Description:
Objective: Parents who lose an only child in China are stressed and traumatized due to social identity threat (SIT). This qualitative study aimed to interpret their experience to inform culturally and socially sensitive intervention strategies. Methods: Using a phenomenological approach, 17 bereaved parents who lost an only child were interviewed. The transcripts were analyzed using Colaizzi's method. Results: Three themes were identified, namely, "assuming a new social identity," "triggering social identity threat," and "resisting social identity threat and maintaining resilience." The study showed that SIT initially began with identity reconstruction, where self-identity and social identity occurred 1 after another. Once labeled with such social identity, the bereaved parents suffered social identity threat triggered by inner inferiority and external stigmatization. The bereaved parents undertook a variety of coping strategies to resist the threat and to maintain resilience of these strategies, 4 patterns depicting resilience and threat were interpreted. Conclusion: The findings offer an understanding of the multifaceted bereavement dilemma and lay a foundation for developing intervention strategies. Promoting or maintaining resilience and alleviating SIT are 2 important ways that help parents move on. To help them with identity reconstruction, the development of culturally sensitive resilience-based programs and the linking of social resources to solve practical problems are recommended. Community health professionals should encourage parents to maintain good health management to prevent their predicament from worsening. Raising economic assistance, building an elderly care support system, and promoting social acceptance are strategies that could be considered by policymakers. Clinical Impact StatementThe bereaved parents who have lost an only child in China is facing a multifaceted dilemma, which involves psychological, economic and cultural issues. This study applies the construct of social identity threat to interpretive lived experience of parents in China who have lost their only child. The study contributes to better understanding of their multifaceted bereavement dilemma, and lay the foundation for developing psycho-behavioural intervention strategies, which potentially also benefit other marginalized or traumatized bereaved groups. Results in this study offered several recommendations for psychological counselors, community workers, community health professionals, and government policymakers.
Description:
This paper proposes a new method for simultaneous dynamic wireless power and data transfer (SDWPDT). When the receiver is moving, both power and data transfer channels are dynamically switched ON/OFF according to the receiver's position. In essence, data is transmitted through the high-frequency electric field (EF) generated by the parasitic capacitances of the coupling coils and the metal shield plates, while power is transmitted through the relatively low-frequency magnetic field (MF) generated by coupling coils. By doing this, mutual interference between two transfer channels (i.e., power and data transfer channels) is relatively small. Firstly, the interference from power to data can be greatly reduced due to the absence of a direct electrical wire-based connection. Secondly, the power loss caused by the data transfer channel in the power link is very small so it can be ignored. In addition, the implementation of real-time communication facilitates the establishment of a closed-loop control within the system. This mechanism guarantees consistent power output during dynamic movement, even in the presence of fluctuations in load or input voltage. Laboratory prototype-based experimental findings substantiate the feasibility of the proposed approach.
Description:
Thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) has a prevalence of 0.16–0.34% and an incidence of 7.6 per 100,000 person-years, accounting for 1–2% of all deaths in Western countries. Currently, no effective pharmacological therapies have been identified to slow TAA development and prevent TAA rupture. Large TAAs are treated with open surgical repair and less invasive thoracic endovascular aortic repair, both of which have high perioperative mortality risk. Therefore, there is an urgent medical need to identify the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying TAA development and rupture to develop new therapies. In this review, we summarize animal TAA models including recent developments in porcine and zebrafish models: porcine models can assess new therapeutic devices or intervention strategies in a large mammal and zebrafish models can employ large-scale small-molecule suppressor screening in microwells. The second part of the review covers current views of TAA pathogenesis, derived from recent studies using these animal models, with a focus on the roles of the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF
Description:
Thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) has a prevalence of 0.16–0.34% and an incidence of 7.6 per 100,000 person-years, accounting for 1–2% of all deaths in Western countries. Currently, no effective pharmacological therapies have been identified to slow TAA development and prevent TAA rupture. Large TAAs are treated with open surgical repair and less invasive thoracic endovascular aortic repair, both of which have high perioperative mortality risk. Therefore, there is an urgent medical need to identify the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying TAA development and rupture to develop new therapies. In this review, we summarize animal TAA models including recent developments in porcine and zebrafish models: porcine models can assess new therapeutic devices or intervention strategies in a large mammal and zebrafish models can employ large-scale small-molecule suppressor screening in microwells. The second part of the review covers current views of TAA pathogenesis, derived from recent studies using these animal models, with a focus on the roles of the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF
Examining the intra-rater reliability of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)-Induced Motor Evoked Potentials (MEPs) within and between sessions: a step towards ensuring accuracy of observed mep changes in repeated measures studies conducted by newly trained TMS operators
Description:
We revisit the decoupling approach widely used (often intuitively) in nonlinear analysis and optimization and initially formalized about a quarter of a century ago by Borwein & Zhu, Borwein & Ioffe and Lassonde. It allows one to streamline proofs of necessary optimality conditions and calculus relations, unify and simplify the respective statements, clarify and in many cases weaken the assumptions. In this paper we study weaker concepts of quasiuniform infimum, quasiuniform lower semicontinuity and quasiuniform minimum, putting them into the context of the general theory developed by the aforementioned authors. Along the way, we unify the terminology and notation and fill in some gaps in the general theory. We establish rather general primal and dual necessary conditions characterizing quasiuniform
Description:
We revisit the decoupling approach widely used (often intuitively) in nonlinear analysis and optimization and initially formalized about a quarter of a century ago by Borwein & Zhu, Borwein & Ioffe and Lassonde. It allows one to streamline proofs of necessary optimality conditions and calculus relations, unify and simplify the respective statements, clarify and in many cases weaken the assumptions. In this paper we study weaker concepts of quasiuniform infimum, quasiuniform lower semicontinuity and quasiuniform minimum, putting them into the context of the general theory developed by the aforementioned authors. Along the way, we unify the terminology and notation and fill in some gaps in the general theory. We establish rather general primal and dual necessary conditions characterizing quasiuniform
Description:
Glioblastoma is highly proliferative and invasive. However, the regulatory cytokine networks that promote glioblastoma cell proliferation and invasion into other areas of the brain are not fully defined. In the present study, we define a critical role for the IL-11/IL-11R
Description:
Glioblastoma is highly proliferative and invasive. However, the regulatory cytokine networks that promote glioblastoma cell proliferation and invasion into other areas of the brain are not fully defined. In the present study, we define a critical role for the IL-11/IL-11R