A pilot investigation of illness representations and coping in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and their relationship with quality of life

This study investigates the relationship between illness representations, coping strategies and the quality of life domains of anxiety, depression, activity levels and psychosocial functioning in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Leventhal's Self Regulation Model is used as a theoretical framework. Twenty - six people with COPD completed a series of questionnaires and a semi - structured interview. The sample was found to have high levels of anxiety, lowered activity levels and reduced psychosocial functioning. The illness representations of the sample could be characterised as a high illness identity, a chronic time line, a perception of serious consequences, a perception of multiple causes and a lack of control over the illness. These representations would all be expected to cause distress. In common with other chronic illnesses, emotion focused coping strategies were most commonly used. Regression models were produced for the outcome variables of anxiety, depression, activity levels and psychosocial functioning. Independent variables were demographic and disease variables, illness representations and coping strategies. It was hypothesised that illness representations and coping would explain more of the variance in the outcome measures than demographic and disease variables. Only one of the four hypotheses relating to the regression analyses was upheld. Nevertheless, it would seem that illness representations and coping strategies . may be important in the understanding of what influences outcome in COPD, and are worthy of further study. The clinical implications of the findings are discussed, and suggestions made for future research

Sharing Leadership in Top Teams: A Qualitative Case Study of One Governing Board in the Nonprofit Sector

Shared leadership is increasingly important in organisations today in order to meet the needs of changing environments, complex problems and to accommodate transparency and accountability. This is especially applicable to nonprofit organisations (NPOs) where good governance has been a concern for years not only because of underdeveloped theories of nonprofit governance (Cornforth, 2012) but also public pressure to demonstrate accountability, after reported cases of failed governance. This research has a qualitative exploratory methodological design that interprets emerging data to develop and clarify concepts. The thesis adopts an ontological relativist position towards the epistemology of constructionism, and employs an intepretivist methodology to discuss findings and concepts. The case study employs the concept of shared leadership, a mutual influence process in teams, (Pearce and Conger, 2003) and an ‘ethical form of board leadership’ for corporate boards following poor governance and various scandals (Vandewaerde et al, 2011, p.404) to explore sharing leadership and governance in one nonprofit board in practice. Three data collection techniques namely interviews, observation and document review have been carried out. Specifically, eight interviews, observation of one annual general meeting and one routine board meeting, and a review of 21 documents including seven board minutes and eight reports. The participants richly described their experiences, having been identified using a Braun and Clarke (2006) interpretive process that examines the following themes; compliance; core purpose; expert knowledge and leadership. Findings inductively identified from the data suggest support for the concept of co-leadership between two individuals; for board governance moving towards a pluralist perspective in 2017; and changing context as the locus of leadership during 2014 – 2017

Development of Novel Vaccines for Campylobacter Control in Poultry

Campylobacter is the leading bacterial cause of human enteritis in developed countries. Human campylobacteriosis is commonly associated with consumption of undercooked, contaminated chicken, a natural host of Campylobacter. Thus, control of Campylobacter colonization in poultry at the farm level would reduce the risk of human exposure to this pathogen. Vaccination is an attractive intervention measure to mitigate Campylobacter in poultry. Our recent studies have demonstrated that the outer membrane proteins CmeC (an essential component of CmeABC multidrug efflux pump) and CfrA (ferric enterobactin receptor) are feasible candidates for immune intervention against Campylobacter. By targeting these two promising vaccine candidates, three novel vaccines were developed for different vaccination strategies in this study. To construct DNA vaccines for in ovo and intranasal immunization, cfrA and cmeC genes were cloned into the eukaryotic expression vector pCAGGS; sequencing of the recombinant vectors confirmed the success of cloning. Transfection was also performed to determine the production of CfrA or CmeC in NIH 3T3-L1 and HEK-293 cell lines. To develop effective subunit vaccines for intranasal or oral vaccination, purification of recombinant CfrA (rCfrA) and CmeC (rCmeC) was optimized. Substantial quantities of highly purified rCfrA and rCmeC were produced through nickel-nitrilotriacetic acid (Ni- NTA) affinity chromatography. The purified rCfrA and rCmeC were further encapsulated into chitosan microsphere. Various encapsulation conditions were explored. To construct the attenuated Salmonella-vectored vaccine, cfrA and cmeC genes were cloned into vector pYA3493 and transferred into S. enterica serovar Typhimurium χ8914 [strain 8914], the USDA licensed live attenuated vaccine strain. The oral live Salmonella vaccines producing CfrA or CmeC (full length or truncated) were successfully constructed; expression of the target protein was confirmed by immunoblotting using specific antiserum. The efficacies of two live vaccines that produce CfrA or CmeC were evaluated using broiler chickens. Specific systemic and intestinal mucosal response was not significantly stimulated upon oral vaccination of chickens with the attenuated Salmonella derivatives. Together, three novel Campylobacter vaccines were developed in this study, which provides us a solid foundation to further develop and evaluate different vaccination regimens for effective mitigation of Campylobacter in poultry in the future

Parental emotion regulation and the socialization of emotion: The role of effortful control

Research and theory have indicated the importance of parental emotion socialization behaviors on children’s developing emotional competence. Less attention has been given to factors that influence parent emotion socialization behaviors. The current study sought to build upon emerging research on the impact of parents’ self-regulatory capacities on their emotion socializing behaviors, in particular their responses to child negative emotionality. It explored the relationships between emotion regulation, effortful control, and responses to child negative affect in a sample of parents of 3- to 8-year-old children (N = 528). As expected, parent emotion dysregulation was significantly negatively related to parent effortful control. In separate multivariate regression models for supportive and nonsupportive responses to child distress, effortful control mediated the relations between emotion dysregulation and emotion socialization. In bivariate analyses, higher levels of parent emotion dysregulation predicted nonsupportive reactions to child negative affect. Contrary to predictions, parent emotional flooding did not significantly moderate the relationship between emotion dysregulation and responses to child distress. Exploratory analyses revealed significant positive correlations between emotion coaching and emotion dismissing beliefs and parent emotion socializing behaviors. Overall, the present study adds to the extant literature supporting the role of effortful control in facilitating emotion regulation and suggests that it may be crucial in supporting emotion socialization. The findings have important treatment implications, particularly for the leading edge of child interventions that designate parent emotion regulation as a primary target

The Problem with the Bureau of Land Management\u27s Delegation of Wildlife Management in Wilderness

Congress passed the Wilderness Act of 1964 to secure forthe American people of present and future generations thebenefits of an enduring resource of wilderness. When itpassed the Act, Congress preserved over 9 million acres offederal lands; and since then, the National WildernessPreservation System has been expanded by more than 100million acres. The Act requires the federal agencies tomanage the wilderness areas to preserve their wildernesscharacter and to leave the lands unimpaired for futuregenerations.Wildlife is an integral part of what makes wildernessworth preserving. Despite the vital role wildlife plays inwilderness management, the Bureau of Land Management(BLM) has delegated the primary authority to managewildlife in wilderness to the states. The BLM\u27s ongoingpolicy of delegating wildlife management to the states iswrong for four reasons. First, it violates the expressmandates of the Wilderness Act that require the BLM toadminister the wilderness to preserve wilderness character.Second, it abrogates the federal government\u27s primary authority under the Property Clause over wildlife on federallands including wilderness. Third, it is inconsistent withlower-court precedent concluding that federal agencies maynot delegate their authority to outside entities absent anaffirmative showing of congressional intent to allow suchdelegation. Fourth, this delegation to the states leads toundesirable outcomes that Congress sought to avoid byenacting the Wilderness Act. Therefore, this Note arguesthat the BLM should modify its regulations to more activelycontrol wildlife management in wilderness therebyfulfilling its mandates under the Wilderness Act andcomplying with federal precedent

Person-Centered Supervision: A Realistic Approach to Practice Within Counselor Education

In a counselor’s development, supervision is a necessary and integral part of the process to forming a professional counseling identity. Just as multiple counseling theories exist to provide a conceptual framework for the process, so too do multiple supervision theories exist to help guide the supervision experience. Based upon the work of Carl Rogers, a person-centered approach to supervision centers on two main themes: the process and the relationship (Rice, 1980). Throughout this article, the themes of process and relationship as well as the fit of person- centered supervision within a counselor education program are explored. A case example is also provided to further illustrate person-centered supervision within a counselor education program. Although more literature is needed to further discuss operating from a person-centered perspective within counselor education, this theoretical approach provides enough support and flexibility to work as a guiding theory for supervisors within counselor education programs

Culturally Responsive Teaching: Teacher Candidates Identify What’s Important

Honorable Mention Winner Teacher preparation programs prepare teacher candidates (TC) with clinically rich field experiences. These programs prepare teachers to teach groups of students that are culturally, racially, and linguistically diverse. The TCs that participated in this study were in the first semester of the elementary program and were concerned with an experience that would be remote. COVID-19 impacted the experiences of the TCs by removing the field component during the Fall 2020 semester. The candidates were not provided access in the elementary schools to complete the practical experiences due to the districts’ pandemic guidelines. Due to the lack of exposure to diverse elementary students, the researchers wondered what the TCs would be interested in learning during a remote semester. This study was framed around culturally responsive teaching (CRT) and Geneva Gay’s five CRT essential elements. The TCs completed a survey in which they identified five items from the Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale (CRTSE) that they were most interested in learning during a pandemic semester. There was inconsistency in what culturally responsive teaching items the TCs were most interested to learn. Implications for the study were discussed

Redistribution of β-catenin in response to EGF and lithium signalling in human oesophageal squamous carcinoma cell lines

BACKGROUND: The β-catenin link between membrane-bound cadherins and the actin cytoskeleton regulates cell adhesion and consequently metastasis. Abnormal stabilisation of β-catenin enhances its transcriptional activities. Factors affecting β-catenin's functions are important in understanding metastatic diseases such as oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). RESULTS: In human oesophageal SCCs β-catenin localises predominantly to the plasma membrane. The presence of free β-catenin in the cytoplasm/nucleus was low. This indicates that β-catenin's activities are skewed towards cell-cell adhesion in these oesophageal SCCs. Exposure to EGF or Li alone, produced a slight increase in membrane concentrations but only Li induced β-catenin stabilisation in the cytoplasm. In combination, EGF and Li decreased membrane-associated β-catenin, concomitantly increasing cytoplasmic concentrations. Convergence of these signalling pathways appears to induce a β-catenin shift from the membrane into the cytoplasm. CONCLUSION: Therefore, although the adhesive role of β-catenin appears to be intact, exogenous signals increase the stability of free β-catenin thereby reducing cell-cell adhesion in these tumours