Psychiatric diseases and their treatment in general practice in Germany. Results of a World Health Organization (WHO) study

As part of an international study initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) about psychological disorders in primary health care, patients in the Federal Republic of Germany were compared with patients in other European centres. Patients from Germany do not differ from other European patients in respect to sociodemographic variables or psychiatric disorders. The most frequent CIDI-based diagnoses recorded in patients attending general practices are current depressive episodes (8.6%), generalized anxiety disorders (8.5%), neurasthenia (7.5%), and alcohol dependence (6.3%). In 20.9% of the patients at least one psychiatric diagnosis based on ICD-10 was recorded. In Germany significantly lower global ratings of health status are given than in other European centres although there is no difference in diagnostic prevalence rates. The recognition rate, i.e. the agreement between the CIDI-based ICD-10 diagnoses and the recognition as a case by the physician, is 56.2%-60.2%. On the other hand, the CIDI detects 90% of the patients described as psychologically ill by the physicians if subthreshold cases are also counted, or 46.4% if only defined diagnoses are taken into account. There is a significant correlation between severity of the psychiatric disorder and disability in social functioning. In Mainz and in the other European countries the disability rate of patients with a well-defined disorder is between 67.0% and 72.7%, whereas in Berlin this relation is not as clear, because especially in East Berlin there is a higher rate of unemployment in view of the political situation. Drug treatment is prescribed for 16.1% of the patients in primary care for psychiatric disorders. Half the patients recognized by physicians as cases receive medication. In the rest of Europe patients receive significantly more tranquillizers than in Germany, where the use of herbal drugs is more wide spread.     

Delineating Boundaries for Imprecise Regions

In geographic information retrieval, queries often name geographic regions that do not have a well-defined boundary, such as “Southern France.” We provide two algorithmic approaches to the problem of computing reasonable boundaries of such regions based on data points that have evidence indicating that they lie either inside or outside the region. Our problem formulation leads to a number of subproblems related to red-blue point separation and minimum-perimeter polygons, many of which we solve algorithmically. We give experimental results from our implementation and a comparison of the two approaches. This research is supported by the EU-IST Project No. IST-2001-35047 (SPIRIT) and by grant WO 758/4-2 of the German Research Foundation (DFG).     

Neodymium doping of KNNLT

The effect of stoichiometric trivalent Neodymium doping on (K_0.46Na_0.54)_0.97Li_0.03 Nb_0.81Ta_0.19 (KNNLT) is examined up to an amount of 1 mol% Nd. The sensitivity of the properties of KNNLT on the Nd-content is well pronounced. The main effect is the lowering of the orthorhombic-tetragonal phase transition temperatures accompanied by an increase of the piezoelectric response at room temperature. At low doping levels the densification is promoted while it is impeded at high doping levels. The relationship between microstructure and the sharpness of the orthorhombic-tetragonal phase transition is reviewed.     

GaInAsSb-AlGaAsSb distributed feedback lasers emitting near 2.4 /spl mu/m

We have investigated fabrication and characteristics of continuous wave (cw) GaInAsSb-AlGaAsSb distributed feedback (DFB) lasers in the 2.4-/spl mu/m range. Single-mode DFB emission is obtained without overgrowth by first order Cr-Bragg gratings on both sides of a laser ridge. The cw threshold currents for a cavity with a length of 800 /spl mu/m and a width of 4 /spl mu/m are around 30 mA. At 20/spl deg/C and at an injection current of 190 mA output powers of 8.5 mW were realized. Monomode emission with a side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of 33 dB has been obtained.     

Detecting small pulmonary nodules with spiral ultrashort echo time sequences in 1.5 T MRI

Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine - This study investigated ultrashort echo time (UTE) sequences in 1.5 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for small lung nodule...     

Development of a creatinine ELISA and an amperometric antibody-based creatine sensor with a detection limit in the nanomolar range

Creatinine-specific antibodies have been generated and used for highly sensitive and specific immunochemical creatinine determinations. Creatinine was derivatized at N3 and coupled to KLH carrier protein. On the basis of this immunogen, monoclonal antibodies were developed by hybridoma technology. Antibodies from various clones have been characterized with BIAcore 2000 with respect to the dissociation constant and specificity. Antibodies of clone B90-AH5 exhibited the lowest dissociation constant (0.74 microM) and the highest specificity for creatinine and were chosen for the development of a competitive ELISA and an amperometric creatinine sensor. The creatinine sensor was constructed by fixing a creatinine-modified membrane on the top of a platinum working electrode which was then incorporated into a stirred electrochemical measuring cell. For creatinine determination the creatinine-containing sample was incubated with B90-AH5 and anti-IgG(mouse)-glucose oxidase conjugate and applied to the measuring cell. After a washing step glucose was added and the produced hydrogen peroxide was registered at Eappl = +600 mV vs Ag/AgCl. The measuring range was 0.01-10 microg/mL. The highest sensitivity for creatinine was achieved at 330 ng/mL (3 microM) and the lower detection limit at 4.5 ng/mL (40 nM). This is far below the relevant clinical range, which is 5-17 microg/mL (44-150 microM) and allows a reliable determination of very low creatinine concentrations in serum, where standard methods cannot be applied. After each measurement the sensor was regenerated with 10 mM HCl without any loss in binding activity.     

The effect of thyrotrophin releasing hormone versus placebo in combination with basic imipramine therapy of depressive patients

20 female and 10 male patients with a retarded-depressive syndrome received imipramine (3 X 50 mg/day) for 20 days. In a double blind study oral thyrotrophin releasing hormone (TRH) (2 X 40 mg/day) and placebo, respectively, were added for the first 2 weeks. The patients were rated with the Hamiltion-depression scale and a selfrating depression scale. But the statistical evaluation showed no difference between the imipramine/TRH and the imipramine/placebo group.