Counseling College Student-Athletes: A Working Alliance Model Approach

Student-athletes often represent a highly visible, yet decidedly misunderstood population on college and university campuses. In the general student population, the combination of multiple stressors often leads students to seek professional counseling services. Unfortunately, student-athletes, who are often faced with a multitude of psychosocial stressors germane to balancing athletic and academic responsibilities, seldom seek out professional counseling services. However, when they do seek services, the authors posited that an understanding of the construct of the therapeutic working alliance and the application of the working alliance model (Bordin, 1979) offered a useful template for fostering positive counseling outcomes with student-athletes. In this article, the major elements of this construct and model were presented along with a discussion and implications for its application to a college or university student-athlete population

Non-equilibrium Phase Transitions with Long-Range Interactions

This review article gives an overview of recent progress in the field of non-equilibrium phase transitions into absorbing states with long-range interactions. It focuses on two possible types of long-range interactions. The first one is to replace nearest-neighbor couplings by unrestricted Levy flights with a power-law distribution P(r) ~ r^(-d-sigma) controlled by an exponent sigma. Similarly, the temporal evolution can be modified by introducing waiting times Dt between subsequent moves which are distributed algebraically as P(Dt)~ (Dt)^(-1-kappa). It turns out that such systems with Levy-distributed long-range interactions still exhibit a continuous phase transition with critical exponents varying continuously with sigma and/or kappa in certain ranges of the parameter space. In a field-theoretical framework such algebraically distributed long-range interactions can be accounted for by replacing the differential operators nabla^2 and d/dt with fractional derivatives nabla^sigma and (d/dt)^kappa. As another possibility, one may introduce algebraically decaying long-range interactions which cannot exceed the actual distance to the nearest particle. Such interactions are motivated by studies of non-equilibrium growth processes and may be interpreted as Levy flights cut off at the actual distance to the nearest particle. In the continuum limit such truncated Levy flights can be described to leading order by terms involving fractional powers of the density field while the differential operators remain short-ranged.Comment: LaTeX, 39 pages, 13 figures, minor revision

ToxoDB: an integrated Toxoplasma gondii database resource

ToxoDB (http://ToxoDB.org) is a genome and functional genomic database for the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii. It incorporates the sequence and annotation of the T. gondii ME49 strain, as well as genome sequences for the GT1, VEG and RH (Chr Ia, Chr Ib) strains. Sequence information is integrated with various other genomic-scale data, including community annotation, ESTs, gene expression and proteomics data. ToxoDB has matured significantly since its initial release. Here we outline the numerous updates with respect to the data and increased functionality available on the website

Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Characterization of Mitral Valve Prolapse

ObjectivesThis study sought to develop cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) diagnostic criteria for mitral valve prolapse (MVP) using echocardiography as the gold standard and to characterize MVP using cine CMR and late gadolinium enhancement (LGE)-CMR.BackgroundMitral valve prolapse is a common valvular heart disease with significant complications. Cardiovascular magnetic resonance is a valuable imaging tool for assessing ventricular function, quantifying regurgitant lesions, and identifying fibrosis, but its potential role in evaluating MVP has not been defined.MethodsTo develop CMR diagnostic criteria for MVP, characterize mitral valve morphology, we analyzed transthoracic echocardiography and cine CMR images from 25 MVP patients and 25 control subjects. Leaflet thickness, length, mitral annular diameters, and prolapsed distance were measured. Two- and three-dimensional LGE-CMR images were obtained in 16 MVP and 10 control patients to identify myocardial regions of fibrosis in MVP.ResultsWe found that a 2-mm threshold for leaflet excursion into the left atrium in the left ventricular outflow tract long-axis view yielded 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity for CMR using transthoracic echocardiography as the clinical gold standard. Compared with control subjects, CMR identified MVP patients as having thicker (3.2 ± 0.1 mm vs. 2.3 ± 0.1 mm) and longer (10.5 ± 0.5 mm/m2 vs. 7.1 ± 0.3 mm/m2) indexed posterior leaflets and larger indexed mitral annular diameters (27.8 ± 0.7 mm/m2 vs. 21.5 ± 0.5 mm/m2 for long axis and 22.9 ±0.7 mm/m2 vs. 17.8 ± 0.6 mm/m2 for short axis). In addition, we identified focal regions of LGE in the papillary muscles suggestive of fibrosis in 10 (63%) of 16 MVP patients and in 0 of 10 control subjects. Papillary muscle LGE was associated with the presence of complex ventricular arrhythmias in MVP patients.ConclusionsCardiovascular magnetic resonance image can identify MVP by the same echocardiographic criteria and can identify myocardial fibrosis involving the papillary muscle in MVP patients. Hyperenhancement of papillary muscles on LGE is often present in a subgroup of patients with complex ventricular arrhythmias

The strategies WDK: a graphical search interface and web development kit for functional genomics databases

Web sites associated with the Eukaryotic Pathogen Bioinformatics Resource Center (EuPathDB.org) have recently introduced a graphical user interface, the Strategies WDK, intended to make advanced searching and set and interval operations easy and accessible to all users. With a design guided by usability studies, the system helps motivate researchers to perform dynamic computational experiments and explore relationships across data sets. For example, PlasmoDB users seeking novel therapeutic targets may wish to locate putative enzymes that distinguish pathogens from their hosts, and that are expressed during appropriate developmental stages. When a researcher runs one of the approximately 100 searches available on the site, the search is presented as a first step in a strategy. The strategy is extended by running additional searches, which are combined with set operators (union, intersect or minus), or genomic interval operators (overlap, contains). A graphical display uses Venn diagrams to make the strategy’s flow obvious. The interface facilitates interactive adjustment of the component searches with changes propagating forward through the strategy. Users may save their strategies, creating protocols that can be shared with colleagues. The strategy system has now been deployed on all EuPathDB databases, and successfully deployed by other projects. The Strategies WDK uses a configurable MVC architecture that is compatible with most genomics and biological warehouse databases, and is available for download at code.google.com/p/strategies-wdk

Environmental and Economically Conscious Magnesium Production: Solar Thermal Electrolytic Production of Mg from MgO

One method to improve the fuel efficiency of American made vehicles is to reduce vehicle weight by substituting steel components with lighter magnesium (Mg) components. Unfortunately, U.S. produced Mg currently costs approximately $3.31 per kg, over seven times the price of steel. Furthermore, Mg production has a staggering energy and environmental impact, consuming up to 102 kW-hr/kg-Mg of energy and producing 36 kg of CO2/kg-Mg. To reduce the overwhelming economic and environmental impact of Mg, a new solar thermal electrolytic process has been developed for the production of Mg from MgO. Through this process, liquid Mg is produced in a solar reactor utilizing both thermal and electrical energy. At elevated temperatures, the thermal energy from concentrated sunlight reduces the required electrical work below that of current processes. The reactor absorbs the concentrated solar energy, heating a molten salt-MgO mixture in an electrolytic cell. Electricity is then supplied to the cell, producing liquid Mg and CO. It is estimated that this new process will produce Mg at$2.50 per kg, with costs decreasing as the technology is further developed. This process requires approximately 8.3 kW-hr/kg-Mg of energy and produces only 3.44 kg of CO2/kg-Mg, large reductions compared to current processes

Estimation of the solubility parameters of model plant surfaces and agrochemicals: a valuable tool for understanding plant surface interactions

Background Most aerial plant parts are covered with a hydrophobic lipid-rich cuticle, which is the interface between the plant organs and the surrounding environment. Plant surfaces may have a high degree of hydrophobicity because of the combined effects of surface chemistry and roughness. The physical and chemical complexity of the plant cuticle limits the development of models that explain its internal structure and interactions with surface-applied agrochemicals. In this article we introduce a thermodynamic method for estimating the solubilities of model plant surface constituents and relating them to the effects of agrochemicals. Results Following the van Krevelen and Hoftyzer method, we calculated the solubility parameters of three model plant species and eight compounds that differ in hydrophobicity and polarity. In addition, intact tissues were examined by scanning electron microscopy and the surface free energy, polarity, solubility parameter and work of adhesion of each were calculated from contact angle measurements of three liquids with different polarities. By comparing the affinities between plant surface constituents and agrochemicals derived from (a) theoretical calculations and (b) contact angle measurements we were able to distinguish the physical effect of surface roughness from the effect of the chemical nature of the epicuticular waxes. A solubility parameter model for plant surfaces is proposed on the basis of an increasing gradient from the cuticular surface towards the underlying cell wall. Conclusions The procedure enabled us to predict the interactions among agrochemicals, plant surfaces, and cuticular and cell wall components, and promises to be a useful tool for improving our understanding of biological surface interactions

FungiDB: an integrated functional genomics database for fungi

FungiDB (http://FungiDB.org) is a functional genomic resource for pan-fungal genomes that was developed in partnership with the Eukaryotic Pathogen Bioinformatic resource center (http://EuPathDB.org). FungiDB uses the same infrastructure and user interface as EuPathDB, which allows for sophisticated and integrated searches to be performed using an intuitive graphical system. The current release of FungiDB contains genome sequence and annotation from 18 species spanning several fungal classes, including the Ascomycota classes, Eurotiomycetes, Sordariomycetes, Saccharomycetes and the Basidiomycota orders, Pucciniomycetes and Tremellomycetes, and the basal ‘Zygomycete’ lineage Mucormycotina. Additionally, FungiDB contains cell cycle microarray data, hyphal growth RNA-sequence data and yeast two hybrid interaction data. The underlying genomic sequence and annotation combined with functional data, additional data from the FungiDB standard analysis pipeline and the ability to leverage orthology provides a powerful resource for in silico experimentation