Invisible victims : the effects of secondary and vicarious trauma on milieu staff members

This study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) and Vicarious Trauma (VT) in non-clinically trained milieu staff members working in close collaboration with victims of trauma. This study also aimed to discover the extent to which these individuals experience these effects, and will hopefully help bridge the existing gap in the literature around VT and STS in non-clinically trained populations of helpers. In a study of 49 participants including milieu staff members from both inpatient and residential school settings, prevalence of PTSD symptomology as a result of Secondary Traumatic Stress was explored through the use of a survey, the format of which varied based on the identified setting. The results of this study indicated that a significant portion of participants was found to be suffering from secondary or traumatic stress in their current place of employment. Of additional significance was the degree of secondary stress they were experiencing, the majority falling into moderate to severe categories

Graphene toxicity as a double-edged sword of risks and exploitable opportunities: A critical analysis of the most recent trends and developments

Increased production volumes and a broadening application spectrum of graphene have raised concerns about its potential adverse effects on human health. Numerous reports demonstrate that graphene irrespective of its particular form exerts its effects on a widest range of living organisms, including prokaryotic bacteria and viruses, plants, micro-and macro-invertebrates, mammalian and human cells and whole animals in vivo. However, the available experimental data is frequently a matter of significant divergence and even controversy. Therefore, we provide here a critical analysis of the most recent (2015-2016) reports accumulated in the graphene-related materials biocompatibility and toxicology field in order to elucidate the cutting edge achievements, emerging trends and future opportunities in the area. Experimental findings from the diverse in vitro and in vivo model systems are analysed in the context of the most likely graphene exposure scenarios, such as respiratory inhalation, ingestion route, parenteral administration and topical exposure through the skin. Key factors influencing the toxicity of graphene and its complex derivatives as well as potential risk mitigation approaches exploiting graphene physicochemical properties, surface modifications and possible degradation pathways are also discussed along with its emerging applications for healthcare, diagnostics and innovative therapeutic approaches

Assessing Patients’ Experiences with Medical Injury Reconciliation Processes: Item Generation for a Novel Survey Questionnaire

BACKGROUND: Many health care organizations want to improve their responses to patients who suffer medical injuries. Their ability to understand how well they meet patients' needs is limited by the lack of suitable instruments for assessing injured patients' experiences. METHODS: This study aimed to generate items for a patient experience questionnaire that medical facilities can use to assess how well resolution met patients' needs. The Medical Injury Reconciliation Experiences Survey (MIRES) was based on findings from previous studies of New Zealand and American patients' experiences of non-litigation resolution of medical injuries. The researchers performed a content analysis of 24 transcripts from a stratified random sample of 92 interviews from the prior studies. Themes were extracted to develop a draft questionnaire, which was revised following feedback from experts. Cognitive debriefing interviews were conducted with 24 New Zealand and American injured patients. RESULTS: There were 40 items in the following domains: perceptions of communications with health care providers after the injury (15 items), perceptions of remedial gestures (11 items), indicia of the patient's overall satisfaction with the reconciliation process (4 items), the nature and impacts of the injury (5 items), and patients' characteristics (5 items). Participants' feedback about the questionnaire was predominantly positive. Their suggestions led to 37 revisions. CONCLUSION: The MIRES was comprehensible and acceptable to this group of post-injury patients. While further testing is desirable, the MIRES offers promise as a practicable approach that health care organizations can use to assess how well their reconciliation processes met patients' needs

Behavioral Evaluation of Modafinil and The Abuse-related Effects of Cocaine in Rhesus Monkeys

This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.Modafinil is a central nervous system stimulant used to promote wakefulness, and it is being evaluated clinically as an agonist-based medication to treat stimulant abuse. This is the first report of the effects of modafinil on the abuse-related effects of cocaine in nonhuman primates. Three studies were conducted to examine the behavioral effects of modafinil. In the first study, the discriminative stimulus effects of modafinil were evaluated in monkeys trained to discriminate either low (0.18 mg/kg, IM) or high (0.4 mg/kg, IM) doses of cocaine from saline. Modafinil dose-dependently substituted for cocaine in 6/7 monkeys. In the second study, the effects of chronically administered modafinil (32-56 mg/kg/day, IV) on food- and cocaine-maintained operant responding were examined. Modafinil was administered 3 times/hr for 23 hr/day to ensure stable drug levels. Chronic treatment with 32 mg/kg/day modafinil selectively reduced responding maintained by intermediate (0.003 mg/kg/inj) and peak (0.01 mg/kg/inj) reinforcing doses of cocaine, but responding maintained by higher doses of cocaine was unaffected. Food-maintained behavior did not change during chronic treatment with modafinil. In a third study, after extinction of cocaine self-administration, modafinil (32 and 56 mg/kg/day, IV) significantly increased saline self-administration on the first day of treatment. These findings indicate that modafinil shares discriminative stimulus effects with cocaine and selectively reduces responding maintained by reinforcing doses of cocaine. These data are generally consistent with clinical findings and provide new evidence that these preclinical models may be useful for predicting the effectiveness of novel medications for drug abuse treatment

Repetition of Self-Generated Utterances in Conduction Aphasia

The speech of three conduction aphasic subjects was analyzed in a task of repetrtion of sentences and sentence fragments previously produced by themselves in a picture description narrative. Accurate repetition of sentences and sentence fragments ranged from 8% to 29%. Error analysis of original and repeated productions revealed different performance pattems among subjects. Minimal differences between conditions were evident in a number of preliminary speech efforts for subject 1, whereas subjects 2 and 3 demonstrated substantially more such efforts in the repetition condition. Word level misproductions (e.g. paraphasias, omissions) occurred notably more frequently in repetition than ir original utterances for subjects 1 and 3 but not for subject 2

Law Enforcement and Restorative Circles: Impacts on Educational Achievement

Connections have been observed between police involvement in school discipline and the utilization of suspensions as punishment. While proponents of school surveillance believe that police are necessary to provide safety in schools, education advocates question students’ perception of safety and its effects on educational outcomes. This article examines the relationship between police officer presence and certain educational outcomes, including student attendance, access to higher education, standardized test scores, and suspension rates. Also included in this analysis is an exploration of the relationships between these variables and classroom restorative circles used to manage conflict and find alternative solutions to safety. Does police presence have a significant impact upon attendance, access to higher education, standardized test scores, and suspension rates for students? Does the use of restorative circles at school, an alternative to traditional student discipline, have a significant impact upon attendance, access to higher education, standardized test scores, and suspension rates for students? To address these inquiries, an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis is used on both predictors with the School Survey on Crime and Safety collected by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE). Results demonstrate a statistically significant relationship between police officer presence and suspensions. Restorative circle use in schools has a significant impact upon decreased school suspensions and increased standardized test scores. To conclude the paper, real-world implications on school policy development are discussed. Keywords: police in schools, suspension rates, educational outcomes, restorative justice circles, standardized test score

WFPC2 Observations of the Hubble Deep Field-South

The Hubble Deep Field-South observations targeted a high-galactic-latitude field near QSO J2233-606. We present WFPC2 observations of the field in four wide bandpasses centered at roughly 300, 450, 606, and 814 nm. Observations, data reduction procedures, and noise properties of the final images are discussed in detail. A catalog of sources is presented, and the number counts and color distributions of the galaxies are compared to a new catalog of the HDF-N that has been constructed in an identical manner. The two fields are qualitatively similar, with the galaxy number counts for the two fields agreeing to within 20%. The HDF-S has more candidate Lyman-break galaxies at z > 2 than the HDF-N. The star-formation rate per unit volume computed from the HDF-S, based on the UV luminosity of high-redshift candidates, is a factor of 1.9 higher than from the HDF-N at z ~ 2.7, and a factor of 1.3 higher at z ~ 4.Comment: 93 pages, 25 figures; contains very long table

Comparing Local Starbursts to High-Redshift Galaxies: A Search for Lyman-Break Analogs

We compare the restframe far-ultraviolet (FUV) morphologies of 8 nearby interacting and starburst galaxies (Arp 269, M 82, Mrk 08, NGC 0520, NGC 1068, NGC 3079, NGC 3310, NGC 7673) with 54 galaxies at z approx.1.5 and 46 galaxies at z approx.4 in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) images taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the Hubble Space Telescope. We calculate the Gini coefficient (G), the second order moment of 20% of the brightest pixels (M20), and the S ersic index (n). We find that 20% (11/54) of z approx.1.5 and 37% (17/46) of z approx.4 galaxies are bulge-like, using G and M20. We also find approx.70% of the z approx.1.5 and z approx.4 galaxies have exponential disks with n > 0.8. The 2D profile combined with the nonparametric methods provides more detail, concerning the nature of disturbed systems, such as merger and post-merger types. We also provide qualitative descriptions of each galaxy system and at each redshift. We conclude that Mrk 08, NGC 3079, and NGC 7673 have similar morphologies as the starburst FUV restframe galaxies and Lyman-break galaxies at z approx.1.5 and 4, and determine that they are Lyman-break analogs

Influenza A virus preferentially snatches noncoding RNA caps

Influenza A virus (IAV) lacks the enzyme for adding 5\u27 caps to its RNAs and snatches the 5\u27 ends of host capped RNAs to prime transcription. Neither the preference of the host RNA sequences snatched nor the effect of cap-snatching on host processes is completely defined. Previous studies of influenza cap-snatching used poly(A)-selected RNAs from infected cells or relied on annotated host genes to define the snatched host RNAs, and thus lack details on many noncoding host RNAs including snRNAs, snoRNAs, and promoter-associated capped small (cs)RNAs, which are made by paused Pol II during transcription initiation. In this study, we used a nonbiased technique, CapSeq, to identify host and viral-capped RNAs including nonpolyadenylated RNAs in the same samples, and investigated the substrate-product correlation between the host RNAs and the viral RNAs. We demonstrated that noncoding host RNAs, particularly U1 and U2, are the preferred cap-snatching source over mRNAs or pre-mRNAs. We also found that csRNAs are highly snatched by IAV. Because the functions of csRNAs remain mostly unknown, especially in somatic cells, our finding reveals that csRNAs at least play roles in the process of IAV infection. Our findings support a model where nascent RNAs including csRNAs are the preferred targets for cap-snatching by IAV and raise questions about how IAV might use snatching preferences to modulate host-mRNA splicing and transcription