Asking the experts : developing and validating parental diaries to assess children's minor injuries

The methodological issues involved in parental reporting of events in children's everyday lives are discussed with reference to the development and validation of an incident diary, collecting concurrent data on minor injuries in a community study of children under eight years old. Eighty-two mothers participated in a comparison over nine days of daily telephone interviews and structured incident diaries. Telephone methods resulted in more missing data, and participants in both groups expressed a preference for the diary method. This diary was then validated on a sample of 56 preschool and school-aged children by comparing injury recording by a research health visitor with that of their mothers. Each failed to report some injuries, but there was good agreement overall, and in descriptive data on injuries reported by both. Parental diaries have the potential to provide rich data, of acceptable validity, on minor events in everyday life

Policy research - implications of liberalisation of fish trade for developing countries. A case study for Uganda

Liberalisation of fish trade started as a result of policies introduced when Uganda embraced the World Bank and IMF’s Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) that created an enabling environment for business and enhanced domestic goods to access the international market as well as for international goods to access the domestic market

Preparing Family Caregivers to Recognize Delirium Symptoms in Older Adults After Elective Hip or Knee Arthroplasty

Objectives To test the feasibility of a telephone-based intervention that prepares family caregivers to recognize delirium symptoms and how to communicate their observations to healthcare providers. Design Mixed-method, pre–post quasi-experimental design. Setting A Midwest Veterans Affairs Medical Center and a nonprofit health system. Participants Forty-one family caregiver-older adult dyads provided consent; 34 completed the intervention. Intervention Four telephone-based education modules using vignettes were completed during the 3 weeks before the older adult\u27s hospital admission for elective hip or knee replacement. Each module required 20 to 30 minutes. Measurements Interviews were conducted before the intervention and 2 weeks and 2 months after the older adult\u27s hospitalization. A researcher completed the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM) and a family caregiver completed the Family Version of the Confusion Assessment Method (FAM-CAM) 2 days after surgery to assess the older adults for delirium symptoms. Results Family caregivers’ knowledge of delirium symptoms improved significantly from before the intervention to 2 weeks after the intervention and was maintained after the older adult\u27s hospitalization. They also were able to recognize the presence and absence of delirium symptoms in the vignettes included in the intervention and in the older adult after surgery. In 94% of the cases, the family caregiver rating on the FAM-CAM approximately 2 days after the older adult\u27s surgery agreed with the researcher rating on the CAM. Family caregivers expressed satisfaction with the intervention and stated that the information was helpful. Conclusion Delivery of a telephone-based intervention appears feasible. All family caregivers who began the program completed the four education modules. Future studies evaluating the effectiveness of the educational program should include a control group

CRP AND ATHEROSCLEROSIS IN HEMODIALYSIS PATIENTS, A NESTED CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

CRP is a recognized marker of systemic inflammation. The degree to which CRP is associated with carotid and/or femoral intima media thickness (IMT), markers of atherosclerosis, may quantify the degree to which inflammation explains cardiovascular disease in patients with end stage renal disease. The purpose of this study was to estimate the association between CRP and both carotid and femoral IMT in hemodialysis (HD) patients. The present cross-sectional study is nested in the Sevelamer hydrochloride and ultrasound-measured femoral and carotid intima media thickness progression in end stage renal disease (SUMMER) clinical trial. Carotid (common, internal and bifurcation) and femoral arteries were visualized in B-mode ultrasonography. CRP was measured in serum. The study cohort included 177 HD patients (39.5% female, mean age 67.8±11.5 years). All measures of both carotid and femoral IMT were significantly, positively associated with CRP. Compared to subjects without, subjects with PVD, coronary revascularization and hypertension had significantly higher CRP levels. Conversely, subjects treated with sevelamer hydrochloride had significantly lower CRP levels than those not exposed to this medication. CRP was significantly, positively associated with serum phosphorus, calcium and PTH, and significantly inversely associated with HDL. In conclusion, CRP is significantly, positively associated with both femoral and carotid IMT and suggests an association between inflammation and atherosclerosis in HD patients

Intestinal permeability in normally nourished and malnourished children with and without diarrhea

We evaluated the association between diarrhea, malnutrition and intestinal function using the lactulose-mannitol test. Our study showed that a third of all children have abnormal intestinal permeability, there was an expected increase of permeability in children with acute diarrhea and alteration in intestinal permeability was greater in children with concurrent malnutrition and diarrhea

Propagation of a Gaussian Wigner Function Through a Matrix-Aperture Beamline

A Gaussian Wigner function may be defined in terms of its covariance matrix and centroid. In the framework of statistical optics, a Wigner function represents partially coherent radiation. A Gaussian Wigner function is an equivalent representation to the more commonly used Gaussian Schell model cross spectral density. Starting from the relationship between Gaussian Wigner functions and the Gaussian Schell model, we derive coherence properties of the Gaussian Wigner function including coherence length and degree of coherence. We define a simplified beamline called a matrix-aperture beamline composed of linear transport sections separated by physical apertures. This is an idealized form for a transport beamline in a synchrotron light source or X-ray free electron laser. An envelope model provides a basic foundation to understand the optics of a given beamline in an analogous manner with which linear optics are treated in particle beam dynamics, with corresponding definitions of emittance and Twiss parameters. One major challenge to such an envelope model lies in the hard edge apertures which break the Gaussian condition raising the question as to the adequacy of a Gaussian model. We present a consistent way to construct a Gaussian approximation of the far-field Wigner function following the hard edge aperture. To this end, we introduce the concept of a Gaussian aperture and analyze its effects on the radiation Wigner function. A software implementation of this model is described

Non-Local Effects of Multi-Trace Deformations in the AdS/CFT Correspondence

The AdS/CFT correspondence relates deformations of the CFT by "multi-trace operators" to "non-local string theories". The deformed theories seem to have non-local interactions in the compact directions of space-time; in the gravity approximation the deformed theories involve modified boundary conditions on the fields which are explicitly non-local in the compact directions. In this note we exhibit a particular non-local property of the resulting space-time theory. We show that in the usual backgrounds appearing in the AdS/CFT correspondence, the commutator of two bulk scalar fields at points with a large enough distance between them in the compact directions and a small enough time-like distance between them in AdS vanishes, but this is not always true in the deformed theories. We discuss how this is consistent with causality.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, 2 appendices. v2: added reference

CCAAT/Enhancer-Binding Protein Homologous (CHOP) Protein Promotes Carcinogenesis in the DEN-Induced Hepatocellular Carcinoma Model

Background and Aims C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP) plays pro-apoptotic roles in the integrated stress response. Recently, a tumor suppressive role for CHOP was demonstrated in lung cancer via regulation of tumor metabolism. To explore the role of CHOP in hepatocarcinogenesis, we induced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in wild type (wt) and CHOP knockout (KO) mice using the carcinogen N-diethylnitrosamine (DEN). Results: Analysis of tumor development showed reduced tumor load, with markedly smaller tumor nodules in the CHOP KO animals, suggesting oncogenic roles of CHOP in carcinogen-induced HCC. In wt tumors, CHOP was exclusively expressed in tumor tissue, with minimal expression in normal parenchyma. Analysis of human adenocarcinomas of various origins demonstrated scattered expression of CHOP in the tumors, pointing to relevance in human pathology. Characterization of pathways that may contribute to preferential expression of CHOP in the tumor identified ATF6 as a potential candidate. ATF6, a key member of the endoplasmic reticulum stress signaling machinery, exhibited a similar pattern of expression as CHOP and strong activation in wt but not CHOP KO tumors. Because HCC is induced by chronic inflammation, we assessed whether CHOP deficiency affects tumor-immune system crosstalk. We found that the number of macrophages and levels of IFNγ and CCL4 mRNA were markedly reduced in tumors from CHOP KO relative to wt mice, suggesting a role for CHOP in modulating tumor microenvironment and macrophage recruitment to the tumor. Conclusion: Our data highlights a role for CHOP as a positive regulator of carcinogen-induced HCC progression through a complex mechanism that involves the immune system and modulation of stress signaling pathways

The energy production rate & the generation spectrum of UHECRs

We derive simple analytic expressions for the flux and spectrum of ultra-high energy cosmic-rays (UHECRs) predicted in models where the CRs are protons produced by extra-Galactic sources. For a power-law scaling of the CR production rate with redshift and energy, d\dot{n} /dE\propto E^-\alpha (1+z)^m, our results are accurate at high energy, E>10^18.7 eV, to better than 15%, providing a simple and straightforward method for inferring d\dot{n}/dE from the observed flux at E. We show that current measurements of the UHECR spectrum, including the latest Auger data, imply E^2d\dot{n}/dE(z=0)=(0.45\pm0.15)(\alpha-1) 10^44 erg Mpc^-3 yr^-1 at E<10^19.5 eV with \alpha roughly confined to 2\lesseq\alpha<2.7. The uncertainty is dominated by the systematic and statistic errors in the experimental determination of individual CR event energy, (\Delta E/E)_{sys} (\Delta E/E)_{stat} ~20%. At lower energy, d\dot{n}/dE is uncertain due to the unknown Galactic contribution. Simple models in which \alpha\simeq 2 and the transition from Galactic to extra-Galactic sources takes place at the "ankle", E ~10^19 eV, are consistent with the data. Models in which the transition occurs at lower energies require a high degree of fine tuning and a steep spectrum, \alpha\simeq 2.7, which is disfavored by the data. We point out that in the absence of accurate composition measurements, the (all particle) energy spectrum alone cannot be used to infer the detailed spectral shapes of the Galactic and extra-Galactic contributions.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, minor revision