Fatigue and psychological distress--exploring the relationship in women treated for breast cancer.

Disabling fatigue and psychological symptoms of depression or anxiety are commonly reported by women with treated breast cancer. However, most instruments designed to assess fatigue do not assess concurrent psychological symptoms. This study compared the characteristics of two conceptually different, self-report instruments assessing fatigue to determine the extent to which common psychological symptoms co-exist with the symptom of fatigue in women treated for breast cancer.

Building capacity of the Baltic States to meet the EU Water Framework Directive through watershed demonstration projects.

The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO), in cooperation with the United States EPA, is completing it role in assisting the Baltic Countries of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia with watershed management capacity building demonstration projects under the Great Lakes/Baltic Sea Partnership Program. The Countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania view the skills gained through this program as important to their objective of complying with the European Union's Water Framework Directive and thus facilitating accession into the European Union. The program also addressed Kaliningrad's desire to work cooperatively with their neighboring countries concerning shared waters.

Providing psychological treatments in general practice: how will it work?

Provision of "Focussed Psychological Strategies" by general practitioners is one component of the recent Better Outcomes in Mental Health Care (BOiMHC) initiative. The BOiMHC initiative requires GPs to undertake minimum training requirements before they may provide services under the new Medicare Benefits Schedule item number. We argue that GPs need further training and ongoing clinical interaction with mental health specialists (beyond the minimum training requirements) for refinement of psychological skills.

Mammary gland, limb and yolk sac defects in mice lacking Tbx3, the gene mutated in human ulnar mammary syndrome.

Spontanteous mutations in the T-box gene TBX3, result in the human ulnar-mammary syndrome, a dominant developmental disorder characterized by abnormal forelimb and apocrine gland development. In order to develop a mouse model to study the role of this gene during development and disease, we produced a mutation in the mouse ortholog, Tbx3. The phenotype of the mutant mice verifies the role of this gene in limb and mammary gland development, and, in addition, reveals a previously unknown role for the gene in the yolk sac, a fetal membrane that is the site of hematopoiesis and is essential for survival during gestation.

Who's bringing you hot ideas and how are you responding?

There's an unsung hero in your organization. It's the person who's bringing in new ideas from the outside about how to manage better. These aren't your product and service innovators--those people are celebrated loudly and often.

Screening for depression in general practice and related medical settings.

Objective: To determine if screening in general practice and related medical settings improves management and clinical outcomes in people with depression.

Data Sources: The Medline (1966-2002), EMBASE (1980-2002) and PsycINFO (1966-2002) databases were searched. These were supplemented by searching the Cochrane databases (to 2002); performing additional specific searches on Medline, EMBASE and PsycINFO; scrutinising reference lists of selected articles; and querying experts.

Measuring outcomes in patients with depression or anxiety: an essential part of clinical practice.

A wide range of instruments is available for ongoing assessment of clinical status and outcome in patients with depressive or anxiety disorders. However, few doctors use these instruments in managing their patients. As depression and anxiety are relapsing or chronic conditions and are often comorbid with other medical conditions, standard outcome measures should be incorporated into the management plans for all such patients.

Just-in-time delivery comes to knowledge management.

Like all primary care physicians, Dr. Bob Goldszer must stay on top of approximately 10,000 different diseases and syndromes, 3,000 medications, 1,100 laboratory tests, and many of the 400,000 articles added each year to the biomedical literature. That's no easy task.

Neurasthenia: prevalence, disability and health care characteristics in the Australian community.

Background: Neurasthenia imposes a high burden on primary medical health care systems in all societies.

Aims: To determine the prevalence of ICD-10 neurasthenia and associated comorbidity, disability and health care utilisation.

Method: Utilisation of a national sample of Australian households previously surveyed using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview and other measures.

Exploring the perspectives of people whose lives have been affected by depression.

Objectives: To describe the experiences of people whose lives have been affected by depression.

Design, Setting And Participants: Thematic review of data collected from 21 community meetings (1529 people, providing 911 evaluation forms) and nine focus groups (69 individuals) held nationally, and written feedback and website-based interactions with beyondblue: the national depression initiative between April and December 2001.

Main Outcome Measures: Barriers to social participation experienced by people whose lives have been affected by depression, and their interactions with the healthcare system.

Monitoring awareness of and attitudes to depression in Australia.

Objectives: To determine the degree of recognition and understanding of depression and its treatments in Australia in 2001, and detail factors and personal experiences that influence awareness of and attitudes to depression.

Design And Setting: Cross-sectional survey of a representative community sample (900 randomly selected respondents), via telephone interview, conducted 5-7 October 2001.

Main Outcome Measures: Reports of community awareness, knowledge and attitudes to depression and its treatments in Australia.

A high statistics measurement of the Lambda(+)(c) lifetime.

A high statistics measurement of the Lambda(+)(c) lifetime from the Fermilab fixed-target FOCUS photoproduction experiment is presented. We describe the analysis technique with particular attention to the determination of the systematic uncertainty. The measured value of 204.

Search for CP violation in the decays D+--> K(S)pi+ and D+-->K(S)K+.

A high-statistics sample of photoproduced charm from the FOCUS experiment has been used to search for direct CP violation in the decay rates for D+-->K(S)pi+ and D+-->K(S)K+. We have measured the following asymmetry parameters relative to D+-->K-pi+pi+: A(CP)(K(S)pi+) = (-1.6+/-1.

Androgen receptor immunoreactivity of male rat cervical motor neurons is increased by chronic pharmacologic testosterone treatment.

Chronic pharmacologic testosterone treatment of adult male rats decreases neuromuscular transmission failure (NTF) in the rat diaphragm muscle and increases choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) mRNA levels in cervical motor neurons. These testosterone-induced changes in NTF and ChAT mRNA levels may be mediated through the activation of the androgen receptor (AR). The purpose of this study was to determine if the AR expression of cervical motor neurons is modulated by chronic pharmacologic testosterone treatment of gonadally intact male rats with testosterone propionate (TP).

Measurement of the branching ratios of D(+) and D(+)(s) hadronic decays to four-body final states containing a K(S).

We have studied hadronic four-body decays of D(+) and D(+)(s) mesons with a K(S) in the final state using data recorded during the 1996-1997 fixed-target run of the Fermilab high energy photoproduction experiment FOCUS. We report a new branching ratio measurement of gamma(D(+)-->K(S)K-pi(+)pi(+))/gamma(D(+)-->K(S)pi(+)pi(+)pi(-)) = 0.0768+/-0.

Discovery of novel, orally active dual NK1/NK2 antagonists.

Exploration of the SAR around selective NK2 antagonists, SR48968 and ZD7944, led to the discovery that naphth-1-amide analogues provide potent dual NK1 and NK2 antagonists. ZD6021 inhibited binding of [3H]-NKA or [3H]-SP to human NK1 and NK2 receptors, with high-affinity (K(i)=0.12 and 0.

Effects of mental health training and clinical audit on general practitioners' management of common mental disorders.

Objective: To evaluate the effects of a seminar-based training program and clinical practice audit on general practitioners' (GPs') knowledge and management of common mental disorders.

Design: Survey of GPs' knowledge before and after training, and clinical practice audit and re-audit after feedback.

Participants And Setting: GP volunteers from around Australia in 1998-1999: 1008 completed the pre-training test, 190 the post-training test, 386 the first audit (33235 patients), and 157 of these the re-audit (13280 patients), with 57 undertaking both audit and training.

Variability and predictors of mental disorder rates and medical practitioner responses across Australian general practices.

Objective: To determine the variation in prevalence of common mental disorders and general practitioner (GP) responses across Australian general practices, and to identify practice characteristics that predict these rates.

Design: Cross-sectional national audit of general practices throughout Australia in 1998-1999.

Participants: 46515 ambulatory care patients attending 386 GPs.

Comorbidity of common mental disorders and alcohol or other substance misuse in Australian general practice.

Objective: To determine in patients attending general practice 1) the extent of comorbidity of mental disorders and alcohol or other substance misuse, and consequent disability; and 2) GPs' diagnosis and management of patients with comorbidity.

Design And Setting: Cross-sectional national audit of general practices throughout Australia in 1998-1999.

Participants: 46 515 ambulatory care patients attending 386 GPs.