279 research outputs found
Childhood IQ and marriage by mid-life: the Scottish Mental Survey 1932 and the Midspan Studies
The study examined the influence of IQ at age 11 years on marital status by mid-adulthood. The combined databases of the Scottish Mental Survey 1932 and the Midspan studies provided data from 883 subjects. With regard to IQ at age 11, there was an interaction between sex and marital status by mid-adulthood (p = 0.0001). Women who had ever-married achieved mean lower childhood IQ scores than women who had never-married (p < 0.001). Conversely, there was a trend for men who had ever-married to achieve higher childhood IQ scores than men who had never-married (p = 0.07). In men, the odds ratio of ever marrying was 1.35 (95% CI 0.98–1.86; p = 0.07) for each standard deviation increase in childhood IQ. Among women, the odds ratio of ever marrying by mid-life was 0.42 (95% CI 0.27–0.64; p = 0.0001) for each standard deviation increase in childhood IQ. Mid-life social class had a similar association with marriage, with women in more professional jobs and men in more manual jobs being less likely to have ever-married by mid-life. Adjustment for the effects of mid-life social class and height on the association between childhood IQ and later marriage, and vice versa, attenuated the effects somewhat, but suggested that IQ, height and social class acted partly independently
Determination Of Electron Flux Spectra In A Solar Flare With An Augmented Regularization Method: Application To Rhessi Data
Kontar et al. (2004) have shown how to recover mean source electron spectra
in solar flares through a physical constraint regularization analysis of the
bremsstrahlung photon spectra that they produce. They emphasize the use of
non-square inversion techniques, and preconditioning combined with physical
properties of the spectra to achieve the most meaningful solution to the
problem. Higher-order regularization techniques may be used to generate
forms with certain desirable properties (e.g., higher order
derivatives). They further note that such analyses may be used to infer
properties of the electron energy spectra at energies well above the maximum
photon energy observed. In this paper we apply these techniques to data from a
solar flare observed by RHESSI on 26 February, 2002. Results using different
orders of regularization are presented and compared for various time intervals.
Clear evidence is presented for a change in the value of the high-energy cutoff
in the mean source electron spectrum with time. We also show how the
construction of the injected (accelerated) electron spectrum
(assuming that Coulomb collisions in a cold target dominate the electron
energetics) is facilitated by the use of higher-order regularization methods.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, accepted to Solar Physic
Screening Uptake in a Well-Established Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Program: The role of geographical access and deprivation
OBJECTIVE—To identify criteria that affect uptake of diabetes retinal screening in a community screening program using mobile retinal digital photography units
Generalized Regularization Techniques With Constraints For The Analysis Of Solar Bremsstrahlung X-Ray Spectra
Hard X-ray spectra in solar flares provide knowledge of the electron spectrum
that results from acceleration and propagation in the solar atmosphere.
However, the inference of the electron spectra from solar X-ray spectra is an
ill-posed inverse problem. Here we develop and apply an enhanced regularization
algorithm for this process making use of physical constraints on the form of
the electron spectrum. The algorithm incorporates various features not
heretofore employed in the solar flare context: Generalized Singular Value
Decomposition (GSVD) to deal with different orders of constraints; rectangular
form of the cross-section matrix to extend the solution energy range;
regularization with various forms of the smoothing operator; and
"preconditioning" of the problem. We show by simulations that this technique
yields electron spectra with considerably more information and higher quality
than previous algorithms.Comment: 21 pages, 8 fugures, accepted to Solar Physic
Exploring men's and women's experiences of depression and engagement with health professionals: more similarities than differences? A qualitative interview study
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It is argued that the ways in which women express emotional distress mean that they are more likely to be diagnosed with depression, while men's relative lack of articulacy means their depression is hidden. This may have consequences for communicating with health professionals. The purpose of this analysis was to explore how men and women with depression articulate their emotional distress, and examine whether there are gender differences or similarities in the strategies that respondents found useful when engaging with health professionals.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In-depth qualitative interviews with 22 women and 16 men in the UK who identified themselves as having had depression, recruited through general practitioners, psychiatrists and support groups.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found gender similarities and gender differences in our sample. Both men and women found it difficult to recognise and articulate mental health problems and this had consequences for their ability to communicate with health professionals. Key gender differences noted were that men tended to value skills which helped them to talk while women valued listening skills in health professionals, and that men emphasised the importance of getting practical results from talking therapies in their narratives, as opposed to other forms of therapy which they conceptualised as 'just talking'. We also found diversity among women and among men; some respondents valued a close personal relationship with health professionals, while others felt that this personal relationship was a barrier to communication and preferred 'talking to a stranger'.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our findings suggest that there is not a straightforward relationship between gender and engagement with health professionals for people with depression. Health professionals need to be sensitive to patients who have difficulties in expressing emotional distress and critical of gender stereotypes which suggest that women invariably find it easy to express emotional distress and men invariably find it difficult. In addition it is important to recognise that, for a minority of patients, a personal relationship with health professionals can act as a barrier to the disclosure of emotional distress.</p
New Insights into White-Light Flare Emission from Radiative-Hydrodynamic Modeling of a Chromospheric Condensation
(abridged) The heating mechanism at high densities during M dwarf flares is
poorly understood. Spectra of M dwarf flares in the optical and
near-ultraviolet wavelength regimes have revealed three continuum components
during the impulsive phase: 1) an energetically dominant blackbody component
with a color temperature of T 10,000 K in the blue-optical, 2) a smaller
amount of Balmer continuum emission in the near-ultraviolet at lambda 3646
Angstroms and 3) an apparent pseudo-continuum of blended high-order Balmer
lines. These properties are not reproduced by models that employ a typical
"solar-type" flare heating level in nonthermal electrons, and therefore our
understanding of these spectra is limited to a phenomenological interpretation.
We present a new 1D radiative-hydrodynamic model of an M dwarf flare from
precipitating nonthermal electrons with a large energy flux of erg
cm s. The simulation produces bright continuum emission from a
dense, hot chromospheric condensation. For the first time, the observed color
temperature and Balmer jump ratio are produced self-consistently in a
radiative-hydrodynamic flare model. We find that a T 10,000 K
blackbody-like continuum component and a small Balmer jump ratio result from
optically thick Balmer and Paschen recombination radiation, and thus the
properties of the flux spectrum are caused by blue light escaping over a larger
physical depth range compared to red and near-ultraviolet light. To model the
near-ultraviolet pseudo-continuum previously attributed to overlapping Balmer
lines, we include the extra Balmer continuum opacity from Landau-Zener
transitions that result from merged, high order energy levels of hydrogen in a
dense, partially ionized atmosphere. This reveals a new diagnostic of ambient
charge density in the densest regions of the atmosphere that are heated during
dMe and solar flares.Comment: 50 pages, 2 tables, 13 figures. Accepted for publication in the Solar
Physics Topical Issue, "Solar and Stellar Flares". Version 2 (June 22, 2015):
updated to include comments by Guest Editor. The final publication is
available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11207-015-0708-
The use of CAM and conventional treatments among primary care consulters with chronic musculoskeletal pain
Chronic musculoskeletal pain is the single most cited reason for use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Primary care is the most frequent conventional medical service used by patients with pain in the UK. We are unaware, however, of a direct evidence of the extent of CAM use by primary care patients, and how successful they perceive it to be.
Methods Aims and objectives
To determine CAM use among patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain who have consulted about their pain in primary care.
Study design
Face-to-face interview-based survey.
Setting
Three general practices in North Staffordshire.
Participants
Respondents to a population pain survey who had reported having musculoskeletal pain in the survey and who had consulted about their pain in primary care in the previous 12 months as well as consenting to further research and agreeing to an interview. Information was gathered about their pain and the use of all treatments for pain, including CAM, in the previous year.
Results
138 interviews were completed. 116 participants (84%) had used at least one CAM treatment for pain in the previous year. 65% were current users of CAM. The ratio of over-the-counter CAM use to care from a CAM provider was 3:2. 111 participants (80%) had used conventional treatment. 95 (69%) were using a combination of CAM and conventional treatment. Glucosamine and fish oil were the most commonly used CAM treatments (38%, 35% respectively). Most CAM treatments were scored on average as being helpful, and users indicated that they intended to use again 87% of the CAM treatments they had already used.
Conclusion
We provide direct evidence that most primary care consulters with chronic musculoskeletal pain have used CAM in the previous year, usually in combination with conventional treatments. The high prevalence and wide range of users experiences of benefit and harm from CAM strengthen the argument for more research into this type of medicine to quantify benefit and assess safety. The observation that most users of conventional medicine also used CAM suggests a continuing need for more investigation of effective pain management in primary care
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