Gestures of creative recovery for the egocentric actor through performance in Wertenbaker\u27s our country\u27s good.

This document serves as a travelogue for the creation of two roles for the U of L Fall 2017 Production of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good. At odds throughout the process were intellect and vulnerability. In an attempt to find openness with my primary scene partner, I tried a variety of techniques including, but not limited to: Konstantin Stanislavski’s “Bits and Tasks”; Michael Chekhov’s “Psychological Gesture”; Carl Jung’s theories on Archetype; F.M. Alexander’s notions of “Inhibition” and “Nondoing” as expounded upon by Betsy Polatin; and Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages.” My original goal of achieving vulnerability on stage became consumed by the very methodologies I had hoped to employ in service of this ambition. By planning the results rather than the actions, I assumed the judgmental position of a director in an effort to manage and control my performance. Devastated by some of the feedback from the faculty, I set out on a journey of creative recovery. Through recapitulations of works such as: Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way; Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now; and the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous, I analogize the journey of recovery from alcoholism to my desired approach as a creative practitioner in the theatre. I theorize that the desire for control that dominates alcoholic thinking also plagues egocentric actors. To find freedom, open-mindedness, and willingness as an actor, I resolve to surrender control of the process to the director, a higher power of my own understanding, and shed the need to pre-plan each performance

Plasma levels of immunoreactive atrial natriuretic hormone in patients with diabetes mellitus

In order to determine whether atrial natriuretic hormone (ANH) secretion is altered in diabetic patients with autonomic neuropathy, plasma immunoreactive ANH (IR-ANH) levels were measured in 23 patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, 12 of whom had definite cardiac autonomic neuropathy determined by noninvasive maneuvers. Levels were also measured in 31 healthy control subjects. Whereas only one of the 11 diabetics without cardiac autonomic neuropathy had elevated IR-ANH levels, four of the 12 diabetics with cardiac autonomic neuropathy had elevated IR-ANH levels (P = 0.03 compared to control subjects). 24-h urinary sodium excetion was not different among the groups. There was no significant correlation between IR-ANH levels and diabetes control and any of the parameters of autonomic nervous system activity nor between IR-ANH levels and plasma norepinephrine or epinephrine levels. Furthermore, no relationship was observed in the diabetic subjects between IR-ANH levels and left ventricular ejection fraction determined by radionuclide ventriculography. Thus, elevated IR-ANH levels occur with greater frequency in diabetic patients with autonomic neuropathy. These elevations do not appear to be due to alterations in dietary sodium intake or left ventricular dysfunction.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25997/1/0000063.pd

Impact of web-based cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia on stress, health, mood, cognitive, inflammatory, and neurodegenerative outcomes in rural dementia caregivers: Protocol for the NiteCAPP CARES and NiteCAPP SHARES randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Chronic insomnia affects up to 63% of family dementia caregivers. Research suggests that chronic insomnia prompts changes in central stress processing that have downstream negative effects on health and mood, as well as on cognitive, inflammatory, and neurodegenerative functioning. We hypothesize that cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) will reverse those downstream effects by improving insomnia and restoring healthy central stress processing. Rural caregivers are particularly vulnerable, but they have limited access to CBT-I; therefore, we developed an accessible digital version using community input (NiteCAPP CARES). OBJECTIVE: This trial will evaluate the acceptability, feasibility, and short-term and long-term effects of NiteCAPP CARES on the sleep and stress mechanisms underlying poor caregiver health and functioning. METHODS: Dyads (n=100) consisting of caregivers with chronic insomnia and their coresiding persons with dementia will be recruited from Columbia and surrounding areas in Missouri, United States. Participant dyads will be randomized to 4 weeks (plus 4 bimonthly booster sessions) of NiteCAPP CARES or a web-based sleep hygiene control (NiteCAPP SHARES). Participants will be assessed at baseline, after treatment, and 6- and 12-month follow-ups. The following assessments will be completed by caregivers: 1 week of actigraphy and daily diaries measuring sleep, Insomnia Severity Index, arousal (heart rate variability), inflammation (blood-derived biomarkers: interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein), neurodegeneration (blood-derived biomarkers: plasma amyloid beta [Aβ40 and Aβ42], total tau, and phosphorylated tau [p-tau181 and p-tau217]), cognition (Joggle battery, NIH Toolbox for Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function, and Cognitive Failures Questionnaire), stress and burden, health, and mood (depression and anxiety). Persons with dementia will complete 1 week of actigraphy at each time point. RESULTS: Recruitment procedures started in February 2022. All data are expected to be collected by 2026. Full trial results are planned to be published by 2027. Secondary analyses of baseline data will be subsequently published. CONCLUSIONS: This randomized controlled trial tests NiteCAPP CARES, a web-based CBT-I for rural caregivers. The knowledge obtained will address not only what outcomes improve but also how and why they improve and for how long, which will help us to modify NiteCAPP CARES to optimize treatment potency and support future pragmatic testing and dissemination. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04896775; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04896775. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/37874

Full Component Lagrangian in the Linear Multiplet Formulation of String-inspired Effective Supergravity

We compute the component field 4-dimensional N=1 supergravity Lagrangian that is obtained from a superfield Lagrangian in the U(1)_K formalism with a linear dilaton multiplet. All fermionic terms are presented. In a variety of important ways, our results generalize those that have been reported previously, and are flexible enough to accomodate many situations of phenomenological interest in string-inspired effective supergravity, especially models based on orbifold compactifications of the weakly-coupled heterotic string. We provide for an effective theory of hidden gaugino and matter condensation. We include supersymmetric Green-Schwarz counterterms associated with the cancellation of U(1) and modular duality anomalies; the modular duality counterterm is of a rather general form. Our assumed form for the dilaton Kahler potential is quite general and can accomodate Kahler stabilization methods. We note possible applications of our results. We also discuss the usefulness of the linear dilaton formulation as a complement to the chiral dilaton approach.Comment: 2+34 page

Neurology of Attention: Interhemispheric Processing Modulates Attention in the Stroop Task

182 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997.These data argue that interhemispheric communication helps modulate processing during increased attentional demand. The data suggest that interhemispheric processing (1) is not a static, but instead varies with task demands, (2) produces non-random responses to attentional demands, and (3) is a unique form of neural processing not necessarily requiring a priori hemispheric asymmetries.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

fMRI studies of Stroop tasks reveal unique roles of anterior and posterior brain systems in attentional selection.

Abstract & The brain's attentional system identifies and selects information that is task-relevant while ignoring information that is task-irrelevant. In two experiments using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined the effects of varying task-relevant information compared to task-irrelevant information. In the first experiment, we compared patterns of activation as attentional demands were increased for two Stroop tasks that differed in the task-relevant information, but not the task-irrelevant information: a color-word task and a spatial-word task. Distinct subdivisions of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the precuneus became activated for each task, indicating differential sensitivity of these regions to taskrelevant information (e.g., spatial information vs. color). In the second experiment, we compared patterns of activation with increased attentional demands for two Stroop tasks that differed in task-irrelevant information, but not task-relevant information: a color-word task and color-object task. Little differentiation in activation for dorsolateral prefrontal and precuneus regions was observed, indicating a relative insensitivity of these regions to task-irrelevant information. However, we observed a differentiation in the pattern of activity for posterior regions. There were unique areas of activation in parietal regions for the color-word task and in occipitotemporal regions for the color-object task. No increase in activation was observed in regions responsible for processing the perceptual attribute of color. The results of this second experiment indicate that attentional selection in tasks such as the Stroop task, which contain multiple potential sources of relevant information (e.g., the word vs. its ink color), acts more by modulating the processing of task-irrelevant information than by modulating processing of task-relevant information. &amp