Does change in positive affect mediate and/or moderate the impact of symptom distress on psychological adjustment after cancer diagnosis? A prospective analysis

Physical symptom distress is one of the commonest correlates of psychological adjustment in cancer patients. Positive affect (PA) can be a dynamic resource for patients to cope with the cancer-related physical demands. The present study examined whether differential patterns of change in PA were associated with anxiety and depressed mood, and whether PA modified the association between change in symptom distress and psychological distress in 215 Chinese people newly diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC). Participants completed measures of physical symptoms, PA, and anxiety and depression at diagnosis and again at 3-month follow-up. Multivariate analyses of covariance revealed that at follow-up, people reporting higher anxiety and depressed mood demonstrated loss in PA, whereas those reporting lower depressed mood demonstrated a gain in PA. Structural equation modelling revealed that change in PA significantly mediated and moderated the associations between increased symptom distress and anxiety and depressed mood. We conclude that in line with Hobfoll's conservation of resources theory, continuous physical symptom distress depletes PA of newly diagnosed cancer patients, resulting in higher levels of anxiety and depressed mood. Effectiveness of symptom management intervention could be enhanced by preserving or enhancing PA in patients. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.postprin

Constructing power system restoration strategies

System restoration is an integral part of the overall defense system against catastrophic outages. The nature of system restoration problem involves status assessment, optimization of generation capability and load pickup. The optimization problem needs to take into numerous practical considerations and, therefore, it cannot be formulated as one single optimization problem. The other critical consideration for the development of decision support tools is its generality, i.e., the tools should be portable from a system to another with minimal customization. This presentation will provide a comprehensive methodology for construction of system restoration strategies. The strategy adopted by each power system differs, depending on the system characteristics and policies. A new method based on the concept of "generic restoration milestones" and "generic restoration actions" has been developed. A specific restoration strategy can be synthesized by a combination of the milestones and actions based on the actual system conditions. The decision support tool is expected to reduce the restoration time, thereby improving the system reliability.published_or_final_versionThe 6th International Conference on Electrical and Electroincs Engineering (ELECO 2009), Bursa, Turkey, 5-8 November 2009. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Electrical and Electronics Engineering, 2009, p. I8-I1

Computation of milestones for decision support during system restoration

System restoration involves status assessment, optimization of generation capability, and load pickup. The optimization problem needs to take complex constraints into consideration, and therefore, it is not practical to formulate the problem as one single optimization problem. The other critical consideration for the development of decision support tools is its generality, i.e., the tools should be portable from a system to another with minimal customization. This paper reports a practical methodology for construction of system restoration strategies. The strategy adopted by each power system differs, depending on system characteristics and policies. A new method based on the concept of generic restoration milestones (GRMs) is proposed. A specific restoration strategy can be synthesized by a combination of GRMs based on the actual system conditions. The decision support tool is expected to reduce the restoration time, thereby improving system reliability. The proposed decision support tool has been validated with cases based on a simplified Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) 200-Bus system and Hawaiian Electric Company system. © 2011 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Gas accretion as the origin of chemical abundance gradients in distant galaxies

It has recently been suggested that galaxies in the early Universe can grow through the accretion of cold gas, and that this may have been the main driver of star formation and stellar mass growth. Because the cold gas is essentially primordial, it has a very low abundance of elements heavier than helium (metallicity). As it is funneled to the centre of a galaxy, it will lead the central gas having an overall lower metallicity than gas further from the centre, because the gas further out has been enriched by supernovae and stellar winds, and not diluted by the primordial gas. Here we report chemical abundances across three rotationally-supported star-forming galaxies at z~3, only 2 Gyr after the Big Bang. We find an 'inverse' gradient, with the central, star forming regions having a lower metallicity than less active ones, opposite to what is seen in local galaxies. We conclude that the central gas has been diluted by the accretion of primordial gas, as predicted by 'cold flow' models.Comment: To Appear in Nature Oct 14, 2010; Supplementary Information included her

Unified traction and battery charging systems for electric vehicles: a sustainability perspective

This paper presents an analysis of unified traction and battery charging systems for electric vehicles (EVs), both in terms of operation modes and in terms of implementation cost, when compared to dedicated solutions that perform the same operation modes. Regarding the connection of the EV battery charging system with the power grid, four operation modes are analyzed: (1) Grid–to–Vehicle (G2V); (2) Vehicle–to–Grid (V2G); (3) Vehicle–to–Home (V2H); and (4) Vehicle–for–Grid (V4G). With an EV unified system, each of these operation modes can be used in single–phase and three–phase power grids. Furthermore, a cost estimation is performed for an EV unified system and for dedicated systems that can perform the same functionalities, in order to prove the benefits of the EV unified approach. The cost estimation comprises two power levels, namely 6 kW, single–phase, related to domestic installations, and 50 kW, three–phase, related to industrial installations. The relevance of unified traction and battery charging systems for EVs is proven for single–phase and three–phase power grids.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019. This work has been supported by the FCT Project DAIPESEV PTDC/EEI-EEE/30382/2017, and by the FCT Project new ERA4GRIDs PTDC/EEI-EEE/30283/2017

Intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions of cancer perception: a confirmatory factor analysis of the cancer experience and efficacy scale (CEES)

Purpose Sociocultural factors influence psychological adjustment to cancer in Asian patients in two major ways: Prioritization of relationships over individual orientations and belief in the efficacy of interpersonal cooperation. We derived and validated among Chinese colorectal cancer (CRC) patients an instrument assessing cancer perceptions to enable the study of the sociocultural processes. Patients and methods Qualitative interviews (n=16) derived 15 items addressing interpersonal experience in Chinese CRC patients' adjustment. These 15 items and 18 corresponding self-referent items were administered to 166 Chinese CRC survivors and subjected to exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to establish the initial scale structure and reliability. The final 29 items, together with other psychometric measures, were administered to a second cohort of 215 CRC patients and subjected to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Results EFA (63.35% of the total variance) extracted six factors: Personal strain, socioeconomic strain, emotional strain, personal efficacy, collective efficacy, and proxy efficacy. CFA confirmed the psychometric structure [?2(df)=702.91 (368); Comparative Fit Index=0.95; Nonnormed Fit Index= 0.94; Incremental Fit Index=0.95; standardized root mean square residual=0.08] of the six factors by using a model with two latent factors: Experience and efficacy. All subscales were reliable (a=0.76-0.92). Appropriate correlations with adjustment outcomes (symptom distress, psychological morbidity, and subjective well-being), optimistic personalities, and social relational quality indicated its convergent and divergent validity. Known group comparisons (i.e., age, active treatment, and colostomy) showed its clinical utility. Conclusion The cancer experience and efficacy scale is a valid multidimensional instrument for assessing intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions of cancer experience in Asian patients, potentiating existing patient-reported outcome measures. © Springer-Verlag 2009.published_or_final_versionSpringer Open Choice, 01 Dec 201

Mitochondria and neuroplasticity

The production of neurons from neural progenitor cells, the growth of axons and dendrites and the formation and reorganization of synapses are examples of neuroplasticity. These processes are regulated by cell-autonomous and intercellular (paracrine and endocrine) programs that mediate responses of neural cells to environmental input. Mitochondria are highly mobile and move within and between subcellular compartments involved in neuroplasticity (synaptic terminals, dendrites, cell body and the axon). By generating energy (ATP and NAD+), and regulating subcellular Ca2+ and redox homoeostasis, mitochondria may play important roles in controlling fundamental processes in neuroplasticity, including neural differentiation, neurite outgrowth, neurotransmitter release and dendritic remodelling. Particularly intriguing is emerging data suggesting that mitochondria emit molecular signals (e.g. reactive oxygen species, proteins and lipid mediators) that can act locally or travel to distant targets including the nucleus. Disturbances in mitochondrial functions and signalling may play roles in impaired neuroplasticity and neuronal degeneration in Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, psychiatric disorders and stroke

Search for CP violation in the decay B0->D*+-D-+

We report a search for CP-violating asymmetry in B0 -> D*+- D-+ decays. The analysis employs two methods of B0 reconstruction: full and partial. In the full reconstruction method all daughter particles of the B0 are required to be detected; the partial reconstruction technique requires a fully reconstructed D- and only a slow pion from the D*+ -> D0 pi_slow+ decay. From a fit to the distribution of the time interval corresponding to the distance between two B meson decay points we calculate the CP-violating parameters and find the significance of nonzero CP asymmetry to be 2.7 standard deviations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure