Relation of happiness, hope and affection with quality of life in patients with heart failure

Introduction: Meeting the actual role of positive psychology, begins to be recognized the relation of positive variables with health. Objective: To know the relation of happiness, hope and affection with quality of life in individuals with heart failure. Population and Methodology: 128 individuals with heart failure, 98 men and 30 women, 61.9±12,1 years of age, 6,6±3,9 years in school and 74,2% retired because of this disease. 56,3% were in Class III of New York Heart Association, with poor left ventricular ejection fraction (25,3±6,2%). The clinical history was of 9,4±8,5 years for this heart disease and had at least one hospitalization due to heart failure with 51,6% having ischemic heart disease.

Happiness, hope and affection as predictors of quality of life and functionality of individuals with heart failure at 3 month follow up

Introduction: Meeting the actual role of positive psychology, begins to be recognized the contribution of positive variables in health outcomes. Objective: To know the contribution of happiness, hope and affection individually and as a whole in the quality of life and functionality of individuals with heart failure. Population and Methodology: 128 individuals with heart failure, 98 men and 30 women, 61.9±12,1 years of age, 6,6±3,9 years of school and 74,2% retired because of this disease. 56,3% were in Class III of New York Heart Association, with poor left ventricular ejection fraction (25,3±6,2%). The clinical history was of 9,4±8,5 years for this heart disease and had at least one hospitalization due to heart failure with 51,6% having ischemic heart disease.

Quality of life in dilated cardiomyopathy with refractory chronic heart failure undergoing devices implantation

Heart failure is the final stage of most of cardiac diseases. It is a complex syndrome in which the patients should have the following features: symptoms of heart failure, typically shortness of breath at rest or during exertion, and/or fatigue; signs of fluid retention such as pulmonary congestion or ankle swelling; and objective evidence of an abnormality of the structure or function of the heart at rest. This progressive syndrome as a high incidence and prevalence and poor prognosis: four-year mortality is around 50% with 40% of the patients admitted to hospital dying or readmitted within a year. With ageing, many patients will develop chronic heart failure, which, because of its symptoms, patient’s awareness of their risk of dying, and the effects of therapy, together with frequent hospitalizations, has considerable impact on patient’s health-related quality of life.

Extraction of hemoglobin with calixarenes and biocatalysis in organic media of the complex with pseudoactivity of peroxidase

The present work involves the use of p-tert-butylcalix[4,6,8]arene carboxylic acid derivatives ((t)Butyl[4,6,8]CH2COOH) for selective extraction of hemoglobin. All three calixarenes extracted hemoglobin into the organic phase, exhibiting extraction parameters higher than 0.90. Evaluation of the solvent accessible positively charged amino acid side chains of hemoglobin (PDB entry 1XZ2) revealed that there are 8 arginine, 44 lysine and 30 histidine residues on the protein surface which may be involved in the interactions with the calixarene molecules. The hemoglobin-(t)Butyl[6]CH2COOH complex had pseudoperoxidase activity which catalysed the oxidation of syringaldazine in the presence of hydrogen peroxide in organic medium containing chloroform. The effect of pH, protein and substrate concentrations on biocatalysis was investigated using the hemoglobin-(t)Butyl[6]CH2COOH complex. This complex exhibited the highest specific activity of 9.92 x 10(-2) U mg protein(-1) at an initial pH of 7.5 in organic medium. Apparent kinetic parameters (V'(max), K'(m), k'(cat) and k'(cat)/K'(m)) for the pseudoperoxidase activity were determined in organic media for different pH values from a Michaelis-Menten plot. Furthermore, the stability of the protein-calixarene complex was investigated for different initial pH values and half-life (t(1/2)) values were obtained in the range of 1.96 and 2.64 days. Hemoglobin-calixarene complex present in organic medium was recovered in fresh aqueous solutions at alkaline pH, with a recovery of pseudoperoxidase activity of over 100%. These results strongly suggest that the use of calixarene derivatives is an alternative technique for protein extraction and solubilisation in organic media for biocatalysis.

Tools for testing the Solvency Capital Requirement for life insurance

Longevity risk is one of the major risks that an insurance company or a pension fund has to deal with and it is expected that its importance will grow in the near future. In agreement with these considerations, in Solvency II regulation the Standard formula furnished for calculating the Solvency Capital Requirement explicitly considers this kind of risk. According to the new European rules in our paper we suggest a multiperiod approach to evaluate the SCR for longevity risk. We propose a backtesting framework for measuring the consistency of SCR calculations for life insurance policies.

Implication of an intervention program for the promotion of physical activity in the quality of life of people with multiple sclerosis

The aims of this study is to examine the interest for quality of life of an implementation of program physical activity, with patients of multiple sclerosis.

Eastwards / westwards: which direction for gender studies in the 21st century?

Eastwards / Westwards: Which Direction for Gender Studies in the XXIst Century? is a collection of essays which focus on themes and methods that characterize current research into gender in Asian countries in general. In this collection, ideas derived from Gender Studies elsewhere in the world have been subjected to scrutiny for their utility in helping to describe and understand regional phenomena. But the concepts of Local and Global – with their discoursive productions – have not functioned as a binary opposition: localism and globalism are mutually constitutive and researchers have interrogated those spaces of interaction between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’, bearing in mind their own embeddedness in social and cultural structures and their own historical memory. Contributors to this collection provided a critical transnational perspective on some of the complex effects of the dynamics of cultural globalization, by exploring the relation between gender and development, language, historiography, education and culture. We have also given attention to the ideological and rhetorical processes through which gender identity is constructed, by comparing textual grids and patterns of expectation. Likewise, we have discussed the role of ethnography, anthropology, historiography, sociology, fiction, popular culture and colonial and post-colonial sources in (re)inventing old/new male/female identities, their conversion into concepts and circulation through time and space. This multicultural and trans-disciplinary selection of essays is totally written in English, fully edited and revised, therefore, it has a good potential for an immediate international circulation. This project may trace new paths and issues for discussion on what concerns the life, practices and narratives by and about women in Asia, as well as elsewhere in the present day global experience. Academic readership: Researchers, scholars, educators, graduate and post-graduate students, doctoral students and general non-fiction readers, with a special interest in Gender Studies, Asia, Colonial and Post-Colonial Literature, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, History, Historiography, Politics, Race, Feminism, Language, Linguistics, Power, Political and Feminist Agendas, Popular Culture, Education, Women’s Writing, Religion, Multiculturalism, Globalisation, Migration. Chapter summary: 1. “Social Gender Stereotypes and their Implication in Hindi”, Anjali Pande, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. This essay looks at the subtle ways in which gender identities are constructed and reinforced in India through social norms of language use. Language itself becomes a medium for perpetuating gender stereotypes, forcing its speakers to confirm to socially defined gender roles. Using examples from a classroom discussion about a film, this essay will highlight the underlying rigid male-female stereotypes in Indian society with their more obvious expressions in language. For the urban woman in India globalisation meant increased economic equality and exposure to changed lifestyles. On an individual level it also meant redefining gender relations and changing the hierarchy in man-­woman relationships. With the economic independence there is a heightened sense of liberation in all spheres of social life, a confidence to fuzz the rigid boundaries of gender roles. With the new films and media celebrating this liberated woman, who is ready to assert her sexual needs, who is ready to explode those long held notions of morality, one would expect that the changes are not just superficial. But as it soon became obvious in the course of a classroom discussion about relationships and stereotypes related to age, the surface changes can not become part of the common vocabulary, for the obvious reason that there is still a vast gap between the screen image of this new woman and the ground reality. Social considerations define the limits of this assertiveness of women, whereas men are happy to be liberal within the larger frame of social sanctions. The educated urban woman in India speaks in favour of change and the educated urban male supports her, but one just needs to scratch the surface to see the time tested formulae of gender roles firmly in place. The way the urban woman happily balances this emerging promise of independence with her gendered social identity, makes it necessary to rethink some aspects of looking at gender in a gradually changing, traditional society like India. 2. “The Linguistic Dimension of Gender Equality”, Alissa Tolstokorova, Kiev Centre for Gender Information and Education, Ukraine. The subject-matter of this essay is gender justice in language which, as I argue, may be achieved through the development of a gender-related approach to linguistic human rights. The last decades of the 20th century, globally marked by a “gender shift” in attitudes to language policy, gave impetus to the social movement for promoting linguistic gender equality. It was initiated in Western Europe and nowadays is moving eastwards, as ideas of gender democracy progress into developing countries. But, while in western societies gender discrimination through language, or linguistic sexism, was an issue of concern for over three decades, in developing countries efforts to promote gender justice in language are only in their infancy. My argument is that to promote gender justice in language internationally it is necessary to acknowledge the rights of women and men to equal representation of their gender in language and speech and, therefore, raise a question of linguistic rights of the sexes. My understanding is that the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights in 1996 provided this opportunity to address the problem of gender justice in language as a human rights issue, specifically as a gender dimension of linguistic human rights. 3. “The Rebirth of an Old Language: Issues of Gender Equality in Kazakhstan”, Maria Helena Guimarães, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal. The existing language situation in Kazakhstan, while peaceful, is not without some tension. We propose to analyze here some questions we consider relevant in the frame of cultural globalization and gender equality, such as: free from Russian imperialism, could Kazakhstan become an easy prey of Turkey’s “imperialist dream”? Could these traditionally Muslim people be soon facing the end of religious tolerance and gender equality, becoming this new old language an easy instrument for the infiltration in the country of fundamentalism (it has already crossed the boarders of Uzbekistan), leading to a gradual deterioration of its rich multicultural relations? The present structure of the language is still very fragile: there are three main dialects and many academics defend the re-introduction of the Latin alphabet, thus enlarging the possibility of cultural “contamination” by making the transmission of fundamentalist ideas still easier through neighbour countries like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (their languages belong to the same sub-group of Common Turkic), where the Latin alphabet is already in use, and where the ground for such ideas shown itself very fruitful. 4. “Construction of Womanhood in the Bengali Language of Bangladesh”, Raasheed Mahmood; University of New South Wales, Sydney. The present essay attempts to explore the role of gender-based language differences and of certain markers that reveal the status accorded to women in Bangladesh. Discrimination against women, in its various forms, is endemic in communities and countries around the world, cutting across class, race, age, and religious and national boundaries. One cannot understand the problems of gender discrimination solely by referring to the relationship of power or authority between men and women. Rather one needs to consider the problem by relating it to the specific social formation in which the image of masculinity and femininity is constructed and reconstructed. Following such line of reasoning this essay will examine the nature of gender bias in the Bengali language of Bangladesh, holding the conviction that as a product of social reality language reflects the socio-cultural behaviour of the community who speaks it. This essay will also attempt to shed some light on the processes through which gender based language differences produce actual consequences for women, who become exposed to low self-esteem, depression and systematic exclusion from public discourse. 5. “Marriage in China as an expression of a changing society”, Elisabetta Rosado David, University of Porto, Portugal, and Università Ca’Foscari, Venezia, Italy. In 29 April 2001, the new Marriage Law was promulgated in China. The first law on marriage was proclaimed in 1950 with the objective of freeing women from the feudal matrimonial system. With the second law, in 1981, values and conditions that had been distorted by the Cultural Revolution were recovered. Twenty years later, a new reform was started, intending to update marriage in the view of the social and cultural changes that occurred with Deng Xiaoping’s “open policy”. But the legal reform is only the starting point for this case-study. The rituals that are followed in the wedding ceremony are often hard to understand and very difficult to standardize, especially because China is a vast country, densely populated and characterized by several ethnic minorities. Two key words emerge from this issue: syncretism and continuity. On this basis, we can understand tradition in a better way, and analyse whether or not marriage, as every social manifestation, has evolved in harmony with Chinese culture. 6. “The Other Woman in the Portuguese Colonial Empire: The Case of Portuguese India”, Maria de Deus Manso, University of Évora, Portugal. This essay researches the social, cultural and symbolic history of local women in the Portuguese Indian colonial enclaves. The normative Portuguese overseas history has not paid any attention to the “indigenous” female populations in colonial Portuguese territories, albeit the large social importance of these social segments largely used in matrimonial and even catholic missionary strategies. The first attempt to open fresh windows in the history of this new field was the publication of Charles Boxer’s referential study about Women in lberian Overseas Expansion, edited in Portugal only after the Revolution of 1975. After this research we can only quote some other fragmentary efforts. In fact, research about the social, cultural, religious, political and symbolic situation of women in the Portuguese colonial territories, from the XVI to the XX century, is still a minor historiographic field. In this essay we discuss this problem and we study colonial representations of women in the Portuguese Indian enclaves, mainly in the territory of Goa, using case studies methodologies. 7. “Heading East this Time: Critical Readings on Gender in Southeast Asia”, Clara Sarmento, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal. This essay intends to discuss some critical readings of fictional and theoretical texts on gender condition in Southeast Asian countries. Nowadays, many texts about women in Southeast Asia apply concepts of power in unusual areas. Traditional forms of gender hegemony have been replaced by other powerful, if somewhat more covert, forms. We will discuss some universal values concerning conventional female roles as well as the strategies used to recognize women in political fields traditionally characterized by male dominance. Female empowerment will mean different things at different times in history, as a result of culture, local geography and individual circumstances. Empowerment needs to be perceived as an individual attitude, but it also has to be facilitated at the macro­level by society and the State. Gender is very much at the heart of all these dynamics, strongly related to specificities of historical, cultural, ethnic and class situatedness, requiring an interdisciplinary transnational approach.

User perception and influencing factors of technology in everyday life

An increasing amount of research is being developed in the area where technology and humans meet. The success or failure of technologies and the question whether technology helps humans to fulfill their goals or whether it hinders them is in most cases not a technical one. User Perception and Influencing Factors of Technology in Everyday Life addresses issues of human and technology interaction. The research in this work is interdisciplinary, ranging from more technical subjects such as computer science, engineering, and information systems, to non-technical descriptions of technology and human interaction from the point of view of sociology or philosophy. This book is perfect for academics, researchers, and professionals alike as it presents a set of theories that allow us to understand the interaction of technology and humans and to put it to practical use.

Associação entre sintomas depressivos e funcionamento social em cuidados primários à saúde

OBJETIVO: Os transtornos depressivos constituem um problema de saúde pública devido a sua alta prevalência e impacto psicossocial. Pacientes deprimidos são freqüentadores assíduos de serviços de atendimento primário, porém, muitas vezes, não são diagnosticados como tais. O objetivo do estudo é avaliar a associação entre sintomas depressivos e funcionamento social numa amostra de pacientes que procuraram um serviço de cuidados primários em uma capital brasileira. MÉTODOS: Foram avaliados 2.201 usuários de serviços de cuidados de saúde primários de Porto Alegre quanto à saúde física e emocional. Foi aplicado questionário em entrevista única, com duas questões genéricas de avaliação de qualidade de vida do World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-Breve), mais itens do Medical Outcomes Study Short-Forms 12 (SF-12) e MHI 5 (MHI-5), do Centers for Epidemiologic Studies -- Depression (CES-D), além de outras questões referentes a busca de atendimento médico e faltas ao trabalho. Foram realizados testes de Kruska-Wallis e de comparações múltiplas de Tambane. RESULTADOS: Dos indivíduos estudados, 79,5% eram do sexo feminino, com média de idade de 40 anos. A intensidade da sintomatologia depressiva medida pelo CES-D foi de 20,2 para as mulheres e de 16,2 para os homens. Todos os parâmetros avaliados tiveram relação inversa com a intensidade dos sintomas depressivos. CONCLUSÕES: Os resultados reforçam a afirmativa de que a sintomatologia depressiva tem uma alta associação com pior funcionamento social e qualidade de vida e maior utilização de recursos de saúde em pacientes de cuidados primários.

Dispositional optimism is unidimensional or bidimensional? The Portuguese Revised Life Orientation Test

The aim of the study is to adapt and then discuss the appropriateness of the Life Orientation Test as a one or two dimension scale. The research includes two studies; one is composed of a sequential sample of 280 people with multiple sclerosis, 71% female, and another includes a convenience sample of 615 individuals from the community, 51.1% female. Because the construct is built upon a theoretical assumption that has one dimension, we examine the hypothesis of one or two factor solutions through confirmatory factor analysis, and the two-dimension solution premise demonstrates better adjustment for both samples. The other psychometric properties explored show appropriate results for the Portuguese sample, and similar to the original ones; the Test therefore seems appropriate for use in cross cultural studies. Based on our results, we discuss whether the questionnaire is a one or two dimension instrument, concluding that it appears appropriate to accept the recommendations of the original authors to use it as a one-dimensional tool and, when necessary, to use both dimensions. - RESUMO: El objetivo del estudio es adaptar y discutir la adecuación de la prueba de Orientación de la Vida en una o dos escalas de dimensión. La investigación engloba dos estudios, uno constituido por una muestra secuencial de 280 personas con esclerosis múltiple, 71% mujeres y otro con una muestra de conveniencia de la comunidad de 615 individuos, 51,1% del sexo femenino. Como el constructo se asienta sobre la presunción teórica de que tiene una dimensión, inspeccionamos la hipótesis de una o dos soluciones de factor a través del análisis factorial confirmatorio y la hipótesis de dos dimensiones manifiesta un mejor ajuste para ambas muestras. Las otras propiedades psicométricas exploradas muestran los resultados apropiados para la muestra portuguesa, y semejantes a los originales. Parece apropiado para los estudios culturales transversales. Basándonos en nuestros resultados, discutimos si el cuestionario es un instrumento de una o dos dimensiones, concluyéndose que parece conveniente seguir las recomendaciones de los autores originales, para utilizarlo como un instrumento unidimensional y, si fuera necesario necesario, utilizar cada una de las dimensiones.

Trypanosoma cruzi prevalence and clinical forms in blood donor candidates in Brazil

The prevalence and clinical forms of Trypanosoma cruzi were evaluated among blood donor candidates attended at a general hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from January 1997 to April 1999. The investigation was done by means of the indirect hemagglutination test and was confirmed via ELISA. Data were collected from clinical examinations, conventional electrocardiogram, chest radiography and echocar-diography. The results showed that despite Trypanosoma cruzi prevalence of 1.17% (128 patients), mainly in males aged 40 years or over, 70.8% of these patients, mainly males aged 19 to 39 years, demonstrated abnormalities that allowed the diagnosis of cardiopathy and/or esophagopathy. This once again corroborates the importance of Trypanosoma cruzi infection in urban centers.

A user-centered interface for scheduling problem definition

In this paper we present a user-centered interface for a scheduling system. The purpose of this interface is to provide graphical and interactive ways of defining a scheduling problem. To create such user interface an evaluation-centered user interaction development method was adopted: the star life cycle. The created prototype comprises the Task Module and the Scheduling Problem Module. The first one allows users to define a sequence of operations, i.e., a task. The second one enables a scheduling problem definition, which consists in a set of tasks. Both modules are equipped with a set of real time validations to assure the correct definition of the necessary data input for the scheduling module of the system. The usability evaluation allowed us to measure the ease of interaction and observe the different forms of interaction provided by each participant, namely the reactions to the real time validation mechanism.

A study on dynamic state information (DSI) around users for safe urban life

To select each node by devices and by contexts in urban computing, users have to put their plan information and their requests into a computing environment (ex. PDA, Smart Devices, Laptops, etc.) in advance and they will try to keep the optimized states between users and the computing environment. However, because of bad contexts, users may get the wrong decision, so, one of the users’ demands may be requesting the good server which has higher security. To take this issue, we define the structure of Dynamic State Information (DSI) which takes a process about security including the relevant factors in sending/receiving contexts, which select the best during user movement with server quality and security states from DSI. Finally, whenever some information changes, users and devices get the notices including security factors, then an automatic reaction can be possible; therefore all users can safely use all devices in urban computing.

Determination of pharmocotherapeutical complexity in institutionalized elderly

The phenomenon of aging is nowadays society as acquired the status of a social problem, with growing attention and concern, leading to an increase number of studies dedicated to the elderly. The lack of domestic, familiar or social support often lead elderly to nursing homes. Institutionalization is in many cases the only opportunity to have access to health care and life quality. Aging is also associated with a higher prevalence of chronic diseases that require long term medication sometimes for life. Frequently the onset of multiple pathologies at the same time require different therapies and the phenomenon of polypharmacy (five ou more drugs daily) can occur. Even more, the slow down of physiological and cognitives mechanisms associated with these chronic diseases can interphere, in one hand, with the pharmacocinetic of many medications and, on the other hand, with the facility to accomplish the therapeutical regimen. All of these realities contribute to an increase of pharmacotherapeutical complexity, decreasing the adherence and effectiveness of treatment. The pharmacotherapeutical complexity of an individual is characterized by the conciliator element of different characteristics of their drug therapy, such as: the number of medications used; dosage forms; dosing frequency and additional indications. It can be measured by the Medication Regimen Complexity Index (MRCI), originally validated in English.

Quality of life, life satisfaction and happiness in shift- and non-shiftworkers

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the quality of life, life satisfaction, happiness and demands of work in workers with different work schedules. METHODS: The survey was carried out on professional workers in social care. Some were shiftworkers whose schedule included night shifts (N=311), some were shiftworkers without night shifts (N=207) and some were non-shiftworkers (N=1,210). Surveys were mailed and the response rate was 86%. For the purpose of this study several variables were selected from the Survey: The Quality of Life Profile, which measures importance, satisfaction, control and opportunities in nine domains of life plus measures of happiness, life satisfaction and demands of work. RESULTS: While both groups of shiftworkers, compared to non-shiftworkers, reported needing more physical effort to complete their work, and reported 'being' more physically tired, no differences were found in reports of overall happiness, life satisfaction or total quality of life. However, night-shiftworkers reported greater percentage of time unhappy than the other two groups of workers. In analyses of the quality of life, night-shiftworkers were less satisfied with domains of spiritual 'being' and physical and community 'belonging' than day-shiftworkers and non-shiftworkers. They also reported having fewer opportunities to improve their physical 'being', leisure, and personal growth than the other two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Quality of life in specific domains in night-shiftworkers was rated worse than in other groups of workers. Domain-based quality of life assessment gives more information regarding the particular needs of workers than overall or global measures of well-being.