Factors associated with involuntary hospital admissions in technology-dependent children

Abstract OBJECTIVE To identify the factors associated with involuntary hospital admissions of technology-dependent children, in the municipality of Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo State, Brazil. METHOD A cross-sectional study, with a quantitative approach. After an active search, 124 children who qualified under the inclusion criteria, that is to say, children from birth to age 12, were identified. Data was collected in home visits to mothers or the people responsible for the children, through the application of a questionnaire. Analysis of the data followed the assumptions of the Generalized Linear Models technique. RESULTS 102 technology-dependent children aged between 6 months and 12 years participated in the study, of whom 57% were male. The average number of involuntary hospital admissions in the previous year among the children studied was 0.71 (±1.29). In the final model the following variables were significantly associated with the outcome: age (OR=0.991; CI95%=0.985-0.997), and the number of devices (OR=0.387; CI95%=0.219-0.684), which were characterized as factors of protection and quantity of medications (OR=1.532; CI95%=1.297-1.810), representing a risk factor for involuntary hospital admissions in technology-dependent children. CONCLUSION The results constitute input data for consideration of the process of care for technology-dependent children by supplying an explanatory model for involuntary hospital admissions for this client group

Resolution of inflammation: a new therapeutic frontier

Dysregulated inflammation is a central pathological process in diverse disease states. Traditionally, therapeutic approaches have sought to modulate the pro- or anti-inflammatory limbs of inflammation, with mixed success. However, insight into the pathways by which inflammation is resolved has highlighted novel opportunities to pharmacologically manipulate these processes — a strategy that might represent a complementary (and perhaps even superior) therapeutic approach. This Review discusses the state of the art in the biology of resolution of inflammation, highlighting the opportunities and challenges for translational research in this field

The first semester of university life ; ‘will I be able to manage it at all?’

This paper reports on an Irish study examining first year students’ recollections of their concerns, motivations, level of preparedness and perceived skills on entry to university. The study aims to investigate and understand the implications of the attitudes of first year students as they make the transition to university. It also explores students’ behaviour during their initial weeks at university. It is important to understand the anxieties of new students, their views on their abilities and their confidence in managing their new role as these factors will have consequences for their experience as first year university students. These findings are explored with a view to enhancing the quality of support for students during this key transition.Not applicableEmbargo until 13/11/11? Seems not yet published - AV 14/2/201

A recombinant conjugated pneumococcal vaccine that protects against murine infections with a similar efficacy to Prevnar-13

Pneumococcal vaccines: evaluation of a multivalent pneumococcal glycoconjugate vaccine The current pneumococcal conjugate vaccine induces protective immunity to infection, but this protection is limited to the dominant disease-causing strains included in the preparation. Emerging strains not included in the vaccine are not covered, which limits the vaccine’s protective effect in areas associated with alternative pneumococcal strains. Here Jeremy Brown, Brendan Wren and colleagues have optimised and applied Protein Glycan Coupling Technology to produce recombinant pneumococcal polysaccharide/protein glycoconjugates and evaluated these in a murine model of infection. Glycoconjugate vaccination resulted in antibody production specific to both capsule and the carrier proteins, which resulted in protection in murine models of meningitis and septicaemia equivalent to that of currently used vaccination strategies. This animal study highlights the potential of glycoconjugate vaccine approaches in the context of pneumococcal mediated disease

Higher-order semantic structures in an African Grey parrot\u27s vocalizations: Evidence from the Hyperspace Analog to Language (HAL) model

Previous research has described the significant role that social interaction plays in both the acquisition and use of speech by parrots. The current study analyzed the speech of one home-raised African Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus erithacus) across three different social contexts: owner interacting with parrot in the same room, owner and parrot interacting out of view in adjacent rooms, and parrot home alone. The purpose was to determine the extent to which the subject’s speech reflected an understanding of the contextual substitutability (e.g., the word street can be substituted in context for the word road) of the vocalizations that comprised the units in her repertoire (i.e., global co-occurrence of repertoire units; Burgess in Behav Res Methods Instrum Comput 30:188–198, 1998; Lund and Burgess in Behav Res Methods Instrum Comput 28:203–208, 1996). This was accomplished via the human language model hyperspace analog to language (HAL). HAL is contextually driven and bootstraps language “rules” from input without human intervention. Because HAL does not require human tutelage, it provided an objective measure to empirically examine the parrot’s vocalizations. Results indicated that the subject’s vocalization patterns did contain global co-occurrence. The presence of this quality in this nonhuman’s speech may be strongly indicative of higher-order cognitive skills