Pain Viewed from the Outside: A Response to Verpaelst

Commentaire / CommentaryLa douleur est une expérience subjective. Tenter de comprendre le quotidien des personnes vivant avec la douleur est important pour les cliniciens, les professeurs et les chercheurs. Être exposé(e) à des œuvres d’art créées par des personnes qui vivent avec la douleur est une façon d’aider à comprendre ces expériences vécues.Pain is a subjective experience. Gaining insight from persons in pain into what it is to live with pain is important for clinicians, teachers and researchers. Being exposed to art created by persons in pain is one way to help understand these lived experiences

The French Pension Reforms and their Impact on Unemployed Older Workers

This paper analyzes labour market position of unemployed older individuals after the implementation of two major pension reforms in France. We use the French Force Labour Survey for the period 2003-2011 to assess the effects of the 2003 and the 2010 pension reforms on the exit rate from unemployment of individuals aged over 54. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we look at the effects of these reforms on the exit from unemployment to employment, and into inactivity. We find that the 2003 pension reform reduces significantly the exit to employment, while there is no significant impact of the pension reform on the exit to inactivity. For the 2010 reform, we show that the reform leads to an increase of the probability to go back to work. At the same time, the transition out of labour force through inactivity exit also rises. Unemployment and other social schemes are used as a bridge to retire early

American studies in Albania in the past and the future

Elektronische Version der gedr. Ausg. 199

The process of autophagy in an in vitro model of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury

Autophagy has been implicated in the pathogenesis of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury; however, it is not clear whether autophagy is beneficial or detrimental to cell survival. We hypothesized that autophagy is beneficial to cardiomyocytes during I/R and that the paucity of ATP may limit its occurrence. To test this hypothesis, we developed a model of ischemia (hypoxia) involving exposure of HL-1 murine atrial cardiomyocytes to two concentrations of oxygen (0.5% and 2.0%) and 2-deoxyglucose. Hypoxia, irrespective of the oxygen concentration, caused a dramatic drop in cellular ATP and an increase in the phosphorylation of AMPK (an indication of energy starvation),. The activation of the pro-autophagic AMPK coincided with an inactivation of mTOR and Akt in hypoxic myocytes. While these molecular events would be expected to lead to a stimulation of autophagy, we found that the level of autophagy remained at or near control levels under both conditions of ischemia. Autophagy was limited by the shortage in ATP as the presence of glucose instead of 2-deoxyglucose in the ischemia buffer increased ATP content and stimulated autophagy in hypoxic cells. In addition, cardiac cell death was significantly increased by 2 hours of hypoxia, to a higher extent with 0.5% oxygen. Importantly, inhibition of autophagy by 3-methyladenine increased hypoxia-induced cell death. In contrast, the stimulation of autophagy mediated by glucose coincided with a significant reduction in cardiac cell death following hypoxia. These results suggest that autophagy is beneficial to HL-1 cells during ischemia, but that the marked reduction in ATP limits the autophagic response. In turn, reoxygenation of hypoxic cells exposed to 0.5% or 2.0% oxygen caused a partial restoration of ATP levels, which coincided with an activation of apoptosis. Importantly, the rates of these events were dependent on the degree of hypoxia. Interestingly, the levels of phosphorylation/activation of AMPK, Akt and mTOR returned to basal levels in reoxygenated cells. However, autophagy was greatly compromised as cells pre-exposed to 0.5% and 2.0% oxygen exhibited low levels of autophagy after 2 and 4 hours of reoxygenation, respectively. As under ischemic conditions, the presence of 3-methyladenine during reoxygenation enhanced cardiac cell death. In conclusion, we found that autophagy was differentially affected by the degree of hypoxia during both hypoxia and reoxygenation. The residual level of autophagy was essential to protect cardiomyocytes against the injurious effects of both hypoxia and reoxygenation, further validating our hypothesis

Do Better Neighborhoods for MTO Families Mean Better Schools?

Explores the factors that kept children who moved to safer, lower-poverty neighborhoods through the Moving to Opportunity program from accessing better schools, such as lack of change in school district, lack of parental choice, and lack of information

Examining Rural and Urban Differences in Fruit and Vegetable Intake Among Obese and Overweight Adults in Georgia (BRFSS 2015)

INTRODUCTION: The prevalence of obesity and overweight is continuously on the rise in the United States. According to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development projections, obesity levels are expected to rise to 47% in 2030. Being obese or overweight increases the risk of chronic diseases, cancer, and type 2 diabetes. Fruit and vegetable intake are known to be beneficial in reducing risks for cardiovascular disease and cancer. There is extensive research showing a health disparity between urban and rural areas, where BMI levels are much higher in rural areas compared to urban. However, little is known regarding fruit and vegetable intake in rural and urban resident obese individuals. Hence, this study is designed to examine the fruit and vegetable intake differences among the obese and overweight populations in rural and urban Georgia. METHODS: Data were taken from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System 2015 dataset, for Georgia. A total of 1,233 eligible rural (29.7%) and urban (70.3%) obese/overweight participants responses were recorded and analyzed. Univariate and multivariate techniques were used to analyze specific variables that could potentially contribute to low fruit and vegetable intake. RESULTS: Fruit intake: The multivariate analysis showed that lower education level and medical cost issues were statistically significant variables that are associated with low fruit intake in rural areas. Sex, physical activity in past month, and smoking status were the statistically significant variables that are associated with low fruit intake in urban areas. Vegetable intake: The multivariate regression analysis of vegetable intake showed that, low vegetable consumption was significantly associated with an income of less than $15,000, and medical cost in rural areas. For urban areas, education, smoking status, and heavy drinker status were significantly associated with low vegetable intake

Correlation Between Nutritional Indicators and Low CD4 Count (\u3c200 cells/mm3 ) among HIV Positive Adults in Kapiri, Zambia 2008-2009

ABSTRACT Correlation Between Nutritional Indicators and Low CD4 Count (\u3c200 cells/mm3 ) among HIV Positive Adults in Kapiri, Zambia 2008-2009 By Kadija C. Fofana Background The co-morbidity of malnutrition and HIV is highly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa due to the pervasiveness of HIV/AIDS and food insecurity in this region. Limited research has been done to assess the association between nutritional indicators and CD4 count among ART-naïve populations in resource scarce settings. It was specifically of our interest to assess various nutritional indicators as factors correlated with low CD4 cell count (\u3c 200 cells/mm3). Methods From 2008-2009, HIV positive adult males and non-pregnant females completed nutritional assessments at a Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) HIV clinic in Kapiri, Zambia. First recorded CD4 cell counts were used in this analysis. In this cross-sectional analysis, sex-stratified multivariate logistic regression models assessed the association between various nutritional indicators and CD4 cell count less than 200 cells/mm3. Results 51% of males and 50% of females had a first recorded CD4 count of less than 200 cells/mm3. Among males, a mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) categorization as ‘undernourished’ (aPR= 1.5113, 95% CI = 1.1451-1.9946, p = 0.0035) was associated with CD4 cell count less than 200 cells/mm3. Among females, an MUAC categorization as ‘undernourished’ (aPR = 1.4212, 95% CI 1.1027-1.8318, p= 0.0066) was associated with CD4 cell count less than 200 cells/mm3. Conclusion In sex-specific multivariate analyses, MUAC (undernourished) among both males and females was the only nutritional indicator associated with the outcome. It may be of interest to further investigate the impact of MUAC as an insightful anthropometric measure in the evaluation of immunological outcomes among people living with HIV (PLHIV) in light of differences between sex and the overall nutritional status of the studied population

Freeze-out from HBT and Coulomb Effects

The freeze-out of hot and dense hadronic matter formed in relativistic nuclear collisions is probed by HBT interferometry of identical pions, kaons, etc. Coulomb repulsion/attraction of positive/negative particles show up at small particle momenta and is also very sensitive to the freeze-out conditions. The source sizes and times freeze-out are extracted from $\pi^-/\pi^+$ spectra and HBT radii and compared.Comment: 4 pages, proc. of QM'97, Tsukuba, Japa