The Colombian conflict: a description of a mental health program in the Department of Tolima.

Colombia has been seriously affected by an internal armed conflict for more than 40 years affecting mainly the civilian population, who is forced to displace, suffers kidnapping, extortion, threats and assassinations. Between 2005 and 2008, Médecins Sans Frontières-France provided psychological care and treatment in the region of Tolima, a strategic place in the armed conflict. The mental health program was based on a short-term multi-faceted treatment developed according to the psychological and psychosomatic needs of the population. Here we describe the population attending during 2005-2008, in both urban and rural settings, as well as the psychological treatment provided during this period and its outcomes.We observed differences between the urban and rural settings in the traumatic events reported, the clinical expression of the disorders, the disorders diagnosed, and their severity. Although the duration of the treatment was limited due to security reasons and access difficulties, patient condition at last visit improved in most of the patients. These descriptive results suggest that further studies should be conducted to examine the role of short-term psychotherapy, adapted specifically to the context, can be a useful tool to provide psychological care to population affected by an armed conflict

Malaria or kalimbe: how to choose?

Should the Kalimbe (a traditional Amerindian loincloth) be banned, based on its association with an increased risk of malaria? Studies on malaria conducted on Amerindian children in the Oyapock region, French Guiana suggest that there is an argument for replacing the Kalimbe with a modern alternative. However, the wider issue of how the positive (risk reduction and related benefits) and negative effects (exacerbation of acculturation processes and associated consequences) should be assessed needs to be considered before suggesting a change in ancestral behaviour for medical purposes. A multidisciplinary approach is needed, together with caution and humility from epidemiologists

Development of a PCI Express Based Readout Electronics for the XPAD3 X-Ray Photon Counting Image

International audienceXPAD3 is a large surface X-ray photon counting imager with high count rates, large counter dynamics and very fast data readout. Data are readout in parallel by a PCI Express interface using DMA transfer. The readout frame rate of the complete detector comprising 0.5 MPixels amounts to 500 images per second without dead-time

Experimental evidence for multi-pass extraction with a bent crystal

The feasibility of extracting particles from the halo of a circulating proton beam using a bent silicon crystal has been demonstrated experimentally at the SPS for a beam energy of 120 GeV. Presently studies are conducted to understand the extraction mechanisms and the measured efficiencies. In particular the contribution of multi-pass extraction, where the particles can pass through the crystal many times before being channelled and extracted, is investigated. In a recent experiment, using a crystal especially fabricated with a finite amorphous layer on its surface, it has been proven that multi-pass extraction plays an important role. The experiment is described and the implication for further studies are discussed

Probing the 6He halo structure with elastic and inelastic proton scattering

Proton elastic scattering and inelastic scattering to the first excited state of 6He have been measured over a wide angular range using a 40.9A MeV 6He beam. The data have been analyzed with a fully microscopic model of proton-nucleus scattering using 6He wave functions generated from large space shell model calculations. The inelastic scattering data show a remarkable sensitivity to the halo structure of 6He.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures. RevTeX. Replaced figure 3 with updated figur

Coupling effects in the elastic scattering of 6^{6}He on 12^{12}C

To study the effect of the weak binding energy on the interaction potential between a light exotic nucleus and a target, elastic scattering of 6He at 38.3 MeV/nucleon on a 12C target was measured at Grand Accélérateur National d'Ions Lourds (GANIL). The 6He beam was produced by fragmentation. The detection of the scattered particles was performed by the GANIL spectrometer. The energy resolution was good enough to separate elastic from inelastic scattering contributions. The measured elastic data have been analyzed within the optical model, with the real part of the optical potential calculated in the double-folding model using a realistic density-dependent nucleon-nucleon interaction and the imaginary part taken in the conventional Woods-Saxon (WS) form. A failure of the "bare" real folded potential to reproduce the measured angular distribution over the whole angular range suggests quite a strong coupling of the higher-order breakup channels to the elastic channel. To estimate the strength of the breakup effects, a complex surface potential with a repulsive real part (designed to simulate the polarization effects caused by the projectile breakup) was added to the real folded and imaginary WS potentials. A realistic estimate of the polarization potential caused by the breakup of the weakly bound 6He was made based on a parallel study of 6He+12C and 6Li+12C optical potentials at about the same energies