Suicides in Psychiatric Patients: Identifying Health Care-Related Factors through Clinical Practice Reviews.

The objective of this study was to identify health care-related factors associated with death by suicide in psychiatric patients and to gain insight into clinician views on how to deal with suicidality. The study material derived from a clinician committee in a psychiatric department reviewing every outpatient and inpatient suicide in a standardized way. Reports' conclusions and corresponding plenary discussion minutes regarding 94 suicides were analyzed using inductive thematic content analysis. Health care-related factors were categorized into 4 themes: patient evaluation, patient management, clinician training, and involvement of relevant non-clinical partners. Clinician views on the themes were expressed through statements (i) promoting or restricting an aspect of care (here called recommendations), which mainly followed existing guidelines and were consensual and (ii) without precise indication (here called comments), which departed from mainstream opinions or addressed topics not covered by existing policy. Involvement of non-clinical partners emerged as a new key issue for suicide prevention in psychiatric departments and should be openly discussed with patients. Clinicians preferred balanced conclusions when they reviewed suicide cases

Preventing sexism and sexual harassment in medical schools by using Theater of the Oppressed as an interactive and reflexive tool.

Among the measures taken to combat sexism and sexual harassment, prevention courses for medical students are one possibility. We aimed to describe the process of implementing a training course on the prevention of sexism and sexual harassment for medical students in two Swiss medical schools by using the Theater of the Oppressed as an interactive and reflexive tool within the course. The purpose of this theater was to give the students the opportunity to express themselves and to collectively look for and discuss ways to combat and escape from oppressive situations. This collaborative, innovative, and interactive implementation showed that different forms of a training course can be implemented with similar objectives in an adaptable and transferable manner. The interactive and reflexive Theater of the Oppressed was an appropriate option to reach the objectives. Courses were based on identifying and acting on concrete problematic situations by focusing on individual, collective, and institutional resources. Students reported a high level of satisfaction

Spin-to-Orbital Angular Momentum Conversion in Semiconductor Microcavities

We experimentally demonstrate a technique for the generation of optical beams carrying orbital angular momentum using a planar semiconductor microcavity. Despite being isotropic systems, the transverse electric - transverse magnetic (TE-TM) polarization splitting featured by semiconductor microcavities allows for the conversion of the circular polarization of an incoming laser beam into the orbital angular momentum of the transmitted light field. The process implies the formation of topological entities, a pair of optical half-vortices, in the intracavity field

Reservoir-induced decoherence of resonantly excited confined polaritons

We report on the effect of decoherence on polariton bistability. The polariton hysteresis loop is shown to collapse in a similar way when increasing the temperature or under nonresonant excitation power. The hysteresis upward threshold is pulled to lower excitation power, whereas the downward threshold remains almost constant. This effect is explained by the population of an incoherent reservoir that induces dephasing and repulsive interaction that saturates at large densities. All experimental findings are accurately simulated with the excitonic Bloch equations and indicate that reservoir-induced dephasing can be dominant over the reservoir-induced energy blueshift

Spatial multistability induced by cross interactions of confined polariton modes

We demonstrate the occurrence of spatial multistability using laterally confined microcavity exciton-polaritons. By coherently exciting with a blue detuned laser a series of confined polariton modes, we investigate the effects of multistability on the transmitted laser beam as a function of the excitation power. At each threshold of the hysteresis loop, a switching of the mode profile of the laser beam is associated with a significant energy jump of each of the confined polariton modes in the mesa. A simulation of this behavior is achieved with a multimode generalization of the Gross-Pitaevskii equations in the exciton photon basis. The mechanism behind the spatial multistability is identified as a repulsive cross interaction between polaritons in different modes

Conway–Coxeter Friezes and Mutation: A Survey

In this survey chapter, we explain the intricate links between Conway–Coxeter friezes and cluster combinatorics. More precisely, we provide a formula, relying solely on the shape of the frieze, describing how each individual entry in the frieze changes under cluster mutation. Moreover, we provide a combinatorial formula for the number of submodules of a string module, and with that a simple way to compute the frieze associated to a fixed cluster-tilting object in a cluster category of Dynkin type A in the sense of Caldero and Chapoton

Sexual behaviour of men that consulted in medical outpatient clinics in Western Switzerland from 2005-2006: risk levels unknown to doctors?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To determine male outpatient attenders' sexual behaviours, expectations and experience of talking about their sexuality and sexual health needs with a doctor.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A survey was conducted among all male patients aged 18-70, recruited from the two main medical outpatient clinics in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2005-2006. The anonymous self-administered questionnaire included questions on sexual behaviour, HIV/STI information needs, expectations and experiences regarding discussion of sexual matters with a doctor.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The response rate was 53.0% (N = 1452). The mean age was 37.7 years. Overall, 13.4% of patients were defined as at STI risk - i.e. having not consistently used condoms with casual partners in the last 6 months, or with a paid partner during the last intercourse - regarding their sexual behaviour in the last year. 90.9% would have liked their physician to ask them questions concerning their sexual life; only 61.4% had ever had such a discussion. The multivariate analysis showed that patients at risk tended to have the following characteristics: recruited from the HIV testing clinic, lived alone, declared no religion, had a low level of education, felt uninformed about HIV/AIDS, were younger, had had concurrent sexual partners in the last 12 months. However they were not more likely to have discussed sexual matters with their doctor than patients not at risk.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Recording the sexual history and advice on the prevention of the risks of STI should become routine practice for primary health care doctors.</p

Violence domestique : une approche familiale et systémique

De par sa fréquence, la violence domestique constitue un problème de société. L'approche systémique tend à expliquer la genèse complexe des comportements violents dans les familles et souligne les particularités relationnelles de l'émergence du comportement violent à l'égard des mineurs et des partenaires. La lecture de ces comportements violents peut se faire en se référant soit à une logique circulaire, soit à une logique linéaire. Les auteurs s'attachent à montrer que l'aspect interactif du comportement violent ne diminue pas pour autant la responsabilité de l'auteur de la violence, qui transgresse la loi et nie l'humanité de sa victime. Dans cette optique, la compréhension de la nature complexe du phénomène peut permettre au médecin de dépister, prévenir et protéger les victimes de violence. Les auteurs évoquent enfin la responsabilité médicale face à la violence domestique