Developing and measuring compassion-based interventions for cancer patients and survivors

Previous research on mindfulness and compassion has indicated that training programmes based on these modalities (contemplative practices) have been effective with various clinical populations, including somatic patients (Carlson, 2012) to differentiate between them and psychological patients. The current PhD research programme aimed to develop and evaluate an evidence-based psychological management programme for cancer patients and survivors in stages 0-IIIC. The programme primarily incorporates the main conceptualisations and practices of Compassionate Mind Training (CMT), which itself is based on Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT), or is considered to be the tools used in CFT (Gilbert, 2010a). Overall specific aims included: i. The investigation of a new cancer intervention based on contemplative approaches – mainly compassion-based approaches; ii. Development of a comprehensive psychological training programme for cancer patients and survivors; With specific objectives to: i. Test and implement compassion-based interventions (CBIs) as a means to greater (dispositional) mindfulness, meaning of life, satisfaction with life, emotion regulation, attachment styles, and post-traumatic growth (PTG) improvement (by facilitating coping with a range of stressors associated with cancer and developing capacities for self-regulation and self-soothing); ii. Determine whether there were differences between the level of mindfulness, PTG, meaning of life, satisfaction with life, emotion regulation, attachment styles – before 15 taking part in a compassion-based programme, after the last session, and two months later (follow-up). To meet these aims and objectives, the PhD comprised these studies: • Study 1 (pilot) with a non-clinical population (one group), included using qualitative measures; • Study 2 (initial study) with a clinical population (one group), included using qualitative and quantitative measures (mixed methods); • Study 3 (main study) with a clinical population, (two groups), included using qualitative and quantitative measures (mixed methods). The findings were divided into quantitative and qualitative results (in appropriate chapters). Based on the described benefits and recommendations it can be concluded that there was a value of CforC being delivered to cancer patients and survivors similar to the experiences of the non-clinical group. Additionally, both cancer patients and survivors reported changes in the way of approaching oneself (e.g. being able to relax and be more self-compassionate) and various aspects one’s experience (e.g. having more understanding), including differences in relating to one’s body, pain, and other people. Quantitative analyses revealed improvements in satisfaction in life, mindfulness, perceived stress, meaning of life, emotion regulation, attachment, and partially in post-traumatic growth. These results show promising avenues for compassion-based interventions being used with cancer patients and survivors. The results show an important potential of the CforC in its ability not to only to increase a compassionate attitude and behaviour but also instances of mindfulness. Thus, another important benefit of mindfulness is the fact that mindfulness can lead to meaning and positive reappraisal. CforC training and CBIs can also trigger processes 16 associated with safeness, including feeling safer in relationships and being able to feel a bond with more fellow beings. CforC may serve as a vehicle to evaluate current relationships, their patterns and dynamics in a way that ultimately allows individuals to feel more connected to others. CforC can therefore serve as a catalyst for allostasis and provide patients and survivors with cognitive, emotional and relational benefits. Furthermore, practical recommendations have been given as to how to teach and supervise CforC. Another area that still needs to be investigated further is how CforC can help with managing pain as self-compassion may be important in pain adjustment. Further studies should be employed, including running confirmatory studies with larger samples, in order to replicate all of the results mentioned and explain the processes behind them and closely look at all the practices employed in CforC as it is not yet clear what specific factors influence all of the aforementioned changes.N/

Le parcours migratoire dans Enterre-moi mon amour

Clea Petrolesi découvre en 2015 dans les « Grands formats » du site lemonde.fr un article de Lucie Soullier mettant à la disposition des lecteurs les messages WhatsApp de Dana et Kholio, deux migrants syriens correspondant ainsi avec leurs proches restés au pays. La diversité des contenus (photographies, messages audio et écrits) conduit la metteuse en scène à en proposer une adaptation au plateau originale. C’est ce travail d’adaptation et ses enjeux politiques et scéniques que nous nous proposons d’étudier.In 2015, Clea Petrolesi discovered an article written by Lucie Soullier in the “Grands formats” section of the website lemonde.fr. This article made available to readers the WhatsApp messages of Dana and Kholio, two Syrian migrants who corresponded this way with their relatives at home. The variety in the contents (photographs, audio and written messages) led the director to create an original adaptation for the stage. We will study this adaptation and the political and dramatic issues it raises

Desarrollo de un currículo de compasión para el cáncer para pacientes con cáncer de mama en etapas I-III y sobrevivientes de cáncer. Orígenes, fundamentos y observaciones iniciales

Compassion is an intrinsic trait and is linked to psychological and physiological well-being. It can be trained and improved through a systematic contemplative training programme. The purpose of this paper is to present a new training programme for cancer patients and survivors (CforC) that was designed and tested in a pilot study. We review the potential benefits of CforC which include attention regulation, self-regulation, mental awareness, and acceptance of physical sensations (including pain experiences). We also consider limitations. Results of the pilot suggest that the current intervention is feasible and provides potential psychological benefits for female breast cancer patients/survivors. Future research may benefit from examining other potential effects of the CforC programme, including emotional and physical outcomes in cancer patients and survivors, and the application of the intervention to other populations of chronically ill patients.N/

Identification of Genetic Components for Resistance to Aflatoxin Production in Pre-Harvest Maize

Aflatoxins, produced by the fungus Aspergillus flavus, often contaminate preharvest maize (Zea mays L.) grain under heat and drought stresses, and pose serious health hazards to humans and livestock. Since 2003, a multi-environmental trial of public breeding maize (Zea mays L.) hybrids across multiple programs in the southeastern United States has evaluated accumulation of aflatoxin following inoculation with the fungus, A. flavus. The Southeast Regional Aflatoxin Trial (SERAT) was formed to identify public germplasm with the most consistent resistance to aflatoxin accumulation and agronomic traits in different environments. Yield and agronomic traits were evaluated in 13 locations, aflatoxin in four, from 2006 to 2015. The 295 experimental hybrids that included tropical and subtropical derived germplasm exhibited lower average levels of aflatoxin and lower average yield versus commercial checks. However, the 13 top-performing experimental hybrids identified in SERAT yielded as much or exceeded check averages, and had aflatoxin levels significantly lower than check averages. A second study was conducted to investigate changes in differential gene expression (DGE) during seed morphogenesis and maturation in the "aflatoxin resistant" inbred line TX772 when challenged by A. flavus through two different methods of ear inoculation; non-wounding (silk channel) and wounding (side needle) in reference to a non-inoculated control. Grain maturity had the largest effect on RNA-Seq DGE, however, within each stage of development, similar up-regulation in expression from either inoculation method was observed. A larger number of fungal reads were observed in side-needle inoculated samples and a correlation of .65 between fungal read percentages and aflatoxin were found. Sixteen genes previously associated with resistance to pathogens were identified among the transcripts differentially expressed (DE) at p ≤ .05, FDR ≤ .10, and fold change ≥ 2.0 over all stages. Others not directly associated with resistance but differentially expressed included six zeins, and eight enzymes controlling carbohydrate metabolism. This study confirmed previously implicated candidate genes for resistance and identified new pathways to control A. flavus by investigating a unique maize genetic background. Together these two studies provide new insights into germplasm and genes to further reduce aflatoxin in a field environment

An Open-Source Tool for Anisotropic Radiation Therapy Planning in Neuro-oncology Using DW-MRI Tractography.

There is evidence from histopathological studies that glioma tumor cells migrate preferentially along large white matter bundles. If the peritumoral white matter structures can be used to predict the likely trajectory of migrating tumor cells outside of the surgical margin, then this information could be used to inform the delineation of radiation therapy (RT) targets. In theory, an anisotropic expansion that takes large white matter bundle anatomy into account may maximize the chances of treating migrating cancer cells and minimize the amount of brain tissue exposed to high doses of ionizing radiation. Diffusion-weighted MRI (DW-MRI) can be used in combination with fiber tracking algorithms to model the trajectory of large white matter pathways using the direction and magnitude of water movement in tissue. The method presented here is a tool for translating a DW-MRI fiber tracking (tractography) dataset into a white matter path length (WMPL) map that assigns each voxel the shortest distance along a streamline back to a specified region of interest (ROI). We present an open-source WMPL tool, implemented in the package Diffusion Imaging in Python (DIPY), and code to convert the resulting WMPL map to anisotropic contours for RT in a commercial treatment planning system. This proof-of-concept lays the groundwork for future studies to evaluate the clinical value of incorporating tractography modeling into treatment planning

Requirements for Inclusive Media Education

Pädagogisches Handeln als Interaktion innerhalb eines Arbeitsbündnisses unterliegt diversen Anforderungsstrukturen, die jenseits dieser Interaktionssituationen verhandelt werden. Im Zuge struktureller Veränderungen auf gesellschaftlicher Ebene tauchen immer neue zusätzliche Anforderungen auf, die in das berufskulturelle Mandat integriert werden sollen. Der vorliegende Beitrag thematisiert aus einer primär systemtheoretischen Perspektive den Wandel von Anforderungsstrukturen, die durch die parallele Verhandlung der Megathemen Digitalisierung und Inklusion angestossen werden. Dabei liegt der Fokus sowohl auf den Veränderungen im Bildungssystem durch die strukturelle Kopplung mit anderen gesellschaftlichen Funktionssystemen als auch auf den Aushandlungsprozessen darin, was anhand der Digitalisierungs- und Inklusionsdiskurse aufgezeigt wird. Es wird herausgearbeitet, wie sich die Anforderungsstrukturen inklusiv-medialer Bildung gestalten und welche Rolle dabei die Erwartungen gesellschaftlicher Teilsysteme einnehmen. Der Beitrag zielt auf einen (selbst)kritischen Blick in Bezug auf die Verstrickung in die eigenen Systemlogiken und die damit verbundenen strukturellen Kopplungen.Pedagogical action is subject to certain requirements within working alliances that are negotiated both within and outside of particular interactional situations. Due to structural transformations on a social level new requirements constantly evolve that need to be integrated into the professional mandate. From a predominant system theoretical perspective, this paper analyses the transformation of requirement structures for educational professionals focusing on those transformations caused by digitalisation and inclusion. This will be done by looking both at the changes taking place within educational systems through the structural coupling with other social functional systems as well as by looking at the processes of negotiation within those systems in the case of the digitalisation and inclusion discourses. It is shown how the requirement structures of inclusive-media-education evolve and which role the expectations of different social subsystems take. The paper aims at giving a (self)critical perspective on the entanglement into own ways of system logic (Systemlogik) and the related structural couplings

"es is komisch es is keen mensch" - Zuschreibungen gegenüber individualisierten technischen Assistenzsystemen: eine Interviewstudie zum Nutzer/innenerleben in der Mensch-Computer-Interaktion

Individuumszentrierte Mensch-Computer-Interaktion (HCI) gipfelt in Visionen wie der sog. Companion-Systeme. Diese sollen, über Werkzeuge hinausgehend, partnerschaftliche Begleiter ihres/ihrer Nutzers/in darstellen. Ob sie jedoch als solche Partner erlebt werden, hängt davon ab, ob der/die Nutzer/in ihnen Qualitäten wie Empathie oder Vertrauenswürdigkeit zuschreibt. In einer Interviewstudie verfolgen wir dieses konstruktivistische Verständnis des Nutzer/innenerlebens unter Bezug auf einen experimentell erzeugten Individualisierungsdialog. Auf Basis von 31 Initialnarrativen wurden vier Idealtypen - der Unreflektierte, der Bemühte, der Skeptiker und der Selbstzweifler - konstruiert. Sie ermöglichen, Strukturen der Varianz individueller Zuschreibungen und der Emotionen und Handlungen in Reaktion auf diese Zuschreibungen zu verdeutlichen und sinnhaft zu deuten. Die Ergebnisse decken das implizite nutzer/innenseitige Streben danach auf, das System zu einem berechenbaren, vertrauten Gegenüber und potenziellen Beziehungspartner zu machen. Dies wird auf die menschlichen Bedürfnisse nach Sicherheit und Zugehörigkeit zurückgeführt und fließt in eine Spezifizierung des Zuschreibungsverständnisses zum Konzept "beziehungsrelevanter Zuschreibungen" ein. Abschließend werden die Potenziale und Grenzen derartiger, dem technologischen Fortschritt kritisch gegenüberstehender qualitativer Untersuchungen des Nutzer/innenerleben in der HCI diskutiert.Individualization focused human-computer interaction (HCI) culminates in visions like that of so-called Companion-systems. They shall transcend the stage of tools and represent cooperative attendants of their users. However, whether or not they are experienced as such attendants depends on the user ascribing qualities like empathy or trustworthiness to them. In an interview study, we pursue this constructivist understanding of the user experience referring to an experimentally generated individualization focused dialog. Based on 31 initial narratives four ideal types - the Non-reflecting, the Complaisant, the Skeptic and the Selfdoubting - were constructed. These allow to pointing up and reasonably interpreting structures in the variance of individual ascriptions and in users’ emotions and actions in reaction to these ascriptions. Results reveal users’ implicit efforts of making the system a predictable, familiar counterpart and a potential relational partner. This is traced back to the need for safety and the need to belong inherent in humans and is integrated in the specification of the notion of ascriptions to the concept of "relational ascriptions". Finally, potentials and limitations of qualitative user experience studies, which illuminate a critical perspective on the technological progress, are discussed

Inclusion and Digitization at School: Conditions for success from the perspective of teachers and students

Inklusion und Digitalisierung stellen zwei grosse Herausforderungen dar, mit denen sich das deutsche Bildungssystem und die einzelnen schulischen Akteure bereits seit Jahren auseinandersetzen müssen. Einzeln betrachtet handelt es sich bei Beiden um intensiv und differenziert beforschte Themenkomplexe. Die Verzahnung beider Konzepte rückt jedoch erst allmählich in den Fokus der Forschung, obwohl sich Berührungspunkte sowie Chancen identifizieren lassen. Der Beitrag gibt einführend eine kurze Übersicht über die aktuellen Rahmenbedingen und Forschungsergebnisse zu den Themenkomplexen Inklusion und Digitalisierung in deutschen Schulen. Im Anschluss daran werden exemplarisch potentielle Voraussetzungen und Bedingungen für die Implementierung der beiden Konzepte zusammengetragen. Besondere Beachtung bei der Darstellung der ausgewählten Bedingungen erhalten die Perspektiven der Lehrkräfte sowie der Schülerinnen und Schüler.Inclusion and digitization are two major challenges that the German education system and the individual school stakeholders have been facing for years. Considered individually, both of these concepts are subject to intensive and differentiated research. However, the fusion of both concepts is only gradually moving into the focus of research, although overlapping points and opportunities can be identified. The following article will briefly outline the current framework conditions and research findings considering inclusion and digitization in schools. Afterwards, the potential requirements and conditions for a successful implementation of the two concepts are summarized. Special attention is given to the perspective of teachers and students

Incremental capacity analysis (dQ/dV) as a tool for analysing the effect of ambient temperature and mechanical clamping on degradation

publishedVersio