Stigmatizing attitudes of primary care professionals towards people with mental disorders: a systematic review

Objective: To examine stigmatizing attitudes towards people with mental disorders among primary care professionals, and to identify potential factors related to stigmatizing attitudes through a systematic review. Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted in Medline, Lilacs, IBECS, Index Psicologia, CUMED, MedCarib, Sec. Est. Saúde SP, WHOLIS, Hanseníase, LIS-Localizador de Informação em Saúde, PAHO, CVSO-Regional and Latindex, through the Virtual Health Library portal (http://www.bireme.br website) through to June 2017. The articles included in the review were summarized through a narrative synthesis. Results: After applying eligibility criteria, eleven articles, out of 19.109 references identified, were included in the review. Primary care physicians do present stigmatizing attitudes towards patients with mental disorders, and show more negative attitudes towards patients with schizophrenia than towards those with depression. Older and more experience doctors have more stigmatizing attitudes towards people with mental illness compared with younger and less experienced doctors. Health care providers who endorse more stigmatizing attitudes towards mental illness were likely to be more pessimistic about the patient's adherence to treatment. Conclusions: Stigmatizing attitudes towards people with mental disorders are common among physicians in primary care settings, particularly among older and more experienced doctors. Stigmatizing attitudes can act as an important barrier for patients to receive the treatment they need. The primary care physicians feel they need better preparation, training and information to deal with and to treat mental illness, such as a user friendly and pragmatic classification system that addresses the high prevalence of mental disorders in primary care and community settings

Emulsiones tipo crema preparadas a base de leche de soja 1: Estudios de estabilidad y determinación de las formulaciones

The objective of the present work was to obtain stable emulsions prepared with soy milk, refined sunflower oil and milk fat. By Quick Scan measures, emulsions formulated with soy milk (5 and 10 %), variable proportion and composition of lipid phase and absence or presence of xhantan gum, more stable formulations were determined. Creaming was the main mechanism of destabilization of the emulsions. Those formulated with more concentrated soy milk, greater content of lipid phase and presence of xhantan gum were more stable. The stability increase of emulsions with a higher content of oil was attributed to the increase of viscosity instead of the droplet size. The content of milk fat in lipid phase had a low influence on droplet size but didn't show changes in droplet distribution and emulsion stability. Consistency increase due to stirring was favoured in emulsions of 40-50 % of lipid phase (30-50 % of milk fat).Se evaluó la obtención de cremas líquidas estables compuestas por leche de soja en polvo, aceite de girasol refinado y grasa láctea. Por medidas de estabilidad (QuickScan) de emulsiones O/W con 5 % y 10 % de leche de soja, diferente cantidad y composición de fase lipídica y ausencia o presencia de goma xántica, se determinaron las formulaciones más estables. En las emulsiones inestables, el proceso predominante de desestabilización fue la separación gravitacional. Las emulsiones más estables fueron las preparadas con goma xántica, 10 % de leche de soja y mayor contenido de fase lipídica. El aumento de la estabilidad en las emulsiones con mayor contenido de aceite no se atribuyó al tamaño de gota sino a un aumento de la viscosidad. La variación del contenido de grasa láctea (a igual concentración de leche de soja y proporción de fase lipídica) influyó levemente en el tamaño de gota pero no en su distribución ni en la estabilidad. De las emulsiones preparadas, sólo aquellas con un alto porcentaje de fase lipídica (40-50 %) conteniendo 30-50 % de grasa láctea, aumentaron su consistencia por batido en forma marcada

Emulsiones tipo crema preparadas a base de leche de soja 2: Efecto de la agitación controlada sobre la reología de las cremas

n o/w emulsions, partial coalescence can be induced by stirring, due to the presence of fat crystals in oil droplets. In this work, effect of stirring on rheological behaviour of cream-like emulsions prepared with reconstituted soybean milk, sunflower oil and milk fat (high melting fraction) was analysed. Commercial milk cream sample was used as control. During stirring, progressive increase of consistency of 40 % lipid phase emulsions was observed. Although a high stirring time was required in emulsions prepared with more concentrated soybean milk, a pronounced enhance of its viscoelasticity was observed. On the other hand, when milk fat concentration was increased in lipid phase, it was required a low stirring time value as consequence of promoted partial coalescence. Independently of the milk fat content, in emulsions with relatively low lipid phase content (20 %) an increase of consistency was not observed.La coalescencia parcial de las emulsiones o/w puede inducirse por agitación, debido a la presencia de cristales de grasa en las gotas. En este trabajo se estudió el efecto de la agitación sobre el comportamiento reológico de emulsiones tipo crema preparadas con leche de soja reconstituida (5 % y 10 %), aceite de girasol y grasa láctea de alto punto de fusión comparativamente con una nata comercial. Las cremas, inicialmente líquidas, aumentaron progresivamente la consistencia durante la agitación cuando el contenido de fase lipídica fue del 40 %. Aunque se requirió un mayor tiempo de agitación en cremas con leche más concentrada (a igual proporción de fase lipídica) se registró un aumento más pronunciado de la viscoelasticidad. Por otra parte, al aumentar la concentración de grasa láctea en la fase lipídica se requirió un tiempo de agitación menor por verse favorecida la coalescencia parcial. Independientemente del contenido en grasa láctea, las emulsiones con fases lipídicas relativamente bajas (20 %) no aumentaron su consistencia por agitación

Emulsiones tipo crema preparadas a base de leche de soja 3: Efecto de ciclos de temperatura

In this work, the effect of temperature cycling on emulsions formulated with reconstituted soy milk, sunflower oil and high melting point milk fat was analysed. The emulsions were prepared at 60 ºC , stored at 4 ºC (3 h), warmed at 40 ºC or 50 ºC (30 min) and afterwards recooled at 4 ºC (2h). Although solid fat content of emulsions did not raised after tempering at 40 ºC , increase of G' and G'' was observed only in those formulated with 40 % lipid phase. This phenomenon was attributed to droplet aggregation due to partial melting, recrystallization and reordering of fat crystals in oil droplets. The main droplet destabilization mechanism was the partial coalescence; it was corroborated by nuclear magnetic resonance, differential scanning calorimetry and droplet size distribution studies. On the other hand, the consistency of 20 % of lipid phase emulsion did not increased. Low droplet concentration disfavoured the partial coalescence of droplets. Similar assays on cream at 40 ºC and cream-like soy milk emulsions at 50 ºC , did not show rheological modifications, due to almost total melting of milk fat during tempering.En este trabajo se analizó el efecto de ciclos calentamiento-enfriamiento sobre cremas preparadas a 60 ºC con leche de soja en polvo reconstituida, aceite de girasol y grasa láctea y almacenadas posteriormente a 4 °C durante 3 horas. Los ciclos consistieron en un calentamiento a 40 °C o 50 °C (30 min) seguido de un re-enfriamiento a 4 °C (2 horas). En los ensayos realizados sobre cremas formuladas con 40% de fase lipídica se observó un aumento de los valores de G' y G'' después del ciclo 40 °C- 4 °C , a pesar de no haberse observado un aumento en el contenido de grasa sólida. Estos resultados se atribuyen a la formación de agregados de gotas inducida por la fusión parcial, reordenamiento y recristalización de la grasa láctea en las gotas. Estudios de resonancia magnética nuclear de pulsos, calorimetría diferencial de barrido y distribución de tamaño de partícula por difracción de luz permitieron corroborar que el principal mecanismo de formación de agregados es la coalescencia parcial. Frente al mismo ciclo térmico, la crema con 20 % de fase lipídica no aumentó su consistencia, dada la ausencia o formación insuficiente de agregados por el bajo número de gotas. Ensayos similares sobre la nata a 40 °C o sobre las cremas de leche de soja a 50 °C , no mostraron cambios reológicos, debido a la fusión casi total de la grasa

Energy-Efficient Neuromorphic Architectures for Nuclear Radiation Detection Applications

A comprehensive analysis and simulation of two memristor-based neuromorphic architectures for nuclear radiation detection is presented. Both scalable architectures retrofit a locally competitive algorithm to solve overcomplete sparse approximation problems by harnessing memristor crossbar execution of vector–matrix multiplications. The proposed systems demonstrate excellent accuracy and throughput while consuming minimal energy for radionuclide detection. To ensure that the simulation results of our proposed hardware are realistic, the memristor parameters are chosen from our own fabricated memristor devices. Based on these results, we conclude that memristor-based computing is the preeminent technology for a radiation detection platform

Construction of antimicrobial peptide-drug combination networks from scientific literature based on a semi-automated curation workflow

Considerable research efforts are being invested in the development of novel antimicrobial therapies effective against the growing number of multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogens. Notably, the combination of different agents is increasingly explored as means to exploit and improve individual agent actions while minimising microorganism resistance. Although there are several databases on antimicrobial agents, scientific literature is the primary source of information on experimental antimicrobial combination testing. This work presents a semi-automated database curation workflow that supports the mining of scientific literature and enables the reconstruction of recently documented antimicrobial combinations. Currently, the database contains data on antimicrobial combinations that have been experimentally tested against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes and Candida albicans, which are prominent pathogenic organisms and are well-known for their wide and growing resistance to conventional antimicrobials. Researchers are able to explore the experimental results for a single organism or across organisms. Likewise, researchers may look into indirect network associations and identify new potential combinations to be tested. The database is available without charges. Database URL: http://sing.ei.uvigo.es/antimicrobialCombination/This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145FEDER-006684), and support by FCT and the European Community fund FEDER, through the Programme COMPETE, under the scope of the Projects AntiPep PTDC/SAU-SAP/113196/2009 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-016012) and RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462). Authors acknowledge the PhD Grant of Paula Jorge, funded by FCT Ref. SFRH/BD/ 88192/2012, and the PhD grants of Martin Pérez-Pérez and Gael Pe´rez-Rodriguez, funded by the University of Vigo. Finally, this study was partially funded by the [15VI013] Contract-Programme from the University of Vigo and the Agrupamento INBIOMED from DXPCTSUG-FEDER unha maneira de facer Europa (2012/273). This document reflects only the authors views and the European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained herein

Prospects for constraining the shape of non-Gaussianity with the scale-dependent bias

We consider whether the non-Gaussian scale-dependent halo bias can be used not only to constrain the local form of non-Gaussianity but also to distinguish among different shapes. In particular, we ask whether it can constrain the behavior of the primordial three-point function in the squeezed limit where one of the momenta is much smaller than the other two. This is potentially interesting since the observation of a three-point function with a squeezed limit that does not go like the local nor equilateral templates would be a signal of non-trivial dynamics during inflation. To this end we use the quasi-single field inflation model of Chen and Wang as a representative two-parameter model, where one parameter governs the amplitude of non-Gaussianity and the other the shape. We also perform a model-independent analysis by parametrizing the scale-dependent bias as a power-law on large scales, where the power is to be constrained from observations. We find that proposed large-scale structure surveys (with characteristics similar to the dark energy task force stage IV surveys) have the potential to distinguish among the squeezed limit behavior of different bispectrum shapes for a wide range of fiducial model parameters. Thus the halo bias can help discriminate between different models of inflation.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, v2. minor corrections to the text, matches JCAP published versio

Benchmarking scientific performance by decomposing leadership of Cuban and Latin American institutions in Public Health

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Scientometrics. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1831-z”.Comparative benchmarking with bibliometric indicators can be an aid in decision-making with regard to research management. This study aims to characterize scientific performance in a domain (Public Health) by the institutions of a country (Cuba), taking as reference world output and regional output (other Latin American centers) during the period 2003–2012. A new approach is used here to assess to what extent the leadership of a specific institution can change its citation impact. Cuba was found to have a high level of specialization and scientific leadership that does not match the low international visibility of Cuban institutions. This leading output appears mainly in non-collaborative papers, in national journals; publication in English is very scarce and the rate of international collaboration is very low. The Instituto de Medicina Tropical Pedro Kouri stands out, alone, as a national reference. Meanwhile, at the regional level, Latin American institutions deserving mention for their high autonomy in normalized citation would include Universidad de Buenos Aires (ARG), Universidade Federal de Pelotas (BRA), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientı´ficas y Te´cnicas (ARG), Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (BRA) and the Centro de Pesquisas Rene Rachou (BRA). We identify a crucial aspect that can give rise to misinterpretations of data: a high share of leadership cannot be considered positive for institutions when it is mainly associated with a high proportion of non-collaborative papers and a very low level of performance. Because leadership might be questionable in some cases, we propose future studies to ensure a better interpretation of findings.This work was made possible through financing by the scholarship funds for international mobility between Andalusian and IberoAmerican Universities and the SCImago GroupPeer reviewe