299 research outputs found
A systematic mixed studies review and framework synthesis of mental health professionalsâ experiences of violence risk assessment and management in forensic mental health settings
Reconciling selves after sexual offending: exploring processes of desistance and impact on family members
Aims: This thesis aimed to better understand the lived experiences of family members
of individuals charged with cyber-enabled sexual offences (CESO). This explored the
impact of the crime and its consequences on their subjective wellbeing. In addition, it
investigated how family members made sense of this experience and how this
translated to attempts to reconcile their view of themselves and repair their
relationships with the other. This analysis was informed by an understanding of
âdesistanceâ processes by which individuals move away from sexual offending.
Methods: A systematic mixed-studies review was conducted on the topic of desistance
from sexual offending. This included n = 16 qualitative studies and n = 10 quantitative
studies. The evidence was analysed using a âbest-fitâ framework synthesis, drawing
from the âIntegrated Theory of Desistance from Sexual Offending (ITDSO)â. A
qualitative study was also conducted, interviewing n = 13 family members of
individuals charged with CESO. This included romantic partners, parents and adult
siblings. The narratives were analysed using a Multiperspectival Interpretative
Phenomenological Analysis.
Results: The review provided support for the ITDSO, whilst proposing amendments
to further capture the complexity and unique considerations for those charged with
sexual offences. These adaptations included hypothesised pathways of desistance and
an understanding of the means by which desistance is promoted. The importance of
social connection, forgiveness and belonging was emphasised, as well as barriers to
re-entry and re-integration. Family member narratives provided main themes of âlossâ,
âcast outâ, âsilencedâ and âreconciliationâ. Related themes of stigma, shame and trauma
were pervasive throughout these.
Conclusions: Societal perceptions and stigma of sexual offending shames individuals,
preventing acquisition of goods that help to promote desistance or aid reintegration.
This is true both for those convicted of crimes and individuals associated with them.
Understanding reasons for the behaviour facilitates shifts towards prosocial identities
and encourages forgiveness and reconciliation from those in their wider systems
Taking Healthy Steps: rationale, design and baseline characteristics of a randomized trial of a pedometer-based internet-mediated walking program in veterans with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Abstract
Background
Low levels of physical activity are common in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and a sedentary lifestyle is associated with poor outcomes including increased mortality, frequent hospitalizations, and poor health-related quality of life. Internet-mediated physical activity interventions may increase physical activity and improve health outcomes in persons with COPD.
Methods/Design
This manuscript describes the design and rationale of a randomized controlled trial that tests the effectiveness of Taking Healthy Steps, an Internet-mediated walking program for Veterans with COPD. Taking Healthy Steps includes an uploading pedometer, a website, and an online community. Eligible and consented patients wear a pedometer to obtain one week of baseline data and then are randomized on a 2:1 ratio to Taking Healthy Steps or to a wait list control. The intervention arm receives iterative step-count feedback; individualized step-count goals, motivational and informational messages, and access to an online community. Wait list controls are notified that they are enrolled, but that their intervention will start in one year; however, they keep the pedometer and have access to a static webpage.
Discussion
Participants include 239 Veterans (mean age 66.7Â years, 93.7% male) with 155 randomized to Taking Healthy Steps and 84 to the wait list control arm; rural-living (45.2%); ever-smokers (93.3%); and current smokers (25.1%). Baseline mean St. Georgeâs Respiratory Questionnaire Total Score was 46.0; 30.5% reported severe dyspnea; and the average number of comorbid conditions was 4.9. Mean baseline daily step counts was 3497 (+/- 2220).
Veterans with COPD can be recruited to participate in an online walking program. We successfully recruited a cohort of older Veterans with a significant level of disability including Veterans who live in rural areas using a remote national recruitment strategy.
Trial registration
Clinical Trials.gov
NCT01102777http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/109506/1/12890_2014_Article_479.pd
Altered sense of humor in dementia.
Sense of humor is potentially relevant to social functioning in dementias, but has been little studied in these diseases. We designed a semi-structured informant questionnaire to assess humor behavior and preferences in patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD; nâ=â15), semantic dementia (SD; nâ=â7), progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA; nâ=â10), and Alzheimer's disease (AD; nâ=â16) versus healthy age-matched individuals (nâ=â21). Altered (including frankly inappropriate) humor responses were significantly more frequent in bvFTD and SD (all patients) than PNFA or AD (around 40% of patients). All patient groups liked satirical and absurdist comedy significantly less than did healthy controls. This pattern was reported premorbidly for satirical comedy in bvFTD, PNFA, and AD. Liking for slapstick comedy did not differ between groups. Altered sense of humor is particularly salient in bvFTD and SD, but also frequent in AD and PNFA. Humor may be a sensitive probe of social cognitive impairment in dementia, with diagnostic, biomarker and social implications
Music models aberrant rule decoding and reward valuation in dementia.
Aberrant rule- and reward-based processes underpin abnormalities of socio-emotional behaviour in major dementias. However, these processes remain poorly characterized. Here we used music to probe rule decoding and reward valuation in patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) syndromes and Alzheimer's disease (AD) relative to healthy age-matched individuals. We created short melodies that were either harmonically resolved ('finished') or unresolved ('unfinished'); the task was to classify each melody as finished or unfinished (rule processing) and rate its subjective pleasantness (reward valuation). Results were adjusted for elementary pitch and executive processing; neuroanatomical correlates were assessed using voxel-based morphometry. Relative to healthy older controls, patients with behavioural variant FTD showed impairments of both musical rule decoding and reward valuation, while patients with semantic dementia showed impaired reward valuation but intact rule decoding, patients with AD showed impaired rule decoding but intact reward valuation and patients with progressive non-fluent aphasia performed comparably to healthy controls. Grey matter associations with task performance were identified in anterior temporal, medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortices, previously implicated in computing diverse biological and non-biological rules and rewards. The processing of musical rules and reward distils cognitive and neuroanatomical mechanisms relevant to complex socio-emotional dysfunction in major dementias
BAC array CGH in patients with Velocardiofacial syndrome-like features reveals genomic aberrations on chromosome region 1q21.1
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Microdeletion of the chromosome 22q11.2 region is the most common genetic aberration among patients with velocardiofacial syndrome (VCFS) but a subset of subjects do not show alterations of this chromosome region.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We analyzed 18 patients with VCFS-like features by comparative genomic hybridisation (aCGH) array and performed a face-to-face slide hybridization with two different arrays: a whole genome and a chromosome 22-specific BAC array. Putative rearrangements were confirmed by FISH and MLPA assays.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>One patient carried a combination of rearrangements on 1q21.1, consisting in a microduplication of 212 kb and a close microdeletion of 1.15 Mb, previously reported in patients with variable phenotypes, including mental retardation, congenital heart defects (CHD) and schizophrenia. While 326 control samples were negative for both 1q21.1 rearrangements, one of 73 patients carried the same 212-kb microduplication, reciprocal to TAR microdeletion syndrome. Also, we detected four copy number variants (CNVs) inherited from one parent (a 744-kb duplication on 10q11.22; a 160 kb duplication and deletion on 22q11.21 in two cases; and a gain of 140 kb on 22q13.2), not present in control subjects, raising the potential role of these CNVs in the VCFS-like phenotype.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results confirmed aCGH as a successful strategy in order to characterize additional submicroscopic aberrations in patients with VCF-like features that fail to show alterations in 22q11.2 region. We report a 212-kb microduplication on 1q21.1, detected in two patients, which may contribute to CHD.</p
ContextD: an algorithm to identify contextual properties of medical terms in a Dutch clinical corpus
Language support for linguistic minority chronic hepatitis B/C patients: an exploratory study of availability and cliniciansâ perceptions of language barriers in six European countries
Evaporation kinetics in swollen porous polymeric networks
Ponencia presentada en el Congreso Euromar 2014.Fil: Velasco, Manuel Isaac. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Instituto de FĂsica Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Silletta, Emilia Victoria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Instituto de FĂsica Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Monti, Gustavo Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Instituto de FĂsica Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Acosta, Rodolfo HĂ©ctor. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Instituto de FĂsica Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Velasco, Manuel Isaac. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Facultad de MatemĂĄtica, AstronomĂa y FĂsica; Argentina.Fil: Silletta, Emilia Victoria. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Facultad de MatemĂĄtica, AstronomĂa y FĂsica; Argentina.Fil: Monti, Gustavo Alberto. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Facultad de MatemĂĄtica, AstronomĂa y FĂsica; Argentina.Fil: Acosta, Rodolfo HĂ©ctor. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Facultad de MatemĂĄtica, AstronomĂa y FĂsica; Argentina.Fil: Gomez, Cesar Gerardo. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Facultad de Ciencias QuĂmicas. Departamento de QuĂmica OrgĂĄnica; Argentina.Fil: Strumia, Miriam Cristina. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Facultad de Ciencias QuĂmicas. Departamento de QuĂmica OrgĂĄnica; Argentina.Fil: Gomez, Cesar Gerardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de BiologĂa Vegetal; Argentina.Fil: Gomez, Cesar Gerardo. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de BiologĂa Vegetal; Argentina.Fil: Strumia, Miriam Cristina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de BiologĂa Vegetal; Argentina.Fil: Strumia, Miriam Cristina. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de BiologĂa Vegetal; Argentina.Polymer matrices with well defined structure and pore sizes are widely used in several areas of chemistry such as catalysis, enzyme immobilization, HPLC, adsorbents or controlled drug release. These polymers have pores in its structure both in the dry and swollen state. Although it is well known that the structures and properties greatly differ between these two states, only few methods provide information about the swollen one, even though most of the applications involve the matrices in this situation. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is a suitable tool for the study of the molecular dynamics of different liquids spatially confined in macro, meso and nanopores, through changes in the relaxation times. In transverse relaxation experiments, either diffusion inside the pore, or relaxation induced by mobility restriction of the liquid near the wall, are additional
sources of relaxation, which are extremely useful in the determination of structural and functional properties.Fil: Velasco, Manuel Isaac. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Instituto de FĂsica Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Silletta, Emilia Victoria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Instituto de FĂsica Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Monti, Gustavo Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Instituto de FĂsica Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Acosta, Rodolfo HĂ©ctor. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Instituto de FĂsica Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Velasco, Manuel Isaac. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Facultad de MatemĂĄtica, AstronomĂa y FĂsica; Argentina.Fil: Silletta, Emilia Victoria. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Facultad de MatemĂĄtica, AstronomĂa y FĂsica; Argentina.Fil: Monti, Gustavo Alberto. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Facultad de MatemĂĄtica, AstronomĂa y FĂsica; Argentina.Fil: Acosta, Rodolfo HĂ©ctor. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Facultad de MatemĂĄtica, AstronomĂa y FĂsica; Argentina.Fil: Gomez, Cesar Gerardo. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Facultad de Ciencias QuĂmicas. Departamento de QuĂmica OrgĂĄnica; Argentina.Fil: Strumia, Miriam Cristina. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Facultad de Ciencias QuĂmicas. Departamento de QuĂmica OrgĂĄnica; Argentina.Fil: Gomez, Cesar Gerardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de BiologĂa Vegetal; Argentina.Fil: Gomez, Cesar Gerardo. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de BiologĂa Vegetal; Argentina.Fil: Strumia, Miriam Cristina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de BiologĂa Vegetal; Argentina.Fil: Strumia, Miriam Cristina. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de BiologĂa Vegetal; Argentina.FĂsica de los Materiales Condensado
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