Integrating wellbeing and neurosurgical practice to improve patient outcomes after chronic subdural haematoma: A rapid review with evidence mapping

Background: Chronic subdural haematoma (CSDH) is a common neurological condition resulting from a blood clot within the outer layers of skin around the brain. It is a sentinel health event for individuals, and a significant public health issue. It is increasingly acknowledged that there are knowledge gaps at all levels of practice following CSDH. This includes the paucity, poor quality and neglected nature of patient outcomes. Aims: This research used a wellbeing model to integrate components of the knowledge base for CSDH with a focus on patient-related outcomes. The Positive Health model (Huber et al., 2016) was used as a framework for mapping the extant adult CSDH literature that discerns individual health outcomes. Method: A rapid review was conducted, with evidence mapped against the positive health model. The rapid review methodology followed the published guidelines (Pludemann et al., 2018), and was prospectively registered on PROSPERO. Evidence-mapping was used to support data synthesis. Results: Ten studies were identified that used varying assessment measures and follow-up time periods making integration difficult. Evidence-mapping indicated that the majority of studies (n=9) aligned with the Mental Wellbeing dimension, with limited (n=1) evidence for Bodily Functions, Daily Functioning, Participation and Quality of Life (n=2) and nil evidence for Meaningfulness. Conclusion: The need for patient-related outcomes that inform the capacity of the individual to live their lives fully and effectively are integral for evidence-based care in adults after acquired brain injury. Currently used outcomes measures in CSDH do not meet this need. Stubbs et al. (2022) advocate for neurosurgical research and practice to move beyond its traditional surgical focus, and align with integrated, multidisciplinary, and patient-informed health care. The use of evidence-based positive health frameworks have utility in the integration of previous research, and highlight the utility of multidimensional wellbeing models to support innovation in clinical research and the development of health systems aligned to the needs of patients

The Butterfly Effect: A case study using process-based therapy to improve wellbeing

Background: Process-based (PBT) focuses on how treatments work, rather than what treatments work (Hayes et al., 2020). PBT uses evidence-based processes of change that are cross-theoretical, not limited to particular therapy orientations, and use individually tailored intervention plans that focus on client needs. PBT includes identifying and testing key change processes that build upon each other and support the intervention with the individual in a particular context at a particular point in time. PBT asks what core biopsychosocial processes could be targeted with this client, given this goal, in this situation, and how can they most efficiently and effectively be changed? (Hayes et al., 2020). Recently, the utility of aligning positive psychology interventions (PPIs) with PBT has been highlighted (Ciarrochi et al., 2022). Aims: To demonstrate how PBT can be applied to the use of a specific PPI, namely Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM) to improve wellbeing in an individual client. Method: Daily client outcomes data were collected during a four-week LKM intervention using ABAB design. Measures included the Five-Facets of Mindfulness (FFMQ-15), PERMA-Profiler, modified Differential Emotions scale, and the Kessler-10. Self-reflection supported the immediate impact of LKM on both wellbeing and illbeing, highlighted the supportive influence of mindfulness skills, and identified challenges with engaging in an LKM practice. Weekly qualitative feedback from the client was also recorded. Results: Overall, all measures showed a substantive increase from initial baseline to the first LKM intervention week, with variable patterns of plateaued or incremental gains across second baseline and intervention phases. These improvements will be discussed using PBT including the Extended Evolutionary Meta-Model (EEMM) and a network model to explain how LKM engages specific processes of change. Conclusion: PBT innovatively informs an integrated and dynamic understanding of processes of change for a client during a PPI, in particular, PBT highlights how processes can interact to create synergistic change and sustained wellbeing outcomes for a client

Investigating the Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving (CIT) as a rehabilitation outcome measure

Reliable and valid outcome measures are needed in community rehabilitation settings following acquired neurological injury. The Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving (CIT) (Su, Tay and Diener, 2013) was investigated for this purpose. The CIT is a 54 item self-report measure that provides 18 subscales and seven main scales of thriving: Relationships, Engagement, Mastery, Autonomy, Meaning, Optimism and Subjective Well-being. Participants (n=76) were administered the CIT on admission to a community rehabilitation service. The mean age of participants was 54.8 (SD = 17.7), with 43% being male. The main diagnostic groups were cerebrovascular disease (28%), traumatic brain injury (17%) and Parkinson's disease (12%). Internal consistency was moderate to high (α =.6 to .9) for all subscales with the exception of Support (Relationships) and Skills (Mastery); and high (α=.79-.93) for all indexes with the exception of Subjective Wellbeing. Correlational analyses supported the scale groupings. However, the subscales of Support (Relationships) and Skills (Mastery) did not correlate significantly with any subscales. Additionally the Subjective Well-being scale should not be calculated, but instead its three subscales (Negative Feelings, Life Satisfaction, Positive Feelings) used individually. In terms of demographic variables, there were no significant gender differences on CIT scales. Age had low correlations with two Relationships subscales only (Trust r=.23, p=.04; Loneliness r=-.25, p=.03). Diagnostic group minimally influenced CIT scores. Significant between-group differences were only found for Accomplishment (Mastery), with post-hoc analyses indicating higher levels for the cerebrovascular group. The CIT shows considerable promise in rehabilitation outcomes as a reliable and valid multi-component measure of wellbeing

A Pilot Binational Study of Health Behaviors and Immigration

In the US, Mexican immigrant women often have better health outcomes than non-Hispanic white women despite a greater health risk profile. This cross-sectional pilot study compared women living in Chavinda, Michoacán (n = 102) to women who had migrated from Mexico to Madera, California (n = 93). The interview gathered information on acculturation and risk behaviors including smoking, alcohol use and number of sexual partners. The results suggest that more acculturated women living in the US are more likely to consume alcohol. US residence and higher acculturation level was marginally associated with having more than one sexual partner. There were no differences between odds of smoking among Chavinda and Madera women. While results with acculturation are not consistently significant due to small sample sizes, the results are suggestive that acculturation among immigrant Hispanic women in the US may be associated with adverse health behaviors, and selective migration seems less likely to account for these differences

Contracts for Abstract Processes in Service Composition

Contracts are a well-established approach for describing and analyzing behavioral aspects of web service compositions. The theory of contracts comes equipped with a notion of compatibility between clients and servers that ensures that every possible interaction between compatible clients and servers will complete successfully. It is generally agreed that real applications often require the ability of exposing just partial descriptions of their behaviors, which are usually known as abstract processes. We propose a formal characterization of abstraction as an extension of the usual symbolic bisimulation and we recover the notion of abstraction in the context of contracts.Comment: In Proceedings FIT 2010, arXiv:1101.426

Measuring recovery capital for people recovering from alcohol and drug addiction:A systematic review

Background: Recovery capital (RC) theory provides a biopsychosocial framework for identifying and measuring strengths and barriers that can be targeted to support recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. This systematic review analyzed and synthesized all quantitative approaches that have been used to measured recovery capital RC in the recent literaturesince 2016.Method: Systematic database searches were conducted in three databases to identifyThe reviewed studies were published from 2016 to 2023, . Eligible studiesand explicitly stated they measured RC recovery capital in participants recovering from alcohol and/or drug addiction. Studies focusing on other forms of addiction were excluded.Results: Sixty-nine studies met the inclusion criteria. Forty-six studies (66.7%) used one of the ten identified RC recovery capital questionnaires, and twenty-five studies (36.2%) used a measurement approach other than one of the ten RC recovery capital questionnaires. The ten RC recovery capital questionnaires are primarily developed for adult populations across clinical and community recovery settings, and between them measuredwere identified to measure altogether 41 separate RC recovery capital constructs. They, and are generally considered valid and reliable measures of RCrecovery capital. Nevertheless, a strong evidence base on the psychometric properties across diverse populations and settings is still needs to be established for all RC these questionnaires. Conclusion: The development of RC recovery capital questionnaires has been a significant advance in the addiction recovery field, in alignment with the modern emerging recovery-oriented approach to addiction recovery care. Additionally, the non-RC recovery capital questionnaire-based approaches to RC recovery capital measurement have an important place in the field. They could be used alongside RC recovery capital questionnaires to test RC theory, and in contexts where the application of the RC questionnaires is not feasible, such as analyses of data from online recovery forums

A Fully Abstract Symbolic Semantics for Psi-Calculi

We present a symbolic transition system and bisimulation equivalence for psi-calculi, and show that it is fully abstract with respect to bisimulation congruence in the non-symbolic semantics. A psi-calculus is an extension of the pi-calculus with nominal data types for data structures and for logical assertions representing facts about data. These can be transmitted between processes and their names can be statically scoped using the standard pi-calculus mechanism to allow for scope migrations. Psi-calculi can be more general than other proposed extensions of the pi-calculus such as the applied pi-calculus, the spi-calculus, the fusion calculus, or the concurrent constraint pi-calculus. Symbolic semantics are necessary for an efficient implementation of the calculus in automated tools exploring state spaces, and the full abstraction property means the semantics of a process does not change from the original

‘Play it by ear’ – teachers’ responses to ear-playing tasks during one to one instrumental lessons

This paper reports findings from the Ear Playing Project (EPP) in relation to the teaching strategies that 15 instrumental teachers adopted during one-to-one instrumental lessons whilst helping their students to copy music by ear from a recording. Overall, the teachers used a variety of strategies including singing and humming along with or without the recording, asking questions, and giving verbal explanation and positive feedback. By the end of the project the teachers indicated that the project showed them a new and enjoyable way to introduce aural-training tasks, it helped them develop their own confidence in ear-playing and it gave them the opportunity to observe and assess their students’ needs more carefully. The benefits for the students included greater enjoyment during instrumental lessons, development of aural and improvisation skills and greater confidence in instrumental playing

The Fifth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

This paper describes the Fifth Data Release (DR5) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). DR5 includes all survey quality data taken through June 2005 and represents the completion of the SDSS-I project (whose successor, SDSS-II will continue through mid-2008). It includes five-band photometric data for 217 million objects selected over 8000 square degrees, and 1,048,960 spectra of galaxies, quasars, and stars selected from 5713 square degrees of that imaging data. These numbers represent a roughly 20% increment over those of the Fourth Data Release; all the data from previous data releases are included in the present release. In addition to "standard" SDSS observations, DR5 includes repeat scans of the southern equatorial stripe, imaging scans across M31 and the core of the Perseus cluster of galaxies, and the first spectroscopic data from SEGUE, a survey to explore the kinematics and chemical evolution of the Galaxy. The catalog database incorporates several new features, including photometric redshifts of galaxies, tables of matched objects in overlap regions of the imaging survey, and tools that allow precise computations of survey geometry for statistical investigations.Comment: ApJ Supp, in press, October 2007. This paper describes DR5. The SDSS Sixth Data Release (DR6) is now public, available from http://www.sdss.or

A Simple Method Based on the Application of a CCD Camera as a Sensor to Detect Low Concentrations of Barium Sulfate in Suspension

The development of a simple, rapid and low cost method based on video image analysis and aimed at the detection of low concentrations of precipitated barium sulfate is described. The proposed system is basically composed of a webcam with a CCD sensor and a conventional dichroic lamp. For this purpose, software for processing and analyzing the digital images based on the RGB (Red, Green and Blue) color system was developed. The proposed method had shown very good repeatability and linearity and also presented higher sensitivity than the standard turbidimetric method. The developed method is presented as a simple alternative for future applications in the study of precipitations of inorganic salts and also for detecting the crystallization of organic compounds