Realizing the unknown through ritual objects

The realization that we must interact with the unknown on a daily basis can be confounding. We constantly encounter evidence that mystery pervades our existence. Through the experience of births, deaths, and our own personal contemplation regarding the miracles of the natural world we witness daily, we are given the opportunity to expand our ideas about what we believe. We are charged with making peace with this thing, the unknown, though often it feels like an unstable truce. Ritual expression is a reflex of human emotion: an action that describes our fears, outlines our concerns, and highlights our triumphs as human beings. Through the process of ritual and the objects we use, from altars and fonts to candles on birthday cakes, we express our milestones of physical and spiritual growth. We are emotional beings, and feed the gods with those emotions, asking them to receive our fear, shame, grief, love and joy. Ritual objects hold a unique place in our world; they are the bookmarks for achievements and objects that are more than sentimental, as they stand for not just a moment or memory but an acknowledgement of how the world has changed us. The word intuition is sometimes used to describe the concept of knowing beyond our senses, but my communion with the unknown happens during the creative process. I am always pursuing the moment of inspiration, when my hands stop feeling as though they belong to me and the result of my efforts is more than I had imagined, more than the sum of my techniques and abilities. This is the impulse behind my work. It guides the aesthetic, the form and the surfaces of all the objects I make. It is my endeavor to explore the unknown and celebrate its mystery

Cross-cultural adaptation of instruments assessing breastfeeding determinants: a multi-step approach

Background: Cross-cultural adaptation is a necessary process to effectively use existing instruments in other cultural and language settings. The process of cross-culturally adapting, including translation, of existing instruments is considered a critical set to establishing a meaningful instrument for use in another setting. Using a multi-step approach is considered best practice in achieving cultural and semantic equivalence of the adapted version. We aimed to ensure the content validity of our instruments in the cultural context of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Methods: The Iowa Infant Feeding Attitudes Scale, Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form and additional items comprise our consolidated instrument, which was cross-culturally adapted utilizing a multi-step approach during August 2012. Cross-cultural adaptation was achieved through steps to maintain content validity and attain semantic equivalence in the target version. Specifically, Lynn’s recommendation to apply an item-level content validity index score was followed. The revised instrument was translated and back-translated. To ensure semantic equivalence, Brislin’s back-translation approach was utilized followed by the committee review to address any discrepancies that emerged from translation. Results: Our consolidated instrument was adapted to be culturally relevant and translated to yield more reliable and valid results for use in our larger research study to measure infant feeding determinants effectively in our target cultural context. Conclusions: Undertaking rigorous steps to effectively ensure cross-cultural adaptation increases our confidence that the conclusions we make based on our self-report instrument(s) will be stronger. In this way, our aim to achieve strong cross-cultural adaptation of our consolidated instruments was achieved while also providing a clear framework for other researchers choosing to utilize existing instruments for work in other cultural, geographic and population settings

Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) Balloon Flight Data Handling Overview

The GLAST Balloon Flight Engineering Model (BFEM) represents one of 16 towers that constitute the Large Area Telescope (LAT), a high-energy (>20 MeV) gamma-ray pair-production telescope being built by an international partnership of astrophysicists and particle physicists for a satellite launch in 2006. The prototype tower consists of a Pb/Si pair-conversion tracker (TKR), a CsI hodoscopic calorimeter (CAL), an anti-coincidence detector (ACD) and an autonomous data acquisition system (DAQ). The self-triggering capabilities and performance of the detector elements have been previously characterized using positron, photon and hadron beams. External target scintillators were placed above the instrument to act as sources of hadronic showers. This paper provides a comprehensive description of the BFEM data-reduction process, from receipt of the flight data from telemetry through event reconstruction and background rejection cuts. The goals of the ground analysis presented here are to verify the functioning of the instrument and to validate the reconstruction software and the background-rejection scheme.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to be published in IEEE Transacations on Nuclear Science, August 200

The relationships between perceived control and dependency, mastery, locus of control and severity of PTSD symptomatology in formerly battered women

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between perceived control, coping behaviors, dependency, and severity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Forty-two women who had experienced physical abuse in a long-term, live-in relationship were assessed for PTSD using a structured interview and the Impact of Events Scale. They were also administered the Rorschach, Levenson\u27s Intemality, Powerful Others and Chance Scales (EPC), Pearlin\u27s Mastery Scale, the Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (EDI), Hudson\u27s Partner Abuse Scale: Physical, and an instrument designed for this study to measure three aspects of perceived control (sense of power in the relationship, ability to influence the partner, and ability to self-protect). Data were also collected on use of direct problem-solving strategies employed for managing the abusive situation. Findings revealed that 69% of the subjects met the full criteria for PTSD. Pearson correlations indicated significant relationships between severity of PTSD and scores on the Partner Abuse Scale, two IPG Scales (Chance and Powerful Others), the Mastery Scale, and two IDI Scales (Emotional Reliance and Low Self-Confidence). Contrary to expectations, except for a significant negative correlation between PTSD severity and ability to self-protect, neither perceived controllability nor direct problem solving were related to severity of PTSD. Regardless of their symptoms, battered women used diverse, problem-focused coping strategies. Further, mean scores on the EPC, the IDI, and the Mastery Scale were not significantly different from reported norms. Analysis of selected Rorschach variables showed a significant correlation between PTSD severity and reality testing. Perceived control was correlated with trauma-related content scores (i.e. Blood, Sex and Anatomy). These findings suggest adequate internality, mastery, and problem-solving skills in this population; however, there is significant distress related to PTSD. Interventions with members of this population should address these symptoms

Comparing the Rorschachs and the MMPI-2s of assaulted and non-assaulted females on variables associated with PTSD

Previous studies have indicated a high prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among civilian survivors of trauma. Among the psychometric instruments used to assess the characteristics of subjects diagnosed with PTSD are the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) and the Rorschach Inkblot Test. However, few studies have employed both instruments to assess PTSD symptomatology in a civilian group of trauma survivors, and no single study has used both instruments to assess PTSD symptoms in female survivors of physical assault (i.e., battering or rape) or to discriminate between assault survivors and non-assaulted subjects in a female clinical population. This study investigated the abilities of the two tests to differentiate assaulted females (n=12) from non-assaulted females (n=20) in a group of subjects from a clinical population. It also sought to determine if subjects in the assaulted group were more likely than subjects in the non-assaulted group to exhibit a pattern of scores indicative of PTSD on either MMPI-2 or Rorschach variables. Multivariate analyses indicated that neither instrument differentiated between the two groups on variables associated with PTSD or revealed a significantly different pattern of scores for assaulted women when compared to nonassaulted women. T-tests performed on individual variables suggest that, on some Rorschach variables, the response of subjects in assaulted group was different than the non-assaulted group

Suicide inhibition of alpha-oxamine synthases:structures of the covalent adducts of 8-amino-7-oxononanoate synthase with trifluoroalanine

The suicide inhibition of the α-oxamine synthases by the substrate analog, L-trifluoroalanine was investigated. The inhibition resulted in the formation of a complex with loss of all three fluorine atoms. Decarboxylation and loss of fluoride occurred immediately after aldimine formation. The inherent flexibility could allow the difluorinated intermediate complex to adopt a suitable conformation. Decarboxylation in the normal mechanism occurs after formation of the ketoacid intermediate.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

DETECTION OF A t -COMPLEX ANTIGEN BY SECONDARY CELL-MEDIATED LYMPHOCYTOTOXICITY

Because of the inconsistency in published results concerning the serological detection of cell surface antigens coded for by the t -complex, a cell-mediated lymphocytotoxicity (CML) assay, secondary CML, was used in a search for t -antigens. By sensitizing C3H. Ttf (C3H. Brachyury, tufted) with the congenic strain C3H. Ttf/t w18 splenic cells, a response against lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulated splenic cells from C3H. Ttf/t w18 mice is obtained. The locus coding for the antigen detected by this reaction lies to the left of tf on the murine seventeenth chromosome. The secondary CML response to this antigen is H-2 restricted and detects an antigen on all t -haplotypes tested: t w18 , t w18 tf, t 12 , t 6 , t h2 tf, and t w5 .Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75626/1/j.1744-313X.1982.tb00789.x.pd