the INFOMED database analysis

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Mental health care: perceptions of people with schizophrenia and their carers

The current study aims to discover the opinions of patients and their (informal and formal) carers concerning the mental health care of individuals with long term schizophrenic disorders within different contexts and cultures. It's a qualitative study with focus groups, in which 6 research centers (from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Spain, England and Venezuela) participated. Eight focus groups were conducted in each center, totaling 303 individuals in 46 groups. The data were analyzed with the aid of the Qualitative Solutions and Research/Non-numerical Unstructured Data Indexing program (QSR NUD*IST 4.0). The perception regarding the quality of care is influenced by the professional-patient relationship and the availability of resources. Poor quality of care is also perceived as discrimination. People with schizophrenia in general consider themselves to be ostracized by professionals and services and lacking in more humanized care. In the contexts in which community care is less advanced, the complaints center on resources and services that do not meet demands. On the other hand, in more developed contexts criticism centers more on the attitude of the professionals and the professional-patient relationship. Over and above the need for resources and services, people with schizophrenia require more humanized health care

Adaptability and Procedural Content Generation for Educational Escape Rooms

We present a literature review that aims to understand the role of the Educational Escape Room (EER) in improving the teaching, learning, and assessment processes through an EER design framework. The main subject is to identify the recent interventions in this field in the last five years. Our study focuses on understanding how it is possible to create an EER available to all students, namely visually challenged users. As a result of the implementation of new learning strategies that promote autonomous learning, a concern arose in adapting educational activities to each student's individual needs. To study the adaptability of each EER, we found the EER design framework essential to increase the student experience by promoting the consolidation of knowledge through narrative and level design. The results of our study show evidence of progress in students' performance while playing an EER, revealing that students' learning can be effective. Research on Procedural Content Generation (PCG) highlighted how important it is to implement adaptability in future studies of EERs. However, we found some limitations regarding the process of evaluating learning through the EERs, showing how important it is to study and implement learning analytics in future studies in this field

Assessing risks and mitigating impacts of harmful algal blooms on mariculture and marine fisheries

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food sector globally and protein provisioning from aquaculture now exceeds that from wild capture fisheries. There is clear potential for the further expansion of marine aquaculture (mariculture), but there are associated risks. Some naturally occurring algae can proliferate under certain environmental conditions, causing deoxygenation of seawater, or releasing toxic compounds (phycotoxins), which can harm wild and cultured finfish and shellfish, and also human consumers. The impacts of these so‐called harmful algal blooms (HABs) amount to approximately 8 $billion/yr globally, due to mass mortalities in finfish, harvesting bans preventing the sale of shellfish that have accumulated unsafe levels of HAB phycotoxins and unavoided human health costs. Here, we provide a critical review and analysis of HAB impacts on mariculture (and wild capture fisheries) and recommend research to identify ways to minimise their impacts to the industry. We examine causal factors for HAB development in inshore versus offshore locations and consider how mariculture itself, in its various forms, may exacerbate or mitigate HAB risk. From a management perspective, there is considerable scope for strategic siting of offshore mariculture and holistic Environmental Approaches for Aquaculture, such as offsetting nutrient outputs from finfish farming, via the co‐location of extractive shellfish and macroalgae. Such pre‐emptive, ecosystem‐based approaches are preferable to reactive physical, chemical or microbiological control measures aiming to remove or neutralise HABs and their phycotxins. To facilitate mariculture expansion and long‐term sustainability, it is also essential to evaluate HAB risk in conjunction with climate change

Potential of mathematical modeling in fruit quality

A review of mathematical modeling applied to fruit quality showed that these models ranged inresolution from simple yield equations to complex  representations of processes as respiration, photosynthesis and assimilation of nutrients. The latter models take into account complex  genotype environment interactions to estimate their effects on growth and yield. Recently, models are used to estimate seasonal changes in quality traits as fruit size, dry matter, water content and the concentration of sugars and acids, which are very important for flavor and aroma. These models have demonstrated their ability to generate relationships between physiological variables and quality attributes (allometric relations). This new kind of hybrid models has sufficient complexity to predict quality traits behavior

Quantifying Spatio-temporal risk of Harmful Algal Blooms and their impacts on bivalve shellfish mariculture using a data-driven modelling approach

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) intoxicate and asphyxiate marine life, causing devastating environmental and socio-economic impacts, costing at least $8bn/yr globally. Accumulation of phycotoxins from HAB phytoplankton in filter-feeding shellfish can poison human consumers, prompting harvesting closures at shellfish production sites. To quantify long-term intoxication risk from Dinophysis HAB species, we used historical HAB monitoring data (2009–2020) to develop a new modelling approach to predict Dinophysis toxin concentrations in a range of bivalve shellfish species at shellfish sites in Western Scotland, South-West England and Northern France. A spatiotemporal statistical modelling framework was developed within the Generalized Additive Model (GAM) framework to quantify long-term HAB risks for different bivalve shellfish species across each region, capturing seasonal variations, and spatiotemporal interactions. In all regions spatial functions were most important for predicting seasonal HAB risk, offering the potential to inform optimal siting of new shellfish operations and safe harvesting periods for businesses. A 10-fold cross-validation experiment was carried out for each region, to test the models’ ability to predict toxin risk at harvesting locations for which data were withheld from the model. Performance was assessed by comparing ranked predicted and observed mean toxin levels at each site within each region: the correlation of ranks was 0.78 for Northern France, 0.64 for Western Scotland, and 0.34 for South-West England, indicating our approach has promise for predicting unknown HAB risk, depending on the region and suitability of training data

Evidence for distinct coastal and offshore communities of bottlenose dolphins in the north east Atlantic.

Bottlenose dolphin stock structure in the northeast Atlantic remains poorly understood. However, fine scale photo-id data have shown that populations can comprise multiple overlapping social communities. These social communities form structural elements of bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) [corrected] populations, reflecting specific ecological and behavioural adaptations to local habitats. We investigated the social structure of bottlenose dolphins in the waters of northwest Ireland and present evidence for distinct inshore and offshore social communities. Individuals of the inshore community had a coastal distribution restricted to waters within 3 km from shore. These animals exhibited a cohesive, fission-fusion social organisation, with repeated resightings within the research area, within a larger coastal home range. The offshore community comprised one or more distinct groups, found significantly further offshore (>4 km) than the inshore animals. In addition, dorsal fin scarring patterns differed significantly between inshore and offshore communities with individuals of the offshore community having more distinctly marked dorsal fins. Specifically, almost half of the individuals in the offshore community (48%) had characteristic stereotyped damage to the tip of the dorsal fin, rarely recorded in the inshore community (7%). We propose that this characteristic is likely due to interactions with pelagic fisheries. Social segregation and scarring differences found here indicate that the distinct communities are likely to be spatially and behaviourally segregated. Together with recent genetic evidence of distinct offshore and coastal population structures, this provides evidence for bottlenose dolphin inshore/offshore community differentiation in the northeast Atlantic. We recommend that social communities should be considered as fundamental units for the management and conservation of bottlenose dolphins and their habitat specialisations

Smc5/6: a link between DNA repair and unidirectional replication?

Of the three structural maintenance of chromosome (SMC) complexes, two directly regulate chromosome dynamics. The third, Smc5/6, functions mainly in homologous recombination and in completing DNA replication. The literature suggests that Smc5/6 coordinates DNA repair, in part through post-translational modification of uncharacterized target proteins that can dictate their subcellular localization, and that Smc5/6 also functions to establish DNA-damage-dependent cohesion. A nucleolar-specific Smc5/6 function has been proposed because Smc5/6 yeast mutants display penetrant phenotypes of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) instability. rDNA repeats are replicated unidirectionally. Here, we propose that unidirectional replication, combined with global Smc5/6 functions, can explain the apparent rDNA specificity

Agreement Between Standard Body Composition Methods to Estimate Percentage of Body Fat in Young Male Athletes.

This is author's accepted manuscript.Final version available from Human Kinetics via the DOI in this record.PURPOSE: To examine the intermethods agreement of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and foot-to-foot bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) to assess the percentage of body fat (%BF) in young male athletes using air-displacement plethysmography (ADP) as the reference method. METHODS: Standard measurement protocols were carried out in 104 athletes (40 swimmers, 37 footballers, and 27 cyclists, aged 12-14 y). RESULTS: Age-adjusted %BF ADP and %BF BIA were significantly higher in swimmers than footballers. ADP correlates better with DXA than with BIA (r = .84 vs r = .60, P < .001). %BF was lower when measured by DXA and BIA than ADP (P < .001), and the bias was higher when comparing ADP versus BIA than ADP versus DXA. The intraclass correlation coefficients between DXA and ADP showed a good to excellent agreement (r = .67-.79), though it was poor when BIA was compared with ADP (r = .26-.49). The ranges of agreement were wider when comparing BIA with ADP than DXA with ADP. CONCLUSION: DXA and BIA seem to underestimate %BF in young male athletes compared with ADP. Furthermore, the bias significantly increases with %BF in the BIA measurements. At the individual level, BIA and DXA do not seem to predict %BF precisely compared with ADP in young athletic populations.This work was done as part of the PRO-BONE study. It has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. PCIG13-GA-2013-618496. M.V.N-F. received a PhD Student Internships Abroad scholarship from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq; process: 200340/2015-8) and a Brazilian PhD Student scholarship from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP; process. 2016/18436-8 and 2017/11732-3). E.U-G. received a PhD scholarship from Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (2014/10340). A.C.F.M. received a postdoctoral scholarship from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP; process: 2014/13367-2 and 2015/14319-4)