonality studies and precision therapeutics

Esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) incidence is increasing while 5-year survival rates remain less than 15%. A lack of experimental models has hampered progress. We have generated clinically annotated EAC organoid cultures that recapitulate the morphology, genomic and transcriptomic landscape of the primary tumor including point mutations, copy number alterations and mutational signatures. Karyotyping has confirmed polyclonality reflecting the clonal architecture of the primary and subclones underwent clonal selection associated with driver gene status. Medium throughput drug sensitivity testing demonstrates the potential of targeting receptor tyrosine kinases and downstream mediators. EAC organoid cultures provide a pre-clinical tool for studies of clonal evolution and precision therapeutics

Sequencing of prostate cancers identifies new cancer genes, routes of progression and drug targets

Prostate cancer represents a substantial clinical challenge because it is difficult to predict outcome and advanced disease is often fatal. We sequenced the whole genomes of 112 primary and metastatic prostate cancer samples. From joint analysis of these cancers with those from previous studies (930 cancers in total), we found evidence for 22 previously unidentified putative driver genes harboring coding mutations, as well as evidence for NEAT1 and FOXA1 acting as drivers through noncoding mutations. Through the temporal dissection of aberrations, we identified driver mutations specifically associated with steps in the progression of prostate cancer, establishing, for example, loss of CHD1 and BRCA2 as early events in cancer development of ETS fusion-negative cancers. Computational chemogenomic (canSAR) analysis of prostate cancer mutations identified 11 targets of approved drugs, 7 targets of investigational drugs, and 62 targets of compounds that may be active and should be considered candidates for future clinical trials