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At least 1,081 records · Page 60Linked to original sources
PubMed2000

Problem solving as a core strategy in the prevention of schizophrenia and other mental disorders.

OBJECTIVE: To outline the rationale for implementing training in structured problem solving as a primary prevention strategy for major mental disorders. METHOD: The evidence that training people in a structured method of solving their personal problems is an effective strategy in the treatment of established cases of schizophrenic and major mood disorders, is selectively reviewed. RESULTS: Most of the relevant research focused on the prevention of major recurrent episodes of psychosis. There is some evidence to support the hypothesis that this strategy may assist many people to achieve a full and sustained recovery from the clinical and social impairments of these disorders, especially when patients are taught to use structured problem solving with members of their personal resource groups, and they continue to take optimal doses of psychoactive medication. There is support for the hypothesis that the key therapeutic factor associated with these benefits is the improved efficiency of the management of life stress. CONCLUSIONS: The simplicity of problem solving, the educational methods used, and the widespread application to a person's lifestyle would appear to make this a possible candidate for a primary prevention program for major mental disorders. Guidebooks and teaching aids have been developed and show excellent consumer acceptance.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Qualitatively modelling and analysing genetic regulatory networks: a Petri net approach.

MOTIVATION: New developments in post-genomic technology now provide researchers with the data necessary to study regulatory processes in a holistic fashion at multiple levels of biological organization. One of the major challenges for the biologist is to integrate and interpret these vast data resources to gain a greater understanding of the structure and function of the molecular processes that mediate adaptive and cell cycle driven changes in gene expression. In order to achieve this biologists require new tools and techniques to allow pathway related data to be modelled and analysed as network structures, providing valuable insights which can then be validated and investigated in the laboratory. RESULTS: We propose a new technique for constructing and analysing qualitative models of genetic regulatory networks based on the Petri net formalism. We take as our starting point the Boolean network approach of treating genes as binary switches and develop a new Petri net model which uses logic minimization to automate the construction of compact qualitative models. Our approach addresses the shortcomings of Boolean networks by providing access to the wide range of existing Petri net analysis techniques and by using non-determinism to cope with incomplete and inconsistent data. The ideas we present are illustrated by a case study in which the genetic regulatory network controlling sporulation in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis is modelled and analysed. AVAILABILITY: The Petri net model construction tool and the data files for the B. subtilis sporulation case study are available at http://bioinf.ncl.ac.uk/gnapn.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2006

Potential barriers to the use of health services among ethnic minorities: a review.

BACKGROUND: Ethnic minority patients seem to be confronted with barriers when using health services. Yet, care providers are often oblivious to these barriers, although they may share to some extent the burden of responsibility for them. In order to enlighten care providers, as to the potential pitfalls that may exist, there is a need to explore the different factors in the creation of the barriers. OBJECTIVE: Therefore, the objective of this paper is to present an overview of the potential barriers and the factors, which may restrict ethnic minority patients from using health services, according to the literature available. METHODS: Articles published from 1990 to 2003 were identified by searching electronic databases and selected through titles and abstracts. The articles were included if deemed to be relevant to study health services use by ethnic minorities, i.e. the different factors in the creation of a barrier. RESULTS: There were 54 articles reviewed. They reported on studies carried out in different countries and among different ethnic minorities. Potential barriers occurred at three different levels: patient level, provider level and system level. The barriers at patient level were related to the patient characteristics: demographic variables, social structure variables, health beliefs and attitudes, personal enabling resources, community enabling resources, perceived illness and personal health practices. The barriers at provider level were related to the provider characteristics: skills and attitudes. The barriers at system level were related to the system characteristics: the organisation of the health care system. CONCLUSION: This review has the goal of raising awareness about the myriad of potential barriers, so that the problem of barriers to health care for different ethnic minorities becomes transparent. In conclusion, there are many different potential barriers of which some are tied to ethnic minorities. The barriers are all tied to the particular situation of the individual patient and subject to constant adjustment. In other words, generalizations should not be made.

Acculturation↗
PubMed2004

Resources predicting positive and negative affect during the experience of stress: a study of older Asian Indian immigrants in the United States.

PURPOSE: Using the life stress model of psychological well-being, in this study we examined risks and resources predicting the occurrence of both positive and negative affect among older Asian Indian immigrants who experienced stressful life events. DESIGN AND METHODS: We collected data through a telephone survey of 226 respondents (aged 50 years and older) in the Southeastern United States. We used hierarchical, negative binomial regression analyses to examine correlates of positive and negative affect. RESULTS: Different coping resources influenced positive and negative affect when stressful life events were controlled for. Being female was a common risk factor for poorer positive and increased negative affect. Satisfaction with friendships and a cultural or ethnic identity that is either bicultural or more American were predictive of greater positive affect. Greater religiosity and increased mastery were resources predicting less negative affect. IMPLICATIONS: Cognitive and structural interventions that increase opportunities for social integration, increasing mastery, and addressing spiritual concerns are discussed as ways of coping with stress to improve the well-being of individuals in this immigrant community.

Affect↗
PubMed2004

The Eat Well SA project: an evaluation-based case study in building capacity for promoting healthy eating.

The term 'capacity building' is used in the health promotion literature to mean investing in communities, organizations and structures to enhance access to knowledge, skills and resources needed to conduct effective health programs. The Eat Well SA project aimed to increase consumption of healthy food by children, young people and their families in South Australia. The project evaluation demonstrated that awareness about healthy eating among stakeholders across a range of sectors, coalitions and partnerships to promote healthy eating and sustainable programs had been developed. The project achievements were analysed further using a capacity-building framework. This analysis showed that partnership development was a key strategy for success, leading to increased problem-solving capacity among key stakeholders and workers from education, child care, health, transport and food industry sectors. It was also a strategy that required concerted effort and review. New and ongoing programs were initiated and institutionalized within other sectors, notably the child care, vocational education and transport sectors. A model for planning and evaluating nutrition health promotion work is described.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

The origins of eukaryotic gene structure.

Most of the phenotypic diversity that we perceive in the natural world is directly attributable to the peculiar structure of the eukaryotic gene, which harbors numerous embellishments relative to the situation in prokaryotes. The most profound changes include introns that must be spliced out of precursor mRNAs, transcribed but untranslated leader and trailer sequences (untranslated regions), modular regulatory elements that drive patterns of gene expression, and expansive intergenic regions that harbor additional diffuse control mechanisms. Explaining the origins of these features is difficult because they each impose an intrinsic disadvantage by increasing the genic mutation rate to defective alleles. To address these issues, a general hypothesis for the emergence of eukaryotic gene structure is provided here. Extensive information on absolute population sizes, recombination rates, and mutation rates strongly supports the view that eukaryotes have reduced genetic effective population sizes relative to prokaryotes, with especially extreme reductions being the rule in multicellular lineages. The resultant increase in the power of random genetic drift appears to be sufficient to overwhelm the weak mutational disadvantages associated with most novel aspects of the eukaryotic gene, supporting the idea that most such changes are simple outcomes of semi-neutral processes rather than direct products of natural selection. However, by establishing an essentially permanent change in the population-genetic environment permissive to the genome-wide repatterning of gene structure, the eukaryotic condition also promoted a reliable resource from which natural selection could secondarily build novel forms of organismal complexity. Under this hypothesis, arguments based on molecular, cellular, and/or physiological constraints are insufficient to explain the disparities in gene, genomic, and phenotypic complexity between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

PFD: a database for the investigation of protein folding kinetics and stability.

We have developed a new database that collects all protein folding data into a single, easily accessible public resource. The Protein Folding Database (PFD) contains annotated structural, methodological, kinetic and thermodynamic data for more than 50 proteins, from 39 families. A user-friendly web interface has been developed that allows powerful searching, browsing and information retrieval, whilst providing links to other protein databases. The database structure allows visualization of folding data in a useful and novel way, with a long-term aim of facilitating data mining and bioinformatics approaches. PFD can be accessed freely at http://pfd.med.monash.edu.au.

Databases, Protein↗
PubMed2006

Beamline X29: a novel undulator source for X-ray crystallography.

A high-flux insertion device and beamline for macromolecular crystallography has been built at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) that employs a mini-gap undulator source developed by the NSLS. The mini-gap undulator at beamline X29 is a hybrid-magnet device of period 12.5 mm operating at proven gaps of 3.3-10 mm. The beamline provides hard X-rays for macromolecular crystallography experiments from the second and third harmonics over an energy range of 5-15 keV. The X-ray optics is designed to deliver intense and highly collimated X-rays. Horizontal focusing is achieved by a cryogenically cooled sagittally focusing double-crystal monochromator with approximately 4.1:1 demagnification. A vertical focusing mirror downstream of the monochromator is used for harmonic rejection and vertical focusing. The experimental station hosts an Area Detector Systems Quantum 315 CCD detector with 2.2 s readout time between exposures and Crystal Logic goniostat for crystal rotation and detector positioning. An auto-mounter crystal changer has been installed to facilitate the high-throughput data collection required by the major users, which includes structural genomics projects and the Macromolecular Crystallography Research Resource mail-in program. X29 is 10(3) times brighter than any existing bending-magnet beamline at NSLS with an actual flux of 2.5 x 10(11) photons s(-1) through a 0.12 mm square aperture at 11.271 keV.

Crystallography, X-Ray↗
PubMed2006

Mimicry in plant-parasitic fungi.

Mimicry is the close resemblance of one living organism (the mimic) to another (the model), leading to misidentification by a third organism (the operator). Similar to other organism groups, certain species of plant-parasitic fungi are known to engage in mimetic relationships, thereby increasing their fitness. In some cases, fungal infection can lead to the formation of flower mimics (pseudo flowers) that attract insect pollinators via visual and/or olfactory cues; these insects then either transmit fungal gametes to accomplish outcrossing (e.g. in some heterothallic rust fungi belonging to the genera Puccinia and Uromyces) or vector infectious spores to healthy plants, thereby spreading disease (e.g. in the anther smut fungus Microbotryum violaceum and the mummy berry pathogen Monilinia vaccinii-corymbosi). In what is termed aggressive mimicry, some specialized plant-parasitic fungi are able to mimic host structures or host molecules to gain access to resources. An example is M. vaccinii-corymbosi, whose conidia and germ tubes, respectively, mimic host pollen grains and pollen tubes anatomically and physiologically, allowing the pathogen to gain entry into the host's ovary via stigma and style. We review these and other examples of mimicry by plant-parasitic fungi and some of the mechanisms, signals, and evolutionary implications.

Animals↗
PubMed1994

The NSW health outcomes initiative and economic analysis.

The New South Wales Health Department's initiative on health outcomes promises some important advances in the planning and priority setting of health services. However, the potential to promote better health care will not be realised unless resources are redeployed to the programs where health outcomes (and other benefits) can be purchased most cheaply. The initiative reflects firmly the economic concept of efficiency but leaves less certainty about how concerns for equity are to be handled. This paper proposes that program budgeting and marginal analysis be used to create a framework for redeploying resources to follow the good buys--in terms of health and other outcomes. Additionally, the paper argues for creating the right incentives to promote efficiency, and expressly argues against the use of diagnostic related groups or casemix funding, as such funding is concerned, by definition, with cases and not with health per se. The goal of the initiative of trying to maximise health outcomes implies that there are no other valued gains to be had from health care. This is challenged. In reaching decisions about how best to deploy resources, more account should be taken, in a structured way, of community values.

Delivery of Health Care↗
PubMed1998

Principles for Sustainable Governance of the Oceans

Pressures being exerted on the ocean ecosystems through overfishing, pollution, and environmental and climate change are increasing. Six core principles are proposed to guide governance and use of ocean resources and to promote sustainability. Examples of governance structures that embody these principles are given.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

The relationship between lead and crime.

This study investigates the association between air-lead levels and crime rates across 2,772 U.S. counties. Data for the analysis come from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of Census, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Results suggest that air-lead levels have a direct effect on property and violent crime rates even after adjusting for general levels of air pollution and several structural covariates of crime. We also find that resource deprivation interacts with air-lead levels. The association between air-lead levels and crime rates-property and violent-is strongest in counties that have high levels of resource deprivation and weakest in counties that have low levels of deprivation. This interaction is consistent with arguments and evidence in the health care literature that populations most at risk of lead poisoning are least likely to get the resources required to prevent, screen, and treat the illness.

Air Pollutants↗
PubMed2003

Explaining feast or famine in randomized field trials. Medical science and criminology compared.

A feast of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in medical science and comparative famine in criminology can be explained in terms of cultural and structural factors. Of central importance is the context in which the evaluation of interventions is done and the difference in status of situational research in the two disciplines. Evaluation of medical interventions has traditionally been led by practitioner (clinical) academics. This is not the case in criminal justice, where theory has had higher status than intervention research. Medical science has advanced in, or closely associated with, university teaching hospitals, but links between criminology and criminal justice services are far more tenuous. The late development of situational crime prevention seems extraordinary from a medical perspective, as does the absence of university police schools in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. These structural and cultural factors explain concentration of expectation, resource, and RCT productivity in medical science. The Campbell Collaboration and the Academy of Experimental Criminology are forces which are reducing this polarization of feast and famine in RCTs. But unless scientific criminology is embedded in university schools which are responsible for the education and training of law, probation, and police practitioners, convergence in terms of RCTs and implementation of findings in practice seems unlikely.

Criminology↗
PubMed2005

The social distribution of psychological distress and depression in older adults.

OBJECTIVE: This study examines the associations between social position and mental health and explores whether differences in distress and depression by social position can be accounted for by differences in the major components of the stress process model. We extend previous work by including an ethnocultural measure alongside more traditional measures of social position. METHOD: Secondary data analysis of the 1994 National Population Health Survey. RESULTS: Consistent with findings from studies of younger adults, mental health in later life is determined in part by age, gender, marital status, education, and ethnocultural factors. The data indicate that the life experiences connected to these social positions are largely responsible for these effects. DISCUSSION: Our findings suggest that key social factors are related to mental health in late life, because one's position in the social structure shapes the stressors they encounter and the resources they have at their disposal to cope with them.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2026

Published Database Resources for Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine: Update of a Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND: Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine (TCIM) has been established in the academic context of universities. In recent years, strategies have been developed worldwide to strengthen the role of TCIM in supporting the health of the population. Online databases are a common way for obtaining evidence-based information. This article is an update of a former systematic review from 2010 on published databases resources for TCIM. METHODS: The databases CINAHL, CAMbase, Web of Science, MEDLINE/PubMed, and Google Scholar search engine were searched for databases related to TCIM published in peer-reviewed journals between 2010 and November 2024. All included databases were visited online, and information on the origin, content, and scope of the database was extracted. RESULTS: A total of 6579 articles were identified through the literature search. After exclusion of irrelevant articles, full-text screening of 127 articles yielded 37 new databases. Together with 16 still available old databases, these mainly contained information on herbal therapies (n = 15) and Traditional Chinese Medicine (n = 11) from 18 different countries. Newly identified medicinal plant databases offer various scientific resources such as crude drugs, indigenous plants, and structures for natural and phytochemical components with molecular biological content. CONCLUSIONS: This literature review illustrates the dynamic development in the database landscape over the last 15 years. While the number of bibliographic databases is shrinking, databases in the field of medical plants/herbal therapy content are on the rise, which might be due to advances in plant genomics and molecular biology.

Humans↗
PubMed1997

Anxiety, depression and PTSD in asylum-seekers: assocations with pre-migration trauma and post-migration stressors.

BACKGROUND: Research into the mental health of refugees has burgeoned in recent times, but there is a dearth of studies focusing specifically on the factors associated with psychiatric distress in asylum-seekers who have not been accorded residency status. METHOD: Forty consecutive asylum-seekers attending a community resource centre in Sydney, Australia, were interviewed using structured instruments and questionnaires. RESULTS: Anxiety scores were associated with female gender, poverty, and conflict with immigration officials, while loneliness and boredom were linked with both anxiety and depression. Thirty subjects (79%) had experienced a traumatic event such as witnessing killings, being assaulted, or suffering torture and captivity, and 14 subjects (37%) met full criteria for PTSD. A diagnosis of PTSD was associated with greater exposure to pre-migration trauma, delays in processing refugee applications, difficulties in dealing with immigration officials, obstacles to employment, racial discrimination, and loneliness and boredom. CONCLUSIONS: Although based on correlational data derived from'a convenient' sample, our findings raise the possibility that current procedures for dealing with asylum-seekers may contribute to high levels of stress and psychiatric symptoms in those who have been previously traumatised.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Frequent re-infection in a community with hyperendemic gonorrhoea and chlamydia: appropriate clinical actions.

In a cohort of 1200 individuals experiencing an index infection of gonorrhoea or chlamydia in a rural North Carolina county, we studied the risk factors for re-infection within 16 months. The occurrence of asymptomatic re-infection was estimated from a sample of controls. Re-infection with either of the two STDs occurred in one-quarter (24%) of the study participants and 22% of the controls. The factors associated with re-infection were age less than 25 years, African-American race, male sex, and infection prior to the index infection. The behavioural and attitudinal variables tested were not associated with re-infection. The patterns of re-infection in this study do not provide guidance for targeting resources toward a subgroup of the clinic population. Structuring clinical services to make them more available and acceptable to all potential clinic clients can contribute to decreasing the duration of infections. Lowering the community prevalence in this way will then decrease the likelihood of re-infection rates.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

HIV in insurgency forces in sub-Saharan Africa - a personal view of policies.

The special requirements for HIV-prevention programmes by armed forces or insurgency groups in very poor countries that are in active conflict have not been well described. Customary military programme components include: education on sexually transmitted diseases, condom distribution, and HIV testing. Programmes for these armed forces must address: a command structure that may not prioritize this activity, severe resource and logistical constraints, weak health systems for treating sexually transmitted illness, beliefs in traditional medicines for symptoms of sexually transmitted illness, illiteracy that diminishes the utility of educational pamphlets, rape and sexual bartering by soldiers, battlefield transfusions, tattooing and the co-epidemic of tuberculosis.

Africa South of the Sahara↗