5,902 research outputs found
Spatial clustering of mental disorders and associated characteristics of the neighbourhood context in Malmö, Sweden, in 2001
Study objective: Previous research provides preliminary evidence of spatial variations of mental disorders and associations between neighbourhood social context and mental health. This study expands past literature by (1) using spatial techniques, rather than multilevel models, to compare the spatial distributions of two groups of mental disorders (that is, disorders due to psychoactive substance use, and neurotic, stress related, and somatoform disorders); and (2) investigating the independent impact of contextual deprivation and neighbourhood social disorganisation on mental health, while assessing both the magnitude and the spatial scale of these effects.
Design: Using different spatial techniques, the study investigated mental disorders due to psychoactive substance use, and neurotic disorders.
Participants: All 89 285 persons aged 40â69 years residing in Malmö, Sweden, in 2001, geolocated to their place of residence.
Main results: The spatial scan statistic identified a large cluster of increased prevalence in a similar location for the two mental disorders in the northern part of Malmö. However, hierarchical geostatistical models showed that the two groups of disorders exhibited a different spatial distribution, in terms of both magnitude and spatial scale. Mental disorders due to substance consumption showed larger neighbourhood variations, and varied in space on a larger scale, than neurotic disorders. After adjustment for individual factors, the risk of substance related disorders increased with neighbourhood deprivation and neighbourhood social disorganisation. The risk of neurotic disorders only increased with contextual deprivation. Measuring contextual factors across continuous space, it was found that these associations operated on a local scale.
Conclusions: Taking space into account in the analyses permitted deeper insight into the contextual determinants of mental disorders
Disentangling a dynamical Higgs
The pattern of deviations from Standard Model predictions and couplings is
different for theories of new physics based on a non-linear realization of the
gauge symmetry breaking and those assuming a linear
realization. We clarify this issue in a model-independent way via its effective
Lagrangian formulation in the presence of a light Higgs particle, up to first
order in the expansions: dimension-six operators for the linear expansion and
four derivatives for the non-linear one. Complete sets of pure gauge and
gauge-Higgs operators are considered, implementing the renormalization
procedure and deriving the Feynman rules for the non-linear expansion. We
establish the theoretical relation and the differences in physics impact
between the two expansions. Promising discriminating signals include the
decorrelation in the non-linear case of signals correlated in the linear one:
some pure gauge versus gauge-Higgs couplings and also between couplings with
the same number of Higgs legs. Furthermore, anomalous signals expected at first
order in the non-linear realization may appear only at higher orders of the
linear one, and vice versa. We analyze in detail the impact of both type of
discriminating signals on LHC physics.Comment: Version published in JHE
Myocarditis evolving in cardiomyopathy: When genetics and offending causes work together
Myocarditis is an infectious-inflammatory disease often superimposed to individual genetic background which could favour or inhibit its progression into a chronic heart muscle disorder (most often dilated cardiomyopathy, rarely arrhythmogenic, or right-sided cardiomyopathy). Post-myocarditis cardiomyopathy is likely caused by a complex interaction between the viral infection and an individual predisposition. Some viruses are able to highlight a clinical phenotype replicating a model similar to the genetically determined conditions, while other can affect the resolution or the progressive remodelling of the left ventricle after the infectious process. The identification of specific individual genetic backgrounds, or genes favouring the progression of the disease, are important future research goals for precision medicine aiming at a specific and individualized treatment for patients affected with myocarditis
Self-pulsing effect in chaotic scattering
We study the quantum and classical scattering of Hamiltonian systems whose
chaotic saddle is described by binary or ternary horseshoes. We are interested
in parameters of the system for which a stable island, associated with the
inner fundamental periodic orbit of the system exists and is large, but chaos
around this island is well developed. In this situation, in classical systems,
decay from the interaction region is algebraic, while in quantum systems it is
exponential due to tunneling. In both cases, the most surprising effect is a
periodic response to an incoming wave packet. The period of this self-pulsing
effect or scattering echoes coincides with the mean period, by which the
scattering trajectories rotate around the stable orbit. This period of rotation
is directly related to the development stage of the underlying horseshoe.
Therefore the predicted echoes will provide experimental access to topological
information. We numerically test these results in kicked one dimensional models
and in open billiards.Comment: Submitted to New Journal of Physics. Two movies (not included) and
full-resolution figures are available at http://www.cicc.unam.mx/~mejia
Cerebral blood flow predicts differential neurotransmitter activity
Application of metabolic magnetic resonance imaging measures such as cerebral blood flow in translational medicine is limited by the unknown link of observed alterations to specific neurophysiological processes. In particular, the sensitivity of cerebral blood flow to activity changes in specific neurotransmitter systems remains unclear. We address this question by probing cerebral blood flow in healthy volunteers using seven established drugs with known dopaminergic, serotonergic, glutamatergic and GABAergic mechanisms of action. We use a novel framework aimed at disentangling the observed effects to contribution from underlying neurotransmitter systems. We find for all evaluated compounds a reliable spatial link of respective cerebral blood flow changes with underlying neurotransmitter receptor densities corresponding to their primary mechanisms of action. The strength of these associations with receptor density is mediated by respective drug affinities. These findings suggest that cerebral blood flow is a sensitive brain-wide in-vivo assay of metabolic demands across a variety of neurotransmitter systems in humans
Sovereign debt restructuring : the judge, the vultures and creditor rights
What role did the US courts play in the Argentine debt swap of 2005? What implications does this have for the future of creditor rights in sovereign bond markets?
The judge in the Argentine case has, it appears, deftly exploited creditor heterogeneity â between holdouts seeking capital gains and institutional investors wanting a settlement â to promote a swap with a supermajority of creditors. Our analysis of Argentine debt litigation reveals a âjudge-mediatedâ sovereign debt restructuring, which resolves the key issues of Transition and Aggregation - two of the tasks envisaged for the IMFâs still-born Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism.
For the future, we discuss how judge-mediated sovereign debt restructuring (together with creditor committees) could complement the alternative promoted by the US Treasury, namely collective action clauses in sovereign bond contracts
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