Somatisation in primary care: A comparative study of Australians, Latin Americans, Vietnamese, and Polish living in Australia

This study identified differences in somatisation symptoms, psychiatric status, and the relationship between acculturation and somatisation. It also investigated GP’s (general practitioners) ability to detect somatisation in primary healthcare setting. A survey was carried out on 207 patients from Australia, Latin America, Vietnam, and Poland. A demographic questionnaire, an acculturation questionnaire, the Somatization Scale of the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R), the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ), and the Illness Behaviour Questionnaire (IBQ) were administered in the participants’ respective languages. In addition, GPs completed a brief rating scale with findings from medical consultation. These results demonstrated that psychosocial status was highly correlated to somatisation for Australians, Latin Americans, Vietnamese, and Polish. Overall, however, these groups did not present significant differences in symptoms of somatisation. GPs were generally inaccurate in detecting psychosocial difficulties and acculturation did not predict levels of somatisation in the three ethnic groups

A national health information strategy for Malta

In 1992 a national health information strategy was developed jointly by the Department of Health and the Information Systems Division. A detailed strategy study report was compiled, with recommendations for the development of a number of information systems. The main system proposed was an integrated and comprehensive health care information system encompassing all of Malta’s hospitals and health centres, based on a single Patient Master Index. This system would support the concepts of an integrated health record and of a person-based view for resource management.peer-reviewe

Feedback and its Feedback Effect on Feedback: Photoionization Suppression and its Impact on Galactic Outflows

We show that radiative feedback due to reionization has a pronounced effect on the extent of mechanical feedback due to galactic outflows. The photoionization of the Intergalactic Medium (IGM) suppresses low-mass galaxy formation by photoheating the gas and limiting atomic line cooling. The number of low-mass galaxies is central for the enrichment of the IGM as these objects have the capacity to enrich a significant fraction (by volume) of the Universe. We use a modified version of our galactic outflow model, combined with a simple criterion for suppression, to investigate the potential impact upon the IGM. We find that this suppression strongly reduces the enrichment of the IGM and is sensitive to the reionization history. We also investigate the contribution of halos of different masses with varying degrees of suppression.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, class file included, accepted by ApJ Letters, minor changes and expanded Figure

Influencia de la calidad del heno suplementario y la localización de la pastura sobre el rendimiento de bovinos de carne a pastoreo sobre avena

Heifers grazing oat pasture (OP) at two locations in Argentina, Argerich (ARG) and Pasman (PAS), were subjected to one of three different dietary supplement treatments: (1) control (CON, no supplement), (2) sorghum hay (SH), or (3) alfalfa-grass hay (AGH), all provided ad libitum in individual pens. The variables measured were: dry matter (DM) yield and composition of OP, hay intake, average daily weight gain (ADG), rumen pH and NH3-N, and blood mineral levels. DM availability did not limit OP intake. OP crude protein (CP) content ranged from 11.3 to 13% at ARG, and 10.7 to 13.3% at PAS. OP-minerals varied with location; the mean K/(Ca + Mg) ratios were 5.68 meq (ARG) and 4.82 meq (PAS). Heifers ate more AGH (785 g) than SH (684 g; P = 0.08). Hay consumption was 2.88 times greater at PAS than at ARG (P < 0.05). ADG was larger with SH (558 g) and AGH 594 g than with CON treatment (454 g); the average for ARG animals was 571 g compared to 500 g for PAS animals (P <0.05). Rumen pH was lower at 14:30 h (pH 6.7) than at 10:00 h (pH 7.5; P < 0.05). NH3-N values were higher at 14:30 h (19.59 mg dl-1) than at 10:00 h (4.69 mg dl-1; P < 0.05). Plasma Ca (15.50 mg dl–1) and Mg (2.84 mg dl–1) levels were higher in PAS cattle (P < 0.05). Animal performance improved with hay supplementation, but location affected response intensity.Se realizaron tres tratamientos con novillas pastoreando verdeos de avena (VA) en dos localidades de Argentina, Argerich (ARG) y Pasman (PAS): (1) Control (CON, sin suplemento), (2) heno de sorgo (HS), y (3) heno de alfalfa y gramíneas (HAG), suplementados ad libitum en corrales individuales. Evaluamos rendimiento de materia seca (MS) y composición en VA; y en los animales consumo del heno, ganancia diaria de peso (GDP), pH y N-NH3 en rumen, y minerales en sangre. La disponibilidad de MS no limitó el consumo de VA; su proteína bruta (PB) osciló entre 11,3 y 13% (ARG), 10,7 y 13.3% (PAS). Los minerales en VA variaron entre localidades, la relación K/(Ca + Mg) promedió 5,68 meq (ARG) y 4,82 meq (PAS). Las novillas consumieron diariamente más HAG (785 g) que HS (684 g; P = 0.08), y 2,88 veces más heno en PAS que en ARG (P < 0,05). En GDP, HS (558 g) y HAG (594 g) superaron al CON (454 g), y la media de ARG (571 g) a PAS (500 g; P < 0,05). En el rumen el pH decreció a las 14:30 h (6,7) vs. 10:00 h (7,5; P < 0,05), y el N-NH3 (mg dl-1) aumentó a las 14:30 h (19,59) vs. 10:00 h (4,69; P < 0,05). Ca (15.50 mg dl–1) y Mg (2.84 mg dl–1) en plasma fue mayor en PAS (P < 0,05). El rendimiento animal mejoró con la suplementación, pero la magnitud de respuesta estuvo afectada por la localidad.Fil: Arelovich, Hugo Mario. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida; ArgentinaFil: Laborde, Hugo Eduardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida; ArgentinaFil: Arzadún, M. J.. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Ministerio de la Producción. Chacra Experimental Coronel Suarez; ArgentinaFil: Vasquez, Maria Gabriela. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Agronomía; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida; Argentin

Interpretable multiclass classification by MDL-based rule lists

Interpretable classifiers have recently witnessed an increase in attention from the data mining community because they are inherently easier to understand and explain than their more complex counterparts. Examples of interpretable classification models include decision trees, rule sets, and rule lists. Learning such models often involves optimizing hyperparameters, which typically requires substantial amounts of data and may result in relatively large models. In this paper, we consider the problem of learning compact yet accurate probabilistic rule lists for multiclass classification. Specifically, we propose a novel formalization based on probabilistic rule lists and the minimum description length (MDL) principle. This results in virtually parameter-free model selection that naturally allows to trade-off model complexity with goodness of fit, by which overfitting and the need for hyperparameter tuning are effectively avoided. Finally, we introduce the Classy algorithm, which greedily finds rule lists according to the proposed criterion. We empirically demonstrate that Classy selects small probabilistic rule lists that outperform state-of-the-art classifiers when it comes to the combination of predictive performance and interpretability. We show that Classy is insensitive to its only parameter, i.e., the candidate set, and that compression on the training set correlates with classification performance, validating our MDL-based selection criterion

Fishes of the Lagunas Encadenadas (Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina), a wetland of international importance

The Lagunas Encadenadas form a large endorheic wetland. The system comprises a chain of five main lagoons (Alsina, Chochico, Del Monte, Del Venado, and Epecuen). During two recent collection trips, 13 species of fish were caught. From the collected material and available data in the literature the following points can be made: The fish fauna of this wetland comprises 18 species from 11 families and six orders. Four species (Cyprinus carpio, Hoplias malabaricus, Loricariichthys anus and Parapimelodus valenciennis) are new records for these water bodies. Fish species diversity decreases from east to west, ie from the most freshwater lagoon (Alsina, with 15 species) to the most saline (Epecuen, 1 species). A similar diversity pattern has been found in zooplankton species

Convergence of large deviation estimators

We study the convergence of statistical estimators used in the estimation of large deviation functions describing the fluctuations of equilibrium, nonequilibrium, and manmade stochastic systems. We give conditions for the convergence of these estimators with sample size, based on the boundedness or unboundedness of the quantity sampled, and discuss how statistical errors should be defined in different parts of the convergence region. Our results shed light on previous reports of 'phase transitions' in the statistics of free energy estimators and establish a general framework for reliably estimating large deviation functions from simulation and experimental data and identifying parameter regions where this estimation converges.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures. v2: corrections focusing the paper on large deviations; v3: minor corrections, close to published versio