Intramuscular Olanzapine and Intramuscular Haloperidol in Acute Schizophrenia: Antipsychotic Efficacy and Extrapyramidal Safety During the First 24 Hours of Treatment

To determine the antipsychotic efficacy and extrapyramidal safety of intramuscular (IM) olanzapine and IM haloperidol during the first 24 hours of treatment of acute schizophrenia. Method: Patients (n = 311) with acute schizophrenia were randomly allocated (2:2: 1) to receive IM olanzapine (10.0 mg, n = 131), IM haloperidol (7.5 mg, n = 126), or IM placebo (n = 54). Results: After the first injection, IM olanzapine was comparable to IM haloperidol and superior to IM placebo for reducing mean change scores from baseline on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BRPS) Positive at 2 hours (-2.9 olanzapine, -2.7 haloperidol, and -1.5 placebo) and 24 hours (-2.8 olanzapine, -3.2 haloperidol, and -1.3 placebo); the BPRS Total at 2 hours (-14.2 olanzapine,-13.1 haloperidol, and -7.1 placebo) and 24 hours (-12.8 olanzapine, -12.9 haloperidol, and -6.2 placebo); and the Clinical Global Impressions (CGI) scale at 24 hours (-0.5 olanzapine, -0.5 haloperidol, and -0.1 placebo). Patients treated with IM olanzapine had significantly fewer incidences of treatment-emergent parkinsonism (4.3% olanzapine vs 13.3% haloperidol, P = 0.036), but not akathisia (1.1% olanzapine vs 6.5% haloperidol, P = 0.065), than did patients treated with IM haloperidol; they also required significantly less anticholinergic treatment (4.6% olanzapine vs 20.6% haloperidol, P < 0.001). Mean extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS) safety scores improved significantly from baseline during IM olanzapine treatment, compared with a general worsening during IM haloperidol treatment (Simpson-Angus Scale total score mean change: -0.61 olanzapine vs 0.70 haloperidol; P < 0.001; Barnes Akathisia Scale global score mean change: -0.27 olanzapine vs 0.01 haloperidol; P < 0.05). Conclusion: IM olanzapine was comparable to IM haloperidol for reducing the symptoms of acute schizophrenia during the first 24 hours of treatment, the efficacy of both being evident within 2 hours after the first injection. In general, more EPS were observed during treatment with IM haloperidol than with IM olanzapine.

The significance of vivianite in archaeological settings

Vivianite is a bluish mineral sometimes encountered in archaeological deposits. It is notable for its tendency to change color from white or grayish to blue on exposure to air. Vivianite requires specific conditions for its formation-sources of iron, phosphate, and water, as well as low levels of oxygen and sulfide. Microbial activity is also thought to play a part in vivianite formation. The majority of archaeological texts do not discuss vivianite to any great degree, preventing a more detailed interpretation of site conditions and features. Vivianite was found in 25 exhumed burials from the North Brisbane Burial Ground, Queensland, Australia. Research indicated that bone or tissue samples for DNA analysis are best taken from areas distant from vivianite encrustations and that presence of vivianite has implications for artifact conservation. Vivianite at the North Brisbane Burial Grounds helped protect some skeletal and dental elements, preserved the impressions of metal coffin lacing, and also corroborated the oral history of temporary waterlogging and acted as a measure of pollution levels across the site. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Demographic category membership and leadership in small groups: A social identity analysis

Developing the social identity theory of leadership (e.g., [Hogg, M. A. (2001). A social identity theory of leadership. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 184-200]), an experiment (N=257) tested the hypothesis that as group members identify more strongly with their group (salience) their evaluations of leadership effectiveness become more strongly influenced by the extent to which their demographic stereotype-based impressions of their leader match the norm of the group (prototypicality). Participants, with more or less traditional gender attitudes (orientation), were members, under high or low group salience conditions (salience), of non-interactive laboratory groups that had instrumental or expressive group norms (norm), and a male or female leader (leader gender). As predicted, these four variables interacted significantly to affect perceptions of leadership effectiveness. Reconfiguration of the eight conditions formed by orientation, norm and leader gender produced a single prototypicality variable. Irrespective of participant gender, prototypical leaders were considered more effective in high then low salience groups, and in high salience groups prototypical leaders were more effective than less prototypical leaders. Alternative explanations based on status characteristics and role incongruity theory do not account well for the findings. Implications of these results for the glass ceiling effect and for a wider social identity analysis of the impact of demographic group membership on leadership in small groups are discussed. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Cyber-rigging click-through rates: Exploring the ethical dimensions

Click-through rate is considered a very important metric and a key performance indicator of the success of online advertising and is the most frequently used measure to gauge the effectiveness of banner advertising. Marketers also use click-through rates in arriving at performance measurement activities such as the calculation of 'customer life time value' and 'customer acquisition cost'. Click-through is the second most frequently used banner ad pricing method after cost per thousand impressions. Online advertising is facing a new form of challenge – the artificial inflation of click-through rates. We call this practice 'cyber-rigging'. The objective of this paper is to explore the ethical dimensions of cyber-rigging through application of ethical principles and theories.

QUALIDADE DE VIDA NO TRABALHO: COM A PALAVRA OS FUNCIONÁRIOS PÚBLICOS

O tema desta pesquisa é a Qualidade de Vida no Trabalho dos funcionários públicos da Secretaria de Saúde de Barra Mansa/RJ. Trata-se de um estudo de caso de natureza quanti-qualitativa, exploratória e descritiva que tem como objetivos compreender o que é a QVT na ótica do funcionário público, verificar que percepções ele possui acerca de sua própria QVT e, a partir daí, compreender se na esfera pública é possível construir um novo sentido para a QVT que se aproxime de um compromisso com a coletividade e com a vida. O modelo de QVT de Walton, a análise dos instrumentos de onze outras pesquisas realizadas em diversas instituições brasileiras e a coleta de sete depoimentos dos sujeitos pesquisados, acerca de suas histórias profissionais, suas impressões gerais sobre a QVT, orientaram a elaboração do instrumento utilizado nesta pesquisa. Coletaram-se 205 questionários válidos quantidade suficiente para a utilização da análise fatorial como método estatístico, por meio do software SPSS , além de mais dois depoimentos, em entrevistas abertas, os quais, somados aos sete já obtidos por ocasião da preparação do instrumento de pesquisa, foram utilizados na análise qualitativa que também se fez. Os principais resultados encontrados apontam que a QVT dos funcionários públicos pesquisados é de razoável a boa e que eles associam QVT a uma série de aspectos objetivos e subjetivos da vida no trabalho. Muitos deles estão presentes no modelo de Walton, porém emergiram alguns que vão além do que o modelo abrange. É exatamente nesta lacuna que parece ser possível construir novos sentidos para a QVT que a aproximam de um compromisso com a coletividade e com a vida, numa lógica diferente daquela individualista e instrumental que marcam sua origem no setor privado. A partir daí se abre a possibilidade de se pensar em políticas públicas participativas.

Antigas memórias bélicas sobre Javé em Juízes 5,3-5.9-13.19-22.23 e em Habacuque 3,3-6

A imagem de Javé em Juízes 5 constitui-se nas primeiras impressões que o Israel antigo teve do seu Deus. Ela desenha a saída de Javé de sua antiga morada no Sinai para adentrar na terra da Palestina, a fim de lutar por seu povo contra a opressão cananéia. O período tribal foi o momento formativo desse antigo conceito de Javé no Antigo Testamento. Grupos israelitas reformularam o conceito de Javé promulgado pela tradição do Sinai, afirmando, assim, que Javé não é mais o Deus estático e teofânico, morador de uma montanha, mas é o Deus de Israel . E a migração da divindade de um monte para um campo de batalha não representa meramente a caminhada dessa divindade, mas representa o caminhar dos vários estágios em que Israel conceituou seu Deus. Decisivo nessas novas articulações teológicas foi o campo de batalha, que foi o moto da celebração à Javé ressalvada em Juízes 5. Javé é celebrado por seu agir histórico! A história é a mediadora entre Javé e seu povo. Ela é a via pela qual se pronuncia sobre Javé. Assim, as novas conjunturas históricas requerem novas formulações sobre Deus. A antiga memória bélica de Javé contida em Juízes 5 perpassa a história da religião de Israel, podendo ser observada também em Habacuque 3,3-6. Esse é um texto do século VII a.C. Assim, detectamos uma memória corrente na história da religião de Israel, que começou nos momentos antecedentes à da formação da monarquia (Juízes 5) e ainda pode ser notada em Habacuque, no século VII a.C. Nesse desenrolar da religião de Israel, a memória bélica sobre Javé esteve sujeita a várias mutações. Mas, essencialmente, manteve sua proposta: tornar os sujeitos da opressão promulgada pelos impérios em agentes de transformação social. O conceito bélico de Javé patrocinou as revoltas contra o despotismo social, sendo, portanto, uma forma de resistência dos grupos desprestigiados da sociedade, em Israel e Judá

Cultura Audiovisual e Formação de Educadores: Possibilidades e Limites em Práticas Educomunicativas

Cultura Audiovisual e Formação de Educadores: Possibilidades e Limites em Práticas Educomunicativas buscou investigar as possibilidades e limites da utilização de práticas educomunicativas para a transposição de barreiras e a aproximação entre educadores e educandos, a partir da formação de educadores para a produção de cultura audiovisual no ambiente escolar. Para tanto, foram norteadores teóricos da pesquisa: Paulo Freire e Henry Giroux, para os conceitos de educação e formação de educadores; Fernando Hernandez e Marshall McLuhan no tocante à cultura audiovisual e aos meios de comunicação; Mario Kaplún e Ismar de Oliveira Soares para o conceito de educomunicação. Trata-se de uma pesquisa-ação qualitativa, baseada em experiências formativas para educadores voltadas para a produção de cultura audiovisual por meio de práticas educomunicativas, nos formatos de vídeo, rádio e histórias em quadrinhos. Os dados da pesquisa foram coletados através da realização de círculos de cultura, conforme a proposta de Paulo Freire, registrados em áudio, onde os sujeitos da pesquisa discutiram as impressões sobre estas experiências. As possibilidades e limites investigados foram observados sob os eixos subjetivo, coletivo e estrutural a fim de analisar as principais dimensões do trabalho educativo. Os resultados obtidos permitiram observar que só o aspecto da formação de educadores não contempla a transformação das relações no contexto escolar, mas que a fundamentação de projetos político-pedagógicos institucionais alinhados com a proposta educomunicativa pode ser viabilizadora destas transformações num escopo mais amplo e efetivo.

Good practice guide in learning and teaching

Once again this publication is produced to celebrate and promote good teaching and learning support and to offer encouragement to those imaginative and innovative staff who continue to wish to challenge students to learn to maximum effect. It is hoped that others will pick up some good ideas from the articles contained in this volume. We have again changed our approach for this 2007/08 edition (our fifth) of the Aston Business School Good Practice Guide. As before, some contributions were selected from those identifying interesting best practice on their Annual Module Reflection Forms in 2006/2007. Brookes? contribution this year is directly from her annual reflection. Other contributors received HELM (Research Centre in Higher Education Learning and Management) small research grants in 2006/2007. Part of the conditions were for them to write an article for this publication. We have also been less tight on the length of the articles this year. Some contributions are, therefore, on the way to being journal articles. HELM will be working with these authors to help develop these for publication. Looking back over the last five years it is brilliant to see how many different people have contributed over the years and, therefore, how much innovative learning and teaching work has been taking place in ABS over this time. In the first edition we were just pleased for people to write a few pages on their teaching. Now things have changed dramatically. The majority of the articles are grounded in empirical research (some funded by HELM small research grants) and Palmer?s article was produced as part of the University?s Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching. Most encouraging of all, four of this year?s articles have since been developed further and submitted to refereed journals. We await news of publication as we go to press. It is not surprising that how to manage large groups still remains a central theme of the articles, ABS has a large and still growing student body. Essex and Simpson have looked at trying to encourage students to attend taught sessions, on the basis that there is a strong correlation between attendance and higher performance. Their findings are forming the platform of a further study currently being carried out in the Undergraduate Programme. A number of the other articles concentrate on trying to encourage students to engage with study in an innovative way. This is particularly obvious in Shaw?s work. Everyone who has been around campus lately has had evidence that the students on Duncan?s modules have clearly been inspired. I found myself, for example, playing golf in the student dining room as part of this initiative! The articles by Jarzabkowski & Guilietti and Ho involved much larger surveys. This is another first for the Good Practice Guide and marks the first step on what will clearly be larger research efforts for these authors in this area. We look forward to the journal publications which will result from this work. The last articles are the result of HELM?s hosting of the national conference of the Higher Education Academy?s Business, Management, Accounting and Finance (BMAF) Subject Centre Conference in May 2007. Belal and Foster have written about their impressions of the Conference and Andrews has included the paper she gave. The papers on employability and widening participation are the centre of HELM?s current work. In the second volume we mentioned the launch of the School?s Research Centre in Higher Education Learning and Management (HELM). Since then HELM has stimulated a lot of activity across the School (and University) particularly linking research and teaching. A list of the HELM seminars for 2007/2008 is listed as Appendix 1 of this publication. Further details can be obtained from Catherine Foster (c.s.foster@aston.ac.uk), who coordinates the HELM seminars. We have also been working on a list of target journals to guide ABS staff who wish to publish in this area. These are included as Appendix 2 of this publication. May I thank the contributors for taking time out of their busy schedules to write the articles and to Julie Green, the Quality Manager, for putting the varying diverse approaches into a coherent and publishable form and for agreeing to fund the printing of this volume.

International technology transfer:perceptions and reality of quality and reliability

Impressions about product quality and reliability can depend as much on perceptions about brands and country of origin as on data regarding performance and failure. This has implications for companies in developing countries that need to compete with importers. For manufacturers in industrialised countries it has implications for the value of transferred technologies. This article considers the issue of quality and reliability when technology is transferred between countries with different levels of development. It is based on UK and Chinese company case studies and questionnaire surveys undertaken among three company groups: UK manufacturers; Chinese manufacturers; Chinese users. Results show that all three groups recognise quality and reliability as important and support the premise that foreign technology based machines made in China carry a price premium over Chinese machines based on local technology. Closer examination reveals a number of important differences concerning the perceptions and reality of quality and reliability between the groups.

The Role of the big five personality traits, proactive behaviour, and socialisation influences in newcomer adjustment

During the early stages of employment, newly hired employees find out what their new organisations are like. Their first impressions are extremely important in determining the course of subsequent attitudes and behaviour. Recently, a considerable progress has been made towards the understanding of adjustment process, however, the literature remain divided along a number of fronts. Moreover, newcomer research has been conducted independent and irrespective of newcomer personality individual differences. This seems to be a critical oversight because there is overlap in predictions involving these constructs. The current research extended the previous one by examining these multiple antecedents, including Big Five personality traits of newcomer to the tandem process of adjustment as well as outcomes that immediate, or ?proximal? to the process of newcomer adjustment. Following a cross sectional pilot study of recent college graduate, a three- wave longitudinal study of newcomers in seven organisations examined Big Five personality traits, proactive behaviour, and socialisation influence (formal training, leaders, co-workers) as antecedents of proximal adjustment outcomes (group integration, political knowledge of organisation, and task performance). The main study results suggested that personality traits were related to proximal adjustment outcomes, specifically, Conscientiousness was positively related to all proximal adjustment outcomes. Openness to experience was related to task performance and political knowledge. Group integration is independently related to Agreeableness, Extraversion and Neuroticism. The socialisation influence moderate these relations, for example, leader socialisation moderate Conscientiousness as it relates to political knowledge and group integration, while co-worker moderate Extraversion as it relates to task performance. Finally, it was found that, the relationship between proximal adjustment outcomes and the personality dimensions Openness was mediated by proactive behaviour. Overall, the results suggested that individual differences have a role in newcomer adjustment as it facilitate the socialisation influence, and Big Five was one of the key determinants of newcomer adjustment.

Infection risk associated with a closed luer access device

The potential for microbial contamination associated with a recently developed needleless closed luer access device (CLAD) (Q-Syte™ Becton Dickinson, Sandy, UT, USA) was evaluated in vitro. Compression seals of 50 multiply activated Q-Syte devices were inoculated with Staphylococcus epidermidis NCTC 9865 in 25% (v/v) human blood and then disinfected with 70% (v/v) isopropyl alcohol followed by flushing with 0.9% (w/v) sterile saline. Forty-eight of 50 (96%) saline flushes passed through devices that had been activated up to a maximum of 70 times remained sterile. A further 25 Q-Syte CLADs that had undergone multiple activations were challenged with prefilled 0.9% (w/v) sterile saline syringes, the external luer tips of which had been inoculated with S. epidermidis NCTC 9865 prior to accessing the devices. None of the devices that had been accessed up to 70 times allowed passage of micro-organisms, despite challenge micro-organisms being detected on both the syringe tip after activation and the compression seals before decontamination. These findings suggest that the Q-Syte CLAD may be activated up to 70 times with no increased risk of microbial contamination within the fluid pathway. The device may also offer protection from the external surface of syringe tips contaminated with micro-organisms. © 2005 Hospital Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social psychological aspects of rape: a study of recorded rape and images of rape victimisation

This thesis is organised into four parts. In Part 1 relevant literature is reviewed and presented in three chapters. Chapter 1 examines legal and cultural factors in identifying the. boundaries of rape. Chapter 2 discusses idiographic features· and causal characteristics of rape suspects and victims. Chapter 3 reviews the evidence relating to attitudes toward rape,. attribution of responsibility to victims and the routine management of rape cases by the police. Part II comprises an experimental investigation of observer perception of the victims of violent crime. The experiment, examined the processes by which impressions were attributed to victims of personal crime. The results suggested that discrepancies from observers' stereotypes were an important factor in their polarisation of victim ratings. The relevance of. examining . both the structure and process of' impression, formation was highlighted. Part III describes an extensive field study in which the West. Midlands police files on rape for an eight year period (1071-1978) were analysed. The study revealed a large number of interesting findings related to a wide range of relevant features of the crime. Further, the impact .of common misconceptions and "myths" of rape were investigated across the legal and judicial processing of rape cases. The evidence suggests that these "myths" lead·to differential biasing effects at different stages in the process. In the final part of this thesis,. salient issues raised by the experiment and field study .are discussed·within the framework outlined in Part 1. Potential implications for future developments and research: are presented.

From detection of complex motion to descriptions of moving surfaces in human vision

A preliminary study by Freeman et al (1996b) has suggested that when complex patterns of motion elicit impressions of 2-dimensionality, odd-item-out detection improves given targets can be differentiated on the basis of surface properties. Their results can be accounted for, it if is supposed that observers are permitted efficient access to 3-D surface descriptions but access to 2-D motion descriptions is restricted. To test the hypothesis, a standard search technique was employed, in which targets could be discussed on the basis of slant sign. In one experiment, slant impressions were induced through the summing of deformation and translation components. In a second theory were induced through the summing of shear and translation components. Neither showed any evidence of efficient access. A third experiment explored the possibility that access to these representations may have been hindered by a lack of grouping between the stimuli. Attempts to improve grouping failed to produce convincing evidence in support of life. An alternative explanation is that complex patterns of motion are simply not processed simultaneously. Psychophysical and physiological studies have, however, suggested that multiple mechanisms selective for complex motion do exist. Using a subthreshold summation technique I found evidence supporting the notion that complex motions are processed in parallel. Furthermore, in a spatial summation experiment, coherence thresholds were measured for displays containing different numbers of complex motion patches. Consistent with the idea that complex motion processing proceeds in parallel, increases in the number of motion patches were seen to decrease thresholds, both for expansion and rotation. Moreover, the rates of decrease were higher than those typically expected from probability summation, thus implying mechanisms are available, which can pool signals from spatially distinct complex motion flows.

A randomized, prospective clinical trial to assess the potential infection risk associated with the PosiFlow® needleless connector

The microbial contamination rate of luers of central venous catheters (CVCs) with either PosiFlow® needleless connectors or standard caps attached was investigated. The efficacy of 70% (v/v) isopropyl alcohol, 0.5% (w/v) chlorhexidine in gluconate 70% (v/v) isopropyl alcohol and 10% (w/v) aqueous povidone-iodine to disinfect the intravenous connections was also assessed. Seventy-seven patients undergoing cardiac surgery who required a CVC as part of their clinical management were randomly allocated either needleless connectors or standard caps. Patients were also designated to receive chlorhexidine/alcohol, isopropyl alcohol or povidone-iodine for pre-CVC insertion skin preparation and disinfection of the connections. After 72 h in situ the microbial contamination rate of 580 luers, 306 with standard caps and 274 with needleless connectors attached, was determined. The microbial contamination rate of the external compression seals of 274 needleless connectors was also assessed to compare the efficacy of the three disinfectants. The internal surfaces of 55 out of 306 (18%) luers with standard caps were contaminated with micro-organisms, whilst only 18 out of 274 (6.6%) luers with needleless connectors were contaminated (P<0.0001). Of those needleless connectors disinfected with isopropyl alcohol, 69.2% were externally contaminated with micro-organisms compared with 30.8% disinfected with chlorhexidine/alcohol (P<0.0001) and 41.6% with povidone-iodine (P<0.0001). These results suggest that the use of needleless connectors may reduce the microbial contamination rate of CVC luers compared with the standard cap. Furthermore, disinfection of needleless connectors with either chlorhexidine/alcohol or povidone-iodine significantly reduced external microbial contamination. Both these strategies may reduce the risk of catheter-related infections acquired via the intraluminal route. © 2003 The Hospital Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Measurement of residual stress by load and depth sensing indentation with spherical indenters

A new experimental technique is presented for making measurements of biaxial residual stress using load and depth sensing indentation (nanoindentation). The technique is based on spherical indentation, which, in certain deformation regimes, can be much more sensitive to residual stress than indentation with sharp pyramidal indenters like the Berkovich. Two different methods of analysis were developed: one requiring an independent measure of the material's yield strength and the other a reference specimen in the unstressed state or other known reference condition. Experiments conducted on aluminum alloys to which controlled biaxial bending stresses were applied showed that the methods are capable of measuring the residual stress to within 10-20% of the specimen yield stress. Because the methods do not require imaging of the hardness impressions, they are potentially useful for making localized measurements of residual stress, as in thin films or small volumes, or for characterization of point-to-point spatial variations of the surface stress.