Sequence of the mouse Q4 class I gene and characterization of the gene product

The Q4 class I gene has been shown to participate in gene conversion events within the mouse major histocompatibility complex. Its complete genomic nucleotide sequence has been determined. The 5' half of Q4 resembles H-2 genes more strongly than other Q genes. Its 3' end, in contrast, is Q-like and contains a translational stop signal in exon 5 which predicts a polypeptide with an incomplete membrane spanning segment. The presence of two inverted B1 repeats suggests that part of the Q4 gene may be mobile within the genome. Gene transfer experiments have shown that the Q4 gene encodes a ß2-microglobulin associated polypeptide of Mr 41 000. A similar protein was found in activated mouse spleen cells. The Q4 polypeptide was found to be secreted both by spleen cells and by transfected fibroblasts and was not detectable on the cell surface. Antibody binding and twodimensional gel electrophoresis indicate that the Q4 molecule is identical to a mouse class I polypeptide, Qb-1, which has been previously described

Dispositional mindfulness and employment status as predictors of resilience in third year nursing students: a quantitative study

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background Nursing students will graduate into stressful workplace environments and resilience is an essential acquired ability for surviving the workplace. Few studies have explored the relationship between resilience and the degree of innate dispositional mindfulness, compassion, compassion fatigue and burnout in nursing students, including those who find themselves in the position of needing to work in addition to their academic responsibilities. Aim This paper investigates the predictors of resilience, including dispositional mindfulness and employment status of third year nursing students from three Australian universities. Design Participants were 240 undergraduate, third year, nursing students. Participants completed a resilience measure (Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, CD-RISC), measures of dispositional mindfulness (Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale Revised, CAMS-R) and professional quality of life (The Professional Quality of Life Scale version 5, PROQOL5), such as compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue and burnout. Method An observational quantitative successive independent samples survey design was employed. A stepwise linear regression was used to evaluate the extent to which predictive variables were related each to resilience. Results The predictive model explained 57% of the variance in resilience. Dispositional mindfulness subset acceptance made the strongest contribution, followed by the expectation of a graduate nurse transition programme acceptance, with dispositional mindfulness total score and employment greater than 20 hours per week making the smallest contribution. This was a resilient group of nursing students who rated high with dispositional mindfulness and exhibited hopeful and positive aspirations for obtaining a position in a competitive graduate nurse transition programme after graduation

Ways of being: Preparing nursing students for transition to professional practice

Author accepted manuscript made available following 12 month embargo from date of publication (1 July 2016) in accordance with publisher copyright policy.Abstract Background: The new graduate registered nurse (NGRN) does not work in isolation but within an organizational environment. Unfortunately for the NGRN, transition to practice programs are often variable and under resourced which means that promised support is unlikely to eventuate. Many NGRNs learn the skills required to navigate the nursing culture “on the job” without support and by trial and error. Methods: A grounded theory method was used to identify the strategies used by nine NGRNs to thrive during their transition to professional practice. Results: Ways of being emerged from the data to explain the social and emotional strategies NGRNs use during the first year of practice. The Ways of Being model includes ways of feeling, ways of relating and ways of doing. Conclusions: University preparation needs to ensure that the NGRN is provided with the skills to successfully navigate the workplace. Use of the Ways of Being model could help achieve this

Counselling in primary care : a systematic review of the evidence

Primary objective: To undertake a systematic review which aimed to locate, appraise and synthesise evidence to obtain a reliable overview of the clinical effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and user perspectives regarding counselling in primary care. Main results: Evidence from 26 studies was presented as a narrative synthesis and demonstrated that counselling is effective in the short term, is as effective as CBT with typical heterogeneous primary care populations and more effective than routine primary care for the treatment of non-specific generic psychological problems, anxiety and depression. Counselling may reduce levels of referrals to psychiatric services, but does not appear to reduce medication, the number of GP consultations or overall costs. Patients are highly satisfied with the counselling they have received in primary care and prefer counselling to medication for depression. Conclusions and implications for future research: This review demonstrates the value of counselling as a valid choice for primary care patients and as a broadly effective therapeutic intervention for a wide range of generic psychological conditions presenting in the primary care setting. More rigorous clinical and cost-effectiveness trials are needed together with surveys of more typical users of primary care services

A chaotic microresonator structure for an optical implementation of an artificial neural network

Tuneable all-optical signal processing has been the holy grail of information photonics; it has been pursued for many years but has proven to be very challenging. In this contribution, we present our recent work in developing an all-optical signal processing device called a photonic reservoir computer (PhRC) which can be tuned to perform a bespoke task. The PhRC is inspired by how the brain handles and process information. We demonstrate that a chaotic micro-resonator is a suitable platform for the optical implementation of such an artificial neural network

Adaptive strategies of African horse sickness virus to facilitate vector transmission

African horse sickness virus (AHSV) is an orbivirus that is usually transmitted between its equid hosts by adult Culicoides midges. In this article, we review the ways in which AHSV may have adapted to this mode of transmission. The AHSV particle can be modified by the pH or proteolytic enzymes of its immediate environment, altering its ability to infect different cell types. The degree of pathogenesis in the host and vector may also represent adaptations maximising the likelihood of successful vectorial transmission. However, speculation upon several adaptations for vectorial transmission is based upon research on related viruses such as bluetongue virus (BTV), and further direct studies of AHSV are required in order to improve our understanding of this important virus

Dispositional mindfulness and employment status as predictors of resilience in third year nursing students : A quantitative study

Background Nursing students will graduate into stressful workplace environments and resilience is an essential acquired ability for surviving the workplace. Few studies have explored the relationship between resilience and the degree of innate dispositional mindfulness, compassion, compassion fatigue and burnout in nursing students, including those who find themselves in the position of needing to work in addition to their academic responsibilities. Aim This paper investigates the predictors of resilience, including dispositional mindfulness and employment status of third year nursing students from three Australian universities. Design Participants were 240 undergraduate, third year, nursing students. Participants completed a resilience measure (Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, CD-RISC), measures of dispositional mindfulness (Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale Revised, CAMS-R) and professional quality of life (The Professional Quality of Life Scale version 5, PROQOL5), such as compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue and burnout. Method An observational quantitative successive independent samples survey design was employed. A stepwise linear regression was used to evaluate the extent to which predictive variables were related each to resilience. Results The predictive model explained 57% of the variance in resilience. Dispositional mindfulness subset acceptance made the strongest contribution, followed by the expectation of a graduate nurse transition programme acceptance, with dispositional mindfulness total score and employment greater than 20 hours per week making the smallest contribution. This was a resilient group of nursing students who rated high with dispositional mindfulness and exhibited hopeful and positive aspirations for obtaining a position in a competitive graduate nurse transition programme after graduation

Repressive and non-repressive chromatin at native telomeres in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In <it>Saccharomyces cerevisiae </it>genes that are located close to a telomere can become transcriptionally repressed by an epigenetic process known as telomere position effect. There is large variation in the level of the telomere position effect among telomeres, with many native ends exhibiting little repression.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Chromatin analysis, using microccocal nuclease and indirect end labelling, reveals distinct patterns for ends with different silencing states. Differences were observed in the promoter accessibility of a subtelomeric reporter gene and a characteristic array of phased nucleosomes was observed on the centromere proximal side of core X at a repressive end. The silent information regulator proteins 2 - 4, the yKu heterodimer and the subtelomeric core X element are all required for the maintenance of the chromatin structure of repressive ends. However, gene deletions of particular histone modification proteins can eliminate the silencing without the disruption of this chromatin structure.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our data identifies chromatin features that correlate with the silencing state and indicate that an array of phased nucleosomes is not sufficient for full repression.</p

High-temperature molecular beam epitaxy of hexagonal boron nitride with high active nitrogen fluxes

Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has attracted much attention as a key component in van der Waals heterostructures and as a wide band gap material for deep-ultraviolet devices. We have recently demonstrated plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PA-MBE) of hBN layers on substrates of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite at high substrate temperatures of ~1400 oC. The current paper will present data on the high-temperature PA-MBE growth of hBN layers using a high-efficiency RF nitrogen plasma source. Despite the more than 3-fold increase in nitrogen flux with this new source, we saw no significant increase in the growth rates of the hBN layers, indicating that the growth rate of hBN layers is controlled by the boron arrival rate. The hBN thickness increases to ~90 nm with decrease in the growth temperature to 1080 oC. However, the decrease in the MBE temperature led to a deterioration of the optical properties of the hBN. The optical absorption data indicate that an increase in the active nitrogen flux during the MBE process improves the optical properties of hBN and suppresses defect related optical absorption in the energy range 5.0-5.5 eV