A clinical case study of the use of ecological momentary assessment in obsessive compulsive disorder

Accurate assessment of obsessions and compulsions is a crucial step in treatment planning for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). In this clinical case study, we sought to determine if the use of Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) could provide additional symptom information beyond that captured during standard assessment of OCD. We studied three adults diagnosed with OCD and compared the number and types of obsessions and compulsions captured using the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) compared to EMA. Following completion of the Y-BOCS interview, participants then recorded their OCD symptoms into a digital voice recorder across a 12-h period in reply to randomly sent mobile phone SMS prompts. The EMA approach yielded a lower number of symptoms of obsessions and compulsions than the Y-BOCS but produced additional types of obsessions and compulsions not previously identified by the Y-BOCS. We conclude that the EMA-OCD procedure may represent a worthy addition to the suite of assessment tools used when working with clients who have OCD. Further research with larger samples is required to strengthen this conclusion

P4_4 Swimming Efficiency

The claim that it is easier to swim with the head completely out of the water is investigated by comparing the extra drag created with this position with the extra energy created through being able to breathe constantly. It is found that the best position to use depends on the velocity of the swimmer

P4_9 Tether Propulsion to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit

A tether system is proposed as a means of lifting payloads from low Earth orbit (LEO) to geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO).  The electromagnetic interaction of such tethers with the Earth’s magnetic field and plasma has been tested on orbit and is not discussed. The stresses on such a tether are found to be manageable and the mass less than that of the ISS. Although possibly challenging, this technique would produce significant savings on the mass needed to be placed on orbit

P4_7 Cumulative GCR Dose of Nostromo Survivors

At the end of the film Alien [1] two survivors of an interstellar spacecraft are cast adrift in a small shuttle. Expecting to be picked up within weeks, the survivors are discovered at the beginning of the sequel Aliens [2] after having spent 57 years in deep space. This paper estimates the dose of galactic cosmic rays they would receive, and the potential biological effects

Women’s experiences of coping with the sexual side effects of antidepressant medication

A growing body of evidence has highlighted the sexual side effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) medication. Whilst most of the research has focused on the prevalence and treatment of sexual difficulties, little is known about how patients cope with the SSRI-related sexual side effects. The objective of this study was to explore women’s experiences of coping with the sexual side effects of SSRI medication and interpretative phenomenological analysis was employed for an in-depth exploratory study of a sample of 10 women. Four broad themes emerged which are discussed under the following headings: searching, suffering in silence, trying to resolve and accepting what is. The themes provide an insight into the different strategies used by women to cope with the sexual side effects of SSRI medication and highlight the importance of contextualising these difficulties as part of an overall approach to improve the management and treatment of SSRI-related sexual side effects

Genetic Algorithm Selection of Features for Hand-printed Character Identification

We have constructed a linear discriminator for hand-printed character recognition that uses a (binary) vector of 1,500 features based on an equidistributed collection of products of pixel pairs. This classifier is competitive with other techniques, but faster to train and to run for classification. However, the 1,500-member feature set clearly contains many redundant (overlapping or useless) members, anda significantly smaller set would be very desirable (e.g., for faster training, a faster and smaller application program, and a smaller system suitable for hardware implementation). A system using the small set of features should also be better at generalization, since fewer features are less likely to allow a system to memorize noise in the training data. Several approaches to using a genetic algorithm to search for effective small subsets of features have been tried, and we have successfully derived a 300-element set of features and built a classifier whose performance is as good on our training and testing set as the system using the full set

Citation Analysis using Formal Concept Analysis: A case study in Software Engineering

El suelo ejidal en México presenta, a lo largo de su historia, vaguedad en su origen, ambigüedad en su implementación, indefinición en su propiedad y confusión en su utilización. En este último aspecto, sobre todo a partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, de su original e histórico sentido agrario comunal, se consolida como una mercancía, ahora para uso urbano, y que aporta cualquier tipo de ganancias tanto privadas como públicas. Las peculiares situaciones que rodean el acceso a este tipo de propiedad, tales como la práctica de un derecho consuetudinario, la sustitución de autoridades, la autonomía en la toma de decisiones, su gran extensión en el país (principalmente en las periferias de las ciudades) la existencia de Leyes y Autoridades paralelas, así como su no unicidad en su comportamiento, fomentan además, el surgimiento de múltiples modos de acceso (principalmente para uso urbano), en la mayoría de los casos, al margen de cualquier marco jurídico; ello implica sus consecuentes mecanismos de regularización. Todo esto, ha hecho imprescindible al suelo ejidal en la urbanización de la ciudad mexicana, de tal forma que no es posible entenderla, sin comprender a su vez, a este tipo de suelo y las relaciones de negociación que guardan los grupos que inciden en este. Abstract: The ejidal ground in Mexico presents, throughout its history, vagueness in its origin, ambiguity in its implementation, lack of definition in its property and confusion in its use. In the latter aspect, mostly from second half of century XX, of its original and historical communal agrarian sense, one consolidates like merchandise, now for urban use, and that contributes any type of both private and public earnings. The peculiar situations that surround the access to this type of property, such as the practice of common law, the substitution of authorities, the autonomy in the decision making, their great extension in the country (especially in the peripheries of the cities) the existence of Laws and parallel Authorities, as well as its not uniqueness in its behavior, foments in addition, the emergence of multiple ways of access (mainly for urban use), in most of the cases, to the margin of any legal frame; it implies its consequent mechanisms of regularization. All this, has made indispensable to the ejidal ground in the urbanization of the Mexican city, in such a way that it is not possible to understand it, without understanding in turn, to this type of ground and the relations of negotiation that keep the groups that affect in this one

Evaluation of real-time PCR for diagnosis of Bordetella pertussis infection

BACKGROUND: Nucleic acid amplification of the IS481 region by PCR is more sensitive than culture for detection and diagnosis of Bordetella pertussis but the assay has known cross-reactivity for Bordetella holmesii and its use as a routine diagnostic assay has not been widely evaluated. METHODS: The objectives of this study were: 1) to assess the diagnostic utility of real-time IS481 PCR by comparison of results with culture and direct fluorescent antigen (DFA) testing for B. pertussis, 2) to employ a PCR assay designed against a different insertion sequence (IS1001) to assess the incidence of B. holmesii in symptomatic individuals and 3) to design and evaluate a new PCR-based assay which could be used for B. pertussis confirmation. A total of 808 nasopharyngeal specimens were included in the study the majority of which were submitted in charcoal transport medium (88%) with the rest submitted in Regan-Lowe medium. RESULTS: Concordant results for PCR, DFA and culture were obtained for 21 B. pertussis positive and 729 B. pertussis negative specimens. DFA was prone to false positive and negative reactions when compared with both PCR and culture. The IS481 PCR identified 28 positive results for specimens that were DFA and culture negative. A novel real-time PCR targeting the B. pertussis toxin promoter was found to be specific and useful for confirming the majority of IS481 positive specimens as B. pertussis. B. holmesii was not detected in any of the submitted samples. CONCLUSION: The potential pick up of B. holmesii by the IS481 PCR had minimal diagnostic relevance in the Alberta population during the time period of our study. The IS481 PCR assay is now used in our laboratory routinely for front-line screening of samples for B. pertussis with associated enhancement in diagnostic sensitivity compared with DFA and culture. Retrospectively, patients' samples are batched and tested by the IS1001 MB and TPR assays for research purposes and to ensure there is no change in B. holmesii incidence in the population