The Adult Carer Quality of Life Questionnaire (AC-QoL) : comparison with measures of burden and well-being, and Italian validation

Purpose: Family caregivers are essential assets in the rehabilitation process, and their psychophysical health should represent a concern for healthcare services. This study aims to investigate the psychometric properties of the Adult Carer Quality of Life Questionnaire (AC-QoL), Italian version, and its convergent-discriminant validity with measures of caring burden, resilience, health and well-being. Materials and Method: Participants were 591 parents (89.2% females; aged 25-69) of children treated as outpatients in 14 centers of \u201cIstituto Medea - La Nostra Famiglia\u201d, an Italian rehabilitation institution. They completed: AC-QoL, a 40-item scale assessing care-related challenges, resources and benefits; Caregiver Burden Inventory; Resilience Scale for Adults; Satisfaction With Life Scale; Health Survey SF-36. The psychometric properties of the Adult Carer Quality of Life Questionnaire were investigated through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and reliability evaluation; correlation coefficients assessed convergent and discriminant validity with burden and well-being measures. Results: The original eight-factor structure of the Adult Carer Quality of Life Questionnaire showed good adequacy and internal consistency; convergent and discriminant validity with measures of burden, resilience, satisfaction, physical and mental health were satisfactory. Conclusions: The Italian version of the Adult Carer Quality of Life Questionnaire is a reliable and valid instrument to assess caregivers\u2019 perceived challenges and resources. As a parsimonious and easily administrable tool, it can be used to evaluate caregivers\u2019 quality of life and related interventions

Headache attributed to aeroplane travel: the first multicentric survey in a paediatric population affected by primary headaches

BACKGROUND: This multicentric survey investigates the prevalence and characteristics of Airplane Headache in children affected by primary headaches. METHODS: Patients with symptoms of Airplane Headache were recruited from nine Italian Pediatric Headache Centres. Each patient was handed a structured questionnaire which met the ICHD-III criteria. RESULTS: Among 320 children suffering from primary headaches who had flights during their lifetime, 15 (4.7%) had Airplane Headache, with mean age of 12.4 years. Most of the patients were females (80%). The headache was predominantly bilateral (80%) and localized to the frontal area (60%); it was mainly pulsating, and lasted less than 30 min in all cases. Accompanying symptoms were tearing, photophobia, phonophobia in most of the cases (73.3%). More than 30% of patients used medications to treat the attacks, with good results. CONCLUSION: Our study shows that Airplane Headache is not a rare disorder in children affected by primary headaches and highlights that its features in children are peculiar and differ from those described in adults. In children Airplane Headache prevails in females, is more often bilateral, has frequently accompanying symptoms and occurs at any time during the flight. Further studies are needed to confirm the actual frequency of Airplane Headache in the general pediatric population not selected from specialized Headache Centres, with and without other concomitant headache condition, and to better clarify the clinical characteristics, pathophysiology and potential therapies

A POD reduced order model for resolving angular direction in neutron/photon transport problems

publisher: Elsevier articletitle: A POD reduced order model for resolving angular direction in neutron/photon transport problems journaltitle: Journal of Computational Physics articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2015.04.043 content_type: article copyright: Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.publisher: Elsevier articletitle: A POD reduced order model for resolving angular direction in neutron/photon transport problems journaltitle: Journal of Computational Physics articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2015.04.043 content_type: article copyright: Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.publisher: Elsevier articletitle: A POD reduced order model for resolving angular direction in neutron/photon transport problems journaltitle: Journal of Computational Physics articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2015.04.043 content_type: article copyright: Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Global Search for New Physics with 2.0/fb at CDF

Data collected in Run II of the Fermilab Tevatron are searched for indications of new electroweak-scale physics. Rather than focusing on particular new physics scenarios, CDF data are analyzed for discrepancies with the standard model prediction. A model-independent approach (Vista) considers gross features of the data, and is sensitive to new large cross-section physics. Further sensitivity to new physics is provided by two additional algorithms: a Bump Hunter searches invariant mass distributions for "bumps" that could indicate resonant production of new particles; and the Sleuth procedure scans for data excesses at large summed transverse momentum. This combined global search for new physics in 2.0/fb of ppbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV reveals no indication of physics beyond the standard model.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. Final version which appeared in Physical Review D Rapid Communication

Observation of Orbitally Excited B_s Mesons

We report the first observation of two narrow resonances consistent with states of orbitally excited (L=1) B_s mesons using 1 fb^{-1} of ppbar collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV collected with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. We use two-body decays into K^- and B^+ mesons reconstructed as B^+ \to J/\psi K^+, J/\psi \to \mu^+ \mu^- or B^+ \to \bar{D}^0 \pi^+, \bar{D}^0 \to K^+ \pi^-. We deduce the masses of the two states to be m(B_{s1}) = 5829.4 +- 0.7 MeV/c^2 and m(B_{s2}^*) = 5839.7 +- 0.7 MeV/c^2.Comment: Version accepted and published by Phys. Rev. Let