Mohawk Valley Community College

The overarching goals are to provide contemporary professional development to technology educators using standards-based exemplary materials, to forge effective alliances between

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common monogenic cardiac disorder encountered in the clinic. Data relative to the electrophysiologic characteristics and pharmacologic responsiveness of human tissues and cells isolated from patients with HCM are rare. As a consequence, cellular mechanisms underlying arrhythmogenicity are poorly understood. Cardiomyocytes were enzymatically dissociated from a septal myectomy surgically removed from a patient with obstructive HCM. Sharp microelectrodes and patch-clamp techniques were used to evaluate action potential and sodium channel current (INa ) characteristics. Action potential morphology recorded was typical of an M cell, but with a longer than normal duration (APD) and a relatively steep APD-rate relationship. APD at all rates was significantly reduced following exposure to ranolazine (10 μM). Whole cell patch-clamp recording yielded robust peak INa and large late INa (1.1% of peak INa vs 0.1-0.2% in healthy controls). A large window current was observed as well. Ranolazine (10 μM) shifted steady-state V0.5 of inactivation by -8 mV, reduced late INa by 82%, and significantly diminished the window current. Our results indicate the presence of cells with M-cell characteristics in the septum of the human heart, as has previously been described in the canine heart. They also point to an ameliorative effect of ranolazine to reduce augmented late INa and thus to reduce the prolonged APD in the setting of HCM. These results suggest a potential therapeutic role for ranolazine in HCM.

Within academia, distance learning as an approach to education has its share of skeptics. Regardless of how some feel about the methodology, it has become a viable alternative to more traditional classroom instruction. In fact, distance learning methods such as learning management systems, video conferencing, and CD-ROM programs can yield success in second or foreign language courses as well. While those other computer-based learning tools have produced positive results, this study attempts to gauge the usefulness of an Internet-based virtual reality environment called Second Life. This virtual world, not initially intended for second or foreign language teaching, contains environments that are similar to those found in the “real world” that can be manipulated by users for educational purposes. The subjects in this study—three students in an introductory German class and students of two semesters of composition—45 in number, all felt that Second Life helped their language progression and/or helped inspire their writing. All wanted to see expanded use of Second Life in their classes.

Nesiritide is an effective agent for the treatment of decompensated CHF. However, the VMAC trial shows that the agent's efficacy and safety are actually more similar than dissimilar to those of nitroglycerin. Indeed, objective reviews have placed nesiritide as a second-line agent behind current standard drug therapy. Finally, nesiritide is approximately 40 times the purchase price of standard agents such as nitroglycerin. For these reasons, we feel that nesiritide should not be considered as first-line therapy. Reflecting this notion, one institution has implemented a protocol that recommends administration of nitroglycerin and intravenous diuretics (using > or = 2 times the usual daily diuretic dose) before using nesiritide. In light of the existing data, we feel that this approach appears to be an appropriate and prudent one for nesiritide's place in therapy.

Youth clubs and their relationship to delinquency has received surprisingly little attention in the literature. The applicability of social bonding theory, a prominent sociological theory of delinquency, to the experiences of youth in their clubs is the primary focus of this research. The reliability and validity analysis of indices specifically created to assess “club bonding” suggest the legitimacy of this approach. Belief in the rules and the regulations of the club is found to be negatively correlated with delinquency. Surprisingly, weekly involvement in the club is found to be positively associated with delinquency. Implications for practice and/or intervention are discussed.

Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson. A name you are very unlikely to have heard of, although in his time he enjoyed a modest renown as a writer of some distinction. Using his entire name or some variant (such as E. I. Stevenson, Edward Stevenson, Edward Prime-Stevenson, E. Irenaeus Stevenson), he wrote many different types of literature, and enjoyed some success as an author of magazine fiction, poetry, literary and music criticism, travel essays, esoterica such as cartomancy, and the two areas which concern us today: boys books, which he wrote early in his career; and overtly homosexual works, which he penned later on, that place him among America's earliest gay authors. Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson. In spite of the fact that his books are difficult to get hold of-his two major gay works, Imre: A Memorandum (1906), and The Intersexes (1908), can be had only in facsimile copies; and his two boys books only by locating rare editions in a handful of libraries-in spite of this difficulty, his is a name, as critic Noel I. Garde put it, that ought not to be forgotten. And it won't, if I have any say in it. During the past summer I worked for Broadview Press on an edition of Imre: A Memorandum, the first overtly gay novel by an American that dared to present a happy ending in a period that allowed homosexuals recognition only if they came to punishment or suicide by the conclusions of the rare novels where they might appear. It is to be hoped that the return of this novel in an accessible and modern format will spark an interest in what critic Roger Austen calls the Father of Modern American Gay Literature. While researching-with some difficulty-- the life of this elusive author, I read whatever other works of his I could find, and his two boys books were especially fascinating, not only because they were successful in their day and clearly emulated the more visible Horatio Alger series of novels for boys, but also because Prime-Stevenson had named these books himself as having a definite homoerotic subtext. In The Intersexes, a monumental defense of homosexuality written in response to the nineteenth-century medical establishment's creation of gayness, Stevenson-- writing under the pseudonym of Xavier Mayne-- said in a somewhat coy aside: Fiction for young people that has uranian hints naturally is thought the last sort for circulating among British boys and girls. [Nevertheless] ... in White Cockades, a little tale of the flight of the Younger Pretender, by E. I. Stevenson, issued in Edinburgh some years ago, passionate devotion from a rustic youth toward the prince, and its recognition are half-hinted as homosexual in essence. The sentiment of uranian adolescence is more distinguishable in another book for lads, Philip and Gerald, by the same hand: a romantic story in which a youth in his latter teens is irresistibly attracted to a much younger lad; and becomes, con amore, responsible for the latter's personal safety, in a series of unexpected events that throw them together-for life. (366-68) The acknowledgment that he had written boys books and deliberately subverted or tweaked their agenda would be fascinating enough if such an admission were to be made by a present-day writer, but it becomes especially intriguing when we think of such an event occurring in the straitlaced Victorian Period, not one particularly known for its sexual openness. Boys books had their own agenda, to be sure. Such books were meant to be edifying, instilling in young boys notions of manhood, boyhood, morality, patriotism, patriarchy, goals, and ideals. For Stevenson to say that he was able to inject-apparently without detection or objection from the publishers-a portrait of gay boys in a genre unilaterally heterosexual, is to suggest that the genre itself was open to such usurpation. Horatio Alger's books provide a sterling model, and we realize that, once past the doubtless unconscious phallocentrism of such titles as Ragged Dick, Bound to Rise, Risen from the Ranks, Charlie Codman's Cruise, Struggling Upward, and Strong and Steady, the books are quintessentially male-oriented, any female characters always tangential to the plots. …

The aim of this study was to investigate interrelationships among the identity negotiation styles that people use, the cognitive and behavioural strategies they deploy, and their sense of subjective well-being. To examine this, 198 American and 109 Finnish college students completed the Identity Style Inventory, the Strategy and Attribution Questionnaire, Rosenberg’s Self-esteem Scale, and the revised Beck’s Depression Inventory. Results showed that people with an information-oriented identity style reported the highest level of self-esteem, those with a normative style had the most stable self-conceptions, and those with a diffuse/avoidant style displayed the highest level of depressive symptomatology. Moreover, dysfunctional cognitive and attributional strategies, such as expecting to fail and engaging in task-irrelevant behaviour, were associated with low self-esteem, unstable self-conceptions, and depressive symptomatology. Finally, the associations between identity processing styles and well-being were found to be mediated by the cognitive strategies that people deploy.

The development of social cognition in adulthood is viewed as multidimensional and domain‐based. Social cognitive understanding represents development of the interpersonal and intrapersonal domains of knowledge. The social cognitive skills of adulthood cannot be based solely on the emergent formal operational abilities or logical‐mathematical abilities. Social cognitive performance in adulthood is marked by the emergence of both unique styles of thinking (post‐formal) and knowledge within interpersonal and intrapersonal domains. The usefulness of this approach for the education of adult learners is demonstrated.