The Concept of Hope in Social Work Practice and Education

The concept of hope has been and continues to be part of the research literature in many human service fields, such as medicine, psychology and nursing. The research on hope in these fields has shown that its presence can have multiple benefits for persons in differing forms of distress. However, any discussion on hope has been conspicuously absent from most social work literature for almost forty years. This qualitative study has been designed to begin a begin a discussion on the role of hope in social work practice and education. Seven social workers were interviewed on their understanding of hope, whether and how they integrate hope into their practice, and whether they believe hope should be studied more. The results indicate that social workers do believe hope to be an important concept in their work and that they are attempting to integrate it into their practice. However, they suspect that the social work profession does not share or support their values in this area

Burocracia y educación : un estudio de caso y un intento de aproximación teórica

Tesis (Maestría en Enseñanza Superior) UANLUANLhttp://www.uanl.mx

Production of polylactic acid aerogels via phase separation and supercritical CO2_{2} drying: thermodynamic analysis of the gelation and drying process

The application range of aerogels, especially in the life-science sector, can be extended by utilizing biocompatible polymers such as polylactic acid (PLA). However, the low glass transition temperature (Tg) of PLA and the challenging gelation techniques limit the application of supercritical CO$_{2}$ (scCO$_{2}$) drying and thus the PLA-aerogel production. The aim of this work is to overcome this challenge and to provide a better understanding of the thermodynamics of the process. Therefore, the gelation of amorphous PLA (PDLLA) and semicrystalline PLA (PLLA) via thermal-induced phase separation (TIPS) was studied. To identify polymer/solvent/antisolvent ratios suitable for gelation, thermodynamic modeling (PC-SAFT) was used to describe the corresponding ternary phase diagrams. scCO$_{2}$ drying was used to preserve the mesoporous gel structure formed during the gelation. Due to the decrease in the Tg of PLA in the presence of CO$_{2}$, this could not be applied to all gels. It was found that the critical parameter to enable the scCO$_{2}$ drying of low Tg polymers is the crystallinity degree (Xc) of the polymer. Based on these results, some guidelines for producing aerogels from polymers with low Tg are formulated

Reliable and accurate diagnostics from highly multiplexed sequencing assays

Scalable, inexpensive, and secure testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection is crucial for control of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Recently developed highly multiplexed sequencing assays (HMSAs) that rely on high-throughput sequencing can, in principle, meet these demands, and present promising alternatives to currently used RT-qPCR-based tests. However, reliable analysis, interpretation, and clinical use of HMSAs requires overcoming several computational, statistical and engineering challenges. Using recently acquired experimental data, we present and validate a computational workflow based on kallisto and bustools, that utilizes robust statistical methods and fast, memory efficient algorithms, to quickly, accurately and reliably process high-throughput sequencing data. We show that our workflow is effective at processing data from all recently proposed SARS-CoV-2 sequencing based diagnostic tests, and is generally applicable to any diagnostic HMSA

A novel neuron-enriched protein SDIM1 is down regulated in Alzheimer's brains and attenuates cell death induced by DNAJB4 over-expression in neuro-progenitor cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Molecular changes in multiple biological processes contribute to the development of chronic neurodegeneration such as late onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD). To discover how these changes are reflected at the level of gene expression, we used a subtractive transcription-based amplification of mRNA procedure to identify novel genes that have altered expression levels in the brains of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. Among the genes altered in expression level in AD brains was a transcript encoding a novel protein, SDIM1, that contains 146 amino acids, including a typical signal peptide and two transmembrane domains. Here we examined its biochemical properties and putative roles in neuroprotection/neurodegeneration.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>QRT-PCR analysis of additional AD and control post-mortem human brains showed that the SDIM1 transcript was indeed significantly down regulated in all AD brains. SDIM1 is more abundant in NT2 neurons than astrocytes and present throughout the cytoplasm and neural processes, but not in the nuclei. In NT2 neurons, it is highly responsive to stress conditions mimicking insults that may cause neurodegeneration in AD brains. For example, SDIM1 was significantly down regulated 2 h after oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD), though had recovered 16 h later, and also appeared significantly up regulated compared to untreated NT2 neurons. Overexpression of SDIM1 in neuro-progenitor cells improved cells' ability to survive after injurious insults and its downregulation accelerated cell death induced by OGD. Yeast two-hybrid screening and co-immunoprecipitation approaches revealed, both <it>in vitro </it>and <it>in vivo</it>, an interaction between SDIM1 and DNAJB4, a heat shock protein hsp40 homolog, recently known as an enhancer of apoptosis that also interacts with the mu opioid receptor in human brain. Overexpression of DNAJB4 alone significantly reduced cell viability and SDIM1 co-overexpression was capable of attenuating the cell death caused DNAJB4, suggesting that the binding of SDIM1 to DNAJB4 might sequester DNAJB4, thus increasing cell viability.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Taken together, we have identified a small membrane protein, which is down regulated in AD brains and neuronal cells exposed to injurious insults. Its ability to promote survival and its interaction with DNAJB4 suggest that it may play a very specific role in brain cell survival and/or receptor trafficking.</p

A new approach for the analysis of bacterial microarray-based Comparative Genomic Hybridization: insights from an empirical study

BACKGROUND: Microarray-based Comparative Genomic Hybridization (M-CGH) has been used to characterize the extensive intraspecies genetic diversity found in bacteria at the whole-genome level. Although conventional microarray analytical procedures have proved adequate in handling M-CGH data, data interpretation using these methods is based on a continuous character model in which gene divergence and gene absence form a spectrum of decreasing gene conservation levels. However, whereas gene divergence may yet be accompanied by retention in gene function, gene absence invariably leads to loss of function. This distinction, if ignored, leads to a loss in the information to be gained from M-CGH data. We present here results from experiments in which two genome-sequenced strains of C. jejuni were compared against each other using M-CGH. Because the gene content of both strains was known a priori, we were able to closely examine the effects of sequence divergence and gene absence on M-CGH data in order to define analytical parameters for M-CGH data interpretation. This would facilitate the examination of the relative effects of sequence divergence or gene absence in comparative genomics analyses of multiple strains of any species for which genome sequence data and a DNA microarray are available. RESULTS: As a first step towards improving the analysis of M-CGH data, we estimated the degree of experimental error in a series of experiments in which identical samples were compared against each other by M-CGH. This variance estimate was used to validate a Log Ratio-based methodology for identification of outliers in M-CGH data. We compared two genome strains by M-CGH to examine the effect of probe/target identity on the Log Ratios of signal intensities using prior knowledge of gene divergence and gene absence to establish Log Ratio thresholds for the identification of absent and conserved genes. CONCLUSION: The results from this empirical study validate the Log Ratio thresholds that have been used in other studies to establish gene divergence/absence. Moreover, the analytical framework presented here enhances the information content derived from M-CGH data by shifting the focus from divergent/absent gene detection to accurate detection of conserved and absent genes. This approach closely aligns the technical limitations of M-CGH analysis with practical limitations on the biological interpretation of comparative genomics data

Comparative genomic assessment of Multi-Locus Sequence Typing: rapid accumulation of genomic heterogeneity among clonal isolates of Campylobacter jejuni

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Multi-Locus Sequence Typing (MLST) has emerged as a leading molecular typing method owing to its high ability to discriminate among bacterial isolates, the relative ease with which data acquisition and analysis can be standardized, and the high portability of the resulting sequence data. While MLST has been successfully applied to the study of the population structure for a number of different bacterial species, it has also provided compelling evidence for high rates of recombination in some species. We have analyzed a set of <it>Campylobacter jejuni </it>strains using MLST and Comparative Genomic Hybridization (CGH) on a full-genome microarray in order to determine whether recombination and high levels of genomic mosaicism adversely affect the inference of strain relationships based on the analysis of a restricted number of genetic loci.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results indicate that, in general, there is significant concordance between strain relationships established by MLST and those based on shared gene content as established by CGH. While MLST has significant predictive power with respect to overall genome similarity of isolates, we also found evidence for significant differences in genomic content among strains that would otherwise appear to be highly related based on their MLST profiles.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The extensive genomic mosaicism between closely related strains has important implications in the context of establishing strain to strain relationships because it suggests that the exact gene content of strains, and by extension their phenotype, is less likely to be "predicted" based on a small number of typing loci. This in turn suggests that a greater emphasis should be placed on analyzing genes of clinical interest as we forge ahead with the next generation of molecular typing methods.</p