The Nuclear Mentality: An Outgrowth of the Masculine Mentality

Evidence will be offered in support of the thesis that nuclear war is the ultimate act of violence. Since men in patriarchal culture have been and continue to be the perpetrators of the large majority of violent acts, it is no surprise that men would be more willing than women to risk initiating this ultimate form of violence. The same factors that account for the greater willingness of many men to behave violently in personal situations likely also account for the nuclear mentality—a perverted outgrowth of this culture's notion of masculinity

Splenic non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma without organomegaly: occult presentation with fatal course and post-mortem diagnosis

Splenic lymphoma without splenomegaly is uncommon. We report the case of a 68-year-old female who presented with fulminant B symptoms and thrombocytopenia, only to be found to have micronodular large B-cell lymphoma of the spleen post-mortem. Diagnosis of this rare entity remains difficult and overall prognosis is poor

‘Love Where You Live!’ A Conversation with Diana McCaulay

Diana McCaulay is an award-winning Jamaican novelist and short-story writer. Her first novel, Dog-Heart (Peepal Tree Press, 2010) won a Gold Medal in the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission's National Creative Writing Awards (2008), and was shortlisted for the Guyana Prize (2011), the IMPAC Dublin Award (2012) and the Saroyan Prize for International Writing (2012). She won the Regional Prize for the Caribbean Commonwealth Short Story competition in 2012 for ‘The Dolphin Catcher’. Her second novel, Huracan (Peepal Tree Press, 2014) was also shortlisted for Saroyan Prize for International Writing. In April 2014, she won the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize for a non-fiction work in progress, entitled Loving Jamaica: A Memoir of Place and (Not) Belonging. At the same time she is working on her third novel, which at the time of this interview was tentatively called The Dolphin Catcher. McCaulay is the also founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET), focusing on environmental education and advocacy. Before that she worked in the general insurance industry for eighteen years, in various senior management positions. She is a Chartered Insurer qualified by the Chartered Insurance Institute in the United Kingdom. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Management Studies from the University of the West Indies, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration from the University of Washington, with majors in environmental policy and international development. She served on the Board of Jamaica’s Natural Resources Conservation Authority from 2003 to 2005, and again in 2008, and is a past Chair of the National Environmental Societies Trust and past Vice Chair of the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica. This interview took place in Kingston, Jamaica, June 2015 and was conducted by Russell McDougall. Questions prepared in advance and interspersed contextual notes added after the transcription were prepared in collaboration with Sue Thomas

The three stages of building and testing mid-level theories in a realist RCT: a theoretical and methodological case-example.

BACKGROUND: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of social interventions are often criticised as failing to open the 'black box' whereby they only address questions about 'what works' without explaining the underlying processes of implementation and mechanisms of action, and how these vary by contextual characteristics of person and place. Realist RCTs are proposed as an approach to evaluation science that addresses these gaps while preserving the strengths of RCTs in providing evidence with strong internal validity in estimating effects. METHODS: In the context of growing interest in designing and conducting realist trials, there is an urgent need to offer a worked example to provide guidance on how such an approach might be practically taken forward. The aim of this paper is to outline a three-staged theoretical and methodological process of undertaking a realist RCT using the example of the evaluation of a whole-school restorative intervention aiming to reduce aggression and bullying in English secondary schools. DISCUSSION: First, informed by the findings of our initial pilot trial and sociological theory, we elaborate our theory of change and specific a priori hypotheses about how intervention mechanisms interact with context to produce outcomes. Second, we describe how we will use emerging findings from the integral process evaluation within the RCT to refine, and add to, these a priori hypotheses before the collection of quantitative, follow-up data. Third, we will test our hypotheses using a combination of process and outcome data via quantitative analyses of effect mediation (examining mechanisms) and moderation (examining contextual contingencies). The results are then used to refine and further develop the theory of change. CONCLUSION: The aim of the realist RCT approach is thus not merely to assess whether the intervention is effective or not, but to develop empirically informed mid-range theory through a three-stage process. There are important implications for those involved with reporting and reviewing RCTs, including the use of new, iterative protocols. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN10751359 (Registered 11 March 2014)

Telehealth and Occupational Therapy Education

Accredited occupational therapy education programs are required to include telehealth technology in their curricula as outlined by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education. An innovative Doctor of Occupational Therapy program piloted a telehealth module with first- and second-year students. Both dynamic lecture content and active learning lab exercises were created to advance student knowledge in the use of telehealth technology and to inform occupational therapy telehealth education. The teaching approaches in lecture and lab were assessed using a mixed methods approach. A quantitative pre and posttest assessment of student self-efficacy and knowledge was collected at three time points. At the final timepoint, a post survey was also completed to collect qualitative perspectives of student experiences after the lecture content and lab exercise, to further explain quantitative findings. Results indicated that the students’ knowledge significantly improved after the module. In addition, engaging in lab after lecture did add a significant improvement in self-efficacy of students’ perception of their knowledge regarding telehealth as well as confidence in their ability to use telehealth. The outcomes of this study assist and inform occupational therapy education programs in determining an effective teaching format for instruction on the use of telehealth technology in practice

Colloquium on Rome II: the 2007 Regulation on the Law Applicable to Non-contractual Obligations -- European and American Perspectives

Diana Wallis, vice president of the European Parliament, joined other American and European experts in private international law to explore new European Union legislation on the law applicable to torts and to compare it to approaches in U.S. law during a two-day event sponsored by the University of Georgia Dean Rusk Center - International, Comparative and Graduate Legal Studies and the Georgia Society of International and Comparative Law. The colloquium was held November 5-6, 2007 in the Larry Walker Room of Dean Rusk Hall

tRNA-linked molecular beacons for imaging mRNAs in the cytoplasm of living cells

When oligonucleotide probes are microinjected into cells to image the distribution of RNAs, they are rapidly sequestered into the nucleus. As a result, it is difficult to detect mRNAs in the cytoplasm of living cells. We were able to overcome this process by attaching tRNA transcripts to the probes. We show that when fluorescently labeled tRNAs, tRNAs with extensions at their 5′ end, or chimeric molecules in which a molecular beacon possessing a 2′-O-methylribonucleotide backbone is linked to a tRNA, are injected into the nucleus of HeLa cells, they are exported into the cytoplasm. When these constructs are introduced into the cytoplasm, they remain cytoplasmic. These constructs allow the distribution of both the general mRNA population and specific mRNAs to be imaged in living cells. This strategy should also be useful for enhancing the efficacy of antisense oligonucleotides by keeping them in the cytoplasm. Our observations show that the fidelity of the tRNA export system is relaxed for unnatural tRNA variants when they are introduced into the nucleus in large amounts