Ageism: An Exploration of Social Workers\u27 Attitudes Toward Psychological Services for Elders

This study sought to explore the value placed on psychological services for elders by social workers. Previous research indicates that psychologists, psychiatrists, physicians and other professionals are biased against the effectiveness of psychological services for older people. Because social workers for elders are often the source of referrals for other types of service provision to meet the needs of older adults, the social worker\u27s ability to recognize depression and to understand the appropriateness of services such as psychotherapy, couple$, group, and family therapy is necessary to ensure all the needs of the older adult are met. By responding to a client vignette, social worker in the Twin Cities showed some discrepancy in their consideration of an older client versus a younger client in the areas of the importance of organic impairment to a client\u27s current situation and in the types of service preferred to assist the client. Psychotherapy was more often the intervention of choice for a younger client than for an older client. However many social workers did express support for the provision of psychotherapy for an older client, and most social workers were able to recognize symptoms of depression, without confusing such symptoms with dementia

Overproduction, Purification and Refolding of codon-optimized Hepatitis B Virus X Protein Subgenotype B3 in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3)

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infects human and causes chronic liver infection, leading to liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. HBV X (Hbx) protein is known to interact with tumor suppressor protein p53 and block its translocation into the nucleus. This study outlines the overproduction of Hbx protein from HBV subgenotype B3 in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3), including its purification and refolding. The gene encoding Hbx was first codon-optimized and inserted into pET16b. The recombinant plasmid was then transformed into E. coli BL21(DE3) as an expression host. Optimization of Hbx expression was performed with variation of IPTG concentration and overproduction temperature. The results showed that Hbx protein was optimally induced by 0.075 mM IPTG and overproduction of Hbx at 17, 25, and 37°C exhibited no difference in protein level and location. The optimal refolding of Hbx was obtained using 0.1 M arginine prior to elution from Nickel column using 100 mM imidazole and 0.25 M arginine. Hbx migrates differently in SDS-PAGE reducing and non-reducing, while the melting curve pattern in TSA analysis changed after the refolding step. Essentially, this purified Hbx protein could potentially be used for interaction study with p53 and the inhibitor candidate of the protein

Astronomical Data Management

We present a summary of the major contributions to the Special Session on Data Management held at the IAU General Assembly in Prague in 2006. While recent years have seen enormous improvements in access to astronomical data, and the Virtual Observatory aims to provide astronomers with seamless access to on-line resources, more attention needs to be paid to ensuring the quality and completeness of those resources. For example, data produced by telescopes are not always made available to the astronomical community, and new instruments are sometimes designed and built with insufficient planning for data management, while older but valuable legacy data often remain undigitised. Data and results published in journals do not always appear in the data centres, and astronomers in developing countries sometimes have inadequate access to on-line resources. To address these issues, an 'Astronomers Data Manifesto' has been formulated with the aim of initiating a discussion that will lead to the development of a 'code of best practice' in astronomical data management.Comment: Proceedings of Special Session SPS6 (Astronomical Data Management) at the IAU GA 2006. To appear in Highlights of Astronomy, Volume 14, ed. K.A. van der Huch

Understanding the bereavement care roles of nurses within acute care: a systematic review

Aims and objectives: To investigate nurses’ roles and responsibilities in providing bereavement care during the care of dying patients within acute care hospitals. Background: Bereavement within acute care hospitals is often sudden, unexpected and managed by nurses who may have limited access to experts. Nurses’ roles and experience in the provision of bereavement care can have a significant influence on the subsequent bereavement process for families. Identifying the roles and responsibilities, nurses have in bereavement care will enhance bereavement supports within acute care environments. Design: Mixed-methods systematic review. Methods: The review was conducted using the databases Cumulative Index Nursing and Allied Health Literature Plus, Embase, Ovid MEDLINE, PsychINFO, CareSearch and Google Scholar. Included studies published between 2006–2015, identified nurse participants, and the studies were conducted in acute care hospitals. Seven studies met the inclusion criteria, and the research results were extracted and subjected to thematic synthesis. Results: Nurses’ role in bereavement care included patient-centred care, family-centred care, advocacy and professional development. Concerns about bereavement roles included competing clinical workload demands, limitations of physical environments in acute care hospitals and the need for further education in bereavement care. Conclusions: Further research is needed to enable more detailed clarification of the roles nurse undertake in bereavement care in acute care hospitals. There is also a need to evaluate the effectiveness of these nursing roles and how these provisions impact on the bereavement process of patients and families. Relevance to clinical practice: The care provided by acute care nurses to patients and families during end-of-life care is crucial to bereavement. The bereavement roles nurses undertake are not well understood with limited evidence of how these roles are measured. Further education in bereavement care is needed for acute care nurses. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Lt

The Crossroads of Wellness and Second Victim Syndrome: Identifying Factors that Alter the Pathway of Caregiver Recovery Following an Unanticipated Adverse Patient Outcome

Introduction: Second Victim Syndrome (SVS) describes the phenomenon in which a caregiver experiences a traumatic psychological and emotional response to an adverse patient event or medical error. Using quantitative survey analysis, we aim to better understand the personal factors that affect SVS development and recovery. Methods: Caregivers at a small urban academic medical center who had experienced an adverse patient event in the past six months were invited to take part in this institution-wide, voluntary, quantitative, cross-sectional study. Three surveys were administered; the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory (HRLSI) was used as a surrogate to measure stressful life events. The Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) was used as a measure of the stress a provider senses following a traumatic event. The Second Victim Experience and Support Tool (SVEST) was used to assess the medical provider’s emotional response and level of institutional support in response to an adverse clinical event. Results: Analysis of SVEST vs. IES-R demonstrated that respondents with greater self-perception of personal distress reported increased psychological (p=0.0008) and physical (p=0.0015) distress. Respondents who reported higher HRLSI scores had a greater perception that non-work-related support (p=0.04) such as family support was inadequate; however, these respondents were less likely to perceive institutional support (p=0.04) as inadequate. The results indicate that caregivers with more perceived life stresses believe that they do not have strong non-work-related support services, which is a known protective factor; thus, they may perceive any institutional support as more adequate. Conclusion: This study suggests that personal life risk factors, institutional support, and non-work related support may play an important role in the development of SVS and the perception of stress and wellness in the setting of SVS

Advanced EFL learners' beliefs about language learning and teaching: a comparison between grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary

This paper reports on the results of a study exploring learners’ beliefs on the learning and teaching of English grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary at tertiary level. While the importance of learners’ beliefs on the acquisition process is generally recognized, few studies have focussed on and compared learners’ views on different components of the language system. A questionnaire containing semantic scale and Likert scale items probing learners’ views on grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary was designed and completed by 117 native speakers of Dutch in Flanders, who were studying English at university. The analysis of the responses revealed that (i) vocabulary was considered to be different from grammar and pronunciation, both in the extent to which an incorrect use could lead to communication breakdown and with respect to the learners’ language learning strategies, (ii) learners believed in the feasibility of achieving a native-like proficiency in all three components, and (iii) in-class grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary exercises were considered to be useful, even at tertiary level. The results are discussed in light of pedagogical approaches to language teaching

Dietary Polyphenols in Cancer Chemoprevention: Implications in Pancreatic Cancer

Naturally occurring dietary agents present in a wide variety of plant products, are rich sources of phytochemicals possessing medicinal properties, and thus, have been used in folk medicine for ages to treat various ailments. The beneficial effects of such dietary components are frequently attributed to their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, particularly in regards to their antineoplastic activities. As many tumor types exhibit greater oxidative stress levels that are implicated in favoring autonomous cell growth activation, most chemotherapeutic agents can also enhance tumoral oxidative stress levels in part via generating reactive oxygen species (ROS). While ROS-mediated imbalance of the cellular redox potential can provide novel drug targets, as a consequence, this ROS-mediated excessive damage to cellular functions, including oncogenic mutagenesis, has also been implicated in inducing chemoresistance. This remains one of the major challenges in the treatment and management of human malignancies. Antioxidant-enriched natural compounds offer one of the promising approaches in mitigating some of the underlying mechanisms involved in tumorigenesis and metastasis, and therefore, have been extensively explored in cancer chemoprevention. Among various groups of dietary phytochemicals, polyphenols have been extensively explored for their underlying chemopreventive mechanisms in other cancer models. Thus, the current review highlights the significance and mechanisms of some of the highly studied polyphenolic compounds, with greater emphasis on pancreatic cancer chemoprevention

Local null controllability of a two-dimensional fluid-structure interaction problem

In this paper, we prove a controllability result for a fluid-structure interaction problem. In dimension two, a rigid structure moves into an incompressible fluid governed by Navier-Stokes equations. The control acts on a fixed subset of the fluid domain. We prove that, for small initial data, this system is null controllable, that is, for a given T > 0, the system can be driven at rest and the structure to its reference configuration at time T. To show this result, we first consider a linearized system. Thanks to an observability inequality obtained from a Carleman inequality, we prove an optimal controllability result with a regular control. Next, with the help of Kakutani's fixed point theorem and a regularity result, we pass to the nonlinear problem

Pathomimetic avatars reveal divergent roles of microenvironment in invasive transition of ductal carcinoma in situ

The breast tumor microenvironment regulates progression of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) to invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC). However, it is unclear how interactions between breast epithelial and stromal cells can drive this progression and whether there are reliable microenvironmental biomarkers to predict transition of DCIS to IDC