Verbal accessibility between marital partners as studied in a court of domestic relations

This study investigated the concept of verbal accessibility in marriage. It is an example of the interactional approach to the study of marriage, which is concerned with the on-going socialization process in marriage. Verbal communication is one component of the socialization process and also of problem solving in marriage. Interpersonal communication is influenced by many variables-- personality, culture and social situation. Polansky (1 965) conceptualized verbal accessibility as the degree of readiness to communicate verbally and to participate in communication about determinant attitudes. Determinant attitudes are those which have the most far reaching influence on other attitudes and on behavior. One of the goals of this study was to develop a scale which would permit examination of the verbal accessibility of attitudes relevant for marriage, and also to measure the VA between marital partners. The scale of fifty-seven items covered such areas as child-rearing, sex, money, education, in-laws, religion, employment, health, and the like. The items were then roughly categorized by Goffman’s scheme of social structure, interaction, and personality referents. Items were also judged as to their positive, negative and neutral connotation. Subjects were asked to report how fully they would talk with their spouses about each of the items, and also how fully they thought their spouse would talk with them about the same items. The responses were weighted in order to arrive at scores of verbal accessibility. The scale was administered to twenty-six couples who had requested conciliation services at the Court of Domestic Relations. The scale was constructed to measure verbal accessibility in such a way that persons as well as items could be ranked along a continuum from least accessible to most accessible. Scalogram analysis with the interaction and personality items for husbands and for wives produced a total of six scales. These scales appeared to reflect a dimension of self-protectiveness. There was no significant difference between the medians for husbands and wives, although the mean of the medians for husbands was slightly higher. Since this is in contrast to previous findings, we assumed that our sample was abnormal, biased, or both. Women did have a higher median score for interaction items, however, which may be due to the woman’s affective role in the family, and to the greater specificity of the interaction items. The scale appears to have potential for future use because it was able to elicit differential responses; items around such areas as sex and health had low accessibility and items around such areas as children and employment had higher accessibility. It was hypothesized that: 1) The more similar the marital partner’s verbal accessibility, the greater the likelihood of reconciliation. 2) The greater the marital partners’ assumed similarity of verbal accessibility the greater the likelihood of reconciliation 3) The higher the verbal accessibility on positive items, the greater the likelihood of reconciliation. 4) The higher the verbal accessibility on negative items, the less the likelihood of reconciliation. 5.) The higher the verbal accessibility of the respondent on positive and neutral items, the greater the likelihood of reconciliation. The data did not support the hypotheses. We concluded that our study was weakened by the small sample size, the lack of other measures of VA, and the uncertain significance of marital reconciliation. Responses apparently were biased by the stress of the situation, the desire to appear cooperative and the preponderance of female interviewers. We do not believe that the scores we obtained were actual measures of VA, but rather a reflection of the special situation of our subjects. Our sample appeared to have unique characterological, motivational, and interactional patterns which had an undetermined influence on our findings. We suggest that future research consider social, cultural and personality measures as part of any study of VA. Interactional patterns, orientations to marriage and barriers to marital breakdown down should also be studied. A normal sample would be useful for purposes of comparison

Librarians as Designers : Case Studies on Improvement of Library Services

This book is a result of our desire to show how service design works in selected libraries by means of case studies. It is certainly not an overview of everything that is going on in the field of design thinking in Czech libraries. The aim of the examples of use, which are described in this book, is to serve as a source of inspiration and encouragement to those who think about the needs of users in their own libraries

Glucosylsphingosine Is a Highly Sensitive and Specific Biomarker for Primary Diagnostic and Follow-Up Monitoring in Gaucher Disease in a Non-Jewish, Caucasian Cohort of Gaucher Disease Patients

Gaucher disease (GD) is the most common lysosomal storage disorder (LSD). Based on a deficient β-glucocerebrosidase it leads to an accumulation of glucosylceramide. Standard diagnostic procedures include measurement of enzyme activity, genetic testing as well as analysis of chitotriosidase and CCL18/PARC as biomarkers. Even though chitotriosidase is the most well-established biomarker in GD, it is not specific for GD. Furthermore, it may be false negative in a significant percentage of GD patients due to mutation. Additionally, chitotriosidase reflects the changes in the course of the disease belatedly. This further enhances the need for a reliable biomarker, especially for the monitoring of the disease and the impact of potential treatments.Here, we evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of the previously reported biomarker Glucosylsphingosine with regard to different control groups (healthy control vs. GD carriers vs. other LSDs).Only GD patients displayed elevated levels of Glucosylsphingosine higher than 12 ng/ml whereas the comparison controls groups revealed concentrations below the pathological cut-off, verifying the specificity of Glucosylsphingosine as a biomarker for GD. In addition, we evaluated the biomarker before and during enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) in 19 patients, demonstrating a decrease in Glucosylsphingosine over time with the most pronounced reduction within the first 6 months of ERT. Furthermore, our data reveals a correlation between the medical consequence of specific mutations and Glucosylsphingosine.In summary, Glucosylsphingosine is a very promising, reliable and specific biomarker for GD

Pelvic organ prolapse symptoms in relation to POPQ, ordinal stages and ultrasound prolapse assessment

Adequate staging of pelvic organ prolapse is important in clinical practice and research. The ability of the POPQ, ordinal stages and ultrasound prolapse assessment were evaluated for their ability to discriminate between women with and without prolapse symptoms. The leading edge of the predominant compartment in the three assessment systems was used for the calculation of receiver operating characteristics curves. Two hundred and sixty five (265) consecutive women were evaluated. The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve for the three staging systems ranged from 0.715 to 0.783. POPQ staging and ordinal staging performed equally well in the prediction of prolapse symptoms (p = 0.780), and both performed better as compared with ultrasound prolapse assessment (p = 0.048 and p = 0.015, respectively). Prolapse staging can equally be performed by the POPQ and ordinal stages systems as far as the discrimination between women with and without prolapse symptoms is concerned. The ultrasound prolapse assessment does not perform better as compared with these two systems

The influence of ultramafic rocks on microbial communities at the Logatchev Hydrothermal field, located 15°N on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge

The ultramafic-hosted Logatchev hydrothermal field (LHF) on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is characterized by high hydrogen and methane contents in the subseafloor, which support a specialized microbial community of phylogenetically diverse, hydrogen-oxidizing chemolithoautotrophs. We compared the prokaryotic communities of three sites located in the LHF and encountered a predominance of archaeal sequences affiliated with methanogenic Methanococcales at all three. However, the bacterial composition varied in accordance with differences in fluid chemistry between the three sites investigated. An increase in hydrogen seemed to coincide with the diversification of hydrogen-oxidizing bacteria. This might indicate that the host rock indirectly selects this specific group of bacteria. However, next to hydrogen availability further factors are evident (e.g. mixing of hot reduced hydrothermal fluids with cold oxygenated seawater), which have a significant impact on the distribution of microorganism

Use of 16S rRNA Gene Based Clone Libraries to Assess Microbial Communities Potentially Involved in Anaerobic Methane Oxidation in a Mediterranean Cold Seep

This study provides data on the diversities of bacterial and archaeal communities in an active methane seep at the Kazan mud volcano in the deep Eastern Mediterranean sea. Layers of varying depths in the Kazan sediments were investigated in terms of (1) chemical parameters and (2) DNA-based microbial population structures. The latter was accomplished by analyzing the sequences of directly amplified 16S rRNA genes, resulting in the phylogenetic analysis of the prokaryotic communities. Sequences of organisms potentially associated with processes such as anaerobic methane oxidation and sulfate reduction were thus identified. Overall, the sediment layers revealed the presence of sequences of quite diverse bacterial and archaeal communities, which varied considerably with depth. Dominant types revealed in these communities are known as key organisms involved in the following processes: (1) anaerobic methane oxidation and sulfate reduction, (2) sulfide oxidation, and (3) a range of (aerobic) heterotrophic processes. In the communities in the lowest sediment layer sampled (22–34 cm), sulfate-reducing bacteria and archaea of the ANME-2 cluster (likely involved in anaerobic methane oxidation) were prevalent, whereas heterotrophic organisms abounded in the top sediment layer (0–6 cm). Communities in the middle layer (6–22 cm) contained organisms that could be linked to either of the aforementioned processes. We discuss how these phylogeny (sequence)-based findings can support the ongoing molecular work aimed at unraveling both the functioning and the functional diversities of the communities under study

Research activity and the association with mortality.

INTRODUCTION: The aims of this study were to describe the key features of acute NHS Trusts with different levels of research activity and to investigate associations between research activity and clinical outcomes. METHODS: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Comprehensive Clinical Research Network (CCRN) funding and number of patients recruited to NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) portfolio studies for each NHS Trusts were used as markers of research activity. Patient-level data for adult non-elective admissions were extracted from the English Hospital Episode Statistics (2005-10). Risk-adjusted mortality associations between Trust structures, research activity and, clinical outcomes were investigated. RESULTS: Low mortality Trusts received greater levels of funding and recruited more patients adjusted for size of Trust (n = 35, 2,349 £/bed [95% CI 1,855-2,843], 5.9 patients/bed [2.7-9.0]) than Trusts with expected (n = 63, 1,110 £/bed, [864-1,357] p<0.0001, 2.6 patients/bed [1.7-3.5] p<0.0169) or, high (n = 42, 930 £/bed [683-1,177] p = 0.0001, 1.8 patients/bed [1.4-2.1] p<0.0005) mortality rates. The most research active Trusts were those with more doctors, nurses, critical care beds, operating theatres and, made greater use of radiology. Multifactorial analysis demonstrated better survival in the top funding and patient recruitment tertiles (lowest vs. highest (odds ratio & 95% CI: funding 1.050 [1.033-1.068] p<0.0001, recruitment 1.069 [1.052-1.086] p<0.0001), middle vs. highest (funding 1.040 [1.024-1.055] p<0.0001, recruitment 1.085 [1.070-1.100] p<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Research active Trusts appear to have key differences in composition than less research active Trusts. Research active Trusts had lower risk-adjusted mortality for acute admissions, which persisted after adjustment for staffing and other structural factors

Evolutionary tradeoffs in cellular composition across diverse bacteria

One of the most important classic and contemporary interests in biology is the connection between cellular composition and physiological function. Decades of research have allowed us to understand the detailed relationship between various cellular components and processes for individual species, and have uncovered common functionality across diverse species. However, there still remains the need for frameworks that can mechanistically predict the tradeoffs between cellular functions and elucidate and interpret average trends across species. Here we provide a comprehensive analysis of how cellular composition changes across the diversity of bacteria as connected with physiological function and metabolism, spanning five orders of magnitude in body size. We present an analysis of the trends with cell volume that covers shifts in genomic, protein, cellular envelope, RNA and ribosomal content. We show that trends in protein content are more complex than a simple proportionality with the overall genome size, and that the number of ribosomes is simply explained by cross-species shifts in biosynthesis requirements. Furthermore, we show that the largest and smallest bacteria are limited by physical space requirements. At the lower end of size, cell volume is dominated by DNA and protein content—the requirement for which predicts a lower limit on cell size that is in good agreement with the smallest observed bacteria. At the upper end of bacterial size, we have identified a point at which the number of ribosomes required for biosynthesis exceeds available cell volume. Between these limits we are able to discuss systematic and dramatic shifts in cellular composition. Much of our analysis is connected with the basic energetics of cells where we show that the scaling of metabolic rate is surprisingly superlinear with all cellular components

The effect of fluid resuscitation on the effective circulating volume in patients undergoing liver surgery: a post-hoc analysis of a randomized controlled trial

To assess the significance of an analogue of the mean systemic filling pressure (Pmsa) and its derived variables, in providing a physiology based discrimination between responders and non-responders to fluid resuscitation during liver surgery. A post-hoc analysis of data from 30 patients undergoing major hepatic surgery was performed. Patients received 15 ml kg(-1) fluid in 30 min. Fluid responsiveness (FR) was defined as an increase of 20% or greater in cardiac index, measured by FloTrac-Vigileo((R)). Dynamic preload variables (pulse pressure variation and stroke volume variation: PPV, SVV) were recorded additionally. Pvr, the driving pressure for venous return (=Pmsa-central venous pressure) and heart performance (EH; Pvr/Pmsa) were calculated according to standard formula. Pmsa increased following fluid administration in responders (n = 18; from 13 +/- 3 to 17 +/- 4 mmHg, p < 0.01) and in non-responders (n = 12; from 14 +/- 4 to 17 +/- 4 mmHg, p < 0.01). Pvr, which was lower in responders before fluid administration (6 +/- 1 vs. 7 +/- 1 mmHg; p = 0.02), increased after fluid administration only in responders (from 6 +/- 1 to 8 +/- 1 mmHg; p < 0.01). EH only decreased in non-responders (from 0.56 +/- 0.17 to 0.45 +/- 0.12; p < 0.05). The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve of Pvr, PPV and SVV for predicting FR was 0.75, 0.73 and 0.72, respectively. Changes in Pmsa, Pvr and EH reflect changes in effective circulating volume and heart performance following fluid resuscitation, providing a physiologic discrimination between responders and non-responders. Also, Pvr predicts FR equivalently compared to PPV and SVV, and might therefore aid in predicting FR in case dynamic preload variables cannot be used