Search

This study was conducted to evaluate the usefulness of discriminant analysis in classifying vocational and technical curricular groups in a single secondary school setting. The researchers compared scores on the Dailey Vocational Test and the Minnesota Vocational Interest Inventory in terms of the selection of vocational and technical courses by 585 Grade 11 and 12 students in Kansas City, Missouri. After finding a statistically significant difference between vocational groups, the study concluded that discriminant analysis can be valuable in classifying students with aptitude and interest variables. (BH)

Background: In response to DNA double-strand breaks, the histone protein H2AX becomes phosphorylated at its C-terminal serine 139 residue, referred to as {gamma}-H2AX. Formation of {gamma}-H2AX foci is associated with recruitment of p53-binding protein 1 (53BP1), a regulator of the cellular response to DNA double-strand breaks. {gamma}-H2AX expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) was recently proposed as a diagnostic and disease activity marker for multiple sclerosis (MS). Objective: To evaluate the significance of {gamma}-H2AX and 53BP1 foci in PBMCs as diagnostic and disease activity markers in patients with clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) and early relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) using automated {gamma}-H2AX and 53BP1 foci detection. Methods: Immunocytochemistry was performed on freshly isolated PBMCs of patients with CIS/early RRMS (n = 25) and healthy controls (n = 27) with {gamma}-H2AX and 53BP1 specific antibodies. Nuclear {gamma}-H2AX and 53BP1 foci were determined using a fully automated reading system, assessing the numbers of {gamma}-H2AX and 53BP1 foci per total number of cells and the percentage of cells with foci. Patients underwent contrast enhanced 3 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and clinical examination including expanded disability status scale (EDSS) score. {gamma}-H2AX and 53BP1 were also compared in previously frozen PBMCs of each 10 CIS/early RRMS patients with and without contrast enhancing lesions (CEL) and 10 healthy controls. Results: The median (range) number of {gamma}-H2AX (0.04 [0-0.5]) and 53BP1 (0.005 [0–0.2]) foci per cell in freshly isolated PBMCs across all study participants was low and similar to previously reported values of healthy individuals. For both, {gamma}-H2AX and 53BP1, the cellular focus number as well as the percentage of positive cells did not differ between patients with CIS/RRMS and healthy controls. {gamma}-H2AX and 53BP1 levels neither correlated with number nor volume of T2-weighted lesions on MRI, nor with the EDSS. Although {gamma}-H2AX, but not 53BP1, levels were higher in previously frozen PBMCs of patients with than without CEL, {gamma}-H2AX values of both groups overlapped and {gamma}-H2AX did not correlate with the number or volume of CEL. Conclusion: {gamma}-H2AX and 53BP1 foci do not seem to be promising diagnostic or disease activity biomarkers in patients with early MS. Lymphocytic DNA double-strand breaks are unlikely to play a major role in the pathophysiology of MS.

Conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 1.5 Tesla (T) is limited by modest spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), impeding the identification and classification of inflammatory central nervous system changes in current clinical practice. Gaining from enhanced susceptibility effects and improved SNR, ultrahigh field MRI at 7 T depicts inflammatory brain lesions in great detail. This review summarises recent reports on 7 T MRI in neuroinflammatory diseases and addresses the question as to whether ultrahigh field MRI may eventually improve clinical decision-making and personalised disease management.

Nadja Borisow, Friedemann Paul, Jan DörrNeuroCure Clinical Research Center and Clinical and Experimental Research Center for Multiple Sclerosis, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, GermanyAbstract: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a common inflammatory demyelinating disorder of the central nervous system. It frequently affects females in their reproductive phase of life. Therefore, family planning, pregnancy, and breastfeeding are important issues in the management of MS, particularly with respect to counseling and drug treatment. This paper reviews currently available data on the outcome of pregnancies in MS patients and the influence of pregnancy on the course of the disease. We give an update on the use of various disease-modifying MS drugs during pregnancy and breastfeeding. In addition to established therapies such as interferon-β, glatiramer acetate, natalizumab, and fingolimod, we also discuss the state of knowledge about new agents such as dimethyl fumarate, teriflunomide, and alemtuzumab in the context of pregnancy and breastfeeding.Keywords: multiple sclerosis, pregnancy, lactation, disease-modifying therapy

[Context/motivation] Quality requirements (QRs) are a concern of both requirement engineering (RE) specialists and software architects (SAs). However, the majority of empirical studies on QRs take the RE analysts’/clients’ perspectives, and only recently very few included the SAs’ perspective. As a result, (i) relatively little is known about SAs’ involvement in QRs engineering and their coping strategies, and (ii) whatever is known mostly comes from small and midsized projects. [Question/problem] The question in this exploratory study is how SAs cope with QRs in the context of large and contract-based software system delivery projects. [Principal ideas/results] We executed an exploratory case study with 20 SAs in the context of interest. The key results indicate the role SAs play in QRs engineering, the type of requirements communication processes SAs are involved in, the ways QRs are discovered, documented, quantified, validated and negotiated. Our most important findings are that in contract-based contexts: (1) the QRs are approached with the same due diligence as the functional requirements and the architecture design demand, (2) the SAs act proactively and embrace responsibilities over the QRs, (3) willingness to pay and affordability seem as important QRs prioritization criteria as cost and benefits do, and (4) QRs engineering is perceived as a social activity and not as much as a tool and method centric activity. [Contribution] The main contributions of the paper are (i) the explication of the QRs process from SAs’ perspective, and (ii) the comparison of our findings with previously published results.

Multiple sclerosis is the most common chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system which preferentially affects females at childbearing age. For this reason, patients and treating physicians were frequently confronted with questions concerning family planning, pregnancy and birth. Preventive and personalized treatment approaches are considered, because topics as heredity, risk of congenital malformations, influence of pregnancy on MS and aspects of drug therapy during the period of conception, pregnancy, puerperium and lactation have to be discussed. Here, we provide an overview about the current state of knowledge regarding these issues.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common chronic inflammatory disorder of the central nervous system (CNS) in young adults. The disease causes a wide range of symptoms depending on the localization and characteristics of the CNS pathology. In addition to drug-based immunomodulatory treatment, both drug-based and non-drug approaches are established as complementary strategies to alleviate existing symptoms and to prevent secondary diseases. In particular, physical therapy like exercise and physiotherapy can be customized to the individual patient's needs and has the potential to improve the individual outcome. However, high quality systematic data on physical therapy in MS are rare. This article summarizes the current knowledge on the influence of physical activity and exercise on disease-related symptoms and physical restrictions in MS patients. Other treatment strategies such as drug treatments or cognitive training were deliberately excluded for the purposes of this article.

Neuroaxonal degeneration in the central nervous system contributes substantially to the long term disability in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. However, in vivo determination and monitoring of neurodegeneration remain difficult. As the widely used MRI-based approaches, including the brain parenchymal fraction (BPF) have some limitations, complementary in vivo measures for neurodegeneration are necessary. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a potent tool for the detection of MS-related retinal neurodegeneration. However, crucial aspects including the association between OCT- and MRI-based atrophy measures or the impact of MS-related parameters on OCT parameters are still unclear. In this large prospective cross-sectional study on 104 relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) patients we evaluated the associations of retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (RNFLT) and total macular volume (TMV) with BPF and addressed the impact of disease-determining parameters on RNFLT, TMV or BPF. BPF, normalized for subject head size, was estimated with SIENAX. Relations were analyzed primarily by Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) models considering within-patient inter-eye relations. We found that both RNFLT (p = 0.019, GEE) and TMV (p = 0.004, GEE) associate with BPF. RNFLT was furthermore linked to the disease duration (p

Màster Oficial en Construcció i Representació d'Identitats Culturals (CRIC), Curs 2007-2008, Dir. Dra. M. Luisa Siguan, When, due to a lack of immediate transparency, the reader fails to grasp which system or ideological framework, and which parameters of historiographic legitimacy support the representations of literary history, he will find it difficult to discern whether those narratives are based on bona fide interpretations or rather on merely unverified appearances or the more or less subtle camouflages of an ideological discourse: camouflages which masquerade as accepted knowledge and scientific fact in order to blind the reader and even the authors themselves to possible contradictions in the respective ideological systems of interpretation on each side side of the exile divide. Following Iser's "blank spot" concept (1975) these camouflages could be defined as ideological "blind spots". After giving an overview of the state of the art in exile reception and research, the aim of the present master's research thesis is to explore and detect in manuals and specialist studies on literary history of various origins, approaches and methodological viewpoints, the presence of the different types of ideological elision and to investigate the theoretical factors influencing them. Following an analysis of the results, a later study will determine which of these "blind spots" fulfil in their broader context a systematic and macro-propositional support role and which constitute merely random, one-off cases. // Sobald in literaturhistorischen Darstellungen nicht mehr ersichtlich, d. h. dem Leser nicht mehr bewusst wird, welcher Begriffs- und Vorstellungswelt Maßstäbe entlehnt werden und welche historische Legitimation diese infolgedessen zur Grundlage nehmen, ist nur noch begrenzt erkennbar, ob es sich um ungeprüfte Missverständnisse oder vielmehr um mehr oder weniger komplexe Camouflagen im ideologischen Diskurs handelt. Camouflagen, die sich den Anschein bereits wissenschaftlicher Übereinkunft geben, um sich selber oder den Leser über mögliche Widersprüche im eigenen oder im fremden, oder gar in beiden Systemen der Erklärung hinwegzutäuschen. In Anlehnung an Isers Konzept der "Leerstelle" (1975) könnte man diese Camouflagen als diskursive "Blindstellen" bezeichnen. Nach einem Überblick zum Stand der Exilrezeption und Exilforschung ist es Ziel dieser Arbeit, in üblichen Darstellungen und primären Handapparaten der Literaturgeschichtsschreibung unterschiedlicher Herkunft, Ausrichtung und Methodologie dem Vorhandensein und der Funktion solcher Blindstellen in der literaturhistorischen Darstellung des Exils anhand einiger zentraler Themenkomplexe und ausgesuchter Beispiele der Darstellung nachzugehen und auf ihre eigenen theoretischen bzw. historischen Kontextbedingungen hin zu untersuchen. In einer späteren Arbeit wird, nach einer Überprüfung der bisherigen Ergebnisse, festzustellen sein, welche dieser Blindstellen im jeweiligen Gesamttext eine systematische, makropropositionale Funktion der Abstützung haben oder bloß akzidentelle Einzelfälle darstellen.

Um des Auswegs aus der Misere der kleinen Angestellten willen etwas erscheinen müssen, nicht etwas exemplarisch verkörpern, Mode- oder Fremdbildern unterworfen sein, nicht für sich selbst stehen, darunter leiden und scheitern _ Doris, die Heldin aus Irmgard Keuns Roman Das kunstseidene Mädchen, wird von einer Idee gekniffen, inszeniert ihre eigene Person zwischen den Selbst- und Fremdbildern des glamourösen Girls, als sie beschließt ihr Leben in einem Filmskript festzuhalten. Sie will schreiben wie Film, denn so will ihr das eigene Leben erscheinen und wird umso weniger so sein: Wie das Filmskript den Misserfolg ihrer Flucht chronometriert, so bezeichnet ein enteigneter Pelzmantel als Dingsymbol zugleich den Glanz eines Fremdbildes und einer Falle im Abseits der Weimarer Republik. Fretting and failing because she wants an image that will enable her to escape from a drab office-girl's existence, because she is not what she would like to be, because she is a slave to fashion and other people's perceptions, because she is not her true self. Such is the plight of Doris: the protagonist of Irmgard Keun's novel, The Artificial Silk Girl, has had a bright idea: she will cast herself as a glamour girl, mid-way between her own self-perception and the way she is perceived by others. She decides to turn her life into a movie script. She will write it as if her life were a film, because that is how she sees it, although in fact her life turns out to be anything but that. Just as the script gives a blow by blow account of her failure to escape, a stolen fur coat comes to embody, like a Dingsymbol, the glamorous image of herself as perceived by others, and is, in its turn, a trap which ensnares her on the margins of society in the Weimar Republic.Sufrimiento y fracaso por querer aparentar algo que le permita escapar de las penurias de las pequeñas oficinistas, por no ser lo que le gustaría, por estar supeditada a las modas o percepciones ajenas, por no ser ella misma. Esto es lo que le ocurre a Doris. A la protagonista de la novela de Irmgard Keun, La chica de seda artificial, se le ha antojado una idea: escenificarse como chica glamorosa, en un terreno que se encuentra entre su propia percepción y la ajena. Decide que va afijar su vida en un guión de cine. Quiere escribir como si su vida fuese una película, pero por más que quiera, sólo será un espejismo. De la misma manera que el guión cronometra el fracaso de su huida, un abrigo de piel expropiado encarna _como símbolo objeto_, el fulgor de una percepción ajena, y a su vez, una trampa que la remite a las márgenes de la sociedad de la República de Weimar. Um des Auswegs aus der Misere der kleinen Angestellten willen etwas erscheinen müssen, nicht etwas exemplarisch verkörpern, Mode- oder Fremdbildern unterworfen sein, nicht für sich selbst stehen, darunter leiden und scheitern _ Doris, die Heldin aus Irmgard Keuns Roman Das kunstseidene Mädchen, wird von einer Idee gekniffen, inszeniert ihre eigene Person zwischen den Selbst- und Fremdbildern des glamourösen Girls, als sie beschließt ihr Leben in einem Filmskript festzuhalten. Sie will schreiben wie Film, denn so will ihr das eigene Leben erscheinen und wird umso weniger so sein: Wie das Filmskript den Misserfolg ihrer Flucht chronometriert, so bezeichnet ein enteigneter Pelzmantel als Dingsymbol zugleich den Glanz eines Fremdbildes und einer Falle im Abseits der Weimarer Republik.