Increasing Autism Awareness in Inner-City Churches: A Brief Report

Autism diagnosis rates trail significantly in the African American community. This pre-test post-test pilot study evaluated an African American inner-city church health ambassadors (HAs) autism spectrum disorder (ASD) awareness training session. The participants included 12 HAs who attended the 1 hour training session organized by the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. Results of surveys showed higher mean scores post training for (1) HA attitudes about the potential for children to improve with applied behavior analysis therapy; (2) HA self-efficacy for having information about ASD screening materials; (3) strategies HAs could use to help parents/caregivers of children with developmental delays and challenging behaviors; (4) HA confidence in referrals for children with signs of ASD; (5) HA knowledge of measures to take to maximize a child\u27s chance of receiving an ASD evaluation; and (6) HA comfort for talking to parents about children with challenging behaviors. Several of these effects were maintained 3 months later. Findings underscore the usefulness of the intervention for increasing the dissemination of knowledge about ASD and the opportunity to positively affect ASD screening, early intervention, and policy standards applicable to this vulnerable population

Publicly Funded Jobs: An Essential Strategy for Reducing Poverty and Economic Distress Throughout the Business Cycle

The need for direct public job creation efforts is greater today than at any time during the past seven decades. With a national unemployment rate that recently exceeded 10 percent and severe economic distress in hard-hit communities and population groups, a new federal initiative that puts jobless individuals immediately to work must be a central element of any strategy for restoring economic growth and responding to pressing human needs in 2010 and beyond. Public service employment (PSE) and transitional jobs (TJ) programs that use time-limited, paid work as the centerpiece of efforts to assist the unemployed offer tested and urgently needed models for combating the current recession and advancing longer-term workforce development goals

The Pharmacology of an Agonist Medication to Treat Stimulant Use Disorder

Cocaine use disorder is a serious public health issue for which no approved pharmacotherapies exist. The development of a pharmacotherapy for cocaine use disorder is a priority for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Amphetamine maintenance has been shown to be effective to reduce cocaine use in double-blind placebo controlled clinical trials, but has not been approved due to concerns over safety and abuse liability. Development of new pharmacotherapies is facilitated by preclinical testing for effectiveness and identification of new targets for medication development. The first part of this dissertation develops a novel non-human primate cocaine self-administration choice procedure that is modeled after a human laboratory cocaine self-administration choice procedure to improve translational research and facilitate medication development. The second part of this dissertation is devoted to examining the mechanisms of amphetamine maintenance-induced decreases in cocaine use. In the novel non-human primate choice procedure, monkeys chose between injections of cocaine or food pellets (0, 1, 3 or 10) in a 9-choice discrete trials procedure. The reinforcers were available on concurrent independent progressive-ratio schedules. Monkeys chose between cocaine and food in a dose- and magnitude-dependent manner. Maintenance on 7 days of lisdexamfetamine and amphetamine decreased cocaine choices without decreasing food responding, providing evidence that this model may be able to predict drugs that will have clinical efficacy to decrease cocaine use. The next set of experiments examined the effects of amphetamine maintenance on the abuse-related behavioral (intracranial self-stimulation, ICSS) and neurochemical [nucleus accumbens dopamine (DA) and serotonin (5-HT)] effects of cocaine, methylenedioxypyrovalerone, and methamphetamine in rats. Amphetamine maintenance produced sustained increases in ICSS baseline responding and nucleus accumbens DA levels without affecting 5-HT levels. Amphetamine maintenance also attenuated the behavioral and neurochemical abuse-related effects of cocaine but not those of methamphetamine, and with MDPV, amphetamine maintenance decreased the abuse-related neurochemical effect of MDPV, but not the abuse-related behavioral effect. This suggests that amphetamine would likely be most effective against cocaine, least effective against methamphetamine and between the two for MDPV. These data suggest targets that selectively release DA will be the most effective against cocaine use disorder

Vulnerability and Adaptation for Traumatic Brain Injury Survivors

Many of the over 5 million survivors of traumatic brain injury (TBI) with related disabilities living in the community do not have support for their unmet needs. Adapting to life after TBI is difficult because of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral complications. Nurses and other healthcare professionals have the opportunity to promote positive outcomes for persons with TBI. However, to increase the depth and breadth of that support, nurses need a base of knowledge that includes an understanding of the TBI survivors\u27 needs, vulnerabilities, and obstacles to adaptation. TBIs result in physical, psychological, developmental, and emotional losses. The needs that ensue are many and varied. Often these individuals do not respond to treatment in the same way as individuals whose losses involve only one aspect. Therefore, finding out what needs are most frequently unmet and what needs are perceived as important is critical in helping to stabilize this rapidly growing patient population. TBI survivors who live in the community may be at even greater risk of unmet needs because of policy changes and budget issues that negatively affect community-based services. The goals of this study were (a) to identify important needs for the TBI survivor, (b) to identify unmet needs, (c) to understand the TBI survivor\u27s risk for physical vulnerability, and (d) to examine critical factors, including unmet needs, that most affect adaptation to the TBI and overall quality of life. The vehicles for presenting the results of this multifaceted project were two manuscripts, a mid-range theory of physical vulnerability and a research study of quality of life and adaptation using the Disability Centrality Model (Bishop, 2005)

Domain: eminent

2013 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.As an artist with a background in politics, my work is propelled by a need "to do something". I am particularly interested in the crossroads of action and inaction. My work history, the political actions I have organized and participated in, and my transition to the art world lead up to my final body of work. Domain: Eminent is an installation of abstracted claw forms that is a reliquary to fossil fuels. The dueling political tensions between curbing climate change and expanding economic prosperity inspired and motivated this work. The installation honors the beauty and benefits these fuels have brought to our world while at the same time symbolically putting them in their "restful" space as an untouched material

How art therapists view the effects of and importance of various materials used in art therapy: An exploratory study using IPA

I sought to understand the effects and implications of certain materials in art therapy. I was struck by the lack of research on this topic in contrast to the high volume of theory. I began to question the beliefs that art therapists had here. I aimed to ‘Explore ways in which art therapists view the effects and importance of various materials in art therapy’. I conducted semi-structured interviews with two art therapists, one male and one female. The interviews were analysed using IPA. Seven superordinate themes were identified; three of these were further investigated: ‘Reflecting upon art therapy research’, ‘The blurred role of the art therapist’ and ‘The importance of what is being communicated by use and selection of art materials’. The results validated the importance of research on materials; highlighted many ways in which clients may communicate with art materials and demonstrated the breadth of art therapists differing views on their role in relation to materials. The four themes not further investigated were: ‘The core box of materials’; ‘Striking a balance when providing materials to clients’, ‘The art therapists own preferences towards materials and implications of this’ and ‘Associations and benefits of particular art materials’. A wealth of rich information came to light; however this concluding research served mainly to identify the many avenues in which future research is necessary

Production of Specific Fragments of {varphi}X174 Replicative Form DNA by a Restriction Enzyme from Haemophilus parainfluenzae, Endonuclease HP

A restriction endonuclease from Haemophilus parainfluenzae degrades {varphi}X174 replicative form DNA into eight specific fragments, ranging from 1,700 to 150 base pairs and terminated specifically by deoxycytidylic acid

Crooked and Narrow Streets

In The Crooked and Narrow Streets of the Town of Boston (1920), historian and social reformer Annie Haven Thwing documents the development of Boston\u27s streets in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She illustrates her text with stock photographs depicting these ancient alleys lined with nineteenth-century tenement buildings. This juxtaposition of colonial and modern Boston through text and image privileges the city as a historical site, significantly doing so at a time when Bostonians were grappling with the concerns of twentieth-century urbanism, such as overcrowding, urban reform, and historic preservation