Doing Science: How to optimise patient and public involvement in your research

This paper considers how best to achieve patient and public involvement in research and how to get the most out of it http://ow.ly/R0hw

Doing Science: How to optimise patient and public involvement in your research

This paper considers how best to achieve patient and public involvement in research and how to get the most out of it http://ow.ly/R0hwV

Doing science: how to get credit for your scientific work.

Everyone deserves to be acknowledged for their efforts and contributions to a shared goal, and getting credit for your scientific work should be part of a natural process and should be fair and straightforward. However, credit cannot be objectively measured despite it having a big influence and, unfortunately, getting appropriate credit can occasionally be both complicated and challenging

Disclosure during private prayer as a mediator between prayer type and mental health in an adult Christian sample.

According to Poloma and Pendleton’s (1991) prayer model there are four prayer types (colloquial, meditative, petitionary, and ritual), all of which have varying associations with mental health. However, few studies have examined what mechanisms explain these associations. The literature demonstrates that disclosing distressing information can improve mental health. Thus, the current study examined self-disclosure as a mediating variable between Poloma and Pendleton’s (1991) prayer types and mental health. It was hypothesized that self-disclosure would mediate the association between prayer types involving meaningful communication with God (colloquial and meditative prayer types) and mental health and would not mediate associations between petitionary and ritual prayer types and mental health. This cross-sectional, online study analyzed data from praying Christian adults (N = 296) to test the hypotheses. As predicted, self-disclosure mediated the positive associations between colloquial and meditative prayer types and mental health. Self-disclosure was not associated with petitionary or ritual prayer and therefore did not mediate the relationships of these prayer types with mental health, as expected. Petitionary prayer had a negative relationship to mental health, while ritual prayer had a positive relationship to mental health. The results indicate that self-disclosure is an important mediator to consider when investigating the associations between private prayer and mental health

Do trust-based beliefs mediate the associations of frequency of private prayer with mental health? : a cross-sectional study.

Significant associations of private prayer with mental health have been found, while mechanisms underlying these associations are largely unknown. This cross-sectional online study (N = 325, age: 35.74, SD: 18.50, 77.5% female) used path modeling to test if trust-based beliefs (whether, when, and how prayers are answered) mediated the associations of prayer frequency with the Anxiety, Confusion, and Depression Profile of Mood States-Short Form (POMS) scales. The association of prayer and Depression was fully mediated by trust-based beliefs; associations with Anxiety and Confusion were partially mediated. Further the interaction of prayer frequency by stress was association with Anxiety

Serum neurofilament light chain – A potential biomarker for polyneuropathy in type 2 diabetes?

AimsTo investigate the relationship between neurofilament light chain (NfL) and the presence and severity of diabetic polyneuropathy (DPN).MethodsWe performed cross-sectional analysis of data from 178 participants of the ADDITION-Denmark cohort of people with screen-detected type 2 diabetes and 32 healthy controls. Biobank serum samples were analyzed for NfL using single-molecule array. DPN was defined by Toronto criteria for confirmed DPN. Original and axonal nerve conduction study (NCS) sum z-scores were used as indicators of the severity of DPN and peripheral nerve damage.Results39 (21.9%) participants had DPN. Serum NfL (s-NfL) was significantly higher in participants with DPN (18.8 ng/L [IQR 14.4; 27.9]) than in participants without DPN (15.4 ng/L [IQR 11.7; 20.1]). There were no unadjusted s-NfL differences between controls (17.6 ng/L [IQR 12.7; 19.8]) and participants with or without DPN. Higher original and axonal NCS sum z-scores were associated with 10% higher s-NfL (10.2 and 12.1% [95% CI’s 4.0; 16.8 and 6.6; 17.9] per 1 SD). The AUC of s-NfL for DPN was 0.63 (95% CI 0.52; 0.73).ConclusionsS-NfL is unlikely to be a reliable biomarker for the presence of DPN. S-NfL is however associated to the severity of the nerve damage underlying DPN

Characterization of pack cemented Ni₂Al₃ coating exposed to KCl(s) induced corrosion at 600 °C

Oxidation of Ni2Al3 produced by pack aluminizing of pure nickel was studied with and without 0.10 mg cm(-2) KCl(s) deposit in an environment containing 5% O-2, 40% H2O and 55% N-2 at 600 degrees C for up to 168 h. Oxide microstructure and composition was investigated by SEM/EDX, BIB, TEM and GDOES. Oxidised Ni2Al3 shows minimal weight gain, while adding KCl results in a small weight loss consistent with evaporation of KCl. On the surface of samples exposed to the gas environment only, a 30 nm oxide of Al oxide was present, but where KCl was present as deposit, 50-250 nm thick nodules form that are enriched in K, O and Al