Predictors of follow-up completeness in longitudinal research on traumatic brain injury: findings from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research traumatic brain injury model systems program.

Objective: To identify baseline participant variables in the domains of demographics, medical/psychosocial history, injury characteristics, and postinjury functional status associated with longitudinal follow-up completeness in persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI) using the TBI Model Systems (TBIMS) National Database (NDB).

Design: Exhaustive chi-square automatic interaction detection was used to identify factors that classified participants according to level of follow-up completeness.

Setting: Retrospective analysis of a multi-center longitudinal database.

Metastatic cholangiocarcinoma to the ovary: a case series.

Metastases to the ovary can be a challenging diagnostic dilemma as they often present similarly to a primary ovarian cancer, and there are many potential sites of origin. We present a case series of 5 patients with known cholangiocarcinoma recurrent in the ovary after completion of initial multimodality therapy including surgical resection of the primary tumor followed by adjuvant chemotherapy.

Vorarephilia: a case study in masochism and erotic consumption.

Vorarephilia ("vore") is an infrequently presenting paraphilia, characterized by the erotic desire to consume or be consumed by another person or creature. Few data exist on vore though several cases have been reported which appear to be consistent with basic vorarephilic interests. Because this sexual interest cannot be enacted in real life due to physical and/or legal restraints, vorarephilic fantasies are often composed in text or illustrations and shared with other members of this subculture via the Internet.

Specificity of sexual arousal for sexual activities in men and women with conventional and masochistic sexual interests.

Prior studies consistently report that men's genital responses correspond to their sexual activity interests (consenting vs. coercive sex) whereas women's responses do not. For women, however, these results may be confounded by the sexual activities studied and lack of suitable controls.

Evaluation of the short-term executive plus intervention for executive dysfunction after traumatic brain injury: a randomized controlled trial with minimization.

Objective: To determine whether the Short-Term Executive Plus (STEP) cognitive rehabilitation program improves executive dysfunction after traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Design: Randomized, waitlist controlled trial with minimization and blinded outcome assessment.

Setting: Community.

Sexual functioning and the effect of fatigue in traumatic brain injury.

Objectives: The primary objective was to examine specific aspects of sexual functioning (frequency, desired frequency, importance, and satisfaction) and their relationship to fatigue in individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) compared with those without brain injury. The relationship of demographic variables, emotional well-being, and health-related quality of life to sexual functioning was also explored.

Participants: 200 community-dwelling adults with self-reported mild-to-severe TBI and 83 individuals without brain injury.

What percolation theory can tell us about COPD.

Damage to the lung elastic fiber network is largely responsible for the distention and rupture of alveolar walls in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It has therefore been suggested that blood or urine levels of the unique elastic fiber crosslinks, desmosine and isodesmosine (DID), may serve as a biomarker for the progression of the disease. The prognostic value of DID may be limited, however, by the large degree of variance associated with their measurement in patients with COPD.

States' commitment to Medicaid before the Affordable Care Act: trends and implications.

Medicaid insures more than 65 million low-income people, and the Affordable Care Act of 2010 gives states the option to enroll millions more. Historical trends in state Medicaid effort possess important implications for health policy going forward. Nearly all states steadily ratcheted up their Medicaid effort in the period from 1992 to 2009, holding out promise that most will sustain their programs and ultimately participate in the expansion authorized by the Affordable Care Act.

Post-cardiac arrest therapeutic hypothermia in New Jersey hospitals: analysis of adoption and implementation.

Background: While national guidelines recommend the use of therapeutic hypothermia (TH) for the treatment of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), adoption of the technique has been slow. In addition, little is known about how TH is applied in practice. This study sought to characterize the adoption and implementation of TH by acute care hospitals in the state of New Jersey.

Mortality of elderly individuals with TBI in the first 5 years following injury.

Introduction: Although there has been a decline in the incidence of TBI in the general population, the rate of TBI in older adults has increased. Increased age has been long recognized as a predictor of worse outcomes after TBI. Despite the growing number of TBI in the elderly, our understanding of the long-term consequences of TBI is quite limited.

Feasibility of computerized brain plasticity-based cognitive training after traumatic brain injury.

The present study investigates the feasibility and utility of using a computerized brain plasticity-based cognitive training (BPCT) program as an intervention for community-dwelling individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI). In a pre-post pilot study, 10 individuals with mild to severe TBI who were 6 mo to 22 yr postinjury were asked to use a computerized BPCT intervention-designed to improve cognitive functioning through a graduated series of structured exercises-at their homes in an urban community. Outcome measures included objective neuropsychological and self-report measures of cognitive functioning.

Direct-to-consumer television advertising exposure, diagnosis with high cholesterol, and statin use.

Background: While statin drugs are recommended for secondary prevention of coronary heart disease (CHD), there is no medical consensus on whether or not a statin should be added to lifestyle change efforts for primary prevention of CHD. Previous research suggests that exposure to direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) increases drug demand among those at comparatively low risk. Research has yet to examine whether individual-level DTCA exposure may influence statin use among men and women at high, moderate, or low risk for future cardiac events.

A treatment-oriented typology of self-identified hypersexuality referrals.

Men and women have been seeking professional assistance to help control hypersexual urges and behaviors since the nineteenth century. Despite that the literature emphasizes that cases of hypersexuality are highly diverse with regard to clinical presentation and comorbid features, the major models for understanding and treating hypersexuality employ a "one size fits all" approach. That is, rather than identify which problematic behaviors might respond best to which interventions, existing approaches presume or assert without evidence that all cases of hypersexuality (however termed or defined) represent the same underlying problem and merit the same approach to intervention.

"When diet and exercise are not enough": an examination of lifestyle change inefficacy claims in direct-to-consumer advertising.

Previous research suggests that direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertisements for pharmaceutical drugs have the potential to influence consumers' perceptions of whether symptoms should be treated medically and/or through behavior change. However, the relative frequency of messages emphasizing these approaches in pharmaceutical advertising remains largely unknown. A content analysis of print and television advertisements for cholesterol management medication between 1994 and 2005 (for print) and between 1999 and 2007 (for television) was conducted.

GFP reporter screens for the engineering of amino acid degrading enzymes from libraries expressed in bacteria.

There is significant interest in engineering human amino acid degrading enzymes as non-immunogenic chemotherapeutic agents. We describe a high-throughput fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) assay for detecting the catalytic activity of amino acid degrading enzymes in bacteria, at the single cell level. This assay relies on coupling the synthesis of the GFP reporter to the catalytic activity of the desired amino acid degrading enzyme in an appropriate E.

Psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Assessment of Fatigue scale in traumatic brain injury: an NIDRR Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems study.

Objective: To investigate the psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Assessment of Fatigue (MAF) scale in a traumatic brain injury (TBI) sample.

Design: Prospective survey study.

Setting: Community.

Insomnia, fatigue, and sleepiness in the first 2 years after traumatic brain injury: an NIDRR TBI model system module study.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of insomnia and posttraumatic brain injury (TBI) fatigue (PTBIF) in individuals with moderate to severe TBI, to explore the relationship between PTBIF and insomnia and their association with outcomes.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Five National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research TBI Model Systems.

An evidence-based review of cognitive rehabilitation in medical conditions affecting cognitive function.

Objectives: To perform a methodical review of the evidence available for the efficacy of cognitive rehabilitation in individuals with diagnosed medical conditions known to affect cognitive function, and to establish evidence-based recommendations for clinical practice, as appropriate.

Data Sources: Ovid Medline and PubMed literature searches were conducted using the terms cognition, cognitive, crossed with the terms rehabilitation, remediation, retraining, training, crossed with 11 medical diagnostic categories. Articles through December 2008 were accessed, with a resulting 2284 abstracts.

Cancer cell metabolism: one hallmark, many faces.

Cancer cells must rewire cellular metabolism to satisfy the demands of growth and proliferation. Although many of the metabolic alterations are largely similar to those in normal proliferating cells, they are aberrantly driven in cancer by a combination of genetic lesions and nongenetic factors such as the tumor microenvironment. However, a single model of altered tumor metabolism does not describe the sum of metabolic changes that can support cell growth.

Cognitive problems in patients on androgen deprivation therapy: a qualitative pilot study.

Objectives: Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT; also known as hormone therapy) is a well-established treatment for prostate cancer patients with rising prostate-specific antigen levels after localized treatment, and for those with metastatic disease. The neurological impact of ADT has been likened to that of aging and is therefore theorized to impair cognitive functioning in prostate cancer patients. We briefly summarize the research that has examined cognitive functioning of ADT patients primarily through neuropsychological assessment.

Early impact of the Affordable Care Act on health insurance coverage of young adults.

Research Objective: To evaluate one of the first implemented provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which permits young adults up to age 26 to enroll as dependents on a parent's private health plan. Nearly one-in-three young adults lacked coverage before the ACA. STUDY DESIGN, METHODS, AND DATA: Data from the Current Population Survey 2005-2011 are used to estimate linear probability models within a difference-in-differences framework to estimate how the ACA affected coverage of eligible young adults compared to slightly older adults.

Uncoupling intramolecular processing and substrate hydrolysis in the N-terminal nucleophile hydrolase hASRGL1 by circular permutation.

The human asparaginase-like protein 1 (hASRGL1) catalyzes the hydrolysis of l-asparagine and isoaspartyl-dipeptides. As an N-terminal nucleophile (Ntn) hydrolase superfamily member, the active form of hASRGL1 is generated by an intramolecular cleavage step with Thr168 as the catalytic residue. However, in vitro, autoprocessing is incomplete (~50%), fettering the biophysical characterization of hASRGL1.

The Errors of Karen Franklin's Pretextuality.

In her recent article, Hebephilia: Quintessence of Diagnostic Pretextuality (published in Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 2010), Karen Franklin expands on her previous argument that psychologists and psychiatrists should not diagnose as abnormal hebephilia, the sexual preference for early pubescent children. She supports her argument with a series of claims about the contents of the empirical literature and the scientists who produced it. The present document provides fact-checking of those claims, revealing that Franklin's conclusions are based largely on demonstrable falsehoods.