Critical Success Factors of Street Haven's Residential Addictions Treatment Program for Women.

Street Haven's residential addictions treatment program offers a 90-day residential treatment program to highly vulnerable women who suffer from significant health and social care complexity, including homelessness, experience with gender-based violence, mental illness and chronic diseases. Despite the complexity of the needs of the clients, the program supports recovery, greater housing and enhanced overall well-being for the women it serves. The critical factors contributing to the success of the program include client readiness, pre-treatment programming, group-based programming, evidence-based programming, harm reduction approaches and a whole-person approach.

Potassium isotope composition of Mars reveals a mechanism of planetary volatile retention.

The abundances of water and highly to moderately volatile elements in planets are considered critical to mantle convection, surface evolution processes, and habitability. From the first flyby space probes to the more recent "Perseverance" and "Tianwen-1" missions, "follow the water," and, more broadly, "volatiles," has been one of the key themes of martian exploration. Ratios of volatiles relative to refractory elements (e.

Use of healthcare claims to validate the Prevention of Arrhythmia Device Infection Trial cardiac implantable electronic device infection risk score.

Aim: The Prevention of Arrhythmia Device Infection Trial (PADIT) infection risk score, developed based on a large prospectively collected data set, identified five independent predictors of cardiac implantable electronic device (CIED) infection. We performed an independent validation of the risk score in a data set extracted from U.S.

The bacterial roots of the new autocracies: An essay on "Biopolitics".

A new wave of autocratic nationalisms has at least ten nations in its grip, and growing. Does this new impulse of authoritarianism have roots in a deep evolutionary past? The answer goes back to two algorithms roughly 3.85 billion years old.

Genome-wide association and Mendelian randomisation analysis provide insights into the pathogenesis of heart failure.

Heart failure (HF) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. A small proportion of HF cases are attributable to monogenic cardiomyopathies and existing genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have yielded only limited insights, leaving the observed heritability of HF largely unexplained. We report results from a GWAS meta-analysis of HF comprising 47,309 cases and 930,014 controls.

Multi-ethnic genome-wide association study for atrial fibrillation.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) affects more than 33 million individuals worldwide and has a complex heritability. We conducted the largest meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for AF to date, consisting of more than half a million individuals, including 65,446 with AF. In total, we identified 97 loci significantly associated with AF, including 67 that were novel in a combined-ancestry analysis, and 3 that were novel in a European-specific analysis.

Improved Patient Outcomes by Normalizing Sympathovagal Balance: Differentiating Syncope-Precise Subtype Differentiation Leads to Improved Outcomes.

Syncope is difficult to definitively diagnose, even with tilt-table testing and beat-to-beat blood pressure measurements, the gold-standard. Both are qualitative, subjective assessments. There are subtypes of syncope associated with autonomic conditions for which tilt-table testing is not useful.

A common variant alters SCN5A-miR-24 interaction and associates with heart failure mortality.

SCN5A encodes the voltage-gated Na+ channel NaV1.5 that is responsible for depolarization of the cardiac action potential and rapid intercellular conduction. Mutations disrupting the SCN5A coding sequence cause inherited arrhythmias and cardiomyopathy, and single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) linked to SCN5A splicing, localization, and function associate with heart failure-related sudden cardiac death.

The Validity of the Comparative Interrupted Time Series Design for Evaluating the Effect of School-Level Interventions.

Objective: In this article, we examine whether a well-executed comparative interrupted time series (CITS) design can produce valid inferences about the effectiveness of a school-level intervention. This article also explores the trade-off between bias reduction and precision loss across different methods of selecting comparison groups for the CITS design and assesses whether choosing matched comparison schools based only on preintervention test scores is sufficient to produce internally valid impact estimates.

Research Design: We conduct a validation study of the CITS design based on the federal Reading First program as implemented in one state using results from a regression discontinuity design as a causal benchmark.

Long-Term Evaluation of Biotronik Linox and Linox(smart) Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator Leads.

Introduction: Expert consensus holds that post-market, systematic surveillance of ICD leads is essential to ensure confirmation of adequate lead performance. GALAXY (NCT00836589) and CELESTIAL (NCT00810264) are ongoing multicenter, prospective, non-randomized registries conducted to confirm the long-term safety and reliability of Biotronik leads.

Methods And Results: ICD and CRT-D patients are followed for Linox and Linox(smart) ICD lead performance and safety for 5 years post-implant.

Left Ventricular Dilatation Increases the Risk of Ventricular Arrhythmias in Patients With Reduced Systolic Function.

Background: Reduced left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction increases the risk of ventricular arrhythmias; however, LV ejection fraction has a low sensitivity to predict ventricular arrhythmias. LV dilatation and mass may be useful to further risk-stratify for ventricular arrhythmias.

Methods And Results: Patients from the Genetic Risk of Assessment of Defibrillator Events (GRADE) study (N=930), a study of heart failure subjects with defibrillators, were assessed for appropriate implantable cardioverter-defibrillator shock and death, heart transplant, or ventricular assist device placement by LV diameter and mass.

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and receptor blockers on appropriate implantable cardiac defibrillator shock in patients with severe systolic heart failure (from the GRADE Multicenter Study).

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a leading cause of mortality in patients with cardiomyopathy. Although angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEi) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) decrease cardiac mortality in these cohorts, their role in preventing SCD has not been well established. We sought to determine whether the use of ACEi or ARB in patients with cardiomyopathy is associated with a lower incidence of appropriate implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD) shocks in the Genetic Risk Assessment of Defibrillator Events study that included subjects with an ejection fraction of ≤30% and ICDs.

Clinical use of antibacterial mesh envelopes in cardiovascular electronic device implantations.

Cardiovascular implantable electronic device system infection is a serious complication of cardiac device implantation and carries with it a risk of significant morbidity and mortality. In the last 15 years, expansions of indications for cardiac devices have resulted in much higher volumes of much sicker patients being implanted, carrying significant risk of infection. Coagulase (-) Staphylococcus and Staphylococcus aureus are responsible for the majority of these infections, and these organisms are increasingly resistant to methicillin.

Differential effects of adrenergic antagonists (Carvedilol vs Metoprolol) on parasympathetic and sympathetic activity: a comparison of clinical results.

Background: Cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN) is recognized as a significant health risk, correlating with risk of heart disease, silent myocardial ischemia or sudden cardiac death. Beta-blockers are often prescribed to minimize risk.

Objectives: In this second of two articles, the effects on parasympathetic and sympathetic activity of the alpha/beta-adrenergic blocker, Carvedilol, are compared with those of the selective beta-adrenergic blocker, Metoprolol.

Differential effects of adrenergic antagonists (Carvedilol vs Metoprolol) on parasympathetic and sympathetic activity: a comparison of measures.

Background: Cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN) is recognized as a significant health risk. Specific and sensitive measures of CAN are needed for early identification and treatment to avoid complications, preferably in the preclinical state.

Objectives: In this first of two articles, the patient cohort is described and two measures of autonomic function are reviewed: the traditional heart rate variability (HRV)-alone method and the newer parasympathetic and sympathetic (P&S) Method.

Angiotensin receptor type 1 single nucleotide polymorphism 1166A/C is associated with malignant arrhythmias and altered circulating miR-155 levels in patients with chronic heart failure.

Background: Sudden cardiac death (SCD) from ventricular tachyarrhythmias accounts for approximately 450,000 annual deaths in the United States; many of these cases involve patients with chronic heart failure (HF). Prediction of which HF patients are most susceptible to SCD is difficult, and it is uncertain whether gene polymorphisms associated with HF outcomes are also linked to arrhythmic risk.

Methods: We evaluated 485 patients with chronic HF to see whether the angiotensin receptor type 1 (AT1R) 1166A/C or angiotensin-converting enzyme insertion/deletion (ACE I/D) polymorphisms were associated with a higher rate of ventricular arrhythmias requiring implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) therapies over a 5-year period.

Carer psychoeducation in first-episode psychosis: evaluation outcomes from a structured group programme.

Background: Carers play an important role in supporting client adjustment and relapse prevention following a first psychotic episode. The caring experience however is a stressful and demanding one, and carers require support to develop coping strategies and sustain themselves in their role.

Aims: To evaluate a psychoeducation programme provided within a public adult mental health service, designed for the families of clients experiencing first-episode psychosis.

Genetic variation in the alternative splicing regulator RBM20 is associated with dilated cardiomyopathy.

Background: Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a leading cause of heart failure and death. The etiology of DCM is genetically heterogeneous.

Objectives: We sought to define the prevalence of mutations in the RNA splicing protein RBM20 in a large cohort with DCM and to determine whether genetic variation in RBM20 is associated with clinical outcomes.

Early psychosis treatment in an integrated model within an adult mental health service.

Objective: To compare the treatment of patients with early psychosis, 2 years after the introduction of an integrated model of enhanced management within a public adult mental health service, with an historic cohort from the same service.

Method: Variables examined in the 2001 cohort were compared with 2008 patients. Computer database review and a file audit were conducted for all patients with early psychosis across the first 2 years of the program.

New academic partnerships in global health: innovations at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Global health has become an increasingly important focus of education, research, and clinical service in North American universities and academic health centers. Today there are at least 49 academically based global health programs in the United States and Canada, as compared with only one in 1999. A new academic society, the Consortium of Universities for Global Health, was established in 2008 and has grown significantly.

When is the story in the subgroups? Strategies for interpreting and reporting intervention effects for subgroups.

This paper examines strategies for interpreting and reporting estimates of intervention effects for subgroups of a study sample. The paper considers: why and how subgroup findings are important for applied research, alternative ways to define subgroups, different research questions that motivate subgroup analyses, the importance of pre-specifying subgroups before analyses are conducted, the importance of using existing theory and prior research to distinguish between subgroups for whom study findings are confirmatory (hypothesis testing) as opposed to exploratory (hypothesis generating), and the conditions under which study findings should be considered confirmatory. Each issue is illustrated by selected empirical examples.

Statin therapy for the prevention of atrial fibrillation trial (SToP AF trial).

Background: Inflammation and oxidative stress are associated with atrial fibrillation (AF). Statins have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. We tested if atorvastatin reduced AF recurrence after DC cardioversion (CV) by modifying systemic oxidative stress and inflammation (NCT00252967).

Implantation success and infection in cardiovascular implantable electronic device procedures utilizing an antibacterial envelope.

Background: Cardiovascular implantable electronic device (CIED) infection rates are increasing faster than implantation rates. More effective antimicrobial prophylaxis may help reduce CIED infections and improve clinical outcomes. The AIGIS(Rx)(®) antibacterial envelope is a polymer mesh implanted in the generator pocket with the CIED.