In our daily lives we all experience forms of stress and as humans, we are equipped with internal mechanisms to react to the phenomenon. We utilize tactics that are recognised as `fight or flight' depending upon how we perceive the threat and we employ them accordingly. However, when we are unable to meet the challenges placed upon us, when they form a barrier to our achievement and progress, we become overwhelmed and are susceptible to the detrimental effects of stress. The past two decades have witnessed rapid technological advances and we are thus connected to a global set of networks. Education has had to change in order to compete with a global market that requires new skills. Teaching and what teachers do have come under scrutiny in terms of audit to ensure that a `World-Class' education system is being delivered. As a result there has been an increase in teacher workload and the profession has become re-defined in order to meet contemporary needs. Recent research by government led bodies supports the need to address teacher workload as a major cause of stress. One result has seen the development of the Workload Agreement (2003) aimed at easing the ever-increasing demands placed upon teachers. Whether this measure will be enough to address the difficulties surrounding teaching in a post-modern society remains to be seen. This inquiry focuses on teachers who have experienced work place stress which is a widely recognised phenomenon and has its own particular features. In revealing key issues surrounding teachers and their workload this study aims to uncover the particular features of teacher stress with specific emphasis on role, role conflict, change, management issues, age and workload. Furthermore the study hopes to expose how teacher's lives are changed as a result of their encounter with stress. The harrowing nature of the participants' stress narratives compelled me to chronicle the stories and unveil the impact of their experiences upon all aspects of their lives. Employing methods associated with the case study approach, I conducted unstructured interviews with eight participants. Each person provided me with stories that are narratives of their stress experiences. The nature of this work is grounded in the qualitative paradigm and I have approached this from an interpretative stance. I believe my study confirms issues surrounding teacher workload and teacher stress merits inquiry.

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Human pleasant touches promote feelings of security, supportiveness, and wellbeing. Conversely, human unpleasant touches promote the body for either “fight or flight” or “short term acute stress” during emergencies, feeling of stress or danger. The promoted stress response is released from the hypothalamus by the sympathetic nerve system further to the spinal cord to reach the signals to the adrenal medulla, where stress hormones adrenaline is released. Adrenaline, which is characterized by a mimic sympathetic nerve system, interacts with α and β receptors on different organs. The aim for this study was to investigate whether the stroker (partner/stranger) touch effects on adrenaline hormone releases. The null hypothesis for this study entails a significant adrenaline reduction in partners’ touches compared with strangers’ touches. Indirect competitive ELISA method was used, and concentration data of a total of sixteen participants was obtained. Whitney-U test was carried out to compare group differences within stroker (stranger/partner) touches and adrenaline releasing level. In addition, correlation in adrenaline with noradrenaline and oxytocin hormones was obtained using Spearman’s correlation test. The significant p-value 0.05 was conducted. The result of this study showed no differences between stroker (partner/stranger) associated with adrenaline hormone release. Correlation between partner maximum (max) concentration data for both oxytocin and adrenaline had significant differences. However, max variables for adrenaline and noradrenaline within stroker did not show significant differences. The conclusion of this study is that the gentle touch stimulus used in this study was not enough to detect stress hormone in adrenaline.

<p>The fluid dynamics of blood in the systemic circulation modulates production of nitric oxide (NO), a potent vasodilator. Non-invasive techniques such as the flow-mediated dilation (FMD) test and physiologic phenomena associated with autonomic stress induce hyperemia and subsequently higher levels of wall shear stress (WSS), stimulating endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) expression. In the current clinical practice, WSS–a key regulator of endothelial function–is commonly estimated assuming a parabolic velocity distribution, despite the evidence that the temporal changes of pulsatile blood flow over the cardiac cycle modulate vasodilation in mammals. This work investigates the effect of cardiovascular stress on local WSS distributions and the potential for near-wall accumulation of nitrite, the vasoactive storage form of NO in the bloodstream. The specific aims of the project are therefore as follows: 1) develop a reduced-order model of the major systemic vasculature at rest, during a flight-or-flight response, and under moderate levels of aerobic exercise; 2) derive a velocity-driven Womersley solution for pulsatile flow to support accurate estimation of pulsatile WSS in the clinical setting; and 3) quantify cumulative transport of nitrite in a multiscale model of bifurcating vasculature utilizing computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Development of these open-source, translatable methods enable accurate quantification of hemodynamics and species transport during cardiovascular stress. Results detailed herein extend our knowledge about regulation of regional blood flow during autonomic stress, suggest a convergent evolutionary theory for having a complete circle of Willis, and potentially clarify reproducibility concerns associated with the FMD test. </p>

Crime is as old as mankind. It started with an incident of theft inside Paradise and a murder outside. In order to understand the phenomenon of crime several theories were formulated over time. One fact should be recognized: All forms of trauma can be reduced to a single common factor: Control – or better said: a lack of control. A lack of personal control causes tension; tension leads to desperation; desperation leads to irresponsibility. Then the door to crime is unlocked. Fortunately all irresponsibilities doesn’t lead to crime. In order to understand the offender it is imperative to understand his background. The relationship between childhood trauma and crime cannot be denied. It is a fact that childhood traumas can lead to abnormal brain development in early childhood. For this reason special attention is paid to the processes involved in brain development, both in normal children and in maltreated ones. If not identified and intervened in time, it can lead to a situation where the cycle of frustration and desperation, and eventually crime, cannot be interrupted - not even by prisonization. Management of change (rehabilitation) must reckon with the influence of said traumas on the brain development of children. Efforts to rehabilitate the offender becomes senseless if applied for an hour once a week. Such efforts cannot repair the damage done by negative influences repeated thousands of times over many years. In the same vein it is fruitless to aim therapeutic interventions on the reason of man hoping to repair the emotional damage of his childhood. For this reason the Neurosequential Method of Therapeutics holds promise in the quest for the rehabilitation of the offender and in the fight against crime. / Penology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Penology)

Crime is as old as mankind. It started with an incident of theft inside Paradise and a murder outside. In order to understand the phenomenon of crime several theories were formulated over time. One fact should be recognized: All forms of trauma can be reduced to a single common factor: Control – or better said: a lack of control. A lack of personal control causes tension; tension leads to desperation; desperation leads to irresponsibility. Then the door to crime is unlocked. Fortunately all irresponsibilities doesn’t lead to crime. In order to understand the offender it is imperative to understand his background. The relationship between childhood trauma and crime cannot be denied. It is a fact that childhood traumas can lead to abnormal brain development in early childhood. For this reason special attention is paid to the processes involved in brain development, both in normal children and in maltreated ones. If not identified and intervened in time, it can lead to a situation where the cycle of frustration and desperation, and eventually crime, cannot be interrupted - not even by prisonization. Management of change (rehabilitation) must reckon with the influence of said traumas on the brain development of children. Efforts to rehabilitate the offender becomes senseless if applied for an hour once a week. Such efforts cannot repair the damage done by negative influences repeated thousands of times over many years. In the same vein it is fruitless to aim therapeutic interventions on the reason of man hoping to repair the emotional damage of his childhood. For this reason the Neurosequential Method of Therapeutics holds promise in the quest for the rehabilitation of the offender and in the fight against crime. / Penology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Penology)

To survive, animals must adapt to a complex and challenging world in a way that is flexible and responsive, while maintaining internal homeostasis. Neuromodulators provide a means to systemically alter behavioral or physiological state based on intrinsic or extrinsic cues, however dysregulated neuroendocrine signaling has negative consequences for fitness and survival. Here I examine neuroendocrine function and dysfunction using the escape response in Caenorhabditis elegans. The RFamide neuropeptide FLP-18 is a co-transmitter with the monoamine tyramine and functions both synergistically and antagonistically to tyramine in coordinating escape behavior. Using behavioral analysis and calcium imaging, I show that FLP-18 functions primarily through the G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) NPR-5 to increase calcium levels in muscle, enhancing locomotion rate, bending and reversal behavior during the escape response. Furthermore, I examine the relationship between persistent acute stress and resilience using repeated activation of the escape response as a model of neuroendocrine dysregulation. Repeated activation of the escape response shortens lifespan and renders animals more susceptible to thermal, oxidative, and nutritional stress. Tyramine release is necessary and sufficient for this effect and activity of the tyraminergic RIM neurons is differentially regulated by acute versus long-term stressors. Impaired stress resistance requires both the GPCR TYRA-3 in the intestine and intestinal neuropeptide release. Activation of the insulin receptor DAF-2 is downstream of TYRA-3 and inhibits the transcription factors DAF-16/FOXO, SKN-1/Nrf2 and HSF-1, linking monoamine signaling in acute stress to the insulin signaling pathway and impaired resilience to long-term stressors.