A language of the body Images of disability in the works of D.H. Lawrence

It should not be surprising (though it may seem so at first) that D.H. Lawrence--who suffered himself from ill health--was an early proponent of disability theories that gain support today. Shocked by the modern world's damage to the human body and spirit--in a new statistical, mechanistic environment and in the devastation of the most industrialized of wars--he wrote often about disability and the need for renewed balance of faculties. This dissertation investigates Lawrence's interesting, mostly unexplored, link to disability theory. Employing his unique approach to Eastern Tantric philosophies, which help to promote holistic healing of the body, this work argues that Lawrence is a pioneer of modern theories of body and soul. Some of his texts about disability are placed in a comprehensive Lawrentian context that embraces his major canon, including non-fiction pieces (like Fantasia of the Unconscious). A chapter on his colliery settings probes the effects of the modern industrialized world--and its reliance on statistics and abstraction--in such works as "Odour of Chrysanthemums," Sons and Lovers and other texts. This examination quite easily leads to the effects of the first mechanized world war as seen in "England, My England" and "The War Again" chapter in Aaron's Rod. During and after the war, Lawrence began to develop further the Christological resurrection pattern that many critics find in his work. In works like "The Blind Man," The Ladybird and Lady Chatterley's Lover, for instance, disability leads to a pursuit of balance, mutual healing and inner beauty as well as compensatory sensory development. Finally, the dissertation concludes with a discussion of the importance of an autobiographical approach to Lawrence to reveal his empathy with the disabled, wounded and ill. Through such works as "The Thorn in the Flesh," "The Nightmare" chapter in Kangaroo and his poetry, we see that when he said his writing could "help" people not to be "dead" in life ("Why the Novel Matters"), he meant it literally

Mapping civic courage

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-96).Hero Reports extends the rationale of New York City's "See Something, Say Something" campaign-an alert public can be a good security measure. The current political climate within the United States translates the MTA's tactics into ones of fear. Instead of fostering collective security, these calls for vigilance create rifts between people and communities. An unhealthy impact of the "See Something, Say Something" campaign encourages people to look at each other with heightened and prejudicial suspicion. Although other projects have sought to interrogate the tactics of such citizen-detective campaigns, they do not provide productive alternatives. Because of this, projects seeking to deflect fear, only serve to reify and preserve its power. An alternative technology is needed to effectively destabilize the message of fear inherent in the MTA campaign. Hero Reports counterbalances the vigilance associated with suspicion and Othering with measures of positive and contextual alertness. It is a technology that builds communities that are truly, and collectively, empowering. Hero Reports provides this alternative first by aggregating stories of everyday heroism, and then by thematically, geographically and temporally mapping them. By linking and contextualizing discrete moments of heroism, Hero Reports promotes a public discourse about how we create, enforce and value social norms. Balancing the empirical ways we measure crime, Hero Reports provides the groundwork for determining the empirical parameters for heroism.Alyssa Pamela Wright.S.M

Perceptions, Emotions, and Competencies of Graduate Level Counselor Trainees Working with African American and Caucasion Female Clients with HIV/AIDS

PERCEPTIONS, EMOTIONS, AND APPRAISALS OF GRADUATE LEVEL COUNSELOR TRAINEES WORKING WITH AFRICAN AMERICAN AND CAUCASIAN FEMALE CLIENTS WITH HIV/AIDS by Pamela McMichen Wright Many people with HIV/AIDS are experiencing increased life expectancy along with a better quality of life due to the advances of HIV/AIDS medications such as highly active antiretroviral therapies (HAART). Individuals in this growing population often experience psychological and psychosocial concerns that require the assistance of mental health counselors. Counseling interventions represent one of the most effective ways to address the psychosocial aspects of HIV/AIDS. The purpose of this study is to investigate counselor trainees’ attitudes and perceptions about HIV/AIDS disease and individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Participants are masters and specialists level counseling students enrolled in a large southeastern university that is accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP). The present study will qualitatively and quantitatively measure counselor trainees’ attitudes toward women clients with HIV and women clients without HIV. The study will also quantitatively measure counselor trainees’ potential biases toward black female clients. Several hypotheses will be tested in this study. One hypothesis is that counseling students in the masters and specialists degree programs will express more negative emotions and perceptions about female clients with HIV than about female clients without HIV. The second hypothesis is that these counseling students will express relatively more negative emotions and perceptions toward the African American female clients, particularly the African American client with HIV. Four separate case vignettes will be used in the study. Each vignette is worded identically with the exception of four separate demographic characteristics. One vignette will feature an African American female who is not HIV positive. Another vignette will feature an African American female who is HIV positive. The same pattern will be followed for the other two vignettes, except a Caucasian female will be featured instead of an African American female. The Roseman et al. (1996) cognitive appraisal model will be used to obtain emotional responses about how a client is perceived. A questionnaire will be used to elicit demographic information and counselor training experiences

Madija predicates

This article examines several previously-unexplained aspects of verbal morphology and syntax in Madija, an Arauan language spoken in Peru and Brazil. These include the distribution of an auxiliary verb which occurs with some predicates but not with others, the factors determining the choice among three different affixes marking third person agreement, and three different affixes indicating a plural subject. Using the framework of Relational Grammar, a unified analysis of Madija predicate classes and verbal morphology can be given. This provides further evidence for such proposals as the Unaccusative Hypothesis, Postal\u27s proposed analysis for antipassive, the analysis of impersonal constructions as containing a dummy nominal, and the analysis of causatives as multipredicate clauses (along the lines of proposals by Davies and Rosen)

A Comparison of Predictors of Student Grades in Online and Face-to-Face Community College Courses

There is an increased demand for online course offerings in community colleges while there is also an increased demand for college accountability. Many analyses examine persistence and completion rates as indicators of student success. This analysis focuses on grade outcomes. Although this traditional view of success is somewhat narrow, it will provide a starting point for an examination of online student success. This study examines to what extent the academic success of online and face-to-face course takers can be explained by student demographics, financial aid status, educational goals, and select high school performance measures. It, then, explores similarities and differences between the finding for online and face-to-face courses

F. necrophorum Ecotin Inhibits Human Plasma Kallikrein and Human Neutrophil Elastase

Background: Fusobacterium necrophorum is a causative agent of Lemierre’s syndrome (LS) which is characterised by thrombophlebitis of the jugular vein and bacteraemia. F. necrophorum is a Gram-negative, anaerobic bacterium known to possess virulence genes such as a haemolysin, filamentous haemagglutinin and leukotoxin, which target host blood components. Ecotin is a serine protease inhibitor that has not previously been characterised in F. necrophorum, but in E.coli has been shown to have a potent anticoagulant effect. Methods: Next generation and Sanger sequencing were used to confirm the presence of the ecotin gene in the genomes of a collection of F. necrophorum clinical and reference strains. When translated, it was found to be a highly conserved protein made up of 159 amino acids. A plasmid insert was synthesised and ligated into a pET-16b vector. BL21(DE3) chemically competent E. coli cells were used to express the histidine-tagged protein under IPTG conditions and the protein was purified using IMAC sepharose affinity chromatography. Ecotin was added to human plasma kallikrein at concentrations of 0, 12.5, 25, 50 and 100 nM and incubated for 1 hour at room temperature to equilibrate. Kallikrein substrate was then added at concentrations of 0.015, 0.03, 0.06, 0.125, 0.25 and 0.5 mM and fluorescence was monitored every minute for 30 minutes. Ecotin was also added to human neutrophil elastase (HNE) as above and absorbance was monitored every minute for 30 minutes after addition of HNE substrate at concentrations of 0.015 – 0.5 mM. Results: Results show that F. necrophorum ecotin inhibits human plasma kallikrein and human neutrophil elastase in a dose-dependent manner. Data will also be presented on the anticoagulant effects of ecotin during activated partial thromboplastin time, thrombin time and prothrombin time tests on human donor blood. Conclusion: F. necrophorum is known to enter the bloodstream and cause a life threatening condition, therefore understanding the virulence mechanisms that it utilises is of great importance. Inhibition of clotting cascade enzymes suggests that ecotin may play a role in regulating coagulation, while the inhibition of neutrophil elastase suggests another role is to protect the organism from host proteases

Comparison of virulence genes found in draft genomes of F. necrophorum

Fusobacterium necrophorum is a causative agent of persistent sore throat syndrome, tonsillar abscesses and Lemierre’s syndrome (LS) in humans. LS is characterised by thrombophlebitis of the jugular vein and bacteraemia. It is a Gram-negative, anaerobic bacterium which to date has no available reference genome. Draft genomes suggest it to be a single circular chromosome of approximately 2.2Mb. A reference strain of each of the two F. necrophorum subspecies and a clinical isolate from a LS patient were sequenced on a Roche 454 GS-FLX+. Sequence data was assembled using Roche GS Assembler and the resulting contigs annotated using xBASE, Pfam and BLAST. The annotation data was mined for gene products associated with virulence revealing a leukotoxin, haemolysin, filamentous haemagglutinnin, adhesin, hemin receptor, phage genes, CRISPR-associated proteins, ecotin and a putative type V secretion system. Data will be presented on comparative genomics of the three strains, with a focus on putative virulence genes. Tools such as Artemis Comparison Tool and ClustalO were used for sequence alignments and PhyML was used to generate phylogenetic trees. Conserved motifs associated with virulence were also located. Understanding variations at the genomic level may help to explain the increased virulence of some F. necrophorum strains

The immunopathogenesis of ankylosing spondylitis

The Spondyloarthritides (SpA) are a group of genetically and pathophysiologically related diseases. Ankylosing spondylitis (AS), the prototypic SpA family member, is a systemic inflammatory disease primarily affecting the axial skeleton, characterised by sacroiliitis and bone formation, promoting joint inhibition. AS is highly heritable; approximately 90% of AS susceptibility is defined by an individuals’ genetic background, to which the MHC class I molecule HLA-B27 contributes approximately 30%. This association was discovered 40 years ago, yet the pathogenic role of HLA-B27 remains elusive. Dendritic cells (DCs) belong to the myeloid lineage and, the principal antigen presenting cells (APCs) of the immune system, activate naïve T cells and contribute to the balance between activation and suppression of the immune response. If affected by HLA-B27, DCs are therefore likely to contribute to the T cell-mediated aspects of AS pathogenesis. Studies in our laboratory, using HLA-B27 transgenic (HLA-B27 TG) rats, have revealed HLA-B27-mediated effects on DC populations. The affected DCs induce abnormally high levels of IL-17 production from T cells; CCR6+ IL-17-secreting cells appear to be important in driving pathology both in the HLA-B27 TG rats and in AS patients. We therefore aimed to perform the first characterisations of the phenotype and functions of DCs and other myeloid populations purified directly from AS patients, to understand their role in AS pathogenesis. Analyses of circulating myeloid populations revealed that AS patients have a reduced proportion of the CD1c-expressing blood DCs, offset by an increase in CD14- CD16+ mononuclear cells. Interactions between CD14- CD16+ mononuclear cells and CD4+ T cells generated high levels of IL-6 secretion, required for the generation of Th17 cells. CD14- CD16+ mononuclear cells also induced T cells to express CCR6, and may therefore contribute to pathology by promoting Th17 responses. Interestingly, our data also indicate that APCs of mucosal origin may make a significant contribution to the systemic inflammation observed in AS patients. These observations give new insights into the pathogenic mechanisms in AS

Development of a Home Health Transitional Care Program for Elderly Heart Failure

Ineffective transitional care programs for ensuring the continuation of care from the hospital setting to the home setting often result in rehospitalization for elderly heart failure patients age 65 and older. The purpose of this project was to develop a home health transitional care program for elderly patients transitioning from inpatient settings to home settings using care bundles consisting of evidence-based practices to reduce preventable rehospitalizations within 30 days of discharge. The home-based chronic care model, which provides a foundation for home health\u27s integral role in chronic disease management by ensuring patient-centered evidence-based care, guided the development of this program. The developmental process elicited feedback from a team of home health advisory members, 3 home health experts, and 2 health care consumers who may use this program in the future. The readability of the program was at a 5th grade level for easy comprehension. A 3-item survey was given to 2 members from the target population, and a 5-item survey was given to 3 content experts to evaluate the transitional program. The advisory members were asked to read and provide feedback on the transitional care program. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to obtain a content validity ratio score of 1.00. Findings suggested universal agreement on the content of the transitional care program, which was developed as a resource tool to provide evidence-based care bundle interventions from scholarly literature. Implications for social change include improving the outcomes of elderly heart failure patient by providing home health care agencies with a comprehensive transitional care program to prevent avoidable rehospitalizations and help patients effectively manage the disease

Comparison of Student Performance on Internally Prepared Clerkship Examinations and NBME Subject Examinations

Background: This pilot study compared performance of University of Calgary students on internal clerkship examinations with corresponding National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) subject examinations.Methods: Between April and October 2007, students completed internal and NBME subject examinations following six mandatory rotations. Local faculty within each discipline set the minimum performance level (MPL) for internal examinations. Two methods of standard setting were considered for NBME exams and a sensitivity analysis was performed. Corresponding internal and NBME examination scores were compared using McNemar’s discordant pair analysis.Results: A significant and unexpected difference in failure rate between internal and external examinations was found in all clerkships. 1.4% of students were below the MPL for internal examinations and 27.3% (modified Angoff) or 25.9% (mean Hofstee compromise) (p<0.0001 for both) for the NBME. The proportion of students below MPL for internal examinations was also below the lower limit of the Hofstee compromise (14.4%).Conclusion: Possible explanations include leniency bias in internal standard setting, discrepant content validity between local curriculum and NBME examinations, difference in student perception of examinations, and performance bias due to unfamiliar units