Distinct dimensions of anxiety and depression: anxiety and rumination differentially predict depressed mood and low positive affect

Rumination is an important transdiagnostic construct associated with both anxiety and depression. However, relationships among the three constructs have mainly been investigated using non-domain-specific self-report inventories, which index overlapping symptoms and do not distinguish well between fundamentally distinct dimensions of anxiety (anxious apprehension and anxious arousal) and depression (depressed mood and low positive affect). The present study investigated relationships among distinct anxiety dimensions, rumination, and depression dimensions using domain-specific inventories. Results indicated that anxiety dimensions of anxious apprehension and anxious arousal have differential relationships with depression dimensions of depressed mood and low positive affect. Furthermore, anxious apprehension and rumination have independent associations with both depressed mood and low positive affect, signifying that the former two are distinct and separable constructs. These results were further validated by confirmatory analyses, which indicated that the distinguishable associations among the constructs are not a result of item overlap among the scales. These findings implicate the importance of respecting the domain specificity of these constructs in examining mechanisms and pathways in the development of psychopathology

Ordered reduced set successive detector for low complexity, quasi-ML MIMO detection

An Ordered Reduced Set Successive Detector (RSSD) for the V-BLAST spatial multiplexing scheme that uses a general two-dimensional non-uniform set partitioning for different symbols. The detector provides improved diversity and SNR gains at reduced complexity compared to a uniform set partitioning based detector. The detector can be used to reduce the complexity, with a small tradeoff in performance. Further, it is possible to obtain a quasi-ML performance using the disclosed detector at a reduced, yet fixed, complexity

Influenza vaccination for NHS staff: attitudes and uptake.

OBJECTIVES: Annual vaccination against influenza (flu) is recommended for all UK National Health Service (NHS) staff to help reduce the risk of contracting the virus and transmitting it to patients. However, despite flu campaigns and vaccination promotion, uptake remains low. The aim of this study was to investigate staff attitudes to flu vaccination to see how this may influence their decision to be vaccinated. METHODS: An online survey was sent to staff members across 6 NHS trusts, asking if staff had been vaccinated in the preceding flu season (2013-2014); the survey included questions about beliefs and attitudes to the vaccination, scored on a 5-point Likert scale. RESULTS: 3059 NHS staff members responded to the survey (86% in the 26-59 age group, 77% female and 84% hospital based). 68% of respondents reported being vaccinated in the preceding year. Using a stepwise regression model, the survey response retained as a positive predictor of having been vaccinated was people working in healthcare should have the flu vaccination every year (p<0.001), and the responses retained as negative predictors were the flu vaccination will make me unwell (p<0.001) and the flu vaccination was too much trouble for me (p<0.001). Analysis by staff group showed a significant difference in the response to the flu vaccination will make me unwell between groups (p=0.01), with doctors having a greater tendency to disagree with this statement than other staff members. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that addressing NHS staff beliefs around the need for vaccination, while ensuring that practical barriers to having the vaccination are removed, may help to increase uptake. An emphasis on alleviating the concerns of particular staff groups regarding adverse effects of the vaccine may also be of benefit in improving uptake, to protect patients as well as staff

Applying total interpretive structural modeling to study factors affecting construction labour productivity

Construction sector has always been dependent on manpower. Most of the activities carried out on any construction site are labour intensive. Since productivity of any project depends directly on productivity of labour, it is a prime responsibility of the employer to enhance labour productivity. Measures to improve the same depend on analysis of positive and negative factors affecting productivity. Major attention should be given to factors that decrease the productivity of labour. Factor analysis thus is an integral part of any study aiming to improve productivity.  Interpretive structural modeling is a methodology for identifying and summarizing relationships among factors which define an issue or problem. It provides a means to arrange the factors in an order as per their complexity. This study attempts to use the latest version of interpretive structural modeling i.e. total interpretive structural modeling to analyze factors negatively affecting construction labour productivity. It establishes interpretive relationship among these factors facilitating improvement in the overall productivity of construction site

Lung function indices for predicting mortality in COPD

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterised by high morbidity and mortality. It remains unknown which aspect of lung function carries the most prognostic information and if simple spirometry is sufficient. Survival was assessed in COPD outpatients whose data had been added prospectively to a clinical audit database from the point of first full lung function testing including spirometry, lung volumes, gas transfer and arterial blood gases. Variables univariately associated with survival were entered into a multivariate Cox proportional hazard model. 604 patients were included (mean±sd age 61.9±9.7 years; forced expiratory volume in 1 s 37±18.1% predicted; 62.9% males); 229 (37.9%) died during a median follow-up of 83 months. Median survival was 91.9 (95% CI 80.8–103) months with survival rates at 3 and 5 years 0.83 and 0.66, respectively. Carbon monoxide transfer factor % pred quartiles (best quartile (>51%): HR 0.33, 95% CI 0.172–0.639; and second quartile (51–37.3%): HR 0.52, 95% CI 0.322–0.825; versus lowest quartile (<27.9%)), age (HR 1.04, 95% CI 1.02–1.06) and arterial oxygen partial pressure (HR 0.85, 95% CI 0.77–0.94) were the only parameters independently associated with mortality. Measurement of gas transfer provides additional prognostic information compared to spirometry in patients under hospital follow-up and could be considered routinely

Evaluation of conventional, protaper hand and protaper rotary instrumentation system for apical extrusion of debris, irrigants and bacteria- An in vitro randomized trial

Endodontic instrumentation carries the risk of over extrusion of debris and bacteria. The technique used and the type of instrumentation influences this risk. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the K-file, ProTaper hand and ProTaper rotary instrumentation systems for the amount of apically extruded debris, irrigant solution and intracanal bacteria. Experimental single blinded randomized type of in vitro study with sample of 30 single rooted teeth. Endodontic access cavities were prepared and the root canals were filled with the suspension of E. faecalis. Myers and Montogomery Model was used to collect apically extruded debris and irrigant. Canals were prepared using K files, Hand protapers and Protaper rotary files. Non Parametric test like Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U test were applied to determine the significant differences among the group. Tests revealed statistically significant difference between the amount of debris and number of bacteria extruded by the ProTaper hand and the K-files. No statistically significant difference was observed between the amounts of irrigant extruded by the ProTaper hand and the K-file system. Statistically significant differences were observed between the amounts of bacteria and irrigant extruded by the ProTaper rotary and the Protaper hand. No statistically significant difference was observed between the amounts of debris extruded by the ProTaper hand and the K-file system. Amount of apical extrusion of irrigant solution, bacteria and debris are significantly greater with K File instruments and least with Protaper rotary instruments

Modeling and analysis of hospital facility layout problem

The optimal solution to any facility layout problem is an important aspect and a major concem as it involves significant material handling and transportation cost. The objective is to arrange the departments within the predefined facility boundaries in the way that the interaction between the functions is efficient and the overall movement cost is minimized. While facility layout problems have traditionally focused on manufacturing facilities, there has been little work on analyzing layouts for hospitals. The thesis focuses on hospital facility layout problems (HLP) to (i) minimize the movements of patients and (ii) minimize the movements of accompanying resources such as doctors, nurses, equipment and paramedical staff. The thesis consists of two sections. In the first section, a model for the multi-floor layout problem is presented based on the minimization of movement cost. The model has travel frequency or number of trips, trip difficulty rating, baseline travel cost and distance as parameters for determining the movement cost. In the second section, some additional parameters and constraints are imposed on the model and it is simulated using Microsoft Excel. Simulations are also run to study the effect of different proposed strategies on movement cost. These proposed strategies show a reduction in movement cost from the sample layout strategy in section one. A representative example is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed formulation

Simultaneous diophantine approximation with quadratic and linear forms

Let Q be a nondegenerate indefinite quadratic form on Rn, n≥3, which is not a scalar multiple of a rational quadratic form, and let CQ={v∈Rn|Q(v)=0}. We show that given v1∈CQ, for almost all v∈CQ\Rv1 the following holds: for any a∈R, any affine plane P parallel to the plane of v1 and v, and ∈&gt;0 there exist primitive integral n-tuples x within ∈ distance of P for which |Q(x)-a|&lt;∈. An analogous result is also proved for almost all lines on CQ

Scanning Single Shot Detector for Math in Document Images

We introduce the Scanning Single Shot Detector (ScanSSD) for detecting both embedded and displayed math expressions in document images using a single-stage network that does not require page layout, font, or, character information. ScanSSD uses sliding windows to generate sub-images of large document page images rendered at 600 dpi and applies Single Shot Detector (SSD) on each sub-image. Detection results from sub-images are pooled to generate page-level results. For pooling sub-image level detections, we introduce new methods based on the confidence scores and density of detections. ScanSSD is a modular architecture that can be easily applied to detecting other objects in document images. For the math expression detection task, we have created a new dataset called TFD-ICDAR 2019 from the existing GTDB datasets. Our dataset has 569 pages for training with 26,396 math expressions and 236 pages for testing with 11,885 math expressions. ScanSSD achieves an 80.19% F-score at IOU50 and a 72.96% F-score at IOU75 on TFD-ICDAR 2019 test dataset. An earlier version of ScanSSD placed 2nd in the ICDAR 2019 competition on the Typeset Formula Detection (TFD). Our data and code are publicly available at https://github.com/MaliParag/TFD-ICDAR2019 and https://github.com/MaliParag/ScanSSD, respectively

Thermal Dissolution of Lignite Under Hydrogen Pressure

The hydrogenation-solution reaction of North Dakota lignite was studied with various organic solvents in a batch microautoclave at reaction conditions of 740 degrees F. and 1500 psig. initial hydrogen pressure. The solvents included aliphatic, aromatic, cycloparaffinic, heterocyclic, phenolic and amino compounds. The extent of dissolution was measured from the amount of residue retained on an asbestos filter-mat after it was washed and dried. It was found that the hydroaromatic compounds were very effective, giving more than 70 percent solubilization of lignite in solution reaction. Four lignites from different mines in the Northern Great Plains Provinces were dissolved in tetralin at the same operating conditions to study the effect of composition of lignite on the solution reaction. Lignites studied ranged from 71 percent to 82 percent solubilization. There was no evident correlation between the extent of solubilization and the proximate analysis. Also, the percent solubilization and the heating value of lignite did not show any correlation in the samples studied