18 research outputs found
Offer and use of complementary and alternative medicine in hospitals of the French-speaking part of Switzerland.
Background: In 2004, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) was offered by physicians in one third of Swiss hospitals. Since then, CAM health policy has considerably changed. This study aims at describing the present supply and use of CAM in hospitals of the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and qualitatively explores the characteristics of this supply.
Methods: Between June 2011 and March 2012, a short questionnaire was sent to the medical directors of hospitals (N=46), asking them whether a CAM was offered, where and by whom. Then, a semi-directive interview was conducted with 10 CAM therapists. Results: Among 37 responses (return rate 80%), 19 medical directors indicated that their hospital offered at least one CAM and 18 reported that they did not. Acupuncture was the most frequently proposed CAM, followed by manual therapies, osteopathy and aromatherapy. The disciplines that offered CAM most frequently were rehabilitation, gynaecology- obstetrics, palliative care, psychiatry and anaesthesiology. In eight out of ten interviews, it appeared that the procedures for introducing a CAM in the hospital were not tightly supervised by the hospital but were mainly based on the goodwill of the therapists, rather than clinical/scientific evidence.
Conclusion: Hospitals offering CAM in the French-speaking part of Switzerland seems to have risen since 2004. The selection of CAM to be offered in a hospital should be based on the same procedure of evaluation and validation as conventional care, and if their safety and efficiency is evidence-based, they should receive the same structural resources
Offer and use of complementary and alternative medicine in hospitals of the French-speaking part of Switzerland.
BACKGROUND: In 2004, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) was offered by physicians in one-third of Swiss hospitals. Since then, CAM health policy has changed considerably. This study aimed to describe the present supply and use of CAM in hospitals in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and to explore qualitatively the characteristics of this offer.
METHODS: Between June 2011 and March 2012, a short questionnaire was sent to the medical directors of hospitals (n = 46), asking them whether CAM was offered, where and by whom. Then, a semi-directive interview was conducted with ten CAM therapists.
RESULTS: Among 37 responses (return rate 80%), 19 medical directors indicated that their hospital offered at least one CAM and 18 reported that they did not. Acupuncture was the most frequently available CAM, followed by manual therapies, osteopathy and aromatherapy. The disciplines that offered CAM most frequently were rehabilitation, gynaecology and obstetrics, palliative care, psychiatry, and anaesthetics. In eight out of ten interviews, it appeared that the procedures for introducing a CAM in the hospital were not tightly supervised by the hospital and were mainly based on the goodwill of the therapists, rather than clinical/scientific evidence.
CONCLUSION: The number of hospitals offering CAM in the French-speaking part of Switzerland seemed to have risen since 2004. The selection of a CAM to be offered in a hospital should be based on the same procedure of evaluation and validation as conventional therapy, and if the safety and efficiency of the CAM is evidence-based, it should receive the same resources as a conventional therapy
First Order Premelting Transition of Vortex Lattices
Vortex lattices in the high temperature superconductors undergo a first order
phase transition which has thus far been regarded as melting from a solid to a
liquid. We point out an alternative possibility of a two step process in which
there is a first order transition from an ordinary vortex lattice to a soft
vortex solid followed by another first order melting transition from the soft
vortex solid to a vortex liquid. We focus on the first step. This premelting
transition is induced by vacancy and interstitial vortex lines. We obtain good
agreement with the experimental transition temperature versus field, latent
heat, and magnetization jumps for YBCO and BSCCO.Comment: revised version replaces 9705092, 5 pages, Latex, 2 postscript
figures, defect line wandering is included, 2 step melting is propose
Association between smoking and recurrence of venous thromboembolism and bleeding in elderly patients with past acute venous thromboembolism.
BACKGROUND: While the association between smoking and arterial cardiovascular events has been well established, the association between smoking and venous thromboembolism (VTE) remains controversial.
OBJECTIVES: To assess the association between smoking and the risk of recurrent VTE and bleeding in patients who have experienced acute VTE.
PATIENTS/METHODS: This study is part of a prospective Swiss multicenter cohort that included patients aged ≥65years with acute VTE. Three groups were defined according to smoking status: never, former and current smokers. The primary outcome was the time to a first symptomatic, objectively confirmed VTE recurrence. Secondary outcomes were the time to a first major and clinically relevant non-major bleeding. Associations between smoking status and outcomes were analysed using proportional hazard models for the subdistribution of a competing risk of death.
RESULTS: Among 988 analysed patients, 509 (52%) had never smoked, 403 (41%) were former smokers, and 76 (8%) current smokers. After a median follow-up of 29.6months, we observed a VTE recurrence rate of 4.9 (95% confidence interval [CI] 3.7-6.4) per 100 patient-years for never smokers, 6.6 (95% CI 5.1-8.6) for former smokers, and 5.2 (95% CI 2.6-10.5) for current smokers. Compared to never smokers, we found no association between current smoking and VTE recurrence (adjusted sub-hazard ratio [SHR] 1.05, 95% CI 0.49-2.28), major bleeding (adjusted SHR 0.59, 95% CI 0.25-1.39), and clinically relevant non-major bleeding (adjusted SHR 1.21, 95% CI 0.73-2.02).
CONCLUSIONS: In this multicentre prospective cohort study, we found no association between smoking status and VTE recurrence or bleeding in elderly patients with VTE
Neural bases of reward anticipation in healthy individuals with low, mid, and high levels of schizotypy
A growing body of research has placed the ventral striatum at the center of a network of cerebral regions involved in anticipating rewards in healthy controls. However, little is known about the functional connectivity of the ventral striatum associated with reward anticipation in healthy controls. In addition, few studies have investigated reward anticipation in healthy humans with different levels of schizotypy. Here, we investigated reward anticipation in eighty-four healthy individuals (44 females) recruited based on their schizotypy scores. Participants performed a variant of the Monetary Incentive Delay Task while undergoing event-related fMRI.Participants showed the expected decrease in response times for highly rewarded trials compared to non-rewarded trials. Whole-brain activation analyses replicated previous results, including activity in the ventral and dorsal striatum. Whole-brain psycho-physiological interaction analyses of the left and right ventral striatum revealed increased connectivity during reward anticipation with widespread regions in frontal, parietal and occipital cortex as well as the cerebellum and midbrain. Finally, we found no association between schizotypal personality severity and neural activity and cortico-striatal functional connectivity. In line with the motivational, attentional, and motor functions of rewards, our data reveal multifaceted cortico-striatal networks taking part in reward anticipation in healthy individuals. The ventral striatum is connected to regions of the salience, attentional, motor and visual networks during reward anticipation and thereby in a position to orchestrate optimal goal-directed behavior
Magnetic Field Dependent Tunneling in Glasses
We report on experiments giving evidence for quantum effects of
electromagnetic flux in barium alumosilicate glass. In contrast to expectation,
below 100 mK the dielectric response becomes sensitive to magnetic fields. The
experimental findings include both, the complete lifting of the dielectric
saturation by weak magnetic fields and oscillations of the dielectric response
in the low temperature resonant regime. As origin of these effects we suggest
that the magnetic induction field violates the time reversal invariance leading
to a flux periodicity in the energy levels of tunneling systems. At low
temperatures, this effect is strongly enhanced by the interaction between
tunneling systems and thus becomes measurable.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Correlated Persistent Tunneling Currents in Glasses
Low temperature properties of glasses are derived within a generalized
tunneling model, considering the motion of charged particles on a closed path
in a double-well potential. The presence of a magnetic induction field B
violates the time reversal invariance due to the Aharonov-Bohm phase, and leads
to flux periodic energy levels. At low temperature, this effect is shown to be
strongly enhanced by dipole-dipole and elastic interactions between tunneling
systems and becomes measurable. Thus, the recently observed strong sensitivity
of the electric permittivity to weak magnetic fields can be explained. In
addition, superimposed oscillations as a function of the magnetic field are
predicted.Comment: 4 page
Magnetic field effect on the dielectric constant of glasses: Evidence of disorder within tunneling barriers
The magnetic field dependence of the low frequency dielectric constant
(H) of a structural glass a - SiO2 + xCyHz was studied from 400 mK to 50
mK and for H up to 3T. Measurement of both the real and the imaginary parts of
is used to eliminate the difficult question of keeping constant the
temperature of the sample while increasing H: a non-zero (H) dependence is
reported in the same range as that one very recently reported on multicomponent
glasses. In addition to the recently proposed explanation based on
interactions, the reported (H) is interpreted quantitatively as a
consequence of the disorder lying within the nanometric barriers of the
elementary tunneling systems of the glass.Comment: latex Bcorrige1.tex, 5 files, 4 figures, 7 pages [SPEC-S02/009
Statistical Mechanics of Vacancy and Interstitial Strings in Hexagonal Columnar Crystals
Columnar crystals contain defects in the form of vacancy/interstitial loops
or strings of vacancies and interstitials bounded by column ``heads'' and
``tails''. These defect strings are oriented by the columnar lattice and can
change size and shape by movement of the ends and forming kinks along the
length. Hence an analysis in terms of directed living polymers is appropriate
to study their size and shape distribution, volume fraction, etc. If the
entropy of transverse fluctuations overcomes the string line tension in the
crystalline phase, a string proliferation transition occurs, leading to a
supersolid phase. We estimate the wandering entropy and examine the behaviour
in the transition regime. We also calculate numerically the line tension of
various species of vacancies and interstitials in a triangular lattice for
power-law potentials as well as for a modified Bessel function interaction
between columns as occurs in the case of flux lines in type-II superconductors
or long polyelectrolytes in an ionic solution. We find that the centered
interstitial is the lowest energy defect for a very wide range of interactions;
the symmetric vacancy is preferred only for extremely short interaction ranges.Comment: 22 pages (revtex), 15 figures (encapsulated postscript
Possible new vortex matter phases in BSCCO
The vortex matter phase diagram of BSCCO crystals is analyzed by
investigating vortex penetration through the surface barrier in the presence of
a transport current. The strength of the effective surface barrier, its
nonlinearity, and asymmetry are used to identify a possible new ordered phase
above the first-order transition. This technique also allows sensitive
determination of the depinning temperature. The solid phase below the
first-order transition is apparently subdivided into two phases by a vertical
line extending from the multicritical point.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in PR