This study was designed to examine the hypothesis that the speech of criminal psychopaths is poorly integrated. Measures of cohesion (lexical, referential, conjunctive) and coherence (plot-units) were used to assess the degree to which independent clauses were linked together in the personal narratives of criminal psychopaths and criminal nonpsychopaths. General deviance in communication, as measured by the Scale for Thought, Language, and Communication Disorders (Andreasen, 1980), was also assessed. A significant number of psychopaths produced disordered communications. These communications failed on a number of levels: Psychopaths used relatively few cohesive links between sentences, failed to provide appropriate referents in discourse, failed to link action and resolution in stories, and showed significant clinical impairment in their ability to communicate. The results suggest that effective connections among speech units in psychopaths' discourse are not as numerous as those found in nonpsychopaths. In addition, psychopaths may suffer from a more general impairment in communication that is related to, among other things, discourse which has a tendancy to slip off track and a failure to directly answer a listener's questions. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

This study addresses the principles applicable to criminal capacity in the South African legal system. Focus is drawn to non-pathological criminal incapacity as a complete defence to a criminal charge. Non-pathological criminal incapacity can be described as the temporary inability on the part of the perpetrator to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct and/or to act in accordance with this appreciation. This mental inability is due to factors which cannot be ascribed to a pathological condition or mental illness. The study further investigates the application of the subjective and objective test as criteria for the defence of provocation and indicates the preferred test. The study also includes a discussion of the following aspects: • The study further investigates the application of the subjective and objective test as criteria for the defence of provocation Non-pathological criminal incapacity distinguished from pathological criminal incapacity • Non-pathological criminal incapacity distinguished from "sane" automatism • The role of amnesia in considering criminal capacity • The role of the expert witness in considering non-pathological criminal incapacity • Private defence versus battered woman syndrome and cumulative provocation • Criminal capacity and sentence. In the South African law the defence of non-pathological criminal incapacity was considered on numerous occasions by the High and Appeal Court, though mostly unsuccessful. It is also clear that the South African courts confuse the issue and fail to differentiate between the defences of non-pathological criminal incapacity and "sane" automatism. The study indicates that the two defences, though different, coincide. The South African courts increasingly raised the standard and requirements for a successful plea in an attempt to confine the popularity of the "new" defence of non-pathological criminal incapacity. A comparative study of the English and Canadian law indicates that provocation is only considered as a partial defence to murder, and only to reduce murder to manslaughter. The reasoning behind this was to evade the compulsory sentence of life imprisonment for murder by substituting it with a conviction of manslaughter where life imprisonment is not a compulsory sentence. The central question raised in this study is whether non-pathological criminal incapacity be a qualified and complete defence to any criminal charge in the South African law. Finally the study is concluded with a crisp summary of every preceding chapter and valuable recommendations stemming from the research are made. / Dissertation (LLM (Public Law))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Public Law / unrestricted

No description available.

Physicians are blind to the microscopic tissue structure that defines tissue type and pathologies during procedures. For diagnosis, tissue must be excised, fixed, and processed for histology, which can take anywhere from 20 minutes to days. This need for tissue excision and processing for microscopic visualization delays decision-making and necessitates repeat procedures. Limited sampling can also never fully eliminate the presence of disease. However, advances in optical sectioning techniques such as confocal and two-photon microscopy, which provide isotropic cellular-level resolution in bulk tissues, have obviated the need to physically section and process tissues for histology. Many optical imaging probes have been developed over the last three decades with the goal of demarcating tissue health in situ, either completely eliminating the need for tissue excision and processing for histopathology or guiding biopsy selection to reduce sampling bias. However, these techniques have faced major barriers to routine and widespread clinical use, including small 2D fields of view, limited contrast, slow imaging speeds and bulky laser sources. To address this critical need, SCAPE Microscopy, a light sheet-based microscopy technique recently developed in the Hillman lab, was developed for label-free, real-time, volumetric imaging at the point-of-care. SCAPE allows visualization of both cross-sectional and multilayer en face geometries in parallel and real-time, providing a more comprehensive view of tissue architecture than individual histology slides. Furthermore, tissues can be imaged label-free with structure shown through intrinsic fluorescence or in conjunction with intravenous or topical dyes. SCAPE’s video-rate speeds permit 3D stitching of large tissue areas and can withstand in vivo motion, which typically renders point-scanning techniques impractical. Most importantly, SCAPE is shown to allow 3D visualization of key histoarchitectural markers in human kidney biopsies through both endogenous and exogenous fluorophores. In this thesis work, a benchtop system is used for proof-of-concept imaging; however, miniaturized prototypes more suitable for clinical use are also presented. Further, high-throughput imaging of tissues is a critical but underserved need for bedside biopsy evaluation, as well as large-scale interrogation of structural organization and connectivity in the brain, retina and even whole model organisms. SCAPE provides near giga-voxel per second imaging rates that are well-suited for imaging large-scale ex vivo tissues at isotropic resolution at orders of magnitude faster speeds than point-scanning techniques. To this end, SCAPE was also developed as a versatile imaging platform for structural imaging of large-scale fresh, fixed, cleared and expanded samples for both bedside clinical evaluation and basic science research. It is demonstrated that planar samples of a few millimeters can be fully imaged at cellular resolution in just minutes by combining 3-axis stage-scanning and 3D stitching.

ABSTRACT In pathological left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) with a normal intrinsic myocardial function, eccentric chamber remodelling (cardiac dilatation) can produce a right shift in systolic pressure-volume (P-V) relations (systolic chamber dysfunction). Whether comparable degrees of cardiac dilatation in physiological (exercise-induced eccentric left ventricular remodelling) and pathological LVH produce similar effects on chamber function has not been determined. Hence, the aim of my thesis was to determine the impact of cardiac dilatation on systolic chamber function in chronically exercised rats with comparable increases in cardiac diastolic volumes as those produced by two rat models of pathological dilatation. Methods: Two models of cardiac dilatation were used, namely: (1) a model of pathological cardiac hypertrophy and dilatation (induced by chronic β-adrenoreceptor agonist administration to either Sprague-Dawley or spontaneously hypertensive rats), and (2) a model of physiological cardiac hypertrophy and dilatation (induced in Sprague-Dawley rats by 4-5 months of voluntary running activity on exercise wheels). 33 Sprague-Dawley rats were placed on spontaneous running wheels for 4-5 months (Exer group) and 24 Sprague-Dawley sedentary control rats (Con group) were placed individually in normal rat cages. To induced pathological dilatation, the β-agonist, isoproterenol (ISO) was administered daily to Sprague-Dawley rats for 7 months (SD-ISO, n=10) and to spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) for 4-5 months (SHR+ISO, n=22). Saline was administered daily to controls (SD, n=10; SHR, n=21) and to normotensive Wistar Kyoto rats (WKY, n=17). In isolated, perfused heart preparations, left ventricular (LV) dilatation was determined from the diastolic pressure-volume (P-V) relation and the volume intercept of the diastolic P-V relation (LV V0). Systolic chamber function was assessed by comparing LV developed pressures at specific filling volumes. Intrinsic systolic myocardial function was determined from the slope of the LV systolic developed stress-strain relation (myocardial systolic elastance). Results: ISO adminstered to SD and to SHR rats produced cardiac dilatation [LV V0 (ml): SD 0.20±0.01, SD-ISO 0.27±0.02, p<0.005; SHR 0.21±0.01, SHR-ISO 0.30±0.01, p<0.001], systolic chamber dysfunction (decrease in left ventricular developed pressures at incremental filling volumes) but normal intrinsic systolic myocardial function. Habitual exercise resulted in a right shifted LV diastolic P-V relation and an increased LV V0 (Exer 0.22±0.01, Con 0.18±0.01, p<0.005). In exercised rats (Exer-dilated, n=10) with equivalent dilatation as SD-ISO and SHR-ISO (LV V0 within 95% CI of SD-ISO and SHR-ISO), despite comparable LV diastolic P-V relations and LV V0 values (0.28±0.01); both systolic chamber function and intrinsic systolic myocardial function were normal. Conclusions: These data provide evidence to indicate that as compared to pathological dilatation, a similar extent of exercise-induced dilatation does not produce the same adverse effects on systolic chamber function.

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2003. / Includes bibliography.

This graduation thesis is considering the social patological phenomena problem targeted on the childern and youth. It is elaborated in the point of the view of the I. and II. degree elementary school teachers. In the introduction there are described selected social patological phenomena and contemporary system of primary prevention, especially in the sphere of action of the Ministry of Education, youth and sports of Czech Republic. The practice part of this thesis puts brain to question-form research of solved problem. The participants were I. and II. degree elementary school teachers. The significant part of the thesis pictures the questionnaire and his interpretation.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1979 H37 / Master of Science