1,930 research outputs found
Using Narrative to Reflect on Three Therapeutic Models in Taiwan : Lessons for Community Approaches to Child Mental Health
As the shortcomings of deinstitutionalization become evident, models of institution-based
therapeutic communities are starting to appear as promising alternatives. While institution-based therapy models produce desirable outcomes for some categories of mental illness, these lessons have not been applied to exploring community approaches to child mental health. To this end, we use an identity narrative approach to explore the relation between mental illnesses and childhood or adolescent development in narratives of patients treated under different therapeutic models for three conditions: severe mental illness (SMI),
substance abuse and ADHD. Only the ADHDÂ patients were children; the SMI and substance
abuse treatment models were designed for adult patients. But all patient narratives showed the illness had roots in childhood. This secondary analysis examines patient narratives collected from three independent projects between 2005 and 2013. The oral history study of the Yu Li therapeutic model for SMI was conducted from 2005 to 2006. The project documenting a therapeutic model for substance abusers in the Tsao Tun Psychiatric
Center was carried out from 2009 to 2010. Lastly, we took oral histories from participants in an ADHD family support group between 2011 and 2013. The development and nature of these models will be illustrated first, then contrasted, to identify the key elements of empowerment in each type of therapeutic community. We further apply the Jonsenâs four-topic approach to clinical decision making to clarify the ethical dilemmas in assignment of tasks and to distinguish how each division of labor affects patient empowerment. While considering the nature of illness or recovery for different categories of patients, we find narrative understandings are crucial for ascertaining the residual functioning of each patient, and for striking a balance between individual existence and social being. We conclude narrative medicine constitutes a specialized approach for building recovery models and promoting mental health
Lack of association of genetic variants for diabetic retinopathy in Taiwanese patients with diabetic nephropathy
[[abstract]]Objective Diabetic nephropathy (DN) and diabetic
retinopathy (DR) comprise major microvascular
complications of diabetes that occur with a high
concordance rate in patients and are considered to
potentially share pathogeneses. In this case-control
study, we sought to investigate whether DR-related single
nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) exert pleiotropic effects
on renal function outcomes among patients with diabetes.
Research design and methods A total of 33 DR-related
SNPs were identified by replicating published SNPs and
via a genome-wide association study. Furthermore, we
assessed the cumulative effects by creating a weighted
genetic risk score and evaluated the discriminatory and
prediction ability of these genetic variants using DN cases
according to estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR)
status along with a cohort with early renal functional
decline (ERFD).
Results Multivariate logistic regression models revealed
that the DR-related SNPs afforded no individual or
cumulative genetic effect on the nephropathy risk, eGFR
status or ERFD outcome among patients with type two
diabetes in Taiwan.
Conclusion Our findings indicate that larger studies would
be necessary to clearly ascertain the effects of individual
genetic variants and further investigation is also required
to identify other genetic pathways underlying DN.[[notice]]èŁæŁćź
Effect of hyperbaric oxygen on mesenchymal stem cells for lumbar fusion in vivo
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy has been proved in improving bone healing, but its effects on mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) <it>in vivo </it>is not clear. The aims of this study are to clarify whether the HBO therapy has the same enhancing effect on MSCs with regard to bone formation and maturation and to ascertain whether the transplanted MSCs survive in the grafted area and contribute to new bone formation.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Twenty-three adult rabbits underwent posterolateral fusion at L4-L5 level. The animals were divided into three groups according to the material implanted and subsequent treatment: (1) Alginate carrier (n = 6); (2) Alginate-MSCs composite (n = 11); and (3) Alginate-MSCs composite with HBO therapy (n = 6). After 12 weeks, spine fusion was examined using radiographic examination, manual testing, and histological examination. Using a PKH fluorescence labeling system, whether the transplanted MSCs survived and contributed to new bone formation in the grafted area after HBO therapy was also examined.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The bilateral fusion areas in each animal were evaluated independently. By radiographic examination and manual palpation, union for the Alginate, Alginate-MSCs, and Alginate-MSCs-HBO groups was 0 of 12, 10 of 22, and 6 of 12 respectively. The difference between the Alginate-MSCs and Alginate-MSCs-HBO groups was not significant (P = 0.7997). The fluorescence microscopy histological analysis indicated that the transplanted PKH67-labeled MSCs survived and partly contributed to new bone formation in the grafted area.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study demonstrated that the preconditioned MSCs could survive and yield bone formation in the grafted area. HBO therapy did not enhance the osteogenic ability of MSCs and improve the success of spine fusion in the rabbit model. Although there was no significant effect of HBO therapy on MSCs for spine fusion, the study encourages us to research a more basic approach for determining the optimal oxygen tension and pressure that are required to maintain and enhance the osteogenic ability of preconditioned MSCs. Further controlled <it>in vivo </it>and <it>in vitro </it>studies are required for achieving a better understanding of the effect of HBO treatment on MSCs.</p
Myeloid Heme Oxygenase-1 Haploinsufficiency Reduces High Fat Diet-Induced Insulin Resistance by Affecting Adipose Macrophage Infiltration in Mice
Increased adipose tissue macrophages contribute to obesity-induced metabolic syndrome. Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is a stress-inducible enzyme with potent anti-inflammatory and proangiogenic activities in macrophages. However, the role of macrophage HO-1 on obesity-induced adipose inflammation and metabolic syndrome remains unclear. Here we show that high-fat diet (HFD) feeding in C57BL/6J mice induced HO-1 expression in the visceral adipose tissue, particularly the stromal vascular fraction. When the irradiated C57BL/6J mice reconstituted with wild-type or HO-1+/â bone marrow were fed with HFD for over 24 weeks, the HO-1+/â chimeras were protected from HFD-induced insulin resistance and this was associated with reduced adipose macrophage infiltration and angiogenesis, suggesting that HO-1 affects myeloid cell migration toward adipose tissue during obesity. In vivo and in vitro migration assays revealed that HO-1+/â macrophages exhibited an impaired migration response. Chemoattractant-induced phosphorylation of p38 and focal adhesion kinase (FAK) declined faster in HO-1+/â macrophages. Further experiments demonstrated that carbon monoxide and bilirubin, the byproducts derived from heme degradation by HO-1, enhanced macrophage migration by increasing phosphorylation of p38 and FAK, respectively. These data disclose a novel role of hematopoietic cell HO-1 in promoting adipose macrophage infiltration and the development of insulin resistance during obesity
Azimuthal anisotropy in Au+Au collisions at sqrtsNN = 200 GeV
The results from the STAR Collaboration on directed flow (v_1), elliptic flow
(v_2), and the fourth harmonic (v_4) in the anisotropic azimuthal distribution
of particles from Au+Au collisions at sqrtsNN = 200 GeV are summarized and
compared with results from other experiments and theoretical models. Results
for identified particles are presented and fit with a Blast Wave model.
Different anisotropic flow analysis methods are compared and nonflow effects
are extracted from the data. For v_2, scaling with the number of constituent
quarks and parton coalescence is discussed. For v_4, scaling with v_2^2 and
quark coalescence is discussed.Comment: 26 pages. As accepted by Phys. Rev. C. Text rearranged, figures
modified, but data the same. However, in Fig. 35 the hydro calculations are
corrected in this version. The data tables are available at
http://www.star.bnl.gov/central/publications/ by searching for "flow" and
then this pape
Production of Inactivated Influenza H5N1 Vaccines from MDCK Cells in Serum-Free Medium
BACKGROUND: Highly pathogenic influenza viruses pose a constant threat which could lead to a global pandemic. Vaccination remains the principal measure to reduce morbidity and mortality from such pandemics. The availability and surging demand for pandemic vaccines needs to be addressed in the preparedness plans. This study presents an improved high-yield manufacturing process for the inactivated influenza H5N1 vaccines using Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells grown in a serum-free (SF) medium microcarrier cell culture system. PRINCIPAL FINDING: The current study has evaluated the performance of cell adaptation switched from serum-containing (SC) medium to several commercial SF media. The selected SF medium was further evaluated in various bioreactor culture systems for process scale-up evaluation. No significant difference was found in the cell growth in different sizes of bioreactors studied. In the 7.5 L bioreactor runs, the cell concentration reached to 2.3 à 10(6) cells/mL after 5 days. The maximum virus titers of 1024 Hemagglutinin (HA) units/50 ”L and 7.1 ± 0.3 à 10(8) pfu/mL were obtained after 3 days infection. The concentration of HA antigen as determined by SRID was found to be 14.1 ”g/mL which was higher than those obtained from the SC medium. A mouse immunogenicity study showed that the formalin-inactivated purified SF vaccine candidate formulated with alum adjuvant could induce protective level of virus neutralization titers similar to those obtained from the SC medium. In addition, the H5N1 viruses produced from either SC or SF media showed the same antigenic reactivity with the NIBRG14 standard antisera. CONCLUSIONS: The advantages of this SF cell-based manufacturing process could reduce the animal serum contamination, the cost and lot-to-lot variation of SC medium production. This study provides useful information to manufacturers that are planning to use SF medium for cell-based influenza vaccine production
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Longevity Risk and Capital Markets: The 2018-19 Update
This Special Issue of the Annals of Actuarial Science contains 12 contributions to the academic literature all dealing with longevity risk and capital markets. Draft versions of the papers were presented at Longevity 14: The Fourteenth International Longevity Risk and Capital Markets Solutions Conference that was held in Amsterdam on 20-21 September 2018. It was hosted by the Pensions Institute at Cass Business School and the Netspar Network for Studies on Pensions, Ageing and Retirement
Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at TeV with the ATLAS detector
This paper presents measurements of the and cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a
function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were
collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with
the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity
of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements
varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the
1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured
with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with
predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various
parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between
them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables,
submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at
https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13
Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at â s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fbâ1 of â s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente
Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in âs=13âTeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector
A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of âs=13ââTeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139ââfbâ1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015â2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV
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