The 12-item WHO Disability Assessment Schedule II as an outcome measure for treatment of common mental disorders.

BACKGROUND: Common mental disorders (CMD) are among the most significant contributors to disability worldwide. Patient-reported disability outcomes should be included as a key metric in the comparative assessment of value across global mental health interventions. This study aims to evaluate the validity of a widely used, cross-cultural tool - the 12-item World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule II (WHODAS) - as a functional outcome measure for CMD treatment. METHODS: The study population includes 1024 participants with CMD enrolled in the MANAS trial in India. CMD was assessed using the Revised Clinical Interview Schedule (CIS-R). Disability was assessed using the 12-item WHODAS II plus a measure of disability days. This analysis presents the correlations between these disability items and CMD symptom severity at 2 months after enrollment (convergent validity) and the items' associations with CMD recovery 4 months later (external responsiveness). RESULTS: All items showed a positive correlation of disability with CMD symptom severity (p < 0.001). The WHODAS items of 'standing,' 'household responsibilities,' and 'emotional disturbance' explained the most variance in CMD symptom severity. Improvements in 'disability days,' 'emotional disturbance,' 'standing,' 'household responsibilities,' 'day-to-day work,' and 'concentrating' were significantly associated with CMD recovery over follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Further research is recommended on a CMD-specific WHODAS subscale comprised of the six WHODAS items found to be most strongly associated with CMD severity and recovery. This shorter, CMD-specific disability subscale would critically serve as a common metric to compare intervention impact on patient-centered outcomes and, in turn, to allocate global mental health resources efficiently

Intensity-noise properties of injection-locked lasers

We present experimental results that illustrate how laser intensity noise near the quantum-noise limit is transferred in an injection-locked cw Nd:(yttrium aluminum garnet) nonplanar ring-oscillator laser. We show that these results are in extremely good agreement with our quantum-mechanical model describing the injection locking process [T. C. Ralph, C. C. Harb, and H.-A. Bachor, Phys. Rev. A]. Three regions in the intensity-noise spectrum are identified and we show that different minimum noise levels exist in these regions. Finally, we show that the injection-locked laser can generate and preserve nonclassical states

Prevalence of tobacco use among dental patients and their knowledge of its health effects

Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of tobacco use in dental patients, to compare the knowledge of the effects of tobacco in tobacco users and nonuser, to determine their source of information, and to obtain their opinion on strategies that may be used to reduce or stop tobacco consumption.Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional survey of 400 patients attending the University of Benin Teaching Hospital dental clinic for treatment was carried out using a self-administered questionnaire.Results: The result revealed that the prevalence of tobacco use is 4.25% and that tobacco was consumed in the form of cigarette in 94% of cases. Only a small percentage of the respondents (0.3%) had a poor knowledge of both the tobacco effect on general and oral health. Although 26.5% claimed to have multiple source of information on the effect of tobacco on health but the media was the highest single source (23.5%). Banning of sales of tobacco products was suggested by 30.5% of the respondents, 19.8% suggested that doctor should educate patients on the health effect of tobacco, and 17.8% feel that to discourage tobacco use, multiple strategies should be used.Conclusion: There is a need for health workers to lay more emphasis on the rare complications of tobacco use. The use of multiple regulatory strategies should be employed to reduce the overall adverse health impact of tobacco and the media can play a great role

Laser light on the mycoflora content in maize seeds

Laser light has many applications in agriculture, but there is still much work to provide scientific evidence of its potential use as an alternative for the control of diseases originating in the seed, especially for fungi that are internal. In this study, we investigated the effects of low intensity laser irradiation on the mycoflora content in maize seeds. Five irradiation times (30, 60, 180, 300 and 600 s) and two intensity levels (I1 = 16.3 e and I2 = 4.6 mW/cm2) were applied by using a diode laser (λ= 655 nm and power of 27.4 mW). Consequently, the laser irradiation significantly diminished the quantity of seeds infected with Fusarium spp. fungi. The combination of I1 and I2, at 5 min of irradiation time, diminished (p &lt; 0.05) the quantity of infected seeds with Fusarium spp. up to 61.11% when compared with the control seed (no irradiation). From these results, we concluded that low intensity laser irradiation could be an alternative method to control seed transmitted diseases in maize seed.Key words: Zea mays L., diode laser, low intensity laser, fungi, Fusarium

OPTICAL SPECTROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS OF GAMMA-RAY BLAZAR CANDIDATES. VI. FURTHER OBSERVATIONS FROM TNG, WHT, OAN, SOAR, AND MAGELLAN TELESCOPES

Indexación: Web of ScienceBlazars, one of the most extreme classes of active galaxies, constitute so far the largest known population of.-ray sources, and their number is continuously growing in the Fermi catalogs. However, in the latest release of the Fermi catalog there is still a large fraction of sources that are classified as blazar candidates of uncertain type (BCUs) for which optical spectroscopic observations are necessary to confirm their nature and their associations. In addition, about one-third of the gamma-ray point sources listed in the Third Fermi-LAT Source Catalog (3FGL) are still unassociated and lacking an assigned lower-energy counterpart. Since 2012 we have been carrying out an optical spectroscopic campaign to observe blazar candidates to confirm their nature. In this paper, the sixth of the series, we present optical spectroscopic observations for 30 gamma-ray blazar candidates from different observing programs we carried out with the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, William Herschel Telescope, Observatorio Astronomico Nacional, Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope, and Magellan. Telescopes. We found that 21 out of 30 sources investigated are BL Lac objects, while the remaining targets are classified as flat-spectrum radio quasars showing the typical broad emission lines of normal quasi-stellar objects. We conclude that our selection of gamma-ray blazar. candidates based on their multifrequency properties continues to be a successful way to discover potential low-energy counterparts of the Fermi. unidentified gamma-ray sources and to confirm the nature of BCUs.http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-6256/151/4/95/met

Personalisation and recommender systems in digital libraries

Widespread use of the Internet has resulted in digital libraries that are increasingly used by diverse communities of users for diverse purposes and in which sharing and collaboration have become important social elements. As such libraries become commonplace, as their contents and services become more varied, and as their patrons become more experienced with computer technology, users will expect more sophisticated services from these libraries. A simple search function, normally an integral part of any digital library, increasingly leads to user frustration as user needs become more complex and as the volume of managed information increases. Proactive digital libraries, where the library evolves from being passive and untailored, are seen as offering great potential for addressing and overcoming these issues and include techniques such as personalisation and recommender systems. In this paper, following on from the DELOS/NSF Working Group on Personalisation and Recommender Systems for Digital Libraries, which met and reported during 2003, we present some background material on the scope of personalisation and recommender systems in digital libraries. We then outline the working group’s vision for the evolution of digital libraries and the role that personalisation and recommender systems will play, and we present a series of research challenges and specific recommendations and research priorities for the field

Indeterminate thyroid cytology: Detecting malignancy using analysis of nuclear images

Background: Thyroid nodules diagnosed as 'atypia of undetermined significance/ follicular lesion of undetermined significance' (AUS/FLUS) or 'follicular neoplasm/ suspected follicular neoplasm' (FN/SFN), according to Bethesda’s classification, represena challenge in clinical practice. Computerized analysis of nuclear images (CANI) could be a useful tool for these cases. Our aim was to evaluate the ability of CANI to correctly classify AUS/FLUS and FN/SFN thyroid nodules for malignancy. Methods: We studied 101 nodules cytologically classified as AUS/FLUS (n = 68) or FN/SFN (n = 33) from 97 thyroidectomy patients. Slides with cytological material were submitted for manual selection and analysis of the follicular cell nuclei for morphometric and texture parameters using ImageJ software. The histologically benign and malignant lesions were compared for such parameters which were then evaluated for the capacity to predict malignancy using the classification and regression trees gini model. The intraclass coefficient of correlation was used to evaluate method reproducibility. Results: In AUS/FLUS nodule analysis, the benign and malignant nodules differed for entropy (P < 0.05), while the FN/SFN nodules differed for fractal analysis, coefficient of variation (CV) of roughness, and CV-entropy (P < 0.05). Considering the AUS/FLUS and FN/SFN nodules separately, it correctly classified 90.0 and 100.0% malignant nodules, with a correct global classification of 94.1 and 97%, respectively. We observed that reproducibility was substantially or nearly complete (0.61–0.93) in 10 of the 12 nuclear parameters evaluated. Conclusion: CANI demonstrated a high capacity for correctly classifying AUS/FLUS and FN/SFN thyroid nodules for malignancy. This could be a useful method to help increase diagnostic accuracy in the indeterminate thyroid cytology.This study received financial support from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP; processes number 2016/14987-0 and number 2016/14988-6). Further funding through 'Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologi' – FCT and FEDER 'Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional funds through the COMPETE 2020'; by Operacional Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization 'POCI' (Grant no. POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007274); by the 'Advancing cancer research: from basic knowledge to application' (grant no. NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000029); and by the 'Projetos Estruturados de I & D & I', funded by Norte 2020 – Programa Operacional Regional do Norte

High-transition-temperature superconductivity in the absence of the magnetic-resonance mode

The fundamental mechanism that gives rise to high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductivity in the copper oxide materials has been debated since the discovery of the phenomenon. Recent work has focussed on a sharp 'kink' in the kinetic energy spectra of the electrons as a possible signature of the force that creates the superconducting state. The kink has been related to a magnetic resonance and also to phonons. Here we report that infrared spectra of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O(8+d), (Bi-2212) show that this sharp feature can be separated from a broad background and, interestingly, weakens with doping before disappearing completely at a critical doping level of 0.23 holes per copper atom. Superconductivity is still strong in terms of the transition temperature (Tc approx 55 K), so our results rule out both the magnetic resonance peak and phonons as the principal cause of high-Tc superconductivity. The broad background, on the other hand, is a universal property of the copper oxygen plane and a good candidate for the 'glue' that binds the electrons.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Melting of a 2D Quantum Electron Solid in High Magnetic Field

The melting temperature ($T_m$) of a solid is generally determined by the pressure applied to it, or indirectly by its density ($n$) through the equation of state. This remains true even for helium solids\cite{wilk:67}, where quantum effects often lead to unusual properties\cite{ekim:04}. In this letter we present experimental evidence to show that for a two dimensional (2D) solid formed by electrons in a semiconductor sample under a strong perpendicular magnetic field\cite{shay:97} ($B$), the $T_m$ is not controlled by $n$, but effectively by the \textit{quantum correlation} between the electrons through the Landau level filling factor $\nu$=$nh/eB$. Such melting behavior, different from that of all other known solids (including a classical 2D electron solid at zero magnetic field\cite{grim:79}), attests to the quantum nature of the magnetic field induced electron solid. Moreover, we found the $T_m$ to increase with the strength of the sample-dependent disorder that pins the electron solid.Comment: Some typos corrected and 2 references added. Final version with minor editoriol revisions published in Nature Physic

Electrical control over single hole spins in nanowire quantum dots

Single electron spins in semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) are a versatile platform for quantum information processing, however controlling decoherence remains a considerable challenge. Recently, hole spins have emerged as a promising alternative. Holes in III-V semiconductors have unique properties, such as strong spin-orbit interaction and weak coupling to nuclear spins, and therefore have potential for enhanced spin control and longer coherence times. Weaker hyperfine interaction has already been reported in self-assembled quantum dots using quantum optics techniques. However, challenging fabrication has so far kept the promise of hole-spin-based electronic devices out of reach in conventional III-V heterostructures. Here, we report gate-tuneable hole quantum dots formed in InSb nanowires. Using these devices we demonstrate Pauli spin blockade and electrical control of single hole spins. The devices are fully tuneable between hole and electron QDs, enabling direct comparison between the hyperfine interaction strengths, g-factors and spin blockade anisotropies in the two regimes