University of Alabama

About: University of Alabama is a education organization based out in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 27323 authors who have published 48609 publications receiving 1565337 citations. The organization is also known as: Alabama & Bama.

Professional burnout, vicarious trauma, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion fatigue: A review of theoretical terms, risk factors, and preventive methods for clinicians and researchers.

Abstract: The emotional and psychological risks associated with providing direct social work services to vulnerable populations have been largely overlooked in social work educational curriculum and agency training (Cunningham, 2004; Courtois, 2002; Shackelford, 2006). These risks should be conceptualized as occurring in two separate forms: trauma-related stress and professional burnout. Vicarious trauma, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion fatigue are conditions related specifically to work with trauma populations, while professional burnout is considered a more general phenomenon which may occur within any social service setting. The forms of trauma-related stress conditions and professional burnout are often erroneously discussed either interchangeably or grouped together as one condition in the literature. It is best to conceptualize each of these conditions separately in order to have a comprehensive understanding of these complex phenomena. It is important that direct practitioners and educators understand the risk factors and symptoms associated with these phenomena in order to identify, prevent, and/or minimize their effects. As a best-practice initiative, it is appropriate that information on these conditions be infused into social work curricula as a first-line preventive measure for the training of inexperienced social workers who may be more vulnerable to the effects of these conditions (Lerias & Byrne, 2003). Information on these topics should also be included as part of agency training for practitioners already working in the field. This article provides a brief review of professional burnout, vicarious trauma, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion fatigue, including the risk factors and symptoms associated with these conditions. Particular attention is paid to the inclusion of this material and the practice of self-care in both macro and micro social work education, as well as agency-training curriculum.

Oxidative Stress Regulates Expression of VEGFR1 in Myeloid Cells: Link to Tumor-Induced Immune Suppression in Renal Cell Carcinoma

Abstract: Metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) associates with overproduction of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) due to the mutation/inactivation of the von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor gene. Herein we demonstrate that implantation of human RCC tumor cells into athymic nude mice promotes the appearance of VEGF receptor 1 (VEGFR1)/CD11b double-positive myeloid cells in peripheral blood. Avastin-mediated VEGF neutralization was capable of significantly reducing the numbers of circulating VEGFR1+ myeloid cells. Conversely, up-regulation of VEGFR1 by myeloid cells could also be achieved in vitro by coculturing bone marrow cells with RCC-conditioned medium or by short-term exposure of naive myeloid cells to oxidative stress. Treatment of myeloid cells with H2O2, lipid peroxidation product 4-hydroxy-2(E)-nonenal, or an inhibitor of thioredoxin reductase all resulted in increased expression of VEGFR1. Furthermore, after exposure to oxidative stress, myeloid cells acquire immunosuppressive features and become capable of inhibiting T cell proliferation. Data suggest that tumor-induced oxidative stress may promote both VEGFR1 up-regulation and immunosuppressive function in bone marrow-derived myeloid cells. Analysis of tumor tissue and peripheral blood from patients with metastatic RCC revealed that VEGFR1+ cells can be also found in cancer patients. Restoration of immunocompetence in metastatic RCC patients by pharmacological elimination of VEGFR1+ cells may have a significant impact on the therapeutic efficacy of cancer vaccines or other immune-based therapies.

The Lightning Imaging Sensor

Abstract: The Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) is a NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) instrument on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) platform designed to acquire and investigate the distribution and variability of total lightning (i.e., cloud-to-ground and intracloud) between q35' in latitude. Since lightning is one of the responses of the atmosphere to thermodynamic and dynamic forcing, the LIS data is being used to detect deep convection without land-ocean bias, estimate the precipitation mass in the mixed phased region of thunderclouds, and differentiate storms with strong updrafts from those with weak vertical motion.