Access and utilisation of maternity care for disabled women who experience domestic abuse:a systematic review

BACKGROUND: Although disabled women are significantly more likely to experience domestic abuse during pregnancy than non-disabled women, very little is known about how maternity care access and utilisation is affected by the co-existence of disability and domestic abuse. This systematic review of the literature explored how domestic abuse impacts upon disabled women’s access to maternity services. METHODS: Eleven articles were identified through a search of six electronic databases and data were analysed to identify: the factors that facilitate or compromise access to care; the consequences of inadequate care for pregnant women’s health and wellbeing; and the effectiveness of existing strategies for improvement. RESULTS: Findings indicate that a mental health diagnosis, poor relationships with health professionals and environmental barriers can compromise women’s utilisation of maternity services. Domestic abuse can both compromise, and catalyse, access to services and social support is a positive factor when accessing care. Delayed and inadequate care has adverse effects on women’s physical and psychological health, however further research is required to fully explore the nature and extent of these consequences. Only one study identified strategies currently being used to improve access to services for disabled women experiencing abuse. CONCLUSIONS: Based upon the barriers and facilitators identified within the review, we suggest that future strategies for improvement should focus on: understanding women’s reasons for accessing care; fostering positive relationships; being women-centred; promoting environmental accessibility; and improving the strength of the evidence base

Millets across Eurasia: chronology and context of early records of the genera Panicum and Setaria from archaeological sites in the Old World

We have collated and reviewed published records of the genera Panicum and Setaria (Poaceae), including the domesticated millets Panicum miliaceum L. (broomcorn millet) and Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauv. (foxtail millet) in pre-5000 cal b.c. sites across the Old World. Details of these sites, which span China, central-eastern Europe including the Caucasus, Iran, Syria and Egypt, are presented with associated calibrated radiocarbon dates. Forty-one sites have records of Panicum (P. miliaceum, P. cf. miliaceum, Panicum sp., Panicum type, P. capillare (?) and P. turgidum) and 33 of Setaria (S. italica, S. viridis, S. viridis/verticillata, Setaria sp., Setaria type). We identify problems of taphonomy, identification criteria and reporting, and inference of domesticated/wild and crop/weed status of finds. Both broomcorn and foxtail millet occur in northern China prior to 5000 cal b.c.; P. miliaceum occurs contemporaneously in Europe, but its significance is unclear. Further work is needed to resolve the above issues before the status of these taxa in this period can be fully evaluated

Evaluating privacy-preserving record linkage using cryptographic long-term keys and multibit trees on large medical datasets.

Background: Integrating medical data using databases from different sources by record linkage is a powerful technique increasingly used in medical research. Under many jurisdictions, unique personal identifiers needed for linking the records are unavailable. Since sensitive attributes, such as names, have to be used instead, privacy regulations usually demand encrypting these identifiers. The corresponding set of techniques for privacy-preserving record linkage (PPRL) has received widespread attention. One recent method is based on Bloom filters. Due to superior resilience against cryptographic attacks, composite Bloom filters (cryptographic long-term keys, CLKs) are considered best practice for privacy in PPRL. Real-world performance of these techniques using large-scale data is unknown up to now. Methods: Using a large subset of Australian hospital admission data, we tested the performance of an innovative PPRL technique (CLKs using multibit trees) against a gold-standard derived from clear-text probabilistic record linkage. Linkage time and linkage quality (recall, precision and F-measure) were evaluated. Results: Clear text probabilistic linkage resulted in marginally higher precision and recall than CLKs. PPRL required more computing time but 5 million records could still be de-duplicated within one day. However, the PPRL approach required fine tuning of parameters. Conclusions: We argue that increased privacy of PPRL comes with the price of small losses in precision and recall and a large increase in computational burden and setup time. These costs seem to be acceptable in most applied settings, but they have to be considered in the decision to apply PPRL. Further research on the optimal automatic choice of parameters is needed

Search for a Technicolor omega_T Particle in Events with a Photon and a b-quark Jet at CDF

If the Technicolor omega_T particle exists, a likely decay mode is omega_T -> gamma pi_T, followed by pi_T -> bb-bar, yielding the signature gamma bb-bar. We have searched 85 pb^-1 of data collected by the CDF experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron for events with a photon and two jets, where one of the jets must contain a secondary vertex implying the presence of a b quark. We find no excess of events above standard model expectations. We express the result of an exclusion region in the M_omega_T - M_pi_T mass plane.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures. Available from the CDF server (PS with figs): http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/physics/pub98/cdf4674_omega_t_prl_4.ps FERMILAB-PUB-98/321-

Unstated factors in orthopaedic decision-making: a qualitative study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Total joint replacement (TJR) of the hip or knee for osteoarthritis is among the most common elective surgical procedures. There is some inequity in provision of TJR. How decisions are made about who will have surgery may contribute to disparities in provision. The model of shared decision-making between patients and clinicians is advocated as an ideal by national bodies and guidelines. However, we do not know what happens within orthopaedic practice and whether this reflects the shared model. Our study examined how decisions are made about TJR in orthopaedic consultations.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study used a qualitative research design comprising semi-structured interviews and observations. Participants were recruited from three hospital sites and provided their time free of charge. Seven clinicians involved in decision-making about TJR were approached to take part in the study, and six agreed to do so. Seventy-seven patients due to see these clinicians about TJR were approached to take part and 26 agreed to do so. The patients' outpatient appointments ('consultations') were observed and audio-recorded. Subsequent interviews with patients and clinicians examined decisions that were made at the appointments. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Clinical and lifestyle factors were central components of the decision-making process. In addition, the roles that patients assigned to clinicians were key, as were communication styles. Patients saw clinicians as occupying expert roles and they deferred to clinicians' expertise. There was evidence that patients modified their behaviour within consultations to complement that of clinicians. Clinicians acknowledged the complexity of decision-making and provided descriptions of their own decision-making and communication styles. Patients and clinicians were aware of the use of clinical and lifestyle factors in decision-making and agreed in their description of clinicians' styles. Decisions were usually reached during consultations, but patients and clinicians sometimes said that treatment decisions had been made beforehand. Some patients expressed surprise about the decisions made in their consultations, but this did not necessarily imply dissatisfaction.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The way in which roles and communication are played out in decision-making for TJR may affect the opportunity for shared decisions. This may contribute to variation in the provision of TJR. Making the importance of these factors explicit and highlighting the existence of patients' 'surprise' about consultation outcomes could empower patients within the decision-making process and enhance communication in orthopaedic consultations.</p

An experimental study exploring the impact of vignette gender on the quality of university students’ mental health first aid for peers with symptoms of depression

Background University students have high rates of depression, and friends are often the most commonly-used source of support for emotional distress in this population. This study aimed to explore students’ ability to provide effective support for their peers with depressive symptoms and the factors influencing the quality of their mental health first aid (MHFA) skills, including students’ gender, course of study, and gender of student experiencing depression. Methods Via an online survey, students at two British universities (N = 483) were quasi-randomly allocated to view a video vignette of either a male or female student depicting symptoms of depression. An open-ended question probed MHFA actions they would take to help the vignette character, which were rated using a standardised scoring scheme based on MHFA guidelines. Results Students reported low MHFA scores (mean 2.89, out of possible 12). The most commonly reported action was provision of support and information, but only eight (1.6 %) students stated an intention to assess risk of harm. Those studying clinically non-relevant degrees with limited mental health content reported poorer MHFA (p = <0.001) and were less confident about their ability to support a friend with depression (p = 0.04). There was no main effect of vignette gender, but within the group of students on non-relevant courses the male vignette received significantly poorer MHFA than the female vignette (p = 0.02). A significant three-way interaction found that male participants studying non-relevant degrees who viewed a male vignette had poorer MHFA compared to females studying non-relevant degrees who viewed the female vignette (p = 0.005). Conclusions Most students lack the necessary MHFA skills to support friends suffering from symptoms of depression, or to help them get appropriate support and prevent risk of harm. Students on courses which do not include mental health related content are particularly ill-equipped to support male students, with male students receiving the poorest quality MHFA from fellow male students on these courses. MHFA training has the potential to improve outcomes for students with depression, and could have a valuable role in reducing the excess risk of harm seen in male students

Checking and bootstrapping lexical norms by means of word similarity indexes

In psychology, lexical norms related to the se- mantic properties of words, such as concreteness and va- lence, are important research resources. Collecting such norms by asking judges to rate the words is very time consuming, which strongly limits the number of words that compose them. In the present article, we present a technique for estimating lexical norms based on the latent semantic analysis of a corpus. The analyses conducted emphasize the technique’s effectiveness for several semantic dimensions. In addition to the extension of norms, this technique can be used to check human ratings to identify words for which the rating is very different from the corpus-based estimate

Search for second generation leptoquarks in the dimuon plus dijet channel of p-pbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.8 TeV

We report on a search for second generation leptoquarks (Phi_2) using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 110 pb^{-1} collected at the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We present upper limits on the production cross section as a function of Phi_2 mass, assuming that the leptoquarks are produced in pairs and decay into a muon and a quark with branching ratio beta. Using a Next-to-Leading order QCD calculation, we extract a lower mass limit of M_{\Phi_2} > 202 (160) GeV$/c^{2} at 95% confidence level for scalar leptoquarks with beta=1(0.5).Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure

Search for New Particles Decaying to b bbar in p pbar Collisions at sqrt{s}=1.8 TeV

We have used 87 pb^-1 of data collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab to search for new particles decaying to b bbar. We present model-independent upper limits on the cross section for narrow resonances which excludes the color-octet technirho in the mass interval 350 < M < 440 GeV/c^2. In addition, we exclude topgluons, predicted in models of topcolor-assisted technicolor, of width Gamma = 0.3 M in the mass range 280 < M < 670 GeV/c^2, of width Gamma = 0.5 M in the mass range 340 < M < 640 GeV/c^2, and of width Gamma = 0.7 M in the mass range 375 < M < 560 GeV/c^2.Comment: 17 pages in a LaTex generated postscript file, with one table and four figures. Resubmitted to Physical Review Letters. Minor clarifications were added to the text. The displayed normalization of the resonance models in Figure 2 was modified to correspond to our 95% CL upper limit on the cross section (instead of arbitrary normalization which was used previously). All results are identical to those in the previous submissio

Search for a W' Boson via the Decay Mode W' -> mu nu in 1.8 TeV p-pbar Collisions

We report the results of a search for a W' boson produced in p-pbar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.8 TeV using a 107 pb-1 data sample recorded by the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We consider the decay channel W' -> mu nu and search for anomalous production of high transverse mass mu-nu lepton pairs. We observe no excess of events above background and set limits on the rate of W' boson production and decay relative to Standard Model W boson production and decay using a fit of the transverse mass distribution observed. If we assume Standard Model strength couplings of the W' boson to quark and lepton pairs, we exclude a W' boson with invariant mass less than 660 GeV/c**2 at 95% confidence level.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure