Characterization of metal ion-induced [3H]inositol hexakisphosphate binding to rat cerebellar membranes

The binding of [3H]inositol hexakisphosphate ([3H] InsP6) to rat cerebellar membranes has been characterized with the objective of establishing the role, if any, of a membrane protein receptor. In the presence of EDTA, we have previously identified an InsP6-binding site with a capacity of approximately 20 pmol/mg protein (Hawkins, P. T., Reynolds, D. J. M., Poyner, D. R., and Hanley, M. R. (1990) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 167, 819-827). However, in the presence of 1 mM Mg2+, the capacity of [3H]InsP6 binding to membranes was increased approximately 9-fold. This enhancing effect of Mg2+ was reversed by addition of 10 microM of several cation chelators, suggesting that the increased binding required trace quantities of other metal cations. This is supported by experiments where it was possible to saturate binding by addition of excess membranes, despite not significantly depleting radioligand, pointing to removal of some other factor. Removal of endogenous cations from the binding assay by pretreatment with chelex resin also prevents the Mg(2+)-induced potentiation. Consideration of the specificity of the chelators able to abolish this potentiation suggested involvement of Fe3+ or Al3+. Both these ions (but not several others) were able to increase [3H]InsP6 binding to chelex-pretreated membranes at concentrations of 1 microM. It is possible to demonstrate synergy between Fe3+ and Mg2+ under these conditions. We propose that [3H]InsP6 may interact with membranes through non-protein recognition possibly via phospholipids, in a manner dependent upon trace metals. The implications of this for InsP6 biology are considered.

Analysis of Heterokaryon Formation in Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense.

Fusarium oxysporum forma specialis cubense is a soilborne phytopathogen that infects banana. The true evolutionary identity of this so called species, Fusarium oxysporum, is still unknown. Many techniques have been applied in order to gain insight for the observed genetic diversity of this species. The current classification system is based on vegetative compatibility groups (VCG's). Vegetative compatibility is a self non-self recognition system in which only those belonging to a VCG can form stable heterokaryons, cells containing two distinct nuclei. Heterokaryons in turn, are formed from hypha! anastomosis, the fusion of two hyphae. Furthermore, subsequent to heterokaryon formation potential mechanisms exist which may generate genetic variability. One is through viral transfer upon hyphal anastomosis. The other mechanism is a form of mitotic recombination referred to as the parasexual cycle. Very little research has been performed to directly obser.ve the cellular events; hypha! anastomosis, heterokaryon formation, and the parasexual cycle in Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense. The purpose of this research was to design and use methods which would allow for the detection of hypha! anastomosis and heterokaryon formation, as well as any characteristics surrounding this event, within and between VCG's in Foe. First, some general growth properties were recorded: the number of nuclei per hypha, the size ofthe hyphal tip cell, the size of the cell adjacent to the hypha! tip (pre-tip) cell, and the number of cells to the first branch point. Second, four methods were designed in order to assay hyphal anastomosis and heterokaryon formation: 1) pairings on membrane: phase or brightfield microscopy, 2) pairings on membrane: fluorescence microscopy, 3) spore crosses: fluorescence microscopy, and 4) double picks in fractionated MMA. All of these methods were promtsmg.

Education at last! Taiwanese grandmothers "go to school"

Language socialization is a life-long process in which individuals are continuously socialized into new roles, statuses, and practices. This process becomes more complex in multilingual contexts. However, we know little of the language socialization of older adults and we know even less of minority-speaking elders' experiences of linguistic marginalization in contemporary communicative milieus. In this ethnographic and discourse-analytic study, I examine the language socialization of non-Mandarin-speaking elderly Taiwanese women in senior adult education programs in a rural township in Taiwan. Through examining autobiographical narratives, master narratives about elders, and classroom discourses, this study explores the historical construction of their sociolinguistic marginalization and their negotiation and resistance of such marginalization. The majority of the elderly women were denied education when they were young. Some received Japanese education during the Japanese colonization period. While the uneducated and illiterate elders have a strong aspiration for learning, they are dismissed as "unable to learn" by their teachers, peer students, and community leaders. By contrast, the Japanese literate exhibit a strong learning identity associated with colonial modernity. These two groups, however, have to contend with the social stereotype associated with their non-Mandarin speaking status. Under a Mandarin-only ideology that links Mandarin with modernity, discourses that have actively mobilized the category of “illiterate” to reference the older population are part and parcel of Taiwan’s modern identity. By demonstrating how these women are treated, in official discourses and in classroom interactions, as children for their lack of Mandarin abilities, I argue that the literacy education that set out to “compensate” these women for their earlier lack of educational opportunity has paradoxically reinforced their marginalization. Further, in recent years, they have become even more marginalized as the government has prioritized the education of recent young female marriage immigrants from Southeast Asia, who are considered in charge of educating the “future sons and daughters of Taiwan.” This research demonstrates how language socialization is a contested and life-long process and calls attention to the effects of language ideologies on literacy and language education. The findings have policy implications for improving literacy and language education both within Taiwan and elsewhere in the world.

Africans in Scotland: heterogeneity and sensitivities to HIV

Aim: To investigate how diversity within the African migrant population in Scotland affects their understandings of HIV and uptake of HIV testing and treatment, in order to improve HIV-related outcomes. Background: In the UK, Africans have the worst outcomes for HIV infection, primarily due to late diagnosis. Improvement requires better understanding of the barriers to healthcare engagement. This PhD study investigates how diversity among first generation African migrants in Scotland could affect engagement with general healthcare and HIV related interventions and services. Methods: I conducted qualitative research, involving participant observation at two sites (an African religious group and an asylum seeker/refugee drop-in centre) and interviews with African migrants attending these and three additional sites (two advocacy charities and a student association). Data were collected in two cities (Glasgow and Edinburgh) and two smaller towns (Paisley and Kirkcaldy). I interviewed 27 Africans, including economic migrants (n=8), students (n=9) and asylum seeker/refugees (n=10) and 14 representatives from organisations with high levels of African attendees (e.g., country associations, community organisations, advocacy groups, commercial establishments and religious based organisations). Thematic data analysis was carried out. Results: Diversity of the population and related issues of identity: Participants were highly diverse and reported considerable heterogeneity in the African diaspora in Scotland. The identity of “African” was bound with various negative stereotypes and appeals to this identity did not necessarily have relevance for participants. Nature of African affiliated organisations in Scotland: There were a wide range of organisations that advertised their remit as catering for the African diaspora. They varied in consistency and sustainability and contributed towards healthcare engagement to different degrees. Engagement with healthcare: There were multiple experiences and understandings of the healthcare system within the sample as a whole, and to an extent by migrant type. Whilst the majority reported successful and satisfactory service use, distinct barriers emerged. These included: understandings of rights and access to care based on African models of healthcare; the interplay of religious based understandings with ideas about access to healthcare; and assumptions and anxiety about the connections between visa status and health status. Knowledge of HIV and engagement with HIV related services: Participants had good knowledge about HIV, with some notable exceptions, but there was no patterning by migrant type. They had diverse views about risk of HIV infection, most of which did not align with the HIV epidemiology that identifies African migrants as an at risk group. Most of the sample did not think targeting African migrants for HIV interventions would be successful and were hostile to the proposal for various reasons, especially because they believed it would perpetuate stigma and prejudice towards the African diaspora. There were mixed experiences of HIV related services, and prompts to test for HIV had elicited a range of reactions, the majority negative. Conclusion: Diversity within the African diaspora in Scotland should be taken into account to improve the salience and relevance of future HIV interventions. Attitudes towards current HIV testing promotion suggest that a more cooperative approach could be taken with African communities to build on existing relationships of trust and understandings of HIV.

Conhecimentos dos pais sobre o desenvolvimento da criança na 1ª infância : um estudo exploratório

Os conhecimentos parentais sobre o desenvolvimento da criança na primeira infância são como a literatura mostra, fundamentais no modo como os pais interagem e atuam com os seus filhos, ou seja, nas práticas educativas parentais, sendo determinantes no comportamento e desenvolvimento futuro dos seus filhos. Muito pouco se tem investido neste tema, ao nível nacional, embora o mesmo não se verifique ao nível internacional. Neste sentido, parece especialmente interessante explorar esta dimensão em pais de crianças portuguesas com um instrumento também pouco conhecido na realidade portuguesa. O presente estudo tem como objetivo caraterizar os conhecimentos sobre o desenvolvimento infantil de um grupo de mães de crianças do pré-escolar, que frequentavam jardins-de-infância na margem sul do Tejo. Para tal pudemos contar com a colaboração de 110 mães de crianças com idades compreendidas entre os 3 e os 7 anos que acederam em participar, preenchendo um questionário com 58 itens, adaptado do “Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory - Preeschoolers” (KIDI-P); (MacPhee, 1981). Os dados obtidos através do KIDI-P, foram cruzados com diversas variáveis sociodemográficas, tendo-se verificado alguns resultados, significativos, nomeadamente no que se refere ao nível de instrução, de situação profissional e nível de rendimento familiar. O nível de instrução, apresenta uma correlação significativa com os conhecimentos maternais, sendo que quanto mais baixo, menor o número de respostas corretas. As mães empregadas conseguem dar um maior número de respostas corretas, demonstrando assim mais conhecimento sobre o desenvolvimento da criança, do que as que estão desempregadas, assim aquelas com nível baixo de rendimento familiar apresentam mais respostas erradas do que as que têm rendimento familiar mais elevado. Podemos assim concluir que algumas variáveis sociodemográficas estão relacionadas com o conhecimento das mães sobre o desenvolvimento da criança, confirmando vários dos estudos científicos realizados ao nível internacional.

Collaborative filtering and deep learning based recommendation system for cold start items

Recommender system is a specific type of intelligent systems, which exploits historical user ratings on items and/or auxiliary information to make recommendations on items to the users. It plays a critical role in a wide range of online shopping, e-commercial services and social networking applications. Collaborative filtering (CF) is the most popular approaches used for recommender systems, but it suffers from complete cold start (CCS) problem where no rating record are available and incomplete cold start (ICS) problem where only a small number of rating records are available for some new items or users in the system. In this paper, we propose two recommendation models to solve the CCS and ICS problems for new items, which are based on a framework of tightly coupled CF approach and deep learning neural network. A specific deep neural network SADE is used to extract the content features of the items. The state of the art CF model, timeSVD++, which models and utilizes temporal dynamics of user preferences and item features, is modified to take the content features into prediction of ratings for cold start items. Extensive experiments on a large Netflix rating dataset of movies are performed, which show that our proposed recommendation models largely outperform the baseline models for rating prediction of cold start items. The two proposed recommendation models are also evaluated and compared on ICS items, and a flexible scheme of model retraining and switching is proposed to deal with the transition of items from cold start to non-cold start status. The experiment results on Netflix movie recommendation show the tight coupling of CF approach and deep learning neural network is feasible and very effective for cold start item recommendation. The design is general and can be applied to many other recommender systems for online shopping and social networking applications. The solution of cold start item problem can largely improve user experience and trust of recommender systems, and effectively promote cold start items.

Preadolescents and Their Mothers as Oral Health-Promoting Actors : Non-biologic Determinants of Oral Health among Turkish and Finnish Preadolescents

Is oral health becoming a part of the global health culture? Oral health seems to turn out to be part of the global health culture, according to the findings of a thesis-research, Institute of Dentistry, University of Helsinki. The thesis is entitled as “Preadolescents and Their Mothers as Oral Health-Promoting Actors: Non-biologic Determinants of Oral Health among Turkish and Finnish Preadolescents.” The research was supervised by Prof.Murtomaa and led by Dr.A.Basak Cinar. It was conducted as a cross-sectional study of 611 Turkish and 223 Finnish school preadolescents in Istanbul and Helsinki, from the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, aged 10 to 12, based on self-administered and pre-tested health behavior questionnaires for them and their mothers as well as the youth’s oral health records. Clinically assessed dental status (DMFT) and self-reported oral health of Turkish preadolescents was significantly poorer than the Finns`. A similar association occurred for well-being measures (height and weight, self-esteem), but not for school performance. Turkish preadolescents were more dentally anxious and reported lower mean values of toothbrushing self-efficacy and dietary self-efficacy than did Finns. The Turks less frequently reported recommended oral health behaviors (twice daily or more toothbrushing, sweet consumption on 2 days or less/week, decreased between-meal sweet consumption) than did the Finns. Turkish mothers reported less frequently dental health as being above average and recommended oral health behaviors as well as regular dental visits. Their mean values for dental anxiety was higher and self-efficacy on implementation of twice-daily toothbrushing were lower than those of the Finnish. Despite these differences between the Turks and Finns, the associations found in common for all preadolescents, regardless of cultural differences and different oral health care systems, assessed for the first time in a holistic framework, were as follows: There seems to be interrelation between oral health and general-well being (body height-weight measures, school performance, and self-esteem) among preadolescents: • The body height was an explanatory factor for dental health, underlining the possible common life-course factors for dental health and general well-being. • Better school performance, high levels of self-esteem and self-efficacy were interrelated and they contributed to good oral health. • Good school performance was a common predictor for twice-daily toothbrushing. Self-efficacy and maternal modelling have significant role for maintenance and improvement of both oral- and general health- related behaviors. In addition, there is need for integration of self-efficacy based approaches to promote better oral health. • All preadolescents with high levels of self-efficacy were more likely to report more frequent twice-daily toothbrushing and less frequent sweet consumption. • All preadolescents were likely to imitate toothbrushing and sweet consumption behaviors of their mothers. • High levels of self-efficacy contributed to low dental anxiety in various patterns in both groups. As a conclusion: • Many health-detrimental behaviors arise from the school age years and are unlikely to change later. Schools have powerful influences on children’s development and well-being. Therefore, oral health promotion in schools should be integrated into general health promotion, school curricula, and other activities. • Health promotion messages should be reinforced in schools, enabling children and their families to develop lifelong sustainable positive health-related skills (self-esteem, self-efficacy) and behaviors. • Placing more emphasis on behavioral sciences, preventive approaches, and community-based education during undergraduate studies should encourage social responsibility and health-promoting roles among dentists. Attempts to increase general well-being and to reduce oral health inequalities among preadolescents will remain unsuccessful if the individual factors, as well as maternal and societal influences, are not considered by psycho-social holistic approaches.

Accuracy of mothers’ perceptions of their child’s weight status

The study examined the accuracy of maternal perceived child weight. Urban-affluent mothers with 111 children aged 2-5 years were recruited. Nearly a quarter of mothers overestimated their underweight child as healthyweight and all overweight/obese children were perceived as healthyweight. Mothers therefore were unable to recognize their child’s true weight status.

The nutritional status of fishing and non-fishing communities of Lake Victoria basin

We examined socio-economic variables that contribute to malnutrition in selected communities in the Lake Victoria basin during 2001. The study was carried out in nine districts and hinterland communities up to 25 km awayfrom the beach were used as the reference population. The main variables examined were: feeding habits, income and intra-household food distribution and living standards. Others included disease and health, sanitation and hygiene, childcare and mothers' age and workload, weaning practices, agricultural production and food availability, care during pregnancy and food taboos.

Mitochondrial J haplogroup is associated with lower blood pressure and anti-oxidant status: findings in octo/nonagenarians from the BELFAST Study

Mitochondria produce cellular energy but also free-radicals, which damage cells despite an array of endogenous anti-oxidants. In Northern Europe, the mitochondrial haplogroup J has been related to longevity in nonagenarians and centenarians but also with age-related disease. Hypertension is an important contributor to atherosclerotic-related diseases and its pathogenesis is associated with increased oxidative stress. In this study, we questioned whether J haplogroup octo/nonagenarians from the Belfast Elderly Longitudinal Free-living Elderly STudy (BELFAST) study showed evidence of protective blood pressure or anti-oxidant profile which might explain their longevity advantage. Briefly, in a cross-sectional study, community-living, mentally alert (Folstein >25/30), octo/nonagenarian subjects, recruited for good health, were enlisted and consented as part of the BELFAST study, for blood pressure, anthropometric measurements and blood sampling. DNA typing for mitochondrial haplotypes was carried out with measurements for enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants. J haplogroup carriers showed lower systolic blood pressure and glutathione peroxidase activity (Gpx) with higher folate measurements. There was no change in urate, bilirubin, albumin or nutrition-related antioxidants-selenium or vitamins A, C and a and ß carotene. BELFAST study mtDNA J haplogroup octo/nonagenarians showed lower blood pressure and reduced glutathione peroxidase activity and higher folate, but no change for other antioxidants. These findings are of interest in view of mtDNA J haplogroup's association with increased age in some previous studies.

Examining the impact of trait anxiety on the recognition of facial emotional expressions

Question : Cette thèse comporte deux articles portant sur l’étude d’expressions faciales émotionnelles. Le processus de développement d’une nouvelle banque de stimuli émotionnels fait l’objet du premier article, alors que le deuxième article utilise cette banque pour étudier l’effet de l’anxiété de trait sur la reconnaissance des expressions statiques. Méthodes : Un total de 1088 clips émotionnels (34 acteurs X 8 émotions X 4 exemplaire) ont été alignés spatialement et temporellement de sorte que les yeux et le nez de chaque acteur occupent le même endroit dans toutes les vidéos. Les vidéos sont toutes d’une durée de 500ms et contiennent l’Apex de l’expression. La banque d’expressions statiques fut créée à partir de la dernière image des clips. Les stimuli ont été soumis à un processus de validation rigoureux. Dans la deuxième étude, les expressions statiques sont utilisées conjointement avec la méthode Bubbles dans le but d’étudier la reconnaissance des émotions chez des participants anxieux. Résultats : Dans la première étude, les meilleurs stimuli ont été sélectionnés [2 (statique & dynamique) X 8 (expressions) X 10 (acteurs)] et forment la banque d’expressions STOIC. Dans la deuxième étude, il est démontré que les individus présentant de l'anxiété de trait utilisent préférentiellement les basses fréquences spatiales de la région buccale du visage et ont une meilleure reconnaissance des expressions de peur. Discussion : La banque d’expressions faciales STOIC comporte des caractéristiques uniques qui font qu’elle se démarque des autres. Elle peut être téléchargée gratuitement, elle contient des vidéos naturelles et tous les stimuli ont été alignés, ce qui fait d’elle un outil de choix pour la communauté scientifique et les cliniciens. Les stimuli statiques de STOIC furent utilisés pour franchir une première étape dans la recherche sur la perception des émotions chez des individus présentant de l’anxiété de trait. Nous croyons que l’utilisation des basses fréquences est à la base des meilleures performances de ces individus, et que l’utilisation de ce type d’information visuelle désambigüise les expressions de peur et de surprise. Nous pensons également que c’est la névrose (chevauchement entre l'anxiété et la dépression), et non l’anxiété même qui est associée à de meilleures performances en reconnaissance d’expressions faciales de la peur. L’utilisation d’instruments mesurant ce concept devrait être envisagée dans de futures études.

Doll Play narratives about starting school in children of socially anxious mothers, and their relation to subsequent child school-based anxiety

Background: Child social anxiety is common, and predicts later emotional and academic impairment. Offspring of socially anxious mothers are at increased risk. It is important to establish whether individual vulnerability to disorder can be identified in young children. Method: The responses of 4.5 year-old children of mothers with social phobia (N = 62) and non-anxious mothers (N = 60) were compared, two months before school entry, using a Doll Play (DP) procedure focused on the social challenge of starting school. DP responses were examined in relation to teacher reports of anxious-depressed symptoms and social worries at the end of the child’s first school term. The role of earlier child behavioral inhibition and attachment, assessed at 14 months, was also considered. Results: Compared to children of non-anxious mothers, children of mothers with social phobia were significantly more likely to give anxiously negative responses in their school DP (OR = 2.57). In turn, negative DP predicted teacher reported anxious-depressed and social worry problems. There were no effects of infant behavioral inhibition or attachment. Conclusion: Vulnerability in young children at risk of anxiety can be identified using Doll Play narratives.

Cognitive, affective and behavioural characteristics of mothers with anxiety disorders in the context of child anxiety disorder

Parental emotional distress, particularly high maternal anxiety, is one of the most consistent predictors of child anxiety treatment outcome. In order to identify the cognitive, affective and behavioural parenting characteristics of mothers of children with anxiety disorders who themselves have an anxiety disorder, we assessed the expectations and appraisals of 88 mothers of anxious children (44 not anxious (NONANX) and 44 with a current anxiety disorder (ANX)) before and after interacting with their 7-12 year old children. There were no observed differences in anxiety and avoidance among children of ANX and NONANX mothers, but, compared to NONANX mothers, ANX mothers held more negative expectations and differed on observations of intrusiveness, expressed anxiety, warmth and the quality of the relationship. Associations were moderated by the degree to which children expressed anxiety during the tasks. Maternal reported negative emotions during the task significantly mediated the association between maternal anxiety status and the observed quality of the relationship. These findings suggest that maternal anxiety disorder is associated with reduced tolerance of children’s negative emotions. This may interfere with the maintenance of a positive, supportive mother-child interaction under conditions of stress, and as such impede optimum treatment outcomes. The findings identify potential cognitive, affective and behavioural targets to improve treatment outcomes for children with anxiety disorders in the context of a current maternal anxiety disorder.

Changes in emotion recognition relate to hypertension status

Background: Emotional processing in essential hypertension beyond self-report questionnaire has hardly been investigated. The aim of this study is to examine associations between hypertension status and recognition of facial affect. Methods: 25 healthy, non-smoking, medication-free men including 13 hypertensive subjects aged between 20 and 65 years completed a computer-based task in order to examine sensitivity of recognition of facial affect. Neutral faces gradually changed to a specific emotion in a pseudo-continuous manner. Slides of the six basic emotions (fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, anger, surprise) were chosen from the „NimStim Set“. Pictures of three female and three male faces were electronically morphed in 1% steps of intensity from 0% to 100% (36 sets of faces with 100 pictures each). Each picture of a set was presented for one second, ranging from 0% to 100% of intensity. Participants were instructed to press a stop button as soon as they recognized the expression of the face. After stopping a forced choice between the six basic emotions was required. As dependent variables, we recorded the emotion intensity at which the presentation was stopped and the number of errors (error rate). Recognition sensitivity was calculated as emotion intensity of correctly identified emotions. Results: Mean arterial pressure was associated with a significantly increased recognition sensitivity of facial affect for the emotion anger (ß = - .43, p = 0.03*, Δ R2= .110). There was no association with the emotions fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, and surprise (p’s > .0.41). Mean arterial pressure did not relate to the mean number of errors for any of the facial emotions. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that an increased blood pressure is associated with increased recognition sensitivity of facial affect for the emotion anger, if a face shows anger. Hypertensives perceive facial anger expression faster than normotensives, if anger is shown.

Emotion recognition and alexithymia in females with non-clinical disordered eating

Objectives: The aims were to determine if emotion recognition deficits observed in eating disorders generalise to non-clinical disordered eating and to establish if other psychopathological and personality factors contributed to, or accounted for, these deficits. Design: Females with high (n=23) and low (n=22) scores on the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) were assessed on their ability to recognise emotion from videotaped social interactions. Participants also completed a face memory task, a Stroop task, and self-report measures of alexithymia, depression and anxiety. Results: Relative to the low EDI group, high EDI participants exhibited a general deficit in recognition of emotion, which was related to their scores on the alexithymia measure and the bulimia subscale of the EDI. They also exhibited a specific deficit in the recognition of anger, which was related to their scores on the body dissatisfaction subscale of the EDI. Conclusions: In line with clinical eating disorders, non-clinical disordered eating is associated with emotion recognition deficits. However, the nature of these deficits appears to be dependent upon the type of eating psychopathology and the degree of co-morbid alexithymia.