Thrombosis, the major cause of heart attack and strokes,1 is triggered by localized clotting of the blood as the result of deregulated platelet aggregation. During the repair of vascular injury, clotting usually occurs when platelets adhere to each other at the site of vascular injury in order to stop bleeding.2 Distinct protein receptors and adhesive ligands together with the blood flow conditions govern this process. One of the negative regulators in platelet aggregation is Disabled-2 (Dab2), a modular protein that is released upon platelet activation to the extracellular platelet surface.3 Dab2 inhibits platelet aggregation through its phosphotyrosine-binding (PTB) domain by competing with fibrinogen for ï ¡IIï ¢3 integrin binding on the activated platelet surface.3 Sulfatides are also found on the platelet surface,4 interacting with adhesive and coagulation proteins5-7 and, thus, they are thought to play a major role in haemostasis and thrombogenesis. Here, we show that the Dab2 PTB domain specifically interacts with sulfatides through two conserved basic motifs. The sulfatide-binding site overlaps with that of phosphatidylinositol 4,5-biphosphate (PtdIns(4,5)P2) in the PTB domain. Whereas sulfatides recruit the Dab2 PTB domain to the platelet surface, thus sequestering the protein from thrombin-mediated platelet aggregation, the phosphoinositide mediates its internalization. Experimental data support the hypothesis that two pools of Dab2 co-exist at the platelet surface and that the balance between them controls the extent of the clotting response. / Master of Science

There is an ongoing trend in Western societies, including Australia, to move people with developmental disabilities out of institutions and into community based accommodation. When deinstitutionalisation occurs it impacts not only on the person with a disability but on their significant others and also on the organisation/s providing them with support. While government departments and support organisations say that they involve family members in deinstitutionalisation, little previous research has focussed on family members’ experiences of deinstitutionalisation to know if it is an engaging and empowering experience for them. Most previous studies of deinstitutionalisation, where they have spoken to significant others, have focussed on their perceptions of the benefits or disadvantages of deinstitutionalisation for their son or daughter with a disability directly rather than considering how it impacted upon the significant others. I identified this as a gap in our current knowledge and set out through this study to find out what deinstitutionalisation was like from the viewpoint of some significant others involved in it My research methodology was informed by a Symbolic Interactionist approach whereby I wished to investigate the meaning attached by significant others to the process and the outcomes of deinstitutionalisation through in depth interviews The application of selective coding procedures led to the development of the core category - for some significant others devolution is a disempowering process. This is a different viewpoint to that expressed in the majority of studies of devolution. In considering why this study revealed a different story, I identified through the data and from reviewing the available international literature, that deinstitutionalisation rekindles feelings of guilt regarding the decision to place their child in an out-of-home placement. Application of these principles might result in Empowering Partnerships which would in turn benefit all three players. I translated the three major categories and five principles into a Model of Empowering Partnerships in Devolution. / Master of Arts (Hons)

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 113-133).

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-133). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 158 p.; also includes graphics (some col.). Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-118). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 1995. / Title from title page screen, viewed May 11, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Lanny Morreau, Mack Bowen (co-chairs), Ming-Gon John Lian, Kenneth Strand, Mark Swerdlik. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-77) and abstract. Also available in print.

No / In this paper we will discuss the current tensions that exist between UK anti-discrimination legislation and the professional and statutory regulatory bodies (PSRBs) that govern registration of health and social care practitioners in the United Kingdom. The tensions arise from aspirations for a work force that reflects the wider community and the need to safeguard patient safety. We present an overview of the relevant legislation and the requirements of the main health and social care professional statutory and regulating bodies, whose overall aim is safeguarding the general public. Four individual case studies, which have drawn on qualitative and quantitative data to explore some of the ensuing challenges and seek resolutions, are discussed and their outcomes synthesised to make recommendations. Conducting research with disabled participants requires specific considerations; we reflect on these in this paper and discuss our experiential learning.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

With an explicit focus on how power is enacted and what this produces in the everyday lives of chronically ill women living on B.C. disability income support (BC Benefits), this research is located at the contested juxtaposition of what I refer to as three fields of possibility; feminism, poststructuralism and critical disability studies. Each of these fields suggests methodological, empirical and interpretive readings that enable me to produce different knowledge, differently, about disabled women’s lives. Using verbatim narrative accounts from in-depth interviews focused on how each of four participants live their lives, take care of themselves, and make sense of and respond to the government policy and practices to which they are subject, reveals everyday, embodied practices of the self that constitute their subjectivities as disabled women. Together, these accounts along with critically interpretive reflections reveal/expose/make visible the lives of these women in response to exercises of power in ways that unseat, unsettle and disrupt taken-for-granted understandings of those who are disabled, female and poor. Along with explicating power relations in the lives of disabled women and what these produce, I also link these critically to their health, socio-economic well-being and citizenship, while creating a disruptive reading that destabilizes common-sense notions about disabled women securing B.C. provincial income support benefits. Thus my research purposes and those of my disability activism are melded as these intersect within the (often-contested) borders of poststructural and social justice terrain. Despite public claims by the B. C. government to foster the independence, participation in community and citizenship of disabled people in B.C., the intersection of government policy and practices and how they are read and taken up by the women, produce profound uncertainty in their lives, such that these women become uncertain subjects. Living poorly, they experience structural poverty, compromised well-being and “dis-citizenship” (Devlin & Pothier, 2006), all inconvenient facts reflecting a marked disjuncture between how government programs are publicly represented and their strategic effects. / Graduate

Previous research suggests that careproviders' attitudes and perceptions significantly influence the type and quality of services received by institutionalized adults with developmental disabilities (IADD). This study explored attitudes careproviders hold concerning training needs of the IADD and their service model orientation. It traced the history of training people with developmental disabilities and provided a brief review of the medical, developmental, and normalization models of service delivery. The conceptual framework upon which this study was based proposed that staff perceptions and orientation concerning service delivery to the IADD can be conceptually related to five factors in a research model. They were identified as: (a) careprovider's characteristics; (b) working environment; (c) previous careprovider experience; (d) developmental disability history within the careprovider's family; and (e) self-reporting of a service delivery orientation. This study examined only a portion of this model (factors a, b, and e). The response sample included 370 professionals and paraprofessionals, aged 17 to 72 years, who were employed at a large residential facility serving individuals with developmental disabilities in Denton, Texas. The respondents were predominantly female (76.5%), Caucasian (72.2%) with slightly less than 75% having more than a high school diploma. The instrument, a self-administered questionnaire, consisted of three parts; Careprovider's Service Model Orientation; Careprovider's Perception of Training Needs; and, Demographic Information. Data were analyzed through the use of regression, chi square, and analysis of variance tests. Findings revealed several significant relationships between: professional status and perceptions of training needs of the IADD; professional status and service model orientation; professional status and reported service model orientation; professional status and attitude toward the medical model; and, professional status and attitude toward the developmental model. Significant relationships were not found for four additional hypotheses that were included the study.