798 research outputs found
Psychological Impact of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Among Italians During the First Week of Lockdown
Pandemics and government-mandated quarantining measures have a substantial impact on mental health. This study investigated the psychological impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis on Italian residents during the first week of government-imposed lockdown and the role of defense mechanisms as protective factors against distress. In this cross-sectional study, 5,683 Italians responded to an online survey assessing socio-demographics, overall psychological distress, post-traumatic symptoms, and defense mechanisms using validated measures as the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90), the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), and the Defense Mechanisms Rating Scale-Self-Report-30 (DMRS-SR-30). Data were collected from March 13 to March 18, within the first week of lockdown in Italy. Results showed that younger age and female gender were associated with increased psychological distress. Having positive cases nearby, more days on lockdown, and having to relocate were also associated with greater distress. Higher overall defensive functioning (ODF) was associated with lower levels of depression (r = â.44, 95% CI â0.48, â0.40), anxiety (r = â.38, 95% CI â0.42, â0.35), and post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) (r = â.34, 95% CI â0.38, â0.30). Conversely, less adaptive defensive functioning was related to greater affective distress across all domains. Each increased unit of ODF decreased the chances of developing post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) by 71% (odds ratio = 0.29, p < 0.001, 95% CI.026,.032). The psychological impact of COVID-19 among Italians during the early weeks of government lockdown has been significant. The pandemic continues to have extraordinary mental health impact as it moves across the globe. Given the salience of defensive functioning in psychological distress, consideration of interventions that foster the use of more adaptive defenses may be an important component of building resilience amidst a pandemic
Using evolutionary demography to link life history theory, quantitative genetics and population ecology
1. There is a growing number of empirical reports of environmental change simultaneously influencing population dynamics, life history and quantitative characters. We do not have a well-developed understanding of links between the dynamics of these quantities
Embodied learning: Responding to AIDS in Lesotho's education sector
This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Children's Geographies, 7(1), 2009. Copyright @ 2009 Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14733280802630981.In contrast to pre-colonial practices, education in Lesotho's formal school system has historically assumed a Cartesian separation of mind and body, the disciplining of students' bodies serving principally to facilitate cognitive learning. Lesotho has among the highest HIV-prevalence rates worldwide, and AIDS has both direct and indirect impacts on the bodies of many children. Thus, students' bodies can no longer be taken for granted but present a challenge for education. Schools are increasingly seen as a key point of intervention to reduce young people's risk of contracting the disease and also to assist them to cope with its consequences: there is growing recognition that such goals require more than cognitive learning. The approaches adopted, however, range from those that posit a linear and causal relationship between knowledge, attitudes and practices (so-called âKAPâ approaches, in which the role of schools is principally to inculcate the pre-requisite knowledge) to âlife skills programmesâ that advocate a more embodied learning practice in schools. Based on interviews with policy-makers and practitioners and a variety of documentary sources, this paper examines a series of school-based AIDS interventions, arguing that they represent a less radical departure from âeducation for the mindâ than might appear to be the case. The paper concludes that most interventions serve to cast on children responsibility for averting a social risk, and to ânormaliseâ aberrant children's bodies to ensure they conform to what the cognitively-oriented education system expects
The discursive construction of childhood and youth in AIDS interventions in Lesotho's education sector: Beyond global-local dichotomies
This is the post-print version of this article. The definitive, peer-reviewed and edited version of this article is published in Environment and Planning D,Society and Space 28(5) 791 â 810, 2010, available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 Pion.In southern Africa interventions to halt the spread of AIDS and address its social impacts are commonly targeted at young people, in many cases through the education sector. In Lesotho, education-sector responses to AIDS are the product of negotiation between a range of âlocalâ and âglobalâ actors. Although many interventions are put forward as government policy and implemented by teachers in schools, funding is often provided by bilateral and multilateral donors, and the international âAIDS industryââin the form of UN agencies and international NGOsâsets agendas and makes prescriptions. This paper analyses interviews conducted with policy makers and practitioners in Lesotho and a variety of documents, critically examining the discourses of childhood and youth that are mobilised in producing changes in education policy and practice to address AIDS. Focusing on bursary schemes, life-skills education, and rights-based approaches, the paper concludes that, although dominant âglobalâ discourses are readily identified, they are not simply imported wholesale from the West, but rather are transformed through the organisations and personnel involved in designing and implementing interventions. Nonetheless, the connections through which these discourses are made, and children are subjectified, are central to the power dynamics of neoliberal globalisation. Although the representations of childhood and youth produced through the interventions are hybrid products of local and global discourses, the power relations underlying them are such that they, often unintentionally, serve a neoliberal agenda by depicting young people as individuals in need of saving, of developing personal autonomy, or of exercising individual rights.RGS-IB
A Great Escape : resource availability and density-dependence shape population dynamics along trailing range edges
This research was funded by the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, which is managed by the USGS National Climate Adaptation Science Center. Additional funding was provided by 1) a CFDA grant (15.678) administered by the USFWS via a Cooperative Agreement Award (no. F16AC00435) to the University of Massachusetts (UMass); 2) a Challenge Cost Share Agreement (no. 14-CS-11092200-019) between the USFS and NHFG; 3) a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant awarded to APKS by the UMass Graduate School, 4) generous support from backers of an Experiment award to APKS and MZ (DOI: 10.18258/10737) and 5) a National Science Foundation grant DEB-1907022 to LSM.Populations along geographical range limits are often exposed to unsuitable climate and low resource availability relative to core populations. As such, there has been a renewed focus on understanding the factors that determine range limits to better predict how species will respond to global change. Using recent theory on range limits and classical understanding of density dependence, we evaluated the influence of resource availability on the snowshoe hare Lepus americanus along its trailing range edge. We estimated variation in population density, habitat use, survival, and parasite loads to test the Great Escape Hypothesis (GEH), i.e. that density dependence determines, in part, a species' persistence along trailing edges. We found that variability in resource availability affected density and population fluctuations and led to trade-offs in survival for snowshoe hare populations in the northeastern USA. Hares living in resource-limited environments had lower and less variable population density, yet higher survival and lower parasitism compared to populations living in resource-rich environments. We suggest that density-dependent dynamics, elicited by resource availability, provide hares a unique survival advantage and partly explain persistence along their trailing edge. We hypothesize that this low-density escape from predation and parasitism occurs for other prey species along trailing edges, but the extent to which it occurs is likely conditional on the quality of matrix habitat. Our work indicates that biotic factors play an important role in shaping species' trailing edges and more detailed examination of non-climatic factors is warranted to better inform conservation and management decisions.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
Trust, openness and continuity of care influence acceptance of antibiotics for children with respiratory tract infections: a four country qualitative study
Background. Clinicianâparent interaction and health system influences on parental acceptance of prescribing decisions for children with respiratory tract infections (RTIs) may be important determinants of antibiotic use.
Objective. To achieve a deeper understanding of parentsâ acceptance, or otherwise, of cliniciansâ antibiotic prescribing decisions for children with RTIs.
Methods. Qualitative interviews with parents of child patients who had recently consulted in primary care with a RTI in four European countries, with a five-stage analytic framework approach (familiarization, developing a thematic framework from interview questions and emerging themes, indexing, charting and interpretation).
Results. Fifty of 63 parents accepted cliniciansâ management decisions, irrespective of antibiotic prescription. There were no notable differences between networks. Parents ascribed their acceptance to a trusting and open clinicianâpatient relationship, enhanced through continuity of care, in which parents felt able to express their views. There was a lack of congruence about antibiotics between parents and clinicians in 13 instances, mostly when parents disagreed about cliniciansâ decision to prescribe (10 accounts) rather than objecting to withholding antibiotics (three accounts). All but one parent adhered to the prescribing decision, although some modified how the antibiotic was administered.
Conclusions. Parents from contrasting countries indicated that continuity of care, open communication in consultations and clinicianâpatient trust was important in acceptance of management of RTI in their children and in motivating adherence. Interventions to promote appropriate antibiotic use in children should consider a focus on eliciting parentsâ perspectives and promoting and building on continuity of care within a trusting clinicianâpatient relationship
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Ecological theatre and the evolutionary game: how environmental and demographic factors determine payoffs in evolutionary games
In the standard approach to evolutionary games and replicator dynamics, differences in fitness can be interpreted as an excess from the mean Malthusian growth rate in the population. In the underlying reasoning, related to an analysis of "costs" and "benefits", there is a silent assumption that fitness can be described in some type of units. However, in most cases these units of measure are not explicitly specified. Then the question arises: are these theories testable? How can we measure "benefit" or "cost"? A natural language, useful for describing and justifying comparisons of strategic "cost" versus "benefits", is the terminology of demography, because the basic events that shape the outcome of natural selection are births and deaths. In this paper, we present the consequences of an explicit analysis of births and deaths in an evolutionary game theoretic framework. We will investigate different types of mortality pressures, their combinations and the possibility of trade-offs between mortality and fertility. We will show that within this new approach it is possible to model how strictly ecological factors such as density dependence and additive background fitness, which seem neutral in classical theory, can affect the outcomes of the game. We consider the example of the Hawk-Dove game, and show that when reformulated in terms of our new approach new details and new biological predictions are produced
Determination of the Gamow-Teller Quenching Factor from Charge Exchange Reactions on 90Zr
Double differential cross sections between 0-12 degrees were measured for the
90Zr(n,p) reaction at 293 MeV over a wide excitation energy range of 0-70 MeV.
A multipole decomposition technique was applied to the present data as well as
the previously obtained 90Zr(p,n) data to extract the Gamow-Teller (GT)
component from the continuum. The GT quenching factor Q was derived by using
the obtained total GT strengths. The result is Q=0.88+/-0.06 not including an
overall normalization uncertainty in the GT unit cross section of 16%.Comment: 11 papes, 4 figures, submitted to Physics Letters B (accepted),
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Light Hadron Masses from Lattice QCD
This article reviews lattice QCD results for the light hadron spectrum. We
give an overview of different formulations of lattice QCD, with discussions on
the fermion doubling problem and improvement programs. We summarize recent
developments in algorithms and analysis techniques, that render calculations
with light, dynamical quarks feasible on present day computer resources.
Finally, we summarize spectrum results for ground state hadrons and resonances
using various actions.Comment: 53 pages, 24 figures, one table; Rev.Mod.Phys. (published version);
v2: corrected typ
Damping mechanisms of the Delta resonance in nuclei
The damping mechanisms of the Delta(1232) resonance in nuclei are studied by
analyzing the quasi-free decay reactions 12C(pi+,pi+ p)11B and 12C(3He,t pi+
p)11B and the 2p emission reactions 12C(pi+,pp)10B and 12C(3He,t pp)10B. The
coincidence cross sections are calculated within the framework of the
isobar-hole model. It is found that the 2p emission process induced by the
decay of the Delta resonance in the nucleus can be consistently described by a
pi+rho+g' model for the Delta+N -> N+N decay interaction.Comment: 9 pages, 5 Postscript figures, uses RevTex, psfig.sty. Accepted by
Physical Review
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