Influence of intrafamilial abuse in children's change of values towards their parents

The socialization that parents and society exercise on children instills in them a set of values towards parents. Some of these values are not lying, feeling affection for the parents, and wanting to have contact with them. In this work, we attempt to determine whether these values change in the face of intrafamilial abuse. To that end, an incidental sample was used, consisting of 2730 minors aged between 6 to 18 years, who had never suffered abuse. They were asked to put themselves in the place of the main character of a story. The story varied depending on the conditions to be studied: observation and direct suffering or account of the abuse by another, type of abuse (physical or psychological), who perpetrated the abuse (custodian or non-custodial), and who received it (the other custodian or the minor). The results show that, as a rule, children lie to conceal both parents' abusive behavior; they love their parents and want to have contact with them, even in the presence of abuse. Notwithstanding that in the presence of abuse by one of their parents, children still love them and want to have contact with both parents, a significant number of children, however, stop loving them or want to have contact with the abusive parent. These results undermine what is defended by theories like PAS with no scientific evidence, and underline the need to use scientific procedures to test the reliability of minors’ testimony based on the idea that children tell the truth.Die von Eltern und Gesellschaft initiierten Sozialisationsprozesse erziehen Kindern eine Reihe von Werten im Umgang mit ihren Eltern an. Einige dieser Werte sind beispielsweise: nicht zu lügen, eine Zuneigung zu den Eltern zu verspüren und Kontakt zu ihnen haben zu wollen. In dieser wissenschaftlichen Arbeit wird versucht zu untersuchen, ob sich diese Werte bei innerfamilialem Missbrauch verändern. Zu diesem Zweck wurde eine Stichprobe von 2730 Minderjährigen im Alter zwischen 6 und 18 Jahren, die noch nie missbraucht wurden, herangezogen. Sie wurden gebeten, sich in die Hauptfigur einer Geschichte hineinzuversetzen. Die Geschichte variierte je nach den zu untersuchenden Bedingungen: Beobachtung und direktes Erleiden oder Erzählung des Missbrauchs durch andere, Art des Missbrauchs (physisch oder psychisch), wer den Missbrauch begangen hat (erziehungsberechtigter oder nicht erziehungsberechtigter Elternteil) und wer dem Missbrauch ausgesetzt war (der andere Elternteil oder das Kind). Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Kinder in der Regel lügen, wenn es darum geht das missbräuchliche Verhalten von einem der beiden Elternteile zu verbergen. Sie lieben ihre Eltern und möchten Kontakt zu ihnen haben, selbst im Falle von Missbrauch. Ungeachtet dessen, das einige Kinder bei Misshandlung durch einen ihrer Elternteile, beide Eltern immer noch lieben und Kontakt zu ihnen haben wollen, hört eine signifikante Anzahl von Kinder auf, den missbrauchenden Elternteil zu lieben oder Kontakt zu ihm haben zu wollen. Diese Ergebnisse falsifizieren, was von Theorien wie PAS ohne wissenschaftliche Beweise behauptet wird und unterstreichen die Notwendigkeit der Verwendung wissenschaftlicher Verfahren, die auf der Idee fußen, dass Kinder die Wahrheit sagen, zur zuverlässigen Untersuchung der Zeugenaussagen von Kindern

Semantic Context Forests for Learning-Based Knee Cartilage Segmentation in 3D MR Images

The automatic segmentation of human knee cartilage from 3D MR images is a useful yet challenging task due to the thin sheet structure of the cartilage with diffuse boundaries and inhomogeneous intensities. In this paper, we present an iterative multi-class learning method to segment the femoral, tibial and patellar cartilage simultaneously, which effectively exploits the spatial contextual constraints between bone and cartilage, and also between different cartilages. First, based on the fact that the cartilage grows in only certain area of the corresponding bone surface, we extract the distance features of not only to the surface of the bone, but more informatively, to the densely registered anatomical landmarks on the bone surface. Second, we introduce a set of iterative discriminative classifiers that at each iteration, probability comparison features are constructed from the class confidence maps derived by previously learned classifiers. These features automatically embed the semantic context information between different cartilages of interest. Validated on a total of 176 volumes from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI) dataset, the proposed approach demonstrates high robustness and accuracy of segmentation in comparison with existing state-of-the-art MR cartilage segmentation methods.Comment: MICCAI 2013: Workshop on Medical Computer Visio

Effect of variation in oxytetracycline treatment of Lawsonia intracellularis diahrea in nursery pigs on treatment-efficacy and resistance development

A Danish research project, MINIRESIST, investigated the consequences of varying doses and treatment strategies for oxytetracycline treatment of Lawsonia intracellularis diarrhea in nursery pigs. Batches of nursery pigs in five herds were randomly allocated to one of five treatment protocols (batch treatment orally with high, normal and low doses; penwise treatment with normal dose and injection treatment with normal dose). Outcomes, in terms of reduction of L. intracellularis determined by qPCR, growth rate and fecal dry matter content (determined on 30 pigs per batch in 61 batches), and levels of tetracyclineresistant coliforms, and quantification of resistance genes in intestinal content (determined on 15 pigs per batch in 80 batches), were determined and analyzed statistically

Early mortality from colorectal cancer in England: a retrospective observational study of the factors associated with death in the first year after diagnosis

Background: The United Kingdom performs poorly in international comparisons of colorectal cancer survival with much of the deficit owing to high numbers of deaths close to the time of diagnosis. This retrospective cohort study investigates the patient, tumour and treatment characteristics of those who die in the first year after diagnosis of their disease. Methods: Patients diagnosed with colon (n=65,733) or rectal (n=26,123) cancer in England between 2006 and 2008 were identified in the National Cancer Data Repository. Multivariable logistic regression was used to investigate the odds of death within 1 month, 1-3 months and 3-12 months after diagnosis. Results: In all, 11.5% of colon and 5.4% of rectal cancer patients died within a month of diagnosis: this proportion decreased significantly over the study period. For both cancer sites, older age, stage at diagnosis, deprivation and emergency presentation were associated with early death. Individuals who died shortly after diagnosis were also more likely to have missing data about important prognostic factors such as disease stage and treatment. Conclusion: Using routinely collected data, at no inconvenience to patients, we have identified some important areas relating to early deaths from colorectal cancer, which merit further research

Downregulation of Mcl-1 has anti-inflammatory pro-resolution effects and enhances bacterial clearance from the lung

Phagocytes not only coordinate acute inflammation and host defense at mucosal sites, but also contribute to tissue damage. Respiratory infection causes a globally significant disease burden and frequently progresses to acute respiratory distress syndrome, a devastating inflammatory condition characterized by neutrophil recruitment and accumulation of protein-rich edema fluid causing impaired lung function. We hypothesized that targeting the intracellular protein myeloid cell leukemia 1 (Mcl-1) by a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor (AT7519) or a flavone (wogonin) would accelerate neutrophil apoptosis and resolution of established inflammation, but without detriment to bacterial clearance. Mcl-1 loss induced human neutrophil apoptosis, but did not induce macrophage apoptosis nor impair phagocytosis of apoptotic neutrophils. Neutrophil-dominant inflammation was modelled in mice by either endotoxin or bacteria (Escherichia coli). Downregulating inflammatory cell Mcl-1 had anti-inflammatory, pro-resolution effects, shortening the resolution interval (R(i)) from 19 to 7 h and improved organ dysfunction with enhanced alveolar–capillary barrier integrity. Conversely, attenuating drug-induced Mcl-1 downregulation inhibited neutrophil apoptosis and delayed resolution of endotoxin-mediated lung inflammation. Importantly, manipulating lung inflammatory cell Mcl-1 also accelerated resolution of bacterial infection (R(i); 50 to 16 h) concurrent with enhanced bacterial clearance. Therefore, manipulating inflammatory cell Mcl-1 accelerates inflammation resolution without detriment to host defense against bacteria, and represents a target for treating infection-associated inflammation

Pseudomonas aeruginosa Adaptation to Lungs of Cystic Fibrosis Patients Leads to Lowered Resistance to Phage and Protist Enemies

Pathogenic life styles can lead to highly specialized interactions with host species, potentially resulting in fitness trade-offs in other ecological contexts. Here we studied how adaptation of the environmentally transmitted bacterial pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, to cystic fibrosis (CF) patients affects its survival in the presence of natural phage (14/1, ΦKZ, PNM and PT7) and protist (Tetrahymena thermophila and Acanthamoebae polyphaga) enemies. We found that most of the bacteria isolated from relatively recently intermittently colonised patients (1-25 months), were innately phage-resistant and highly toxic for protists. In contrast, bacteria isolated from long time chronically infected patients (2-23 years), were less efficient in both resisting phages and killing protists. Moreover, chronic isolates showed reduced killing of wax moth larvae (Galleria mellonella) probably due to weaker in vitro growth and protease expression. These results suggest that P. aeruginosa long-term adaptation to CF-lungs could trade off with its survival in aquatic environmental reservoirs in the presence of microbial enemies, while lowered virulence could reduce pathogen opportunities to infect insect vectors; factors that are both likely to result in poorer environmental transmission. From an applied perspective, phage therapy could be useful against chronic P. aeruginosa lung infections that are often characterized by multidrug resistance: chronic isolates were least resistant to phages and their poor growth will likely slow down the emergence of beneficial resistance mutations

Stimulation of MAP kinase pathways after maternal IL-1β exposure induces fetal lung fluid absorption in guinea pigs

BACKGROUND: We tested the hypothesis that maternal interleukin-1β (IL-1β) pretreatment and induction of fetal cortisol synthesis activates MAP kinases and thereby affects lung fluid absorption in preterm guinea pigs. METHODS: IL-1β was administered subcutaneously daily to timed-pregnant guinea pigs for three days. Fetuses were obtained by abdominal hysterotomy and instilled with isosmolar 5% albumin into the lungs and lung fluid movement was measured over 1 h by mass balance. MAP kinase expression was measured by western blot. RESULTS: Lung fluid absorption was induced at 61 days (D) gestation and stimulated at 68D gestation by IL-1β. Maternal IL-1β pretreatment upregulated ERK and upstream MEK expression at both 61 and 68D gestation, albeit being much more pronounced at 61D gestation. U0126 instillation completely blocked IL-1β-induced lung fluid absorption as well as IL-1β-induced/stimulated ERK expression. Cortisol synthesis inhibition by metyrapone attenuated ERK expression and lung fluid absorption in IL-1β-pretreated fetal lungs. JNK expression after maternal IL-1β pretreatment remained unaffected at either gestation age. CONCLUSION: These data implicate the ERK MAP kinase pathway as being important for IL-1β induction/stimulation of lung fluid absorption in fetal guinea pigs

Leukocytes Are Recruited through the Bronchial Circulation to the Lung in a Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat Model of COPD

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) kills approximately 2.8 million people each year, and more than 80% of COPD cases can be attributed to smoking. Leukocytes recruited to the lung contribute to COPD pathology by releasing reactive oxygen metabolites and proteolytic enzymes. In this work, we investigated where leukocytes enter the lung in the early stages of COPD in order to better understand their effect as a contributor to the development of COPD. We simultaneously evaluated the parenchyma and airways for neutrophil accumulation, as well as increases in the adhesion molecules and chemokines that cause leukocyte recruitment in the early stages of tobacco smoke induced lung disease. We found neutrophil accumulation and increased expression of adhesion molecules and chemokines in the bronchial blood vessels that correlated with the accumulation of leukocytes recovered from the lung. The expression of adhesion molecules and chemokines in other vascular beds did not correlate with leukocytes recovered in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF). These data strongly suggest leukocytes are recruited in large measure through the bronchial circulation in response to tobacco smoke. Our findings have important implications for understanding the etiology of COPD and suggest that pharmaceuticals designed to reduce leukocyte recruitment through the bronchial circulation may be a potential therapy to treat COPD

Fabrication and Properties of Ag-nanoparticles Embedded Amorphous Carbon Nanowire/CNT Heterostructures

Carbon nanotubes were subjected to doping with an energetic Ag ion beam, and the carbon nanotubes on the top of the array were transformed into amorphous carbon nanowires with embedded Ag-nanoparticles. The field emission characteristics of these nanowires were investigated. The minimum turn-on and threshold fields were 0.68 and 1.09 V/μm, respectively, which were lower than those of the as-grown carbon nanotubes. This was probably because Ag-nanoparticles embedded in the carbon nanowires reduced the effective work function from 4.59 to 4.23 eV. Large doping amounts produced serious structural damage at the top of the nanowires and impaired the field emission characteristics

Intradermal Anti-Loxosceles Fab Fragments Attenuate Dermonecrotic Arachnidism

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73371/1/j.1553-2712.1999.tb00133.x.pd