Factors affecting mental fitness for work in a sample of mentally ill patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mental fitness for work is the ability of workers to perform their work without risks for themselves or others. Mental fitness was a neglected area of practice and research. Mental ill health at work seems to be rising as a cause of disablement. Psychiatrists who may have had no experience in relating mental health to working conditions are increasingly being asked to undertake these examinations. This research was done to explore the relationship of mental ill health and fitness to work and to recognize the differences between fit and unfit mentally ill patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This study was cross sectional one. All cases referred to Al-Amal complex for assessment of mental fitness during a period of 12 months were included. Data collected included demographic and clinical characteristics, characteristics of the work environment and data about performance at work. All data was subjected to statistical analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Total number of cases was 116, the mean age was 34.5 ± 1.4. Females were 35.3% of cases. The highly educated patients constitute 50.8% of cases. The decision of the committee was fit for regular work for 52.5%, unfit for 19.8% and modified work for 27.7%. The decision was appreciated only by 29.3% of cases. There were significant differences between fit, unfit and modified work groups. The fit group had higher level of education, less duration of illness, and better performance at work. Patients of the modified work group had more physical hazards in work environment and had more work shift and more frequent diagnosis of substance abuse. The unfit group had more duration of illness, more frequent hospitalizations, less productivity, and more diagnosis of schizophrenia.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>There are many factors affecting the mental fitness the most important are the characteristics of work environment and the most serious is the overall safety of patient to self and others. A lot of ethical and legal issues should be kept in mind during such assessment as patient's rights, society's rights, and the laws applied to unfit people.</p

Study of amino acid disorders among a high risk group of Egyptian infants and children

Aim of the work: The present work aimed at investigating infants (In neonatal and post neonatal period) and children suspected of having inborn errors of metabolism with unexplained mental retardation. The frequency pattern of the various amino acid disorders, in a group of selected infants and children was done to document the prevalence of various amino acid disorders among Egyptian children. Patients and Method: In this study, recent methods to investigate such disorders have been carried out by amino acid analyzer which detects levels of amino acids. Extended metabolic screen which also detects amino acid disorders, organic acid disorders and the defects of fatty acid oxidation has been carried out. These recent methods have therefore the potential of yielding information on the physiological and pathophysiological status of different metabolic pathways, as well as their interrelationship. Results: The total number of cases attending the outpatient clinic during the period of study were 1343 index cases, among them 50 index cases (3.72%) were suspected of having inborn errors of amino acid and, 20 cases (40%) of them have confirmed positive inborn errors of amino acid metabolism. Concerning the confirmed 20 cases, their ages ranged from 5 days to 11 years with a mean of 54.75±33.09 months with equally sex distribution. The overall consanguinity rate recorded was 65%, while the family history of the similarly affected cases was 30%. The main clinical findings included mental retardation 85%, convulsions 40%, and hypo pigmentation 75%, micro-cephally 15%. Associated anomalies were present in 35% of cases. Among them eye anomalies were the most common (8%). Conclusion: The prevalence of amino-acido-pathies during the period of the study was 1.5% (Of 20 studied cases), among them PKU was found to be the commonest amino-acido-pathies 1.11%, while the remaining diagnosed cases representing 0.07% for each. Keywords: Amino acid disorders, high risk, children Egypt. J. Hum. Genet Vol. 8 (2) 2007: pp. 173-19

Producción, caracterización y actividad anticancerígena de soforolípidos producidos mediante fermentación en estado sólido con Candida bombicola de tortas de girasol y aceite de soja

The production of sophorolipids by Candida bombicola NRRL Y- 17069 grown in a mixture of sunflower oil cake and crude soybean oil as economic substrates with different fermentation techniques was studied. The highest yield (49.5 g·100 g−1 substrates) was obtained from solid state fermentation after employing a new concept for extraction by methanol (E I) followed by ethyl acetate (E II), then partially purified with hexane (E III). The course of time of fermentation was also studied, and E I extracted of the 12th day showed the minimum surface tension (45 mN·m−1) at a critical micelle dilution (CMD) of 10% concentration. The produced sophorolipids were characterized and confirmed by FTIR and 1H NMR spectroscopy. The anticancer activity of the produced compounds was assessed against MCF-7, HepG2, A549, HCT116 cancer cell lines and the results revealed that E III and E IV (a mixture of E I & E III) act as promising anticancer agents in HepG2 and A549 by inhibiting urokinase and histone deacetylase activities.Se estudió la producción de soforolípidos por Candida bombicola NRRL Y- 17069 cultiva con diferentes técnicas de fermentación en una mezcla de torta de girasol y aceite de soja crudo, como sustratos económicos. El rendimiento más alto (49,5 g·100 g−1 de sustrato) se obtuvo por fermentación en estado sólido después de extraer con metanol (IE) seguido de acetato de etilo (EII), y de purificación parcial con hexano (EIII). También se estudió el tiempo de fermentación, considerando que el extracto IE de 12 días mostró una tensión superficial mínima (45 mN·m−1) a una dilución micelar crítica (CMD) de concentración 10 %. Los soforolípidos producidos se caracterizaron y se confirmaron mediante espectroscopia FTIR y RMN de 1H. La actividad anticancerígena de los compuestos producidos se evaluó en células MCF-7, HepG2, A549, líneas celulares de cáncer de HCT116 y los resultados revelaron que EIII y EIV (una mezcla de EI y EIII) actúan como prometedores agentes anticancerígenos en HepG2 y A549 inhibiendo las actividades de uroquinasa e histona desacetilasa

Improving distribution system state estimation with synthetic measurements

Distribution state estimation is a desired feature of modern power systems. The availability of measurements from smart meters has opened the door to extend the application of state estimation techniques down to end customers, preferably at the secondary distribution transformer level. However, the light coupling between phases makes the estimation of certain state variables, such as voltage phase angles, a great challenge. This paper proposes the use of synthetic measurements as a means of including cross-coupled information in the available set of measurements. This possibility can be easily implemented in line supervisors located at secondary transformer stations without the need for new hardware, just by embracing a different connection of measurement devices. This work demonstrates that this costless action results in a strong reduction of the sensibility of phase angle estimation errors with respect to measurement noise, thus leading to an important improvement in the quality of the results.publishedVersio

Bayesian estimation of P[Y \u3c X] Based on Record Values from the Lomax Distribution and MCMC Technique

Our interest is in estimating the stress-strength reliability R = P[Y \u3c X], where X and Y follow the Lomax distribution with common scale parameter. We discuss the problem in the situation where the stress measurements and the strength measurements are both in terms of records. Firstly, we obtain the MLE of R in general case (the common scale parameter is unknown). The MLE of the three unknown parameters can be obtained by solving one non-linear equation. We provide a simple fixed point type algorithm to find the MLE. We propose percentile bootstrap confidence intervals of R. A Bayes point estimator of R, and the corresponding credible interval using the MCMC sampling technique have been proposed. Secondly, assuming the common scale parameter is known, the MLE of R is obtained. Using exact distributions of the MLEs of the two unknown parameters, we construct the exact confidence interval of R. In this case, Bayes estimators have been obtained using Lindley\u27s approximations. Analysis of a simulated data set has been presented for illustrative purposes. Finally, the different proposed methods have been compared via Monte Carlo simulation study

Weibull-Linear Exponential Distribution and Its Applications

In this article, a new four-parameter lifetime distribution, namely, the Weibull-Linear exponential distribution is defined and studied. Several of its structural properties such as quartiles, moments, mean waiting time, mean residual lifetime, Renyi entropy, mode, and order statistics are derived. Based on the idea of the Weibull T − X family, the new density function of this model is developed. The model parameters, as well as some of the lifetime parameters (reliability and failure rate functions), are estimated using the maximum likelihood method. Asymptotic confidence intervals estimates of the model parameters are also evaluated by using the Fisher information matrix. Moreover, to construct the asymptotic confidence intervals of the reliability and failure rate functions, we need to find their variance of them, which are approximated by the delta method. A real data set is used to illustrate the application of the Weibull-Linear Exponential distribution

Nutritional Analysis and Enzyme Activities of Pleurotus Ostreatus Cultivated on Citrus Limonium and Carica Papaya Wastes

Abstract: Utilization of three food processing wastes (lemon pulp, papaya fruit waste and rice straw) for the production of fruit bodies mushroom with edible fungi Pleurotus ostreatus NRRL-0366 was done using solid state fermentation technique. Rice straw supplemented with different concentrations of the other two wastes forming eight substrates was used in this study. The highest mushroom harvested was with a substrate no. 2 (equal concentration of lemon pulp and rice straw ) giving 957.80 g/Kg fresh fruit bodies with biological efficiency 26.98% followed by substrate no. 7 (double amounts of papaya fruit waste supplemented with one amount of rice straw ) giving 431.1g/Kg fresh fruit bodies with biological efficiency 13.50%. The results revealed that the fruit bodies containing 26.0-31.5% digestible protein, 20.9 -33.0% total soluble carbohydrates and 2.0-5.9% fat (on dry basis). Calorific values for the eight fruit bodies ranged189-253 Kcal per 100 g of dry mushrooms. GLC analysis of the eight fatty acids of the fruit bodies has revealed that the unsaturated fatty acids were at higher concentration (68.2-75.2%) than the saturated one. Studies were carried out on the activities of amylase, cellulase, invertase, polygalacturonase and pectinlyase enzymes of Pleurotus ostreatus fruit bodies cultivated in the previous eight substrates. T he substrates affect the enzyme activities of Pleurotus ostreatus fruit bodies. A higher activity of amylase was observed in the unsupplemented lemon pulp and papaya waste. No significant change was obtained in cellulase and invertase activities within the eight substrates except substrate no. 7 using papaya waste. This fungus is able to produce high levels of pectinlyase in fruit bodies during solid state fermentation on lemon pulp