Dexamethasone-induced flares of Trichophyton rubrum masquerading as docetaxel cutaneous toxicity: a case report

Docetaxel chemotherapy is increasingly used in the treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer. Cutaneous toxicity is common with docetaxel, occurring in up to 75% of cases. We present an unusual case of castration-resistant prostate cancer in which our patient developed recurrent but transient episodes of skin rash following each cycle of docetaxel. Initially, the rash was attributed to docetaxel cutaneous toxicity however a microbiological diagnosis of Trichophyton rubrum was subsequently made. We postulated that dexamethasone pre-medication transiently suppressed anti-fungal immunity, and indeed further flares were prevented by significantly reducing the dose of dexamethasone while continuing treatment with docetaxel

Nebraska, New England, New York: Mapping the Foreground of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis\u27s Creative Partnership

Who was the woman who could add local color in the form of kolaches (Czech pastries) to one of Cather\u27s Nebraska stories and who could refine (and correct) the details of Cather\u27s depiction of the home of a legendary New England literary hostess? One could search long in Cather biography and criticism and find no traces of the woman capable of making these carefully considered changes to Cather\u27s prose. One can, of course, find many references to Edith Lewis, the woman with whom Cather shared an apartment in New York City for nearly four decades, but that Edith Lewis is largely a cipher. Whether or not Cather biographers and critics are willing to characterize any of Cather\u27s intimate relationships with women as lesbian, they have shown little interest in investigating the details of Lewis\u27s life except as documented in Cather\u27s letters and in Lewis\u27s discreet and self-effacing memoir of Cather, Willa Cather Living (1953). In the absence of information about Lewis, conventional wisdom has it that Pittsburgh socialite Isabelle McClung strongly and substantively influenced Cather\u27s artistic production by serving as grand passion and muse, while the faithful and subservient Lewis attended to the quotidian and clerical details of Cather\u27s life. Cather biographer Sharon O\u27Brien, for instance, characterizes Lewis as a loyal mate and partner willing to be a \u27secondary consideration,\u27 while she characterizes McClung as Cather\u27s grand romance, abiding passion, her muse and ideal reader . Certainly, Cather\u27s working typescripts have only recently come to light, and most of the biographical scholarship on Cather (including O\u27Brien\u27s biography) was written without access to--or even knowledge of--these materials. With the evidence of the typescripts in mind, this essay begins the project of reconstructing the authority of the woman holding the editorial pen. For the purposes of this essay, we begin at the beginning, focusing primarily on Lewis\u27s family history and Lewis\u27s life before she met Cather in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1903. Turning to sources such as newspapers, census records, city directories, local histories, genealogies, and college and university archives, and supplementing this research with interviews with Lewis\u27s collateral descendants, we have found a wealth of information about Lewis\u27s family history and early life. We track the movements of her large and mobile extended family across the nineteenth-century West, but we also foreground their departure point for these migrations, New England. We place the young Edith Lewis and her family in the cultural milieu of Lincoln, Nebraska, in the 1880s and \u2790s, but we also recover her deep New England family history, which profoundly shaped both her Nebraska childhood and her early adulthood when she left Nebraska, first to attend college in Massachusetts and then to seek a career in publishing in New York City

Systems of Care and the Prevention of Mental Health Problems for Children and their Families: Integrating Counseling Psychology and Public Health Perspectives

The purpose of this paper is to present systems of care as an example of how counseling psychology and public health overlap with regards to prevention and intervention approaches for children\u27s mental health. A framework for prevention is presented as is the state of children\u27s mental health promotion, with a particular focus on ecological and systemic approaches to children\u27s mental health and how these approaches cut across multiple perspectives. Systems of care are highlighted as an example of the congruence of prevention and ecological or systemic approaches to address the mental health promotion of children and their families, with the potential to impact at the universal, selective, and indicated levels of risk. Results from a longitudinal outcome study of a school-based system of care are presented to exemplify the positive outcomes experienced by children. An increase in the awareness and implementation of systems of care across mental health perspectives is recommended, along with continued research from the public health and counseling psychology communities focused on which prevention and intervention services within systems of care work, why they work, and how they can be improved upon

Current State of Preeclampsia Mouse Models: Approaches, Relevance, and Standardization

Preeclampsia (PE) is a multisystemic, pregnancy-specific disorder and a leading cause of maternal and fetal death. PE is also associated with an increased risk for chronic morbidities later in life for mother and offspring. Abnormal placentation or placental function has been well-established as central to the genesis of PE; yet much remains to be determined about the factors involved in the development of this condition. Despite decades of investigation and many clinical trials, the only definitive treatment is parturition. To better understand the condition and identify potential targets preclinically, many approaches to simulate PE in mice have been developed and include mixed mouse strain crosses, genetic overexpression and knockout, exogenous agent administration, surgical manipulation, systemic adenoviral infection, and trophoblast-specific gene transfer. These models have been useful to investigate how biological perturbations identified in human PE are involved in the generation of PE-like symptoms and have improved the understanding of the molecular mechanisms underpinning the human condition. However, these approaches were characterized by a wide variety of physiological endpoints, which can make it difficult to compare effects across models and many of these approaches have aspects that lack physiological relevance to this human disorder and may interfere with therapeutic development. This report provides a comprehensive review of mouse models that exhibit PE-like symptoms and a proposed standardization of physiological characteristics for analysis in murine models of PE

Parenting Stress as a Mediator of Exposure to Potentially Traumatic Events and Behavioral Health Outcomes in Children and Youth

The research team has been examining parenting stress, defined as stress that parents feel in their parenting role, as a mediator of behavioral health outcomes for children exposed to potentially traumatic events. The results of our studies demonstrate the interplay between a child’s exposure to potentially traumatic events and their parent/caregiver’s report of stress related to parenting their child

Upwelling dynamics off Monterey Bay : heat flux and temperature variability, and their sensitivities

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2010."June 2010." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 64-66).Understanding the complex dynamics of coastal upwelling is essential for coastal ocean dynamics, phytoplankton blooms, and pollution transport. Atmospheric-driven coastal upwelling often occurs when strong alongshore winds and the Coriolis force combine to displace warmer surface waters offshore, leading to upward motions of deeper cooler, nutrient-dense waters to replace these surface waters. Using the models of the MIT Multidisciplinary Simulation, Estimation, and Assimilation System (MSEAS) group, we conduct a large set of simulation sensitivity studies to determine which variables are dominant controls for upwelling events in the Monterey Bay region. Our motivations include determining the dominant atmospheric fluxes and the causes of high-frequency fluctuations found in ocean thermal balances. We focus on the first upwelling event from August 1- 5, 2006 in Monterey Bay that occurred during the Monterey Bay 06 (MB06) at-sea experiment, for which MSEAS data-assimilative baseline simulations already existed. Using the thermal energy (temperature), salinity and momentum (velocity) conservation equations, full ocean fields in the region as well as both control volume (flux) balances and local differential term-by-term balances for the upwelling event events were computed. The studies of ocean fields concentrate on specific depths: surface-0m, thermocline-30m and undercurrent- 150m. Effects of differing atmospheric forcing contributions (wind stress, surface heating/cooling, and evaporation-precipitation) on these full fields and on the volume and term-by-term balances are analyzed. Tidal effects are quantified utilizing pairs of simulations in which tides are either included or not. Effects of data assimilation are also examined. We find that the wind stress forcing is the most important dynamical parameter in explaining the extent and shape of the upwelling event. This is verified using our large set of sensitivity studies and examining the heat flux balances. The assimilation of data has also an impact because this first upwelling event occurs during the initialization. Tidal forcing and, to a lesser extent, the daily atmospheric and data assimilation cycles explain the higher frequency fluctuations found in the volume averaged time rate of change of thermal energy.by Melissa Rachel Steinberg Kaufman.S.B

Predictors of Parenting and Infant Outcomes for Impoverished Adolescent Parents

Adolescent mothers and their children are at risk for a myriad of negative outcomes. This study examined risk and protective factors and their impact on a sample (N = 172) of impoverished adolescent mothers. Multiple regression analyses revealed that depressed adolescent mothers report higher levels of parenting stress and that their children are more at risk for maltreatment and are developmentally behind other babies. In addition, adolescent mothers with restricted social support have babies who are at higher risk for maltreatment. Finally, mothers who were older during pregnancy were more likely to stay in school. Implications for program development are discussed

An Examination of Exposure to Traumatic Events and Symptoms and Strengths for Children Served in a Behavioral Health System of Care

The present study examined how exposure to traumatic events impacts children with severe emotional disturbance who are being served in a school-based system of care. Multilevel growth curve models were used to examine the relationships between a child’s history of traumatic events (physical abuse, sexual abuse, or domestic violence) and behavioral and emotional strengths, internalizing problem behaviors, or externalizing problem behaviors over 18 months. Results indicate that children receiving services (N = 134) exhibited increased emotional and behavioral strengths and decreased internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors from enrollment to 18 months follow-up. Children with a history of traumatic events improved more slowly than children without such a history on both strengths and internalizing problem behaviors, even after controlling for dosage of services received and other characteristics previously found to predict outcomes. Gender was also related to improvement in internalizing symptoms. Results highlight the continued need to assess the impact of exposure to traumatic events for children served in a system of care

The Impact of Youth and Family Risk Factors on Service Recommendations and Delivery in a School-Based System of Care

The present study examines the impact of child and family risk factors on service access for youth and families in a school-based system of care. Regression analyses examined the relationships between risk factors and services recommended, services received, and dosage of services received. Logistic regression analyses examined the relationship between risk factors and whether or not youth received specific types of services within the system of care. Results revealed that youth with a personal or family history of substance use had more services recommended than youth without these risk factors, while youth with a family history of substance use received more services. Youth with a history of substance use received a significantly higher dosage of services overall. Finally, history of family mental illness was associated with receiving mental health and operational services (e.g., family advocacy, emergency funds). Implications and limitations are discussed. Systems of care were developed in response to the need for more appropriate and accessible preventive and treatment services for children with severe emotional and behavioral difficulties and their families. In 1992, the United States Congress established the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services (CMHS) for Children and Their Families Program, which has provided funding to 126 communities over the past 14 years for the development of local systems of care.1 A system of care is a coordinated network of community-based services and supports that is created to meet the challenges of children

The effect of salinity on the growth rate of Zizania palustris in controlled and natural settings

General EcologyWe compared the growth rate of wild rice, Zizania Palustris, in varying concentrations of road salt—0 mg/L, 100 mg/L, 500 mg/L, 1000 mg/L, 3000 mg/L, and 5000 mg/L. Then, we conducted two experiments, one in a controlled environment using a growth chamber, and the other outside. In the growth chamber, we had six replicates of each salt solution, giving us a total of 36 Petri dishes, with two seeds in each replicate. In the outdoor experiment, we set up three tubs and each contained nine plastic Solo® cups to grow the wild rice in. We put approximately 222 grams of sand from the shore of Douglas Lake in each cup and distributed the six solutions randomly throughout each tub. The remaining three cups contained only sand to make sure weight was distributed evenly and the cups had an equal amount of space within the tubs. We weighed the seeds in the growth chamber on day 5 of the experiment, and then weighed them again on day 7, along with the root and shoot of each plant. On day 10, we did the same for the plants outside. Using a significance level of 0.05 for both environments, we analyzed the seeds from the growth chamber and used a linear regression model. On both day 5 and day 7 in the growth chamber, weights of the wild rice plants confirmed that there was a negative relationship between salinity level and seed growth (R2 = 0.960 for day 5 and 0.964 for day 7, both with a p-value of 0.00). However, for the outdoor experiment, the linear regression test was not significant (R2 = 0.428, p-value = 0.159). Both experiments showed significance when ANOVA tests were conducted (growth chamber p-value = 0.010, outside = 0.020) and we concluded that higher salt concentrations have a negative effect on the growth of wild rice. Using a Dunnett test we found this was true for the plants in the growth chamber, particularly at the higher levels of 3000 mg/L and 5000 mg/L.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61460/1/Crocker_Beaudoin_Kaufman_Morgan_2008.pd