4,854 research outputs found
Clinical Associations of Deliberate Self-Injury and Its Impact on the Outcome of Community-Based and Long-Term Inpatient Treatment for Personality Disorder
Background: Deliberate self-injury (DSI) is significantly associated with personality disorder (PD). There are gaps in our knowledge of DSI as an indicator of severity of psychopathology, as moderator of outcome and with regard to its response to different treatment programs and settings. Methods: We compare 2 samples of PD with (n = 59) and without (n = 64) DSI in terms of clinical presentation, response to psychosocial treatment and relative outcome when treated with specialist long-term residential and community-based programs. We test the assumption that DSI is an appropriate indicator for long-term inpatient care by contrasting the outcomes (symptom severity and DSI recidivism) of the 2 DSI sub-groups treated in the 2 different approaches. Results: PD with DSI had greater severity of presentation on a number of variables (early maternal separation, sexual abuse, axis-I comorbidities, suicidality and inpatient episodes) than PD without DSI. With regard to treatment response, we found a significant 3-way interaction between DSI, treatment model and outcome at 24-month follow-up. PD with DSI treated in a community-based program have significantly greater chances of improving on symptom severity and recidivism of self-injurious behaviour compared to PD with DSI treated in a long-term residential program. Conclusions: Although limitations in the study design invite caution in interpreting the results, the poor outcome of the inpatient DSI group suggests that explicit protocols for the management of DSI in inpatient settings may be beneficial and that the clinical indications for long-term inpatient treatment for severe and non-severe PD may require updating. Copyright (C) 2010 S. Karger AG, Base
Optimized Confinement of Fermions in Two Dimensions
One of the challenging features of studying model Hamiltonians with cold
atoms in optical lattices is the presence of spatial inhomogeneities induced by
the confining potential, which results in the coexistence of different phases.
This paper presents Quantum Monte Carlo results comparing meth- ods for
confining fermions in two dimensions, including conventional diagonal
confinement (DC), a recently proposed 'off-diagonal confinement' (ODC), as well
as a trap which produces uniform den- sity in the lattice. At constant entropy
and for currently accessible temperatures, we show that the current DC method
results in the strongest magnetic signature, primarily because of its judicious
use of entropy sinks at the lattice edge. For d-wave pairing, we show that a
constant density trap has the more robust signal and that ODC can implement a
constant density profile. This feature is important to any prospective search
for superconductivity in optical lattices
The Finite Size Error in Many-body Simulations with long-Ranged Interactions
We discuss the origin of the finite size error of the energy in many-body
simulation of systems of charged particles and we propose a correction based on
the random phase approximation at long wave lengths. The correction comes from
contributions mainly determined by the organized collective oscillations of the
interacting system. Finite size corrections, both on kinetic and potential
energy, can be calculated within a single simulation. Results are presented for
the electron gas and silicon.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PRL; corrected typo
Lying Your Way to Better Traffic Engineering
To optimize the flow of traffic in IP networks, operators do traffic
engineering (TE), i.e., tune routing-protocol parameters in response to traffic
demands. TE in IP networks typically involves configuring static link weights
and splitting traffic between the resulting shortest-paths via the
Equal-Cost-MultiPath (ECMP) mechanism. Unfortunately, ECMP is a notoriously
cumbersome and indirect means for optimizing traffic flow, often leading to
poor network performance. Also, obtaining accurate knowledge of traffic demands
as the input to TE is elusive, and traffic conditions can be highly variable,
further complicating TE. We leverage recently proposed schemes for increasing
ECMP's expressiveness via carefully disseminated bogus information ("lies") to
design COYOTE, a readily deployable TE scheme for robust and efficient network
utilization. COYOTE leverages new algorithmic ideas to configure (static)
traffic splitting ratios that are optimized with respect to all (even
adversarially chosen) traffic scenarios within the operator's "uncertainty
bounds". Our experimental analyses show that COYOTE significantly outperforms
today's prevalent TE schemes in a manner that is robust to traffic uncertainty
and variation. We discuss experiments with a prototype implementation of
COYOTE
The Storm Doesn’t Touch me!—The Role of Perceived Employability of Students and Graduates in the Pandemic Era
Perceived Employability acquires growing relevance as a psychological protective resource now that new entrants in the labour market from higher education are experiencing a deterioration of their occupational prospects due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which brings worries and jeopardises psychological well-being. This study aims to extend research on perceived employability among Italian University students and graduates. Perceived employability is posited to predict flourishing directly and indirectly by reducing material, social, and health worries related to COVID-19. Moreover, this study contends that perceived employability buffers the positive impact of perceived adverse conditions of the labour market on worries, changing the effect on flourishing. In total, 471 university students and graduates completed an online survey. The analyses reveal that perceived employability positively influences flourishing directly and indirectly by reducing COVID-19-related worries. Nevertheless, the results do not support the moderating action of perceived employability. Despite some limitations (e.g., a cross-sectional design), this study significantly advances the exploration of perceived employability as a critical personal resource to deal with the transition to work under pandemic-related crises. This study draws on its results to advise higher education to increase perceived employability, such as through career guidance activities and work-based learning experiences
Contained rupture of an aortic arch aneurysm in a patient with syphilitic aortitis. A case report
Syphilitic aortitis is a rare complication of tertiary syphilis, which can lead to aortic aneurysm formation, aortic valvular insufficiency, and ostial coronary stenosis. Syphilis has re-emerged worldwide over recent decades and vascular surgeons should be aware of its cardiovascular manifestations. Atypical clinical presentation, such as hemoptysis and a computed tomography angiography pattern of a thicker aneurysmal wall with ulcer-like aneurysm projections, should raise suspicion of syphilitic aortic aneurysm. An early diagnosis and appropriate surgical and medical therapies significantly contribute to successful treatment and favorable prognosis. Herein is reported the case of an 82-year-old male patient, positive for syphilis infection, with impending aortic arch aneurysm rupture treated with a hybrid arch repair. After 7 months, the patient was brought to the emergency room in cardiac arrest. Unsuccessful cardiopulmonary resuscitation maneuvers were performed, and an autopsy showed cardiac tamponade due to rupture of the ascending aorta
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