bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Retracted: Porous GdIII‐Organic Framework as a Dual‐Functional Material for Cyanosilylation of Aldehydes and Ablation of Human Liver Cancer Cells
Authors: Han Dong , Yan Xiu‐Li , Liu Jian
Published: January 2019

Metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs) have gained great attention in recent years because they could behave as multifunctional materials which combine the advances of porous solids and coordination complexes. With the aim of constructing multifunctional MOFs, in this study, we choose a Y‐shaped tricarboxylic ligand biphenyl‐3,4′,5‐tricarboxylic acid (H3bpt) to react with GdIII ions to afford a new dual‐functional lanthanide‐organic framework with the chemical formula of [Gd2(bpt)2(H2O)2]·(DMF)2(H2O)6 (1) (DMF = N,N‐dimethylformamide) under solvothermal condition. The title complex was characterized by means of elemental analysis, FT‐IR spectroscopy, thermogravimetric and X‐ray diffraction analyses. Crystal structure analysis reveals that compound 1 is composed of 1D helical chain secondary building units that connect by the bpt3– ligands into a 3D framework with 1D nanosized channels running along the b axis. In view of its high porosity and accessible open metal sites, the activated 1 (1a) was studied for the cyanosilylation of aldehydes under solvent‐free conditions. The catalytic activity of 1a is much higher than that of compound 1, indicating that the exposed open metal sites of 1a is beneficial to the cyanosilylation reaction. In connection to these, the different cytotoxicities of 1 and 1a were also evaluated on four human liver cancer cells (SMMC‐7721, Bel‐7402, MHCC97 and Hep3B) by the MTT assay.
Multiple Paths to Industrialization: A Global Context of the Rise of Emerging States
Authors: Sugihara Kaoru
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses various ways in which different countries and regions created their own path of economic development and industrialization, and the role the state played in them. The diffusion of industrialization over the last two centuries saw the emergence of a three-tier division of labour where capital-intensive industrialization, labour-intensive industrialization and the export economy of primary products characterized each region that has been integrated into the world economy. Among the countries of late development Japan in the late nineteenth century pursued labour-intensive industrialization, as its competitive advantage lay in the quality of labour relative to capital. In the twentieth century many countries pursued the state-led industrialization with emphasis on capital-intensive industries. In the late twentieth century, however, the developmental state such as Japan and NIEs pursued ‘developmentalism’, which combined imported resources including fossil fuels with competitive domestic resources such as labour of a good quality and natural resources such as water and biomass. It was important for the emerging state to create local, regional and long-distance trade to secure necessary resources for industrialization. The growth of intra-Asian trade ensured regional industrialization, while the proportion of intra-regional trade in Sub-Saharan Africa has been low until very recently. The experience of Southeast Asia shows the possibility of rapid structural transformation from the primary producer to the industrial region.
Agricultural Market Intervention and Emerging States in Africa
Authors: Honma Masayoshi
Published: January 2019

It is the domestic price that shows the influence of agricultural policy in the countries whose governments intervene the agricultural markets. Thus, the Nominal Rate of Protection (NRP), a price difference between domestic and international price divided by the international price is often used as an indicator for the level of agricultural protection. The purpose of this chapter is to examine factors to affect the agricultural protection level in Africa by using the data from 1961 to 2010 for 20 African countries. As shown in the past studies, it is generally observed that agricultural protection levels are different between in developing and developed countries. Agriculture is taxed in the early stages of development with lower domestic prices than international prices. But, as the economy develops, agriculture tends to be protected with their prices higher than international prices. This trend is also observed in African countries. However, in comparison to East Asian countries that have been rapidly industrialized, the level of agricultural protection in Africa remains low. In this paper, a theoretical model is presented to explain the mechanism of the growth of agricultural protection level and then a statistical analysis is conducted to test the hypothesis in the model. The results showed that all the variables are statistically significant with expected signs. The determinants of agricultural protection level supposed in the model are effective. While Africa as a whole is still in the process of economic development and the average agricultural nominal rate of protection is not so high, it is assumed that it would experience higher level of agricultural protection if it is developed rapidly. Avoiding market intervention and correcting distortions of farmer’s incentives are necessary even if correcting income disparity is a political priority in Africa. So-called decoupled policies such as direct payments with public investment in agricultural infrastructure should be introduced to promote agricultural growth.
Role of Community and Government in Irrigation Management in Emerging States: Lessons from Japan, China, and India
Authors: Kajisa Kei
Published: January 2019

The community has been used as a convenient institutional device for the mobilization of rural labor for successful irrigation management. The main message of this chapter is that the use of community is not a panacea, and government should also play an important role particularly in emerging states. An important issue in irrigation management in emerging states is how to achieve a smooth substitution of capital for labor under increasing labor scarcity in the agricultural sector. The community cannot properly achieve this substitution because externalities in irrigation services increase in a complicated manner when farmers exit from farming, and community mechanisms also decline. Lessons from Japan, China, and India are summarized threefold. First, as the externalities increase, the government should actively intervene at the right time to support the adoption of labor-saving technologies in irrigation management. Second, at the same time, however, we need to have some mechanism which can circumvent a political economy problem of excessive support following the trend for increasing agricultural protectionism during rapid industrialization. The experiences of the developed countries exemplify the difficulty of this task. Third, the government must take care of new issues which also need active government involvement: the depletion of groundwater and the introduction of volumetric irrigation water pricing. Since these new issues were not common among the DCs when they were at the similar stage of economic development, the governments of the contemporary emerging states need more administrative capacity than the governments of the DSs used to do for irrigation management.
Technology Transfer and Agricultural Development: A Comparative Study of Asia and Africa
Authors: Otsuka Keijiro
Published: January 2019

As in the case of any other sectors of the economy, the engine of agricultural growth in developing countries is the transfer of technology. This chapter pays a special attention to the role of transfer of intensive rice production systems from Japan to the former colonies of Taiwan and Kore before World War II, to tropical Asia in the 1960s to 1980s, and further to sub-Sharan Africa at present. What is found is that compared with other cereal crops lowland rice production technology is highly transferable from one major region to another. Another important point is that improved rice production system is not only intensive in the use of improved seeds and chemical fertilizer but also in “management,” including bunding, leveling, and straight-row transplanting. Therefore, in order to realize rice Green Revolution in Africa, it is critical to invest in training of rice farmers and extension workers. This chapter also explains how various other chapters dealing with agricultural issues in this volume are related with the issue of productivity growth of agriculture discussed in this chapter.
Role of State and Non-state Networks in Early-Modern Southeast Asian Trade
Authors: Ota Atsushi
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the significance of precolonial trade in the historical path of the economic development of Southeast Asia. During the Age of Commerce (c. 1450–1680) states played a prominent role in the promotion of trade. States militarily protected ports, created quarters for foreign traders to settle down, and controlled the production and trade of important export products. The state control of production and trade was possible and effective, because states mainly exported small-volume, high-value items such as precious spices and wood, which were produced in very limited areas. On the other hand, during the Age of China-oriented trade (c. 1750–1870), non-state commercial military groups, often called pirates, played an important role in local and regional trade. Their heavily armed fleets were effective to collect marine and forest products, which were now strongly demanded in China, in remote areas under weak state control. State control of production was no longer effective on these products, which could be collected in numerous places in insular Southeast Asia. As commercial transactions were conducted in numerous places, a large number of people came to be involved in market economy. When weak port states collapsed because of wars and other reasons, commercial military groups flexibly changed their trade ports. Because of their activities, local and regional trade in Southeast Asia had been active throughout the colonial period. As a result of these brisk trade activities, large parts of Southeast Asian society became dependent on trade, often importing food and other necessities from other regions. People became more accustomed to market economy and became increasingly market-oriented. These elements that had been developed through the early-modern trade were also important in the economic rise after the World War II and in more recent decades.
Growth of Regional Trade in Modern Southeast Asia: The Rise of Singapore, 1819–1913
Authors: Kobayashi Atsushi
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses one of the distinctive patterns of trade growth in nineteenth-century Southeast Asia by shedding light on the development of Singapore’s regional trade. Since the early nineteenth century, Singapore acted as an emporium involving various commodities and merchants, and became a port facilitating commodity circulations through regional trade with neighbouring countries as well as long-distance trade with faraway regions. By the mid-nineteenth century, industrial products and Southeast Asian produce became the primary contributors to Singapore’s trade growth, and Chinese merchants served as intermediaries between Western and native traders. Singapore’s regional trade began to reinforce the connection between production and consumption within the region by accelerating the intra-regional circulation of foodstuffs, which was instrumental in the remarkable growth of primary goods’ exports from Southeast Asia after the 1870s. The regional trade promoted the formation of the international division of labour with the Western industrial economy. This expansion allowed Singapore’s trade to integrate the local trading systems of Southeast Asian countries, which maintained autonomous dynamics within their respective domestic markets.
Labour-Intensive Industrialization and the Emerging State in Pre-war Japan
Authors: Tanimoto Masayuki
Published: January 2019

This chapter reconsiders the role of labour-intensive industrialization in pre-war Japan, by examining its role in import and export trade, with special attention paid to the development strategy. The chapter demonstrates that the development of import-substituting industries had to be complemented by export-oriented industries to relax the trade imbalance caused by the increase in imports, through exemplifying cases of cotton industries, followed by a discussion on the changing pattern of export-oriented industries, with a focus on urban small-scale manufacturers. Since there existed potential possibilities of moving from employees to employers through the establishment of their own workshops in the urban manufacturing sectors, juvenile workers were encouraged to invest in skill formation, and were expected to tolerate relatively low wage levels. The character of the workforce there was distinctively different from that of the cotton industries, which had been the major labour-intensive industry up to the interwar period, endowing Japan’s labour-intensive industrialization with its dynamic nature. At the same time, the achievement of the pre-war phase can be regarded as the forerunner of industries exporting finished consumer products to Western industrialized countries, which emerged after World War II, offering an insight into the critical opening to the understanding of post-war rapid economic growth, the last phase of the Japanese economy as an emerging state.
Historical Roots of Industrialisation and the Emerging State in Colonial India
Authors: Nomura Chikayoshi
Published: January 2019

Following a clear shift towards economic liberalisation in the 1980s, Indian economy has grown remarkably. One of the driving forces is the three-decade long expansion in the activities of private industrial enterprises, whose origins date back to the colonial era. Some activities even reached global standards in terms of production and employment, although the overall industrialisation level was far from sufficient. This chapter reviews the colonial India’s industrialisation, focusing on its stagnated nature and three known hypotheses on the causes of the stagnation; the factor endowment hypothesis; the laissez-faire economic policy hypothesis; and the sluggish technical transfer hypothesis.
Industrial Policy, Industrial Development, and Structural Transformation in Asia and Africa
Authors: Higuchi Yuki , Shimada Go
Published: January 2019

Industrial policy has received renewed interest among researchers and policy makers in recent years because of failed industrial development in the developing world, the only exception being the Asian experiences. Based on simple conceptual framework, we illustrate how industrial policy can contribute to economic growth by enhancing labor productivity and reallocating labor from low-productive to high-productive sectors. Using macroeconomic data from Asian and sub-Saharan African countries, we present a sharp contrast between the two economies. Asian countries successfully achieved economic growth led by the industrialization, particularly in labor-intensive sectors, whereas African economies have long been stagnant, which can be attributed to the failure of industrialization. Finally, we discuss a feasible strategy for industrial development in Africa.
Interactions of astrophysical neutrinos with dark matter: a model building perspective
Authors: Pandey Sujata , Karmakar Siddhartha , Rakshit Subhendu
Published: January 2019

Abstract

We explore the possibility that high energy astrophysical neutrinos can interact with the dark matter on their way to Earth. Keeping in mind that new physics might leave its signature at such energies, we have considered all possible topologies for effective interactions between neutrino and dark matter. Building models, that give rise to a significant flux suppression of astrophysical neutrinos at Earth, is rather difficult. We present a Z

′
-mediated model in this context. Encompassing a large variety of models, a wide range of dark matter masses from 10−21 eV up to a TeV, this study aims at highlighting the challenges one encounters in such a model building endeavour after satisfying various cosmological constraints, collider search limits and electroweak precision measurements.
The utility of outpatient commitment: Reduced-risks of victimization and crime perpetration
Authors: Segal Steven P. , Rimes Lachlan , Hayes Stephania L.
Published: January 2019

Background:

Outpatient civil commitment (OCC) provisions, community treatment orders (CTOs) in Australia and Commonwealth nations, are part of mental health law worldwide.

This study considers whether and by what means OCC provides statutorily required “needed-treatment” addressing two aspects of its legal mandate to protect the safety of self (exclusive of deliberate-self-harm) and others.

Method:

Over a 12.4-year period, records of hospitalized-psychiatric-patients, 11,424 with CTO-assignment and 16,161 without CTO-assignment were linked to police-records. Imminent-safety-threats included perpetrations and victimizations by homicides, rapes, assaults/abductions, and robberies. “Need for treatment” determinations were validated independently by Health of the Nations Scale (HoNOS) severity-score-profiles. Logistic regressions, with propensity-score- adjustment and control for 46 potential confounding-factors, were used to evaluate the association of CTO-assignment with occurrence-risk of perpetrations and victimizations.

Results:

CTO-assignment was associated withreduced safety-risk:17% in initial-perpetrations, 11% in initial-victimizations, and 22% for repeat-perpetrations. Each ten-community-treatment-days in interaction with CTO-assignment was associated with a 3.4% reduced-perpetration-risk. CTO-initiated-re-hospitalization was associated with a 13% reduced-initial-perpetration-risk, a 17% reduced-initial-victimization-risk, and a 22% reduced-repeat-victimization-risk. All risk-estimates appear to be the unique contributions of the CTO, CTO-initiated-re-hospitalization, or the provision of ten-community-treatment-days—i.e. after accounting for the influence of prior crimes and victimizations, ethnic-bias, neighborhood disadvantage and other between-group differences in the analysis.

Conclusions:

CTO assignment’s association with reduced criminal-victimization and perpetration-risk, in conjunction with requiring participation in needed-treatment via re-hospitalization and community-service, adds support to the conclusion that OCC is to some extent fulfilling its legal objectives related to protecting safety of self (exclusive of deliberate-self-harm), and others.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms and perceived mental health discrimination in adults in the general population
Authors: Stickley Andrew , Leinsalu Mall , Ruchkin Vladislav , Oh Hans , Narita Zui , Koyanagi Ai
Published: January 2019

Background:

The experience of discrimination is common in individuals with mental health problems and has been associated with a range of negative outcomes. As yet, however, there has been an absence of research on this phenomenon in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The current study examined the association between ADHD symptoms and mental health discrimination in the general adult population.

Methods:

The analytic sample comprised 7274 individuals aged 18 and above residing in private households in England that were drawn from the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, 2007. Information on ADHD was obtained with the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) Screener. A single-item question was used to assess mental health discrimination experienced in the previous 12 months. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine associations.

Results:

The prevalence of discrimination increased as ADHD symptoms increased but was especially elevated in those with the most severe ADHD symptoms (ASRS score 18–24). In a multivariable logistic regression analysis that was adjusted for a variety of covariates including common mental disorders, ADHD symptoms (ASRS ≥ 14) were associated with almost 3 times higher odds for experiencing mental health discrimination (odds ratio: 2.81, 95% confidence interval: 1.49–5.31).

Conclusion:

ADHD symptoms are associated with higher odds for experiencing mental health discrimination and this association is especially elevated in those with the most severe ADHD symptoms. Interventions to inform the general public about ADHD may be important for reducing the stigma and discrimination associated with this disorder in adults.
Unmet needs in patients with brief psychotic disorders: Too ill for clinical high risk services and not ill enough for first episode services
Authors: Minichino Amedeo , Rutigliano Grazia , Merlino Sergio , Davies Cathy , Oliver Dominic , De Micheli Andrea , Patel Rashmi , McGuire Philip , Fusar-Poli Paolo
Published: January 2019

Background:

Patients with acute and transient psychotic disorders (ATPDs) are by definition remitting, but have a high risk of developing persistent psychoses, resembling a subgroup of individuals at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis (CHR-P). Their pathways to care, treatment offered and long-term clinical outcomes beyond risk to psychosis are unexplored. We conducted an electronic health record-based retrospective cohort study including patients with ATPDs within the SLaM NHS Trust and followed-up to 8 years.

Methods:

A total of 2561 ATPDs were included in the study. A minority were detected (8%) and treated (18%) by Early Intervention services (EIS) and none by CHR-P services. Patients were offered a clinical follow-up of 350.40 ± 589.90 days. The cumulative incidence of discharges was 40% at 3 months, 60% at 1 year, 69% at 2 years, 77% at 4 years, and 82% at 8 years. Treatment was heterogeneous: the majority of patients received antipsychotics (up to 52%), only a tiny minority psychotherapy (up to 8%).

Results:

Over follow-up, 32.88% and 28.54% of ATPDS received at least one mental health hospitalization or one compulsory hospital admission under the Mental Health Act, respectively. The mean number of days spent in psychiatric hospital was 66.39 ± 239.44 days.

Conclusions:

The majority of ATPDs are not detected/treated by EIS or CHR-P services, receive heterogeneous treatments and short-term clinical follow-up. ATPDs have a high risk of developing severe clinical outcomes beyond persistent psychotic disorders and unmet clinical needs that are not targeted by current mental health services.
Cost-effectiveness analysis of collaborative treatment of late-life depression in primary care (GermanIMPACT)
Authors: Grochtdreis Thomas , Brettschneider Christian , Bjerregaard Frederike , Bleich Christiane , Boczor Sigrid , Härter Martin , Hölzel Lars P. , Hüll Michael , Kloppe Thomas , Niebling Wilhelm , Scherer Martin , Tinsel Iris , König Hans-Helmut
Published: January 2019

Background:

Late-life depression is a highly prevalent disorder that causes a large economic burden. A stepped collaborative care program was set up in order to improve care for patients with late-life depression in primary care in Germany: GermanIMPACT is the adaption of the Improving Mood-Promoting Access to Collaborative Treatment (IMPACT) program that has already been established in primary care in the USA. The aim of this study was to determine the cost-effectiveness of GermanIMPACT compared with treatment as usual from a societal perspective.

Methods:

This study is part of a 12-month bi-centric cluster-randomized controlled trial aiming to assess the effectiveness of GermanIMPACT compared with treatment as usual among patients with late-life depression. A cost-effectiveness analysis using depression-free days (DFDs) was performed. Net-monetary benefit (NMB) regressions adjusted for baseline differences for different willingness-to-pay (WTP) thresholds were conducted and cost-effectiveness acceptability curves were constructed.

Results:

In total, n = 246 patients (intervention group: n = 139; control group: n = 107) with a mean age of 71 from 71 primary care practices were included in the analysis. After 12 months, adjusted mean differences in costs and DFDs between intervention group and control group were +€354 and +21.4, respectively. Only the difference in DFDs was significant (p = 0.022). According to the unadjusted incremental cost-effectiveness ratio, GermanIMPACT was dominant compared with treatment as usual. The probability of GermanIMPACT being cost-effective was 80%, 90% or 95% if societal WTP per DFD was ≥€70, ≥€110 or ≥€180, respectively.

Conclusion:

Evidence for cost-effectiveness of GermanIMPACT relative to treatment as usual is not clear. Only if societal WTP was ≥€180 for an additional DFD, GermanIMPACT could be considered cost-effective with certainty.
Male Body Image Self-Consciousness During Physical Intimacy (M-BISC): Validating the M-BISC With Gay Men
Authors: Kiss Mark J. , Morrison Todd G. , McDonagh Lorraine K.
Published: January 2019

Introduction

An expanding area of research within the realm of body image is its role in human sexual functioning, which denotes people’s overall satisfaction with their performance during a specific sexual encounter. Traditionally, studies investigating the association between body image and sexual functioning have focused on women. The Male Body Image Self-Consciousness Scale (M-BISC) was developed to exclusively assess male body image self-consciousness during sexual activity using a sample consisting primarily of heterosexual men.

Aim

The purpose of the current study is to evaluate the dimensionality, reliability, and validity of the M-BISC with a sample of gay men. Research suggests that sexual difficulties and body image concerns can overlap and interrelate. Therefore, 2 subscales (erectile difficulties and body embarrassment) from the Gay Male Sexual Difficulties Scale (GMSDS) were used to assess the validity of the scale.

Methods

1,930 men self-identifying as “exclusively gay” completed an online survey consisting of demographics, the M-BISC, and the GMSDS (erectile difficulties and body embarrassment subscales).

Main Outcome Measure

The replicability of the M-BISC factor structure with a gay male sample was determined using an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Additionally, the GMSDS (erectile difficulties and body embarrassment subscales) was used to determine the validity of the M-BISC.

Results

Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed that, following the removal of 3 items, the M-BISC was unidimensional. Scale score reliability for the 14-item M-BISC was good. Finally, as predicted, scores on the M-BISC correlated with scores on the GMSDS (ie, greater sexual difficulties).

Clinical Implications

The results indicate that assessment scales developed using samples consisting primarily of heterosexual men may not be appropriate for use with gay men in their original form. Thus, limiting the accuracy of the measurement and increasing the risk of misdiagnoses.

Strength & Limitations

Strengths of this study include a large sample of exclusively gay men and the utilization of best-practice statistical analysis for assessing factor structure, validity, and reliability of measures. Limitations include the assumption that the M-BISC should be used in lieu of a novel scale developed exclusively for gay men. Further, the study utilizes an Internet sample consisting primarily of Caucasian gay men.

Conclusion

Results of the current study illustrate that the M-BISC is a valid tool to measure gay men’s body concerns during intimacy. More importantly, it also highlights gay men’s elevated body concerns during intimacy and the need to understand the etiology of these apprehensions. Currently, there is a noticeable gap in the literature regarding the cause of gay male body concerns that have potential clinic implications.
A new model of shoaling and breaking waves: one-dimensional solitary wave on a mild sloping beach
Authors: Kazakova M. , Richard G. L.
Published: January 2019

We present a new approach to model coastal waves in the shoaling and surf zones. The model can be described as a depth-averaged large-eddy simulation model with a cutoff in the inertial subrange. The large-scale turbulence is explicitly resolved through an extra variable called enstrophy while the small-scale turbulence is modelled with a turbulent-viscosity hypothesis. The equations are derived by averaging the mass, momentum and kinetic energy equations assuming a shallow-water flow, a negligible bottom shear stress and a weakly turbulent flow assumption which is not restrictive in practice. The model is fully nonlinear and has the same dispersive properties as the Green–Naghdi equations. It is validated by numerical tests and by comparison with experimental results of the literature on the propagation of a one-dimensional solitary wave over a mild sloping beach. The wave breaking is characterized by a sudden increase of the enstrophy which allows us to propose a breaking criterion based on the new concept of virtual enstrophy. The model features three empirical parameters. The first one governs the turbulent dissipation and was found to be a constant. The eddy viscosity is determined by a turbulent Reynolds number depending only on the bottom slope. The third parameter defines the breaking criterion and depends only on the wave initial nonlinearity. These dependences give a predictive character to the model which is suitable for further developments.
Triangulations with few vertices of manifolds with non-free fundamental group
Authors: Pavešić Petar
Published: January 2019

We study lower bounds for the number of vertices in a PL-triangulation of a given manifold M. While most of the previous estimates are based on the dimension and the connectivity of M, we show that further information can be extracted by studying the structure of the fundamental group of M and applying techniques from the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category theory. In particular, we prove that every PL-triangulation of a d-dimensional manifold (d ⩾ 3) whose fundamental group is not free has at least 3d + 1 vertices. As a corollary, every d-dimensional homology sphere that admits a combinatorial triangulation with less than 3d vertices is PL-homeomorphic to Sd. Another important consequence is that every triangulation with small links of M is combinatorial.
Periodic solutions for a second-order differential equation with indefinite weak singularity
Authors: Godoy José , Zamora Manuel
Published: January 2019

As a consequence of the main result of this paper efficient conditions guaranteeing the existence of a T −periodic solution to the second-order differential equation
$${u}^{\prime \prime} = \displaystyle{{h(t)} \over {u^\lambda }}$$are established. Here, h ∈ L(ℝ/Tℤ) is a piecewise-constant sign-changing function and the non-linear term presents a weak singularity at 0 (i.e. λ ∈ (0, 1)).
Mind the gap: is the Canadian long-term care workforce ready for a palliative care mandate?
Authors: Hunter Paulette V. , McCleary Lynn , Akhtar-Danesh Noori , Goodridge Donna , Hadjistavropoulos Thomas , Kaasalainen Sharon , Sussman Tamara , Thompson Genevieve , Venturato Lorraine , Wickson-Griffiths Abigail
Published: January 2019

The average expected lifespan in Canadian long-term care (LTC) homes is now less than two years post-admission, making LTC a palliative care setting. As little is known about the readiness of LTC staff in Canada to embrace a palliative care mandate, the main objective of this study was to assess qualities relevant to palliative care, including personal emotional wellbeing, palliative care self-efficacy and person-centred practices (e.g. knowing the person, comfort care). A convenience sample of 228 professional and non-professional staff (e.g. nurses and nursing assistants) across four Canadian LTC homes participated in a survey. Burnout, secondary traumatic stress and poor job satisfaction were well below accepted thresholds, e.g. burnout: mean = 20.49 (standard deviation (SD) = 5.39) for professionals; mean = 22.09 (SD = 4.98) for non-professionals; cut score = 42. Furthermore, only 0–1 per cent of each group showed a score above cut-off for any of these variables. Reported self-efficacy was moderate, e.g. efficacy in delivery: mean = 18.63 (SD = 6.29) for professionals; mean = 15.33 (SD = 7.52) for non-professionals; maximum = 32. The same was true of self-reported person-centred care, e.g. knowing the person; mean = 22.05 (SD = 6.55) for professionals; mean = 22.91 (SD = 6.16) for non-professionals; maximum = 35. t-Tests showed that non-professional staff reported relatively higher levels of burnout, while professional staff reported greater job satisfaction and self-efficacy (p < 0.05). There was no difference in secondary traumatic stress or person-centred care (p > 0.05). Overall, these results suggest that the emotional wellbeing of the Canadian LTC workforce is unlikely to impede effective palliative care. However, palliative care self-efficacy and person-centred care can be further cultivated in this context.
Co-resident care-giving and problematic sleep among older people: evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study
Authors: Maun Emma , Glaser Karen , Corna Laurie
Published: January 2019

In light of current pressures within formal social care services, informal carers assume an important role in meeting the care needs of a growing number of older people. Research suggests relationships between care-giving and health are complex and not yet fully understood. Recently, wide-ranging associations between sleep and health have been identified, however, our understanding of the links between care-giving and sleep is limited at present. This study assesses longitudinal patterns in co-resident care-giving and problematic sleep among older people in the United Kingdom. Our sample included 2,470 adults aged 65 years and older from the UK Household Longitudinal Study. Problematic sleep was defined as two or more problems in going to sleep, staying asleep or sleep quality. Using logistic regression models, we assessed how co-resident care-giving status, intensity and transitions influence the likelihood of problematic sleep in the following year, adjusting for potential confounding factors. Adjusted analyses found co-resident care-givers were 1.49 (95% confidence interval = 1.06–2.08) times more likely to report problematic sleep in the following year, relative to those not providing care. Care-giving over 20 hours per week and continuous co-resident care-giving also significantly increased the odds of problematic sleep. This suggests older co-resident care-givers may be at greater risk of incurring sleep problems than non-care-givers. Further longitudinal research is needed to investigate care-giver-specific consequences of poor sleep.
Caught in a vicious cycle? Explaining bidirectional spillover between parent-child relationships and peer victimization
Authors: Kaufman Tessa M. L. , Kretschmer Tina , Huitsing Gijs , Veenstra René
Published: January 2019

Relationships with parents and peers are crucial for children's socialization, but how parent–child and peer relationships mutually affect each other is not well understood. Guided by spillover theory, we zoomed in on the bidirectional interplay between parental rejection and warmth on the one hand and peer victimization on the other, and examined whether children's maladjustment symptoms mediated hypothesized cross-domain spillover effects. Data stem from five waves of the longitudinal KiVa study among 9,770 children (50% boys; mean age = 9.16, standard deviation = 1.29). Results from random intercept cross-lagged panel models showed that higher parental rejection and lower parental warmth predicted increases in peer victimization and vice versa across waves, thus supporting the bidirectional model. Moreover, spillover from parent–child rejection and warmth to peer victimization was partially driven by children's depressive symptoms and bullying perpetration. Vice versa, spillover from peer victimization to parent–child rejection and warmth was partially driven by children's social anxiety, depressive symptoms, conduct problems, and bullying perpetration. Thus, children might get caught in persistent problems in two important social domains, and these two domains influence each other through children's maladjustment. Family and school interventions should be integrated to prevent a downwards spiral.
Health Risk Behaviors after Disaster Exposure Among Older Adults
Authors: Bell Sue Anne , Choi HwaJung , Langa Kenneth M. , Iwashyna Theodore J.
Published: January 2019

Objective

The aim of this study was to examine the extent to which an exposure to disaster is associated with change in health behaviors.

Methods

Federal disaster declarations were matched at the county-level to self-reported behaviors for participants in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), 2000-2014. Multivariable logistic regression was used to evaluate the relationship between disaster and change in physical activity, body mass index (BMI), and cigarette smoking.

Results

The sample included 20,671 individuals and 59,450 interviews; 1,451 unique disasters were declared in counties in which HRS respondents lived during the study period. Exposure to disaster was significantly associated with weight gain (unadjusted RRR=1.19; 95% CI, 1.11-1.27; adjusted RRR=1.21; 95% CI, 1.13-1.30). Vigorous physical activity was significantly lower among those who had experienced a disaster compared to those who had not (unadjusted OR=0.89; 95% CI, 0.84-0.95; adjusted OR=0.84; 95% CI, 0.79-0.89). No significant difference in cigarette smoking was found.

Conclusions

This study found an increase in weight gain and decrease in physical activity among older adults after disaster exposure. Adverse health behaviors such as these can contribute to functional decline among older adults.

BellSA, ChoiH, LangaKM, IwashynaTJ. Health risk behaviors after disaster exposure among older adults. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2019;34(1):95–97.
Cognitive emotional processing across mood disorders
Authors: Panchal Priyanka , Kaltenboeck Alexander , Harmer Catherine J.
Published: January 2019

While impairments in cognitive emotional processing are key to the experience of mood disorders, little is understood of their shared and distinct features across major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD). In this review, we discuss the similarities and differences in abnormal emotional processing associated with mood disorders across the cognitive domains of perception, attention, memory, and reward processing, with a particular focus on how these impairments relate to the clinical profile of the disorders. We consider behavioral and neuroimaging evidence, especially that of the growing consensus surrounding mood-congruent biases in cognition, in combination with state- and trait-related characteristics in an attempt to provide a more comprehensive and translational overview of mood disorders. Special consideration is given to the shared phenomenon of mood instability and its role as a potential transdiagnostic marker across the prodrome and maintenance of mood disorders.
Scrupulosity, Religious Affiliation and Symptom Presentation in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Authors: Buchholz Jennifer L. , Abramowitz Jonathan S. , Riemann Bradley C. , Reuman Lillian , Blakey Shannon M. , Leonard Rachel C. , Thompson Katherine A.
Published: January 2019

Background: Scrupulosity is a common yet understudied presentation of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) that is characterized by obsessions and compulsions focused on religion. Despite the clinical relevance of scrupulosity to some presentations of OCD, little is known about the association between scrupulosity and symptom severity across religious groups. Aims: The present study examined the relationship between (a) religious affiliation and OCD symptoms, (b) religious affiliation and scrupulosity, and (c) scrupulosity and OCD symptoms across religious affiliations. Method: One-way ANOVAs, Pearson correlations and regression-based moderation analyses were conducted to evaluate these relationships in 180 treatment-seeking adults with OCD who completed measures of scrupulosity and OCD symptom severity. Results: Scrupulosity, but not OCD symptoms in general, differed across religious affiliations. Individuals who identified as Catholic reported the highest level of scrupulosity relative to individuals who identified as Protestant, Jewish or having no religion. Scrupulosity was associated with OCD symptom severity globally and across symptom dimensions, and the magnitude of these relationships differed by religious affiliation. Conclusions: Findings are discussed in terms of the dimensionality of scrupulosity, need for further assessment instruments, implications for assessment and intervention, and the consideration of religious identity in treatment.
Front-of-pack nutrition labelling in the European region: identifying what works for governments and consumers
Authors: Kelly Bridget , Jewell Jo
Published: January 2019

Objective

The present commentary introduces a Health Evidence Network (HEN) report that synthesises evidence of front-of-pack food labelling (FOPL) policy development and implementation across the European Region.

Design

Countries were identified as having policies on interpretive FOPL from the WHO databases of Member State policies and online repositories of global food policies. For each identified country, evidence published from 1 January 1980 to 31 March 2018 was retrieved from peer-reviewed and grey literature. Extracted data were cross-checked with in-country representatives to ensure completeness and accuracy.

Setting

WHO European Region, spanning fifty-three countries.

Results

Fifteen countries had a government-endorsed policy on interpretive FOPL. Thirteen of these countries had introduced endorsement logos, while only three labelling systems provided an indicator for unhealthfulness. Common steps were identified in FOPL policy development, including: establishing FOPL as a nutrition policy priority; engaging stakeholders and the public; and collecting formative evidence on which to base the labelling system. Few countries had outlined formal provisions for evaluation of FOPL systems. The HEN report describes seven considerations for the adoption/review of FOPL policies to ensure these achieve the population nutrition aims of FOPL. These considerations relate to supporting consumer use and understanding of the labelling, policy feasibility and credibility, and ensuring policy implementation and accountability.

Conclusions

The HEN report encourages countries to consider FOPL policy that is applied widely across all products and provides negative evaluative judgements, possibly combined with positive indicators. Implementation provisions should drive widespread uptake of the system and allow for formal evaluation of impact.
Answering the “why” in answer set programming – A survey of explanation approaches
Authors: FANDINNO JORGE , SCHULZ CLAUDIA
Published: January 2019

Artificial intelligence (AI) approaches to problem-solving and decision-making are becoming more and more complex, leading to a decrease in the understandability of solutions. The European Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation tries to tackle this problem by stipulating a “right to explanation” for decisions made by AI systems. One of the AI paradigms that may be affected by this new regulation is answer set programming (ASP). Thanks to the emergence of efficient solvers, ASP has recently been used for problem-solving in a variety of domains, including medicine, cryptography, and biology. To ensure the successful application of ASP as a problem-solving paradigm in the future, explanations of ASP solutions are crucial. In this survey, we give an overview of approaches that provide an answer to the question ofwhyan answer set is a solution to a given problem, notably off-line justifications, causal graphs, argumentative explanations, and why-not provenance, and highlight their similarities and differences. Moreover, we review methods explaining why a set of literals isnotan answer set or why no solution exists at all.
Biotechnology and the lifetime of technical civilizations
Authors: Sotos John G.
Published: January 2019

The number of people able to end Earth's technical civilization has heretofore been small. Emerging dual-use technologies, such as biotechnology, may give similar power to thousands or millions of individuals. To quantitatively investigate the ramifications of such a marked shift on the survival of both terrestrial and extraterrestrial technical civilizations, this paper presents a two-parameter model for civilizational lifespans, i.e. the quantity L in Drake's equation for the number of communicating extraterrestrial civilizations. One parameter characterizes the population lethality of a civilization's biotechnology and the other characterizes the civilization's psychosociology. L is demonstrated to be less than the inverse of the product of these two parameters. Using empiric data from PubMed to inform the biotechnology parameter, the model predicts human civilization's median survival time as decades to centuries, even with optimistic psychosociological parameter values, thereby positioning biotechnology as a proximate threat to human civilization. For an ensemble of civilizations having some median calculated survival time, the model predicts that, after 80 times that duration, only one in 1024 civilizations will survive – a tempo and degree of winnowing compatible with Hanson's ‘Great Filter.’ Thus, assuming that civilizations universally develop advanced biotechnology, before they become vigorous interstellar colonizers, the model provides a resolution to the Fermi paradox.
BLACK PROTESTANT VIEWS OF SCIENCE
Authors: Tinsley Cleve , Prickett Pamela J. , Ecklund Elaine Howard
Published: January 2019

We ask how Black Protestants frame the connection between religion and science, analyzing fifty in-depth interviews with Black Protestants of different socioeconomic backgrounds who attend churches in two U.S. cities. Although individuals across the sample observe some tension, or incompatibility, between religion and science, Black Protestants from lower socioeconomic backgrounds tended to perceive much more tension when compared with those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. However, when science is thought to contribute to improving health conditions (e.g., medical improvements to diagnose or prevent birth defects), individuals from both SES backgrounds framed religion and science as compatible. This lack of tension in regards to medicine challenges prevailing wisdom about lower-income African Americans’ attitudes towards medicine. We draw out the implications of these findings for larger discussions about trust toward science and scientific communities, elucidating Black Protestant particularities and perspectives in tensions between science and religion as a foundation for further research.