3,270 research outputs found
Sense of community as a mediator between study abroad experiences and perceived well-being
This study examined the nature and extent of the relationship between studying abroad, sense of community, and well-being. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, the Sense of Community Index, and the Perceived Wellness Scale via an online survey emailed to juniors and seniors (n = 267) at a university in southern California. The results of the study suggested: 1) sense of community and well-being are significantly related (r = .35, p \u3c .001), 2) those who study abroad (n = 149) differ significantly from those who do not study abroad (n = 118) on sense of community (p \u3c .001, d = .52) and well-being (p = .03, d = .27), and 3) sense of community is a mediator of the relationship between study abroad experience and well-being. These findings have important implications for any institute which seeks to promote well-being
Reducing fatigue-related symptoms in Long COVID-19: a preliminary report of a lymphatic drainage intervention
Introduction
In the early days of the first global wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the potential for a postviral syndrome to manifest following COVID-19 infection was first recognized. Here, we present an analysis of a case series of the first 20 patientsâ data collected in clinical practice to evaluate the potential of a possible alternative treatment for Long COVID.
Methods
Face-to-face treatment sessions with Perrin techniqueTM practitioners occurred weekly involving effleurage/other manual articulatory techniques. The individuals being treated also undertook daily self-massage along with gentle mobility exercises. Patients recorded symptom severity using the self-report 54-item profile of fatigue-related states (PFRS) before and after treatment.
Results
The mean age of male patients was 41.8 years (range, 29â53 years), and for female patients, 39.3 years (range, 28â50 years). None of the participants had a prior diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome, and all were new attendees to the clinics at the time of initial assessment. The average number of treatment sessions was 9.7 in men and 9.4 in women. The reduction in PFRS scores was 41.8% in men and 60.5% in women. The highest subscale scores on average were for fatigue, with the lowest for somatic symptoms. All subscale scores showed, on average, a similar reduction of approximately 50% postintervention, with the reduction in score relating to a decrease in the severity of symptoms.
Conclusion
Our findings suggest that a specific manual lymphatic drainage intervention may help to reduce fatigue symptoms related to Long COVID, perhaps preventing acute symptoms through early intervention
Can physical assessment techniques aid diagnosis in people with chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis? A diagnostic accuracy study
Objective: To assess 5 physical signs to see whether they can assist in the screening of patients with CFS/ME, and potentially lead to quicker treatment.
Methods: This was a diagnostic accuracy study with inter-rater agreement assessment. Participants recruited from 2 NHS hospitals, local CFS/ME support groups and the community were examined by three practitioners on the same day in a randomized order. Two Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) performed independent examinations of physical signs including; postural/mechanical disturbances of the thoracic spine, breast varicosities, tender Perrinâs Point, tender coeliac plexus and dampened cranial flow. A physician conducted a standard clinical neurological and rheumatological assessment, whilst looking for patterns of illness behaviour. Each examination lasted approximately 20 minutes.
Results: Ninety-four participants were assessed, 52 CFS/ME patients and 42 non-CFS/ME controls, aged 18-60. Cohenâs kappa revealed agreement between the AHPs was substantial for presence of the tender coeliac plexus (Îș=0.65, p<0.001) and moderate for postural/mechanical disturbance of the thoracic spine (Îș=0.57, p<0.001) and Perrinâs point (Îș=0.56, p<0.001). A McNemarâs test found no statistically significant bias in the diagnosis by the experienced AHP relative to actual diagnosis, (p=1.0) and a marginally non-significant bias by the newly trained AHP, p=0.052. There was however, a significant bias in the diagnosis made by the physician relative to actual diagnosis, (p<0.001), indicating poor diagnostic utility of the clinical neurological and rheumatological assessment.
Conclusions: Using the physical signs appears to improve the accuracy of identifying people with CFS/ME and shows agreement with current diagnostic techniques, however the present study concludes that only 2 of these may be needed. Examining for physical signs is both quick and simple for the AHP and may be used as an efficient screening tool for CFS/ME. This is a small single centre study and therefore further validation in other centres and larger populations is needed
Wadge-like reducibilities on arbitrary quasi-Polish spaces
The structure of the Wadge degrees on zero-dimensional spaces is very simple
(almost well-ordered), but for many other natural non-zero-dimensional spaces
(including the space of reals) this structure is much more complicated. We
consider weaker notions of reducibility, including the so-called
\Delta^0_\alpha-reductions, and try to find for various natural topological
spaces X the least ordinal \alpha_X such that for every \alpha_X \leq \beta <
\omega_1 the degree-structure induced on X by the \Delta^0_\beta-reductions is
simple (i.e. similar to the Wadge hierarchy on the Baire space). We show that
\alpha_X \leq {\omega} for every quasi-Polish space X, that \alpha_X \leq 3 for
quasi-Polish spaces of dimension different from \infty, and that this last
bound is in fact optimal for many (quasi-)Polish spaces, including the real
line and its powers.Comment: 50 pages, revised version, accepted for publication on Mathematical
Structures in Computer Scienc
Status loss due to COVID-19, traditional masculinity, and their association with recent suicide attempts and suicidal ideation
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing extensive job loss leading to a loss of social status in many men. Endorsement of traditional masculinity ideology may render some men particularly sensitive to status loss and thereby to an increased risk for suicidality. In this anonymous online survey conducted in German-speaking European countries, 490 men completed questionnaires regarding loss of social status due to the COVID-19 pandemic, past-month and lifetime suicide attempt and suicidal ideation. Furthermore, endorsement of traditional masculinity ideology and prototypical and male-typical externalizing depression symptoms were measured. Out of a total of 490 men, 14.7% of men reported experiencing status loss due to the pandemic. These men were more than four times as likely to have attempted suicide in the past month (OR = 4.48, 95% CI [1.72, 11.67]) and more than twice as likely to report suicidal ideation during the past 2 weeks (OR = 2.47, 95% CI [1.42, 4.28]), than men not reporting status loss. Status loss, but not endorsement of traditional masculinity ideology, was associated with suicide outcomes. However, when male-typical externalizing depression symptoms and prototypical depression symptoms were included in the models, they exhibited the only direct associations with suicide outcomes (e.g., for past-month suicide attempt: male-typical externalizing depression symptoms OR = 2.18, 95% CI [1.31, 3.62], prototypical depression symptoms OR = 2.41, 95% CI [1.13, 5.12]). A significant interaction between status loss and endorsement of traditional masculinity ideology further suggests an enhancing moderating effect of traditional masculinity on the relationship between status loss and past-month suicide attempts (OR = 3.27, 95% CI [1.16, 9.27]). Status loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic emerges as risk factor for suicide in men. Men who experience status loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic while concomitantly exhibiting strong endorsement of traditional masculinity ideology have an additional increased risk of suicide
Le Forum, Vol. 44 #4
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/francoamericain_forum/1106/thumbnail.jp
A land-to-ocean perspective on the magnitude, source and implication of DIC flux from major Arctic rivers to the Arctic Ocean
Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles 26 (2012): GB4018, doi:10.1029/2011GB004192.A series of seasonally distributed measurements from the six largest Arctic rivers (the Ob', Yenisey, Lena, Kolyma, Yukon and Mackenzie) was used to examine the magnitude and significance of Arctic riverine DIC flux to larger scale C dynamics within the Arctic system. DIC concentration showed considerable, and synchronous, seasonal variation across these six large Arctic rivers, which have an estimated combined annual DIC flux of 30 Tg C yrâ1. By examining the relationship between DIC flux and landscape variables known to regulate riverine DIC, we extrapolate to a DIC flux of 57 ± 9.9 Tg C yrâ1for the full pan-arctic basin, and show that DIC export increases with runoff, the extent of carbonate rocks and glacial coverage, but decreases with permafrost extent. This pan-arctic riverine DIC estimate represents 13â15% of the total global DIC flux. The annual flux of selected ions (HCO3â, Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Sr2+, and Clâ) from the six largest Arctic rivers confirms that chemical weathering is dominated by inputs from carbonate rocks in the North American watersheds, but points to a more important role for silicate rocks in Siberian watersheds. In the coastal ocean, river water-induced decreases in aragonite saturation (i.e., an ocean acidification effect) appears to be much more pronounced in Siberia than in the North American Arctic, and stronger in the winter and spring than in the late summer. Accounting for seasonal variation in the flux of DIC and other major ions gives a much clearer understanding of the importance of riverine DIC within the broader pan-arctic C cycle.Funding for this work was provided through
NSF-OPP-0229302 and NSF-OPP-0732985. Additional support to SET
was provided by an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship.2013-06-1
Background Light in Potential Sites for the ANTARES Undersea Neutrino Telescope
The ANTARES collaboration has performed a series of {\em in situ}
measurements to study the background light for a planned undersea neutrino
telescope. Such background can be caused by K decays or by biological
activity. We report on measurements at two sites in the Mediterranean Sea at
depths of 2400~m and 2700~m, respectively. Three photomultiplier tubes were
used to measure single counting rates and coincidence rates for pairs of tubes
at various distances. The background rate is seen to consist of three
components: a constant rate due to K decays, a continuum rate that
varies on a time scale of several hours simultaneously over distances up to at
least 40~m, and random bursts a few seconds long that are only correlated in
time over distances of the order of a meter. A trigger requiring coincidences
between nearby photomultiplier tubes should reduce the trigger rate for a
neutrino telescope to a manageable level with only a small loss in efficiency.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Astroparticle
Physic
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