Seek Help from Teachers or Fight Back? Student Perceptions of Teachers’ Actions during Conflicts and Responses to Peer Victimization

Previous research has shown that teachers’ actions when addressing conflict on school grounds can shape adolescent perceptions regarding how well the school manages victimization. Our objective in this study was to determine how these perceptions influenced the likelihood that adolescent students would react to victimization scenarios by either seeking help from school authority or physically fighting back. Vignettes describing two events of victimization were administered to 148 ethnic minority adolescents (Latino, African American, and Asian backgrounds; 49% female) attending an urban high school with high rates of conflict. Positive perceptions of teachers’ actions during conflicts—assessed via a questionnaire tapping how teachers manage student conflicts both generally and in a specific instance of strife—predicted a greater willingness to seek help from school authority, which in turn negatively predicted self-reported aggressive responses to the victimization scenarios. Path analysis established the viability of this indirect effect model, even when we controlled for sex, beliefs about the acceptability of aggression, and previous levels of reactive aggression. Adolescents’ perceptions of teachers’ actions during conflicts are discussed in relation to social information processing models, improving student–teacher relations, and decreasing aggression at schools

Stability subtypes of callous–unemotional traits and conduct disorder symptoms and their correlates

Callous unemotional traits and conduct disorder symptoms tend to co-occur across development, with existing evidence pointing to individual differences in the co-development of these problems. The current study identified groups of at risk adolescents showing stable (i.e., high on both conduct disorder and callous-unemotional symptoms, high only on either callous-unemotional or conduct disorder symptoms) or increasing conduct disorder and callous-unemotional symptoms. Data were collected from a sample of 2038 community adolescents between 15 and 18 years (1070 females, Mage = 16) of age. A longitudinal design was followed in that adolescent reports were collected at two time points, one year apart. Increases in conduct disorder symptoms and callous-unemotional traits were accompanied by increases in anxiety, depressive symptoms, narcissism, proactive and reactive aggression and decreases in self-esteem. Furthermore, adolescents with high and stable conduct disorder symptoms and callous-unemotional traits were consistently at high risk for individual, behavioral and contextual problems. In contrast, youth high on callous-unemotional traits without conduct disorder symptoms remained at low-risk for anxiety, depressive symptoms, narcissism, and aggression, pointing to a potential protective function of pure callous-unemotional traits against the development of psychopathological problems

The pathogenesis of Charcot neuroarthropathy: current concepts

The pathogenesis of Charcot neuroarthropathy (CN) has been poorly understood by clinicians and scientists alike. Current researchers have made progress toward understanding the cause of CN and possible treatment options. The authors review the current literature on the pathogenesis of this debilitating disorder and attempt to explain the roles of inflammation, bone metabolism, and advanced glycation end products

Development and comparison of a real-time PCR assay for detection of Dichelobacter nodosus with culturing and conventional PCR: harmonisation between three laboratories

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Ovine footrot is a contagious disease with worldwide occurrence in sheep. The main causative agent is the fastidious bacterium <it>Dichelobacter nodosus</it>. In Scandinavia, footrot was first diagnosed in Sweden in 2004 and later also in Norway and Denmark. Clinical examination of sheep feet is fundamental to diagnosis of footrot, but <it>D. nodosu</it>s should also be detected to confirm the diagnosis. PCR-based detection using conventional PCR has been used at our institutes, but the method was laborious and there was a need for a faster, easier-to-interpret method. The aim of this study was to develop a TaqMan-based real-time PCR assay for detection of <it>D. nodosus </it>and to compare its performance with culturing and conventional PCR.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A <it>D. nodosus-</it>specific TaqMan based real-time PCR assay targeting the 16S rRNA gene was designed. The inclusivity and exclusivity (specificity) of the assay was tested using 55 bacterial and two fungal strains. To evaluate the sensitivity and harmonisation of results between different laboratories, aliquots of a single DNA preparation were analysed at three Scandinavian laboratories. The developed real-time PCR assay was compared to culturing by analysing 126 samples, and to a conventional PCR method by analysing 224 samples. A selection of PCR-products was cloned and sequenced in order to verify that they had been identified correctly.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The developed assay had a detection limit of 3.9 fg of <it>D. nodosus </it>genomic DNA. This result was obtained at all three laboratories and corresponds to approximately three copies of the <it>D. nodosus </it>genome per reaction. The assay showed 100% inclusivity and 100% exclusivity for the strains tested. The real-time PCR assay found 54.8% more positive samples than by culturing and 8% more than conventional PCR.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The developed real-time PCR assay has good specificity and sensitivity for detection of <it>D. nodosus</it>, and the results are easy to interpret. The method is less time-consuming than either culturing or conventional PCR.</p

Transiting Disintegrating Planetary Debris around WD 1145+017

More than a decade after astronomers realized that disrupted planetary material likely pollutes the surfaces of many white dwarf stars, the discovery of transiting debris orbiting the white dwarf WD 1145+017 has opened the door to new explorations of this process. We describe the observational evidence for transiting planetary material and the current theoretical understanding (and in some cases lack thereof) of the phenomenon.Comment: Invited review chapter. Accepted March 23, 2017 and published October 7, 2017 in the Handbook of Exoplanets. 15 pages, 10 figure

Mapping interactions with the chaperone network reveals factors that protect against tau aggregation.

A network of molecular chaperones is known to bind proteins ('clients') and balance their folding, function and turnover. However, it is often unclear which chaperones are critical for selective recognition of individual clients. It is also not clear why these key chaperones might fail in protein-aggregation diseases. Here, we utilized human microtubule-associated protein tau (MAPT or tau) as a model client to survey interactions between ~30 purified chaperones and ~20 disease-associated tau variants (~600 combinations). From this large-scale analysis, we identified human DnaJA2 as an unexpected, but potent, inhibitor of tau aggregation. DnaJA2 levels were correlated with tau pathology in human brains, supporting the idea that it is an important regulator of tau homeostasis. Of note, we found that some disease-associated tau variants were relatively immune to interactions with chaperones, suggesting a model in which avoiding physical recognition by chaperone networks may contribute to disease

In the eye of the beholder: Eye-tracking assessment of social information processing in aggressive behavior

# The Author(s) 2009. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Acording to social information processing theories, aggressive children are hypersensitive to cues of hostility and threat in other people’s behavior. However, even though there is ample evidence that aggressive children over-interpret others ’ behaviors as hostile, it is unclear whether this hostile attribution tendency does actually result from overattending to hostile and threatening cues. Since encoding is posited to consist of rapid automatic processes, it is hard to assess with the selfreport measures that have been used so far. Therefore, we used a novel approach to investigate visual encoding of social information. The eye movements of thirty 10–13 year old children with lower levels and thirty children with higher levels of aggressive behavior were monitored in real time with an eyetracker, as the children viewed ten different cartoon series of ambiguous provocation situations. In addition, participants answered questions concerning encoding and interpretation. Aggressive children did not attend more to hostile cues, nor attend less to non-hostile cues than non-aggressive children. Contrary, aggressive children looked longer at non-hostile cues, but nonetheless attributed more hostile intent than their non-aggressive peers. These findings contradict the traditional bottom-up processing hypotheses that aggressive behavior would be related with failure to attend to non-hostile cues. The findings seem best explained by topdown information processing, where aggressive children’s pre-existing hostile intent schemata (1) direct attention towards schema inconsistent nonhostile cues, (2) prevent further processing and recall of such schema-inconsistent information, and (3) lead to hostil

A proteomic and transcriptional view of acidogenic and solventogenic steady-state cells of Clostridium acetobutylicum in a chemostat culture

The complex changes in the life cycle of Clostridium acetobutylicum, a promising biofuel producer, are not well understood. During exponential growth, sugars are fermented to acetate and butyrate, and in the transition phase, the metabolism switches to the production of the solvents acetone and butanol accompanied by the initiation of endospore formation. Using phosphate-limited chemostat cultures at pH 5.7, C. acetobutylicum was kept at a steady state of acidogenic metabolism, whereas at pH 4.5, the cells showed stable solvent production without sporulation. Novel proteome reference maps of cytosolic proteins from both acidogenesis and solventogenesis with a high degree of reproducibility were generated. Yielding a 21% coverage, 15 protein spots were specifically assigned to the acidogenic phase, and 29 protein spots exhibited a significantly higher abundance in the solventogenic phase. Besides well-known metabolic proteins, unexpected proteins were also identified. Among these, the two proteins CAP0036 and CAP0037 of unknown function were found as major striking indicator proteins in acidogenic cells. Proteome data were confirmed by genome-wide DNA microarray analyses of the identical cultures. Thus, a first systematic study of acidogenic and solventogenic chemostat cultures is presented, and similarities as well as differences to previous studies of batch cultures are discussed

Melatonin Promotes Oligodendroglial Maturation of Injured White Matter in Neonatal Rats

OBJECTIVE:To investigate the effects of melatonin treatment in a rat model of white matter damage (WMD) in the developing brain. Additionally, we aim to delineate the cellular mechanisms of melatonin effect on the oligodendroglial cell lineage. METHODS:A unilateral ligation of the uterine artery in pregnant rat at the embryonic day 17 induces fetal hypoxia and subsequent growth restriction (GR) in neonatal pups. GR and control pups received a daily intra-peritoneal injection of melatonin from birth to post-natal day (P) 3. RESULTS:Melatonin administration was associated with a dramatic decrease in microglial activation and astroglial reaction compared to untreated GR pups. At P14, melatonin prevented white matter myelination defects with an increased number of mature oligodendrocytes (APC-immunoreactive) in treated GR pups. Conversely, melatonin was not found to be associated with an increased density of total oligodendrocytes (Olig2-immunoreactive), suggesting that melatonin is able to promote oligodendrocyte maturation but not proliferation. These effects appear to be melatonin-receptor dependent and were reproduced in vitro. INTERPRETATION:These data suggest that melatonin has a strong protective effect on developing damaged white matter through decreased microglial activation and oligodendroglial maturation leading to a normalization of the myelination process. Consequently, melatonin should be a considered as an effective neuroprotective candidate not only in perinatal brain damage but also in inflammatory and demyelinating diseases observed in adults

Rise of oceanographic barriers in continuous populations of a cetacean: the genetic structure of harbour porpoises in Old World waters

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Understanding the role of seascape in shaping genetic and demographic population structure is highly challenging for marine pelagic species such as cetaceans for which there is generally little evidence of what could effectively restrict their dispersal. In the present work, we applied a combination of recent individual-based landscape genetic approaches to investigate the population genetic structure of a highly mobile extensive range cetacean, the harbour porpoise in the eastern North Atlantic, with regards to oceanographic characteristics that could constrain its dispersal.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Analyses of 10 microsatellite loci for 752 individuals revealed that most of the sampled range in the eastern North Atlantic behaves as a 'continuous' population that widely extends over thousands of kilometres with significant isolation by distance (IBD). However, strong barriers to gene flow were detected in the south-eastern part of the range. These barriers coincided with profound changes in environmental characteristics and isolated, on a relatively small scale, porpoises from Iberian waters and on a larger scale porpoises from the Black Sea.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The presence of these barriers to gene flow that coincide with profound changes in oceanographic features, together with the spatial variation in IBD strength, provide for the first time strong evidence that physical processes have a major impact on the demographic and genetic structure of a cetacean. This genetic pattern further suggests habitat-related fragmentation of the porpoise range that is likely to intensify with predicted surface ocean warming.</p