81 research outputs found
Master\u27s Project: Strengths, Engagement and Voices: A Story of Community
This project focused on the rural town of Cambridge, VT and the perceptions, ideas, and efforts of some of its members to create a sustainable and thriving environment for the entire community. The project built on previous community engagement efforts and utlized community engagement practices that centered on relationships and focused on community conversations by sharing stories, identifying community strengths and needs, and creating a social network to support positive change. The project also included my participation in a local government appointed Community Engagement Team. Over the course of a year, these efforts yielded insights about community engagement processes and practices while supporting Cambridge community members to identify a variety of challenges and opportunities to create a more vibrant and sustainable community
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Assessing the Harmful Impacts of Increased Commercial Shipping on Arctic Marine Mammals: A Systematic Literature Review
The endemic species of marine mammals that live in the Arctic year-round have been increasingly threatened by melting Arctic sea ice over the past several decades. Reduction in sea ice has led to increases in multiple commercial Arctic shipping routes, such as the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route. This paper systematically reviews peer-reviewed literature to assess the impacts of melting sea ice and increased use of Arctic shipping routes on key species of Arctic marine mammals. Further, I also discuss several proposed solutions to mitigate the negative effects of these issues. I find that the most highly documented impacts of commercial shipping activity are noise pollution, oil spills, and ship strikes. Harmful effects of these activities include behavioral change, in which mammals alter their feeding, breeding, and pupping behaviors due to the presence of commercial ships, toxicological effects from ingestion of pollutants, and mortality. Multiple shipping regulations have been proposed, including altering vessel routes and reduction of ship speeds, but many studies do not analyze the potential effects of these regulations and therefore fall short of providing adequate and descriptive policy suggestions. Even though 65% of papers discuss shipping regulation in some form, only 58% propose future regulations, and 46% evaluate the effect of that regulation. While climate change is frequently mentioned in papers considering Arctic shipping, climate policy is especially neglected. This literature review reveals crucial gaps in the current body of knowledge, both in animal and ship monitoring data and policy effectiveness, and highlights important areas for future research to inform policymaking in light of climate change. Modifying and creating new policies for the mitigation of harmful shipping impacts is important for the protection of Arctic marine mammals as climate change continues to worsen.</p
Conferentie na de peiling Nederlands lezen en luisteren - Basisonderwijs 15 oktober 2008. Verslag. Aanbevelingen
A multicenter, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, prospective crossover trial
Objective To evaluate the efficacy and safety of bupropion in the treatment of
apathy in Huntingtonâs disease (HD). Methods In this phase 2b multicentre,
double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial, individuals with HD and
clinical signs of apathy according to the Structured Clinical Interview for
ApathyâDementia (SCIA-D), but not depression (n = 40) were randomized to
receive either bupropion 150/300mg or placebo daily for 10 weeks. The primary
outcome parameter was a significant change of the Apathy Evaluation Scale
(AES) score after ten weeks of treatment as judged by an informant (AES-I)
living in close proximity with the study participant. The secondary outcome
parameters included changes of 1. AES scores determined by the patient (AES-S)
or the clinical investigator (AES-C), 2. psychiatric symptoms (NPI, HADS-SIS,
UHDRS-Behavior), 3. cognitive performance (SDMT, Stroop, VFT, MMSE), 4. motor
symptoms (UHDRS-Motor), 5. activities of daily function (TFC, UHDRS-Function),
and 6. caregiver distress (NPI-D). In addition, we investigated the effect of
bupropion on brain structure as well as brain responses and functional
connectivity during reward processing in a gambling task using magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI). Results At baseline, there were no significant
treatment group differences in the clinical primary and secondary outcome
parameters. At endpoint, there was no statistically significant difference
between treatment groups for all clinical primary and secondary outcome
variables. Study participation, irrespective of the intervention, lessened
symptoms of apathy according to the informant and the clinical investigator.
Conclusion Bupropion does not alleviate apathy in HD. However, study
participation/placebo effects were observed, which document the need for
carefully controlled trials when investigating therapeutic interventions for
the neuropsychiatric symptoms of HD. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov
0191496
The ToMenovela â A Photograph-Based Stimulus Set for the Study of Social Cognition with High Ecological Validity
We present the ToMenovela, a stimulus set that has been developed to provide a
set of normatively rated socio-emotional stimuli showing varying amount of
characters in emotionally laden interactions for experimental investigations
of (i) cognitive and (ii) affective Theory of Mind (ToM), (iii) emotional
reactivity, and (iv) complex emotion judgment with respect to Ekmanâs basic
emotions (happiness, anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise, Ekman and
Friesen, 1975). Stimuli were generated with focus on ecological validity and
consist of 190 scenes depicting daily-life situations. Two or more of eight
main characters with distinct biographies and personalities are depicted on
each scene picture. To obtain an initial evaluation of the stimulus set and to
pave the way for future studies in clinical populations, normative data on
each stimulus of the set was obtained from a sample of 61 neurologically and
psychiatrically healthy participants (31 female, 30 male; mean age 26.74 ±
5.84), including a visual analog scale rating of Ekmanâs basic emotions
(happiness, anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise) and free-text
descriptions of the content of each scene. The ToMenovela is being developed
to provide standardized material of social scenes that are available to
researchers in the study of social cognition. It should facilitate
experimental control while keeping ecological validity high
Neurocan genome-wide psychiatric risk variant affects explicit memory performance and hippocampal function in healthy humans
Alterations of the brain extracellular matrix (ECM) can perturb the structure and function of brain networks like the hippocampus, a key region in human memory that is commonly affected in psychiatric disorders. Here, we investigated the potential effects of a genomeâwide psychiatric risk variant in the NCAN gene encoding the ECM proteoglycan neurocan (rs1064395) on memory performance, hippocampal function and cortical morphology in young, healthy volunteers. We assessed verbal memory performance in two cohorts (N = 572, 302) and found reduced recall performance in risk allele (A) carriers across both cohorts. In 117 participants, we performed functional magnetic resonance imaging using a noveltyâencoding task with visual scenes. Risk allele carriers showed higher false alarm rates during recognition, accompanied by inefficiently increased left hippocampal activation. To assess effects of rs1064395 on brain morphology, we performed voxelâbased morphometry in 420 participants from four independent cohorts and found lower grey matter density in the ventrolateral and rostral prefrontal cortex of risk allele carriers. In silico eQTL analysis revealed that rs1064395 SNP is linked not only to increased prefrontal expression of the NCAN gene itself, but also of the neighbouring HAPLN4 gene, suggesting a more complex effect of the SNP on ECM composition. Our results suggest that the NCAN rs1064395 A allele is associated with lower hippocampusâdependent memory function, variation of prefrontal cortex structure and ECM composition. Considering the wellâdocumented hippocampal and prefrontal dysfunction in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, our results may reflect an intermediate phenotype by which NCAN rs1064395 contributes to disease risk
A longitudinal study of higher-order thinking skills : working memory and fluid reasoning in childhood enhance complex problem solving in adolescence
Scientists have studied the development of the human mind for decades and have accumulated an impressive number of empirical studies that have provided ample support for the notion that early cognitive performance during infancy and childhood is an important predictor of later cognitive performance during adulthood. As children move from childhood into adolescence, their mental development increasingly involves higher-order cognitive skills that are crucial for successful planning, decision-making, and problem solving skills. However, few studies have employed higher-order thinking skills such as complex problem solving (CPS) as developmental outcomes in adolescents. To fill this gap, we tested a longitudinal developmental model in a sample of 2,021 Finnish sixth grade students (M = 12.41 years, SD = 0.52; 1,041 female, 978 male, 2 missing sex). We assessed working memory (WM) and fluid reasoning (FR) at age 12 as predictors of two CPS dimensions: knowledge acquisition and knowledge application. We further assessed students' CPS performance 3 years later as a developmental outcome (N = 1696; M = 15.22 years, SD = 0.43; 867 female, 829 male). Missing data partly occurred due to dropout and technical problems during the first days of testing and varied across indicators and time with a mean of 27.2%. Results revealed that FR was a strong predictor of both CPS dimensions, whereas WM exhibited only a small influence on one of the two CPS dimensions. These results provide strong support for the view that CPS involves FR and, to a lesser extent, WM in childhood and from there evolves into an increasingly complex structure of higher-order cognitive skills in adolescence.Peer reviewe
Design and characterisation of food grade powders and inks for microstructure control using 3D printing
Additive Manufacturing techniques have been previously applied to food materials with direct consumption in mind, as opposed to creating structural ingredients as shown in this study. First, semi-crystalline cellulose was mechanically treated by ball milling to render an amorphous powder, which has been characterised. Requirements for the subsequent recrystallization of this powder with a view to structuring have been determined through the control of moisture and thermal energy. Food inks based on xanthan gum have been formulated to enable successful jetting with a FujiFilm Dimatix ink jet printer. The polymer inks were subsequently jetted onto the amorphous cellulose powder to observe powder-binder interactions. Material combinations and parameters were optimised to produce cohesive geometric structures. The results of this study are promising when looking towards using these materials in a binder jetting additive manufacturing technique using designer particles and inks to create structures for use in food products
Effektive numerische Verfahren zur Behandlung inkompressibler viskoser Stroemungsvorgaenge
Copy held by FIZ Karlsruhe; available from UB/TIB Hannover / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman
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