The study of scoliosis in young people

Violations of posture, including scoliosis, are common diseases of the musculoskeletal system. According to official statistics, scoliosis is detected in 10% of children. It can also occur in adults. This pathology tends to be more spread. Therefore, the problem of early diagnosis and prevention of scoliosis becomes relevant

Evaluating the recalibrate initiative of the Free Methodist Church : impact of coaching the pastors and churches through the 2017 cohort

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/2482/thumbnail.jp

Electron Beam Radiation Therapy for Superficial Skin Lesions

This project goes into detail describing electron beam radiation therapy and the different uses within treatment options. Electron beam radiation therapy is used for treatment of superficial lesions on the skin. Some common uses of electron beam radiation therapy are T-cell lymphoma, Mycosis fungoides lymphoma, basal cell and squamous cell skin cancers, breast cancer lumpectomy site boost, as well as non-cancerous keloids. A material used to produce accurate radiation dose is bolus, which acts as a layer of human tissue. This material is used for uneven areas of the body. Another important material used in electron beam radiation therapy is Cerrobend. Cerrobend alloys are used to produce precise cutouts to block beams from targeting good surrounding tissue. New 3D printed cutouts have been developed, which cuts toxic materials, reduced manual labor, and improves reproduction of the field shape. The plethora of different uses electron beam radiation therapy provides demonstrates how much science has evolved and the power radiation therapy has on saving lives.https://digitalcommons.misericordia.edu/research_posters2022/1058/thumbnail.jp

Nerve growth factor regulates Na+ transport in human airway epithelial cells

Nerve growth factor (NGF) was discovered for its ability to enhance nerve growth, but recent evidence suggests there is a correlation between elevated NGF levels in the lung and airway diseases, including lung inflammatory diseases and respiratory virus infections. NGF can be produced and act upon both structural and non-structural cells of the airways, and overexpression of NGF causes morphological and physiological changes in the airways, such as an increased innervation resulting in a neuronal remodeling of the lung, airway smooth muscle thickening, increased vascularization, airway hyperreactivity to capsaicin, and subepithelial thickening. Although work has been conducted to investigate NGFs effects on ion transport in non-airway cells, such as PC12, MTAL, and HEK-293 cells, no information is available regarding the effect NGF has on ion transport of airway epithelial cells. To investigate whether NGF can affect epithelial ion transport, a well-differentiated human primary cultured epithelial cell model was developed. The ability for these cells to differentiate into epithelial cells, which represent in situ epithelial morphology, was confirmed using several imaging techniques. Cells were placed in Ussing chambers to obtain transepithelial voltage (Vt, -7.1 +/- 3.4 mV), short-circuit current ( Isc, 5.9 +/- 1.0 muA), and transepithelial resistance (Rt, 750 Ohm x cm2), and to measure responses to ion transport inhibitors. Apical and basolateral NGF concentration-response curves were generated, but NGF only evoked bioelectric responses apically with the maximum response occurring at 1 ng/ml. To investigate the ionic basis for the bioelectric responses to NGF, responses to known ion transport inhibitors were generated in the absence or presence of 1 ng/ml NGF. The addition of 1 ng/ml of NGF to the apical membrane decreased Isc by 5.3 %. Amiloride (apical, 3.5x10-5 M), which inhibits Na+ transport, decreased Isc by 55.3 % in the absence of NGF, but this response was reduced (41.6 %; p = 0.0127) in the presence of 1 ng/ml NGF, which indicated NGF was affecting amiloride-sensitive Na + transport. There were no differences in response to NPPB or ouabain, indicating NGF did not have an affect on Cl- transport or the Na+/K+-ATPase. To investigate if the trkA receptor was responsible for mediating the NGF-induced reduction in Na+ transport, the non-specific tyrosine kinase inhibitor, K-252a (10 nM, apical), was used. K-252a reduced the NGF bioelectric response as well as attenuated the NGF-induced reduction in Na+ transport. The trkA receptor activates the Erk 1/2 signaling pathway, which has been shown to phosphorylate ENaC and reduce Na+ transport by channel degradation through a NEDD4-mediated ubiquitin pathway. To investigate if NGF is activating the Erk 1/2 signaling pathway downstream of trkA, the specific Erk 1/2 inhibitor, PD-98059 (30 microM, apical and basolateral), was used. PD-98059 reduced the NGF-induced bioelectric response as well as attenuated the NGF-induced reduction in Na+ transport. Protein analysis using western blot techniques confirmed NGF-mediated reduction in Na+ transport was a result of Erk 1/2 activation and ENaC phosphorylation.;To investigate if incubation with NGF can elicit changes in ion transport, cells were incubated with NGF for 24 or 48 h prior to placing to cells into Ussing chambers. Cells exposed to NGF for either 24 or 48 h did not demonstrate changes in ion transport as compared to control cells, indicating NGF did not have a genomic effect on ion transporter subunit expression. These results also suggest that the rapid reduction in amiloride-sensitive Na+ transport is a transient reduction. To determine if this lack of response was a result of a decreased concentration of NGF during the incubation period, a NGF-specific ELISA assay was used. Cells internalized or metabolized 94% of initial concentration of NGF applied within 5 min, as inserts without cells did not demonstrate a reduction in NGF concentration.;The findings discussed in this dissertation indicate that NGF causes a transient and non-genomic reduction in Na+ transport in epithelium through a trkA-Erk1/2-mediated signaling pathway, resulting in the internalization and degradation of ENaC. This reduction in Na+ transport would result in the hydration of the airway surface liquid

Driving Foreign Relations: The European Sports Car and the Globalization of America

Historians are just beginning to examine the ways in which Americans were affected at home by contact with the peoples and cultures of Europe through consumption. As Kristin Hoganson notes in Consumer’s Imperium, when it comes to Americanization and the globalization of culture “we know more about the outgoing tide than the incoming swells.”1 My dissertation takes the notion of Americanization and inverts it to examine the influence of a European product, the sports car, on American consumers and automobile manufacturers in the postwar period. By using European sports cars as a case study to explore the influence of European culture, modes of production, and manufacturers within postwar America I challenge the myth of postwar American cultural and economic impermeability. Secondly, I argue that the process described as Americanization was one part of a larger process of cultural and economic globalization, and that the globalization of America began immediately following the end of World War II. The tendency to ascribe globalization a national character is a relic of the privileged position that America held when technology and geopolitical reality all made America finally, inescapably, global. Therefore, my work provides a new context for understanding the ultimate collapse of the Bretton-Woods agreements in 1971 and America’s increasingly globalized economy by demonstrating that globalization was a process that began immediately after the end of the war rather than a “shock” that came in the 1970s

“Though Troubled Be My Brain:” Madness in Early Modern England, 1603-1714

This dissertation is a study of madness in Stuart-era England. Madness was pervasive in early modern England. it was in the streets, performed on stage, discussed in political pamphlets and legal treatises, and physically housed in Bethlehem Hospital. Madness, therefore, serves as a significant lens because in differentiating between madness and sanity, contemporaries regularly drew clear boundaries between acceptable, or “normal” behavior, and unacceptable, or “abnormal” behavior, that was particular to seventeenth-century English culture and society. Specifically, I argue that madness serves as a channel to examine the diagnoses and treatment of mental disorders that contemporaries believed altered the body and mind, the legal repercussions of abnormal behavior at the state and local level, gender relations and stereotypes, and the use of corporeal rhetoric in political culture. Before public institutions for the insane were founded specifically for that purpose, family or community-based care was the norm for the mad (in addition to the few private madhouses that were founded by private entrepreneurs during the last half of the seventeenth century). This dissertation therefore draws on a wide variety of sources, including manuscripts, parish records, land commissions, autobiographies, spiritual biographies, criminal cases, political pamphlets, doctors’ notes, medical guidebooks, and more

Integration of Sustainability Reporting at an Academic Institution

Leaders at nonprofit academic institutions are following the global business trend of embracing sustainability initiatives for positive social change; however, there has been slow growth in sustainability reporting among academic institutions. The purpose of this study was to explore the strategies and processes necessary for leaders and managers to integrate sustainability reporting into the reporting cycle for a nonprofit higher education institution. I conducted a single case study of a nonprofit academic institution that utilized sustainability reporting. The study sample consisted of 4 leaders and managers at a nonprofit academic institution located in the state of Michigan that published sustainability reports. The conceptual framework used for the study was corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainability, and triple bottom line (TBL). The data collection process included interviews with leaders and managers involved in the sustainability reporting process and document reviews of the sustainability report and annual reports. I used a data-driven coding approach for data analysis. The codes were linked to create categories, and the categories led to the development of themes. The results revealed 5 themes regarding the sustainability reporting process, including the steps of the sustainability reporting process and the collaborative process in sustainability reporting. The implications for positive social change included the potential for greater transparency for students, faculty, staff, administration and community partners, and greater effectiveness of the implementation of environmental, economic, and social initiatives for higher education institutions and the community

Therapeutic Exercise and Vibration Training for a Military Veteran Mimicking Relapse-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis

The purpose of this case report is to describe the combination of therapeutic exercise and vibration training to improve stair navigation for a patient with mimicking RRMS.https://soar.usa.edu/flsasummer2018/1011/thumbnail.jp

Oscillating-Linear-Drive Vacuum Compressor for CO2

A vacuum compressor has been designed to compress CO2 from approximately equal to 1 psia (approximately equal to 6.9 kPa absolute pressure) to approximately equal to 75 psia (approximately equal to 0.52 MPa), to be insensitive to moisture, to have a long operational life, and to be lightweight, compact, and efficient. The compressor consists mainly of (1) a compression head that includes hydraulic diaphragms, a gas-compression diaphragm, and check valves; and (2) oscillating linear drive that includes a linear motor and a drive spring, through which compression force is applied to the hydraulic diaphragms. The motor is driven at the resonance vibrational frequency of the motor/spring/compression-head system, the compression head acting as a damper that takes energy out of the oscillation. The net effect of the oscillation is to cause cyclic expansion and contraction of the gas-compression diaphragm, and, hence, of the volume bounded by this diaphragm. One-way check valves admit gas into this volume from the low-pressure side during expansion and allow the gas to flow out to the high-pressure side during contraction. Fatigue data and the results of diaphragm stress calculations have been interpreted as signifying that the compressor can be expected to have an operational life of greater than 30 years with a confidence level of 99.9 percent