Parenting the traumatized child: Attending to the needs of nonoffending caregivers of traumatized children.

While there is a growing literature on the impact of trauma on children, there has been relatively little attention to the needs of their caregivers, who are themselves at risk for elevated levels of stress. The current article draws from the broader literature on parenting under stress and the literature on interventions with parents of sexually abused children to outline the need for interventions for caregivers of multiply traumatized children. It reviews components of an intervention model derived from the literature on general parenting interventions as well as the growing literature on trauma treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thirteen-year evolution of azole resistance in yeast isolates and prevalence of resistant strains carried by cancer patients at a large medical center

Drug resistance is emerging in many important microbial pathogens, including Candida albicans. We performed fungal susceptibility tests with archived isolates obtained from 1984 through 1993 and fresh clinical isolates obtained from 1994 through 1997 by testing their susceptibilities to fluconazole, ketoconazole, and miconazole and compared the results to the rate of fluconazole use. All isolates recovered prior to 1993 were susceptible to fluconazole. Within 3 years of widespread azole use, we detected resistance to all agents in this class. In order to assess the current prevalence of resistant isolates in our hematologic malignancy and transplant patients, we obtained rectal swabs from hospitalized, non-AIDS, immunocompromised patients between June 1995 and January 1996. The swabs were inoculated onto sheep's blood agar plates containing 10 microg of vancomycin and 20 microg of gentamicin/ml of agar. One hundred one yeasts were recovered from 97 patients and were tested for their susceptibilities to amphotericin B, fluconazole, flucytosine, ketoconazole, and miconazole. The susceptibility pattern was then compared to those for all clinical isolates obtained throughout the medical center. The antifungal drug histories for each patient were also assessed. The yeasts from this surveillance study were at least as susceptible as the overall hospital strains. There did not appear to be a direct linkage between prior receipt of antifungal agent therapy and carriage of a new, drug-resistant isolate. Increased resistance to newer antifungal agents has occurred at our medical center, but it is not focal to any high-risk patient population that we studied. Monitoring of susceptibility to antifungal agents appears to be necessary for optimizing clinical therapeutic decision making.     

Communities, Markets and Traditional Values: Swedish schooling in the 1990s

During the last decade the comprehensive school system in Sweden has been called into question. Recent trends - marketisation, privatisation, religious-isation, language-isation - appear to Indicate a future school system characterised by regression to a segregationist, family-reproducing type of school, with great scope for private alternatives, and a strictly subject-based school giving priority to traditional areas of knowledge, a traditional view of knowledge, a Christian foundation, a fine-tooth system of grades and a strong evaluation system. This article is written as a commentary on the current course of events, with an attempt to stress the conceivable long-term consequences.     

All-cellulose composites prepared from flax and lyocell fibres compared to epoxy–matrix composites

All-cellulose composites (ACCs) were prepared by partial dissolution in ionic liquid and compared to composites with epoxy matrix. Wide-angle X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy were used to reveal differences in the structure of the composites. In tensile tests, lyocell-fibre based ACCs showed similar strength and stiffness, yet superior extensibility compared to lyocell-epoxy composites. However, when flax fibres were used, tensile properties clearly inferior to flax-epoxy were observed. Dynamic-mechanical and thermogravimetric analysis revealed a favourable behaviour for ACC in terms of more diffuse thermal softening and increased resistance to thermal degradation.