Scientific Research Publishing

Discrimination and stigmatization of people with mental illness are a global and complex phenomenon linked to problems of knowledge, attitudes and behavior. Negative attitudes, stereotypes and discrimination are still highly prevalent in the population, including health care staff and health care students. Stigma and discrimination in many ways affect people with a mental illness causing a lowered self-esteem and quality of life, and affecting possibilities of adequate housing, work and financial situation in a negative way. In this paper, the authors asked students, whose future occupation would be in the social and health care fields, about how they perceived people suffering from schizophrenia, being as they are part of one of the most exposed subgroups of people with mental illness. And attitudes towards people with schizophrenia among 1101 students in eight different university programs providing training for work in the health care and social sectors were explored, using...

Since hypertension is the leading risk factor for various organ damages, in order to prevent the onset of hypertension, salt restriction has been campaigned over decades. However, unfortunately, the role of salt intake for health has not fully discussed depending on their life-stage. In this paper, the authors investigated an influence of salt intake during gestation or lactation in salt preference of weaning Dahl salt sensitive (Dahl S) strain. In the study, nine-week-old female Dahl S rats, after mated with the male, were divided into 1) high-salt group fed a 4% NaCl diet (high-salt mother) or 2) low-salt group fed a 0.3% NaCl diet (low-salt mother) during gestation or lactation periods. Using 0.4%, 0.6% and 0.8% (w/v) saline solutions, the authors assessed salt preference in their offspring after weaning. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) was determined by tail cuff method. The results indicated that both the male and female offspring from low-salt mothers during gestation cons...

Extrusion cooking is a continuous process commonly used in industry to produce snacks, breakfast cereal and pet foods. It is considered as a high-temperature and short-time cooking process. Processing conditions in an extrusion process have significant effects on physiological properties of the products. Specific mechanical energy (SME) has been proposed to establish the relationship between processing variables and properties of expanded products such as density, expansion ratio, solubility and degree of gelatinization. As a system parameter, SME represents the amount of mechanical energy transferred to the feed material during extrusion, and it can be used to indicate extrusion conditions. Rice has become an attractive ingredient in the extrusion industry in recent years because of its neutral taste and white color. It has been proposed that rice has a wide range of glycemic index (GI) depending on varieties and types. In this study, the effect of specific mechanical energy (S...

The excessive prevalence of obesity has been a growing concern worldwide in children as well as adults. This unhealthy tendency has not shown signs of improvement, but rather, it is steadily getting worse. It is well-known that childhood obesity has a great risk of progression into adult obesity. And obesity in childhood or adolescence has been recognized to be a risk factor for the onset of lifestyle-related diseases, not only in healthy children, but also in children with developmental disorders. This study was conducted to examine the characteristics of obesity and thinness as assessed by the body fat percentage among children with developmental disorders during certain growth periods and was also designed to investigate those factors associated with obesity and thinness based on a lifestyle and behavioral questionnaire. The subjects included 260 children (207 males and 53 females) from 5 to 18 years old with developmental disorders. Each subject’s height was measured by a ...

The somatoform disorders are a group of psychological disorders in which a patient experiences physical symptoms that are inconsistent with or cannot be fully explained by any underlying general medical or neurologic condition. They often lead to significant impairment in the quality of life of patients and their families with high levels of subsequent stress and strains. And to identify the somatoform disorders in children and adolescents in German, a Screening for Somatoform Disorders in Children and Adolescents (SOMS-CA) was developed based on the Screening for Somatoform Disorders (SOMS-2). The aim of this study was to investigate to what extent the SOMS-CA can differentiate significantly between children and adolescents with clinically diagnosed somatoform disorders and a control group and whether the SOMS-CA is superior to the GSCL-C (Giessen Subjective Complaint List for Children) . 30 patients (11 - 17 years) with somatoform disorders and a control group (n = 31) were...

Urinary incontinence  (UI), also known as involuntary urination, is any uncontrolled leakage of  urine . It is a common and distressing problem, which may have a large impact on quality of life. In older women, UI has been shown to be associated with impaired mobility, functional limitations, and falls. And non-surgical therapies provide successful short-term improvements and even cure in some women with UI. This study aimed to characterize change in mobility within the community utilizing the Life Space Assessment (LSA) questionnaire in women undergoing non-surgical UI treatment. This prospective cohort study, performed from July 2007 to March 2009, followed women seeking non-surgical UI treatment from an outpatient tertiary-care clinic and assessed their mobility and symptoms using LSA, Urogenital Distress Inventory (UDI-6), and Incontinence Impact Questionnaire (IIQ-7) at baseline and 2, 6, and 12 months post-treatment. Estimated Percent Improvement (EPI) and Patient ...

In general, intracranial arterial steno-occlusive lesion (IAS) is known as the most common cause of stroke. Previous studies demonstrated that the prevalence of IAS was equal to or even higher than that of extracranial carotid lesions in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and that its severity was parallel to the number of diseased coronary arteries. A large-scale study showed that total assessment of CVD using magnetic resonance imaging and angiography (MRI/A) was the most useful method to predict perioperative stroke in patients undergoing CABG. Nevertheless, IAS is not routinely evaluated preoperatively in many patients undergoing CABG. In this paper, the authors hypothesized that adequate perioperative management for IAS is useful to prevent stroke in CABG.  IAS was evaluated using magnetic resonance imaging/angiography (MRI/A, n = 216) in patients without a history of stroke or carotid stenosis (≥50%) in CABG between May 2005 and June 2018 (n = 42...

Heat is a valuable entity that has served a variety of needs throughout human history, but only relatively recently has heat been used for weed control, where it may serve as an alternative to chemical herbicides. Much of the research involved with heat to control weeds has been via four general methods: controlled burning, flaming of weeds, hot water treatment and steam application. Synthetic herbicides have been a tremendous asset to weed control in agriculture; however, weed control problems still exist, and many weeds have developed resistance to herbicides. An alternative to synthetic herbicides for weed control is the concept of bioherbicides. Bioherbicides are microbes and/or microbial phytotoxins used to control weeds.  In this paper, the authors hypothesized that hot water treatment, followed by a bioherbicide application, might promote the efficacy a given pathogen for control of certain weeds.  And the authors chose to examine the effects of hot water appli...

During the combustion of coal, inorganic constituents that are naturally enriched in the coal are further concentrated in the coal combustion residuals (CCRs): bottom ash and fly ash. And of the inorganic constituents concentrated in the CCRs, especially fly ash, selenium (Se) is of particular concern due to the transference of Se from the coal to the ash through a physical, volatilization-condensation adsorption process. And the Se-laden leachate from coal ash landfills can be transported with the groundwater and become a human and ecological threat. In this paper, the effects of ash type ( i.e ., fresh and weathered), water-extractant type ( i.e ., deionized water, rainwater, and groundwater), and extraction time ( i.e ., 2 and 6 hours) on Se, arsenic (As), and chromium (Cr) concentrations were investigated from Class C, subbituminous coal fly ash produced at the Flint Creek Power Plant (Benton County, AR). The results showed that water-extractable Se concentrations differed...

Winter wheat ( Triticum aestivum ) planting in Nebraska is recommended for mid-September, but summer crops are often harvested in late September and early October. Also, weather may delay planting. Gibberellin, first identified from a pathogenic fungus, is a family of natural growth promoters of which gibberellic acid (GA 3 ) may be the most active in stimulating stem elongation. GA 3 bioassays for stem growth were reported on common bean and winter wheat demonstrating differential sensitivity of cultivars and growth habits. In this paper, between 2005 and 2011, field trials were conducted on winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars Goodstreak and Wesley and between 2007 and 2009, on winter rye (Secale cereale L.) cultivar Rymin at the University of Nebraska’s Panhandle Research & Extension Center, Scottsbluf. All plots in all trials were four rows with spacing of 30 cm. GA 3 was applied as Release LC, a 4% a.i. by weight formulation, i.e. , 1 g GA 3 /30mL, formulat...

In the last decades, the survival of extremely low birth weight (ELBW) neonates (BW ≤ 1000 g) has improved dramatically due to advances in perinatal and neonatal care and better understanding of their physiopathology. These neonates, characterized by a great immaturity, are more exposed to risks to develop different morbidities and in particular are vulnerable to bacterial and fungal infections. Antibiotics are medications used to fight infections caused by bacteria. Nowadays, a large variability in the use of antibiotics for the treatment of suspected/confirmed neonatal sepsis persists between different European Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) and most agents are still used in an off-label (OL) manner. In this paper, the authors aimed to analyze antibiotic prescriptions in a cohort of extremely low birth weight neonates admitted to Italian level III Neonatal intensive Care Units.  An online questionnaire was used to collect detailed information for each ne...

Nowadays, there remain only approximately 5% of the original coast redwood forests. The rest is composed of post-harvest second growth forests, including both actively managed stands and preserves where natural processes have been allowed to reassert themselves. With so little of the original old-growth remaining, there is growing interest in restoring characteristics associated with old-growth to these maturing second growth stands. Natural recovery is an effective method restoring many late seral features, and does not require the additional disturbance of active management. In this paper, in order to better understand management impacts on redwood understory abundance and composition, data were collected in naturally recovering stands and in stands that were actively managed with the explicit intent of promoting old-growth characteristics. Ten 10 m diameter plots with three 2 m diameter nested sub-plots were randomly sampled in two sites within each management type. General s...