In 1816 a group of white, affluent women in Natchez, Mississippi founded the Female Charitable Society, one of many ladies' associations in the early republic devoted to the care of poor and orphaned children. Born during a pervasive evangelical awakening, the Society established a charity school then, after a few years, constructed an orphan asylum. In doing so, benevolent women created not only a shelter for parentless boys and girls but a "civic household" of which they served as a collective head. Supported by charitable contributions rather than tax revenue, the orphan asylum functioned as a model environment, one that would rear prepubescent white children to be moral and industrious in trades that befit their born condition. The asylum also represented an opportunity for personal spiritual renewal on the part of donors as well as a landmark of municipal refinement. By promoting themselves as the natural caretakers of poor young children and fostering a culture of sympathy for them, benevolent women challenged the primacy of the statutory system of juvenile relief, which dated back to the earliest days of colonial settlement. Gradually, the Female Charitable Society raised the standard of relief for prepubescent indigent minors, diverted them from bound apprenticeship, wrested jurisdiction over them from male county officials, and gathered them into the household. The female-run orphan asylum largely supplanted apprenticeship as the preferred system of juvenile relief in Natchez, mirroring developments in other cities around the country. This study investigates why and how the orphan asylum emerged as a prominent form of juvenile relief in the United States. Using Natchez as a case study, this work underscores the role of benevolent women in effecting concrete transformations within the community as well as the impact of changes in domestic familial relations on child welfare. This study also expands the notion of "republican motherhood" to include "civic motherhood," that is, the public cultivation of maternal authority over poor children. Members of the Natchez Female Charitable Society positioned themselves as the rightful guardians of white, indigent boys and girls and was eventually granted legal authority over them by the State of Mississippi. / text

No description available.

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are signal mediators that have a prominent role in the regulation of physiological processes and they make up the targets for 30-45% of all drugs. Papers I and II describe the discovery of new human GPCRs belonging to the Rhodopsin family, a family which contains many common drug targets. The new receptors have only weak relationships to previously known GPCRs. However, they have been evolutionary conserved in several species and most of them display distinct expression patterns. In paper III we identified new human GPCRs belonging to the Adhesion family, which is characterised by very long N-termini containing conserved domains. The different compositions of conserved domains as well as the expression patterns suggest that the Adhesions can have several different functions. In paper IV we revealed remarkable species variations in the repertoires of Trace Amine-Associated Receptors (TAARs), which are relatives of the biogenic amine receptors. The human, mouse and rat TAAR genes are located in only one locus and are therefore most likely the result of gene tandem duplications. 47 of the 57 zebrafish TAARs were mapped to nine different loci on six chromosomes containing from 1 to 27 genes each. This study suggests that the TAARs arose through several different mechanisms involving tetraploidisation, block duplications, and local duplication events. Papers V and VI are overall analyses of the repertoires of GPCRs in humans, mice and rats; which contain approximately 800, 1800 and 1900 members, respectively. The repertoires were compared to distinguish between species-specific and common (orthologous) members, something which is important for example when predicting drug effects from experiments in rodents. The Glutamate, Adhesion, Frizzled and Secretin families show no or very little variation between human and rodents, whereas the repertoires of olfactory, vomeronasal and Taste2 receptors display large differences between all three species.

Zugl.: Augsburg, Universiẗat, Diss., 2007.

With advances in high-throughput technologies and next-generation sequencing, the amount of genomic and proteomic data is dramatically increasing in the post-genomic era. One of the biggest challenges that has arisen is the connection of sequences to their activities and the understanding of their cellular functions and interactions. In this dissertation, I present three different strategies for mining, predicting and visualizing biological functions. In the first part, I present the COMputational Bridges to Experiments (COMBREX) project, which facilitates the functional annotation of microbial proteins by leveraging the power of scientific community. The goal is to bring computational biologists and biochemists together to expand our knowledge. A database-driven web portal has been built to serve as a hub for the community. Predicted annotations will be deposited into the database and the recommendation system will guide biologists to the predictions whose experimental validation will be more beneficial to our knowledge of microbial proteins. In addition, by taking advantage of the rich content, we develop a web service to help community members enrich their genome annotations. In the second part, I focus on identifying the genes for enzyme activities that lack genetic details in the major biological databases. Protein sequences are unknown for about one-third of the characterized enzyme activities listed in the EC system, the so-called orphan enzymes. Our approach considers the similarities between enzyme activities, enabling us to deal with broad types of orphan enzymes in eukaryotes. I apply our framework to human orphan enzymes and show that we can successfully fill the knowledge gaps in the human metabolic network. In the last part, I construct a platform for visually analyzing the eco-system level metabolic network. Most microbes live in a multiple-species environment. The underlying nutrient exchange can be seen as a dynamic eco-system level metabolic network. The complexity of the network poses new visualization challenges. Using the data predicted by Computation Of Microbial Ecosystems in Time and Space (COMETS), I demonstrate that our platform is a powerful tool for investigating the interactions of the microbial community. We apply it to the exploration of a simulated microbial eco-system in the human gut. The result reflects both known knowledge and novel mutualistic interactions, such as the nutrients exchanges between E. coli, C. difficile and L. acidophilus.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a prevalent cause of vision loss and irreversible blindness that affects more than 11 million Americans. AMD is a multifactorial disease with a number of genetic, demographic, and environmental risk factors. Currently the etiology of AMD is still unclear and there are no effective cure for this devastating disease, but recent studies have demonstrated that RORA is a candidate gene involved in AMD pathophysiology. RORA is a critical regulator of multiple biological processes and has been implicated in various physiological processes including circadian rhythm, lipid metabolism, photoreceptor development, autism, and inflammation. Our current study will explore in depth the role of RORA in AMD. We will look at the effects of RORA in the retina of mice. Localization studies of retinal tissues obtained from mice with a conditional knockout of RORA in epithelial cells showed little effect of RORA on structural cells of the retina. However, there was a decrease in VEGF and TGF-B proteins in RORA knockout. This is an interesting finding because VEGF and TGF-B has an important function in angiogenesis and neovascularization which are pathophysiological effects of AMD. In addition, we will try to identify gene targets of RORA that have also been linked with AMD. By identifying the targets of RORA and discovering how RORA regulates these targets, we hope to better understand the role of RORA in AMD pathophysiology. ChIP-seq and software analysis of the data was performed to identify all genomic targets of RORA linked with AMD. A number of promising genes were found in both RORA and AMD networks. The next step of this study is to perform quantitative analysis of these genes and how their expression is affected by RORA. Also, we will perform additional conditional RORA knockout models in cone cells and developing retinal cells to further understand the role of RORA in the retina and AMD pathogenesis.

This diploma thesis deals with the evaluation of lambing process, maternal ability of ewes and care of lambs in a selected breed for three years.

This study was an autoethnography authored in the form of layered accounts. It was based on my journey toward a correct diagnosis with the rare, orphan disease known as mastocytosis. The purpose of the study was to utilize my experiences to investigate mastocytosis from the perspective of an individual diagnosed with the disease. Furthermore, I investigated what ways and how much adult education philosophies and principles (e.g., humanistic, behaviorist, and adults’ involvement in learning) may have been salient in my being correctly diagnosed to examine not only the disparities, but also the similarities in the way each physician I encountered approached the diagnostic process. The layered accounts—written in three distinct layers—revealed my perception of my journey toward a correct diagnosis as blind, discouraging, and isolating (layers one). Also noted in layer one are detailed descriptions of my bouts with chorea (extreme, uncontrollable spasms affecting the limbs), which was rarely discussed in the literature. The responses of those around me (layer two) ranged from shock, genuine concern, uncertainty, judgement, dismissal, disbelief, humor, anger, hurt, and positivity. Pertinent literature on mastocytosis was juxtaposed with my experiences divulged in the first layer and highlighted similarities in the approach to the diagnostic process taken by the physicians who treated me and multiple disparities between what the literature states my experience as someone diagnosed with mastocytosis versus my actual experiences (layer three). In addition to identifying the most salient adult education philosophies and principles in my journey to a correct diagnosis, this research identified parallels between the facilitator-learner relationship in adult education and the physician-patient relationship. The results implicate three principles and three philosophies salient to my correct diagnosis, along with one philosophy and one principle which were the most salient. An overarching theme of self-directedness emerged along with a multiple disparities between what the literature states my experience should have been versus what took place as I sought medical care.

No description available.

Master of Public Health - MPH / Background: The repercussions of being HIV positive coupled by the complications of antiretroviral therapy are likely to cause distress, emotional and psychological problems particularly among children infected by the virus. The limited support services for children experiencing distress intensify the urgency to address this challenge. Despite the availability of social workers and nurses' interventions currently in place, the number of children in need of psychological care continues to increase. This is particularly true at Deborah Retief Memorial (DRM) hospital, one of the main antiretroviral therapy facilities in Kgatleng district, Botswana. Method: The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the perceptions of social workers, nurses and caregivers on key factors contributing to psychological distress of HIV positive children. A descriptive, exploratory qualitative study design that employed the use of in-depth interviews was used to conduct this study. Participants included four caregivers of HIV positive children who seek antiretroviral therapy at DRM hospital Infectious Diseases Control Clinic, together with five nurses and two social workers who worked in the same clinic. Conventional content analysis was used to analyse the in-depth interview transcripts. Results: Perceived psychological stressors for HIV positive children included disclosure of HIV status, orphanhood, social problems, lifelong treatment, stigma, poor caregiver-child relationship and lack of caregiver‟s love, care and support. However the caregivers did not fully understand the psychological distress the HIV positive children were experiencing, hence were unable to recognize it in these children. The study highlighted that major challenges faced by the health-workers included lack of qualified personnel, lack of adequate knowledge and skills, and a non-conducive working environment required to effectively assist children with psychological distress. The findings also indicated the need for education and support of caregivers and HIV positive children by the educators, family and health-worker systems. Conclusion: The profile of key stressors of psychological distress, the challenges and support needs suggested by the participants in this study can provide a framework for improving the existing services for HIV positive children with psychosocial problems. This information is important for use in training nurses and social workers involved with children with psychological behaviours.