The development of a theory of life-environment disruption to account for the phenomenon of premature morbidities and mortalities associated with a radical change in a person’s living environment

The thesis originates in an unresolved phenomenon associated with moving into a nursing home and concerns the reports of emotional distress, depression and increased risk of morbidity and mortality associated with the move; shedding-life is used to capture the broad character of this phenomenon. Shedding-life has been the subject of scientific inquiry for seventy years and yet the phenomenon is still not understood and, possibly because of this, there appears to be no generally accepted approaches to ameliorate this harm. This thesis inquiries into the genesis of shedding life and presents a theory to account for it. The failure of existing research to account for shedding-life indicated an alternative approach was required. As shedding-life arises in the context of a significant change in a person’s living-environment it was surmised that the phenomenon involves the relationship between the person and the changing environment in which they live. Based on this, the approach taken was to use the philosophical research of Martin Heidegger concerning the structural relationship between the person and their living environment, an approach not previously explored. Heidegger’s research, undertaken within the empiricist tradition, identifies and describes the structural processes by which the person is both constituted by its formative socio-cultural environment and bound to it as the locus and source of its ongoing existence. This means that who the individual human person becomes is both contingent and dependent upon the living environment into which it is born and raised, where the concept of living environment is understood in terms of possibilities for a meaningful life. On this account if a person’s access to their living environment is materially disrupted they are at risk of experiencing a decline in the meaningfulness of their existence. As this is a naturalistic account, founded on the biological processes of the body, the loss of an appropriate living environment is reflected in psychological distress which in turn is frequently manifested in bodily morbidities; this is the basis of shedding life, a structural rather than a psychological phenomenon. This contingent account of the person is in stark contrast to the materialist approach that posits the person as essentially the biological body, independent of its environment. The materialist view informs the design and running of nursing homes resulting in a significant disruption to a person’s life-environment contributing to rather than ameliorating shedding-life, as such nursing homes are iatrogenic, i.e. cause harm. Left unaddressed nursing home environments will continue to cause harm and fail to assist older people live a meaningful life in their remaining years. While the thesis commenced from a concern about nursing homes, the phenomenon of shedding-life is a much broader phenomenon. The Theory of Life- Environment Disruption, derived from the structure of being a person, provides an account of shedding-life by identifying the essential relationship between the person and their life-environment. The theory predicts that whenever there is a material disruption to a person’s life-environment they are at risk of shedding life and as such the theory has broad applicability for human affairs more generallyThesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, The Joanna Briggs Institute, 201

Comparative Genomics of a Parthenogenesis-Inducing Wolbachia Symbiont.

Wolbachia is an intracellular symbiont of invertebrates responsible for inducing a wide variety of phenotypes in its host. These host-Wolbachia relationships span the continuum from reproductive parasitism to obligate mutualism, and provide a unique system to study genomic changes associated with the evolution of symbiosis. We present the genome sequence from a parthenogenesis-inducing Wolbachia strain (wTpre) infecting the minute parasitoid wasp Trichogramma pretiosum The wTpre genome is the most complete parthenogenesis-inducing Wolbachia genome available to date. We used comparative genomics across 16 Wolbachia strains, representing five supergroups, to identify a core Wolbachia genome of 496 sets of orthologous genes. Only 14 of these sets are unique to Wolbachia when compared to other bacteria from the Rickettsiales. We show that the B supergroup of Wolbachia, of which wTpre is a member, contains a significantly higher number of ankyrin repeat-containing genes than other supergroups. In the wTpre genome, there is evidence for truncation of the protein coding sequences in 20% of ORFs, mostly as a result of frameshift mutations. The wTpre strain represents a conversion from cytoplasmic incompatibility to a parthenogenesis-inducing lifestyle, and is required for reproduction in the Trichogramma host it infects. We hypothesize that the large number of coding frame truncations has accompanied the change in reproductive mode of the wTpre strain

Ionization behavior of the histidine residue in the catalytic triad of serine proteases

α-Lytic protease is a homologue of the mammalian serine proteases such as trypsin, chymotrypsin, and elastase, and its single histidine residue belongs to the Asp-His-Ser catalytic triad. This single histidine residue has been selectively enriched in the C-2 carbon with 13C. Magnetic resonance studies of the chemical shift and coupling constant (1Jch) behavior of this nucleus as a function of pH suggest that the imidazole ring is neutral above pH 5 and therefore that the group which is known to ionize with pKa near 6.7 must be the aspartic acid residue. Implications of these new pKa assignments for the catalytic mechanism of serine proteases are discussed and include the absence of any need to separate charge during catalysis. The histidine residue plays two roles. (a) It insulates the aspartic acid from an aqueous environment and accordingly raises its pKa. (b) It serves as a bidentate base to accept a proton from the serine at one of its nitrogens and concertedly transfer a proton from its other nitrogen to the buried carboxylate anion during formation of the tetrahedral intermediate

Effects of foot orthoses on patellofemoral load in recreational runners

The most common chronic injury in recreational runners is patellofemoral pain. Whilst there is evidence to suggest that orthotic intervention may reduce symptoms in runners who experience patellofemoral pain the mechanism by which their clinical effects are mediated is currently poorly understood. The aim of the current investigation was to determine whether foot orthoses reduce the loads experienced by the patellofemoral joint during running. Patellofemoral loads were obtained from fifteen male runners who ran at 4.0 m·s-1. Patellofemoral loads with and without orthotics were contrasted using paired t-tests. The results showed that patellofemoral joint loads were significantly reduced as a function of running with the orthotic device. The current investigation indicates that through reductions in patellofemoral loads, foot orthoses may serve to reduce the incidence of chronic running injuries at this joint

Long-range electron transfer in structurally engineered pentaammineruthenium (histidine-62) cytochrome c

In many biological processes, long-range electron transfer (ET) plays a key role. When the three-dimensional structures of proteins are accurately known, use of modified proteins and protein-protein complexes provides an experimental approach to study ET rates between two metal centers. For Ru(His)- modified proteins, the introduction of histidine residues at any desired surface location by site-directed mutagenesis opens the way for systematic investigations of ET pathways

Nursing as a Process of Humanization: The Impact of an Undergraduate Mental Health Nursing Course on the Prejudice Toward People Living with a Mental Illness

The stigma attached to mental illness can be more detrimental than the illness itself. The undergraduate mental health nursing course is an optimal time to cultivate students’ positive attitudes toward people living with a mental illness and address the presence of prejudice against such individuals. Two quasi-experimental studies were conducted to determine the impact of an undergraduate mental health nursing course on students’ attitudes toward people living with a general mental illness, depression, and schizophrenia. The first study used a quasi-experimental single-group pretest posttest design. The sample included nursing students (N = 44) in an accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program in New York City. The intervention was the undergraduate mental health nursing course. Students completed pretest data at the beginning of the 2021 summer term and posttest data at the end of the term. Prejudice toward the mental health conditions of general mental illness, depression, and schizophrenia were measured through the use of three shortened, condition-specific versions of the Prejudice towards People with Mental Illness scale: Prejudice towards People with Mental Illness, Shortened Version (PPMI-SV); Prejudice towards People with Depression, Shortened Version (PPD-SV); and Prejudice towards People with Schizophrenia, Shortened Version (PPS-SV) scale. Each of the three instruments has the same four subscales that represent dimensions of prejudice: fear/avoidance, unpredictability, authoritarianism, and malevolence. Paired-samples t tests were used to analyze the data. A statistically significant decrease in prejudice scores was found concerning general mental illness (p = .03, d = 0.23), depression (p = .01, d = 0.31), and schizophrenia (p = .013, d = 0.34). Subscale analysis revealed a significant decrease in attitudes of fear and avoidance toward people living with a general mental illness (p <.001, d = 0.46), and schizophrenia (p = .001, d = 0.54), but not for depression. Attitudes regarding the unpredictability of those living with a mental health condition significantly decreased regarding the conditions of general mental illness (p = .016, d = 0.38), and depression (p = .001, d = 0.5), but not schizophrenia (p = .062). No significant change was found in the subscales of authoritarianism and malevolence for any of the three conditions. The second study used a ​​quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, nonequivalent-groups design with nursing students (N = 126) from the same accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program in New York City. Participants were assigned either to an intervention group (n = 72), wherein they completed a mental health nursing course, or a control group (n = 54), wherein they completed a pediatric/maternal health nursing course. Data were collected from two cohorts of students in the fall 2021 and spring 2022 terms. All the participants completed a pretest at the beginning and a posttest upon completion of the course. The PPMI-SV, PPD-SV, and PPS-SV were used to assess students' attitudes toward people living with a general mental illness, depression, and schizophrenia. The second study also measured the attitudes toward the recovery of individuals living with a mental illness through the Consumer Optimism Scale. Two-way mixed analyses of variance were used to determine the differences in students’ attitudes. Pearson product-moment correlation analyses were used to assess the relationship between prejudice toward people who experience a mental illness and attitudes toward recovery. A statistically significant decrease in prejudice toward those living with a mental illness was found among the students who took the mental health nursing course compared to students who took a pediatric/maternal health nursing course (p = .033, partial η2 = .062). There was no significant difference between groups in attitudes toward people living with depression, but a statistically significant decrease was found over time, regardless of the course taken (p = .008, partial η2 = .056). There was no significant change in either group regarding those with schizophrenia, toward whom the highest degree of negative attitudes was found. Furthermore, a subscale analysis revealed that, among the facets of prejudice, the intervention had the most positive impact on fear/avoidance for general mental illness (p = .040, partial η2 = .058) and schizophrenia (p < .001, partial η2 = .164). There was no impact on authoritarian or malevolent attitudes. Additionally, the mental health nursing course had no measurable impact on students' attitudes toward recovery in mental health. However, a moderate-to-strong negative relationship was found between recovery attitudes and prejudice toward people who experience a mental illness (r = -.43 to -.60). These results show that a mental health course with elements to encourage amelioration of negative attitudes toward those with mental illness led to modest improvements in attitudes. Major curricular reform is needed to optimize the impact of undergraduate education. Possible changes include a more holistic approach toward mental health that does not over accentuate the biomedical model, the use of nontraditional clinical sites that provide students an opportunity to interact with those further along in their recovery, and the inclusion of those in recovery in the curriculum

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Integrating Information Technology into Education edited by Deryn Watson and David Tinsley, London, Chapman & Hall, 1995, ISBN: 0–412–62250–5, 316 pages