Centeredness Theory: Understanding and measuring well-being across core life domains

Background: Centeredness Theory (CT) is proposed as a new mental health paradigm that focuses on well-being at a systems-level, across the core life domains of the self, the family unit, relationships, community, and work. The current studies aimed to validate the psychometric properties of a new scale that measures CT against existing well-being and mental health measures. Methods: Study 1 included 488 anonymous online respondents (46% females, 28% males, 25% unknown with median age between 31 and 35 years) across 38 countries who completed the CT scale. Study 2 included 49 first-year psychology students (90% females, mean age of 19 years) from Sydney Australia that completed the CT scale and other well-being and mental health questionnaires at baseline and 2-weeks follow-up. Results: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses resulted in a refined 60-item CT scale with five domains, each with four sub-domains. The CT scale demonstrated good internal consistency reliability and test-retest reliability, and showed evidence of convergent validity against other well-being measures (e.g., COMPAS-W Wellbeing Scale, SWLS scale, and Ryff's Psychological Well-being scale). Conclusions: The CT scale appears to be a reliable measure of well-being at a systems-level. Future studies need to confirm these findings in larger heterogeneous samples

Corrigendum: Centeredness theory: Understanding and measuring well-being across core life domains [Front. Psychol, 9, 610 (2018)] DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2016.00985

In the original article, there was a mistake in Supplementary Figure 1 as published. The Supplementary Figure that was submitted at the time of publishing was mislabeled. The corrected Supplementary Figure 1 appears below. The authors apologize for this error and state that this does not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way

Joint image reconstruction method with correlative multi-channel prior for x-ray spectral computed tomography

Rapid developments in photon-counting and energy-discriminating detectors have the potential to provide an additional spectral dimension to conventional x-ray grayscale imaging. Reconstructed spectroscopic tomographic data can be used to distinguish individual materials by characteristic absorption peaks. The acquired energy-binned data, however, suffer from low signal-to-noise ratio, acquisition artifacts, and frequently angular undersampled conditions. New regularized iterative reconstruction methods have the potential to produce higher quality images and since energy channels are mutually correlated it can be advantageous to exploit this additional knowledge. In this paper, we propose a novel method which jointly reconstructs all energy channels while imposing a strong structural correlation. The core of the proposed algorithm is to employ a variational framework of parallel level sets to encourage joint smoothing directions. In particular, the method selects reference channels from which to propagate structure in an adaptive and stochastic way while preferring channels with a high data signal-to-noise ratio. The method is compared with current state-of-the-art multi-channel reconstruction techniques including channel-wise total variation and correlative total nuclear variation regularization. Realistic simulation experiments demonstrate the performance improvements achievable by using correlative regularization methods

Institutional Experience with Voriconazole Compared with Liposomal Amphotericin B as Empiric Therapy for Febrile Neutropenia

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90034/1/phco.27.7.970.pd

Clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of pegvisomant for the treatment of acromegaly: a systematic review and economic evaluation

Background: Acromegaly, an orphan disease usually caused by a benign pituitary tumour, is characterised by hyper-secretion of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-1). It is associated with reduced life expectancy, cardiovascular problems, a variety of insidiously progressing detrimental symptoms and metabolic malfunction. Treatments include surgery, radiotherapy and pharmacotherapy. Pegvisomant (PEG) is a genetically engineered GH analogue licensed as a third or fourth line option when other treatments have failed to normalise IGF-1 levels. Methods: Evidence about effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of PEG was systematically reviewed. Data were extracted from published studies and used for a narrative synthesis of evidence. A decision analytical economic model was identified and modified to assess the cost-effectiveness of PEG. Results: One RCT and 17 non-randomised studies were reviewed for effectiveness. PEG substantially reduced and rapidly normalised IGF-1 levels in the majority of patients, approximately doubled GH levels, and improved some of the signs and symptoms of the disease. Tumour size was unaffected at least in the short term. PEG had a generally safe adverse event profile but a few patients were withdrawn from treatment because of raised liver enzymes. An economic model was identified and adapted to estimate the lower limit for the cost-effectiveness of PEG treatment versus standard care. Over a 20 year time horizon the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was pound81,000/QALY and pound212,000/LYG. To reduce this to pound30K/QALY would require a reduction in drug cost by about one third. Conclusion: PEG is highly effective for improving patients' IGF-1 level. Signs and symptoms of disease improve but evidence is lacking about long term effects on improved signs and symptoms of disease, quality of life, patient compliance and safety. Economic evaluation indicated that if current standards (UK) for determining cost-effectiveness of therapies were to be applied to PEG it would be considered not to represent good value for money

A two-domain elevator mechanism for sodium/proton antiport

Sodium/proton (Na+/H+) antiporters, located at the plasma membrane in every cell, are vital for cell homeostasis1. In humans, their dysfunction has been linked to diseases, such as hypertension, heart failure and epilepsy, and they are well-established drug targets2. The best understood model system for Na+/H+ antiport is NhaA from Escherichia coli1, 3, for which both electron microscopy and crystal structures are available4, 5, 6. NhaA is made up of two distinct domains: a core domain and a dimerization domain. In the NhaA crystal structure a cavity is located between the two domains, providing access to the ion-binding site from the inward-facing surface of the protein1, 4. Like many Na+/H+ antiporters, the activity of NhaA is regulated by pH, only becoming active above pH 6.5, at which point a conformational change is thought to occur7. The only reported NhaA crystal structure so far is of the low pH inactivated form4. Here we describe the active-state structure of a Na+/H+ antiporter, NapA from Thermus thermophilus, at 3 Å resolution, solved from crystals grown at pH 7.8. In the NapA structure, the core and dimerization domains are in different positions to those seen in NhaA, and a negatively charged cavity has now opened to the outside. The extracellular cavity allows access to a strictly conserved aspartate residue thought to coordinate ion binding1, 8, 9 directly, a role supported here by molecular dynamics simulations. To alternate access to this ion-binding site, however, requires a surprisingly large rotation of the core domain, some 20° against the dimerization interface. We conclude that despite their fast transport rates of up to 1,500 ions per second3, Na+/H+ antiporters operate by a two-domain rocking bundle model, revealing themes relevant to secondary-active transporters in general

Learning object relationships which determine the outcome of actions

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Effects beyond the Lungs

Peter Barnes discusses the growing epidemic of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), especially in developing countries and among nonsmokers

Effect of dietary fiber, genetic strain and age on the digestive metabolism of broiler chickens

In this study, 360 male broilers, out of which 240 of a fast-growing strain (Cobb500), and 120 of a slow-growing strain (Label Rouge), were used to evaluate the effect of dietary fiber on digesta transit time and digestive metabolism during the period of 1 to 42 days of age. A completely randomized experimental design with a 3x2 factorial arrangement was applied, consisting of three groups of birds (slow-growing – SG; fast-growing fed ad libitum – FGAL; and fast-growing pair-fed with SG broilers – FGPF) and two iso-protein diets (a 3100 kcal ME/kg low-fiber diet –LFD- and a 2800 kcal ME/ kg high-fiber diet –HFD- with 14% wheat bran and 4% oat hulls). HFD-fed birds presented lower ME retention (p < 0.001) and lower dry matter metabolizability (DMM) (p < 0.001), which is possibly related to the shorter digesta transit time observed in these birds (p < 0.001). DMM was reduced with age, whereas metabolizable energy remained almost constant (p < 0.001) independently of strain. This may be related to the increase in feed intake as birds age. The slowgrowing strain did not present better utilization of the high-fiber diet as compared to the fast-growing strain in none of the analyzed ages, even though showing a significant better use of fiber and dietary energy from 31 days of age