Public health risk of foodborne pathogens in edible African land snails, Cameroon

In tropical countries, land snails are an important food source; however, foodborne disease risks are poorly quantified. We detected Campylobacter spp., Yersinia spp., Listeria spp., Salmonella spp., or Shiga-toxigenic Escherichia coli in 57%–86% of snails in Cameroon. Snail meat is a likely vector for enteric diseases in sub-Saharan Africa countries

Why business angels reject investment opportunities: Is it personal?

A major focus of research on business angels has examined their decision-making processes and investment criteria. As business angels reject most of the opportunities that they receive, this article explores the reasons informing such decisions. In view of angel heterogeneity, investment opportunities might be expected to be rejected for differing reasons. Two sources of data are used to examine this issue. Face-to-face interviews with 30 business angels in Scotland and Northern Ireland provided information on typical ‘deal killers’. This was complemented by an Internet survey of United Kingdom that attracted responses from 238 UK business angels. The findings confirm that the main reason for rejection relates to the entrepreneur/management team. However, angel characteristics do not explain the number of reasons given for opportunity rejection nor do they predict the reasons for rejecting investment opportunities. This could be related to the increasing trend for business angels to join organised groups which, in turn, leads to the development of a shared repertoire of investment approaches. We suggest the concept of ‘communities-of-practice’ as an explanation for this finding

Nutritional management of children with cerebral palsy: a practical guide

Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Primary care patients reporting concerns about their gambling frequently have other co-occurring lifestyle and mental health issues

BACKGROUND: Problem gambling often goes undetected by family physicians but may be associated with stress-related medical problems as well as mental disorders and substance abuse. Family physicians are often first in line to identify these problems and to provide a proper referral. The aim of this study was to compare a group of primary care patients who identified concerns with their gambling behavior with the total population of screened patients in relation to co-morbidity of other lifestyle risk factors or mental health issues. METHODS: This is a cross sectional study comparing patients identified as worrying about their gambling behavior with the total screened patient population for co morbidity. The setting was 51 urban and rural New Zealand practices. Participants were consecutive adult patients per practice (N = 2,536) who completed a brief multi-item tool screening primary care patients for lifestyle risk factors and mental health problems (smoking, alcohol and drug misuse, problem gambling, depression, anxiety, abuse, anger). Data analysis used descriptive statistics and non-parametric binomial tests with adjusting for clustering by practitioner using STATA survey analysis. RESULTS: Approximately 3/100 (3%) answered yes to the gambling question. Those worried about gambling more likely to be male OR 1.85 (95% CI 1.1 to 3.1). Increasing age reduced likelihood of gambling concerns – logistic regression for complex survey data OR = 0.99 (CI 95% 0.97 to 0.99) p = 0.04 for each year older. Patients concerned about gambling were significantly more likely (all p < 0.0001) to have concerns about their smoking, use of recreational drugs, and alcohol. Similarly there were more likely to indicate problems with depression, anxiety and anger control. No significant relationship with gambling worries was found for abuse, physical inactivity or weight concerns. Patients expressing concerns about gambling were significantly more likely to want help with smoking, other drug use, depression and anxiety. CONCLUSION: Our questionnaire identifies patients who express a need for help with gambling and other lifestyle and mental health issues. Screening for gambling in primary care has the potential to identify individuals with multiple co-occurring disorders

A survey of Autism knowledge and attitudes among the healthcare professionals in Lahore, Pakistan

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The diagnosis and treatment of Autism in Pakistan occurs in multiple settings and is provided by variety of health professionals. Unfortunately, knowledge and awareness about Autism is low among Pakistani healthcare professionals & the presence of inaccurate and outdated beliefs regarding this disorder may compromise early detection and timely referral for interventions. The study assessed the baseline knowledge and misconceptions regarding autism among healthcare professionals in Pakistan which can impact future awareness campaigns.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Physicians (psychiatrists, pediatricians, neurologists and family physicians) and non-physicians (psychologists and speech therapists) participated in this study. Knowledge of DSM-IV TR criteria for Autistic Disorder, beliefs about social, emotional, cognitive, treatment and prognosis of the disorder were assessed. Demographic information regarding the participants of the survey was also gathered.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Two hundred and forty seven respondents (154 Physicians & 93 Non-physicians) participated in the study. Mean age of respondents was 33.2 years (S.D 11.63) with 53% being females. Reasonably accurate familiarity with the DSM IV-TR diagnostic criteria of Autistic Disorder was observed. However, within the professional groups, differences were found regarding the utilization of the DSM-IV-TR criteria when diagnosing Autistic Disorder. Non-Physicians were comparatively more likely to correctly identify diagnostic features of autism compared with Physicians (P-value <0.001). Significant misunderstandings of some of the salient features of autism were present in both professional groups.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Results suggests that current professionals in the field have an unbalanced understanding of autism due to presence of several misconceptions regarding many of the salient features of autism including developmental, cognitive and emotional features. The study has clinical implications and calls for continued education for healthcare professionals across disciplines with regards to Autism in Pakistan.</p

Self-management of chronic pain in Malaysian patients: effectiveness trial with 1-year follow-up

Self-management of chronic illnesses has been widely recognised as an important goal on quality of life, health service utilisation and cost grounds. This study describes the first published account on the application of this approach to people suffering from chronic pain conditions in a Southeast Asian country, Malaysia. A heterogeneous sample of chronic pain patients in Malaysia attended a 2-week cognitive–behavioural pain management programme (PMP) aimed at improving daily functional activities and general psychological well-being. Complete datasets from 70 patients out of 102 patients who attended 11 programmes conducted from 2002 to 2007, as well as the 1-month and 1-year follow-up sessions at the hospital clinic, are reported. The pre- to post-treatment results on self-report measures indicate that significant gains were achieved on the dimensions of pain, disability and psychological well-being. These gains were maintained at both 1-month and 1-year follow-ups. The results mirror those reported from similar interventions in Europe and North America and indicate the concept of self-management of a chronic illness is acceptable and meaningful to Asian patients. Importantly, the achieved outcomes were independent of gender and ethnic group status

The search for transient astrophysical neutrino emission with IceCube-DeepCore

We present the results of a search for astrophysical sources of brief transient neutrino emission using IceCube and DeepCore data acquired between 2012 May 15 and 2013 April 30. While the search methods employed in this analysis are similar to those used in previous IceCube point source searches, the data set being examined consists of a sample of predominantly sub-TeV muon-neutrinos from the Northern Sky (-5 degrees < delta < 90 degrees) obtained through a novel event selection method. This search represents a first attempt by IceCube to identify astrophysical neutrino sources in this relatively unexplored energy range. The reconstructed direction and time of arrival of neutrino events are used to search for any significant self-correlation in the data set. The data revealed no significant source of transient neutrino emission. This result has been used to construct limits at timescales ranging from roughly 1 s to 10 days for generic soft-spectra transients. We also present limits on a specific model of neutrino emission from soft jets in core-collapse supernovae

Measuring Under-Five Mortality: Validation of New Low-Cost Methods

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