985 research outputs found
The Relationship between Dog Ownership, Psychopathological Symptoms and Health-Benefitting Factors in Occupations at Risk for Traumatization
Individuals working in high-risk occupations (e.g., emergency staff) are exposed to high
levels of occupational stress including traumatic events. Correspondingly, several studies report
high rates of mental health problems among these occupations. Pet ownership has been associated
with better mental health. However, to date a study on the association between pet ownership and
indicators of mental health in these occupations is missing. The present cross-sectional survey (N = 580)
investigated pet ownership, attachment to pets, health-benefitting factors (i.e., sense of coherence,
trait-resilience, locus of control) and psychopathological symptoms (i.e., general mental health
problems, posttraumatic stress, burnout) in medical staff, police officers, and firefighters. Dog owners
and non-dog owners showed comparable levels of psychopathological distress and health-benefitting
factors. Compared to cat owners, dog owners demonstrated stronger emotional attachment to their
pet. Moreover, a stronger attachment was also linked to higher levels of psychopathological symptoms
and lower levels of health-benefitting factors. However, the relationship between attachment to
pets and health-benefitting factors could be explained by their overlap with psychopathological
symptom levels. Overall, our findings are not in line with the notion that pet ownership generally has
a health-benefitting effect. Future studies need to investigate circumstances that modulate positive
effects of pet ownership
The relationship between attachment to pets and mental health : the shared link via attachment to humans
Background: Several studies have investigated the relationship between emotional attachment to pets and mental
health with the majority of studies fnding a negative relationship between emotional attachment to pets and mental
health. Interestingly, attachment to pets difers from attachment to humans with studies showing that humans with
an insecure attachment style form a particularly strong emotional attachment to their companion animals. Human
attachment style is also related to mental health with secure attachment being associated with superior mental
health. Building on those fndings, the current study aimed at exploring the role of attachment to humans in the
relationship between emotional attachment to pets and mental health.
Methods: In this cross-sectional online survey (N=610) we assessed the strength of emotional attachment to pets
and attachment to humans. We further collected pet specifc data as well as mental health burden in a sample of
German dog owners (Mage=33.12; 92.79% women). We used a mediation model estimating the indirect link between
emotional attachment to pets and mental health burden via human attachment and the direct link between emoâ
tional attachment to pets and mental health burden simultaneously.
Results: We found that attachment to humans fully mediated the positive association between emotional attachâ
ment to pets and mental health burden. A stronger emotional attachment to oneâs dog was associated with lower
comfort with depending on or trusting in others, whereby lower comfort with depending on or trusting in others was
related to higher mental health burden. Moreover, a stronger attachment to oneâs dog was also related to a greater
fear of being rejected and unloved (Anxiety), which was, in turn, associated with a higher mental health burden.
Conclusion: Our fndings suggest that the positive link between emotional attachment to pets and mental health
burden is fully accounted for by its shared variance with insecure attachment to humans in a sample mostly comprisâ
ing self-identifed women. Future studies need to examine whether strong emotional bonds with pets may evolve as
a compensatory strategy to bufer difcult childhood bonding experiences
Correlates of mental health in occupations at risk for traumatization : a cross-sectional study
Background
Hospitals, police stations, and fire departments are highly demanding workplaces. Staff members are regularly exposed to various stressors including traumatic events. Correspondingly, several studies report high rates of mental health issues among these occupations. Nevertheless, despite these challenging circumstances, some staff members manage to sustain their mental health. The current study is the first to investigate three health-promoting factors simultaneously among three different, highly demanding occupations.
Methods
The present cross-sectional survey investigated health-promoting factors (sense of coherence â SOC, trait-resilience, locus of control â LOC) and mental health outcomes (general psychopathological symptom burden, posttraumatic stress, burnout) in medical staff (n =â223), police officers (n =â257), and firefighters (n =â100).
Results
Among all occupations, SOC, trait-resilience, and an internal LOC were negatively associated with general psychopathological symptoms, posttraumatic stress, and burnout symptoms. By contrast, all these outcome measures were positively correlated with an external LOC. Multiple regression models including all health-promoting factors explained 56% of the variance in general psychopathological symptoms and 27% in posttraumatic stress symptoms. Among all occupations, SOC was the strongest predictor of both general psychopathological symptom burden and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Multigroup path analyses revealed minor differences across occupations, mainly driven by a stronger influence of LOC in police officers.
Conclusion
Across all occupations, SOC was identified as the most important health-promoting factor. Future longitudinal studies should further examine the causal link between health-promoting factors and mental distress in different workplaces. Such studies will also allow for further development and evaluation of resilience promoting programs
The CRISPR/Cas9 system sheds new lights on the biology of protozoan parasites
The CRISPR/Cas9 system, a natural defence system of bacterial organisms, has recently been used to modify genomes of the most important protozoa parasites. Successful genome manipulations with the CRISPR/Cas9 system are changing the present view of genetics in parasitology. The application of this system offers a major chance to overcome the current restriction in culturing, maintaining and analysing protozoan parasites, and allows dynamic analysis of parasite genes functions, leading to a better understanding of pathogenesis. CRISPR/Cas9 system will have a significant influence on the process of developing novel drugs and treatment strategies against protozoa parasites
Sharp transition towards shared vocabularies in multi-agent systems
What processes can explain how very large populations are able to converge on
the use of a particular word or grammatical construction without global
coordination? Answering this question helps to understand why new language
constructs usually propagate along an S-shaped curve with a rather sudden
transition towards global agreement. It also helps to analyze and design new
technologies that support or orchestrate self-organizing communication systems,
such as recent social tagging systems for the web. The article introduces and
studies a microscopic model of communicating autonomous agents performing
language games without any central control. We show that the system undergoes a
disorder/order transition, going trough a sharp symmetry breaking process to
reach a shared set of conventions. Before the transition, the system builds up
non-trivial scale-invariant correlations, for instance in the distribution of
competing synonyms, which display a Zipf-like law. These correlations make the
system ready for the transition towards shared conventions, which, observed on
the time-scale of collective behaviors, becomes sharper and sharper with system
size. This surprising result not only explains why human language can scale up
to very large populations but also suggests ways to optimize artificial
semiotic dynamics.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
Model Order Reduction for Rotating Electrical Machines
The simulation of electric rotating machines is both computationally
expensive and memory intensive. To overcome these costs, model order reduction
techniques can be applied. The focus of this contribution is especially on
machines that contain non-symmetric components. These are usually introduced
during the mass production process and are modeled by small perturbations in
the geometry (e.g., eccentricity) or the material parameters. While model order
reduction for symmetric machines is clear and does not need special treatment,
the non-symmetric setting adds additional challenges. An adaptive strategy
based on proper orthogonal decomposition is developed to overcome these
difficulties. Equipped with an a posteriori error estimator the obtained
solution is certified. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the
effectiveness of the proposed method
Pre-rehabilitation sense of coherence as a predictor of symptom change after rehabilitation
Sense of coherence (SOC) constitutes the key component of salutogenesis theory. It reflects individuals' confidence that their environment is comprehensible and manageable and that their lives are meaningful. Research demonstrates a strong cross-sectional relationship between SOC and mental health. However, little is known about SOC's temporal stability and its potential to predict changes in psychopathological symptom severity in different settings. The goal of the current study was to address this gap. The sample of the two-wave longitudinal study consists of 294 patients receiving inpatient psychotherapeutic (and psychopharmacological) treatment for various psychological disorders at a German psychosomatic rehabilitation clinic. SOC (Antonovsky, Social Science & Medicine, 1993, 36, 725-733) and outcome measures (i.e., general mental health problems, depression and anxiety symptoms) were assessed within twoâdays of arrival and at the end of rehabilitation (week 5/6). SOC was significantly enhanced after treatment whereas psychopathological symptoms were significantly reduced. Regression analyses revealed that pre-treatment SOC was a significant negative predictor of post-treatment symptom severity for all outcome measures even after controlling for pre-treatment symptoms. The current findings provide first evidence that SOC is a significant unique predictor of symptom change. Future studies need to further investigate longitudinal associations between SOC and mental health outcomes in different settings
The evolutionarily conserved protein CG9186 is associated with lipid droplets, required for their positioning and for fat storage.
Lipid droplets (LDs) are specialized cell organelles for the storage of energy-rich lipids. Although lipid storage is a conserved feature of all cells and organisms, little is known about fundamental aspects of the cell biology of LDs, including their biogenesis, structural assembly and subcellular positioning, and the regulation of organismic energy homeostasis. We identified a novel LD-associated protein family, represented by the Drosophila protein CG9186 and its murine homolog MGI:1916082. In the absence of LDs, both proteins localize at the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Upon lipid storage induction, they translocate to LDs using an evolutionarily conserved targeting mechanism that acts through a 60-amino-acid targeting motif in the center of the CG9186 protein. Overexpression of CG9186, and MGI: 1916082, causes clustering of LDs in both tissue culture and salivary gland cells, whereas RNAi knockdown of CG9186 results in a reduction of LDs. Organismal RNAi knockdown of CG9186 results in a reduction in lipid storage levels of the fly. The results indicate that we identified the first members of a novel and evolutionarily conserved family of lipid storage regulators, which are also required to properly position LDs within cells
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