The patient's perspective of computerised records: a questionnaire survey in primary care

Background The general practice consultation today has become a three-way process where patient, doctor and computer interact. Some studies have shown that the introduction of the computer has caused concern to some patients, possibly affecting their behaviour. If patients are less frank about their problems in a computer-mediated consultation this may cause concerns among doctors and become a barrier to computer use. Objectives A questionnaire was developed to test the prevalence of worries among patients about confidentiality breaches of computer records and to identify whether those worries translated into a reduction in patients' frankness. Results The study had a 62% response rate. Almost 48% of responders had experienced confidentiality worries during past consultations. All responders denied withholding any relevant information from their general practitioner (GP) as a result of confidentiality worries. Gender, computer literacy, knowledge of computer uses in consultation and patients' perceptions of computer record safetywere selected covariates in the multivariate logistic regression model explaining patients' worry. Thirty-three percent of patients stated they always understand what their GP is doing at the computer during consultation, 9.7% stated they did not ever know; though 64% judged it important to knowwhat their GPs were doing. Conclusions Patients worry about the confidentiality of their computer record and it seems that those less familiar with computers, females and those less aware of their GP's actions at the computer worry more. Patients' understanding of their GPs' actions at the computer during consultation is far from complete and they seem to place great importance on this. Those patients who place greatest importance on needing an understanding of their GP's actions are those most likely to worry about confidentiality

El principio de equivalencia y la mecánica cuántica

El año 1666 es considerado por algunos historiadores como el Annus Mirabilis(año milagroso), gracias a la aportación de Issac Newton a la física. En nuestros días esto debe tener una connotación diferente, pues en 1905 el joven de 26 años Albert Einstein, -cuatro años antes de conseguir un trabajo como profesor de Física-, publicó su tesis doctoral y cuatro de los más importantes artículos en la historia de la ciencia, todos escritos en sutiempo libre. La Organización de las Naciones Unidas declaró el 2005 "Año Mundial de laFísica" para celebrar el centenario del Annus Mirabilis de Einstein. Como un homenaje, en este artículo se verifica el Principio de Equivalencia, uno de los conceptos fundamentales de la teoría de Einstein. Se expondrá una posible violación del Principio de Equivalencia Débil en el mundo cuántico, presente en experimentos de interferencia en el nivel atómico realizados por Collela, Overhauser y Werner durante la década de los setenta, conocidos como tipo COW

Homogeneous Markov Processes For Breast Cancer Analysis

Sometimes, the introduction of covariates in stochastic processes is required to study their effect on disease history events. However these types of models increase the complexity of analysis, even for simpler processes, and standard software to analyse stochastic processes is limited. In this paper, a method for fitting homogeneous Markov models with covariates is proposed for analysing breast cancer data. Specific software for this purpose has been implemented

Cross-sectional Study of the Contribution of Rhetorical Competence to Children’s Expository Text Comprehension between Third- and Sixth-Grade

Readers' rhetorical competence is related to reading comprehension and moderates the impact of rhetorical devices in expository texts. In this cross-sectional study, we examine the differences in four measures of rhetorical competence (knowledge of anaphors, organizational signals, refutations, and a total score) in grades three through to six, we determine its contribution to expository text comprehension after controlling the effect of a wide set of linguistic and cognitive variables, and we study whether this contribution is moderated by grade or any of our control variables. First, although we found evidence for some level of rhetorical competence at early ages, data suggest that rhetorical competence development takes many years. Second, we found that knowledge of some rhetorical devices is acquired before knowledge of others. Finally, rhetorical competence was a unique predictor of expository text comprehension, and its influence was evident regardless of grade and all of the control variables

Changes in food access by mestizo communities associated with deforestation and agrobiodiversity loss in Ucayali, Peruvian Amazon

Few longitudinal studies link agricultural biodiversity, land use and food access in rural landscapes. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that, in a context of economic change, cash crop expansion is associated with deforestation, reduced agrobiodiversity and changes in food access. For this purpose, we analysed data collected from the same 53 upland and floodplain mestizo households in Ucayali, Peru, in 2000 and 2015. We found an emerging transition towards less diversified food access coupled with loss of forest cover and reduced agricultural biodiversity. In 2015, diets appeared to rely on fewer food groups, fewer food items, and on products increasingly purchased in the market compared to 2000. Wild fruits and plants were mentioned, but rarely consumed. Agricultural production systems became more specialised with a shift towards commercial crops. Peak deforestation years in the 15-year period appeared linked with incentives for agricultural expansion. Our results suggest an overall trend from diversified productive and “extractive” systems and more diverse food access, towards specialized productive systems, with less diverse food access and stronger market orientation (both in production and consumption). The assumption in the food and agricultural sciences that increased income and market-orientation is linked to improved food security, is challenged by our integrated analyses of food access, agrobiodiversity, land use and forest cover. Our results highlight the importance of longitudinal, multidimensional, systemic analyses, with major implications for land use, food and health policies. The potential risks of parallel homogenisation of diets and agricultural production systems require interdisciplinary research and policies that promote integrated landscape approaches for sustainable and inclusive food systems

Complex I and cytochrome c are molecular targets of flavonoids that inhibit hydrogen peroxide production by mitochondria

AbstractFlavonoids can protect cells from different insults that lead to mitochondria-mediated cell death, and epidemiological data show that some of these compounds attenuate the progression of diseases associated with oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. In this work, a screening of 5 flavonoids representing major subclasses showed that they display different effects on H2O2 production by mitochondria isolated from rat brain and heart. Quercetin, kaempferol and epicatechin are potent inhibitors of H2O2 production by mitochondria from both tissues (IC50≈1–2μM), even when H2O2 production rate was stimulated by the mitochondrial inhibitors rotenone and antimycin A. Although the rate of oxygen consumption was unaffected by concentrations up to 10μM of these flavonoids, quercetin, kaempferol and apigenin inhibited complex I activity, while up to 100μM epicatechin produced less than 20% inhibition. The extent of this inhibition was found to be dependent on the concentration of coenzyme Q in the medium, suggesting competition between the flavonoids and ubiquinone for close binding sites in the complex. In contrast, these flavonoids did not significantly inhibit the activity of complexes II and III, and did not affect the redox state of complex IV. However, we have found that epicatechin, quercetin and kaempferol are able to stoichiometrically reduce purified cytochrome c. Our results reveal that mitochondria are a plausible main target of flavonoids mediating, at least in part, their reported preventive actions against oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction-associated pathologies

Search for H alpha emitters in Galaxy Clusters with Tunable Filters

The studies of the evolution of galaxies in Galaxy Clusters have as a traditional complication the difficulty in establishing cluster membership of those sources detected in the field of view. The determination of spectroscopic redshifts involves long exposure times when it is needed to reach the cluster peripherical regions of/or clusters at moderately large redshifts, while photometric redshifts often present uncertainties too large to offer significant conclusions. The mapping of the cluster of galaxies with narrow band tunable filters makes it possible to reach large redshifts intervals with an accuracy high enough to establish the source membership of those presenting emission/absorption lines easily identifiable, as H alpha. Moreover, the wavelength scan can include other lines as [NII], [OIII] or $H_{\beta}$ allowing to distinguish those sources with strong stellar formation activity and those with an active galactic nuclei. All this makes it possible to estimate the stellar formation rate of the galaxies observed. This, together with ancillary data in other wavelengths may lead to a good estimation of the stellar formation histories. It will shed new light over the galaxy evolution in clusters and will improve our understanding of galaxy evolution, especially in the outer cluster regions, usually less studied and with significant unexploited data that can not be correctly interpreted without redshift determination.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. "Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics V", Proceedings of the VIII Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society (SEA) held in Santander, 7-11 July, 200

La sostenibilidad de la política fiscal en el América Latina: El caso de Venezuela

La economía venezolana se ha visto sometida desde mediados de la década de los setenta a un proceso de marcada inestabilidad y volatilidad, causado fundamentalmente por los shocks provenientes del mercado petrolero. La política fiscal ha jugado un rol determinante en la transmisión de esos shocks al resto de la economía. Por una parte, el gasto público ha mostrado un comportamiento procíclico en relación a los ingresos petroleros, transmitiendo la volatilidad de estos últimos a través de la demanda agregada interna y por tanto en las presiones inflacionarias y en el crecimiento económico. Por otra parte, el uso del tipo de cambio como mecanismo de corrección fiscal en algunas oportunidades y en otras como ancla nominal, conjuntamente con el comportamiento procíclico del gasto, han creado una situación prolongada de "stop and go" o de expansiones y ajustes recurrentes y transitorios con elevados costos de crecimiento, inflación y empobrecimiento de la población.

The resolved chemical composition of the starburst dwarf galaxy CGCG007-025: Direct method versus photoionization model fitting

This work focuses on the gas chemical composition of CGCG007-025. This compact dwarf is undergoing a galaxy wide star forming burst, whose spatial behaviour has been observed by VLT/MUSE. We present a new line measurement library to treat almost 7800 voxels. The direct method chemical analysis is limited to 484 voxels with good detection of the $[SIII]6312\AA$ temperature diagnostic line. The recombination fluxes are corrected for stellar absorption via a population synthesis. Additionally, we discuss a new algorithm to fit photoionization models via neural networks. The 8 ionic abundances analyzed show a spatial normal distribution with a $\sigma\sim0.1\,dex$, where only half this value can be explained by the uncertainty in the measurements. The oxygen abundance distribution is $12+log(O/H)=7.88\pm0.11$. The $T_{e}[SIII]$ and $ne[SII]$ are also normally distributed. However, in the central and brightest region, the $ne[SII]$ is almost thrice the mean galaxy value. This is also reflected in the extinction measurements. The ionization parameter has a distribution of $log(U) = -2.52^{0.17}_{0.19}$. The parameter spatial behaviour agrees with the $S^{2+}/S^{+}$ map. Finally, the discrepancies between the direct method and the photoionization model fitting are discussed. In the latter technique, we find that mixing lines with uneven uncertainty magnitudes can impact the accuracy of the results. In these fittings, we recommend overestimating the minimum flux uncertainty one order below the maximum line flux uncertainty. This provides a better match with the direct method.Comment: Minor revision of your manuscript is requested before it is reconsidered for publication in MNRA

La defensa técnica ineficaz en contravención al derecho de la defensa, en la audiencia de prisión preventiva en Cañete, 2021

El trabajo de investigación titulado “La defensa técnica ineficaz en contravención al derecho de defensa, en la audiencia de prisión preventiva en cañete, 2021” tuvo como objeto analizar la defensa técnica ineficaz en contravención al derecho de defensa, en la audiencia de prisión preventiva en cañete, 2021. En el aspecto metodológico, el estudio realizado se aplicó en el enfoque cualitativo, como diseño del estudio del caso y de tipo explicativo. Complementándose con un diseño fenomenológico, habiéndose realizado la entrevista a 06 participantes quienes son abogados privados y defensores públicos; para posteriormente proponer recomendaciones para la solución del problema local. Utilice como técnica la entrevista e instrumento la guía de entrevista. De acuerdo a los resultados, se demostró que la especialización técnica del abogado, el estado de indefensión del imputado y el desconocimiento legal sobre la audiencia de prisión preventiva son influyentes para una defensa técnica ineficaz en contravención al derecho de defensa, en la audiencia de prisión preventiva en cañete. Así mismo, se determinó la existencia de la sub categoría emergente como es el factor tiempo en la labor de un abogado