703 research outputs found
Measuring treatment satisfaction in MS: Is the Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire for Medication fit for purpose?
BACKGROUND: The Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire for Medication (TSQM) was designed to assess patient treatment satisfaction in chronic diseases. Its performance has not been examined in multiple sclerosis (MS). The 14 items of the TSQM cover four domains: Effectiveness, Side Effects, Convenience, and Global Satisfaction. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate performance of the TSQM in patients with relapsing MS, using data collected from the TENERE study (NCT00883337), in which 324 patients received oral teriflunomide or subcutaneous interferon beta-1a for ⩾48 weeks. METHODS: Five measurement properties were examined using traditional psychometric methods: data completeness, scale-to-sample targeting, scaling assumptions, reliability (including test-retest), and construct validity (internal: item-level scaling success, confirmatory factor analysis, and exploratory factor analysis; external: convergence, discrimination, and group differences). RESULTS: There were few ( 0.90). Internal validity tests supported item groupings. Correlations supported convergent and discriminant construct validity; hypothesis testing supported group differences validity. CONCLUSION: This investigation found the TSQM to be a useful tool, exhibiting good psychometric measurement properties in patients with relapsing MS in the TENERE study
DEVELOPMENT OF CLINICAL AND PATIENT-REPORTED QUALITY METRICS FOR MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS: A UK PILOT STUDY REPORT
The Cannabinoid Use in Progressive Inflammatory brain Disease (CUPID) trial: a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled parallel-group multicentre trial and economic evaluation of cannabinoids to slow progression in multiple sclerosis.
This is a freely-available open access publication. Please cite the published version which is available via the DOI link in this record.The Cannabinoid Use in Progressive Inflammatory brain Disease (CUPID) trial aimed to determine whether or not oral Δ(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ(9)-THC) slowed the course of progressive multiple sclerosis (MS); evaluate safety of cannabinoid administration; and, improve methods for testing treatments in progressive MS.The National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment programmeMedical Research Council Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation programmeMultiple Sclerosis SocietyMultiple Sclerosis Trus
Brain health: time matters in multiple sclerosis
publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Brain health: time matters in multiple sclerosis journaltitle: Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.msard.2016.07.003 content_type: article copyright: © 2016 Oxford PharmaGenesis Ltd. Published by Elsevier B.V
The Ontology of Intentional Agency in Light of Neurobiological Determinism: Philosophy Meets Folk Psychology
The moot point of the Western philosophical rhetoric about free will
consists in examining whether the claim of authorship to intentional, deliberative
actions fits into or is undermined by a one-way causal framework of determinism.
Philosophers who think that reconciliation between the two is possible are known as
metaphysical compatibilists. However, there are philosophers populating the other
end of the spectrum, known as the metaphysical libertarians, who maintain that claim
to intentional agency cannot be sustained unless it is assumed that indeterministic
causal processes pervade the action-implementation apparatus employed by the agent.
The metaphysical libertarians differ among themselves on the question of whether the
indeterministic causal relation exists between the series of intentional states and
processes, both conscious and unconscious, and the action, making claim for what has
come to be known as the event-causal view, or between the agent and the action,
arguing that a sort of agent causation is at work. In this paper, I have tried to propose
that certain features of both event-causal and agent-causal libertarian views need to be
combined in order to provide a more defendable compatibilist account accommodating
deliberative actions with deterministic causation. The ‘‘agent-executed-eventcausal
libertarianism’’, the account of agency I have tried to develop here, integrates
certain plausible features of the two competing accounts of libertarianism turning
them into a consistent whole. I hope to show in the process that the integration of these
two variants of libertarianism does not challenge what some accounts of metaphysical
compatibilism propose—that there exists a broader deterministic relation between the
web of mental and extra-mental components constituting the agent’s dispositional
system—the agent’s beliefs, desires, short-term and long-term goals based on them,
the acquired social, cultural and religious beliefs, the general and immediate and
situational environment in which the agent is placed, etc. on the one hand and the
decisions she makes over her lifetime on the basis of these factors. While in the
‘‘Introduction’’ the philosophically assumed anomaly between deterministic causation
and the intentional act of deciding has been briefly surveyed, the second section is
devoted to the task of bridging the gap between compatibilism and libertarianism. The
next section of the paper turns to an analysis of folk-psychological concepts and
intuitions about the effects of neurochemical processes and prior mental events on the
freedom of making choices. How philosophical insights can be beneficially informed
by taking into consideration folk-psychological intuitions has also been discussed,
thus setting up the background for such analysis. It has been suggested in the end that
support for the proposed theory of intentional agency can be found in the folk-psychological intuitions, when they are taken in the right perspective
Nonlinear stability of oscillatory wave fronts in chains of coupled oscillators
We present a stability theory for kink propagation in chains of coupled
oscillators and a new algorithm for the numerical study of kink dynamics. The
numerical solutions are computed using an equivalent integral equation instead
of a system of differential equations. This avoids uncertainty about the impact
of artificial boundary conditions and discretization in time. Stability results
also follow from the integral version. Stable kinks have a monotone leading
edge and move with a velocity larger than a critical value which depends on the
damping strength.Comment: 11 figure
Oscillatory wave fronts in chains of coupled nonlinear oscillators
Wave front pinning and propagation in damped chains of coupled oscillators
are studied. There are two important thresholds for an applied constant stress
: for (dynamic Peierls stress), wave fronts fail to propagate,
for stable static and moving wave fronts coexist, and
for (static Peierls stress) there are only stable moving wave
fronts. For piecewise linear models, extending an exact method of Atkinson and
Cabrera's to chains with damped dynamics corroborates this description. For
smooth nonlinearities, an approximate analytical description is found by means
of the active point theory. Generically for small or zero damping, stable wave
front profiles are non-monotone and become wavy (oscillatory) in one of their
tails.Comment: 18 pages, 21 figures, 2 column revtex. To appear in Phys. Rev.
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