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The phenomenology of mystical experiences has been described throughout all the ages and in all religions. All mystical traditions identify some sense of union with the absolute as the ultimate spiritual goal. I assume that the pathway to both theistic and secular spirituality and our readiness to seek a solution in a psychological merger with something beyond the self evolves out of our human experience. Spirituality is one of man's strategies for dealing with the limitations of the life cycle, separation and loss, biological fragility, transience, and non-existence. Spirituality may serve as the affective component to a belief system or myth that is not rooted in scientific evidence but is lived as if it is true. Spirituality may take many forms, but I will suggest that in some instances it may serve as a reparative process in which one creates in the external world, through symbolic form, a nuance or facet of an internalized mental representation which has become lost or is no longer available to the self; or it may represent the continuity of the self-representation after death through a self-object merger. Lastly I will illustrate from the writings of two of our greatest poets, Dante Alighieri and William Wordsworth, how their poetry became interwoven with a profound spirituality. In Dante we will see the elaboration of a religious spirituality, while in the writings of Wordsworth a secular spirituality emerges interwoven with nature and belatedly his identification with 'tragic man' as his mythos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Nephril recently has been identified as a putative adhesion molecule, expressed in the glomerulus, in which mutations cause congenital nephrotic syndrome of Finnish type. We sought to determine whether expression of nephrin is altered in human glomeruli in patients with acquired nephrotic syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: To evaluate a sensor-augmented insulin pump with a low glucose suspend (LGS) feature that automatically suspends basal insulin delivery for up to 2 h in response to sensor-detected hypoglycemia.Research Design and Methods: The LGS feature of the Paradigm Veo insulin pump (Medtronic, Inc., Northridge, CA) was tested for 3 weeks in 31 adults with type 1 diabetes.Results: There were 166 episodes of LGS: 66% of daytime LGS episodes were terminated within 10 min, and 20 episodes lasted the maximum 2 h. LGS use was associated with reduced nocturnal duration ≤2.2 mmol/L in those in the highest quartile of nocturnal hypoglycemia at baseline (median 46.2 vs. 1.8 min/day, P = 0.02 [LGS-OFF vs. LGS-ON]). Median sensor glucose was 3.9 mmol/L after 2-h LGS and 8.2 mmol/L at 2 h after basal restart.Conclusions: Use of an insulin pump with LGS was associated with reduced nocturnal hypoglycemia in those at greatest risk and was well accepted by patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2009 in Richmond, Virginia, USA, July 26 – July 30, 2009 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2009 in Richmond, Virginia, USA, July 26 – July 30, 2009 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]