The psychometric properties of the subscales of the GHQ-28 in a multi-ethnic maternal sample: results from the Born in Bradford cohort

Background: Poor maternal mental health can impact on children’s development and wellbeing; however, there is concern about the comparability of screening instruments administered to women of diverse ethnic origin. Methods: We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to examine the subscale structure of the GHQ-28 in an ethnically diverse community cohort of pregnant women in the UK (N = 5,089). We defined five groups according to ethnicity and language of administration, and also conducted a CFA between four groups of 1,095 women who completed the GHQ-28 both during and after pregnancy. Results: After item reduction, 17 of the 28 items were considered to relate to the same four underlying concepts in each group; however, there was variation in the response to individual items by women of different ethnic origin and this rendered between group comparisons problematic. The EFA revealed that these measurement difficulties might be related to variation in the underlying concepts being measured by the factors. Conclusions: We found little evidence to recommend the use of the GHQ-28 subscales in routine clinical or epidemiological assessment of maternal women in populations of diverse ethnicity

Exploring the Influence of Federal Welfare Expenditures on State-Level New Economy Development Performance: Drawing From the Diffusion of Innovation Theory

Functional theory suggests that each level of government expands in the arena in which it can best perform, reducing the price of federalism. Focusing on the functional pattern of American federalism, we suggest that increased federal welfare spending increases state government performance in the “new economy” development policy areas by helping states minimize welfare costs and divert more own-source resources into economic development. The central focus is on the direct and indirect empirical relationships between federal welfare spending and state new economy performance. The authors use an index of innovation capacity that reflects the cumulative performance of a myriad of overlapping and mutually dependent state policies intended to bring about new economy development; this index measures state new economy development performance by focusing on the observable outputs of such polices rather than the adoption, implementation, or substance of individual policy choices. Mediating variables, such as state fiscal comfort and administrative capacity, measure the indirect impact of federal welfare spending on state new economy performance. The authors find that federal welfare spending stimulates state new economy development directly, but also indirectly through its positive impact on both state fiscal comfort and administrative capacity. The findings suggest that federal intergovernmental transfers continue to be an important policy mechanism with spillover effects for state economies

Characterization of two Pseudomonas putida lipopeptide biosurfactants, putisolvin I and II, which inhibit biofilm formation and break down existing biofilms

Pseudomonas putida strain PCL1445 was isolated from roots of plants, grown on a site polluted with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. PCL1445 produces biosurfactant activity at the end of the exponential growth phase. High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis of supernatant extracts of PCL1445 showed two peaks with surface-tension reducing activity, tentatively assigned as biosurfactants putisolvin I and putisolvin II and was followed by structural analyses. A transposon mutant of PCL1445, strain PCL1436, which lacks the two surface-active peaks appeared to be mutated in an open reading frame (ORF) with amino acid homology to various lipopeptide synthetases. Structural analyses of the two biosurfactants of PCL1445 revealed that both are novel cyclic lipodepsipeptides with a hexanoic lipid chain connected to the N-terminus of a 12-amino-acid peptide moiety, in which the C-terminal carboxylic acid group forms an ester with the hydroxyl side-chain of Ser9. The difference between the two structures is located in the second amino acid from the C-terminus, being valine for putisolvin I, and leucine/isoleucine for putisolvin II. We show that these novel compounds lower the surface tension and influence the biofilm development on polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Biofilm formation of the bio-synthetic mutant PCL1436 was strongly increased containing more cells, which formed aggregates earlier as compared with wild-type PCL1445 biofilms. Using purified putisolvin I and II it was shown that biofilm formation of different Pseudomonas strains was inhibited and most interestingly, that both putisolvins are also able to break down existing Pseudomonas biofilms.Microbial Biotechnolog

Democracy, political parties and party formation in postcommunist Russia

The paper uses a survey conducted in late 1992 to examine popular support for and attitudes towards Russia's postcommunist political parties. The findings confirm that support for democratic reform is at best conditional, and negative mentions of political parties vastly outnumber positive ones. Although popular knowledge about currently active political parties is limited, five main parties attract majority support. A factor analysis of opinions of the main parties indicates three underlying dimensions: a centre/reformist dimension (subdivided into those who are partially aligned with the communists and those who oppose them); a right/nationalist dimension; and a left/communist dimension. The democratic reformist dimension attracts the largest popular support, followed by the communist dimension; the nationalist dimension attracts a negligible following. None of the three dimensions has any secure socio-economic basis within the electorate, however, and the differences that exist are mainly ideological. It is argued that the reformist and communist dimensions, perhaps under different labels, will form the basis for the more stable party system that is likely to emerge in the future