El género de milpiés Cylindroiulus Verhoeff, 1894 (Diplopoda: Julida; Julidae) en España: citas recientes y descripción de tres nuevas especies del País Vasco, Navarra, Andalucía y Cataluña

Two large collections of Cylindroiulus were examined (one from the Basque country and Navarra and one from Andalucía) supplemented by other, smaller collections from other areas of Spain; in total 10 species were represented. Three new species are described: C. caramelos sp. nov., C. elosegiorum sp. nov. and C. karinhansorum sp. nov. The remaining seven species are: C. londinensis (Leach, 1814), C. franzi Attems, 1952, C. punctatus (Leach, 1815), C. pyrenaicus Brölemann, 1897, C. sagittarius Brölemann, 1897, C. sanctimichaelis Attems, 1927 and C. unciger Attems, 1952. Information has been presented on these species where this has added to that previously available. Comments have been made on the challenging londinensis-group which seems particularly specious in the Iberian Peninsula. Suggestions are made for further work on this group include genetic studies. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:434E20C9-F7E3-49F9-86E7-D3EABAEBC9C4Se han examinado dos cuantiosas colecciones de Cylindroiulus (una del País Vasco y Navarra y otra de Andalucía), y se han suplementado con otras, más pequeñas, de otras áreas de España; en total se han encontrado 10 especies. Se han descrito tres nuevas especies: C. caramelos sp. nov., C. elosegiorum sp. nov. y C. karinhansorum sp. nov. Las otras siete especies fueron: C. londinensis (Leach, 1814), C. franzi Attems, 1952, C. punctatus (Leach, 1815), C. pyrenaicus Brölemann, 1897, C. sagittarius Brölemann, 1897, C. sanctimichaelis Attems, 1927 y C. unciger Attems, 1952. Se presenta información sobre esas especies, añadiéndola a la ya disponible. Se hacen comentarios sobre el difícil grupo londinensis, que parece ser especialmente rico en especies en la península ibérica. Se sugieren futuras líneas de investigación para este grupo, incluyendo estudios genéticos

Childhood abuse and the content of delusions

Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01452134 Copyright Elsevier Ltd.We aimed to investigate possible associations between histories of childhood abuse and the content of delusions for individuals with psychotic disorders. 39 participants with a psychotic disorder including one or more delusional beliefs successfully completed structured interviews about childhood trauma, delusional beliefs and associated anomalous perceptual experiences including hallucinations. The presence of hallucinations was predicted by greater physical abuse. Greater abuse in general was associated with delusions involving ‘special abilities’ (grandiosity) and, at trend levels, with those involving ‘defective self’. Though preliminary, these results suggest that further investigation is warranted. The presence and nature of abuse may be relevant to delusional presentations and should form an essential part of clinical assessment of psychotic disorder.Peer reviewe

Staying on, and coming off, antidepressants: the experiences of 752 UKadults.

Introduction. Prescription rates for antidepressants (ADs) are high and continue to increase, despite evidence of significant adverse effects, including withdrawal symptoms, and marginal benefit relative to placebo only for short-term treatment of major depression. Such high rates seem to be explicable more in terms of long term usage and repeat prescribing rather than by increases in depression or new patients. Method. This paper reports the responses of a convenience sample of 752 people who had taken antidepressants, but no other psychiatric drugs, ‘within the last two years’ and completed the Medications for Mental Health Survey online in the UK. Results. Most participants had either come off antidepressants (34%) or had tried and failed (36%). Of those still taking them 76% had been doing so for at least a year and 36% for five years or more. 26% expected to take them forever. About half (48%) did not have their drugs reviewed at least every three months. Most (65%) had never had a discussion with the prescriber about coming off. Nearly half (45%) of those who had stopped the drugs had done so without consulting their doctor. However, of those who came off after consulting their doctor, the majority (65%) experienced the doctor to be supportive. Conclusions. The findings are consistent with the idea that high rates are largely explicable by chronic usage, which in turn is partially explained by withdrawal symptoms. Prescribers should strive to establish collaborative relationships in which patients are fully informed about withdrawal effects and their views, about starting and finishing medication, should be explored and valued

Applying missing data methods to routine data using the example of a population-based register of patients with diabetes

Background: Routinely-collected data offer great potential for epidemiological research and could be used to make randomised controlled trials (RCTs) more efficient. The use of routine data for research has been limited by concerns surrounding data quality, particularly data completeness. To fully exploit these information-rich data sources it is necessary to identify approaches capable of overcoming high proportions of missing data. Using a 2008 extract of the Scottish Care Information – Diabetes Collaboration (SCIDC) database, a population-based register of people with a diagnosis of diabetes in Scotland, I compared the findings of several methods for handling missing data in a retrospective cohort study investigating the association between body mass index (BMI) and all-cause mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods: Discussions with clinicians and logistic regression analyses were used to determine the likely mechanisms of missingness and the relative appropriateness of a selection of missing data methods, such as multiple imputation. Sequentially more complicated imputation approaches were used to handle missing data. Cox proportional hazard model coefficients for the association between BMI and all-cause mortality were compared for each missing data method. Age-standardised mortality rates by categories of BMI at around the time of diagnosis were also presented. Results: There were 66,472 patients diagnosed with type 2 DM between 2004 and 2008. Of these patients, 21% of patients did not have a recording of BMI at time of diagnosis. Amongst patients with complete BMI data, there were 5,491 deaths during 296,584 person years of follow-up. Amongst patients with incomplete data, there were 2,090 deaths during 79,067 person-years of follow-up. Analyses indicated that the primary mechanism of missingness was missing at random, conditional on patient year of diagnosis and vital status. In particular, patients with missing data had considerably worse survival than patients without missing data. Regardless of the method for handling the missing data, a U-shaped relationship between BMI and mortality was observed. Compared to complete case analysis, the association between BMI and alliii cause mortality was weaker using multiple imputation approaches with estimates moving towards the null. Closest observation imputation had the smallest effect on estimates compared to complete case analysis. Risk of mortality was consistently highest in the less than 25kg/m² BMI group. For example, estimates obtained using multiple imputation using chained equations indicated that patients with a BMI below 25kg/m² had a 38% higher risk of mortality than patients in the 25 to less than 30kg/m² BMI category. Conclusions: Alternative methods to complete case analysis can be computationally intensive with many important practical considerations. However, it remains valuable to explore the robustness of estimates to departures from the assumptions made by complete case analysis. The use of these methods can preserve the sample size and therefore may be useful in developing risk prediction scores. Mortality was lowest amongst overweight or obese patients relative to normal weight. Further work is required to identify optimal approaches to weight management amongst patients with diabetes

The Management of Trees in the Wood Pasture Systems of South East England

This chapter outlines the history and past management of trees within the wood pasture systems of South East England. Changes over time are discussed, and the challenges that the trees now face are outlined along with some potential solutions. Wood pasture was a common and traditional form of management in South East England although the conservation significance of it has only recently been realised. The types of wood pasture included wooded commons, Forests and parks, all of which have quite precise historical meanings. Many trees in wood pastures were managed as pollards, probably mainly for fuel wood, but some were open-grown. The number of trees has declined, and the area of wood pasture has diminished due to development pressure and agricultural intensification. Despite this, the area remains important in a European context for the number of old trees. In addition, lack of traditional management is a threat to tree and wood pasture survival. Restoration of grazing using traditional livestock is an important first step. New skills are required to work on trees that have been left many years out of a regular pollarding cycle, and new uses for the products will be important to help these trees become relevant again

The interpersonal adverse effects reported by 1008 users of antidepressants; and the incremental impact of polypharmacy

Antidepressant drugs are being prescribed at ever increasing rates internationally, despite marginal benefit compared to placebo and a range of adverse effects. Most studies of adverse effects focus on biological phenomena. This article presents the results of an online survey of 1008 self-selected anti-depressant users in Britain, which asked about five adverse effects in the interpersonal domain. The most commonly reported among participants who took only antidepressants were: Sex Life – 43.7%, Work or Study – 27.0% and Social Life – 23.5%. These rates of interpersonal adverse effects were even higher for the 52% of participants who were also taking one or more other psychiatric drugs. Only about a half (48%) felt they had been given enough information about side effects by the prescriber. Those initially prescribed medication by a psychiatrist were more likely to be on several types of drugs and reported more adverse effects than those whose prescriber was a General Practitioner (GP). Researchers and prescribers are encouraged to pay greater attention to interpersonal adverse effects

Effectiveness of appropriately trained nurses in preoperative assessment: randomised controlled equivalence/non-inferiority trial

Objective To determine whether preoperative assessments carried out by appropriately trained nurses are inferior in quality to those carried out by preregistration house officers. Design Randomised controlled equivalence/non-inferiority trial. Setting Four NHS hospitals in three trusts. Three of the four were teaching hospitals. Participants All patients attending for assessment before general anaesthesia for general, vascular, urological, or breast surgery between April 1998 and March 1999. Intervention Assessment by one of three appropriately trained nurses or by one of several preregistration house officers. Main outcome measures History taken, physical examination, and investigations ordered. Measures evaluated by a specialist registrar in anaesthetics and placed in four categories: correct, overassessment, underassessment not affecting management, and underassessment possibly affecting management (primary outcome). Results 1907 patients were randomised, and 1874 completed the study; 926 were assessed by house officers and 948 by nurses. Overall 121/948 (13%) assessments carried out by nurses were judged to have possibly affected management compared with 138/926 (15%) of those performed by house officers. Nurses were judged to be non-inferior to house officers in assessment, although there was variation among them in terms of the quality of history taking. The house officers ordered considerably more unnecessary tests than the nurses (218/926 (24%) v 129/948 (14%). Conclusions There is no reason to inhibit the development of nurse led preoperative assessment provided that the nurses involved receive adequate training. However, house officers will continue to require experience in preoperative assessment

Yes we can! Implementing digitization requests in Alma

Enabling patron digitization requests is one of those (new) exciting services that end users appreciate! Alma allows patrons and staff members to request the creation of a digital file for any physical or electronic item. Alma digitization request workflow is configurable according to the library’s requirements, created via Alma or Primo, partial or full, limited to some user groups, limited in numbers, with or without approval process, digitized materials added to collections and made accessible to registered and/or guest users via Primo, etc. So Alma libraries can deal with a lot of different options to satisfy their patrons' needs. This session will present the development and launch of digital fulfillment from the perspective of 3 institutions (the University of Otago Library, the University of Liege Library, and the University of Sheffield Library) focusing on the strategic choices that were made, the implementation, and the final delivery of the services to their communities

A randomised controlled trial and cost-effectiveness evaluation of 'booster' interventions to sustain increases in physical activity in middle-aged adults in deprived urban neighbourhoods

Background: More evidence is needed on the potential role of 'booster' interventions in the maintenance of increases in physical activity levels after a brief intervention in relatively sedentary populations. Objectives: To determine whether objectively measured physical activity, 6 months after a brief intervention, is increased in those receiving physical activity 'booster' consultations delivered in a motivational interviewing (MI) style, either face to face or by telephone. Design: Three-arm, parallel-group, pragmatic, superiority randomised controlled trial with nested qualitative research fidelity and geographical information systems and health economic substudies. Treatment allocation was carried out using a web-based simple randomisation procedure with equal allocation probabilities. Principal investigators and study statisticians were blinded to treatment allocation until after the final analysis only. Setting: Deprived areas of Sheffield, UK. Participants: Previously sedentary people, aged 40-64 years, living in deprived areas of Sheffield, UK, who had increased their physical activity levels after receiving a brief intervention. Interventions: Participants were randomised to the control group (no further intervention) or to two sessions of MI, either face to face ('full booster') or by telephone ('mini booster'). Sessions were delivered 1 and 2 months post-randomisation. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome was total energy expenditure (TEE) per day in kcal from 7-day accelerometry, measured using an Actiheart device (CamNtech Ltd, Cambridge, UK). Independent evaluation of practitioner competence was carried out using the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity assessment. An estimate of the per-participant intervention costs, resource use data collected by questionnaire and health-related quality of life data were analysed to produce a range of economic models from a short-term NHS perspective. An additional series of models were developed that used TEE values to estimate the long-term cost-effectiveness. Results: In total, 282 people were randomised (control = 96; mini booster = 92, full booster = 94) of whom 160 had a minimum of 4 out of 7 days' accelerometry data at 3 months (control = 61, mini booster = 47, full booster = 52). The mean difference in TEE per day between baseline and 3 months favoured the control arm over the combined booster arm but this was not statistically significant (-39 kcal, 95% confidence interval -173 to 95, p = 0.57). The autonomy-enabled MI communication style was generally acceptable, although some participants wanted a more paternalistic approach and most expressed enthusiasm for monitoring and feedback components of the intervention and research. Full boosters were more popular than mini boosters. Practitioners achieved and maintained a consistent level of MI competence. Walking distance to the nearest municipal green space or leisure facilities was not associated with physical activity levels. Two alternative modelling approaches both suggested that neither intervention was likely to be cost-effective. Conclusions: Although some individuals do find a community-based, brief MI 'booster' intervention supportive, the low levels of recruitment and retention and the lack of impact on objectively measured physical activity levels in those with adequate outcome data suggest that it is unlikely to represent a clinically effective or cost-effective intervention for the maintenance of recently acquired physical activity increases in deprived middle-aged urban populations. Future research with middle-aged and relatively deprived populations should explore interventions to promote physical activity that require less proactive engagement from individuals, including environmental interventions