Colchicine and paclitaxel are two common drugs used in chemotherapy to halt tumor growth. In the present study IAR 20 cells were treated for 24 and 48 hr with colchicine and paclitaxel alone, in combination or no drug which served as a control. Through the use of Western blotting, we determined that the treatments affected expression due of several proteins including bcl-2, bax, p53 and caspase-8. The changes observed in protein expression due to the treatments correlated to the photomicrographs of the cells in culture and cell viability, indicating that the drugs were activating and initiating apoptosis. Interestingly, morphological changes such as membrane blebbing and cell swelling (indicators of apoptosis) were observed in the treated cultures and even more important the combined treatment yielded both changes in morphology. Also, activity assays were performed to study the effects the treatments had on the activities of SAPK/JNK and caspase-3, known activators of apoptosis. High activities of SAPK/JNK and caspase-3 in 48 hr treatments directly influenced cell viability in that the treatments with the highest activities yielded the lowest cell numbers, indicating that apoptosis was occurring. Based on these findings it was concluded that combined treatments of colchicine and paclitaxel are not advantageous in hepatocytes and could provide some insight into the treatment of liver cancer. Additionally, it appeared the drugs were initiating apoptosis in a p53 independent manner. / Department of Biology

This investigation examined the self-efficacy beliefs of medical professionals towards medically-related tasks. Although several instruments existed that measured different aspects of career self-efficacy, none of them was relevant nor appropriate to people who have already chosen their occupational field of choice. The typical scales utilized in assessing career self efficacy are generalized across occupations and not relevant to someone who was already employed in a profession. The purpose of the present study was to develop a new scale, Medical Tasks Self-Efficacy (MTSE), to measure the self-efficacy beliefs of a specific employed population toward their occupational tasks. The analysis of the MTSE was conducted using respondents (N=307) of medical professionals, specifically physicians and nurses. The reliability and validity of the scale was analyzed through four phases of scale development.Phase one consisted of item development which included the generation of an item pool from special occupational books and interviews with medical professionals (N=8). Additional experts (N=3) in scale construction were also consulted during this phase. Thirty-two items were developed originally and then, through consultation, reduced to 27 items. Phase two involved a pilot study with respondents from various medical settings in the midwest (N=34). The pilot study helped to provide preliminary reliability information and to modify the necessary demographic information. One more item was dropped from the scale during this phase and thus the revised MT SE consisted of 26 items.Phase three consisted of a major investigation (N=209) to test the initial factor structure of the MTSE and to examine the internal consistency. Using a principal components extraction, the MTSE yielded a two factor solution which seemed to best fit the data both in terms of statistical configuration and theoretical soundness. Factor One constituted tasks involving “medical content competencies" and held an alpha coefficient of .93. Factor Two constituted tasks involving "interpersonal process competencies" and held an alpha coefficient of .87.The fourth and final phase (N=64) was conducted to test the convergent and discriminant validity of the scale and to examine the test-retest reliability. Convergent and discriminant validity were tested using the Task Specific Occupational Self-Efficacy Scale (TSOSS) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The MTSE was hypothesized to demonstrate convergent validity with the TSOSS. Both factors of the MTSE were significantly correlated with the overall TSOSS, and additionally correlated with the four factors of the TSOSS, with one exception. Only Factor Two ("interpersonal process competencies") of the MTSE did not correlate significantly with factor four of the TSOSS. The BDI was used to test discriminant validity. The BDI did not correlate significantly with either of the factors of the MT SE. Thus, the MTSE demonstrated both convergent and discriminant validity with the instruments utilized in this study. The two-week test-retest correlation was .80, additionally demonstrating a stable reliability estimate in the MT SE. Limitations and implications for future research of the MT SE were provided. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Access to abstract permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of Educational Psychology

Changes in memory and the nature of the mnemonic trace are a source of never-ending interest, as well as of physiological importance, to the investigator. To date, no satisfactory solution has been provided as to exactly what occurs within the trace itself when increasing errors of memory are manifested with the passage of time. Traditionally there have been two opposing theories - one, supported by G. E. Müller, which maintains that forgetting consists principally of an increasing indefiniteness of the trace, and the other, originated by Wulf, who concluded, from studies pursued under Koffka’s direction, that the trace tends, not towards vagueness, but towards “better figures”. That is, in certain instances, such as in the perception of an irregular figure, the unstable organization of forces within the trace itself will tend towards equilibrium overriding the influence of external events upon it. (Wulf himself distinguished three sources of error, “normalizing”, “emphasizing” and “autonomous changes”, but Koffka later reduced these to two, namely “external influence” and “spontaneous change”). Not only this, the tendency towards stability which is manifested in increased symmetry, tendency to close a gap, sharpening, etc., will be progressive in time. [...]

Telecom today has become an essence of life. Everywhere we see people using their smart phones for calling, checking email or accessing internet. To handle all these kinds of services without any intrusion is a very challenging task. This study deals with software testing which helps to ensure the quality of service to the end user. Software testing is an essential part in the software development process. Software development for telecom domain might not look as safety critical as of an airplane or nuclear reactor but it is arguably more complex. The main focus of this study is to provide automation to the unit testing of different types of radio connections that can be assigned to the end user based on the requested service and capacity of the 3G network. This research is sponsored by Ericsson to improve the testing of User Equipment Radio Connection Handling system that controls multiple possible radio connection configurations. This research attempts to identify and test all possible transitions between radio connection states. This will improve the existing manual state testing system, where changes in connection states cause dramatic impacts on test fixtures. As a solution, an automatic test case executor is proposed that generates possible transitions, which are later executed and verified automatically.

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During its service life, a structure may be subjected to various environmental and loading conditions. However, in general, the properties determined under one set of conditions may not be used to determine the behaviour of the material under a different set of conditions. For example, it is well known that concrete is a strain rate sensitive material; therefore, its properties determined under conventional static loading cannot be used to predict the performance of concrete subjected to high strain rates. The problem is serious because these high strain rate loadings are associated with large amounts of energy imparted to the structure in a very short period of time, and concrete is a brittle material. Since the strain rate sensitivity of concrete prohibits the use of its statically determined properties in assessing its behaviour under dynamic conditions, high strain rate tests are required. Impact tests were carried out on about 500 concrete beams. An instrumented drop weight impact machine was used. The instrumentation included strain gauges mounted in the striking end of the hammer (called 'the tup'), and also in one of the support anvils. In addition, three accelerometers were mounted along the length of the beam in order to obtain the beam response, and also to enable the inertial correction to the observed tup load to be made. Two different concrete mixes, normal strength with a compressive strength of 42 MPa, and high strength with a compressive strength of 82 MPa, were tested. The effect of two types of fibres, high modulus steel, and low modulus fibrillated polypropylene, in enhancing concrete properties was investigated. In addition, tests were also conducted on beams with conventional reinforcement. Hammer drop heights ranging from 0.15m to 2.30m were used. Static tests were conducted on companion specimens for a direct comparison with the dynamic results. In general, it was found that concrete is a very stain rate sensitive material. Both the peak bending loads and the fracture energies were higher under dynamic conditions than under static conditions. Fibres, particularly the steel fibres, were found to significantly increase the ductility and the impact resistance of the composite. High strength concrete made with microsilica, in certain circumstances, was found to behave in a far more brittle manner than normal strength concrete. High speed photography (at 10,000 frames per second) was used to study the propagation of cracks under impact loading. In general, the crack velocities were found to be far lower than the theoretical crack velocities. The presence of reinforcement, either in the form of fibres, or of continuous bars was found to reduce the crack velocity. A model was proposed based on a time step integration technique to evaluate the response of a beam subjected to an external impact pulse. The model was capable of predicting not only the experimentally observed non-linear behaviour of concrete under impact loading, but also the more pronounced brittle behaviour of high strength concrete. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Civil Engineering, Department of / Graduate

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