The Colombian conflict: a description of a mental health program in the Department of Tolima.

Colombia has been seriously affected by an internal armed conflict for more than 40 years affecting mainly the civilian population, who is forced to displace, suffers kidnapping, extortion, threats and assassinations. Between 2005 and 2008, Médecins Sans Frontières-France provided psychological care and treatment in the region of Tolima, a strategic place in the armed conflict. The mental health program was based on a short-term multi-faceted treatment developed according to the psychological and psychosomatic needs of the population. Here we describe the population attending during 2005-2008, in both urban and rural settings, as well as the psychological treatment provided during this period and its outcomes.We observed differences between the urban and rural settings in the traumatic events reported, the clinical expression of the disorders, the disorders diagnosed, and their severity. Although the duration of the treatment was limited due to security reasons and access difficulties, patient condition at last visit improved in most of the patients. These descriptive results suggest that further studies should be conducted to examine the role of short-term psychotherapy, adapted specifically to the context, can be a useful tool to provide psychological care to population affected by an armed conflict

Time as a limited resource: Communication Strategy in Mobile Phone Networks

We used a large database of 9 billion calls from 20 million mobile users to examine the relationships between aggregated time spent on the phone, personal network size, tie strength and the way in which users distributed their limited time across their network (disparity). Compared to those with smaller networks, those with large networks did not devote proportionally more time to communication and had on average weaker ties (as measured by time spent communicating). Further, there were not substantially different levels of disparity between individuals, in that mobile users tend to distribute their time very unevenly across their network, with a large proportion of calls going to a small number of individuals. Together, these results suggest that there are time constraints which limit tie strength in large personal networks, and that even high levels of mobile communication do not fundamentally alter the disparity of time allocation across networks.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Social Network

Trauma-related psychological disorders among Palestinian children and adults in Gaza and West Bank, 2005-2008

BACKGROUND: Trauma from war and violence has led to psychological disorders in individuals living in the Gaza strip and West Bank. Few reports are available on the psychiatric disorders seen in children and adolescents or the treatment of affected populations. This study was conducted in order to describe the occurrence and treatment of psychiatric disorders in the Palestinian populations of the Gaza strip and Nablus district in the West Bank. METHODS: From 2005 to 2008, 1369 patients aged more than 1 year were identified through a local mental health and counseling health network. All were clinically assessed using a semi-structured interview based on the DSM-IV-TR criteria. RESULTS: Among 1254 patients, 23.2% reported post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD], 17.3% anxiety disorder (other than PTSD or acute stress disorder), and 15.3% depression. PTSD was more frequently identified in children < or = 15 years old, while depression was the main symptom observed in adults. Among children < or = 15 years old, factors significantly associated with PTSD included being witness to murder or physical abuse, receiving threats, and property destruction or loss (p < 0.03). Psychological care, primarily in the form of individual, short-term psychotherapy, was provided to 65.1% of patients, with about 30.6% required psychotropic medication. Duration of therapy sessions was higher for children < or = 15 years old compared with adults (p = 0.05). Following psychotherapy, 79.0% had improved symptoms, and this improvement was significantly higher in children < or = 15 years old (82.8%) compared with adults (75.3%; p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: These observations suggest that short-term psychotherapy could be an effective treatment for specific psychiatric disorders occurring in vulnerable populations, including children, living in violent conflict zones, such as in Gaza strip and the West Bank

Emergence of pulled fronts in fermionic microscopic particle models

We study the emergence and dynamics of pulled fronts described by the Fisher-Kolmogorov-Petrovsky-Piscounov (FKPP) equation in the microscopic reaction-diffusion process A + A A$ on the lattice when only a particle is allowed per site. To this end we identify the parameter that controls the strength of internal fluctuations in this model, namely, the number of particles per correlated volume. When internal fluctuations are suppressed, we explictly see the matching between the deterministic FKPP description and the microscopic particle model.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. E as a Rapid Communicatio

Spreading of thin films assisted by thermal fluctuations

We study the spreading of viscous drops on a solid substrate, taking into account the effects of thermal fluctuations in the fluid momentum. A nonlinear stochastic lubrication equation is derived, and studied using numerical simulations and scaling analysis. We show that asymptotically spreading drops admit self-similar shapes, whose average radii can increase at rates much faster than these predicted by Tanner's law. We discuss the physical realizability of our results for thin molecular and complex fluid films, and predict that such phenomenon can in principal be observed in various flow geometries.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Effects of Diversity on Multi-agent Systems: Minority Games

We consider a version of large population games whose agents compete for resources using strategies with adaptable preferences. The games can be used to model economic markets, ecosystems or distributed control. Diversity of initial preferences of strategies is introduced by randomly assigning biases to the strategies of different agents. We find that diversity among the agents reduces their maladaptive behavior. We find interesting scaling relations with diversity for the variance and other parameters such as the convergence time, the fraction of fickle agents, and the variance of wealth, illustrating their dynamical origin. When diversity increases, the scaling dynamics is modified by kinetic sampling and waiting effects. Analyses yield excellent agreement with simulations.Comment: 41 pages, 16 figures; minor improvements in content, added references; to be published in Physical Review

Computational approaches to shed light on molecular mechanisms in biological processes

Computational approaches based on Molecular Dynamics simulations, Quantum Mechanical methods and 3D Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships were employed by computational chemistry groups at the University of Milano-Bicocca to study biological processes at the molecular level. The paper reports the methodologies adopted and the results obtained on Aryl hydrocarbon Receptor and homologous PAS proteins mechanisms, the properties of prion protein peptides, the reaction pathway of hydrogenase and peroxidase enzymes and the defibrillogenic activity of tetracyclines. © Springer-Verlag 2007

General and specific combinig ability for yield in a diallel cross among 18 maize populations (Zea mays L.).

A study was carried out no diallel crosses among 18 maize populations. An analysis was conducted on ear weight data using Grigging's Method 2, Model I to determine general and specific combinig ability effects. General combining ability (GCA) was found to be significant but specific combinig ability (SCA) was not. Both location x GCA and location x SCA interactions were found to be significant. The results showed that populations CMS 06 and CMS 05 have the highest GCA effects. The cross (CMS 07 x CMS 10) gave the highest SCA effects

Riscos genéticos da produção de híbridos de peixes nativos.

A produção de peixes nativos e seus híbridos chama a atenção daqueles que observam o Brasil como alvo de investimentos agropecuários e futura potência da aquicultura mundial. Dada a competitividade e dinamismo, o mercado aquícola nacional tem motivado a produção de híbridos em maior escala nos últimos anos, buscando neles características favoráveis de ganho de peso, resistência ao frio, rusticidade e adaptação à alimentação artificial. Por outro lado, a mistura de animais híbridos sobre as linhagens puras e o seu escape inadvertido para os ambientes naturais certamente expõe a sustentabilidade da aquicultura. Sendo assim, este documento buscou reunir informações sobre a produção, impacto genético, riscos e desafios do cultivo de híbridos frente ao desafio de equilibrar a conservação da biodiversidade com a produção sustentável de alimentos.bitstream/item/131431/1/cnpasadoc3.pd

Correlações e análises do coeficiente-vetor (Path-coefficient em linhagens endogamicas de milho (Zea mays L.).

Objetivou-se determinar as inter-relacoes entre sete caracteres em progenies de milho, obtida de cruzamentos entre linhagens "dent" e "flint" com os compostos "Flint B" e "Dent B", respectivamente. Encontraram-se correlacoes significativas para peso de graos com alturas de planta e espiga e com prolificidade, indicando a importancia destes caracteres no aumento da produtividade do milho, em condicoes brasileiras. Prolificidade e peso de 50 graos correlacionaram-se negativa e significativamente. Observou-se uma correlacao significativa e positiva entre numero de dias ate o florescimento e porcentagem de umidade nos graos, mostrando que precocidade esta diretamente ligada com maturacao fisiologica, nestes materiais. Encontraram-se pequenas diferencas de valores de coeficientes vetor (path-coefficient) para as progenies dos cruzamentos contrastantes entre linhagens e compostos, possivelmente devido a erros de amostragens ou a variabilidade genetica entre estas progenies. Os valores elevados e positivo de coeficiente-vetor encontrados para alguns caracteres, como prolificidade e peso de 50 graos, mostraram uma influencia direta e significativa destes caracteres no peso de graos