Emerging role of endosomal toll-like receptors in rheumatoid arthritis

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and their downstream signaling pathways have been comprehensively characterized in innate immunity. In addition to this function, these receptors have also been suggested to be involved in the pathogenesis of many autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Murine in vivo models and human in vitro tissue models of RA have provided a wealth of information on the potential activity of TLRs and components of the downstream signaling pathways. Whilst most early work investigated the cell surface TLRs, more recently the focus has moved to the endosomal TLRs 3, 7, 8, and 9. These receptors recognize self and foreign double-stranded RNA and single-stranded RNA and DNA. The development of therapeutics to inhibit the endosomal TLRs or components of their signaling cascades may represent a way to target inflammation upstream of cytokine production. This may allow for greater specificity than existing therapies including cytokine blockade. Here, we review the current information suggesting a role for the endosomal TLRs in RA pathogenesis and the efforts to target these receptors therapeutically

Business Process Redesign in the Perioperative Process: A Case Perspective for Digital Transformation

This case study investigates business process redesign within the perioperative process as a method to achieve digital transformation. Specific perioperative sub-processes are targeted for re-design and digitalization, which yield improvement. Based on a 184-month longitudinal study of a large 1,157 registered-bed academic medical center, the observed effects are viewed through a lens of information technology (IT) impact on core capabilities and core strategy to yield a digital transformation framework that supports patient-centric improvement across perioperative sub-processes. This research identifies existing limitations, potential capabilities, and subsequent contextual understanding to minimize perioperative process complexity, target opportunity for improvement, and ultimately yield improved capabilities. Dynamic technological activities of analysis, evaluation, and synthesis applied to specific perioperative patient-centric data collected within integrated hospital information systems yield the organizational resource for process management and control. Conclusions include theoretical and practical implications as well as study limitations

A pedagogy for ethical decision making

We examine a pedagogy for ethical decision-making that bridges the academic and theoretical with a dynamic and practical approach. We consider how two perspectives of mindfulness contribute to a sustainable practice. First, students explore their inner selves to build and strengthen their self-awareness. Building self-awareness and examining values and beliefs aligns with mindfulness meditation as presented by Lampe and Engleman-Lampe (2012). Second, a cognitive approach is used to examine ethics in depth using theory. This perspective aligns with the construct proposed by Langer and Moldoveanu (2000). We build on these approaches by engaging the individual’s belief and values system with theoretical foundations. We encourage the students to employ academic rigor and self-awareness as a practical approach to business ethics. The method is an ongoing and dynamic process. Sustainability depends on maintaining an informed state through the pursuit of a mindful and vigilant approach to the cognitive and self-awareness perspectives.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A FOLLOW-UP STUDY OF FIFTY-TWO RICHMOND PUBLIC SCHOOL PUPILS GIVEN PSYCHIATRIC STAFFING DURING THE 1966-1967 SCHOOL YEAR

This research study is a descriptive study of the effectiveness of the psychiatric staffing as determined by a follow-up study of fifty-two Richmond Public School Pupils given such staffing during the l966-67 school year. The review of pertinent literature reveals what others have contributed to the knowledge of the nature and function of the school helping team. The teamwork approach, which involves the efforts of several professions and disciplines working closely together, is seen as the best present method to meet the complex, overlapping needs which have been found to affect students\u27 learning. As a means of establishing guidelines and limits for this study, five areas of concern were defined. The questions to be answered by this study were: 1. What are the socio-economic backgrounds represented by the sample? 2. Were the recommendations made by the school psychiatrist implemented? 3. Is the overall psychiatric staffing effective according to the improvement in pupils presenting problems and the extent to which the recommendations were carried out? 4. To what extent do the available records contain sufficient information for a follow-up study? 5. What are the attitudes of the key persons responsible for the psychiatric staffing toward the effective operation of these staffings? The Pupil Personnel Services gave its approval to conduct this study. The sample numbered fifty-two. The agency requested and it was agreed that no pupil, school, or agency be contacted and that information be obtained only from the files and employees of Pupil Personnel Services. An interview schedule was constructed to elicit information to determine the extent to which the recommendations made during the psychiatric staffing were initiated and carried out. This schedule was applied to the pupil records. Open ended questions were used in interview schedules to gather pertinent information from three key persons responsible for the effective operation of the psychiatric staffing. The fifty-two pupil cases revealed the pupils to be largely from low income families, mostly males with acting-out behavior problems, and with no significant concentration from any one school. A larger percentage of the recommendations that were initiated involved the use of school resources rather than community resources. In nearly half of the pupil cases the recommendations were completely carried out, with a remaining few being carried out to a lesser extent. The findings suggested that, if the recommendations were carried out, the pupil would show behavior improvement. To a large extent the statements made by the key persons generally reflected that methods of record keeping be improved within the Department of Visiting Teachers; that there be an increase in the number and quality of the visiting teachers, especially for elementary and Junior high school placements; that parents of the pupils given psychiatric staffings become involved in the staffings and be included in the treatment process themselves; and that the visiting teacher exercise more responsibility for follow-up on the pupils given psychiatric staffing

Sex Differences with Aging in the Fatigability of Dynamic Contractions

This study determined the sex difference with aging in fatigability of the elbow flexor muscles during a dynamic fatiguing task, and explored the associated mechanisms. We compared fatigability of the elbow flexor muscles in 18 young (20.2 ± 1 years: 9 men) and 36 old adults (73.5 ± 1 years: 16 men) during and in recovery from repeated dynamic contractions (~ 60°/s) with a load equivalent to 20% of maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC) torque until failure. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to assess supraspinal fatigue (an increase in the superimposed twitch, SIT) and the peak rate of muscle relaxation. Time to failure was briefer for the men than the women (6.1 ± 2.1 vs. 9.7 ± 5.5 min, respectively; P = 0.02) with no difference between young and old adults (7.2 ± 2.9 vs. 8.4 ± 5.2 min, respectively, P = 0.45) and no interaction (P \u3e 0.05). The relative decline in peak relaxation rate with fatigability was similar for young and old adults (P = 0.11), but greater for men than women (P = 0.046). Supraspinal fatigue increased for all groups and was associated with the time to failure (P \u3c 0.05). Regression analysis however, indicated that the time to failure was best predicted by the peak relaxation rate (baseline values and slowing with fatigability) (r2 = 0.55). Rate-limiting contractile mechanisms (e.g. excitation–contraction coupling) were responsible for the increased fatigability of the elbow flexors of men compared with women for a dynamic fatiguing task of slow angular velocity, and this sex difference was maintained with aging. The age difference in fatigability for the dynamic task was diminished for both sexes relative to what is typically observed with isometric fatiguing contractions

Therapists’ Perspectives of the Effects of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy on Problem-Drinking Behavior

The goal of this research study is to provide knowledge of therapists’ perspectives of the effects of psychodynamic psychotherapy on problem-drinking behavior. Understanding the effects of psychodynamic psychotherapy on problem-drinking behavior increases clinical social workers’ success in facilitating long-term change for clients with problem-drinking behavior. This study gathered qualitative information using a twelve-question interview with six psychodynamic psychotherapists. The results were compared with a literature review of the effects of psychodynamic psychotherapy on problem-drinking behavior. Three main themes emerged from this study. First, through the development of transference, the psychodynamic therapeutic relationship helps problem drinkers work toward resolving the internal conflicts underlying their problem-drinking behavior. The second theme that became apparent is the importance of using psychodynamic therapeutic skills to build clients’ ego strength, which facilitates transformation. The third theme identified is how consistent and responsive psychodynamic interaction leads to more positive, authentic relationships with others. The implications of this study suggest that by providing psychodynamic psychotherapy, social work clinicians can facilitate long-lasting change in problem-drinking behavior through the development of transference, the building of ego strength, and increasing the ability to form positive relationships. Further implications for social work clinicians indicate psychodynamic psychotherapy can provide a framework for intervention for clients with problem-drinking behavior, along with other forms of behavioral therapy

Therapists’ Perspectives of the Effects of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy on Problem-Drinking Behavior

The goal of this research study is to provide knowledge of therapists’ perspectives of the effects of psychodynamic psychotherapy on problem-drinking behavior. Understanding the effects of psychodynamic psychotherapy on problem-drinking behavior increases clinical social workers’ success in facilitating long-term change for clients with problem-drinking behavior. This study gathered qualitative information using a twelve-question interview with six psychodynamic psychotherapists. The results were compared with a literature review of the effects of psychodynamic psychotherapy on problem-drinking behavior. Three main themes emerged from this study. First, through the development of transference, the psychodynamic therapeutic relationship helps problem drinkers work toward resolving the internal conflicts underlying their problem-drinking behavior. The second theme that became apparent is the importance of using psychodynamic therapeutic skills to build clients’ ego strength, which facilitates transformation. The third theme identified is how consistent and responsive psychodynamic interaction leads to more positive, authentic relationships with others. The implications of this study suggest that by providing psychodynamic psychotherapy, social work clinicians can facilitate long-lasting change in problem-drinking behavior through the development of transference, the building of ego strength, and increasing the ability to form positive relationships. Further implications for social work clinicians indicate psychodynamic psychotherapy can provide a framework for intervention for clients with problem-drinking behavior, along with other forms of behavioral therapy

Effects of flow diversion on downstream channel form in mountain streams

December 1993.Includes bibliographical references (pages 61-64).This paper reports on a study of regime, bedload transport, and channel morphology in diverted and free-flowing segments of mountain streams in Colorado where flow has been diverted, in some cases, for up to one hundred years. The goal of the project was to determine whether differences in channel form and processes could be detected and linked to changes in flow regime from diversion. The effect of diversion on flow fegime can very considerably between individual steams. Typically, the total annual water yield is drastically reduced by diversion, though, where storage is limited, occasional high flows, with a five-to-ten year return frequency, move thought the natural channel. These larger events have the potential to reset changes in morphology incurred during the intervening dry years, such as channel narrowing and fining of bed size distribution. In general, changes in channel capacity were quite subtle, and the most apparent change was a decrease in channel width due to vegetation and the development of low bank beneath a former cut bank. No change in morphology was apparent in constrained channels. The results here are preliminary as of December 1993. Final results will be presented in subsequent publications.Grant no. 14-08-0001-2008, Project no. 13; financed in part by the U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Geological Survey, through the Colorado Water Resources Research Institute

The CoNLL 2007 shared task on dependency parsing

The Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning features a shared task, in which participants train and test their learning systems on the same data sets. In 2007, as in 2006, the shared task has been devoted to dependency parsing, this year with both a multilingual track and a domain adaptation track. In this paper, we define the tasks of the different tracks and describe how the data sets were created from existing treebanks for ten languages. In addition, we characterize the different approaches of the participating systems, report the test results, and provide a first analysis of these results

A unique assemblage of cosmopolitan freshwater bacteria and higher community diversity differentiate an urbanized estuary from oligotrophic Lake Michigan

Water quality is impacted significantly by urbanization. The delivery of increased nutrient loads to waterways is a primary characteristic of this land use change. Despite the recognized effects of nutrient loading on aquatic systems, the influence of urbanization on the bacterial community composition of these systems is not understood. We used massively-parallel sequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA genes to examine the bacterial assemblages in transect samples spanning the heavily urbanized estuary of Milwaukee, WI to the relatively un-impacted waters of Lake Michigan. With this approach, we found that genera and lineages common to freshwater lake epilimnia were common and abundant in both the high nutrient, urban-impacted waterways and the low nutrient Lake Michigan. Although the two environments harbored many taxa in common, we identified a significant change in the community assemblage across the urban-influence gradient, and three distinct community features drove this change. First, we found the urban-influenced waterways harbored significantly greater bacterial richness and diversity than Lake Michigan (i.e. taxa augmentation). Second, we identified a shift in the relative abundance among common freshwater lineages, where acI, acTH1, Algoriphagus and LD12, had decreased representation and Limnohabitans, Polynucleobacter, and Rhodobacter had increased representation in the urban estuary. Third, by oligotyping 18 common freshwater genera/lineages, we found that oligotypes (highly resolved sequence clusters) within many of these genera/lineages had opposite preferences for the two environments. With these data, we suggest many of the defined cosmopolitan freshwater genera/lineages contain both oligotroph and more copiotroph species or populations, promoting the idea that within-genus lifestyle specialization, in addition to shifts in the dominance among core taxa and taxa augmentation, drive bacterial community change in urbanized waters