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At least 1,153 records · Page 64Linked to original sources
PubMed2003

Pulp treatment for extensive decay in primary teeth.

BACKGROUND: Dental decay in primary teeth remains a considerable health problem. Where decay extends to involve the dental pulp, pulp treatment techniques are often used to manage both symptomatic and symptom free teeth. OBJECTIVES: To assess the relative effectiveness of: various pulp treatment techniques in retaining primary molar teeth with decay involving the pulp for at least 12 months; pulp treatment techniques and extractions in avoiding long term sequelae. SEARCH STRATEGY: We searched the Cochrane Oral Health Group's Trials Register (August 2002); the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (The Cochrane Library Issue 3, 2002); MEDLINE (January 1966 to August 2002); EMBASE (1980 to August 2002); Science Citation Index Expanded (1981 to August 2002); Social Science Citation Index (1981 to August 2002); Index to Scientific and Technical Proceedings (1982 to August 2002); System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe (August 2002). Key journals were handsearched. There was no restriction on language of publication. SELECTION CRITERIA: Randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing different pulp treatment techniques (with each other, with extraction or with no treatment) for extensive decay in primary molar teeth. Primary outcomes were extractions following pulp treatment and long term effects. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Data extraction and quality assessment were carried out independently and in duplicate. Authors were contacted for additional information where necessary. MAIN RESULTS: Eighty-two studies were identified but only three were suitable for inclusion. Nine studies meeting the inclusion criteria but with inappropriate study design or analysis are also described. Included trials investigated formocresol pulpotomy, ferric sulphate pulpotomy, electrosurgical pulpotomy or zinc oxide eugenol pulpectomy in symptom free, cariously exposed teeth. Data were unavailable on long term effects. Data on extraction following pulp treatment was available in all three studies and in two studies there was no statistically significant difference between the treatments. The difference seen in the other study, where more teeth treated by ferric sulphate pulpotomy were extracted compared to zinc oxide eugenol pulpectomy, must be viewed with caution. REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS: Based on the available RCTs, there is no reliable evidence supporting the superiority of one type of treatment for pulpally involved primary molars. No conclusions can be made as to the optimum treatment or techniques for pulpally involved primary molar teeth due to the scarcity of reliable scientific research. High quality RCTs, with appropriate unit of randomisation and analysis are needed.

Controlled Clinical Trials as Topic↗
PubMed1995

A redrawn Vandenberg and Kuse mental rotations test: different versions and factors that affect performance.

The available versions of the Vandenberg and Kuse (1978) Mental Rotations Test (MRT) have physically deteriorated because only copies of copies are available. We report results from a redrawn version of the MRT and for alternate versions of the test. Males perform better than females, and students drawn from the physical sciences perform better than students drawn from the social sciences and humanities, confirming other reports with the original version of the MRT. Subjects find it very hard to perform the MRT when stimuli require rotation along both the top/bottom axis and the left/right axis. The magnitude of effect sizes for sex (which account, on average, for some 20% of the variance) does not increase with increasing difficulty of the task. Minimal strategy effects were observed and females did not perform differently during the menstrual period as opposed to the days between the menstrual periods. Practice effects are dramatic, confirming other reports with the original MRT, and can also be shown to be powerful in a transfer for practice paradigm, where test and retest involve different versions of the MRT. Main effects of handedness on MRT performance were not found.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Self-esteem and smoking in youth--muddying the waters?

Longitudinal analysis by McGee and Williams (2000, Journal of Adolescence, 23, 569-582, doi: 10.1006/jado.2000.0344) indicates that global self-esteem is not related to substance use in early youth. In the case of tobacco use Glendinning and Inglis (1999, Journal of Adolescence, 22, 673-682, doi: 10.1006/jado.1999.0262) have looked at the "problem" of self-esteem in youth and its relevance for smoking, and they also note that the evidence from the survey literature has been inconclusive. However, rather than suggest that the survey methods and data have been inadequate, Glendinning and Inglis argue that an explanation is provided by looking at the relationship between global self-esteem and smoking in much greater detail, specifically within the peer context, and at peer culture, and the meanings that different groupings of young people attach to smoking or not smoking. That is, rather than a direct link between global self-esteem and smoking behaviour in youth, both are bound up with peer status and differentiation in early youth, although it must be said, not necessarily in the "expected" way. In the present study longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS, 2001, Economic & Social Science Research Council, Research Centre on Micro-Social Change. British Household Panel Survey Colchester, Essex: The Data Archive, 28 February 2001.SN: 4340.) confirm this more complex picture, and qualify the conclusions of McGee and Williams, in that global self-esteem year-on-year at around age 12-14-when young people take up smoking in increasing numbers-is clearly linked to experimentation and to smoking in subsequent years, in the shorter term. However, a longer-term linkage between self-esteem in early youth and smoking in later youth is less clear cut, and less compelling; but then, pursuing the longitudinal analysis still further, the findings lend force to the argument that putative links between self-esteem and smoking must be understood in context, specifically the peer context.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

The changing role and legitimate boundaries of epidemiology: community-based prevention programmes.

Epidemiology is the basic science of public health. It combines medical and social sciences, both of which are developing with new inventions. Therefore, the role of epidemiology and its boundaries are also changing over time. An important role of epidemiology is to develop and implement community-based control programmes for major diseases in the community. Such programmes are essential for large scale public health policy. It is necessary that epidemiological research can as freely as possible test new methods of disease prevention and health promotion. The first community-based control programme for cardiovascular diseases, the North Karelia Project is reviewed against this background. At present, it is still possible to define the boundaries of epidemiology geographically and culturally, but in the future, however, it will become more difficult. There is no doubt that epidemiology will remain as the basic science of public health but the scope of public health problems are growing much wider. These include the prevention of the final epidemic--the destruction of our planet by nuclear bombs. In the control of the existing epidemics and in the prevention of new ones the boundaries of epidemiology cannot stay rigid but they must be changing as new facts about the emerging public health problems are identified.

Cardiovascular Diseases↗
PubMed1998

A population-based twin study of self-esteem and gender.

BACKGROUND: Self-esteem (SE), a widely used construct in the social sciences, is usually conceptualized as a reflection of socialization and interpersonal experiences that may differ considerably between the genders. METHODS: The Rosenberg self-esteem scale was assessed at personal interview in both members of 3793 unselected twin pairs (1517 male-male, 856 female-female and 1420 male-female) from the population-based Virginia Twin Registry. Gender effects on SE were assessed by both analysis of variance and biometrical twin modelling. RESULTS: The mean SE score was slightly but significantly lower in women v. men, and in women who grew up with a male v. a female co-twin. Twin modelling suggested that: (i) individual differences in self-esteem in both men and women were best explained by genetic and individual-specific environment factors; (ii) heritability estimates were similar in women (32%) and in men (29%); and (iii) the same genetic factors that influenced SE in women also influenced SE in men. Analyses supported the validity of the equal environment assumption for SE. The heritability of SE cannot be explained by the moderate correlation between SE and symptoms of depression. CONCLUSIONS: These results are inconsistent with prominent gender-related aetiological models for SE, which postulate that individual differences arise from socialization experiences both within and outside the home of origin which differ widely for the two genders. Instead, a significant proportion of the population variance in SE is due to genetically-influenced temperamental variables that are the same in men and women.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Priorities for treatment research from different professional perspectives.

The consensus conference "Advancing the Treatment of Fecal and Urinary Incontinence Through Research" had as one of its goals the development of a comprehensive list of research priorities. Experts from all disciplines that treat incontinence-gastroenterology, pediatric gastroenterology, urology, urogynecology, colorectal surgery, geriatrics, neurology, nursing, and psychology-and patient advocates were asked to identify their highest priorities for treatment-related research. Meeting participants were shown the aggregated list and invited to propose additional priorities. Treatments for fecal incontinence (biofeedback, sphincteroplasty, antidiarrheal and laxative medications, and sacral nerve stimulation) require validation by randomized, controlled trials. For urinary incontinence, the greatest need is to compare pharmacological, behavioral, and surgical treatments. Trials assessing combined treatments (e.g., biofeedback plus surgery vs. surgery alone or biofeedback alone) are also needed. New drugs are needed that target anal canal resting pressure in fecal incontinence and hypersensitivity to distention in urge urinary incontinence. It may be possible to substantially reduce the incidence of incontinence through modification of obstetric practices (e.g., avoiding episiotomies or offering elective cesarean delivery to high-risk patients), providing pelvic floor exercises before childbirth, and educating patients to avoid straining during defecation. For the elderly, practical behavioral and pharmacological treatments are needed that can postpone or avoid institutionalization. Social science research may identify ways to counteract the social stigma of fecal incontinence and assist physicians in providing patients with more comprehensive and understandable information on the risks associated with different treatment options.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗
PubMed2005

[Does evidence-based surgery harm autonomy in clinical decision making?].

Evidence-based clinical guidelines in surgery are frequently confronted with scepticism by the medical staff, especially because a confinement of free decision making in therapy is expected. Considering that medicine is not merely natural science, but can as well be comprehended as social science or art, evidence-based medicine (EbM) may lead to an oversimplified and rigid standardization in medical care ("cook book medicine"). In addition, scientific progress might be prevented by inflexible guidelines. However, it is important for surgeons to engage in the development of evidence-based guidelines in order to put forward their interests, because it is the lack of medical guidelines that might threaten free decision making in surgery - by not confronting economical pressure with decisive minimal standards in medical care. Therapeutical freedom is a substantial principle in medicine, but it should be considered that according to occidental tradition, "freedom" is necessarily involving reason and conscientiousness.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed1997

Deception, efficiency, and random groups. Psychology and the gradual origination of the random group design.

In the life sciences, psychology, and large parts of the other social sciences, the ideal experiment is a comparative experiment with randomly composed experimental and control groups. Historians and practitioners of these sciences generally attribute the invention of this "random group design" to the statistician R.A. Fisher, who developed it in the 1930s for agricultural research. This essay argues that the random group design was advanced in psychology before Fisher introduced it in agriculture and that in this context it was the unplanned outcome of a lengthy historical process rather than the instantaneous creation of a single genius. The article analyzes how the random group design came about bit by bit when methodological practices from nineteenth-century psychophysical laboratories were gradually adapted, extended, and codified by twentieth-century educational psychologists to support procedural objectivity in educational administration. In passing, the article also amends the received historiography of the separate elements of randomization and control groups.

Europe↗
PubMed1981

Health and society education in a liberal arts college: a curricular strategy.

This paper examines the curricular response of colleges and universities to conflict among scientific and medical experts regarding the application of professional knowledge and technical expertise to public policy and patient care. Two types of interdisciplinary science programs now exist on many campuses: those that attempt to increase the "scientific literacy" of humanities and social science students and those that try to enrich the "social consciousness" of physical and life science students. An alternative philosophy of education is proposed that is based on three objectives: to introduce the logical processes for establishing causes in the health sciences; to identify limits of scientific and technical knowledge in health-related areas; and to develop familiarity with problems of decision-making under conditions of scientific or clinical uncertainty. Illustrative cases in clinical medicine and public health suggest how to apply this educational philosophy. The paper concludes by observing that premedical education reform is impossible without redefining the "liberal arts" tradition of undergraduate education.

Curriculum↗
PubMedDate not supplied

MatrixExplorer: a dual-representation system to explore social networks.

MatrixExplorer is a network visualization system that uses two representations: node-link diagrams and matrices. Its design comes from a list of requirements formalized after several interviews and a participatory design session conducted with social science researchers. Although matrices are commonly used in social networks analysis, very few systems support the matrix-based representations to visualize and analyze networks. MatrixExplorer provides several novel features to support the exploration of social networks with a matrix-based representation, in addition to the standard interactive filtering and clustering functions. It provides tools to reorder (layout) matrices, to annotate and compare findings across different layouts and find consensus among several clusterings. MatrixExplorer also supports Node-link diagram views which are familiar to most users and remain a convenient way to publish or communicate exploration results. Matrix and node-link representations are kept synchronized at all stages of the exploration process.

Algorithms↗
PubMed1990

Understanding postnatal depression: a mother-centred approach.

Research findings on the causes and correlates of postnatal depression divide into two explanatory frameworks. The clinical/medical model identifies the mothers as being 'ill', and the social science model suggests a particular vulnerability to additional social stress factors. Despite attempts to predict those women at risk, and develop preventative programmes, most treatment initiatives are reactive, which is a direct result of the inconclusive nature of available evidence. The study reported here suggests that the concept 'postnatal depression' needs to be re-examined and that rather than it being an individual illness or vulnerability, it is more akin to a normal grief reaction and part of a normal postnatal profile. It only becomes a problem when it is defined and treated inappropriately. The implications from this research lead to a new approach to understanding the mother's experience of postnatal depression, and types of counselling and support which might effectively be employed by midwives and health visitors.

Adaptation, Physiological↗
PubMed2006

Conservation Biology and real-world conservation.

In the 20 years since Conservation Biology was launched with the aim of disseminating scientific knowledge to help conserve biodiversity and the natural world, our discipline has hugely influenced the practice of conservation. But we have had less impact outside the profession itself and we have not transformed that practice into an enterprise large enough to achieve our conservation goals. As we look to the next 20 years, we need to become more relevant and important to the societies in which we live. To do so, the discipline of conservation biology must generate answers even when full scientific knowledge is lacking, structure scientific research around polices and debates that influence what we value as conservationists, go beyond the certitude of the biological sciences into the more contextual debates of the social sciences, engage scientifically with human-dominated landscapes, and address the question of how conservation can contribute to the improvement of human livelihoods and the quality of human life.

Conservation of Natural Resources↗