Thesis (Ph. D. in Cell and Developmental Biology)--Vanderbilt University, May 2006. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisors: Christine L. Duvauchelle and Terrence J. Monks. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2006. / On t.p. "z" is subscript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-111). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 180-197). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Background: A key driver for early years strategies is the reduction of oppositional and defiant behaviour in childhood to prevent a negative life course of poor educational attainment and criminality. Despite a robust evidence base, manualised parent skills training programmes (PT) for externalising behaviour problems are only effective for approximately two-thirds of families. A limited number of variables that account for variance in outcome have been discovered. Finding further predictor, moderator and mediator variables will explain who benefits most, and how change occurs. This will ensure that families receive the most appropriate treatments for their profile of needs, and services deliver the available interventions in an efficient and effective way. Objectives: A systematic review of the literature was conducted to explore progress in this area since two key meta-analyses published in 2006. A primary study was carried out to examine whether parent attachment style, parenting self-efficacy and dysfunctional parental attributions predict, moderate or mediate the levels of externalising child behaviour problems reported by parents attending the Incredible Years PT. Methods: Studies exploring variables influencing outcome in child behaviour following attendance at a manualised, evidence-based PT group for parents of children and adolescents aged 0-18 years were sought. Psychinfo, Medline, ERIC and Embase databases were searched for articles published between August 2004 and March 2013 with keywords ‘parent’, ‘child’, ‘training’, ‘indirect effects’ and ‘oppositional behaviour’ or related terms. 2853 articles were retrieved, from which 12 studies fulfilled criteria. Study quality was appraised and co-rated. A pre-post, within subjects design was conducted with 79 parents attending the Incredible Years PT delivered in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. Participants completed a battery of pre-treatment questionnaires measuring attachment style, attributions, self-efficacy and child behaviour. 52 parents completed the same battery post-treatment, and missing data was carried forward in an intent to treat analysis. Data was analysed using multiple regression techniques, and mediation and moderated mediation analyses. Results: The recent evidence base is populated by secondary analyses of intervention RCTs, and less robust non RCTs. The selection of maternal mood, parenting stress, parenting style and child demographics dominate, and the exploration of unique variables is limited. Significant findings are mixed and add no new variables to our understanding. Significant changes in parenting self-efficacy and dysfunctional attributions were found post-treatment, and attachment style remained stable. A main treatment effect size of d=.3 was estimated, and a significant number of children fell below sub-clinical levels of problem behaviour (n=13, 15.7%). Baseline child-responsible attributions and self-efficacy accounted for up to 40% of the variance in baseline child behaviour. Attachment style did not contribute significantly to the model, but moderated parent-causal attributions. Post-treatment, attachment avoidance had a moderating effect on self-efficacy and child-responsible attributions, and a significant direct effect on outcome. The indirect effect of parental-attributions on child behaviour through self-efficacy was moderated by attachment avoidance which reduced the number of significant paths. Conclusions: The call for PT studies delivered with fidelity in real world settings has been recognised, and more sophisticated statistical models of mediation are being adopted. There remains an exhaustive list of novel potential variables that future research needs to select and explore in primary research designs. An evidence based PT is achieving statistically and clinically significant results for children referred for problem behaviour. Dysfunctional parent attributions and self-efficacy are predictors of both pre- and post-treatment levels of child behaviour, which could be screened for in the referral process. The evidence for a direct and indirect role of attachment style on parent training outcomes adds a new candidate variable to the literature that warrants further exploration.

Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-69). Description: viii, 68 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.

Carta al editor / Revisión por pares

The SuperNovae Analysis aPplication (SNAP) is a new tool for the analysis of SN observations and validation of SN models. SNAP consists of a publicly available relational database with observational light curve, theoretical light curve, and correlation table sets with statistical comparison software, and a web interface available to the community. The theoretical models are intended to span a gridded range of parameter space. The goal is to have users upload new SN models or new SN observations and run the comparison software to determine correlations via the website. There are problems looming on the horizon that SNAP is beginning to solve. For example, large surveys will discover thousands of SNe annually. Frequently, the parameter space of a new SN event is unbounded. SNAP will be a resource to constrain parameters and determine if an event needs follow-up without spending resources to create new light curve models from scratch. Second, there is no rapidly available, systematic way to determine degeneracies between parameters, or even what physics is needed to model a realistic SN. The correlations made within the SNAP system are beginning to solve these problems.

Methylgloxal synthase, which catalyzes the conversion of dihydroxyacetone phosphate to methylglyoxal and inorganic phosphate, has been found in several Enterobacteriaceae. The enzyme along with glyoxalase I and II and D-lactate oxidase, therefore, constitute a nonphosphorylated shunt of the normal glycolytic pathway