The Genetic Analysis and Clinical Features of Early Onset Familial Alzheimer's Disease

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How U.S. Society Has Treated Those With Mental Illnesses

Persons with mental illness are incarcerated in prisons across the United States at disproportionate rates compared to the general population. Under-standing why this is so requires an examination of how society in general has treated persons with mental illnesses. This article relates a history of neglect and stigmatization in examining the entities responsible for care of persons with mental illnesses, including the family, asylums and prisons. The article identifies trends of institutionalization, deinstitutionalization, and transinstitutionalisation, whereby large amounts of inpatients with mental illnesses moved out of psychiatric institutions, into the streets, and then into the criminal justice system. The article also analyses socioeconomic factors bearing on mental illness as a cause of crime, the high arrest rates and prison conditions experienced by those with mental illness, and public perceptions and myths about persons with mental illnesses. The article claims the impact of social control via the criminal justice apparatus – policing, imprisonment, and subsequent labeling – is a predominant cause of the high rates of imprisonment. It is suggested that in order to reverse the trend towards the mass incarceration of those with mental illnesses, we should reject calls for a return to the asylum. Instead, our focus should be on providing community-based treatment and interventions that address the socioeconomic causes of crime

A Survey of Computer Anxiety Among Secondary English Teachers in St. Johns County

As a result, in part, of computer anxiety, many educators are not utilizing available computer technology, even though its innovations extend to the classroom. Forty-four secondary English teachers from st. Johns County, Florida were given the Computer Attitude Rating Survey (CARS) along with a follow-up questionnaire, to identify anxiety levels and possible correlations with gender, education level, computer experience, and in-service training for this sample. Results indicate that men have less computer anxiety than women, that computer experience and in-service training decrease anxiety, and that Masters degree students have lower anxiety scores than do Baccalaureate degree students. These findings mirror earlier results, and provide directional data for decreasing the computer anxiety of future educators

A Tale of Two Tails: Exploring Stellar Populations in the Tidal Tails of NGC 3256

We have developed an observing program using deep, multiband imaging to probe the chaotic regions of tidal tails in search of an underlying stellar population, using NGC 3256's 400 Myr twin tidal tails as a case study. These tails have different colours of $u - g = 1.05 \pm 0.07$ and $r - i = 0.13 \pm 0.07$ for NGC 3256W, and $u - g = 1.26 \pm 0.07$ and $r - i = 0.26 \pm 0.07$ for NGC 3256E, indicating different stellar populations. These colours correspond to simple stellar population ages of $288^{+11}_{-54}$ Myr and $841^{+125}_{-157}$ Myr for NGC 3256W and NGC 3256E, respectively, suggesting NGC 3256W's diffuse light is dominated by stars formed after the interaction, while light in NGC 3256E is primarily from stars that originated in the host galaxy. Using a mixed stellar population model, we break our diffuse light into two populations: one at 10 Gyr, representing stars pulled from the host galaxies, and a younger component, whose age is determined by fitting the model to the data. We find similar ages for the young populations of both tails, ($195^{-13}_{+0}$ and $170^{-70}_{+44}$ Myr for NGC 3256W and NGC 3256E, respectively), but a larger percentage of mass in the 10 Gyr population for NGC 3256E ($98^{+1}_{-3}\%$ vs $90^{+5}_{-6}\%$). Additionally, we detect 31 star cluster candidates in NGC 3256W and 19 in NGC 2356E, with median ages of 141 Myr and 91 Myr, respectively. NGC 3256E contains several young (< 10 Myr), low mass objects with strong nebular emission, indicating a small, recent burst of star formation.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 16 pages, 19 figure

CD40 deficiency mitigates Alzheimer's disease pathology in transgenic mouse models

We have previously shown that transgenic mice carrying a mutant human APP but deficient in CD40L, display a decrease in astrocytosis and microgliosis associated with a lower amount of deposited Aβ. Furthermore, an anti-CD40L treatment causes a diminution of Aβ pathology in the brain and an improved performance in several cognitive tasks in the double transgenic PSAPP mouse model. Although these data suggest a potential role for CD40L in Alzheimer's disease pathology in transgenic mice they do not cast light on whether this effect is due to inhibition of signaling via CD40 or whether it is due to the mitigation of some other unknown role of CD40L. In the present report we have generated APP and PSAPP mouse models with a disrupted CD40 gene and compared the pathological features (such as amyloid burden, astrocytosis and microgliosis that are typical of Alzheimer's disease-like pathology in these transgenic mouse strains) with appropriate controls. We find that all these features are reduced in mouse models deficient for CD40 compared with their littermates where CD40 is present. These data suggest that CD40 signaling is required to allow the full repertoire of AD-like pathology in these mice and that inhibition of the CD40 signaling pathway is a potential therapeutic strategy in Alzheimer's disease