Suicide in the Bahamas (2000-2013)

The occurrence of suicide and suicidal attempts in the Bahamas should be a major public health concern In the past decade there has been a fluctuating trend in the number of suicides For instance there were six suicides that occurred in 2011 eleven 11 in 2012 and six in 2013 In regards to suicidal attempts there were 207 people admitted to the government mental health facilities for attempting suicide in 2010 In 2011 there were 194 persons admitted and in 2012 there were 250 persons admitted for suicidal attempts Figures 1 and 2 To understand whether this is a developing trend in our country we need to collect accurate data for the next three years The occurrence of suicide is not just a concern in the Bahamas Suicide is now the tenth leading cause of death in the United States Drexler 2013 There are now more deaths from suicides than car accidents Parker-Pope 2013 In its first report on suicide the World Health Organization WHO advised that one person commits suicide every 40 seconds In fact each year suicides account for 800 000 of the 1 5 million violent deaths Guyana North and South Korea have the highest suicide rates 44 2 38 5 and 28 9 respectively The UN proposes to cut the national suicide rates by 10 by 2020 Organization 201

Further evidence for early lunar magnetism from troctolite 76535

The earliest history of the lunar dynamo is largely unknown and has important implications for the thermal state of the Moon and the physics of dynamo generation. The lunar sample with the oldest known paleomagnetic record is the 4.25 billion year old (Ga) troctolite 76535. Previous studies of unoriented subsamples of 76535 found evidence for a dynamo field with a paleointensity of several tens of microteslas. However, the lack of mutual subsample orientation prevented a demonstration that the magnetization was unidirectional, a key property of thermoremanent magnetization. Here we report further alternating field demagnetization on three mutually oriented subsamples of 76535, as well as new pressure remanent magnetization experiments to help rule out shock magnetization. We also describe new 40Ar/39Ar thermochronometry and cosmogenic neon measurements that better constrain the rock's thermal history. Although the rock is unbrecciated, unshocked, and slowly cooled, its demagnetization behavior is not ideal due to spurious remanence acquisition. Despite this limitation, all three subsamples record a high coercivity magnetization oriented in nearly the same direction, implying that they were magnetized by a unidirectional field on the Moon. We find no evidence for shock remanence, and our thermochronometry calculations show no significant reheating events since 4249 ± 12 million years ago (Ma). We infer a field paleointensity of approximately 20–40 μT, supporting the previous conclusion that a lunar dynamo existed at 4.25 Ga. The timing of this field supports an early dynamo powered by thermal or thermochemical core convection and/or a mechanical dynamo but marginally excludes a dynamo delayed by thermal blanketing from radiogenic element-rich magma ocean cumulates

A Portrait of Informal Caregivers in America, 2001

Explores the experiences of caregivers of the chronically ill, including what caregivers are feeling about providing care and what they need from the healthcare and social services systems

A Portrait of the Chronically Ill in America, 2001

Looks at how well Americans are living with chronic illness, how well they are able to care for themselves, and how well health professionals and healthcare organizations are delivering care to their patients

A Portrait of Adolescents in America, 2001

Examines the health and healthcare experiences of adolescents. Looks at the perceptions and behaviors that promote or threaten their health, focusing on teens that have risky health behaviors, symptoms of depression, or special healthcare needs

Resocialization through the Family Project in the Bahamas: Using Group Therapy to Heal Adverse Childhood Experiences

Background: The Bahamas has undergone a severe social fragmentation process due to the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s. Marginalized persons were offered free group therapy through The Family: People Helping People Project. Methods: We hypothesized that many of our participants were traumatized as children, therefore causing them to experience various psychological and physiological challenges as adults. The Allen Resocialization Scale can measure the resocialization of traumatized participants. Results: The results indicate that 98% of participants who were traumatized scored ‘excellent’, ‘good’ or ‘average’ on the Allen Resocialization Scale. Conclusions: Without The Family, these participants may have been ‘poorly’ re-socialized, wreaking havoc in the society. Therefore, the results suggest that Family support groups can be a protective factor against trauma experienced in childhood

Group Process as a Resocialization Intervention: The Family - People Helping People Project

This chapter presents a cultural adaptation of a group process model as a resocialization project to confront social fragmentation in the Bahamas. The Family: People Helping People Project seeks to improve communication and socialization in New Providence, the capital of the Bahamas. The chapter provides an overview of The Family and addresses key elements along with clinical examples to show the success of the model. We also present the results of a pilot study carried out on The Family which further outlined the benefits of participating in the program. We hope that these insights are helpful in addressing community problems around the world, with the hope of reducing violence and social fragmentation

Physical Distancing With Social Connectedness

Recognizing and supporting the many ways of investing in relationship has great potential to create a positive sea change in a health care system that currently feels fragmented and depersonalized to both patients and health care providers. The current COVID-19 pandemic is full of opportunity to use remote communication to develop healing human relationships. What we need in a pandemic is not social distancing, but physical distancing with social connectedness.In light of concerns over the potential detrimental effects of declining care continuity, and the need for connection between patients and health care providers, our multidisciplinary group considered the possible ways that relationships might be developed in different kinds of health care encounters. We were surprised to discover many avenues to invest in relationships, even in non-continuity consultations, and how meaningful human connections might be developed even in telehealth visits.Opportunities range from the quality of attention or the structure of the time during the visit, to supporting relationship development in how care is organized at the local or system level and in the use of digital encounters. These ways of investing in relationships can exhibit different manifestations and emphases during different kinds of visits, but most are available during all kinds of encounters. Recognizing and supporting the many ways of investing in relationships has great potential to create a positive sea change in a health care system that currently feels fragmented and depersonalized to both patients and health care clinicians. The current COVID-19 pandemic is full of opportunity to use remote communication to develop healing human relationships. What we need in a pandemic is not social distancing, but physical distancing with social connectedness.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154577/1/StangeAFM-674-19 ms.pdfDescription of StangeAFM-674-19 ms.pdf : Final pdf for DeepBlue deposi

"On the Spot": travelling artists and Abolitionism, 1770-1830

Until recently the visual culture of Atlantic slavery has rarely been critically scrutinised. Yet in the first decades of the nineteenth century slavery was frequently represented by European travelling artists, often in the most graphic, sometimes voyeuristic, detail. This paper examines the work of several itinerant artists, in particular Augustus Earle (1793-1838) and Agostino Brunias (1730–1796), whose very mobility along the edges of empire was part of a much larger circulatory system of exchange (people, goods and ideas) and diplomacy that characterised Europe’s Age of Expansion. It focuses on the role of the travelling artist, and visual culture more generally, in the development of British abolitionism between 1770 and 1830. It discusses the broad circulation of slave imagery within European culture and argues for greater recognition of the role of such imagery in the abolitionist debates that divided Britain. Furthermore, it suggests that the epistemological authority conferred on the travelling artist—the quintessential eyewitness—was key to the rhetorical power of his (rarely her) images. Artists such as Earle viewed the New World as a boundless source of fresh material that could potentially propel them to fame and fortune. Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858), on the other hand, was conscious of contributing to a global scientific mission, a Humboldtian imperative that by the 1820s propelled him and others to travel beyond the traditional itinerary of the Grand Tour. Some artists were implicated in the very fabric of slavery itself, particularly those in the British West Indies such as William Clark (working 1820s) and Richard Bridgens (1785-1846); others, particularly those in Brazil, expressed strong abolitionist sentiments. Fuelled by evangelical zeal to record all aspects of the New World, these artists recognised the importance of representing the harsh realities of slave life. Unlike those in the metropole who depicted slavery (most often in caustic satirical drawings), many travelling artists believed strongly in the evidential value of their images, a value attributed to their global mobility. The paper examines the varied and complex means by which visual culture played a significant and often overlooked role in the political struggles that beset the period

Protease Inhibitors Block Multiple Functions of the NS3/4A Protease-Helicase during the Hepatitis C Virus Life Cycle

ABSTRACT Hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3 is a multifunctional protein composed of a protease domain and a helicase domain linked by a flexible linker. Protease activity is required to generate viral nonstructural (NS) proteins involved in RNA replication. Helicase activity is required for RNA replication, and genetic evidence implicates the helicase domain in virus assembly. Binding of protease inhibitors (PIs) to the protease active site blocks NS3-dependent polyprotein processing but might impact other steps of the virus life cycle. Kinetic analyses of antiviral suppression of cell culture-infectious genotype 1a strain H77S.3 were performed using assays that measure different readouts of the viral life cycle. In addition to the active-site PI telaprevir, we examined an allosteric protease-helicase inhibitor (APHI) that binds a site in the interdomain interface. By measuring nucleotide incorporation into HCV genomes, we found that telaprevir inhibits RNA synthesis as early as 12 h at high but clinically relevant concentrations. Immunoblot analyses showed that NS5B abundance was not reduced until after 12 h, suggesting that telaprevir exerts a direct effect on RNA synthesis. In contrast, the APHI could partially inhibit RNA synthesis, suggesting that the allosteric site is not always available during RNA synthesis. The APHI and active-site PI were both able to block virus assembly soon (<12 h) after drug treatment, suggesting that they rapidly engage with and block a pool of NS3 involved in assembly. In conclusion, PIs and APHIs can block NS3 functions in RNA synthesis and virus assembly, in addition to inhibiting polyprotein processing. IMPORTANCE The NS3/4A protease of hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an important antiviral target. Currently, three PIs have been approved for therapy of chronic hepatitis C, and several others are in development. NS3-dependent cleavage of the HCV polyprotein is required to generate the mature nonstructural proteins that form the viral replicase. Inhibition of protease activity can block RNA replication by preventing expression of mature replicase components. Like many viral proteins, NS3 is multifunctional, but how PIs affect stages of the HCV life cycle beyond polyprotein processing has not been well studied. Using cell-based assays, we show here that PIs can directly inhibit viral RNA synthesis and also block a late stage in virus assembly/maturation at clinically relevant concentrations