265 research outputs found

    Diagnostic Algorithm for Joint Pain in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disorders

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    Aim. An algorithm development for joint pain differential diagnosis in patients with inflammatory bowel disorders (IBD) and its validation in clinical practice.Materials and methods. A total of 349 IBD patients hospitalised for gastroenterological complaints at the Chelyabinsk Regional Clinical Hospital during 2017–2020 have been examined.Results. Upon survey, 97 (27.8%) IBD patients complained of joint pain. Ulcerative colitis (UC) predominated (79 patients; 81.4%), Crohn’s disease (CD) had a 18.6% incidence. In survey, 27% UC and 32.1% CD patients reported joint pain (p = 0.26). Among IBD patients, 52.6% had mechanical, and 47.4% — inflammatory pain. The inflammatory back pain (IBP) rate in survey cohort was 23.7%. Use of a diagnostic algorithm allowed concomitant rheumatic disease detection in 7 (7.2%) patients from the IBD–joint pain cohort: 2 patients were diagnosed with psoriatic spondyloarthritis, 2 — rheumatoid arthritis, 1 — gout and 2 — with ankylosing spondylitis. IBD-associated arthritis was diagnosed in 41 (42.3%) cases, osteoarthritis — in 38 (39.2%) IBD patients with joint pain, arthralgia with no objective inflammation, impaired joint function or lesions in X-ray and/or ultrasound — in 13 (13.4%) patients.Conclusion. Joint pain complaints are common in IBD patients and require a multispecialty rheumatologists-involving approach to proceed with differential diagnosis and opting for treatment tactics. A clinically verified algorithm coupled with laboratory tests and instrumental imaging facilitates diagnosis and optimal therapy selection in IBD patients with complaints of joint pain

    Empathy, engagement, entrainment: the interaction dynamics of aesthetic experience

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    A recent version of the view that aesthetic experience is based in empathy as inner imitation explains aesthetic experience as the automatic simulation of actions, emotions, and bodily sensations depicted in an artwork by motor neurons in the brain. Criticizing the simulation theory for committing to an erroneous concept of empathy and failing to distinguish regular from aesthetic experiences of art, I advance an alternative, dynamic approach and claim that aesthetic experience is enacted and skillful, based in the recognition of others’ experiences as distinct from one’s own. In combining insights from mainly psychology, phenomenology, and cognitive science, the dynamic approach aims to explain the emergence of aesthetic experience in terms of the reciprocal interaction between viewer and artwork. I argue that aesthetic experience emerges by participatory sense-making and revolves around movement as a means for creating meaning. While entrainment merely plays a preparatory part in this, aesthetic engagement constitutes the phenomenological side of coupling to an artwork and provides the context for exploration, and eventually for moving, seeing, and feeling with art. I submit that aesthetic experience emerges from bodily and emotional engagement with works of art via the complementary processes of the perception–action and motion–emotion loops. The former involves the embodied visual exploration of an artwork in physical space, and progressively structures and organizes visual experience by way of perceptual feedback from body movements made in response to the artwork. The latter concerns the movement qualities and shapes of implicit and explicit bodily responses to an artwork that cue emotion and thereby modulate over-all affect and attitude. The two processes cause the viewer to bodily and emotionally move with and be moved by individual works of art, and consequently to recognize another psychological orientation than her own, which explains how art can cause feelings of insight or awe and disclose aspects of life that are unfamiliar or novel to the viewer

    Fostering implementation of health services research findings into practice: a consolidated framework for advancing implementation science

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    Abstract Background Many interventions found to be effective in health services research studies fail to translate into meaningful patient care outcomes across multiple contexts. Health services researchers recognize the need to evaluate not only summative outcomes but also formative outcomes to assess the extent to which implementation is effective in a specific setting, prolongs sustainability, and promotes dissemination into other settings. Many implementation theories have been published to help promote effective implementation. However, they overlap considerably in the constructs included in individual theories, and a comparison of theories reveals that each is missing important constructs included in other theories. In addition, terminology and definitions are not consistent across theories. We describe the Consolidated Framework For Implementation Research (CFIR) that offers an overarching typology to promote implementation theory development and verification about what works where and why across multiple contexts. Methods We used a snowball sampling approach to identify published theories that were evaluated to identify constructs based on strength of conceptual or empirical support for influence on implementation, consistency in definitions, alignment with our own findings, and potential for measurement. We combined constructs across published theories that had different labels but were redundant or overlapping in definition, and we parsed apart constructs that conflated underlying concepts. Results The CFIR is composed of five major domains: intervention characteristics, outer setting, inner setting, characteristics of the individuals involved, and the process of implementation. Eight constructs were identified related to the intervention (e.g., evidence strength and quality), four constructs were identified related to outer setting (e.g., patient needs and resources), 12 constructs were identified related to inner setting (e.g., culture, leadership engagement), five constructs were identified related to individual characteristics, and eight constructs were identified related to process (e.g., plan, evaluate, and reflect). We present explicit definitions for each construct. Conclusion The CFIR provides a pragmatic structure for approaching complex, interacting, multi-level, and transient states of constructs in the real world by embracing, consolidating, and unifying key constructs from published implementation theories. It can be used to guide formative evaluations and build the implementation knowledge base across multiple studies and settings.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78272/1/1748-5908-4-50.xmlhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78272/2/1748-5908-4-50-S1.PDFhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78272/3/1748-5908-4-50-S3.PDFhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78272/4/1748-5908-4-50-S4.PDFhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78272/5/1748-5908-4-50.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78272/6/1748-5908-4-50-S2.PDFPeer Reviewe

    The cognitive integration of scientific instruments: Information, situated cognition, and scientific practice

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    Researchers in the biological and biomedical sciences, particularly those working in laboratories, use a variety of artifacts to help them perform their cognitive tasks. This paper analyses the relationship between researchers and cognitive artifacts in terms of integration. It first distinguishes different categories of cognitive artifacts used in biological practice on the basis of their informational properties. This results in a novel classification of scientific instruments, conducive to an analysis of the cognitive interactions between researchers and artifacts. It then uses a multidimensional framework in line with complementarity-based extended and distributed cognition theory to conceptualize how deeply instruments in different informational categories are integrated into the cognitive systems of their users. The paper concludes that the degree of integration depends on various factors, including the amount of informational malleability, the intensity and kind of information flow between agent and artifact, the trustworthiness of the information, the procedural and informational transparency, and the degree of individualisation

    Modeling of dielectric hysteresis loops in ferroelectric semiconductors with charged defects

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    We have proposed the phenomenological description of dielectric hysteresis loops in ferroelectric semiconductors with charged defects and prevailing extrinsic conductivity. Exactly we have modified Landau-Ginsburg approach and shown that the macroscopic state of the aforementioned inhomogeneous system can be described by three coupled equations for three order parameters. Both the experimentally observed coercive field values well below the thermodynamic one and the various hysteresis loop deformations (constricted and double loops) have been obtained in the framework of our model. The obtained results quantitatively explain the ferroelectric switching in such ferroelectric materials as thick PZT films.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures, sent to Journal of Physics: Condensed Matte

    Occupational Therapy Intervention with Children Survivors of War

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    A preventive occupational therapy program with children surviving the Kosovo conflict is examined. The objective of the program was to facilitate the emotional expression of traumatic experiences in order to prevent the development of future psychological problems. The intervention was based on a community-centred approach with spirituality as a central focus of the intervention.The Model of Human Occupation and the Occupational Performance Process Model were utilized to guide the identification and intervention of occupational performance issues.The children’s return from a land of war to a land of children demonstrates the potential of occupational therapy intervention in this field. With increasing awareness of populations facing social and political challenges, there is a growing importance of the concept of occupational justice and the need to work against occupational apartheid.Cet article décrit un programme de prévention en ergothérapie qui était destiné aux enfants ayant survécu au conflit du Kosovo. L’objectif du programme était d’aider les enfants à exprimer les émotions qu’ils avaient ressenties lors d’expériences traumatiques afin de prévenir l’apparition de problèmes psychologiques. L’intervention était basée sur une approche communautaire s’articulant autour de la spiritualité. Le Modèle de l’occupation humaine et le Modèle du processus d’intervention dans le rendement occupationnel ont été utilisés pour cibler les difficultés en matière de rendement occupationnel et pour déterminer les interventions requises. Le retour des enfants d’un monde de guerre vers le monde de l’enfance démontre la possibilité de proposer une intervention ergothérapique dans ce domaine. La conscientisation de plus en plus grand face à la détresse des populations confrontées à des problèmes politiques et sociaux entraîne une augmentation de l’importance du concept de la justice occupationnelle et du besoin de lutter contre l’apartheid occupationnel

    Aspirin use and survival after the diagnosis of breast cancer:a population-based cohort study

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    Background: Aspirin use has been associated with a reduced cancer incidence and fewer deaths from cancer. This study examined whether women with breast cancer prescribed aspirin postdiagnosis had improved survival.Methods:An observational, population cohort study was undertaken using data linkage of cancer registry, dispensed prescriptions and death records in Tayside, Scotland. All community prescriptions for aspirin in women with breast cancer were extracted and use postdiagnosis for each individual examined using Cox's proportional hazard models. The main outcome measures were all-cause mortality and breast cancer-specific mortality.Results:Four thousand six hundred and twenty-seven patients diagnosed with breast cancer between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2008 were followed up until 28 February 2010. Median age at diagnosis was 62 (IQR 52-74). One thousand eight hundred and two (39%) deaths were recorded, with 815 (18%) attributed to breast cancer. One thousand and thirty-five (22%) patients were prescribed aspirin postdiagnosis. Such aspirin use was associated with lower risk of all-cause mortality (HR=0.53, 95% CI=0.45-0.63, P<0.001) and breast cancer-specific mortality (HR=0.42, 95% CI=0.31-0.55, P<0.001) after adjusting for age, socioeconomic status, TNM stage, tumour grade, oestrogen receptor status, surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, adjuvant endocrine therapy and aspirin use prediagnosis. Conclusions:Aspirin use postdiagnosis of breast cancer may reduce both all-cause and breast cancer-specific mortality. Further investigation seeking a causal relationship and which subgroups of patients benefit most await ongoing randomised controlled trials.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

    Educators' working conditions in a day care centre on ownership of a non-profit organization

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    Background: Working conditions of nursery school teachers have not been scrutinized thoroughly in scientific research. Only a few studies have so far examined work-load and strain in this profession. Preferably, subjective perceptions should be corroborated by data that can be quantified more objectively and accurately. The aim of the present observational field study was to evaluate pedagogical staffs' workflow. Methods: In 2009 eleven educators in a day care centre were observed throughout three complete workdays. A total of 250 working hours were recorded. Results: An educators' workday lasted on average 07:46:59 h (SD = 01:01:10 h).Within this time span, an average of 02:20:46 h (30.14%, SD = 00:28:07 h) were spent on caring, 01:44:18 h on playing (22.33%, SD = 00:54:12 h), 00:49:37 h on educational work (10.62%, SD = 00:40:09), and only 00:05:38 h on individual child contact (1.21%, SD = 00:04:58 h). Conclusion: For the first time, educators' workflow in day care centres was studied in real time. Some of the educators' self-reported problems were corroborated. The results of this study form a basis upon which further investigations can be built and measures can be developed for an overall improvement of child care

    A weak scientific basis for gaming disorder: let us err on the side of caution

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    We greatly appreciate the care and thought that is evident in the 10 commentaries that discuss our debate paper, the majority of which argued in favor of a formalized ICD-11 gaming disorder. We agree that there are some people whose play of video games is related to life problems. We believe that understanding this population and the nature and severity of the problems they experience should be a focus area for future research. However, moving from research construct to formal disorder requires a much stronger evidence base than we currently have. The burden of evidence and the clinical utility should be extremely high, because there is a genuine risk of abuse of diagnoses. We provide suggestions about the level of evidence that might be required: transparent and preregistered studies, a better demarcation of the subject area that includes a rationale for focusing on gaming particularly versus a more general behavioral addictions concept, the exploration of non-addiction approaches, and the unbiased exploration of clinical approaches that treat potentially underlying issues, such as depressive mood or social anxiety first. We acknowledge there could be benefits to formalizing gaming disorder, many of which were highlighted by colleagues in their commentaries, but we think they do not yet outweigh the wider societal and public health risks involved. Given the gravity of diagnostic classification and its wider societal impact, we urge our colleagues at the WHO to err on the side of caution for now and postpone the formalization

    Equal opportunities: Do shareable interfaces promote more group participation than single users displays?

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    Computers designed for single use are often appropriated suboptimally when used by small colocated groups working together. Our research investigates whether shareable interfaces–that are designed for more than one user to inter-act with–can facilitate more equitable participation in colocated group settings compared with single user displays. We present a conceptual framework that characterizes Shared Information Spaces (SISs) in terms of how they constrain and invite participation using different entry points. An experiment was conducted that compared three different SISs: a physical-digital set-up (least constrained), a multitouch tabletop (medium), and a laptop display (most constrained). Statistical analyses showed there to be little difference in participation levels between the three conditions other than a predictable lack of equity of control over the interface in the laptop condition. However, detailed qualitative analyses revealed more equitable participation took place in the physical-digital condition in terms of verbal utterances over time. Those who spoke the least contributed most to the physical design task. The findings are discussed in relation to the conceptual framework and, more generally, in terms of how to select, design, and combine different display technologies to support collaborative activities
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