The Experience of Female Nurses Being Cared for: A Phenomenological Analysis

The focus of this phenomenological inquiry was the question: What is the meaning (essential structure) of the experience of being cared for as lived by female nurses? The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the experience of being cared for. Phenomenologic methodology was used for this study. Data analysis was patterned after the guidelines set out by Colaizzi, and Miles and Huberman. Fifteen female nurses described their experiences of being cared for during two interviews with the researcher. Through analysis of the first audio-taped interview metathemes describing the phenomena and a unity of meaning emerged. During the second interview the participants clarified and verified the findings in this study. Five metathemes emerged. (1) Feelings associated with the nurse being cared for are tacit, and understood holistically as being multidimensional and interrelated. (2) The behaviors associated with the nurse being cared for are understood holistically as having instrumental and non-instrumental components and are equated with giving that is multidimensional. (3) The nurse allowing caring to occur uses a dialectic process to validate her feelings concerning her own independence, vulnerability, and the validity of trusting others. (4) Expectations of the nurse being cared for include care giver sensitivity to the tacit perceptions of the care recipient\u27s notion of being cared for. (5) The consequences of being cared for include personal growth and extension of self to others. The metathemes were merged to provide an exhaustive description of the phenomena, and the unity of meaning, flowing from the exhaustive description, was identified. In the present study, unity of meaning, the essence of being cared for as experienced by nurses, means persons sharing life with another. The findings in this study serve as a beginning description of the meaning of the experience of being cared for as lived by female nurses

Rabx-5 Regulates RAB-5 Early Endosomal Compartments and Synaptic Vesicles in C. elegans

Early endosomal membrane compartments are required for the formation and recycling of synaptic vesicles, but how these compartments are regulated is incompletely understood. We performed a forward genetic screen in C. elegans for mutations that affect RAB-5 labeled early endosomal compartments in GABAergic motoneurons. Here we report the isolation and characterization of one mutation, rabx-5. The rabx-5 mutation leads to decreased intensity of YFP::RAB-5 in the cell soma but increased intensity in the synaptic and intersynaptic regions of the axon. This effect is due to the bias of the cycling state of RAB-5, and results from a change in the organization of the early endosomal compartment as well as the membrane binding state of RAB-5. Synaptic vesicle accumulation is altered in rabx-5 mutants, and synaptic transmission from cholinergic neurons is decreased. Early endosomal membrane compartments show disorganization with ageing and rabx-5 mutant animals age faster. These results suggest that rabx-5 regulation of RAB-5 compartments is important for maintaining proper synaptic function throughout the lifetime

PAX6 does not regulate Nfia and Nfib expression during neocortical development

The Nuclear factor I (NFI) family of transcription factors regulates proliferation and differentiation throughout the developing central nervous system. In the developing telencephalon of humans and mice, reduced Nfi expression is associated with agenesis of the corpus callosum and other neurodevelopmental defects. Currently, little is known about how Nfi expression is regulated during early telencephalic development. PAX6, a transcription factor important for telencephalic development, has been proposed as an upstream regulator of Nfi expression in the neocortex. Here we demonstrate that, in the developing neocortex of mice, NFIA and NFIB are endogenously expressed in gradients with high caudo-medial to low rostro-lateral expression and are most highly expressed in the cortical plate. We found that this expression pattern deviates from that of PAX6, suggesting that PAX6 does not drive Nfi expression. This is supported by in vitro reporter assays showing that PAX6 overexpression does not regulate Nfi promoter activity. Similarly, we also found that in the Pax6 Small Eye mutant, no changes in Nfi mRNA or protein expression are observed in the neocortical ventricular zone where PAX6 and the NFIs are expressed. Together these data demonstrate that in mice, PAX6 is not a transcriptional activator of Nfi expression during neocortical development

Pyrosequencing™ : A one-step method for high resolution HLA typing

While the use of high-resolution molecular typing in routine matching of human leukocyte antigens (HLA) is expected to improve unrelated donor selection and transplant outcome, the genetic complexity of HLA still makes the current methodology limited and laborious. Pyrosequencing™ is a gel-free, sequencing-by-synthesis method. In a Pyrosequencing reaction, nucleotide incorporation proceeds sequentially along each DNA template at a given nucleotide dispensation order (NDO) that is programmed into a pyrosequencer. Here we describe the design of a NDO that generates a pyrogram unique for any given allele or combination of alleles. We present examples of unique pyrograms generated from each of two heterozygous HLA templates, which would otherwise remain cis/trans ambiguous using standard sequencing based typing (SBT) method. In addition, we display representative data that demonstrate long read and linear signal generation. These features are prerequisite of high-resolution typing and automated data analysis. In conclusion Pyrosequencing is a one-step method for high resolution DNA typing

The effects of graded levels of calorie restriction : XI. Evaluation of the main hypotheses underpinning the life extension effects of CR using the hepatic transcriptome

We would like to acknowledge the BSU staff for their invaluable help with caring for the animals.Peer reviewedPublisher PD