The effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction program on the mental health of family caregivers: a randomized controlled trial

<b>Background</b> Caregivers of people with chronic conditions are more likely than non-caregivers to have depression and emotional problems. Few studies have examined the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) in improving their mental well-being. <p></p> <b>Methods</b> Caregivers of persons with chronic conditions who scored 7 or above in the Caregiver Strain Index were randomly assigned to the 8-week MBSR group (n = 70) or the self-help control group (n = 71). Validated instruments were used to assess the changes in depressive and anxiety symptoms, quality of life, self-efficacy, self-compassion and mindfulness. Assessments were conducted at baseline, post-intervention and at the 3-month follow-up. <p></p> <b>Results </b>Compared to the participants in the control group, participants in the MBSR group had a significantly greater decrease in depressive symptoms at post-intervention and at 3 months post-intervention (p < 0.01). The improvement in state anxiety symptoms was significantly greater among participants in the MBSR group than those of the control group at post-intervention (p = 0.007), although this difference was not statistically significant at 3 months post-intervention (p = 0.084). There was also a statistically significant larger increase in self-efficacy (controlling negative thoughts; p = 0.041) and mindfulness (p = 0.001) among participants in the MBSR group at the 3-month follow-up compared to the participants in the control group. No statistically significant group effects (MBSR vs. control) were found in perceived stress, quality of life or self-compassion. <p></p> <b>Conclusions </b>MBSR appears to be a feasible and acceptable intervention to improve mental health among family caregivers with significant care burden, although further studies that include an active control group are needed to make the findings more conclusive

Education in IT Security: A Case Study in Banking Industry

The banking industry has been changing incessantlyand facing new combination of risks. Data protection andcorporate security is now one of the major issues in bankingindustry. As the rapid changing on technologies from time totime, the industry should be aware on new technologies in orderto protect information assets and prevent fraud activities. Thispaper begins with literature study of information security issuesand followed by focused-group interviews with five participantswithin the industry and survey analysis of “The global state ofInformation Security survey 2013” which published byPriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC). Trends and questions werediscussed as well as possible solution. The study suggests that ITsecurity education should be made to different level of staffs suchas executives, professional and general staffs. Besides, thebanking industry should increase company-wide securityawareness and the importance of corporate security which keepthe information and physical assets secure and in a proper way

Optical band edge shift of anatase cobalt-doped titanium dioxide

We report on the optical properties of magnetic cobalt-doped anatase phase titanium dioxide Ti_{1-x}Co_{x}O_{2-d} films for low doping concentrations, 0 <= x <= 0.02, in the spectral range 0.2 to 5 eV. For well oxygenated films (d << 1) the optical conductivity is characterized by an absence of optical absorption below an onset of interband transitions at 3.6 eV and a blue shift of the optical band edge with increasing Co concentration. The absence of below band gap absorption is inconsistent with theoretical models which contain midgap magnetic impurity bands and suggests that strong on-site Coulomb interactions shift the O-band to Co-level optical transitions to energies above the gap.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; Version 2 - major content revisio

Compromising building regulations and user expectations in the design of high-rise domestic kitchens

Purpose ??? The purpose of this paper is to discuss the significance and relevance of social and habitual behaviours of home occupants to the building design process. It argues that introducing quantitative measures such as daylight level alone may not result in a ???healthy and functional??? kitchen without appreciating or factoring-in the impacts of the social roles and user expectations of kitchens in high-rise and compact urban situations.\ud Design/methodology/approach ??? The study investigated three common types of apartment buildings in Hong Kong. Case studies suggested that it is crucial to include in a design process proper considerations of human behaviours byway of preferred approaches andmodes of living, space usage, and weightings of end-user responses that would influence architectural design in a direct and crucial way.\ud Findings ??? The study noted that daylight quality of a kitchen is perceived by most families to be not as important as building control officials and designers thought it would. Instead, it is found that social and cultural factors are more important parameters for users. The study observed that designers rely on physical and quantitative approaches such as daylight factor, window size and window-to-room area ratio to qualify a design solution and ignore the socio-cultural parameters.\ud Originality/value ??? The paper calls for designers and building control officials to incorporate the study of functionality and socio-cultural preferences of users groups in the building design process. The study envisages that an integrated design methodology would enhance the living environment

Lung cancer in Chinese women: Evidence for an interaction between tobacco smoking and exposure to inhalants in the indoor environment

10.1289/ehp.0901587Environmental Health Perspectives11891257-126

Fast coarsening in unstable epitaxy with desorption

Homoepitaxial growth is unstable towards the formation of pyramidal mounds when interlayer transport is reduced due to activation barriers to hopping at step edges. Simulations of a lattice model and a continuum equation show that a small amount of desorption dramatically speeds up the coarsening of the mound array, leading to coarsening exponents between 1/3 and 1/2. The underlying mechanism is the faster growth of larger mounds due to their lower evaporation rate.Comment: 4 pages, 4 PostScript figure

Test for entanglement using physically observable witness operators and positive maps

Motivated by the Peres-Horodecki criterion and the realignment criterion we develop a more powerful method to identify entangled states for any bipartite system through a universal construction of the witness operator. The method also gives a new family of positive but non-completely positive maps of arbitrary high dimensions which provide a much better test than the witness operators themselves. Moreover, we find there are two types of positive maps that can detect 2xN and 4xN bound entangled states. Since entanglement witnesses are physical observables and may be measured locally our construction could be of great significance for future experiments.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, revtex4 styl

Properties of the BFKL equation and structure function predictions for HERA

The general properties of the Lipatov or BFKL equation are reviewed. Modifications to the infrared region are proposed. Numerical predictions for the deep-inelastic electron-proton structure functions at small $x$ are presented and confronted with recent HERA measurements.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures, Latex file, Durham preprint DTP 92/2

Giant Peak Effect Observed in Ultrapure YBCO Crystal

A giant peak in the temperature dependence of the screening current is observed in the ac magnetic response of an ultra-pure YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.993}$ crystal in a magnetic field. At H = 2.0 T ({\bf $H$}$||${\bf c}), the screening current density $J_c(T)$ exhibits a 35-fold rise with 0.5 K increase in temperature, indicating an abrupt $10^3$-fold collapse in the characteristic volume of ordered regions in the vortex array. The peak-effect anomaly is most pronounced for $H<$ 4.0 T, but detectable up to 7.0 T. The temperature dependence of the equilibrium magnetization exhibits a small discontinuous jump (for high fields) inside the peak-effect regime, suggesting that the underlying phase transition is a weak first-order vortex-lattice melting transition.Comment: 4 page