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Own Research (own + research)
Selected AbstractsA novel pharmacological concept in an animal model of psychosis,ACTA PSYCHIATRICA SCANDINAVICA, Issue 2001R. R. Dawirs Objective:,We have analysed pharmacologically induced perturbation of functional and structural neurogenesis in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus. Method:,Juvenile gerbils received a single dose of methamphetamine (METH, 50 mg/kg, i.p.). In adults the following parameters were quantitatively investigated: prefrontal dopaminergic and GABAergic innervation densities (immunocytochemistry), morphogenesis of pyramidal cells (Golgi), dentate granule cell proliferation (BrdU-labelling), working memory and behavioural inhibition (delayed response, open-field). Results:,A single challenge of METH continuously suppresses granule cell proliferation in adult gerbils and initiates rewiring of neuronal networks in the PFC which run concurrently with the development of severe deficits in PFC-related behaviours. Conclusion:,It appears that a continuous remodelling of neuronal circuits is an inherent property of the brain, the biological significance of which seems to be to ascertain adaptive interaction between brain and environment. Learning more about drug-induced neuronal reorganization might be basic for understanding the genesis of psychotic conditions in the brain. This presentation is based both on own research and on a review of the literature. [source] Addiction Research Centres and the Nurturing of Creativity The Chinese National Institute on Drug Dependence, Peking University: past, present and futureADDICTION, Issue 9 2010Xi Wang ABSTRACT In the 25 years since drug abuse re-emerged in China in the 1980s, the National Institute of Drug Dependence (NIDD) has made many contributions to China's antidrug campaign. This present paper offers an account of the history, current status and future of drug dependence research at NIDD. NIDD was originally a research centre at Beijing Medical University, founded by the Chinese Ministry of Health to address the rapid spread of drug abuse in China. Originally, the main task of NIDD was to complete the commissions assigned by the government and university. Further developments transformed NIDD into a national research institute in the field of drug addiction that began to conduct its own research. NIDD has now created a professional team spread across several independent departments involved in neurobiological mechanisms, epidemiological surveys and monitoring, pre-clinical and clinical evaluation of new drugs (mainly analgesic drugs and detoxification drugs) and informatics and data analysis. As a university-based research institute, NIDD's funding derives mainly from grants provided by the government and financial support from international organizations. Its past and present research has a gained NIDD a reputation with both practitioners and policy makers in the field of drug addiction. In the future, NIDD will continue to engage in various aspects of drug addiction research and will enter the field of brain function. [source] Seasonal mortality and the effect of body size: a review and an empirical test using individual data on brown troutFUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY, Issue 4 2008Stephanie M. Carlson Summary 1,For organisms inhabiting strongly seasonal environments, over-winter mortality is thought to be severe and size-dependent, with larger individuals presumed to survive at a higher rate than smaller conspecifics. Despite the intuitive appeal and prevalence of these ideas in the literature, few studies have formally tested these hypotheses. 2We here tested the support for these two hypotheses in stream-dwelling salmonids. In particular, we combined an empirical study in which we tracked the fate of individually-marked brown trout across multiple seasons and multiple years with a literature review in which we compiled the results of all previous pertinent research in stream-dwelling salmonids. 3We report that over-winter mortality does not consistently exceed mortality during other seasons. This result emerged from both our own research as well as our review of previous research focusing on whether winter survival is lower than survival during other seasons. 4We also report that bigger is not always better in terms of survival. Indeed, bigger is often worse. Again, this result emerged from both our own empirical work as well as the compilation of previous research focusing on the relationship between size and survival. 5We suggest that these results are not entirely unexpected because self-sustaining populations are presumably adapted to the predictable seasonal variation in environmental conditions that they experience. [source] Boundary Perturbation Methods for Water WavesGAMM - MITTEILUNGEN, Issue 1 2007David P. Nicholls Abstract The most successful equations for the modeling of ocean wave phenomena are the free,surface Euler equations. Their solutions accurately approximate a wide range of physical problems from open,ocean transport of pollutants, to the forces exerted upon oil platforms by rogue waves, to shoaling and breaking of waves in nearshore regions. These equations provide numerous challenges for theoreticians and practitioners alike as they couple the difficulties of a free boundary problem with the subtle balancing of nonlinearity and dispersion in the absence of dissipation. In this paper we give an overview of, what we term, "Boundary Perturbation" methods for the analysis and numerical simulation of this "water wave problem". Due to our own research interests this review is focused upon the numerical simulation of traveling water waves, however, the extensive literature on the initial value problem and additional theoretical developments are also briefly discussed. (© 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source] Gender and Welfare Reform in Post- Revolutionary MexicoGENDER & HISTORY, Issue 1 2008Nichole Sanders This article discusses the impact a gender and woman's history conference had on the development of my own research and writing. ,Las Olvidadas' was a conference held at Yale in the Spring of 2001, and was the first in a series of Mexican women's and gender history conferences organised. My own research, on the gendered nature of the welfare state in Mexico, explores how class and race intersected with gender to produce a welfare system that, while particular to Mexico, also nevertheless had much in common with other Latin American countries. These conferences shaped both my views of gender, but also the importance of the transnational to historical research. [source] ,The Worst Thing is the Screwing' (1): Consumption and the Management of Identity in Sex WorkGENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 2 2000Joanna Brewis This paper reviews qualitative data from academic research into prostitution, accounts from prostitutes themselves in the UK and Australia, and data from one of the authors' own research in New South Wales to analyse the ways in which female sex workers negotiate and construct their sense of themselves. This analysis is informed by the suggestion that, in the act of commercial sex, the prostitute's own body is being consumed by the client, which can be seen to place certain pressures on the relationship between sex workers' professional and personal identities. Our review suggests that individual workers' tactics for managing the contradictions of working as a prostitute and preserving self-esteem are both similar and different, even within two broadly culturally commensurable contexts, and, moreover, that not all prostitutes necessarily want to maintain a strict divide between work sex and non-work sex in every encounter. Moreover, even for those who do, the trials of maintaining the divide are considerable, as is the permeability of boundaries between work and intimate sex. [source] Jim Bulpitt's Territory and Power in the United Kingdom and Interpreting Political Development: Bringing the State and Temporal Analysis Back InGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 3 2010Jonathan Bradbury This article addresses the relative neglect of Territory and Power in informing the study of general state political development, both as a theoretical approach and in its application to the UK. It locates Territory and Power as a distinct contribution to two major schools of comparative research. The first section argues that Territory and Power provided an approach that was part of the intellectual turn during the 1980s to bring the state back into the analysis of politics. The second part argues that Territory and Power should be seen also as a contribution to the intellectual turn since the 1980s towards temporal analysis of political development. On these bases future researchers may find Territory and Power more accessible as a work that they can incorporate in their own research. [source] Brains and brands: developing mutually informative research in neuroscience and marketingJOURNAL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, Issue 4-5 2008Tyler K. Perrachione Advances in neuroimaging technology have led to an explosion in the number of studies investigating the living human brain, and thereby our understanding of its structure and function. With the proliferation of dazzling images from brain scans in both scientific and popular media, researchers from other fields in the social and behavioral sciences have naturally become interested in the application of neuroimaging to their own research. Commercial enterprises have long been interested in the prospects of literally "getting inside the heads" of customers and partners, with a variety of goals in mind. Here we consider the ways in which scholars of consumer behavior may draw upon neuroscientific advances to inform their own research. We describe the motivation of neuroscientific inquiry from the point of view of neuroscientists, including an introduction to the technologies and methodologies available; correspondingly, we consider major questions in consumer behavior that are likely to be of interest to neuroscientists and why. Recent key discoveries in neuroscience are presented which will likely have a direct impact on the development of a neuromarketing subdiscipline and for neuroimaging as a marketing research technique. We discuss where and how neuroscience methodologies may reasonably be added to the research inventory of marketers. In sum, we aim to show not only that a neuromarketing subdiscipline may fruitfully contribute to our understanding of the biological bases of human behavior, but also that developing this as a productive research field will rest largely in framing marketing research questions in the brain-centric mindset of neuroscientists. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Science education in urban settings: Seeking new ways of praxis through critical ethnographyJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 8 2001Angela Calabrese Barton The challenges faced in urban science education are deeply rooted in the ongoing struggle for racial, class and gender equity. Part of this struggle is tied to huge differences in class and involves making more equitable the distribution of resources. Another part of this struggle is tied to the rich diversity of children who attend urban schools and involves generating new ways of understanding, valuing, and genuinely incorporating into school-based practices the culture, language, beliefs, and experiences that these children bring to school. Thus, this article argues that to address these two challenges,and indeed to achieve a more just science education for all urban students, explicitly political research methodologies must be considered and incorporated into urban education. One potential route for this is critical ethnography, for this kind of methodology emerges collaboratively from the lives of the researcher and the researched and is centrally about praxis and a political commitment to the struggle for liberation and in defense of human rights. In making this argument, I have drawn from stories from my own research with homeless children. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 899,917, 2001 [source] How Design Experiments Can Inform Teaching and Learning: Teacher-Researchers as Collaborators in Educational ResearchLEARNING DISABILITIES RESEARCH & PRACTICE, Issue 4 2005Asha K. Jitendra In this commentary, I summarize my own research with colleagues to affirm Dr. Gersten's call for considering design experiments prior to conducting intervention research. I describe how design experiments not only can inform teaching and the learning of innovative approaches, but also hold the promise of effectively bridging the research-to-practice gap to produce meaningful change in practice when innovative practices are fine-tuned and validated by partnerships with teacher-researchers. [source] What are 60 warblers worth?OIKOS, Issue 8 2007Killing in the name of conservation Ecological research sometimes entails animal suffering and even animal killing. The ethical appropriateness of animal suffering and killing in conservation research may entail considerations that differ from many other kinds of research. This is true, insomuch as conservation research is specifically motivated by an ethical premise: an appreciation for non-human life. In striking contrast with other academic fields (e.g. medicine), however, the ethical dimension of conservation research is only rarely discussed. When it is discussed, it tends to be characterized by logical errors. These errors are important because they are general (i.e. both common and with far-reaching implications), and they are easily made by intelligent people; especially those with no formal training in ethics or logic. Failure to recognize these errors could stymie efforts to increase the ethical quality of ecological research conducted in the name of conservation. We take advantage of a recently published dialogue concerning the ethical appropriateness of a specific field experiment that entailed killing black-throated blue warblers, Dendroica caerulescens. Both sides of this debate exemplify the kinds of errors to which we refer. In this paper we briefly review the arguments presented on each side of this debate, highlight their mistakes, and indicate necessary corrections. We argue that: (1) compliance with animal research regulations, while important, inadequately accommodates the ethical aspects of animal research, and (2) individual ecologists ought to understand themselves what does and does not represent sound and valid arguments for ethical decisions. Finally, we discuss how any ecological researcher might begin to apply our analysis to his or her own research. [source] Ngongas and ecology: on having a worldviewOIKOS, Issue 1 2001Joel S. Brown Ngongas provide a metaphor for some of the opportunities and challenges facing the science of ecology and evolution. Ngongas, the traditional healers of the Shona culture, Zimbabwe, fail in the delivery of quality health by today's standards. Their outdated worldview makes most health related issues seem more complicated and more multi-factorial than when viewed through the worldviews of modern medicine. With the wrong worldview, one can work very hard, be very bright and dedicated, and still be ineffective. With the right worldview, one can work much less hard and still be extremely effective. As ecologists, we should be opinionated and possess clearly articulated worldviews for filtering and interpreting information. As ecologists we are also a bit like ngongas , we often fail to provide answers for society's ecological questions and problems, and we excuse ourselves with a belief that ecological systems are too complex and have too many factors. Unlike ngongas, this invites us to pay a lot of attention to promoting and assessing competing worldviews. We should be open-minded to the anomalies in our worldview and the successes of alternative viewpoints. As an admitted ecological ngonga, I discuss the worldview I use in my own research: the Optimization Research Program, a Darwinian research program that uses game theory to conceptualize and understand ecological systems. I use it illustrate how worldviews can synthesize disparate ideas. (I use kin selection and reciprocal altruism as examples.) I use it to show how new ideas and predictions can be generated. (I use root competition in plants and the possibility that increased crop yield may be forthcoming from knowledge of this game.) [source] Torsional Vibration Damping Through Frictional Torsion Damper with Structural Friction and Slide Taken into ConsiderationPROCEEDINGS IN APPLIED MATHEMATICS & MECHANICS, Issue 1 2005Zbigniew Skup Ph. DSC The paper is concerned with a non-linear discrete stationary mechanical system containing a frictional torsion damper. Proper effect of vibration damping in a two-degree-of freedom system can be reached by the right selection of geometrical parameters for given loads, as pre-determined by a mathematical model. Structural friction was considered, as well as small relative sliding of damper's discs cooperating with a plunger. The system vibrates under harmonic excitation. The problem was considered on the assumption of uniform unit pressure distribution between the contacting surfaces of friction discs and the plunger. When the discs are sliding, the friction coefficient varies, depending on relative angular velocity. Friction characteristics were assumed on the basis of the author's own research and experimental testing by other authors. Properties of the material were assumed to be in accordance with classical theory of elasticity. The author analysed the influence of parameters of the dynamic system upon amplitude and frequency characteristics as well as on phase and frequency characteristics. The equation of motion was solved by means of the slowly-varying-parameters method and, in order to compare the results, by means of numerical simulation. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source] Comparison of PDQuest and Progenesis software packages in the analysis of two-dimensional electrophoresis gelsPROTEINS: STRUCTURE, FUNCTION AND BIOINFORMATICS, Issue 10 2003Arsi T. Rosengren Abstract Efficient analysis of protein expression by using two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) data relies on the use of automated image processing techniques. The overall success of this research depends critically on the accuracy and the reliability of the analysis software. In addition, the software has a profound effect on the interpretation of the results obtained, and the amount of user intervention demanded during the analysis. The choice of analysis software that best meets specific needs is therefore of interest to the research laboratory. In this paper we compare two advanced analysis software packages, PDQuest and Progenesis. Their evaluation is based on quantitative tests at three different levels of standard 2-DE analysis: spot detection, gel matching and spot quantitation. As test materials we use three gel sets previously used in a similar comparison of Z3 and Melanie, and three sets of gels from our own research. It was observed that the quality of the test gels critically influences the spot detection and gel matching results. Both packages were sensitive to the parameter or filter settings with respect to the tendency of finding true positive and false positive spots. Quantitation results were very accurate for both analysis software packages. [source] Prospective studies of exposure to an environmental contaminant: The challenge of hypothesis testing in a multivariate correlational contextPSYCHOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLS, Issue 6 2004Joseph L. Jacobson In this paper, we respond to the criticisms and concerns raised by D.V. Cicchetti, A.S. Kaufman, & S.S. Sparrow (this issue) in their review of the PCB literature, with particular attention to our own research in Michigan. We agree that multiple comparisons and functional significance are issues that would benefit from more discussion. However, because the effects associated with exposure to environmental contaminants are generally subtle, the risk of Type II error would be unacceptably high if researchers were to adopt the authors' recommendation to use a Bonferroni correction. We describe the hierarchical approach we have used to deal with the issue of multiple comparisons, which emphasizes the need to base interpretation on consistent patterns in the data and on replicated findings. The issue of confounding is one that has received considerable attention in the PCB studies and, given that one can never measure every possible confounder, the range of control variables that have been evaluated is impressive. We disagree with the authors' assertion that only standardized test scores are sufficiently reliable for use in these studies; behavioral teratogens often involve subtle effects, which can be identified most effectively by innovative, narrow-band tests that have not yet been normed. Moreover, longitudinal statistical analysis is not necessarily the method of choice for the issues being addressed in this literature. One important new development that Cicchetti et al. fail to note is the emergence of evidence from both the Michigan and Dutch cohorts indicating that breast-fed children are markedly less vulnerable. It is not yet clear to what degree this protective effect is attributable to nutrients in breast milk or to more optimal intellectual stimulation by nursing mothers, or both. However, the discovery of effect modifiers that can explain individual differences in vulnerability marks an important advance in our growing understanding of the teratogenic effects of exposure to environmental contaminants on child development. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 41: 625,637, 2004. [source] Taking post-development theory to the field: Issues in development research, Northern ThailandASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 3 2008Katharine McKinnon Abstract Emerging post-development literatures consider how post-structural and post-colonial critiques of development could form the basis for new kinds of development practices. Much of the search for such post-development possibilities draws on new theories of discourse. This paper considers the challenges of bringing together empirical research and the experience of doing development with the often ethereal and deeply speculative work of discourse theorists. I reflect on the course taken by my own research in Northern Thailand, and discuss the possibilities that can emerge as theory confronts empirics, and conceptual frameworks are transformed through the daily politics of fieldwork. [source] A European in Asia,ASIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2007Geert Hofstede How culture-proof are the social sciences? Travelling in another continent, one meets culture's influences not only in the objects of social science research, but at least as much in the minds of the researchers. Researchers' problem definitions and choices of issues to be addressed and questions to be asked limit what they will find; they are a potential source of ethnocentric bias. A case example of the discovery of such a bias was the emergence of a fifth dimension of national cultures supplementing Hofstede's four, through Bond's Chinese Value Survey. In the area of personality research, a number of newer and older findings by Asian and European researchers suggest the need for expanding the ,Big Five' model of personality traits with a sixth factor, Dependence on Others, in order to make the model culturally universal. In general, researchers recognize primarily those aspects of culture for which their own culture differs most from others. For escaping from the cultural constraints in our own research we therefore need to trade ideas with colleagues from other parts of the world. In this respect, Asian researchers have an important role to play. [source] Congruence and co-operation in social workers' assessments of children in needCHILD & FAMILY SOCIAL WORK, Issue 4 2007Dendy Platt ABSTRACT This paper examines the concepts of congruence and co-operation in social work practice with children and families. It describes findings from the author's own research and attempts to deconstruct the interaction of the two phenomena. Using material from other published research, the paper proposes a model and suggests methods for analysing congruence and co-operation in the practice context. The key implication is that the depth of a social worker's understanding of a family situation may affect his or her assessment of parental co-operation. [source] ,Just teach us the skills please, we'll do the rest': empowering ten-year-olds as active researchersCHILDREN & SOCIETY, Issue 5 2004Mary Kellett This paper discusses the outcomes of an initiative to empower ten-year-olds as active researchers. It debates some of the barriers that are commonly cited with regard to children of this age taking ownership of their own research agendas,power relations, competence, knowledge and skills,and challenges the status quo. It describes a study in which a group of ten-year-olds participated in a taught programme aimed at equipping them with the knowledge and skills to design their own research. This empowering process resulted in the children undertaking research projects of their own choosing, designed, carried out and reported entirely from their perspective. Reports from two of those projects are presented as part of this paper. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||