			Home About us Contact

Functional Nature (functional + nature)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	40%
Life Sciences	40%

Selected Abstracts

Conceptual background, development, and preliminary data from the unified protocol for transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders,

DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY, Issue 10 2010
Zofia A. Wilamowska M.A.
Abstract Anxiety and mood disorders are common, chronic, costly, and characterized by high comorbidity. The development of cognitive behavioral approaches to treating anxiety and mood disorders has left us with highly efficacious treatments that are increasingly widely accepted. The proliferation of treatment manuals targeting single disorders, sometimes with trivial differences among them, leaves the mental health professional with no clear way to choose one manual over another and little chance of ever becoming familiar with most of them, let alone trained to competence in their delivery. Deepening understanding of the nature of emotional disorders reveals that commonalities in etiology and latent structures among these disorders supersedes differences. Based on empirical evidence from the domains of learning, emotional development and regulation, and cognitive science, we have distilled a set of psychological procedures that comprise a unified intervention for emotional disorders. The Unified Protocol (UP) is a transdiagnostic, emotion-focused cognitive behavioral treatment, which emphasizes the adaptive, functional nature of emotions, and seeks to identify and correct maladaptive attempts to regulate emotional experiences, thereby facilitating appropriate processing and extinction of excessive emotional responding to both internal (somatic) and external cues. The treatment components of the UP are briefly outlined. Theory and rationale supporting this new approach are described along with some preliminary evidence supporting its efficacy. Implications for the treatment of emotional disorders using the UP are discussed. Depression and Anxiety, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Influence of DNA repair gene polymorphisms on the initial repair of MMS-induced DNA damage in human lymphocytes as measured by the alkaline comet assay

ENVIRONMENTAL AND MOLECULAR MUTAGENESIS, Issue 9 2008
Charlotta Ryk
Abstract We have applied the alkaline comet assay to study the functional impact of gene polymorphisms in base excision repair (APEX1 Asp148Glu, XRCC1 Arg194Trp, XRCC1 Arg399Gln) and homologous recombination repair (XRCC3 Thr241Met, NBS1 Glu185Gln), two pathways that play crucial roles in the repair of DNA damage induced by methylmethane sulphonate (MMS). We also examined the effect of polymorphisms in mismatch repair (MLH1 ,93 A/G) and nucleotide excision repair (XPD Lys751Gln) as putative negative controls based on the limited roles of these pathways in MMS-induced repair. Phytohemagglutinin-stimulated peripheral lymphocytes from 52 healthy individuals were treated with MMS and allowed to repair for 0, 15, 40, or 120 min after a 6-min washing step. DNA damage was measured as a pseudo-percentage score (comparable to % tail DNA) converted from a total visual score calculated from the distribution of cells with different degrees of damage (normal, mild, moderate and severe). The repair was faster at the beginning of the observation period than towards the end, and was not complete after 2 hr. Presence of the APEX1 148Asp, XRCC3 241Met or NBS1 185Gln alleles were significantly associated with a high pseudo-percentage score (above median) at early time points, with the APEX1 effect being most prolonged (up to 40 min after washing, odds ratio 5.6, 95% confidence interval 2.0,15.5). No significant effects were seen with the XRCC1 Arg194Trp, XRCC1 Arg399Gln, MLH1 ,93A/G and XPD Lys751Gln polymorphisms. Our results provide evidence for the functional nature of the variant alleles studied in the APEX1, XRCC3, and NBS1 genes. Environ. Mol. Mutagen., 2008. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Linking return visits and return migration among Commonwealth Eastern Caribbean migrants in Toronto

GLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 1 2004
David Timothy Duval
Return visits are periodic but temporary sojourns made by members of migrant communities to their external homeland or another location where strong social ties exist. As a result, the conceptual framework in this article revolves around transnationalism as the return visit is shown to be a transnational exercise that may facilitate return. Using data from ethnographic fieldwork, three themes highlight the link between return visits and return migration: (1) the need to facilitate ties such that relationships are meaningful upon permanent return; (2) the functional nature of the return visit, such that changes are measured and benchmarked against what is remembered and internalized by the migration after the migration episode; and (3) the knowledge that return visits aid in reintegration. [source]

Stepwise Transition of 2:1 Atrio-Ventricular Block to 1:1 Conduction Induced by Ventricular Premature Beats in a Patient with Atypical AVNRT

PACING AND CLINICAL ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY, Issue 2 2010
ANTONIO SORGENTE M.D.
A 55-year-old man with a 2-year history of recurrent paroxysmal palpitations and with an electrocardiogram documentation of atypical atrioventricular nodal re-entrant tachycardia (AVNRT) was referred to us for catheter ablation. After an initial ablation attempt, several episodes of atypical AVNRT were induced. During one of these episodes, we documented a stepwise transition of 2:1 atrioventricular block to 1:1 conduction, following two single ventricular premature beats. This phenomenon confirmed the functional nature of the AV block during AVNRT and indirectly its infra-nodal location. (PACE 2010; 33:e20,e23) [source]

Reconstruction and Morphometric Analysis of the Nasal Airway of the Dog (Canis familiaris) and Implications Regarding Olfactory Airflow

THE ANATOMICAL RECORD : ADVANCES IN INTEGRATIVE ANATOMY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 11 2007
Brent A. Craven
Abstract The canine nasal airway is an impressively complex anatomical structure, having many functional roles. The complicated branching and intricate scrollwork of the nasal conchae provide large surface area for heat, moisture, and odorant transfer. Of the previous anatomical studies of the canine nasal airway, none have included a detailed rendering of the maxilloturbinate and ethmoidal regions of the nose. Here, we present a high-resolution view of the nasal airway of a large dog, using magnetic resonance imaging scans. Representative airway sections are shown, and a three-dimensional surface model of the airway is reconstructed from the image data. The resulting anatomic structure and detailed morphometric data of the airway provide insight into the functional nature of canine olfaction. A complex airway network is revealed, wherein the branched maxilloturbinate and ethmoturbinate scrolls appear structurally distinct. This is quantitatively confirmed by considering the fractal dimension of each airway, which shows that the maxilloturbinate airways are more highly contorted than the ethmoidal airways. Furthermore, surface areas of the maxilloturbinate and ethmoidal airways are shown to be much different, despite having analogous physiological functions. Functionally, the dorsal meatus of the canine nasal airway is shown to be a bypass for odorant-bearing inspired air around the complicated maxilloturbinate during sniffing for olfaction. Finally, nondimensional analysis is used to show that the airflow within both the maxilloturbinate and ethmoturbinate regions must be laminar. This work has direct relevance to biomimetic sniffer design, chemical trace detector development, intranasal drug delivery, and inhalation toxicology. Anat Rec, 290:1325,1340, 2007. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]