Overt Expression Research Articles

Children's emotion regulation across and within nations: A comparison of Ghanaian, Kenyan, and American youth

This research examined national, regional, developmental, and gender differences in children's reported management of anger and sadness. Participants (8-15 years) were 103 Ghanaian children from a village setting, 142 Ghanaian children from a middle-class urban context, 106 Kenyan children from an impoverished urban context, and 170 children from the United States in lower to middle-class urban areas (58.8% Caucasian). Children completed the Children's Anger and Sadness Management Scales (Zeman, Shipman, & Penza-Clyve, 2001) to assess emotion management (i.e., effortful control, over control, under control). Comparisons across nations indicated that Ghanaian youth reported more overt anger expression than youth from Kenya and the United States and less anger inhibition than Kenyan youth. U.S. children reported less overt expression and more constraint over sadness than Kenyan and Ghanaian children, although Kenyans reported being calmer when experiencing sadness than Ghanaian and American youth. Comparing Ghanaian regional contexts, village children reported more anger control than urban children. Regardless of nationality, boys reported more control over sadness than girls who reported more under control of sadness and more over control of anger than boys. Future research is needed to build on these descriptive, preliminary findings examining under-studied cross-national contexts.

Influence of coping strategies on somatic symptoms in pregnant Spanish women: differences between women with and without a previous miscarriage

The aim of this research was to analyze the relation between coping strategies and somatic symptomatology in pregnant Spanish women and the influence of a previous miscarriage on these variables. We used a correlational retrospective design, which included 207 expectant mothers (44 with a previous miscarriage). The instruments included a questionnaire on coping with stress and questions about first-trimester symptoms. Regression analysis showed a significant positive relationship between sleep disturbances and overt emotional expression coping, between tiredness/fatigue and avoidance coping, and between nausea and religious coping. The influence of coping strategies on somatic symptomatology did not differ significantly between women who had had or had not had a previous miscarriage, although women with a previous miscarriage scored higher on the use of religious coping and positive reappraisal and reported more nausea.

Task complexity and linguistic and discourse features of narrative writing performance

The research presented in this paper aimed to investigate the linguistic and discourse characteristics of narratives produced by upper-intermediate foreign language learners in a bilingual secondary school. In our analyses we used a variety of linguistic and discourse variables and a recently developed computer tool (Coh-Metrix 2.0: McNamara, Louwerse, Graesser, 2002) to describe the characteristics of narrative texts.As a background for comparison, we also collected data from a small group of L1 writers in order to gain an insight into features of written task performance that is not hindered by difficulties in accessing linguistic knowledge required to execute a task. The variable whether students had to narrate a story with a given content or whether they were free to plan the plot of the story exerted a major impact only on one measure of lexical sophistication and had a minor effect on the overt expression of temporal cohesion. The study showed that the major difference between L1 and foreign language writers could be found with relation to lexical variety, sophistication and range.

The Effect of Change On Adaptive Performance: Does Expressive Suppression Moderate the Indirect Effect of Strain?

This study examined the relation between employees' perceived extent of change and adaptive performance, focusing on the roles of expressive suppression (i.e. the habit of suppressing overt expressions of emotion) at work and perceived strain. Analysing survey data of 153 employees in Germany with different occupational backgrounds via bootstrapping, the conceptual moderated indirect effect scheme was supported. As hypothesized, greater changes were associated with higher strain. Strain, in turn, was negatively related to adaptive performance. Although extent of change did not directly affect adaptive performance, the data supported the expected indirect relationship via strain. Finally, expressive suppression at work acted as a buffer of this indirect effect: extent of change was only negatively related to strain for employees low in suppression. In line with newer evidence, our results indicate that the suppression of overt emotional expressions at work can have positive effects under certain circumstances.

Immune intervention for type 1 diabetes mellitus

The major form of type 1 diabetes (T1D) is characterised by immune-mediated pancreatic islet β-cell destruction, and has also been called type 1A diabetes to distinguish it from idiopathic forms of islet β-cell loss. Since the first demonstration of islet cell antibodies in 1974, the concept has been that this form of diabetes is autoimmune in nature. The commonly accepted concept is that antibodies (representing the humoral arm of the immune system) do not mediate the β-cell destruction but rather serve as markers of that destruction, while the cellular arm of the immune system, specifically T-lymphocytes, mediate the β-cell destruction. Yet, the T-lymphocytes do not act alone. They receive help in initiating the response from antigen-presenting cells such as dendritic cells and macrophages, and appear to receive help also from B-lymphocytes. In addition, the initial immune response engenders secondary and tertiary responses - involving the whole immunological army - which collectively result in impairment of β-cell function, progressive destruction of β-cells, and consequent development of type 1A diabetes. The process is insidious and may evolve over many years, with the overt expression of clinical symptoms becoming apparent only when most β-cells have been destroyed. Yet, the process clearly evolves at different speeds - much more rapidly in young children, much more slowly in older individuals. And, although it has been thought that ultimately there is complete β-cell destruction, several studies have now demonstrated some degree of persistent β-cell function or existence (at autopsy) in long-standing T1D. A major focus of investigation in T1D is the preservation of β-cell function (and, it is hoped, of β-cells themselves), in the expectation that continuing endogenous insulin secretion will contribute towards better glycaemic control, reduce episodes of severe hypoglycaemia, and slow the development of complications such as retinopathy and nephropathy. Thus, there have been many studies designed to interdict the T1D disease process, mostly by altering the immune system, both during the stage of evolution of the disease and at the time of disease onset. This chapter of the Yearbook of Advanced Technology and Treatments in Diabetes reviews the key papers that have appeared in this field between July 2009 and June 2010. Articles selected were confined to studies in human beings. All immune intervention studies reported in this time frame were included. In addition, the author selected other relevant articles dealing with mechanisms, markers, triggers, and pathology of human type 1 diabetes.

Embryonic stem cell–derived hemangioblasts remain epigenetically plastic and require PRC1 to prevent neural gene expression

AbstractMany lineage-specific developmental regulator genes are transcriptionally primed in embryonic stem (ES) cells; RNA PolII is bound at their promoters but is prevented from productive elongation by the activity of polycomb repressive complexes (PRC) 1 and 2. This epigenetically poised state is thought to enable ES cells to rapidly execute multiple differentiation programs and is recognized by a simultaneous enrichment for trimethylation of lysine 4 and trimethylation of lysine 27 of histone H3 (bivalent chromatin) across promoter regions. Here we show that the chromatin profile of this important cohort of genes is progressively modified as ES cells differentiate toward blood-forming precursors. Surprisingly however, neural specifying genes, such as Nkx2-2, Nkx2-9, and Sox1, remain bivalent and primed even in committed hemangioblasts, as conditional deletion of PRC1 results in overt and inappropriate expression of neural genes in hemangioblasts. These data reinforce the importance of PRC1 for normal hematopoietic differentiation and reveal an unexpected epigenetic plasticity of mesoderm-committed hemangioblasts.

Infinitives in the 1820 Settler Letters of Denunciation: What can a Contextualised Application of Corpus-Based Results Tell us About the Expression of Persuasion?

Infinitives in the 1820 Settler Letters of Denunciation: What can a Contextualised Application of Corpus-Based Results Tell us About the Expression of Persuasion? This paper takes issue with Biber's (1988) findings concerning the significance of infinitives for what he calls the "overt expression of persuasion" (Biber 1988: 115). It aims to demonstrate that statistically generated results of research on large electronic corpora of contemporary English may not be verifiable in small, well-contextualised, single-genre collections, such as the one representing 19th century English used in this study. The collection comprises denunciation letters addressed to the colonial authorities (the Colonial Office) by the first British settlers in the Cape Colony (the 1820 Settlers). The letters follow the generic model of petition (Włodarczyk 2010) understood as an official written request. An act of denunciation, as we may assume, contributes to the inherent persuasiveness of petitions by increasing the illocutionary force (in the sense of Searle 1969, 1979) of the letter. Therefore, patterns of distribution of infinitives as markers of persuasion (Biber 1988) are particularly interesting to trace in the 1820 Settler denunciation letters. The paper shows that some of Biber's statements may not be taken as valid generalizations, as the persuasive potential of infinitives may not be corroborated unless each and every token is thoroughly contextualized. Furthermore, an analysis of requests in denunciations conducted within Speech Act Theory (Austin 1962; Searle 1969; Blum-Kulka 1984; Culpeper and Archer 2008) shows that it is first and foremost politeness concerns (cf. Brown and Levinson 1987), not the increased need for persuasiveness, that determine the degree of the illocutionary force of requests.

Teaching humanism on the wards: What patients value in outstanding attending physicians

Patients want to be treated humanely and as individuals by their care-providers. Many curricula, usually written by university faculty, have been developed to teach physicians such skills. Rarely are patients' actual preferences taken into account when designing curricula. This study was undertaken to identify what hospitalized patients most valued about their encounters with attending faculty physicians. In this study, medical residents (post-graduate medical trainees) identified faculty physicians as outstanding teachers of humanistic care. Patients receiving care from these outstanding physicians were interviewed, as were the students and residents on the care team and the study physicians. Using qualitative techniques, patients' comments were analyzed and common themes were identified. These findings were compared with qualities identified by medical residents and students and by the attending physicians themselves. Patients identified the following specific behaviors as those they most valued in their physicians: direct communication, understanding, direct involvement in care, adequate explanation, and overt expressions of respect, as highly valued. Outstanding teachers of humane care exhibited several discrete behaviors that patients described as valuable. Since these behaviors can be discretely identified, they can be taught as part of medical curricula. The content of medical education in communication and doctor–patient relationships should incorporate goals informed by the perspectives of patients.

Confronting Prejudiced Comments: Effectiveness of a Role-Playing Exercise

We examined whether a role-playing exercise, similar to that developed by Plous (2000), increases students' ability to generate effective responses to prejudiced comments. We assessed social psychology students' (n = 23) ability to respond to prejudiced comments before and after the exercise, and compared their performance to that of 2 other groups of students (total n = 38) who did not participate in the exercise. Results showed that the exercise increased students' ability to generate effective responses to prejudiced comments. If students apply this skill in their daily lives, it could lead to a reduction in the overt expression of prejudice among others.

An Analysis of the Public Reporting to Lothian and Borders Police on Perceived Terrorism-Related Matters after the Glasgow Airport Terrorist Attack in 2007

<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Glasgow Airport terrorist attack of 2007 led to the initiation of a Lothian and Borders Police operation to investigate an expected increase in the public reporting of terrorism-related matters. This paper considers the two specific areas of data in respect of these reports: the reporters and the information they imparted. An analysis of reporter characteristics is undertaken, highlighting areas of interest concerning age, employment and place of birth. The information imparted to the police is then analysed with particular aspects of reporting identified, primarily the activity the subject was undertaking, with sub-analysis of ethnicity of subjects and premises cited. The influence of the media is also considered. The conclusions centre on the prevalence of Asian subjects in the reporting, an apparent lack of minority reporters and the nature of the public implications concerning terrorist activity as opposed to overt expressions of the nature of suspicions.</span>

MicroRNA profiling during mouse ventricular maturation: a role for miR-27 modulating Mef2c expression

non-coding RNA has been recently demonstrated to be a novel mechanism for modulation of gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. The importance of microRNAs in the cardiovascular system is now apparent. Mutations of distinct microRNAs have provided evidence for fundamental roles of microRNAs during cardiovascular development. However, there is limited information about global microRNA profiles during mouse heart development. In this study, we have gained insight from the expression profiles of microRNAs during mouse ventricular development by microarray and qRT-PCR analysis. our microarray analysis reveals that relatively few microRNAs display either increasing or decreasing expression profiles during ventricular chamber formation. Interestingly, most of the differentially expressed microRNAs display a rather discrete peak of expression at particular developmental stages. Furthermore, we demonstrate that microRNA-27b (miR-27b) displays an overt myocardial expression during heart development and that the transcription factor-encoding gene Mef2c is an miR-27b target. our data present a comprehensive profile of microRNA expression during ventricular maturation, providing an entry point for investigation of the functional roles of the most abundantly and differentially expressed microRNAs during cardiogenesis.

The hidden sense of symptoms: Urticaria can be beneficial

Evolutionary Medicine can be useful when analysing the origin of disease and symptoms. Acute urticaria or anaphylaxis is bothersome and potentially life-threatening. We analyse this symptom-complex in the context of Gastro-allergic Anisakiasis (GAA), where the human is an incidental host for the cosmopolitan fish-nematode Anisakis simplex (A. simplex). The immunological response against this nematode resembles that against other helminths, but overt expression of allergic symptoms is by far more frequent in GAA. This could be due to the missing co-evolutionary relationship between host and parasite. Features of acute gastric parasitism with and without overt allergic type 1 hypersensitivity symptoms are compared with the abdominal complications in intestinal Anisakiasis, where clinically visible IgE mediated symptoms are missing. In GAA, parasite induced chronic abdominal complications are missing. We postulate that urticaria in GAA can be considered the price for rapidly expelling the live larva of A. simplex in those subjects whose evolutionary history made them more resistant to other helminth parasites. Further, urticaria is explained as a possibly exaggerated immunopathological feature in this special type of acute parasitism, where sensitized mast-cells are not only present in the skin, but also in the gastro-intestinal mucosa. This evolutionary analysis of clinical observations is the first known report that addresses the possible beneficial feature of hypersensitivity type 1 response with overt allergic urticaria-anaphylaxis in GAA and confers an evolutionary based sense to the acute IgE-mediated reaction.

Canada’s Dataless Debate About Religion

Scholars interested in the study of implicit religion often appear to work from the assumption that traditional forms of organized religion have become less pervasive, but that less visible and important religious expressions nonetheless persist. The argument has been particularly pertinent when observers have tried to understand what happens to religion in settings where secularization seems apparent. However, a somewhat different pattern also warrants examination—where fairly overt or explicit expressions of religion are minimized by individuals and institutions, and defined as “implicit” even though the facts suggest otherwise. In this paper, the author shows how organized religion in Canada has known relative health since at the least the mid-1980s, complete with significant public participation. Yet, despite the data at hand, the media and most academics have held unwaveringly to a secularization framework, depicting participation in organized religion as being in an ongoing free-fall, with the prevalent message one of decline and insignificance. A considerable gap has consequently come to exist between public perception and reality. The result is that objectively explicit religion has been relegated by meaning-makers to implicit religion— where it is depicted as being embraced by diminishing numbers and largely irrelevant to public life and discourse. The author concludes with a discussion of the implications of this “Canadian case study” of perception and deception for an understanding of religious developments elsewhere.

Development of the Verona coding definitions of emotional sequences to code health providers’ responses (VR-CoDES-P) to patient cues and concerns

Objective To present a method to classify health provider responses to patient cues and concerns according to the VR-CoDES-CC (Del Piccolo et al. (2009) [2] and Zimmermann et al. (submitted for publication) [3]). The system permits sequence analysis and a detailed description of how providers handle patient's expressions of emotion. Methods The Verona-CoDES-P system has been developed based on consensus views within the “Verona Network of Sequence Analysis”. The different phases of the creation process are described in detail. A reliability study has been conducted on 20 interviews from a convenience sample of 104 psychiatric consultations. Results The VR-CoDES-P has two main classes of provider responses, corresponding to the degree of explicitness (yes/no) and space (yes/no) that is given by the health provider to each cue/concern expressed by the patient. The system can be further subdivided into 17 individual categories. Statistical analyses showed that the VR-CoDES-P is reliable (agreement 92.86%, Cohen's kappa 0.90 (±0.04) p < 0.0001). Conclusion Once validity and reliability are tested in different settings, the system should be applied to investigate the relationship between provider responses to patients’ expression of emotions and outcome variables. Practice implications Research employing the VR-CoDES-P should be applied to develop research-based approaches to maximize appropriate responses to patients’ indirect and overt expressions of emotional needs.

The Salience of the Subtle Aspects of Parental Involvement and Encouraging that Involvement: Implications for School-Based Programs

Background/ContextFor many years, educators, parents, and social scientists have conceptualized engaged parents as those who help their children with their homework, frequently attend school functions, and maintain household rules that dictate when their young engage in schoolwork and leisure. Recent meta-analyses on parental involvement confirm the salience of more subtle social variables, which Bandura and Walters asserted may be even more important than overt parental behavior in fostering positive student outcomes. These results indicate that factors such as parental expectations, the quality of parent–child communication, and parental style may be more highly related to student achievement than various more overt expressions of this involvement.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of StudyThe purpose of the article is to examine what the body of research literature indicates about the role and utility of the subtle aspects of parental involvement. The article first establishes a theoretical framework, using Bandura and Walter's research. Then the article focuses on three issues regarding parental involvement: (1) the salience of subtle aspects of parental involvement; (2) subtle actions are also important to help schools more completely involve parents; and (3) to what extent is it possible to educate parents to become more involved? The article also addresses whether those aspects of parental involvement that are the most efficacious in everyday living are also the most vital in school-based parental involvement programs.Research DesignThe article is an analytical essay that summarizes the recent research on the influence of subtle aspects of parental involvement. It reaches conclusions based on investigations into family and school practices.ConclusionThere are deliberate actions that teachers can take to enhance parental involvement. First, educate parents to comprehend, and then act on, the fact that it is probably some of the more subtle aspects of parental involvement, such as high expectations and communication, that are among the most important. Second, educate school leaders, teachers, and staff to understand that raising parental participation may be more a function of subtle but important demonstrations of love and respect than a matter of instructing parents to apply particular methods of helping children. Naturally, all these factors are important, but the spirit and the attitude of parental involvement may actually be more important than the pedagogy applied at home. As parents, educators, and other leaders apply these principles, it is likely that parental involvement in the early 21st century will be greater than it has been in recent memory. Ultimately, teachers, students, and parents will all benefit from this development.

Immunomodulation for type 1 diabetes mellitus

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is characterised by immune-mediated pancreatic islet beta-cell destruction. The initial immune response engenders secondary and tertiary responses which collectively result in impairment of beta-cell function, progressive destruction of beta-cells and consequent development of T1D. The process is insidious and may evolve over many years, with the overt expression of clinical symptoms becoming apparent only when most beta-cells have been destroyed. Over the last quarter century much investigation has been directed at interdicting the T1D disease process, both during the stage of evolution of the disease and at the time of disease onset. This chapter of the Yearbook of Advanced Technology and Treatments in Diabetes reviews the key articles that have appeared in this field between January 2008 and June 2009.

Self-deception as self-signalling: a model and experimental evidence

Self-deception has long been the subject of speculation and controversy in psychology, evolutionary biology and philosophy. According to an influential 'deflationary' view, the concept is an over-interpretation of what is in reality an instance of motivationally biased judgement. The opposite view takes the interpersonal deception analogy seriously, and holds that some part of the self actively manipulates information so as to mislead the other part. Building on an earlier self-signalling model of Bodner and Prelec, we present a game-theoretic model of self-deception. We propose that two distinct mechanisms collaborate to produce overt expressions of belief: a mechanism responsible for action selection (including verbal statements) and an interpretive mechanism that draws inferences from actions and generates emotional responses consistent with the inferences. The model distinguishes between two modes of self-deception, depending on whether the self-deceived individual regards his own statements as fully credible. The paper concludes with a new experimental study showing that self-deceptive judgements can be reliably and repeatedly elicited with financial incentives in a categorization task, and that the degree of self-deception varies with incentives. The study also finds evidence of the two forms of self-deception. The psychological benefits of self-deception, as measured by confidence, peak at moderate levels.

054. TROPHOBLAST, PLACENTA AND EARLY EMBRYO: HOW THE MARSUPIAL DEVELOPS

In marsupials, the blastocyst forms as a single cell layer of cells. The marsupial blastocyst has no inner cell mass, so the 80–100 cell tammar embryo remains in diapause as a unilaminar blastocyst. All marsupials have a unilaminar stage, but what is unusual is that in the tammar the total cessation of cell division and cell metabolism lasts for 11 months each year. Marsupials are placental mammals. The yolk sac forms the definitive placenta up to birth. Only very few marsupials, such as the bandicoot, have a chorio-allantoic placenta, which supplements the placental functions of the yolk sac. However, the understanding how the unilaminar layer of trophoblast cells of the diapausing blastocyst become specified into placental and embryonic tissues has been an ongoing puzzle. To identify genes that do become differentially expressed in tammar development, we targeted the stage of the earliest appearance of the embryonic disc, at which the remainder of the blastocyst is then defined as trophoblast, as well as early cleavage stages. Intriguingly, we found no evidence for early differential expression of the canonical pluripotency genes POU5F1, SOX2 and NANOG, or of CDX2. By contrast, we found overt differential expression of GATA3, the closely related gene GATA2, and FGF4. This expression profile suggests that in the tammar, mechanisms regulating trophoblast- and pluriblast-specific expression of POU5F1, SOX2, NANOG and CDX2 are temporally secondary to those regulating GATA2 &amp; -3 and FGF4 expression. Together, our results may signify the evolution of alternative mechanisms of early lineage specification in marsupials, or alternatively reveal a general hierarchy of signalling mechanisms that are masked in the relatively rapid and ‘compressed’ development of mice. The results of our ongoing study have important implications for understanding not only marsupial stem cells but the early development of all therian mammals.

Targeted lipidomics reveals mPGES-1-PGE2 as a therapeutic target for multiple sclerosis

The arachidonic acid (AA) cascade produces eicosanoids, such as prostaglandins (PGs), that regulate physiological and pathological functions. Although various nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have been developed, blocking upstream components (cyclooxygenase-1 and -2) of the AA cascade leads to severe side effects, including gastrointestinal ulcers and cardiovascular events, respectively, due to the complexity of the AA cascade. Here, using an AA cascade-targeted lipidomics approach, we report that microsomal PGE synthase 1 (mPGES-1) plays a key role in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). Eicosanoids (mainly PGD(2)) are produced constitutively in the spinal cord of naive mice. However, in EAE lesions, the PGE(2) pathway is favored and the PGD(2), PGI(2), and 5-lipoxygenase pathways are attenuated. Furthermore, mPGES-1(-/-) mice showed less severe symptoms of EAE and lower production of IL-17 and IFN-gamma than mPGES-1(+/+) mice. Expression of PGE(2) receptors (EP1, EP2, and EP4) was elevated in EAE lesions and correlated with clinical symptoms. Immunohistochemistry on central nervous systems of EAE mice and multiple sclerosis (MS) patients revealed overt expression of mPGES-1 protein in microglia/macrophages. Thus, the mPGES-1-PGE(2)-EPs axis of the AA cascade may exacerbate EAE pathology. Our findings have important implications for the design of therapies for MS.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Cultural Approaches to Understanding School Violence

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Cultural Approaches to Understanding School Violence