Determinants of blood pressure control in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Background: Hypertension is a common problem in South Africa and is known to be inadequately treated and poorly controlled. Objectives: The objective of the study was to investigate what proportion of patients prescribed antihypertensive medication had controlled blood pressure (BP) and to identify factors associated with poor control. Method: In May and June 2012, clinic-attending adults who had been prescribed antihypertensive medication were recruited into this cross-sectional study. A questionnaire administered by field assistants investigated participants’ socio-demographic characteristics, medical history, perception of health, use of traditional healers, illness perceptions, beliefs about medication, compliance with the medication and suggestions as to how to improve hypertensive treatment. BP measurements were taken. Logistic regression analysis identified the determinants of poor BP control. Results: Of the 500 participants, the mean age was 58 years, 78% were female and the majority had never been to school, or had only attended primary school. One third had adequately controlled BP ( 140/90 mmHg). Factors associated with poor BP control included being prescribed more than one antihypertensive medication, self-reported asthma and poor compliance with the medication, although the latter was not significant after adjusting for other variables. Participants with diabetes and those with a family history of a stroke were more likely to have good BP control. Conclusion: Only one third of participants had adequately controlled BP, and almost half did not understand their high BP at all. Many had concerns about taking medication, but most felt that it was necessary. Participants suggested that better health education and ensuring that medication was available in the clinics could improve BP control

Psychological functioning in adolescents referred to specialist gender identity clinics across Europe : a clinical comparison study between four clinics

Adolescents seeking professional help with their gender identity development often present with psychological difficulties. Existing literature on psychological functioning of gender diverse young people is limited and mostly bound to national chart reviews. This study examined the prevalence of psychological functioning and peer relationship problems in adolescents across four European specialist gender services (The Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, and Switzerland), using the Child Behavioural Checklist (CBCL) and the Youth Self-Report (YSR). Differences in psychological functioning and peer relationships were found in gender diverse adolescents across Europe. Overall, emotional and behavioural problems and peer relationship problems were most prevalent in adolescents from the UK, followed by Switzerland and Belgium. The least behavioural and emotional problems and peer relationship problems were reported by adolescents from The Netherlands. Across the four clinics, a similar pattern of gender differences was found. Birth-assigned girls showed more behavioural problems and externalising problems in the clinical range, as reported by their parents. According to self-report, internalising problems in the clinical range were more prevalent in adolescent birth-assigned boys. More research is needed to gain a better understanding of the difference in clinical presentations in gender diverse adolescents and to investigate what contextual factors that may contribute to this

Realizations of kinetic differential equations

The induced kinetic differential equations of a reaction network endowed with mass action type kinetics is a system of polynomial differential equations. The problem studied here is: Given a system of polynomial differential equations, is it possible to find a network which induces these equations; in other words: is it possible to find a kinetic realization of this system of differential equations? If yes, can we find a network with some chemically relevant properties (implying also important dynamic consequences), such as reversibility, weak reversibility, zero deficiency, detailed balancing, complex balancing, mass conservation, etc.? The constructive answers presented to a series of questions of the above type are useful when fitting differential equations to datasets, or when trying to find out the dynamic behavior of the solutions of differential equations. It turns out that some of these results can be applied when trying to solve seemingly unrelated mathematical problems, like the existence of positive solutions to algebraic equations

Improved Measurement of the Positive Muon Lifetime and Determination of the Fermi Constant

The mean life of the positive muon has been measured to a precision of 11 ppm using a low-energy, pulsed muon beam stopped in a ferromagnetic target, which was surrounded by a scintillator detector array. The result, tau_mu = 2.197013(24) us, is in excellent agreement with the previous world average. The new world average tau_mu = 2.197019(21) us determines the Fermi constant G_F = 1.166371(6) x 10^-5 GeV^-2 (5 ppm). Additionally, the precision measurement of the positive muon lifetime is needed to determine the nucleon pseudoscalar coupling g_P.Comment: As published version (PRL, July 2007