971 research outputs found

    Patient-Therapist Congruence on Aspects of the Therapeutic Alliance in Psychotherapy for Medically Unexplained Symptoms

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    Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) are physical symptoms that cannot be explained or are not sufficiently explained by medical examination. These symptoms most typically present as pain or other discomfort, and are associated with significant psychological distress, healthcare utilization, and disability. Both psychologists and medical professionals have struggled to treat this population, and MUS patients have noted their dissatisfaction with the care they receive. The present study analyzed a sample of 174 patient-therapist dyads to explore the role of congruence, or agreement, on aspects of the therapeutic alliance in therapy for MUS as congruence research has not yet been conducted in this population. This study aimed to learn more about the types of congruence present in this population, whether certain types of congruence were associated with treatment outcomes, and whether any patient characteristics were associated with types of congruence. The results of this analysis suggested that certain types of congruence were associated with treatment outcomes and patient characteristics. However, the analysis also revealed that other elements of congruence, such as whether patients and therapists agree things are going well, or whether they agree things are going poorly, or whether they disagree, are important elements to consider. In addition, patient characteristics, such as whether they have any mental health diagnoses, were shown to be associated with congruence. Overall, congruence alone did not consistently relate to treatment outcomes. The present study illustrated the importance of considering other congruence-related factors when treating patients with MUS both in psychological care and medical care settings

    We lack evidence to call Jatropha invasive

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    FLWNAinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

    FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS AND POLICY STABILITY: THE ROLE OF FEDERALISM IN VETO PLAYERS THEORY

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    The veto players theory claims that there are institutional and partisan actors, individual or collective, that act as veto points in the process of legislation. Each veto point must give its consent for a new law to pass, thus altering the status quo. This study investigates the role of federalism, which is generally characterized by bicameralism and a decentralized state, as a veto player in 20 OECD states. The results suggest federal institutions do act as important veto points and affect the liklihood of changes to a status quo. OLS regressions and event history analyses, using methods borrowed from Beck, Katz and Tucker (1998), demonstrate the pivotal role federal institutions play in promoting status quo policies

    Recent Replacement of Native Pili Grass (Heteropogon contortus) by Invasive African Grasses in the Hawaiian Islands

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    We surveyed 41 sites from throughout O'ahu that had been dominated by native pili grass (Heteropogon contortus) in the late 1960s. Pili grass was absent from 14 (35%) of those sites in 1997 and had declined in abundance in most of the 27 remaining sites, relative to the late 1960s. The pili grass communities have been replaced by communities dominated by one of three African grasses: Cenchrus ciliaris (buffel grass), Pennisetum setaceum (fountain grass), or Panicum maximum (Guinea grass). Panicum maximum was often associated with the shrub Leucaena leucocephala, and Cenchrus ciliaris and Pennisetum setaceum communities showed little evidence of succession toward woody vegetation. Communities dominated by the African grasses were significantly less diverse, in terms of number of plant species, than the native pili grass-dominated communities. Observations made on other Hawaiian islands suggest that this rapid pili grass decline and replacement with alien grasses has not been limited to O'ahu. Research is needed to determine how higher-diversity native pili grass communities can be maintained in the Hawaiian Islands as a valuable natural and cultural resource

    March of the Green Iguana : Non-native Distribution and Predicted Geographic Range of Iguana iguana in the Greater Caribbean Region

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    Green Iguanas (Iguana iguana L. 1758) have been introduced outside their native range largely through the pet trade. In many places, exotic populations have invaded and many have become established. Of special concern is the Greater Caribbean Basin, where several exotic populations of Green Iguanas have had a negative impact, and may threaten the conservation of several native species, including possible native and distinct forms of I. iguana in the Lesser Antilles, and the endangered Lesser Antilles Iguana (I. delicatissima Laurenti 1768). We assessed the risk of spread and invasion by Green Iguanas in the Greater Caribbean Basin using the maximum entropy niche-modeling algorithm (MaxEnt) to predict the potential distribution of this reptile. We used a total of 187 location points that represented occurrences from both the native and the invasive range, coupled with environmental data as predictor variables. Our model had average training and test AUC values of 0.90 and 0.87 respectively, indicating a high predictive ability. The model predicts suitable conditions for I. iguana in south and central Florida (mainly along the coast), and in regions of all the islands in the Caribbean. Given the known negative impact of Green Iguanas and their dispersal capabilities, governments in the Greater Caribbean Basin should manage non-native populations to prevent further spread, and revise and enact laws that allow management agencies to respond quickly in the case of new Green Iguana incursions

    Unifying niche shift studies: insights from biological invasions.

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    Assessing whether the climatic niche of a species may change between different geographic areas or time periods has become increasingly important in the context of ongoing global change. However, approaches and findings have remained largely controversial so far, calling for a unification of methods. Here, we build on a review of empirical studies of invasion to formalize a unifying framework that decomposes niche change into unfilling, stability, and expansion situations, taking both a pooled range and range-specific perspective on the niche, while accounting for climatic availability and climatic analogy. This framework provides new insights into the nature of climate niche shifts and our ability to anticipate invasions, and may help in guiding the design of experiments for assessing causes of niche changes

    Selecting predictors to maximize the transferability of species distribution models: lessons from cross-continental plant invasions

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    Aim: Niche-based models of species distribution (SDMs) are commonly used to predict impacts of global change on biodiversity but the reliability of these predictions in space and time depends on their transferability. We tested how the strategy to choose predictors impacts the SDMs' transferability at a cross-continental scale. Location: North America, Eurasia and Australia Method: We used a systematic approach including 50 Holarctic plant invaders and 27 initial predictor variables, considering 10 different strategies to variable selection, accounting for predictors' proximality, multicollinearity and climate analogy. We compared the average performance per strategy, some of them using a large number of random predictor combinations. Next, we looked for the single best model for each species across all possible predictor combinations, by pooling models across all strategies. Transferability was considered as the predictive success of SDMs calibrated in native range and projected onto the invaded range. Results: Two strategies showed better SDMs' transferability on average: a set of predictors known for their ecologically-meaningful effects on plant distribution, and the two first axes of a principal component analysis calibrated on all predictor variables (Spc2). From the >2000 combinations of predictors per species across strategies, the best set of predictors yielded SDMs with good transferability for 45 species (90%). These best combinations consisted in a random selection of 8 predictors (45 sp) and in Spc2 (5 sp). We also found that internal cross-validation was not sufficient to fully inform about SDMs' transferability to a distinct range. Main conclusion: Transferring SDMs at the macroclimatic scale, and thus anticipating invasions, is possible for the large majority of invasive plants considered in this study, but the predictions' accuracy relies strongly on the choice of predictors. From our results, we recommend including either the state-of-the-art proximal variables or a reduced and orthogonalised set to obtain robust SDMs' projections

    Standardized Documentation for Verification, Validation, and Accreditation / Paper 08S-SIW-003

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    Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) SIW Conference PaperThis paper updates the Modeling and Simulation (M&S) community on the status of the Department of Defense M&S Steering Committee-sponsored project titled, "Standardized Documentation for Verification, Validation, and Accreditation," since the paper 07F-SIW-068, "Automating Standardized Information for the Verification, Validation, and Accreditation Process: An Acquisition Community Sponsored M&S Project," was presented in September 2007

    The Modeling and Simulation Catalog for Discovery, Knowledge and Reuse

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    The DoD M&S Steering Committee has noted that the current DoD and Service's modeling and simulation resource repository (MSRR) services are not up-to-date limiting their value to the using communities. However, M&S leaders and managers also determined that the Department needs a functional M&S registry card catalog to facilitate M&S tool and data visibility to support M&S activities across the DoD. The M&S Catalog will discover and access M&S metadata maintained at nodes distributed across DoD networks in a centrally managed, decentralized process that employs metadata collection and management. The intent is to link information stores, precluding redundant location updating. The M&S Catalog uses a standard metadata schemas based on the DoD's Net-Centric Data Strategy Community of Interest metadata specification. The Air Force, Navy and OSD (CAPE) have provided initial information to participating DoD nodes, but plans on the horizon are being made to bring in hundreds of source providers
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