Compassion and suppression in caregivers: twin masks of tragedy and joy of caring

Background: Compassionate caregiving is a critical skill for workers among the helping professions, but the degree of empathy required by caregivers can place high demands on their mental and emotional resources. While many professionals employ successful coping strategies to mitigate these stressors, others experience compassion fatigue or burnout from emotional exhaustion. The objective of this research was to evaluate the relationships between caregivers’ demographic/career variables, compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, and psychodynamic defense mechanisms such as suppression, repressive function, regression in the service of the Ego, and rationalization. Methods: Participants were 250 caregivers with 178 (71,2%) women and 72 men (28,8%) between 18 and 80 years old (Mean age = 41,37; SD = 13,78). Standardized instruments were used to assess compassion in its different meanings (Professional Quality of Life Measure, ProQOL-5) and deployment of defense mechanisms such as suppression (Suppression Mental Questionnaire, SMQ). Correlational analyses were performed. Results: Greater compassion satisfaction was positively associated with more years of study and inversely associated with increasing age and working days per week. Burnout was positively correlated with greater age, more working hours per week, and more working days per week. Higher secondary traumatic stress was associated with increasing age, higher working hours, and more working days per week, while it was inversely associated with more years of study. Regarding the psychological defense mechanisms, more years of study was inversely associated with lower deployment of the repressive function, regression in the service of the Ego, and rationalization. Advancing age was negatively correlated with repression and regression in the service of the Ego, while it was positively correlated with rationalization. A higher number of working days per week was associated with greater utilization of all defense mechanisms, and higher working hours per week was correlated with higher SMQ total scores and greater use of the repressive function. Greater deployment of nearly all defense mechanisms was associated with greater secondary traumatic stress, while compassion satisfaction was associated with less utilization of repression, rationalization, and lower total SMQ scores. Conclusions: Excessive reliance on psychodynamic defense mechanisms can increase caregivers’ risk for burnout or secondary traumatic stress. Compassion satisfaction might serve as one coping strategy to mitigate emotional exhaustion among professionals

Faith, Secularism, and the Need for Interfaith Dialogue in Writing Center Work

This article argues that religious and secularist identities complement and intersect in political ways with race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality and that they inform writing center practice because belief exists along a spectrum that involves all writing center inhabitants and affects all writing-centered conversations. We suggest that this spectrum of faith is evocative of the spectrums that theorists of race, gender, and sexuality in particular have discussed, yet often faith has been overlooked in discussions of identity in writing center work (Denny, 2010). We propose that theories of race, gender, sexuality and other identities that have served as springboards for professional development in writing centers can help to facilitate the development of a greater literacy of faith and secularism as complicated and nuanced identities. Specifically, we believe theories involving intersectional social justice work and hybridity can help to facilitate self-reflective and productive interfaith dialogue or dialogue about faith and secularism. Thus, such theories can help writing center professionals dismantle stereotypes about believers and secularists and problematic notions of what faith, or a conversation about faith, is or should be

Security Games for Node Localization through Verifiable Multilateration

Most applications of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) rely on data about the positions of sensor nodes, which are not necessarily known beforehand. Several localization approaches have been proposed but most of them omit to consider that WSNs could be deployed in adversarial settings, where hostile nodes under the control of an attacker coexist with faithful ones. Verifiable multilateration (VM) was proposed to cope with this problem by leveraging on a set of trusted landmark nodes that act as verifiers. Although VM is able to recognize reliable localization measures, it allows for regions of undecided positions that can amount to the 40 percent of the monitored area. We studied the properties of VM as a noncooperative two-player game where the first player employs a number of verifiers to do VM computations and the second player controls a malicious node. The verifiers aim at securely localizing malicious nodes, while malicious nodes strive to masquerade as unknown and to pretend false positions. Thanks to game theory, the potentialities of VM are analyzed with the aim of improving the defender's strategy. We found that the best placement for verifiers is an equilateral triangle with edge equal to the power range R, and maximum deception in the undecided region is approximately 0.27R. Moreover, we characterized-in terms of the probability of choosing an unknown node to examine further-the strategies of the players

Possibilities for Interfaith Dialogue in Writing Centers and Programs

This article speaks into the pervasive silence on the subject of faith in writing center and writing program work. Through revisiting Sharon Crowley’s Toward a Civil Discourse and investigating silence, we encourage “counterfudamentalist work”: work that counters fundamentalist methodology by inviting fundamentalists and believers and nonbelievers of different kinds into nonliteralist and open-minded ways of reading writing-centered experiences involving religious faith and secularism. The three authors of this article offer personal narratives about their own experience with faith in their centers/programs and use different theoretical perspectives to start a necessary dialogue on faith and religious experiences. By interweaving theoretical perspectives, research, and personal narratives involving our WPA work, this article argues that writing center/program administrators must do the same, and we hope to model the types of conversations we must bring into our centers.University Writing Cente

Making GDPR Usable: A Model to Support Usability Evaluations of Privacy

We introduce a new model for evaluating privacy that builds on the criteria proposed by the EuroPriSe certification scheme by adding usability criteria. Our model is visually represented through a cube, called Usable Privacy Cube (or UP Cube), where each of its three axes of variability captures, respectively: rights of the data subjects, privacy principles, and usable privacy criteria. We slightly reorganize the criteria of EuroPriSe to fit with the UP Cube model, i.e., we show how EuroPriSe can be viewed as a combination of only rights and principles, forming the two axes at the basis of our UP Cube. In this way we also want to bring out two perspectives on privacy: that of the data subjects and, respectively, that of the controllers/processors. We define usable privacy criteria based on usability goals that we have extracted from the whole text of the General Data Protection Regulation. The criteria are designed to produce measurements of the level of usability with which the goals are reached. Precisely, we measure effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction, considering both the objective and the perceived usability outcomes, producing measures of accuracy and completeness, of resource utilization (e.g., time, effort, financial), and measures resulting from satisfaction scales. In the long run, the UP Cube is meant to be the model behind a new certification methodology capable of evaluating the usability of privacy, to the benefit of common users. For industries, considering also the usability of privacy would allow for greater business differentiation, beyond GDPR compliance.Comment: 41 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, and appendixe

Feasibility of real-time three-dimensional stress echocardiography: pharmacological and semi-supine exercise

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Real time three dimensional (RT3D) echocardiography is an accurate and reproducible method for assessing left ventricular shape and function.</p> <p>Aim</p> <p>assess the feasibility and reproducibility of RT3D stress echocardiography (SE) (exercise and pharmacological) in the evaluation of left ventricular function compared to 2D.</p> <p>Methods and results</p> <p>One hundred eleven patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease underwent 2D and RT3DSE. The agreement in WMSI, EDV, ESV measurements was made off-line.</p> <p>The feasibility of RT-3DSE was 67%. The inter-observer variability for WMSI by RT3D echo was higher during exercise and with suboptimal quality images (good: k = 0.88; bad: k = 0.69); and with high heart rate both for pharmacological (HR < 100 bpm, k = 0.83; HR ≥ 100 bpm, k = 0.49) and exercise SE (HR < 120 bpm, k = 0.88; HR ≥ 120 bpm, k = 0.78). The RT3D reproducibility was high for ESV volumes (0.3 ± 14 ml; CI 95%: -27 to 27 ml; p = n.s.).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>RT3DSE is more vulnerable than 2D due to tachycardia, signal quality, patient decubitus and suboptimal resting image quality, making exercise RT3DSE less attractive than pharmacological stress.</p

Incremental value of contrast myocardial perfusion to detect intermediate versus severe coronary artery stenosis during stress-echocardiography

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We aimed to compare the incremental value of contrast myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) for the detection of intermediate versus severe coronary artery stenosis during dipyridamole-atropine echocardiography (DASE).</p> <p>Wall motion (WM) assessment during stress-echocardiography demonstrates suboptimal sensitivity to detect coronary artery disease (CAD), particularly in patients with isolated intermediate (50%-70%) coronary stenosis.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We performed DASE with MPI in 150 patients with a suspected chest pain syndrome who were given clinical indication to coronary angiography.</p> <p>Results and discussion</p> <p>When CAD was defined as the presence of a ≥50% stenosis, the addition of MPI increased sensitivity (+30%) and decreased specificity (-14%), with a final increase in total diagnostic accuracy (+16%, p < 0.001). The addition of MPI data substantially increased the sensitivity to detect patients with isolated intermediate stenosis from 37% to 98% (p < 0.001); the incremental sensitivity was much lower in patients with severe stenosis, from 85% to 96% (p < 0.05), at the expense of a higher decrease in specificity and a final decrease in total diagnostic accuracy (-18%, p < 0.001).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The addition of MPI on top of WM analysis during DASE increases the diagnostic sensitivity to detect obstructive CAD, whatever its definition (≥50% or > 70% stenosis), but it is mainly driven by the sensitivity increase in the intermediate group (50%-70% stenosis).</p> <p>The total diagnostic accuracy increased only when defining CAD as ≥50% stenosis, since in patients with severe stenosis (> 70%) the decrease in specificity is not counterbalanced by the minor sensitivity increase.</p

Hepatocyte Growth Factor Enhances Engraftment and Function of Nonhuman Primate Islets

OBJECTIVE—Adenoviral delivery of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) to rodent islets improves islet graft survival and function, markedly reducing the number of islets required to achieve glucose control. Here, we asked whether these prior observations in rodent models extend to nonhuman primate (NHP) islets

Mutant p53 improves cancer cells\u2019 resistance to endoplasmic reticulum stress by sustaining activation of the UPR regulator ATF6

Missense mutations in the TP53 gene are frequent in human cancers, giving rise to mutant p53 proteins that can acquire oncogenic properties. Gain of function mutant p53 proteins can enhance tumour aggressiveness by promoting cell invasion, metastasis and chemoresistance. Accumulating evidences indicate that mutant p53 proteins can also modulate cell homeostatic processes, suggesting that missense p53 mutation may increase resistance of tumour cells to intrinsic and extrinsic cancer-related stress conditions, thus offering a selective advantage. Here we provide evidence that mutant p53 proteins can modulate the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR) to increase cell survival upon Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) stress, a condition to which cancer cells are exposed during tumour formation and progression, as well as during therapy. Mechanistically, this action of mutant p53 is due to enhanced activation of the pro-survival UPR effector ATF6, coordinated with inhibition of the pro-apoptotic UPR effectors JNK and CHOP. In a triple-negative breast cancer cell model with missense TP53 mutation, we found that ATF6 activity is necessary for viability and invasion phenotypes. Together, these findings suggest that ATF6 inhibitors might be combined with mutant p53-targeting drugs to specifically sensitise cancer cells to endogenous or chemotherapy-induced ER stress

In vitro and in vivo studies of Cucurbita pepo L. flowers: chemical profile and bioactivity

Edible flowers consumption has increased in recent years due to their rich content of healthy phytochemicals. The aim of this study was to analyse the chemical profile of Cucurbita pepo L. flowers, and to explore their antioxidant and hypoglycaemic prop- erties. Moreover, in order to assess in vivo effects, biochemical analysis, Reactive Oxygen Metabolites (d-ROMs) and Biological Antioxidant Potential (BAP) tests were performed on mice serum. High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Diode Array Detection (HPLC-DAD) analyses revealed the presence of (þ)-catechin, ()-epicatechin, rutin, and syringic acid as main constituents. 2,20- Azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) (ABTS) and Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) tests showed interest- ing results. The extract exhibited the strongest inhibitory effect on a-glucosidase (IC50 of 144.77lg/mL). In vivo results confirmed the hypoglycaemic effects, also affecting lipid metabolism but did not revealed benefits on ROS production. These results may add some information supporting the use of C. pepo flowers as func- tional foods and/or nutraceuticals