Pattern of cardiac failure in Northern Savanna Nigeria

A prospective study of 315 cases of cardiac failure admitted to the General Hospital at Katsina, in the northern savanna region of Nigeria, is presented and the pattern emerged is compared with that of the southern forest region of the country. Although the diseases causing cardiac failure were similar in these two areas, their incidence and pattern showed wide variations. Cardiomyopathies were the commonest cause (47%) of cardiac failure in the northern savanna, congestive cardiomyopathy being the predominant type (31%). Endomyocardial fibrosis (EMF) commonly encountered in the south, was absent in the north; Peripartum Cardiac Failure (PPCF), rarely reported from the south, formed the commonest cause of cardiac failure among the females in the north. Rheumatic heart diseases (RHD) showed a uniform distribution throughout the country. Anaemia caused a higher percentage (13%) of cardiac failure in the north. Hypertension caused relatively fewer (12%) cardiac failures. The variations in the pattern of cardiac failure in these two areas of Nigeria are probably partly attributable to geographic geo-climatic, socio-economic, ethnic and cultural differences.     

Correction à l'article de M. Antony (2011).

Reports an error in "Progrès récents dans le traitement des troubles anxieux" by Martin M. Antony (Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 2011[Feb], Vol 52[1], 10-19). In the CPA President’s Address article that appeared in the February issue of Canadian Psychology, “Recent advances in the treatment of anxiety disorders” by Martin M. Antony (Canadian Psychology, Vol. 52, No. 1, pp. 10–19), the heading for the article incorrectly printed as “Honourary President’s Address—2010.” It should have read “President’s Address—2010.” The publisher apologizes for this unfortunate production error. The online version has been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2011-04299-014.) Over the past several decades, evidence-based treatments have emerged for each major anxiety disorder. These include primarily behavioural, cognitive, and pharmacological approaches. In addition, researchers continue to develop new ways of treating anxiety disorders and to improve on existing treatments. This article discusses several new and emerging treatments for anxiety disorders, including attentional training, virtual reality-based treatments, mindfulness and acceptance-based strategies, enhancement of exposure using d-cycloserine, and the application of motivational interviewing strategies in anxiety disorders. For each of these treatments, the current status and directions for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

What decides: high mortality in paediatric acute renal failure?

Forty paediatric cases of A.R.F. (Acute Renal Failure) of various aetiology were included in the study. 60% of patients were less than 4 years of age with male predominance. 80% cases reported to us very late with oligoanuria of more than 24 hours (2-7 days). Diarrhoea, vomiting and fever were other dominant symptoms. Maximum cases were severely anaemic (87.5%) with mean Hb 7.73 +/- 1.9 gm%. 40% cases were of underweight while only one case (2.5%) was of over weight, inspite of volume excess in 40% cases. All 24 cases, who were estimated for serum albumin, found to have marked hypoalbuminemia. Mortality was found to be as high as 65% inspite of effective peritoneal dialysis in all cases. High mortality seems to be due to profound anuria of many days (because of marked delay in reaching the hospital), fever and malnutrition besides other factors as aetiology.     

Are alcohol expectancies associations, propositions, or elephants? A reply to Wiers and Stacy (2010).

We provide a response to a commentary by Wiers and Stacy (see record 2009-24669-003) on our model of the alcohol–behavior link (see record 2009-09537-002). Whereas Wiers and Stacy generally supported our model, they took issue with our conceptualization of the alcohol expectancy construct. We address the major concerns of Wiers and Stacy by demonstrating that our own view is consistent with basic cognitive scientific conceptualizations of the nature of associative and propositional reasoning within a dual-systems framework. In clarifying these issues, we maintain that although the predictions presented by Wiers and Stacy are important and useful in this area, they are predictions that can be derived from our original formulation of the alcohol–behavior link. We conclude that this kind of useful debate can only aid the generation of conceptually consistent and testable models that will advance the understanding of the alcohol–behavior link. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tensile and Fracture Properties of Aluminium Alloy AA2219-T87 Friction Stir Weld Joints for Aerospace Applications

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A - The purpose of the present work is to study the mechanical behaviour of AA2219-T87 friction stir weld (FSW) joints at different temperatures (Room...     

Comparison of Corrosion Resistance Properties of Electrophoretically Deposited MoS2 and WS2 Nanosheets Coatings on Mild Steel

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A - The present work compares the corrosion resistance properties of electrophoretically deposited MoS2 and WS2 nanosheets coatings on mild steel....     

Detecting Streaming of Twitter Spam Using Hybrid Method

Twitter, the social network which evolving faster and regular usage by millions of people and who become addicted to it. So spam playing a major role for Twitter users to distract them and grab their attention over them. Spammers actually detailed like who send unwanted and irrelevant messages or websites and promote them to several users. To overcome the problem many researchers proposed some ideas using some machine learning algorithms to detect the spammers. In this research work, a new hybrid approach is proposed to detect the streaming of Twitter spam in a real-time using the combination of a Decision tree, Particle Swarm Optimization and Genetic algorithm. Twitter has given access to the researchers to get tweets from its Twitter-API for real-time streaming of tweet data which they can get direct access to public tweets. Here 600 million tweets are created by using URL based security tool and further some features are extracted for representation of tweets in real-time detection of spam. In addition, our research results are compared with other hybrid algorithms which a better detection rate is given by our proposed work.     

Design of a flat field fiber with very small dispersion slope

We have given designs of a small dispersion fiber with large effective area and small dispersion slope. The fiber has flat modal field over the central part of the core, which provides large mode field diameter (8.3 μm at λ₀=1550 nm) leading to the relatively large effective area (A_eff=56.1 μm²) required to reduce nonlinear effects. The total dispersion of the proposed fiber is in the range of 2.7–3.4 ps/km/nm in the wavelength range of 1530 to 1610 nm, which covers the entire C- and L-bands of erbium doped fiber amplifiers. The dispersion slope at λ₀=1550 nm is 0.01 ps/km/nm², which is also very small.     

STFDR: Architecture of Competent Protocol for Efficient Route Discovery and Reliable Transmission in CEAACK MANETs

Wireless Personal Communications - Efficiency can be achieved in CEAACK MANETs by implementing clustering technique into the network. Using this strategy the cluster head can monitor the members...     

Empathy in preschool children: The development of the Southampton Test of Empathy for Preschoolers (STEP).

In this study, we investigated a new instrument: the Southampton Test of Empathy for Preschoolers (STEP). The test incorporated 8 video vignettes of children in emotional scenarios, assessing a child's ability to understand (STEP-UND) and share (STEP-SHA) in the emotional experience of a story protagonist. Each vignette included 4 emotions (angry, happy, fearful, sad) that reflected emotion judgments based on the protagonist's facial expression, situation, verbal cues, and desire. The STEP was administered to 39 preschool children, and internal reliability, concurrent validity, and construct validity were addressed. The results showed good internal consistency. They also highlighted moderate concurrent validity with parent-rated empathy, a measure of facial indices, and construct validity with teacher-rated prosocial behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)