Rising African cassava production,diseases due to high cyanide intake and control measures

Cassava is the staple food of tropical Africa and its production, averaged over 24 countries, has increased more than threefold from 1980 to 2005, and the population has more than doubled over that time compared with a 1.5 times increase worldwide. Agriculturally, cassava performs very well but the roots and leaves contain cyanogenic glucosides that are dangerous to human health. These cyanogens sometimes produce acute intoxication leading to death, they exacerbate goitre and cretinism in iodine‐deficient regions, cause konzo and are implicated in the occurrence of tropical ataxic neuropathy and stunting of children. Konzo is an irreversible paralysis of the legs with many thousands of cases, mainly amongst children, in Mozambique, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Central African Republic and probably other tropical African countries. Attempts to alleviate cassava cyanide toxicity have included the development of an information network and distribution in developing countries of picrate kits, which measure total cyanide in cassava and urinary thiocyanate. A simple wetting method that reduces total cyanide in cassava flour three‐ to sixfold has been successfully field tested and is being introduced in Mozambique. Transgenic technology shows promise in increasing the rate of loss of cyanide from roots during processing. World health and agricultural bodies should pay more attention to emerging health problems associated with toxicity of cyanogens in cassava. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry     

Two–year follow–up of cognitive–behavioral therapy and supportive counseling in the treatment of persistent symptoms in chronic schizophrenia.

The article reports the 2–year follow–up of patients suffering persistent symptoms of schizophrenia who entered a single blind randomized controlled trial. Patients were randomly allocated to cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) plus routine care (RC), supportive counseling (SC) plus RC, or RC alone. Treatment took place over 3 months, and follow-up was made 12 and 24 months after treatment finished. Sixty-one patients were available to the 2-year follow-up and assessed for positive and negative symptoms and clinical improvement; all of the 87 patients who entered the trial were assessed for relapse over the follow-up period. On all measures, patients who received RC alone did significantly worse at 2 years. There were no significant differences at 2 years between the CBT and SC groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dismantling cognitive–behavioral treatment for panic disorder: Questioning the utility of breathing retraining.

Cognitive–behavioral treatment (CBT) protocols for panic disorder (PD) consist of a set of interventions that often includes some form of breathing retraining (BR). A controlled outcome study was designed to assess the necessity of BR in the context of a multicomponent CBT protocol. To accomplish this, patients with PD (N?=?77) were randomly assigned to receive CBT with or without BR or to a delayed-treatment control. The main study hypothesis was that patients receiving BR would display a less complete recovery relative to the other active-treatment condition given that BR appears to be a more attractive (but less adaptive) option for some patients. Some data suggested that the addition of BR yielded a poorer outcome. However, findings were generally more consistent with treatment equivalence, questioning whether BR produces any incremental benefits in the context of other CBT interventions for PD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Altered Olfactory Receptor Neuron Responsiveness Is Correlated with a Shift in Behavioral Response in an Evolved Colony of the Cabbage Looper Moth, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Trichoplusia ni</Emphasis>

There is little understanding of how sex pheromone blends might change during speciation events. For the cabbage looper, Trichoplusia ni, there is a mutant laboratory strain that has exhibited characteristics of a shift to a new pheromone blend. Mutant females produce a blend that is significantly different from wild-type females in having a much higher proportion of a minor pheromone component and lower quantity of the major component. Males in this colony have changed over the years to become more broadly tuned and fly upwind equally well to both the wild-type and mutant female pheromone blends. They also exhibit reduced overall sensitivity to pheromone, flying upwind to either blend at a lower success rate than is typical when wild-type males respond to the wild-type blend. Using single-cell recordings, we examined the olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) of males from evolved and wild-type colonies for evidence of changes in response characteristics that might explain the above-described behavioral evolution. We found that in evolved-colony males the ORNs tuned to the major sex pheromone component exhibited a somewhat lower responsiveness to that compound than the ORNs of wild-type males. In addition, the minor pheromone component, emitted at excessively high rates by mutant females, elicited a drastically reduced ORN responsiveness in evolved-colony males compared to wild-type males. This alteration in ORN responsiveness may be responsible for allowing evolved males to tolerate the excessive amounts of the minor pheromone component in the mutant female blend, which would normally antagonize the upwind flight of unevolved males. Thus, peripheral olfactory alterations have occurred in T. ni males that are correlated with the evolution of the more broadly tuned, but less sensitive, behavioral response profile.     

Psychological test usage: Implications in professional psychology.

Do psychological assessments require more time than third parties and managed care are willing to reimburse? A survey of clinical psychologists and neuropsychologists was conducted to evaluate the current uses of psychological assessment instruments. Respondents reported their use of tests for 8 different areas of assessment, the average time spent in performing various assessment services and other assessment practices. Results suggested that a majority of neuropsychologists devote a substantial portion of their time to assessment, but only 12% of clinical psychologists reported spending more than 10 hr in assessment-related practice each week. The authors describe the typical time required to administer, score, and interpret various tests and assessments; factors that affect the time required to conduct assessments; and provide a current ranking of the most frequently used assessments in clinical and neuropsychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mediation of a middle school skin cancer prevention program.

This study tested potential mediators of a school-based skin cancer prevention intervention for middle school children (6th-8th grades; N = 1,788). Ten variables were tested on 4 criteria to establish mediation, including (a) intervention related to outcome, (b) intervention related to mediators, (c) mediators related to outcome, and (d) mediated effect statistically significant. Sun-safe behaviors (e.g., sunscreen use) and potential mediators were measured with a self-report questionnaire. All criteria were met for Barriers--Sunscreen, Perceived Self-Efficacy, and Knowledge when the mediators were tested separately. In multiple mediator analyses, barriers to sunscreen use and self-efficacy satisfied Criteria 1-3 but were not statistically significant (Criterion 4). Barriers to sunscreen use, perceived self-efficacy for sun-safe behavior, and knowledge may serve as mediators. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dominant Texture and Diffusion Distance Manifolds

Texture synthesis techniques require nearly uniform texture samples, however identifying suitable texture samples in an image requires significant data preprocessing. To eliminate this work, we introduce a fully automatic pipeline to detect dominant texture samples based on a manifold generated using the diffusion distance. We define the characteristics of dominant texture and three different types of outliers that allow us to efficiently identify dominant texture in feature space. We demonstrate how this method enables the analysis/synthesis of a wide range of natural textures. We compare textures synthesized from a sample image, with and without dominant texture detection. We also compare our approach to that of using a texture segmentation technique alone, and to using Euclidean, rather than diffusion, distances between texture features.     

Relations of diabetes intrusiveness and personal control to symptoms of depression among adults with diabetes.

The generalizability of a model linking illness characteristics to psychosocial well-being was tested in a cross-sectional study of 237 adults with type 2 diabetes. It was hypothesized that diabetic complications increase illness intrusiveness, which in turn increases depressive symptomatology either directly or indirectly by reducing personal control over health outcomes. Illness intrusiveness was defined as the result of disruptions of valued activities and interests due to constraints imposed by the illness. An excellent fit of this model to the data was found using structural equation modeling. The model explained 65% of the variance in depressive symptomatology. Assessment of an alternative model excluding personal control suggested that the extent to which diabetes intrudes in life, rather than diabetic complications per se or personal control, is a key factor in relation to depressive symptomatology in individuals with diabetes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tissue Engineering Strategies Designed to Realize the Endogenous Regenerative Potential of Peripheral Nerves

http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/adma.v21:32/33 Bridging peripheral nerve gaps without the use of autografts has significant clinical importance. But in order to rationally design novel scaffolds, a good understanding of the nerve regeneration process is vital. Appropriate amount of structural and chemical cues are required to stimulate the endogenous mechanisms of repair and functional recovery. Synthetic and natural materials present various opportunities to induce the growth of supporting cells as well as promote axon regeneration. An overview of tissue engineering strategies currently being explored that stimulate the different steps of the regenerative sequence is presented.     

Fuzzy compatibility structures in new product development

This paper deals with the problem of generalizing the concept of crisp compatibility structures developed by the authors in [J. Hohenegger, A. Bufardi, P. Xirouchakis, A new concept of compatibility structure in new product development. Advanced Engineering Informatics, in press, doi:10.1016/g.aei.2006.09.005], to the case of binary fuzzy relations. This generalization is very important because the compatibility modeling problem for which the compatibility structure is developed takes place at the early phases of new product development which are characterized by imprecision. For this generalization, the ?ukasiewicz triplet is shown to be a suitable choice for the fuzzy De Morgan triplet. The class of fuzzy compatibility structures without incomparability deserves a particular attention and is investigated in more detail. Its minimal representation is provided and the construction of fuzzy compatibility structures without incomparability from the fuzzy impacts is considered. A case study illustrating the evaluation of the fuzzy compatibility relations between alternatives is provided.