A brief cognitive behavioural intervention for regular amphetamine users. A treatment guide.

A brief intervention using motivational and cognitive behavioural approaches to help change drug use. Also offer alternative brief interventions for clients not suited to the current approach. This manual is divided into five sections: Section 1. Context • Key points from the National Drug Strategy Monograph No 51. Models of Intervention and Care for Psychostimulant Users are included to present the evidence supporting this type of intervention for regular amphetamine users. • A flow-chart to place the intervention in a treatment context. Section 2. Brief background to the study and summary of results of evaluation • A brief description of how the study was developed, undertaken and evaluated. • A brief description of the evaluation outcome data (detailed results will be published separately). Section 3. The intervention • The CBT intervention is presented in a clear and easy to use format for practitioners. Section 4. Suggested alternative brief interventions for those not suitable for the current intervention • This section provides an overview of recommendations for alternative interventions for psychostimulant users who are unsuitable for the CBT intervention (e.g. those who are not considering change, experimental users etc). Section 5. Other available resources • This section lists a range of other resources that are currently available for practitioners working with psychostimulant users. This treatment guide has not been designed to stand alone. Rather, practitioners are encouraged to: 1. Acquaint themselves with the current research and clinical literature. The recently completed monograph Models of Intervention and Care for Psychostimulant Users is an excellent resource for current evidence supporting practice in this area. 2. Undertake training in CBT and motivational enhancement techniques if unfamiliar with these approaches. 3. Obtain ongoing clinical supervision

Urinary Catheters: What Type Do Men and Their Nurses Prefer?

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111067/1/j.1532-5415.1999.tb01567.x.pd

Concurrent Validity of the Cognitive Assessment of Minnesota in Older Adults with and without Depressive Symptoms

Cognitive impairment represents a common mental health problem in community-dwelling and institutionalized older adults, and the prevalence increases with age. Multidisciplinary teams are often asked to assess cognitive and functional impairment in this population. The Cognitive Assessment of Minnesota was created by occupational therapists for this purpose and is frequently used, but has not been extensively validated. This study examined the performance of the CAM and compared it to the MMSE with 113 outpatient clinic patients over the age of 60. Subgroups were established based on scores on a depression inventory to determine if the presence of depressed mood altered the relationship between the measures. Both measures demonstrated good internal consistency. The overall correlation between the two measures was high, statistically significant and remained high regardless of depression status. We offer recommendations about the utility of each measure in screening cognitive functioning for older adults

Effect of Electron Beam Irradiation on the Tensile Properties of Carbon Nanotubes Sheets and Yarns

Carbon nanotube sheets and yarns were irradiated using electron beam (e-beam) energy to determine the effect of irradiation dose on the tensile properties. Results showed that a slight change in tensile strength occurred after irradiating as-received CNT sheets for 20 minutes, and a slight decrease in tensile strength as the irradiation time approached 90 minutes. On the other hand, the addition of small molecules to the CNT sheet surface had a greater effect on the tensile properties of e-beam irradiated CNT sheets. Some functionalized CNT sheets displayed up to a 57% increase in tensile strength following 90 minutes of e-beam exposure. In addition, as-received CNT yarns showed a significant increase in tensile strength as the irradiation time increased

Ephrin-B2 reverse signaling is required for axon pathfinding and cardiac valve formation but not early vascular development

AbstractVascular development begins with the formation of a primary vascular plexus that is rapidly remodeled by angiogenesis into the interconnected branched patterns characteristic of mature vasculature. Several receptor tyrosine kinases and their ligands have been implicated to control early development of the vascular system. These include the vascular endothelial growth factor receptors (VEGFR-1 and VEGFR-2) that bind VEGF, the Tie-1 and Tie-2 receptors that bind the angiopoietins, and the EphB4 receptor that binds the membrane-anchored ligand ephrin-B2. Targeted mutations in the mouse germline have revealed essential functions for these molecules in vascular development. In particular, protein-null mutations that delete either EphB4 or ephrin-B2 from the mouse have been shown to result in early embryonic lethality due to failed angiogenic remodeling. The venous expression of EphB4 and arterial expression of ephrin-B2 has lead to the speculation that the interaction of these two molecules leads to bidirectional signaling into both the receptor-expressing cell and the ligand-expressing cell, and that both forward and reverse signals are required for proper development of blood vessels in the embryo. Indeed, targeted removal of the ephrin-B2 carboxy-terminal cytoplasmic tail by another group was shown to perturb vascular development and result in the same early embryonic lethality as the null mutation, leading the authors to propose that ephrin-B2 reverse signaling directs early angiogenic remodeling of the primary vascular plexus [Cell 104 (2001) 57]. However, we show here that the carboxy-terminal cytoplasmic domain of ephrin-B2, and hence reverse signaling, is not required during early vascular development, but it is necessary for neonatal survival and functions later in cardiovascular development in the maturation of cardiac valve leaflets. We further show that ephrin-B2 reverse signaling is required for the pathfinding of axons that form the posterior tract of the anterior commissure. Our results thus indicate that ephrin-B2 functions in the early embryo as a typical instructive ligand to stimulate EphB4 receptor forward signaling during angiogenic remodeling and that later in embryonic development ephrin-B2 functions as a receptor to transduce reverse signals involved in cardiac valve maturation and axon pathfinding

Detection of prions in the faeces of sheep naturally infected with classical scrapie

Classical scrapie is a naturally transmitted prion disease of sheep and goats. Contaminated environments may contribute to the spread of disease and evidence from animal models has implicated urine, blood, saliva, placenta and faeces as possible sources of the infection. Here we sought to determine whether sheep naturally infected with classical scrapie shed prions in their faeces. We used serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification (sPMCA) along with two extraction methods to examine faeces from sheep during both the clinical and preclinical phases of the disease and showed amplification of PrPSc in 7 of 15 and 14 of 14 sheep respectively. However PrPSc was not amplified from the faeces of 25 sheep not exposed to scrapie. These data represent the first demonstration of prion shedding in faeces from a naturally infected host and thus a likely source of prion contamination in the environment

A comparison of the experimental and theoretical charge density distributions in two polymorphic modifications of Piroxicam.

Experimental charge density distribution studies of two polymorphic forms of piroxicam, β- piroxicam (1) and piroxicam monohydrate (2), were carried out via high-resolution single crystal X-ray diffraction experiments and multipole refinement. The asymmetric unit of (2) consists of two discrete piroxicam molecules, (2a) and (2b), and two water molecules. Geometry differs between (1) and (2) due to the zwitterionic nature of (2) which results in the rotation of pyridine ring around the C(10)–N(2) bond by approximately 180°. Consequently, the pyridine and amide are no longer co-planar and (2) forms two exclusive, strong hydrogen bonds, H(3) …O(4) and H(2) …O(3), with bond energy of 66.14 kJ mol-1 and 112.82 kJ mol- 1 for (2a), 58.35 kJ mol-1 and 159.51 kJ mol-1 for (2b) respectively. Proton transfer between O(3) and N(3) in (2) results in significant differences in surface electrostatic potentials. This is clarified on calculation of atomic charges in the zwitterion shows the formally positive charge of the pyridyl nitrogen is redistributed over the whole of the pyridine ring instead of concentrated at N-H. Similarly, the negative charge of the oxygen is distributed across the benzothiazinecarboxamide moiety. Multipole derived lattice energy for (1) is -304 kJ mol-1 and that for (2) is -571 kJ mol-1, which is in agreement with the experimentally determined observations of higher solubility and dissolution rates of (1) compared to (2)

Molecular Gas in the Lensed Lyman Break Galaxy cB58

We have used the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer to map CO(3-2) emission from the gravitationally lensed Lyman break galaxy MS1512-cB58. This is the first detection of a molecular emission line in any Lyman break system; its integrated intensity implies a total molecular gas mass of 6.6e9 Msun, while its width implies a dynamical mass of 1.0e10 csc^2i Msun (for a flat Lambda=0.7 cosmology). These estimates are in excellent concordance with nearly all parameters of the system measured at other wavelengths, and yield a consistent picture of past and future star formation with no obvious discrepancies requiring explanation by differential lensing. In particular, we find that the age and remaining lifetime of the current episode of star formation are likely to be similar; the surface densities of star formation and molecular gas mass are related by a Schmidt law; and the fraction of baryonic mass already converted into stars is sufficient to account for the observed enrichment of the interstellar medium to 0.4 Zsun. Barring substantial gas inflow or a major merger, the stars forming in the current episode will have mass and coevality at z=0 similar to those of a spiral bulge. Assuming cB58 is a typical Lyman break galaxy apart from its magnification, its global parameters suggest that the prescriptions for star formation used in some semi-analytic models of galaxy evolution require moderate revision, although the general prediction that gas mass fraction should increase with redshift is validated. [abridged]Comment: 41 pages, 6 figures, accepted by Ap