Incorporating family function into chronic pain disability: the role of catastrophizing

Background. Observers' responses to pain are recently investigated to more comprehensively explain chronic pain (CP) and disability. However, the role of family context, defined as interference in roles, communication, and problem-solving, and how (i.e., through which mechanisms) these variables contribute to CP related disability have yet to be examined. Objectives. The aim of the present study is to examine family context in relationship to pain catastrophizing, fear of movement, and depression and its role in understanding CP disability. Three different models were examined. Methods. A total sample of 142 patients with musculoskeletal chronic pain was recruited to examine the role of fear of movement, pain intensity, pain catastrophizing, and depression in relationship to family functioning as predictors of disability. Results. Findings indicated that two models showed acceptable fit, but one of them revealed superior fit indices. Results of the model with superior fit indices indicated that family dysfunction may contribute to catastrophic thinking, which, in turn, contributes to patients' disability through increasing fear of movement and depression. Discussion. The current study provides further support for the notion that the impact of emotional and cognitive variables upon CP-related disability can be better understood when we consider the social context of pain patients and family function in particular

First detection of Paenibacillus larvae the causative agent of American Foulbrood in a Ugandan honeybee colony

Paenibacillus larvae is a highly contagious and often lethal widely distributed pathogen of honeybees, Apis mellifera but has not been reported in eastern Africa to date. We investigated the presence of P. larvae in the eastern and western highland agro-ecological zones of Uganda by collecting brood and honey samples from 67 honeybee colonies in two sampling occasions and cultivated them for P. larvae. Also, 8 honeys imported and locally retailed in Uganda were sampled and cultivated for P. larvae. Our aim was to establish the presence and distribution of P. larvae in honeybee populations in the two highland agro-ecological zones of Uganda and to determine if honeys that were locally retailed contained this lethal pathogen. One honeybee colony without clinical symptoms for P. larvae in an apiary located in a protected area of the western highlands of Uganda was found positive for P. larvae. The strain of this P. larvae was genotyped and found to be ERIC I. In order to compare its virulence with P. larvae reference strains, in vitro infection experiments were conducted with carniolan honeybee larvae from the research laboratory at Ghent University, Belgium. The results show that the virulence of the P. larvae strain found in Uganda was at least equally high. The epidemiological implication of the presence of P. larvae in a protected area is discussed

A statistical method for removing unbalanced trials with multiple covariates in meta-analysis

In meta-analysis literature, there are several checklists describing the procedures necessary to evaluate studies from a qualitative point of view, whereas preliminary quantitative and statistical investigations on the “combinability” of trials have been neglected. Covariate balance is an important prerequisite to conduct meta-analysis. We propose a method to identify unbalanced trials with respect to a set of covariates, in presence of covariate imbalance, namely when the randomized controlled trials generate a meta-sample that cannot satisfy the requisite of randomization/combinability in meta-analysis. The method is able to identify the unbalanced trials, through four stages aimed at achieving combinability. The studies responsible for the imbalance are identified, and then they can be eliminated. The proposed procedure is simple and relies on the combined Anderson-Darling test applied to the Empirical Cumulative Distribution Functions of both experimental and control meta-arms. To illustrate the method in practice, two datasets from well-known meta-analyses in the literature are used

Are pinholes the cause of excess current in superconducting tunnel junctions? A study of Andreev current in highly resistive junctions

In highly resistive superconducting tunnel junctions, excess subgap current is usually observed and is often attributed to microscopic "pinholes" in the tunnel barrier. We have studied the subgap current in superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) and superconductor-insulator-normal-metal (SIN) junctions. In Al/AlOx/Al junctions, we observed a decrease of 2 orders of magnitude in the current upon the transition from the SIS to the SIN regime, where it then matched theory. In Al/AlOx/Cu junctions, we also observed generic features of coherent diffusive Andreev transport in a junction with a homogenous barrier. We use the quasiclassical Keldysh-Green function theory to quantify single- and two-particle tunneling and find good agreement over 2 orders of magnitude in transparency. We argue that our observations rule out pinholes as the origin of the excess current.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

MEMAKNAI KEMISKINAN BERDASARKAN PANDANGAN ORANG MISKIN PEDESAAN

AbstractRural poverty can be understood as a social condition of a person, or a group of people who were associated with aspects of economic and non-economic aspects. Scientific aspects such as social, cultural, health, education, psychology, the environment, law, anthropology, and art, was often associated with poverty. Nevertheless, the notion of poor and rural poverty is, in general, is still viewed by researcher's perspective, rather than emic, ie see something from the perspective of the participant. This study took part of the effort to comprehensively understand the meaning of poor and poverty in the eyes of the poor, especially in rural areas, roomates point is on how to map view of rural poor people in hopes of interpreting experience of livelihood as poor in underlying survival living. By using a qualitative study approach, especially the tradition of phenomenology of Schutz, obtained a description of the results, that the meaning of poor and poverty, in phenomenology, containing context, such as: context ownership; contexts effort and trial and error; contexts powerlessness; contexts outside assistance; independence in the context of compulsion; contexts unattainable expectations; context of the struggle; context of limited access to information; contexts low curiosity; contexts simplicity needs; problems humiliation context; and context sensitivity in social communication.Keywords: Meaning poor, Poverty, Rural AbstrakKemiskinan di pedesaan dapat dipahami sebagai suatu kondisi sosial seseorang, atau sekelompok orang yang terkait dengan aspek-aspek ekonomi dan non-ekonomi. Aspek ilmiah seperti sosial, budaya, kesehatan, pendidikan, psikologi, lingkungan, hukum, antropologi, dan seni, yang sering dikaitkan dengan kemiskinan. Namun demikian, gagasan tentang kemiskinan dan pedesaan, secara umum, masih dilihat dari perspektif peneliti, bukan emik, yaitu melihat sesuatu dari perspektif partisipan. Penelitian ini mengambil bagian dari upaya untuk secara komprehensif memahami makna miskin dan kemiskinan di mata masyarakat miskin, terutama di daerah pedesaan, which titik adalah bagaimana memetakan pandangan masyarakat miskin pedesaan dengan harapan pengalaman yang menafsirkan mata pencaharian sebagai masyarakat miskin untuk bertahan hidup. Dengan menggunakan pendekatan studi kualitatif, khususnya tradisi fenomenologi Schutz, diperoleh gambaran hasil, bahwa makna miskin dan kemiskinan, dalam fenomenologi, mengandung konteks, seperti: kepemilikan konteks; Upaya konteks dan trial and error; Ketidakberdayaan konteks; konteks di luar bantuan; kemerdekaan dalam konteks paksaan; konteks harapan tercapai; konteks perjuangan; konteks terbatasnya akses terhadap informasi; konteks rasa ingin tahu yang rendah; kesederhanaan konteks kebutuhan; konteks masalah penghinaan; dan sensitivitas konteks komunikasi sosial.Kata Kunci : Makna kemiskinan, Kemiskinan, Des

Experimental study of slow sand filtration for the treatment of various wastewaters in tropical environment

Wastewater treatment by slow sand filtration is a biological process which consists in filtering wastewater through a porous media. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performances of this biotechnology under tropical climate. Three sand filters were monitored at ONAS (Cambérène wastewater treatment plant in Dakar, Senegal). The filters were built with local materials, and were constituted with a feeding tank of approximately 180 litters, a column (two meters high and 30-25 cm diameter). The filters were filled with sand (75 cm), gravel (25 cm) and wastewater (90 cm). The results showed that with sand of d10 equal to 0.58 mm and flow rate of 0.05 m/h, the filtration cycle was relatively long for the first run with pretreated wastewater. At the level of the primary settling tank, with flow a rate of 0.08 m/h, the removal rates were about 12.75%, 16.31%, 12.92%, 5.45%, 7.09% and 10.50% for TSS, COD, BOD5, nitrogen phosphorus and faecal coliforms respectively. At the level of the clarifier, with a filtration of 0.15 m/h, the removals were 1.4% for TSS, 1.84% for COD, 1.09% for BOD5 11.38% for nitrogen, 5.18% for phosphorus and 1.74% of faecal coliforms.Keywords: Flow rate; filtration cycle, removal; sand filtration; tropical climate, wastewater

Seasonal changes in brain serotonin transporter binding in short 5-HTTLPR-allele carriers but not in long-allele homozygotes

Several findings suggest seasonal variations in the serotonin (5-HT) system. We sought evidence for seasonal variation in the serotonin transporter (5-HTT). We found that length of daylight time in minutes correlates negatively with 5-HTT binding in the putamen and the caudate, with a similar tendency in the thalamus, but no such association in the midbrain. In the putamen, an anatomical region with a dense serotonin innervation that is implicated in processing of aversive stimuli, we found a significant gene*daylight effect with a negative correlation between the 5-HTT binding and daylight time in carriers of the short 5-HTTLPR allele, but not in carriers of the long allele. The neurobiological endophenotype identified here directly links activation studies, showing responses on the neural circuit level, with dynamic changes in transporter expression measured in vivo