Treatment of hyperactive children: increased efficiency through modifications of homeopathic diagnostic procedure

BACKGROUND: The rigorous test to which homeopathy was subject in our recent double-blind clinical trail of homeopathic treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) necessitated optimized treatment meeting the highest standards. METHODS: Optimization was performed in three steps: (1) In successfully treated children, prescriptions leading to an insufficient response were analysed by a general questionnaire to identify unreliable symptoms. (2) Polarity analysis, a further development of Bönninghausen's concept of contraindications, was introduced in response to the frequently one-sided symptoms. This enabled us to use few but specific symptoms to identify the medicine whose genius symptoms exhibit the closest match to the patient's characteristic symptoms. (3) We investigated the influence of the primary perception symptoms on the result of the repertorization. Perception symptoms are not normally recorded during a patient interview even though they are among the most reliable facts related by the patients. At the same time we were able to improve the continuity of improvement of ADHD symptoms using liquid Q-potencies. RESULTS: Introducing the questionnaire, polarity analysis, and including perception symptoms, lead to an improvement in the success rate of the first prescription from 21% to 54%, of the fifth prescription from 68% to 84%.

The Hamburg-Model of Integrated Care for Patients with Psychosis: Part 2

Objective: Since the beginning of the integrated care model for severely ill patients with psychotic disorders ("Hamburg model") in 2007 different clinical parameters have been consecutively assessed within a naturalistic, observational, prospective study.Methods: Clinical outcome of the 2-year and 4-year follow-ups of n = 158 patients.Results: A significant and ongoing improvement of psychopathology, severity of illness, functional outcome, quality of life and satisfaction with care in this sample of severely ill and merely chronic patients with psychosis was shown. Moreover, medication adherence improved and quality and quantity of outpatient treatment increased.Conclusion: The ongoing psychosocial stabilisation of the patients most likely result from a combination of various factors: continuity of care, multimodal and individualized care, therapeutic specialisation and the multidisciplinary ACT team. Results provide clinical and scientific evidence for future implementations of the integrated care model "Hamburg Model" for the treatment of psychosis.

Life-span development of self-esteem and its effects on important life outcomes

We examined the life-span development of self-esteem and tested whether self-esteem influences the development of important life outcomes, including relationship satisfaction, job satisfaction, occupational status, salary, positive and negative affect, depression, and physical health. Data came from the Longitudinal Study of Generations. Analyses were based on 5 assessments across a 12-year period of a sample of 1,824 individuals ages 16 to 97 years. First, growth curve analyses indicated that self-esteem increases from adolescence to middle adulthood, reaches a peak at about age 50 years, and then decreases in old age. Second, cross-lagged regression analyses indicated that self-esteem is best modeled as a cause rather than a consequence of life outcomes. Third, growth curve analyses, with self-esteem as a time-varying covariate, suggested that self-esteem has medium-sized effects on life-span trajectories of affect and depression, small to medium-sized effects on trajectories of relationship and job satisfaction, a very small effect on the trajectory of health, and no effect on the trajectory of occupational status. These findings replicated across 4 generations of participants— children, parents, grandparents, and their great-grandparents. Together, the results suggest that self-esteem has a significant prospective impact on real-world life experiences and that high and low self-esteem are not mere epiphenomena of success and failure in important life domains.

The Basement of the Deccan Traps and Its Madagascar Connection: Constraints from Xenoliths

Paleogeographic reconstructions of India and Madagascar before their late Cretaceous rifting juxtapose the Antongil Block of Madagascar against the Deccan Traps of India, indicating that the Western Dharwar Craton extends below the Deccan lavas. Some recent studies have suggested that the South Maharashtra Shear Zone along the northern Konkan coast of India limits the northern extent of the Western Dharwar Craton, implying that the craton does not extend below the Deccan Traps, raising a question mark on paleogeographic reconstructions of India and Madagascar. The continuity of the Western Dharwar Craton north of the South Maharashtra Shear Zone below the Deccan Traps—or its lack thereof—is critical for validating tectonic models correlating Madagascar with India. In this study, zircons in tonalitic basement xenoliths hosted in Deccan Trap dykes were dated in situ, using the U-Pb isotope system. The data furnish U-Pb ages that define three populations at 2527 ± 6, 2456 ± 6, and 2379 ± 9 Ma. The 2527 ± 6 Ma ages correspond to the igneous crystallization of the tonalites, whereas the 2456 ± 6 and 2379 ± 9 Ma ages date metamorphic overprints. The results help to establish for the first time that the basement is a part of the Neoarchean granitoid suite of the Western Dharwar Craton, which extends northward up to at least Talvade in central and Kihim beach in the western Deccan. By implication, the South Maharashtra Shear Zone cannot be the northern limit of the Western Dharwar Craton. The granitoids are correlated with the Neoarchean felsic intrusions (2.57–2.49) of the Masaola suite in the Antongil Block of Madagascar, supporting the existence of a Neoarchean Greater Dharwar Craton comprising the Western Dharwar Craton and the Antongil-Masora Block.

Coercive, Normative, and Mimetic Influences on the Assimilation of BCM in Outsourcing Relationships

Today many business processes are based on IT systems. These systems are exposed to different threats, which may lead to failures of critical business pro-cesses. Thus, enterprises prepare themselves against threats and failures of critical IT systems by means of Business Continuity Management (BCM). The phe-nomenon of outsourcing introduces a new dimension to BCM. In an outsourcing relationship the client organization is still responsible for the continuity of its processes but does not have full control over the implemented business continuity measures. In this paper we build a research model based on institutional and assimilation theories to describe and explain how and why BCM is assimilated in outsourcing relationships. In our case studies we found evidence that primarily coercive and normative pressures influence the assimilation of BCM in outsourcing relationships and support the explanation of variation across enterprises. Mimetic pressures seem to influence the assimilation but do not explain variations.

Genomics of Rapid Incipient Speciation in Sympatric Threespine Stickleback

Ecological speciation is the process by which reproductively isolated populations emerge as a consequence of divergent natural or ecologically-mediated sexual selection. Most genomic studies of ecological speciation have investigated allopatric populations, making it difficult to infer reproductive isolation. The few studies on sympatric ecotypes have focused on advanced stages of the speciation process after thousands of generations of divergence. As a consequence, we still do not know what genomic signatures of the early onset of ecological speciation look like. Here, we examined genomic differentiation among migratory lake and resident stream ecotypes of threespine stickleback reproducing in sympatry in one stream, and in parapatry in another stream. Importantly, these ecotypes started diverging less than 150 years ago. We obtained 34,756 SNPs with restriction-site associated DNA sequencing and identified genomic islands of differentiation using a Hidden Markov Model approach. Consistent with incipient ecological speciation, we found significant genomic differentiation between ecotypes both in sympatry and parapatry. Of 19 islands of differentiation resisting gene flow in sympatry, all were also differentiated in parapatry and were thus likely driven by divergent selection among habitats. These islands clustered in quantitative trait loci controlling divergent traits among the ecotypes, many of them concentrated in one region with low to intermediate recombination. Our findings suggest that adaptive genomic differentiation at many genetic loci can arise and persist in sympatry at the very early stage of ecotype divergence, and that the genomic architecture of adaptation may facilitate this.

Impact of the arc length on GNSS analysis results

Homogeneously reprocessed combined GPS/GLONASS 1- and 3-day solutions from 1994 to 2013, generated by the Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE) in the frame of the second reprocessing campaign REPRO-2 of the International GNSS Service, as well as GPS- and GLONASS-only 1- and 3-day solutions for the years 2009 to 2011 are analyzed to assess the impact of the arc length on the estimated Earth Orientation Parameters (EOP, namely polar motion and length of day), on the geocenter, and on the orbits. The conventional CODE 3-day solutions assume continuity of orbits, polar motion components, and of other parameters at the day boundaries. An experimental 3-day solution, which assumes continuity of the orbits, but independence from day to day for all other parameters, as well as a non-overlapping 3-day solution, is included into our analysis. The time series of EOPs, geocenter coordinates, and orbit misclosures, are analyzed. The long-arc solutions were found to be superior to the 1-day solutions: the RMS values of EOP and geocenter series are typically reduced between 10 and 40 %, except for the polar motion rates, where RMS reductions by factors of 2–3 with respect to the 1-day solutions are achieved for the overlapping and the non-overlapping 3-day solutions. In the low-frequency part of the spectrum, the reduction is even more important. The better performance of the orbits of 3-day solutions with respect to 1-day solutions is also confirmed by the validation with satellite laser ranging.

Multiscale methods for shape constraints in deconvolution: Confidence statements for qualitative features

We derive multiscale statistics for deconvolution in order to detect qualitative features of the unknown density. An important example covered within this framework is to test for local monotonicity on all scales simultaneously. We investigate the moderately ill-posed setting, where the Fourier transform of the error density in the deconvolution model is of polynomial decay. For multiscale testing, we consider a calibration, motivated by the modulus of continuity of Brownian motion. We investigate the performance of our results from both the theoretical and simulation based point of view. A major consequence of our work is that the detection of qualitative features of a density in a deconvolution problem is a doable task, although the minimax rates for pointwise estimation are very slow.

New Product Portfolio Performance in Family Firms

This study investigates the relationship between top management team (TMT) innovation orientation and new product portfolio performance in small and medium-sized family firms by exploring two family firm-specific sources of TMT diversity as moderators: the number of generations involved in the TMT and the ratio of family members in the TMT. Results indicate that family-induced diversity in the TMT has opposing moderating effects. Although a positive relationship exists between TMT innovation orientation and new product portfolio performance when multiple generations are involved in the TMT, TMT innovation orientation and new product portfolio performance experience a negative relationship when the ratio of family members in the TMT is high. The study discusses theoretical and managerial implications of the findings and develops avenues for future research.

Dental fear and satisfaction with dental services in Switzerland.

OBJECTIVES Dental satisfaction is associated with continuity of dental care, compliance with dentist advice, and positive health outcomes. It is expected that people with higher dental fear might have less dental satisfaction because of more negative dental experiences. The objective of this study was to examine satisfaction and reasons for satisfaction with dental practitioners in Switzerland and variations by dental fear. METHODS A national sample of 1,129 Swiss residents aged 15-74 (mean = 43.2 years) completed a personal interview at their home with questions assessing dental fear, dental service use, general satisfaction with their dentist, and reasons for satisfaction or dissatisfaction. RESULTS Overall, 47.9 percent of participants responded that they were satisfied with their dentist and 47.6 percent that they were very satisfied. Satisfaction differed significantly by gender, language spoken, region of residence, and educational attainment. Greater dental fear was significantly associated with greater dissatisfaction with the dentist. The percentage of people who were very satisfied with the dentist ranged from 56.0 percent among people with no fear to 30.5 percent for participants with "quite a lot" of fear but was higher (44.4 percent) for people who stated that they were "very much" afraid of the dentist. The most common reasons attributed for satisfaction with dentists were interpersonal characteristics of the dentist and staff. People with "quite a lot" of fear were found to endorse these sentiments least. CONCLUSIONS Although higher dental fear was associated with more dissatisfaction with the dentist, the level of satisfaction among fearful individuals in Switzerland is still high.

Dynamic intraligamentary stabilization: novel technique for preserving the ruptured ACL

PURPOSE Replacement of the torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) with a transplant is today`s gold standard. A new technique for preserving and healing the torn ACL is presented. HYPOTHESIS a dynamic intraligamentary stabilization (DIS) that provides continuous postinjury stability of the knee and ACL in combination with biological improvement of the healing environment [leucocyte- and platelet-rich fibrin (L-PRF) and microfracturing] should enable biomechanically stable ACL self-healing. METHODS Ten sportive patients were treated by DIS employing an internal stabilizer to keep the unstable knee in a posterior translation, combined with microfracturing and platelet-rich fibrin induction at the rupture site to promote self-healing. Postoperative clinical [Tegner, Lysholm, International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC), visual analogue scale patient satisfaction score] and radiological evaluation, as well as assessment of knee laxity was performed at 6 weeks, 3, 6, 12, and 24 months. RESULTS One patient had a re-rupture 5 months postoperative and was hence excluded from further follow-ups. The other nine patients presented the following outcomes at 24 months: median Lysholm score of 100; IKDC score of 98 (97-100); median Tegner score of 6 (range 9-5); anterior translation difference of 1.4 mm (-1 to 3 mm); median satisfaction score of 9.8 (9-10). MRI showed scarring and continuity of the ligament in all patients. CONCLUSIONS DIS combined with microfracturing and L-PRF resulted in stable clinical and radiological healing of the torn ACL in all but one patient of this first series. They attained normal knee scores, reported excellent satisfaction and could return to their previous levels of sporting activity. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Case series with no comparison group, Level IV.