256 research outputs found
The concept of audit materiality and attitudes towards materiality threshold disclosure among Maltese audit practitioners
Materiality permeates the audit process and is a term often
used to describe the scope of the auditorâs responsibility to the general
public. This paper attempts to evaluate the Maltese auditing
professionâs perceptions and use of the concept of materiality in the
performance of an audit as well as attitudes towards disclosure of
materiality thresholds. Results from personal in-depth interviews
with twenty-four practitioners show that although considerable
importance is attached to qualitative aspects of materiality, professional
judgment is applied to establish quantitative materiality thresholds.
Practitioners in Malta do not seem to treat materiality uniformly, with
various materiality thresholds applied in practice. Nevertheless,
prescriptive guidelines are not advisable. The proposal of disclosing
materiality thresholds to reduce the omnipresent expectations gap
was strongly rejected. It is the authorsâ view that such disclosures,
need to be adequately regulated and users would need a proper
understanding of materiality and audit methodologies.peer-reviewe
Parkinsonâs disease : current treatments and the possible use of Cannabis
Parkinsonâs disease is a progressive neurodegenerative movement disorder common in old age. The current prevalence of this condition in the western world is estimated to be 0.3% of the entire population, and this value is expected to increase due to the ageing world population.
Although there is no cure for Parkinsonâs disease, many therapies aimed to relieve patients from its motor and/or non-motor symptoms exist, both pharmacological and surgical such as levodopa and deep brain stimulation, respectively. However, these therapies have their own problems and disadvantages, for instance levodopa-induced dyskinesia.
As there is currently a movement bringing about the legalisation of cannabis use for medicinal purposes, many studies are being carried out to discover if cannabis or cannabinoids can be used as a treatment modality, hopefully with less side effects than current treatments, to alleviate patients suffering from Parkinsonâs disease from their symptoms.
In this paper we seek to review the current treatment options available to these patients and what the latest studies in cannabinoids have determined with regards to their use in Parkinsonâs disease.peer-reviewe
Xanthogranulomatous pyelonephritis : the case of a perplexing kidney
A previously healthy 2-year-old girl presented with turbid urine and pallor. She was otherwise asymptomatic and afebrile. Clinical examination revealed a large ballotable right-sided abdominal mass. Ultrasound revealed an enlarged right kidney with loss of the normal renal architecture, which was replaced with multiple hypoechoic nodules. A number of renal calculi were observed with typical acoustic shadowing. A contrast-enhanced CT scan demonstrated the diagnostic âbearâs pawâ sign, multiple calculi, retroperitoneal lymphadenopathy and a small right psoas abscess. A dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) scan demonstrated a non-functioning kidney.peer-reviewe
School-based mental health promotion: A global policy review
ObjectivesSchools are increasingly recognized as important settings for mental health promotion, but it is unclear what actions schools should prioritize to promote student mental health and wellbeing. We undertook a policy review of global school-based mental health promotion policy documents from United Nations (UN) agencies to understand the frameworks they use and the actions they recommend for schools.MethodsWe searched for guidelines and manuals from UN agencies through the World Health Organization (WHO) library, the National Library of Australia and Google Scholar, from 2000 to 2021, using various combinations of search terms (e.g., mental health, wellbeing, psychosocial, health, school, framework, manual, and guidelines). Textual data synthesis was undertaken.ResultsSixteen documents met inclusion criteria. UN policy documents commonly recommended a comprehensive school-health framework aimed at integrating actions to prevent, promote, and support mental health problems within the school community. The primary role of schools was framed around building enabling contexts for mental health and wellbeing. Terminology was relatively inconsistent across different guidelines and manuals, particularly around how comprehensive school health was conceptualized, which included aspects of scope, focus, and approach.ConclusionUnited Nations policy documents are oriented toward comprehensive school-health frameworks for student mental health and wellbeing that include mental health within wider health-promoting approaches. There are expectations that schools have the capabilities to deliver actions to prevent, promote and support mental health problems.ImplicationEffective implementation of school-based mental health promotion requires investments that facilitate specific actions from governments, schools, families, and communities
Habituation of reflexive and motivated behavior in mice with deficient BK channel function.
Habituation is considered the most basic form of learning. It describes the decrease of a behavioral response to a repeated non-threatening sensory stimulus and therefore provides an important sensory filtering mechanism. While some neuronal pathways mediating habituation are well described, underlying cellular/molecular mechanisms are not yet fully understood. In general, there is an agreement that short-term and long-term habituation are based on different mechanisms. Historically, a distinction has also been made between habituation of motivated versus reflexive behavior. In recent studies in invertebrates the large conductance voltage- and calcium-activated potassium (BK) channel has been implicated to be a key player in habituation by regulating synaptic transmission. Here, we tested mice deficient for the pore forming α-subunit of the BK channel for short-term and long-term habituation of the acoustic startle reflex (reflexive behavior) and of the exploratory locomotor behavior in the open field box (motivated behavior). Short-term habituation of startle was completely abolished in the BK knock-out mice, whereas neither long-term habituation of startle nor habituation of motivated behavior was affected by the BK deficiency. Our results support a highly preserved mechanism for short-term habituation of startle across species that is distinct from long-term habituation mechanisms. It also supports the notion that there are different mechanisms underlying habituation of motivated behavior versus reflexive behavior
Global, regional, and national mortality among young people aged 10â24 years, 1950â2019 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019
Background: Documentation of patterns and long-term trends in mortality in young people, which reflect huge changes in demographic and social determinants of adolescent health, enables identification of global investment priorities for this age group. We aimed to analyse data on the number of deaths, years of life lost, and mortality rates by sex and age group in people aged 10â24 years in 204 countries and territories from 1950 to 2019 by use of estimates from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019. Methods: We report trends in estimated total numbers of deaths and mortality rate per 100 000 population in young people aged 10â24 years by age group (10â14 years, 15â19 years, and 20â24 years) and sex in 204 countries and territories between 1950 and 2019 for all causes, and between 1980 and 2019 by cause of death. We analyse variation in outcomes by region, age group, and sex, and compare annual rate of change in mortality in young people aged 10â24 years with that in children aged 0â9 years from 1990 to 2019. We then analyse the association between mortality in people aged 10â24 years and socioeconomic development using the GBD Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite measure based on average national educational attainment in people older than 15 years, total fertility rate in people younger than 25 years, and income per capita. We assess the association between SDI and all-cause mortality in 2019, and analyse the ratio of observed to expected mortality by SDI using the most recent available data release (2017). Findings: In 2019 there were 1·49 million deaths (95% uncertainty interval 1·39â1·59) worldwide in people aged 10â24 years, of which 61% occurred in males. 32·7% of all adolescent deaths were due to transport injuries, unintentional injuries, or interpersonal violence and conflict; 32·1% were due to communicable, nutritional, or maternal causes; 27·0% were due to non-communicable diseases; and 8·2% were due to self-harm. Since 1950, deaths in this age group decreased by 30·0% in females and 15·3% in males, and sex-based differences in mortality rate have widened in most regions of the world. Geographical variation has also increased, particularly in people aged 10â14 years. Since 1980, communicable and maternal causes of death have decreased sharply as a proportion of total deaths in most GBD super-regions, but remain some of the most common causes in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, where more than half of all adolescent deaths occur. Annual percentage decrease in all-cause mortality rate since 1990 in adolescents aged 15â19 years was 1·3% in males and 1·6% in females, almost half that of males aged 1â4 years (2·4%), and around a third less than in females aged 1â4 years (2·5%). The proportion of global deaths in people aged 0â24 years that occurred in people aged 10â24 years more than doubled between 1950 and 2019, from 9·5% to 21·6%. Interpretation: Variation in adolescent mortality between countries and by sex is widening, driven by poor progress in reducing deaths in males and older adolescents. Improving global adolescent mortality will require action to address the specific vulnerabilities of this age group, which are being overlooked. Furthermore, indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to jeopardise efforts to improve health outcomes including mortality in young people aged 10â24 years. There is an urgent need to respond to the changing global burden of adolescent mortality, address inequities where they occur, and improve the availability and quality of primary mortality data in this age group. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license. **Please note that there are multiple authors for this article therefore only the name of the first 5 including Federation University Australia affiliate âMuhammad Aziz Rahmanâ is provided in this record**. Erratum: Department of Error (The Lancet (2021) 398(10311) (1593â1618), (S0140673621015464), (10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01546-4)) In figure 8 of this Article, the total deaths and proportion in each age group in 1950 were incorrect. These corrections have been made to the online version as of Feb 24, 2022. © 2022 Elsevier Lt
Mice with deficient BK channel function show impaired prepulse inhibition and spatial learning, but normal working and spatial reference memory
Genetic variations in the large-conductance, voltage- and calcium activated potassium channels (BK channels) have been recently implicated in mental retardation, autism and schizophrenia which all come along with severe cognitive impairments. In the present study we investigate the effects of functional BK channel deletion on cognition using a genetic mouse model with a knock-out of the gene for the pore forming α-subunit of the channel. We tested the F1 generation of a hybrid SV129/C57BL6 mouse line in which the slo1 gene was deleted in both parent strains.
We first evaluated hearing and motor function to establish the suitability of this model for cognitive testing. Auditory brain stem responses to click stimuli showed no threshold differences between knockout mice and their wild-type littermates. Despite of muscular tremor, reduced grip force, and impaired gait, knockout mice exhibited normal locomotion. These findings allowed for testing of sensorimotor gating using the acoustic startle reflex, as well as of working memory, spatial learning and memory in the Y-maze and the Morris water maze, respectively.
Prepulse inhibition on the first day of testing was normal, but the knockout mice did not improve over the days of testing as their wild-type littermates did. Spontaneous alternation in the y-maze was normal as well, suggesting that the BK channel knock-out does not impair working memory. In the Morris water maze knock-out mice showed significantly slower acquisition of the task, but normal memory once the task was learned. Thus, we propose a crucial role of the BK channels in learning, but not in memory storage or recollection
The Nature of the Red Giant Branches in the Ursa Minor and Draco Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies
Spectra for stars located redward of the fiducial red giant branches of the
Ursa Minor and Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxies have been obtained with the
Hobby-Eberly telescope and the Marcario Low Resolution Spectrometer. From a
comparison of our radial velocities with those reported in previous
medium-resolution studies, we find an average difference of 10 km/s with a
standard deviation of 11 km/s. On the basis of these radial velocities, we
confirm the membership of five stars in Ursa Minor, and find two others to be
nonmembers. One of the confirmed members is a known carbon star which lies
redward of RGB; three others are previously unidentified carbon stars. The
fifth star is a red giant which was found previously by Shetrone et al. (2001)
to have [Fe/H] =-1.68+/-0.11 dex. In Draco, we find eight nonmembers, confirm
the membership of one known carbon star, and find two new members. One of these
stars is a carbon star, while the other shows no evidence for C2 bands or
strong atomic bands, although the signal-to-noise ratio of the spectrum is low.
Thus, we find no evidence for a population of stars more metal-rich than [Fe/H]
\~ -1.45 dex in either of these galaxies. Indeed, our spectroscopic survey
suggests that every candidate suspected of having a metallicity in excess of
this value based on its position in the color-magnitude diagram is, in
actuality, a carbon star. Based on the census of 13 known carbon stars in these
two galaxies, we estimate of the carbon star specific frequency to be e(dSph) ~
2.4E-5/Lsolarv, 25-100 times higher than that of Galactic globular clusters.Comment: 8 pages including 3 figures accepted in the Publications of the
Astronomical Society of the Pacific. This work is based on observations
obtained with the Hobby-Eberly Telescop
VLT spectroscopy of blue supergiants in IC 1613
We present multi-object spectroscopy of young, massive stars in the Local
Group galaxy IC 1613. We provide the spectral classification and a detailed
spectral catalog for 54 OBA stars in this galaxy. The majority of the
photometrically selected sample is composed of B- and A-type supergiants. The
remaining stars include early O-type dwarfs and the only Wolf-Rayet star known
in this galaxy. Among the early B stars we have serendipitously uncovered 6 Be
stars, the largest spectroscopically confirmed sample of this class of objects
beyond the Magellanic Clouds. We measure chemical abundances for 9 early-B
supergiants, and find a mean oxygen abundance of 12+log(O/H)=7.90 +/- 0.08.
This value is consistent with the result we obtain for two HII regions in which
we detect the temperature-sensitive [OIII]4363 auroral line.Comment: 17 pages, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa
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