Physiology and prevention of heel ulcers: The state of science

The prevalence of heel ulcers across settings is high and is increasing. Prevention of ulcers requires knowledge of their etiology and the scientific basis for preventive care. The interaction between external pressure and the heel vasculature is central to the prevention of heel ulcers. This article focuses on the prevention of heel pressure ulcers. The physiology of heel tissue perfusion, the effect of external pressure on heel perfusion, as well as what is known about strategies to reduce external pressure and approaches to improve heel skin blood flow will be discussed. It is only through understanding of the physiology of heel tissue perfusion and its relation to external pressure that effective preventive measures to reduce heel skin breakdown can be adapted in clinical practice

Epidemiology of Co-morbid Substance Use Disorders and Major Depression

Background. Many patients with mental disorders receiving treatment in mental health centres are using illicit drugs while a large proportion of those in addiction care programs have significant mental health issues. Substance use disorder and major depression are highly prevalent in the general population. They frequently co-exist, share common biological, psychological and social risk factors and affect one another in clinically significant ways. Comorbid substance use disorder and major depression represent a major health problem globally. The primary goal of this thesis is to further our understanding of the relationship between substance use disorders and co-occurring major depressive disorder by applying different epidemiological methods. Methods. The study designs used in this thesis were cross-sectional design (Chapters 3,4 and 5), population cohort design (Chapter 6) and systematic review with meta-analysis (Chapter7). Existing datasets from Statistics Canada were used for Chapters 3,4,5 and 6 while the systematic review collected data via a computerized search for original studies. Trend (Chapter 3), multilevel logistics regression (Chapter 4), Multinomial logistics regression (Chapter 5), Poisson regression (Chapter 6) and meta-analysis (Chapter 7) were done. Descriptive analysis was also done for all chapters. Results. The pooled prevalence of substance use disorder comorbid with major depression is 3.2%. The prevalence of comorbid alcohol dependence and major depression increased from 1996 to 2012 in females, those 30 years and older, who had a household income of less than $50,000 and no post-secondary graduate level education. Individuals with substance dependence and cannabis dependence were about three times (pooled OR (95%CI): 3.62 (95%CI 2.82-4.63)) and five times (pooled OR (95%CI): 5.77 (95%CI 3.8-8.77)) more likely to have comorbid major depression. Alcohol dependence increased the risk of persistent or recurrent major depression by three-fold. Comorbid substance use disorder with major depression was significantly associated with increased disability and suicide ideation. Conclusion. Given the significant overlap in comorbid substance use disorder and major depression, it is crucial that co-occurring disorders are managed proactively and concurrently. The consensus of research evidence and clinical expertise is that the treatment of comorbid substance use and mental health disorders is insufficient if they are solely psychiatric focused or addiction focused. It is recommended that an integrated treatment approach should be adopted

Participation as a Framework for Analysing Consumers’ Experiences of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

This article argues that an analytic framework based on participation is useful for analyzing consumer experiences of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and provides a complementary approach to analyses drawing on procedural justice theory. The argument is developed by applying McKeever’s “ladder of legal participation” (LLP) to a qualitative data set of 33 interviews with UK consumers. The article concludes that applying the LLP in the consumer ADR context results in novel empirical and theoretical insights. Empirically, it demonstrates that – despite low value and transactional disputes – consumers expect high levels of participation from ADR. Theoretically, the article argues that the LLP supplements existing approaches by: providing a unifying lens for studying consumer experiences, which goes beyond examining the relationships between process and outcome; emphasizing the importance of participation, not only as a process value, but also in shaping outcomes; and highlighting the distinction between genuine and tokenistic provision of consumer ADR

Aftermath of ICT Literacy on Prevalence of Malaria Parasite among HIV/AIDS Patients

The role of ICT in the prevention and mitigation efforts for HIV/AIDS cannot be over emphasized. The greatest advantage of ICTs is that they can reach out to remotest areas.  So through the innovative use of ICTs youths and even adults can have access to HIV/AIDS programmes that can meet their needs. The paper focuses on the aftermath of ICT literacy on malaria parasite among HIV/AIDS patients. Therefore, to achieve positive results in the fight against HIV/AIDS ICTs should be taken on board. HIV/AIDS information should be found everywhere i.e. radio, cell phone, TV and internet. ICTs make HIV/AIDS information easily accessible, confidential and user friendly. The study has shown the possibility of co-infection of HIV positive or negative patients with malaria and HBsAg. This phenomenon could increase the severity of HIV infection and facilitate the progression of HIV to AIDS. The practices of universal screening of blood should be implemented to improve the safety of blood supply so as to reduce the risk of Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).  More malaria enlightenment programmes by the Local Community, the government and nongovernmental organization should be implemented.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijphs.v1i1.53

Confusion, gaps, and overlaps: A consumer perspective on alternative dispute resolution between consumers and businesses

This report is about the help available to consumers who have experienced a problem with a business that they have been unable to resolve on their own. Some of these problems end up in the small claims courts, but increasingly consumers can turn to Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) schemes. This report is about the UK’s current approach to ADR

Simple parametrization for the ground-state energy of the infinite Hubbard chain incorporating Mott physics, spin-dependent phenomena and spatial inhomogeneity

Simple analytical parametrizations for the ground-state energy of the one-dimensional repulsive Hubbard model are developed. The charge-dependence of the energy is parametrized using exact results extracted from the Bethe-Ansatz. The resulting parametrization is shown to be in better agreement with highly precise data obtained from fully numerical solution of the Bethe-Ansatz equations than previous expressions [Lima et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 146402 (2003)]. Unlike these earlier proposals, the present parametrization correctly predicts a positive Mott gap at half filling for any U>0. The construction is extended to spin-dependent phenomena by parametrizing the magnetization-dependence of the ground-state energy using further exact results and numerical benchmarking. Lastly, the parametrizations developed for the spatially uniform model are extended by means of a simple local-density-type approximation to spatially inhomogeneous models, e.g., in the presence of impurities, external fields or trapping potentials. Results are shown to be in excellent agreement with independent many-body calculations, at a fraction of the computational cost.Comment: New Journal of Physics, accepte

Microbial responses to changes in land use

Background/Question/Methods
Land use change is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity worldwide. This is especially true for land use change that results in the destruction of intact forest, or "deforestation”. Deforestation is causing a loss of biological diversity on an unprecedented scale, especially in the Tropics. It is unclear how the majority of the biodiversity on Earth – microbial biodiversity – is responding to these extraordinary rates of deforestation. I will provide an overview of our current understanding of microbial responses to deforestation. I will focus, as an example, on our current research regarding the effects of deforestation on the diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), bacteria and archaea within Amazon Rainforest soils. This study takes advantage of an established chronosequence of primary rainforest, pastures of various ages, and secondary rainforest to determine the effect of deforestation on the taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity of soil microorganisms, assayed using culture-independent methods.

Results/Conclusions
There is increasing evidence that deforestation significantly affects microbial diversity, and that “recovery” of microbial diversity in secondary forest soils is incomplete. For example, rarefaction curves suggest that the accumulation of AMF taxa is higher for Amazon primary forest soil relative to secondary forest soil. In addition, the community composition varies with land use; three AMF taxa were shared between primary and secondary forests, seven were found only in primary forest, and three were found exclusively in secondary forest soil. We also observed that the phylogenetic diversity of AMF is more reduced in secondary forest soils than expected given the regional pool of AMF taxa.

*The audio track for talks in this symposium may be obtained at the following web address:*

*https://sites.google.com/site/esa2010symposium13audiocontent/esa2010-symposium13-audio-content

Effect of spatial inhomogeneity on the mapping between strongly interacting fermions and weakly interacting spins

A combined analytical and numerical study is performed of the mapping between strongly interacting fermions and weakly interacting spins, in the framework of the Hubbard, t-J and Heisenberg models. While for spatially homogeneous models in the thermodynamic limit the mapping is thoroughly understood, we here focus on aspects that become relevant in spatially inhomogeneous situations, such as the effect of boundaries, impurities, superlattices and interfaces. We consider parameter regimes that are relevant for traditional applications of these models, such as electrons in cuprates and manganites, and for more recent applications to atoms in optical lattices. The rate of the mapping as a function of the interaction strength is determined from the Bethe-Ansatz for infinite systems and from numerical diagonalization for finite systems. We show analytically that if translational symmetry is broken through the presence of impurities, the mapping persists and is, in a certain sense, as local as possible, provided the spin-spin interaction between two sites of the Heisenberg model is calculated from the harmonic mean of the onsite Coulomb interaction on adjacent sites of the Hubbard model. Numerical calculations corroborate these findings also in interfaces and superlattices, where analytical calculations are more complicated.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure