Living with Hepatitis C : A Literature Review, & The Physical, Psychological and Social Impacts of Hepatitis C and the Effects on Quality of Life

Hepatitis C (HCV) is a blood borne virus that affects the liver. It has become one of the most widespread blood borne viruses in Australia, now reaching epidemic proportions within the population. Given that HCV is a chronic long-term illness, with long term effects, a positive diagnosis potentially impacts on various aspects of\u27 a person\u27s life. The aim of this paper was to review HCV related research to examine what it is like for people living with the virus and the possible personal and social impacts of a positive diagnosis. The nature of HCV, including current incidence and prevalence rates, natural history, transmission and treatment arc discussed. Recent quantitative and qualitative research focusing on the various impacts of hepatitis C and the subsequent effects on quality of life are then critically explored. While formal research in this area is relatively limited, the available evidence suggests that individuals living with HCV experience a wide range of personal and social impacts, resulting in a significant decline in quality of life. The need for further understanding of this serious public health issue is discussed and possible directions for future research are identified. Hepatitis C (HCV) has become one of the most widespread blood borne viruses in many Westernised countries and a positive diagnosis can significantly impact on various aspects of a person\u27s life. Using a systems perspective, the present study aimed to explore the physical, psychological and social impacts of HCV on 12 participants who were living with the virus in Perth, Western Australia. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted, and content analysis revealed six main themes: finding out; being infectious; disclosure; stigma; symptoms; dealing with it. A comprehensive systems framework is used to understand and explain the impacts of HCV and how these affected participants\u27 quality of life. The findings have implications for providers of health care, helping services, the general community and makers of government policy

Monitoring in event-based prospective memory tasks

Event based prospective memory (PM) refers to remembering to perform a particular action upon the presentation of a particular cue in the environment. Until recently, most models of event-based PM performance have suggested that the realization of the target event occurs automatically. The DARC model (Smith, 2000) is among the first to suggest that monitoring is required to notice the target event, in the form of a consistent, non-strategic dedication of resources. The predictions of the DARC model are contrasted with those of Einstein & McDaniel (Noticing + Search, 1996), Goschke & Kuhl (1996), Ellis (1996). The pilot study and experiment one test the idea that items distinctively encoded will be more memorable and more fluently processed, leading to better PM performance during the target task. Pilot data suggest that less monitoring is engaged when target items are more memorable. Experiment 1 attempted to replicate that finding and included a direct measure of retrieval fluency. Faster retrieval was associated with better PM performance in the distinctive condition. However, the same did not hold in the organizational condition. Experiment two manipulates the retrieval fluency of the target events when produced as answers to general knowledge questions (Benjamin, Bjork, & Schwartz, 1998). Target events more quickly generated at the time of target event encoding were expected to be associated with higher confidence that the target event will be recognizable, which should lead to less monitoring. In this case retrieval fluency would be misleading as an index of the need to monitor for the target items. Retrieval fluency did not reliably predict LDT performance in Experiment 2. Results of both experiments are discussed in light of the above mentioned models and McDaniel & Einstein\u27s multiprocess framework (2001). Results are consistent with the notion that automatic and controlled processes are involved in the realization of an intention in an event based PM task

Donald McMaster and Tamara Cockman in a Joint Junior Recital

This is the program for the joint junior recital of pianist Donald McMaster and organist Tamara Cockman. The recital took place on November 12, 1971

Developing a critical appreciative process to review frameworks for social enterprise education

The object of this paper is to design a process for the development of curricula to advance social enterprise education using the lens of critical management studies (CMS). It is motivated by ongoing work to develop a new award in Cooperative Business and Responsible Management as well as ongoing work to develop the use of Understanding Social Enterprise: Theory and Practice (Ridley-Duff & Bull, 2011; 2016)

A “Quickguide" to Inquiry-Based Physics Laboratory Reform

In order to enact inquiry-based reform in the undergraduate physics laboratory at Appalachian State University, action research was carried out by the Director of Laboratories. “QuickGuides” were created which presented laboratory activities in an open-ended, non-cookbook fashion. In addition, students were engaged in Socratic dialogue rather than given direct answers to questions. Two out of six algebra-based physics laboratory sections were conducted using this experimental methodology. In order to gauge the impact of this experiment, six methods of assessment were implemented. These were the Departmental Diagnostic (an in-house, pre/post test based on the Force Concept Inventory), the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS), lecture grades, student laboratory evaluation forms, an end-of-course survey, and video analysis of laboratory interactions. Although students of the two experimental laboratory sections did not score measurably higher the Departmental Diagnostic, their CLASS scores were significantly higher than those of the four traditional sections. In addition, video analysis indicated that the experimental sections exhibited much higher levels of interaction and collaboration

The effects of folate deficiency on E-cadherin and ß-catenin in colon epithelial cells.

Folate deficiency has been linked to multiple health problems including neural tube defects and cancer, especially colorectal cancer. Folate is an essential dietary vitamin that is required for DNA synthesis and cellular methylation reactions. The mechanistic links between these associations is not completely understood. Folate deficiency has been shown to affect genes associated with the Wnt pathway, including β-catenin. E-cadherin is an important regulator of Wnt signaling through controlling the level of free β-catenin. It has also been shown that E-cadherin is affected by folate deficiency. The purpose of this study was to determine if folate deficiency altered the levels of E-cadherin protein and RNA, β-catenin protein, and E-cadherin and β-catenin cellular localization in two colon epithelial cell lines. Caco-2 and FHC cells were grown for 15 and 30 days in folate sufficient and deficient medium. Cellular growth rates for both cell lines were reduced in folate deficient cells, although the cells continued to grow. Cell cycle phase distribution showed increases in S phase and G2/M phase in Caco-2 cells, whereas there was no change in FHC cells. E-cadherin and β-catenin protein levels decreased slightly in folate deficient Caco-2 cells at days 15 and 30. This was associated with a decrease in E-cadherin transcripts at day 30. FHC cells showed similar results at day 15, but a small increase in E-cadherin protein at day 30 and no change in β-catenin. Immunofluorescent staining of Caco-2 cells showed diffuse cytoplasmic staining of E-cadherin and β-catenin in folate sufficient cells for both Caco-2 and FHC cells. Folate deficient Caco-2 cells showed no change in E-cadherin, but an increase in membrane associated β-catenin. Folate deficient FHC cells showed an increase in nuclear localization of both E-cadherin and β-catenin. The AKT pathway was also analyzed in Caco-2 cells to determine if alterations in this growth regulatory pathway was associated with folate deficiency. In Caco-2 cells, an increase in activated AKT was detected at day 30 in folate deficient cells, and other proteins in the AKT pathway (PDK1, PTEN, and c-Raf) showed slight decreases whereas a small increase was detected for GSK-3β. Finally, we confirmed published findings that Caco-2 cells were adapting to folate deficiency by upregulating the folate transporters: folate receptor 1 (FolR-1) and reduced folate carrier (RFC). In general, those results suggest that alterations in E-cadherin and β-catenin occur in folate deficient colon epithelial cells, although the cells can adapt and continue to proliferate

Developing a critical appreciative process to review frameworks for social enterprise education

The object of this paper is to design a process for the development of curricula to advance social enterprise education using the lens of critical management studies (CMS). It is motivated by ongoing work to develop a new award in Cooperative Business and Responsible Management at [University] as well as ongoing work to develop the use of Understanding Social Enterprise: Theory and Practice (Ridley-Duff & Bull, 2011; 2016). Five projects have influenced the authors’ conceptualisations of social enterprise and responsible management. In this paper, we set out the rationale for taking a critical approach to curriculum development based on critiquing a framework developed by the ARIADNE project (Moreau and Mertens, 2013). We develop an argument for comparing it to four other frameworks that have competed to shape our thinking. Whilst acknowledging the potential danger of ‘closure’ through the development of curricula that converge on normative values and principles, our goal is the development and application of a critical appreciative process that ensures any normative consensus is destabilised to ensure that new curricula acknowledge where a dissensus exists. Guided by new research on ‘critical appreciation’ that explores the interaction between social systems and personal lifeworlds, we frame ‘competencies’ as system imperatives in social enterprise education, and ‘knowledge’, ‘skills’ and ‘attitudes’ as proxies for the lifeworlds that it aims to create. The paper sets out how critical appreciation provides a process for comparing and contrasting selected frameworks to deconstruct the discourse that underpins the values and principles in each implied curriculum. This process is designed to encourage the authors to re-examine their assumptions as they co-construct a new curriculum. By designing a process for deconstructing and comparing multiple frameworks for social enterprise education, we advance CMS by enabling institutions, academics and students to: 1) reclaim choice in how they shape and develop social enterprise courses; 2) develop a theory of social enterprise education that is reflexive regarding its impact on curriculum development and which encourages andragogy over pedagogy. The value of this paper lies is the process developed for the active construction of new courses on social enterprise that embed the perspective of critical management studies in their development. The paper also offers a new application of ‘critical appreciative processes (CAPs) in the field of management education

Leadership, downshifting and the experience of power in higher education.

The world of higher education is changing and as such what academics must do is different, they must be different. Academic identity is thus considered to be a necessary site of change. This thesis explores what academics are, their identities, as well as what they might be. Identities are considered to be sites of power, in which processes of power, specifically interactions with discourses, produce subjects who think, act and speak in particular ways. Identities allow academics to exert power, both over themselves and others. They are sites of struggle, as particular identities are constrained or enabled by the exercise of power. Focusing on two discourses, leadership and downshifting, this study explores the identities of nine Principal Lecturers within one post-1992 university. Through a discursive analysis of focus group and interview data, and institutional points of contact including; consultation documents, strategy documents and employee opinion survey results, the thesis renders as problematic both the premise for change and the reorientation itself, of what it means to be an academic. The thesis concludes that the focus on the individual and their need to take personal responsibility for change, to in effect change themselves, averts attention from the institution and its practices as necessary sites of change. Instead, academics are encouraged to focus on the notion of performance and to monitor themselves and others in relation to ever more elaborately refined 'markers of development', which diverts their attention from their pedagogical and scholarly practices. This creates the potential for a collective misrecognition, as people battle workloads, and the proliferation of these 'markers of development', but fail to recognise, what that work does. My hope is that this thesis provides a place to begin the process of developing an understanding of how identities are limited