Associations of specific phobia and its subtypes with physical diseases: an adult community study.

Specific phobia is the most prevalent anxiety disorder in the community and is associated with substantial impairment. Comorbidity with physical diseases is assumed and has important implications for etiology, treatment, or prevention of the comorbid conditions. However, due to methodological issues data are limited and subtypes of specific phobia have not been investigated yet. We examined the association of specific phobia and its subtypes with physical diseases in a representative community sample with physician-diagnosed physical diseases and diagnostic criteria of specific phobia. Data of the German Mental Health Survey from 4181 subjects aged 18-65 years were used. Specific phobia was diagnosed using M-CIDI/DIA-X interview; physical diseases were assessed through a self-report questionnaire and a medical interview. Logistic regression analyses adjusted for sex were calculated. Specific phobia was associated with cardiac diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, respiratory diseases, arthritic conditions, migraine, and thyroid diseases (odds ratios between 1.49 and 2.53). Among the subtypes, different patterns of associations with physical diseases were established. The findings were partially replicated in the Swiss PsyCoLaus Study. Our analyses show that subjects with specific phobia have an increased probability for specific physical diseases. From these analyses etiological mechanisms of specific phobia and physical disease can be deduced. As subtypes differed in their patterns of associations with physical diseases, different etiological mechanisms may play a role. The findings are highly relevant for public health in terms of prevention and therapy of the comorbid conditions

Boolean-controlled systems via receding horizon and linear programing.

We consider dynamic systems controlled by boolean signals or decisions. We show that in a number of cases, the receding horizon formulation of the control problem can be solved via linear programing by relaxing the binary constraints on the control. The idea behind our approach is conceptually easy: a feasible control can be forced by imposing that the boolean signal is set to one at least one time over the horizon. We translate this idea into constraints on the controls and analyze the polyhedron of all feasible controls. We specialize the approach to the stabilizability of switched and impulsively controlled systems

Influence of a Conductive Material and Different Anaerobic Inocula on Biochemical Methane Potential of Substrates from Alcoholic Beverage Production

The impact of a conductive material as powdered activated carbon (PAC) on the biochemical methane potential of whisky pot ale (PA) and brewery spent yeast (SY) was investigated. The test was carried out with three different types of anaerobic inocula: manure inoculum (MI), sewage sludge (SS) and granular sludge (GR). Brewery spent yeast produced partial (in sewage and granular sludge) and total (in manure inoculum) methanogenesis inhibition due to the toxicity of some of its constituents (hops extract). The inhibition was overcome by the supplementation of PAC, that improved significantly the anaerobic digestion process for SY, allowing to reach biochemical methane potential values between 657-699 L CH4 kg-1 VS and it reduced redox potential from 369 to 398 mV. The activated carbon did not improve the methane yields from whisky PA since microorganisms did not have difficulties to process this substrate; in fact, the redox potential slightly increased from 355 to 330 mV

Modeling of longitudinal polytomous outcome from complex survey data - application to investigate an association between mental distress and non-malignant respiratory diseases

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The data from longitudinal complex surveys based on multi-stage sampling designs contain cross-sectional dependencies among units due to clustered nature of the data and within-subject dependencies due to repeated measurements. Special statistical methods are required to analyze longitudinal complex survey data.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Statistics Canada's longitudinal National Population Health Survey (NPHS) dataset from the first five cycles (1994/1995 to 2002/2003) was used to investigate the effects of demographic, social, life-style, and health-related factors on the longitudinal changes of mental distress scores among the NPHS participants who self-reported physician diagnosed respiratory diseases, specifically asthma and chronic bronchitis. The NPHS longitudinal sample includes 17,276 persons of all ages. In this report, participants 15 years and older (n = 14,713) were considered for statistical analysis. Mental distress, an ordinal outcome variable (categories: no/low, moderate, and high) was examined. Ordered logistic regression models based on the weighted generalized estimating equations approach were fitted to investigate the association between respiratory diseases and mental distress adjusting for other covariates of interest. Variance estimates of regression coefficients were computed by using bootstrap methods. The final model was used to predict the probabilities of prevalence of no/low, moderate or high mental distress scores.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Accounting for design effects does not vary the significance of the coefficients of the model. Participants suffering with chronic bronchitis were significantly at a higher risk (OR_adj= 1.37; 95% CI: 1.12-1.66) of reporting high levels of mental distress compared to those who did not self-report chronic bronchitis. There was no significant association between asthma and mental distress. There was a significant interaction between sex and self-perceived general health status indicating a dose-response relationship. Among females, the risk of mental distress increases with increasing deteriorating (from excellent to very poor) self-perceived general health.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A positive association was observed between the physician diagnosed self-reported chronic bronchitis and an increased prevalence of mental distress when adjusted for important covariates. Variance estimates of regression coefficients obtained from the sandwich estimator (i.e. not accounting for design effects) were similar to bootstrap variance estimates (i.e. accounting for design effects). Even though these two sets of variance estimates are similar, it is more appropriate to use bootstrap variance estimates.</p

Academic careers in Computer Science: Continuance and transience of lifetime co-authorships

International audienceScholarly publications reify fruitful collaborations between co-authors. A branch of research in the Science Studies focuses on analyzing the co-authorship networks of established scientists. Such studies tell us about how their collaborations developed through their careers. This paper updates previous work by reporting a transversal and a longitudinal studies spanning the lifelong careers of a cohort of researchers from the DBLP bibliographic database. We mined 3,860 researchers' publication records to study the evolution patterns of their co-authorships. Two features of co-authors were considered: 1) their expertise, and 2) the history of their partnerships with the sampled researchers. Our findings reveal the ephemeral nature of most collaborations: 70% of the new co-authors were only one-shot partners since they did not appear to collaborate on any further publications. Overall, researchers consistently extended their co-authorships 1) by steadily enrolling beginning researchers (i.e., people who had never published before), and 2) by increasingly working with confirmed researchers with whom they already collaborated

Examining the Incidence of Human Papillomavirus-Associated Head and Neck Cancers by Race and Ethnicity in the U.S., 1995–2005

Background: Head and neck cancer (HNC) incidence, mortality and survival rates vary by sex and race, with men and African Americans disproportionately affected. Risk factors for HNC include tobacco and alcohol exposure, with a recent implication of human papillomavirus (HPV) in the pathogenesis of HNC. This study describes the epidemiology of HNC in the United States, examining variation of rates by age, sex, race/ethnicity and potential HPV-association. Methods: We used the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR) Cancer in North America (CINA) Deluxe Analytic Data to analyze HNC incidence for 1995–2005 from forty population-based cancer registries. We calculated age-adjusted incidence rates and incidence trends using annual percent change by age, sex, race/ethnicity and HPVassociation. Results: Males and Non-Hispanic Blacks experienced greater HNC incidence compared to women and other race/ethnicity groupings. A significant overall increase in HNC incidence was observed among HPV-associated sites during 1995–2005, while non HPV-associated sites experienced a significant decline in HNC incidence. Overall, younger age groups, Non-Hispanic Whites and Hispanics experienced greater increases in incidence for HPV-associated sites, while HNC incidence declined for Non-Hispanic Blacks independent of HPV-association. In particular, for HPV-associated sites, HNC incidence for Non-Hispanic White males aged 45–54 increased at the greatest rate, with an APC of 6.28 % (p,0.05). Among non HPVassociated sites, Non-Hispanic Black males aged 0–44 years experienced the greatest reduction in incidence (APC, 28.17%

Protocol for a home-based integrated physical therapy program to reduce falls and improve mobility in people with Parkinson’s disease

Background The high incidence of falls associated with Parkinson&rsquo;s disease (PD) increases the risk of injuries and immobility and compromises quality of life. Although falls education and strengthening programs have shown some benefit in healthy older people, the ability of physical therapy interventions in home settings to reduce falls and improve mobility in people with Parkinson&rsquo;s has not been convincingly demonstrated.Methods/design 180 community living people with PD will be randomly allocated to receive either a home-based integrated rehabilitation program (progressive resistance strength training, movement strategy training and falls education) or a home-based life skills program (control intervention). Both programs comprise one hour of treatment and one hour of structured homework per week over six weeks of home therapy. Blinded assessments occurring before therapy commences, the week after completion of therapy and 12 months following intervention will establish both the immediate and long-term benefits of home-based rehabilitation. The number of falls, number of repeat falls, falls rate and time to first fall will be the primary measures used to quantify outcome. The economic costs associated with injurious falls, and the costs of running the integrated rehabilitation program from a health system perspective will be established. The effects of intervention on motor and global disability and on quality of life will also be examined. Discussion This study will provide new evidence on the outcomes and cost effectiveness of home-based movement rehabilitation programs for people living with PD