Catastrophizing mediates the relationship between the personal belief in a just world and pain outcomes among chronic pain support group attendees

Health-related research suggests the belief in a just world can act as a personal resource that protects against the adverse effects of pain and illness. However, currently, little is known about how this belief, particularly in relation to one’s own life, might influence pain. Consistent with the suggestions of previous research, the present study undertook a secondary data analysis to investigate pain catastrophizing as a mediator of the relationship between the personal just world belief and chronic pain outcomes in a sample of chronic pain support group attendees. Partially supporting the hypotheses, catastrophizing was negatively correlated with the personal just world belief and mediated the relationship between this belief and pain and disability, but not distress. Suggestions for future research and intervention development are made

Gauge fields in (A)dS within the unfolded approach: algebraic aspects

It has recently been shown that generalized connections of the (A)dS space symmetry algebra provide an effective geometric and algebraic framework for all types of gauge fields in (A)dS, both for massless and partially-massless. The equations of motion are equipped with a nilpotent operator called $\sigma_-$ whose cohomology groups correspond to the dynamically relevant quantities like differential gauge parameters, dynamical fields, gauge invariant field equations, Bianchi identities etc. In the paper the $\sigma_-$-cohomology is computed for all gauge theories of this type and the field-theoretical interpretation is discussed. In the simplest cases the $\sigma_-$-cohomology is equivalent to the ordinary Lie algebra cohomology.Comment: 59 pages, replaced with revised verio

A remark on totally smooth renormings

[EN] E. Oja, T. Viil, andD. Werner showed, in Totally smooth renormings, Archiv der Mathematik, 112, 3, (2019), 269-281, that a weakly compactly generated Banach space ( X, center dot) with the property that every linear functional on X has a unique Hahn-Banach extension to the bidual X ** (the so-called Phelps' property U in X **, also known as the Hahn-Banach smoothness property) can be renormed to have the stronger property that for every subspace Y of X, every linear functional on Y has a unique Hahn-Banach extension to X ** (the so-called total smoothness property of the space). We mention here that this result holds in full generality -without any restriction on the space- and in a stronger form, thanks to a result ofM. Raja, On dual locally uniformly rotund norms, Israel Journal of Mathematics 129 (2002), 77-91.Supported by AEI/FEDER (project MTM2017-83262-C2-2-P of Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad), by Fundacion Seneca, Region de Murcia (Grant 19368/PI/14), and Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (A. J. Guirao). Supported by AEI/FEDER (project MTM2017-83262-C2-1-P of Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad) and Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (V. Montesinos). We thank the referees for their work, that neatly improved the original version of this note to its final form.Cobollo, C.; Guirao Sánchez, AJ.; Montesinos Santalucia, V. (2020). A remark on totally smooth renormings. Revista de la Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales Serie A Matemáticas. 114(2):1-4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-020-00831-5S141142Fabian, M., Habala, P., Hájek, P., Montesinos, V., Zizler, V.: Banach space theory: the basis of linear and nonlinear analysis. Springer, New York (2011)Fabian, M., Montesinos, V., Zizler, V.: Smoothness in Banach spaces. Selected problems. Rev. R. Acad. Cien. Ser. A. Mat. RACSAM. 100(1–2), 101–125 (2006)Ferrari, S., Orihuela, J., Raja, M.: Generalized metric properties of spheres and renorming of Banach spaces. Rev. R. Acad. Cienc. Exactas Fis. Natl. Ser. A Math. RACSAM. 113, 2655–2663 (2019)Foguel, S.R.: On a theorem by A. E. Taylor. Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 9, 325 (1958)Godefroy, G.: Points de Namioka, espaces normants, applications à la théorie isométrique de la dualité. Israel J. Math. 38, 209–220 (1981)Guirao, A.J., Montesinos, V., Zizler, V.: Open Problems in the geometry and analysis of Banach spaces. Springer International Pub, Switzerland (2016)Harmand, P., Werner, D., Werner, W.: M-ideals in Banach spaces and Banach algebras. Lecture notes in math, vol. 1547. Springer, Berlin (1993)Haydon, R.: Locally uniformly rotund norms in Banach spaces and their duals. J. Funct. Anal. 254, 2023–2039 (2008)Oja, E., Viil, T., Werner, D.: Totally smooth renormings. Archiv. der. Mathematik. 112(3), 269–281 (2019)Phelps, R.R.: Uniqueness of Hahn–Banach extensions and unique best approximation. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 95, 238–255 (1960)Raja, M.: On dual locally uniformly rotund norms. Israel J. Math. 129, 77–91 (2002)Smith, R.J., Troyanski, S.L.: Renormings of $$C(K)$$ spaces. Rev. R. Acad. Cienc. Exactas Fís. Natl. Ser. A Math. RACSAM 104(2), 375–412 (2010)Sullivan, F.: Geometrical properties determined by the higher duals of a Banach space. Illinois J. Math. 21, 315–331 (1977)Taylor, A.E.: The extension of linear functionals. Duke Math. J. 5, 538–547 (1939

Characterizing Interdisciplinarity of Researchers and Research Topics Using Web Search Engines

Researchers' networks have been subject to active modeling and analysis. Earlier literature mostly focused on citation or co-authorship networks reconstructed from annotated scientific publication databases, which have several limitations. Recently, general-purpose web search engines have also been utilized to collect information about social networks. Here we reconstructed, using web search engines, a network representing the relatedness of researchers to their peers as well as to various research topics. Relatedness between researchers and research topics was characterized by visibility boost-increase of a researcher's visibility by focusing on a particular topic. It was observed that researchers who had high visibility boosts by the same research topic tended to be close to each other in their network. We calculated correlations between visibility boosts by research topics and researchers' interdisciplinarity at individual level (diversity of topics related to the researcher) and at social level (his/her centrality in the researchers' network). We found that visibility boosts by certain research topics were positively correlated with researchers' individual-level interdisciplinarity despite their negative correlations with the general popularity of researchers. It was also found that visibility boosts by network-related topics had positive correlations with researchers' social-level interdisciplinarity. Research topics' correlations with researchers' individual- and social-level interdisciplinarities were found to be nearly independent from each other. These findings suggest that the notion of "interdisciplinarity" of a researcher should be understood as a multi-dimensional concept that should be evaluated using multiple assessment means.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in PLoS On

Changes in catastrophizing and kinesiophobia are predictive of changes in disability and pain after treatment in patients with anterior knee pain

Purpose. The purpose of the study was to investigate if changes in psychological variables are related to the outcome in pain and disability in patients with chronic anterior knee pain. Methods. A longitudinal observational study on 47 patients with chronic anterior knee pain was performed in a secondary healthcare setting. Pain was measured with the visual analogue scale and disability with the Lysholm scale. The psychological variables, such as anxiety, depression, pain coping strategies, catastrophizing and fear to movement beliefs, were studied by using self-administered questionnaires. Results. Among the pain coping strategies, only the catastrophizing subscale showed a significant reduction. Similarly, anxiety, depression and kinesiophobia were significantly reduced after treatment. Those patients who decreased the catastrophizing, kinesiophobia, anxiety and depression showed a greater improvement in pain and disability after a purely biomedical treatment. A multiple regression analysis revealed that changes in catastrophizing predicted the amount of improvement in pain severity and that changes in both catastrophizing and anxiety predicted changes in disability after treatment. Conclusion. What has been found suggests that clinical improvement in pain and disability is associated with a reduction in catastrophizing and kinesiophobia. Therefore, co-interventions to reduce catastrophizing thinking and kinesiophobia may enhance the results. Level of evidence. Prospective Cohort Study, Level I for prognosis

Smoking and health-related quality of life in English general population: Implications for economic evaluations

Copyright @ 2012 Vogl et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Little is known as to how health-related quality of life (HRQoL) when measured by generic instruments such as EQ-5D differ across smokers, ex-smokers and never-smokers in the general population; whether the overall pattern of this difference remain consistent in each domain of HRQoL; and what implications this variation, if any, would have for economic evaluations of tobacco control interventions. Methods: Using the 2006 round of Health Survey for England data (n = 13,241), this paper aims to examine the impact of smoking status on health-related quality of life in English population. Depending upon the nature of the EQ-5D data (i.e. tariff or domains), linear or logistic regression models were fitted to control for biology, clinical conditions, socio-economic background and lifestyle factors that an individual may have regardless of their smoking status. Age- and gender-specific predicted values according to smoking status are offered as the potential 'utility' values to be used in future economic evaluation models. Results: The observed difference of 0.1100 in EQ-5D scores between never-smokers (0.8839) and heavy-smokers (0.7739) reduced to 0.0516 after adjusting for biological, clinical, lifestyle and socioeconomic conditions. Heavy-smokers, when compared with never-smokers, were significantly more likely to report some/severe problems in all five domains - mobility (67%), self-care (70%), usual activity (42%), pain/discomfort (46%) and anxiety/depression (86%) -. 'Utility' values by age and gender for each category of smoking are provided to be used in the future economic evaluations. Conclusion: Smoking is significantly and negatively associated with health-related quality of life in English general population and the magnitude of this association is determined by the number of cigarettes smoked. The varying degree of this association, captured through instruments such as EQ-5D, may need to be fed into the design of future economic evaluations where the intervention being evaluated affects (e.g. tobacco control) or is affected (e.g. treatment for lung cancer) by individual's (or patients') smoking status

Effectiveness of the psychological and pharmacological treatment of catastrophization in patients with fibromyalgia: a randomized controlled trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Fibromyalgia is a prevalent and disabling disorder characterized by widespread pain and other symptoms such as insomnia, fatigue or depression. Catastrophization is considered a key clinical symptom in fibromyalgia; however, there are no studies on the pharmacological or psychological treatment of catastrophizing. The general aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness of cognitive-behaviour therapy and recommended pharmacological treatment for fibromyalgia (pregabalin, with duloxetine added where there is a comorbid depression), compared with usual treatment at primary care level.</p> <p>Method/design</p> <p><it>Design</it>: A multi-centre, randomized controlled trial involving three groups: the control group, consisting of usual treatment at primary care level, and two intervention groups, one consisting of cognitive-behaviour therapy, and the other consisting of the recommended pharmacological treatment for fibromyalgia.</p> <p><it>Setting</it>: 29 primary care health centres in the city of Zaragoza, Spain.</p> <p><it>Sample</it>: 180 patients, aged 18–65 years, able to understand and read Spanish, who fulfil criteria for primary fibromyalgia, with no previous psychological treatment, and no pharmacological treatment or their acceptance to discontinue it two weeks before the onset of the study.</p> <p><it>Intervention</it>: Psychological treatment is based on the manualized protocol developed by Prof. Escobar et al, from the University of New Jersey, for the treatment of somatoform disorders, which has been adapted by our group for the treatment of fibromyalgia. It includes 10 weekly sessions of cognitive-behaviour therapy. Pharmacological therapy consists of the recommended pharmacological treatment for fibromyalgia: pregabalin (300–600 mg/day), with duloxetine (60–120 mg/day) added where there is a comorbid depression).</p> <p><it>Measurements</it>: The following socio-demographic data will be collected: sex, age, marital status, education, occupation and social class. The diagnosis of psychiatric disorders will be made with the Structured Polyvalent Psychiatric Interview. Other instruments to be administered are the Pain Catastrophizing Scale, the Hamilton tests for Anxiety and for Depression, the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ), the EuroQuol-5 domains (EQ-5D), and the use of health and social services (CSRI). Assessments will be carried out at baseline, 1, 3, and 6 months.</p> <p><it>Main variable</it>: Pain catastrophizing.</p> <p><it>Analysis</it>: The analysis will be per intent to treat. We will use the general linear models of the SPSS version 15 statistical package, to analyse the effect of the treatment on the result variable (pain catastrophizing).</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>It is necessary to assess the effectiveness of pharmacological and psychological treatments for pain catastrophizing in fibromyalgia. This randomized clinical trial will determine whether both treatments are effective for this important prognostic variable in patients with fibromyalgia.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN10804772</p

A hot and fast ultra-stripped supernova that likely formed a compact neutron star binary.

Compact neutron star binary systems are produced from binary massive stars through stellar evolution involving up to two supernova explosions. The final stages in the formation of these systems have not been directly observed. We report the discovery of iPTF 14gqr (SN 2014ft), a type Ic supernova with a fast-evolving light curve indicating an extremely low ejecta mass (≈0.2 solar masses) and low kinetic energy (≈2 × 1050 ergs). Early photometry and spectroscopy reveal evidence of shock cooling of an extended helium-rich envelope, likely ejected in an intense pre-explosion mass-loss episode of the progenitor. Taken together, we interpret iPTF 14gqr as evidence for ultra-stripped supernovae that form neutron stars in compact binary systems