Prevalence of Adverse Life Events, Depression and Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviour among a Community Sample of Young People aged 15-24 Years

Objective: To provide prevalence data on several key mental health indicators for young people aged 15 to 24 years. Methods: A cross-sectional household survey, using telephone recruitment followed by a postal pencil-and-paper questionnaire. The overall response rate was 67.3%. Results: Difficulties with interpersonal relationships are common causes of distress for young people, in particular problems with parents, problems with friends and relationship break-ups. Depressive symptomatology is common among young people with approximately one in eight males and one in four females reporting current depressive symptomatology. One in three young people reported that they had had suicidal thoughts at some time in the past, 1.2% of young people reported that they had made a plan on how to kill themselves in the four-week period prior to completing the survey and 6.9% of young people reported that they had tried to kill themselves at some time during their life time (4.2% of males and 9.0% of females). Conclusions and implications: The prevalence figures for the various mental health indicators presented in this paper represent good baseline information upon which to examine the progress over time of interventions designed to improve the mental health of young people.

Patterns of community integration 2-5 years post-discharge from brain injury rehabilitation

Outcome after traumatic brain injury (TBI) is characterized by a high degree of variability which has often been difficult to capture in traditional outcome studies. The purpose of this study was to describe patterns of community integration 2-5 years after TBI. Participants were 208 patients admitted to a Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit between 1991-1995 in Brisbane, Australia. The design comprised retrospective data collection and questionnaire follow-up by mail. Mean follow-up was 3.5 years. Demographic, injury severity and functional status variables were retrieved from hospital records. Community integration was assessed using the Community Integration Questionnaire (CIQ), and vocational status measured by a self administered questionnaire. Data was analysed using cluster analysis which divided the data into meaningful subsets. Based on the CIQ subscale scores of home, social and productive integration, a three cluster solution was selected, with groups labelled as working (n = 78), balanced (n = 46) and poorly integrated (n = 84). Although 38% of the sample returned to a high level of productive activity and 22% achieved a balanced lifestyle, overall community integration was poor for the remainder. This poorly integrated group had more severe injury characterized by longer periods of acute care and post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) and greater functional disability on discharge. These findings have implications for service delivery prior to and during the process of reintegration after brain injury.

The behaviour of phenylphosphine oxide containing polyimides in a water plasma following gamma-radiolysis

The surface oxidation of two polyimides containing fluorinated phenylphosphine oxide units, TOR-RC and TOR-RC ODPA, have been studied by (XPS) spectroscopy following gamma -radiolysis under vacuum or in air and subsequent treatment in a water plasma. The changes in the O 1s/C 1s ratios obtained from (XPS) analysis showed that on exposure to the water plasma the ratio increases and then levels to a constant value which is similar to that found for exposure to the plasma without prior gamma -radiation treatment. Evidence for the formation of phosphate species was also obtained from the (XPS) analyses. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cognitive behaviour therapy for the management of obsessive-compulsive disorder

Current research reflects conflict regarding best practice in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The. present study reports on the psychological treatment of a 54-year-old woman diagnosed with OCD, and follows the implementation of pharmacological treatment. The study utilises both exposure and response prevention (ERP) and cognitive therapy (CT), although there was no attempt to compare these approaches in an experimental design. Measures of avoiding and neutralising behaviours were taken on three occasions across treatment. Measures were also taken of intrusive thoughts, appraisal of responsibility, and effective challenging, both across treatment and at follow-up. The results indicate that gains were made in addition to those reported following the implementation of medication. The results also suggest that the addition of CT to exposure and response prevention facilitates the extinction of neutralising behaviours.

Cancer culture: Epidemics, human behaviour and the dubious search for new risk factors

The rise of melanoma and the almost complete decline of stomach cancer clearly reflect disturbances of human culture during the 20th century. Environmental factors play a dominant role in the epidemiology of melanoma and many other malignancies.

Post-traumatic amnesia: Consistency-of-recovery and duration-to-recovery following traumatic brain impairment

The aim of this research was to examine the nature and order of recovery of orientation and memory functioning during Post-Traumatic Amnesia (PTA) in relation to injury severity and PTA duration. The Westmead PTA Scale was used across consecutive testing days to assess the recovery of orientation and memory during PTA in 113 patients. Two new indices were examined: a Consistency-of-Recovery and a Duration-to-Recovery index. a predictable order of recovery was observed during PTA: orientation-to-person recovered sooner and more consistently than the following cluster; orientation-to-time, orientation-to-place, and the ability to remember a face and name. However, the type of memory functioning required for the recall face and name task recovered more consistently than that required for memorizing three pictures. An important overall finding was that the order-of-recovery'' of orientation and memory functioning was dependent upon both the elapsed days since injury, and the consistency of recovery. The newly developed indices were shown to be a valuable means of accounting for differences between groups in the elapsed days to recovery of orientation and memory. These indices also clearly increase the clinical utility of the Westmead PTA Scale and supply an objective means of charting (and potentially predicting) patients' recovery on the different components of orientation and memory throughout their period of hospitalization.

Post-transcriptional regulation of the GLI1 oncogene by the expression of alternative 5 ' untranslated regions

The oncogene GLI1 is involved in the formation of basal cell carcinoma and other tumor types as a result of the aberrant signaling of the Sonic hedgehog-Patched pathway. In this study, we have identified alternative GLI1 transcripts that differ in their 5' untranslated regions (UTRs) and are generated by exon skipping. These are denoted (alpha -UTR, beta -UTR, and gamma -UTR according to the number of noncoding exons possessed (three, two, and one, respectively). The alpha- and beta -UTR forms represent the major Gli1 transcripts expressed in mouse tissues, whereas the gamma -UTR is present at relatively low levels but is markedly induced in mouse skin treated with 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate, Transcripts corresponding to the murine beta and gamma forms were identified in human tissues, but significantly, only the gamma -UTR form was present in basal cell carcinomas and in proliferating cultures of a keratinocyte cell line. Flow cytometry analysis determined that the gamma -UTR variant expresses a heterologous reporter gene 14-23-fold higher than the alpha -UTR and 5-13-fold higher than the beta -UTR in a variety of cell types. Because expression of the gamma -UTR variant correlates with proliferation, consistent with a role for GLI1 in growth promotion, up-regulation of GLI1 expression through skipping of 5' noncoding exons may be an important tumorigenic mechanism.

Hydromorphone-3-glucuronide - A more potent neuro-excitant than its structural analogue, morphine-3-glucuronide

In humans, hydromorphone (HMOR) is metabolised principally by conjugation with glucuronic acid to form hydromorphone-3-glucuronide (H3G), a close structural analogue of morphine-3-glucuronide (M3G), the major metabolite of morphine. In a previous study we described the biochemical synthesis of H3G together with a preliminary evaluation of its pharmacology which revealed that it is a neuro-excitant in rats in a manner analogous to M3G. Thus the aims of the current study were to quantify the neuro-excitatory behaviours evoked by intracerebroventricular (icv) H3G in the rat and to define its potency relative to M3G. Groups of adult male Sprague-Dawley rats received icy injections (1 muL) of H3G (1 - 3 mug), M3G (2 - 7 mug) or vehicle via a stainless steel guide cannula that had been implanted stereotaxically seven days prior to drug administration. Behavioural excitation was monitored by scoring fifteen different behaviours (myoclonic jerks, chewing, wet-dog-shakes, rearing, tonic-clonic-convulsions, explosive motor behaviour, grooming, exploring, general activity, eating, staring, ataxia, righting reflex, body posture, touch evoked agitation) immediately prior to icy injection and at the following post-dosing times: 5, 15, 25, 35, 50, 65 and 80 min. H3G produced dose-dependent behavioural excitation in a manner analogous to that reported previously for M3G by our laboratory and reproduced herein. H3G was found to be approximately 2.5-fold more potent than M3G, such that the mean (+/- S.D.) ED50 values were 2.3 (+/- 0.1) mug and 6.1 (+/- 0.6) mug respectively. Thus, our data clearly imply that if H3G crosses the BBB with equivalent efficiency to M3G, then the myoclonus, allodynia and seizures observed in some patients dosed chronically with large systemic doses of HMOR, are almost certainly due to the accumulation of sufficient H3G in the central nervous system, to evoke behavioural excitation. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

Optimal patch-leaving behaviour: a case study using the parasitoid Cotesia rubecular

1. Parasitoids are predicted to spend longer in patches with more hosts, but previous work on Cotesia rubecula (Marshall) has not upheld this prediction, Tests of theoretical predictions may be affected by the definition of patch leaving behaviour, which is often ambiguous. 2. In this study whole plants were considered as patches and assumed that wasps move within patches by means of walking or flying. Within-patch and between-patch flights were distinguished based on flight distance. The quality of this classification was tested statistically by examination of log-survivor curves of flight times. 3. Wasps remained longer in patches with higher host densities, which is consistent with predictions of the marginal value theorem (Charnov 1976). tinder the assumption that each flight indicates a patch departure, there is no relationship between host density and leaving tendency. 4. Oviposition influences the patch leaving behaviour of wasps in a count down fashion (Driessen et al. 1995), as predicted by an optimal foraging model (Tenhumberg, Keller & Possingham 2001). 5. Wasps spend significantly longer in the first patch encountered following release, resulting in an increased rate of superparasitism.

Behaviour rating scales for older people with dementia: which is the best for use by nurses?

There is increasing awareness of the importance of disruptive behaviour in people with dementia and the need for rating scales to accurately and reliably measure this behaviour. When rating scales are to be administered by nurses, scale characteristics must take into account the limitations of the nursing role and the nature of the environment in which nurses work. This paper reviews thirty-one rating scales that have been used to measure behaviour in dementia. From this analysis, five scales were identified as suitable for use by nurses when measuring disruptive behaviour in older people with dementia.

Mating behaviour and alternative oviposition sites for male eggs in the heteronomous hyperparasitoid Coccophagus gurneyi Compere (Hymenoptera : Aphelinidae)

The aphelinid parasitoid Coccophagus gurneyi Compere has unusual sex-related host relationships. Females are diploid and develop internally within mealybugs Pseudococcus calceolariae (Maskell). Males, in contrast, are haploid and hyperparasitic, developing on primary parasitoid larvae within the mealybugs. Furthermore, males have been claimed to be capable of either internal or external development, depending on the precise site of deposition of the haploid egg. This diversity of developmental pathways could indicate the existence of a sibling-species complex. We therefore quantified the mating and ovipositional behaviour of C. gurneyi, for comparison with that of an undescribed sibling species. We also checked whether the females deposit male eggs in alternative sites. The pattern of mating was found to be typical of mating behaviour in Coccophagus spp. and was consistent among all mating pairs, suggesting that the colony comprised one species. Further, the mating behaviour was significantly different from that of the undescribed sibling species. The site of male egg deposition varied and is apparently dictated by two factors; whether the mealybug is parasitised and, if so, the size of the parasitoid it contains. If the mealybugs were unparasitised or if the parasitoids within the mealybugs were small (< 0.53 mm), male eggs were deposited within the mealybug haemocoel. If the parasitoids were large (> 1.05 mm), male eggs were deposited within the parasitoids. These results support the claim of alternate host relationships and developmental pathways within males of C. gurneyi.

New methods for the assessment of in vitro and in vivo stress cracking in biomedical polyurethanes

This article describes a new test method for the assessment of the severity of environmental stress cracking of biomedical polyurethanes in a manner that minimizes the degree of subjectivity involved. The effect of applied strain and acetone pre-treatment on degradation of Pellethane 2363 80A and Pellethane 2363 55D polyurethanes under in vitro and in vivo conditions is studied. The results are presented using a magnification-weighted image rating system that allows the semi-quantitative rating of degradation based on distribution and severity of surface damage. Devices for applying controlled strain to both flat sheet and tubing samples are described. The new rating system consistently discriminated between. the effects of acetone pre-treatments, strain and exposure times in both in vitro and in vivo experiments. As expected, P80A underwent considerable stress cracking compared with P55D. P80A produced similar stress crack ratings in both in vivo and in vitro experiments, however P55D performed worse under in vitro conditions compared with in vivo. This result indicated that care must be taken when interpreting in vitro results in the absence of in vivo data. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.