A geospatial agent-based model of the spatial urban dynamics of immigrant population: A study of the island of Montreal, Canada.

Residential segregation into spatial neighborhoods and boroughs is a well-known spatial dynamic process that characterise complex urban environments. Existing models of segregation, including the pioneering Schelling ones, often do not consider all the factors that can contribute to this process. Segregation as well as aggregation emerges from local interactions among individuals, and is rooted in the complexity of social, economic and environmental interactions.

Remote-controlled internal lengthening plate for distraction osteogenesis in pediatric patients.

Objectives: Limb lengthening by distraction osteogenesis is a technique widely used to treat limb length discrepancy resulting from trauma, congenital limb defects and long bone non-union. For decades, patients have resorted to the Ilizarov apparatus, prone to pin tract infections and scarring. Although implantable lengthening nails have reduced the incidence of complications, they are not applicable in pediatric patients with open growth plates.

Nu-DESC DK: the Danish version of the nursing delirium screening scale (nu-DESC).

Background: Delirium is one of the most common complications among elderly hospitalized patients, postoperative patients and patients on intensive care units with a prevalence between 11 and 80%. Delirium is associated with higher morbidity and mortality. Reliable instruments are required to detect delirium at an early time point.

Delirium assessment in hospitalized elderly patients: Italian translation and validation of the nursing delirium screening scale.

Background: Delirium has a high incidence pathology associated with negative outcomes. Although highly preventable, half the cases are not recognized. One major cause of delirium misdiagnosis is the absence of a versatile instrument to measure it.

Practical assessment of delirium in palliative care.

Context: Delirium is a common, distressing neuropsychiatric complication for patients in palliative care settings, where the need to minimize burden yet accurately assess delirium is hugely challenging.

Objectives: This review focused on the optimal clinical and research application of delirium assessment tools and methods in palliative care settings.

Methods: In addition to multidisciplinary input from delirium researchers and other relevant stakeholders at an international meeting, we searched PubMed (1990-2012) and relevant reference lists to identify delirium assessment tools used either exclusively or partly in the context of palliative care.

Delirium assessment in postoperative patients: Validation of the Portuguese version of the Nursing Delirium Screening Scale in critical care.

Background And Objectives: The aim of this study was to validate the Portuguese version of the Nursing Delirium Screening Scale (Nu-DESC) for use in critical care settings.

Methods: We simultaneously and independently evaluated all postoperative patients admitted to a surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) over a 1-month period for delirium, using the Portuguese versions of both the Nu-DESC and the Intensive Care Delirium Screening Checklist (ICDSC) within 24 hours of admission by both the research staff physician and one bedside nurse. We determined the diagnostic accuracy of the Nu-DESC using sensitivity, specificity and ROC curve analyses.

Sex differences in perceived pain are affected by an anxious brain.

Decades of research confirm that women have greater pain sensitivity than men. Women also show greater overall anxiety sensitivity than men. Given these differences, we hypothesized that sex differences in anxiety would explain sex differences in experienced pain and physiological responses to pain (at both spinal and cortical levels).

[The Nursing Delirium Screening Scale (NU-DESC)].

Background: Both in the recovery room as well as in the intensive care unit post-operative delirium is the most common psychiatric disease. The post-operative delirium is stated in literature to occur in 15 % to 50 % of patients, whereby up to 80 % of patients requiring intensive care with artificial respiration develop a delirium. The delirium correlates with the length of hospital stay and leads to a tripple rate of the six-month-mortality.

Opioid medications and longitudinal risk of delirium in hospitalized cancer patients.

Background: Delirium is an important problem in hospitalized cancer patients. The objective of this study was to determine whether exposure to corticosteroids, benzodiazepines, or opioids predicted delirium.

Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted in an oncology/internal medicine population.

Metabolism of oxidized linoleic acid by glutathione transferases: peroxidase activity toward 13-hydroperoxyoctadecadienoic acid.

The oxidation of linoleic acid produces several products with biological activity including the hydroperoxy fatty acid 13-hydroperoxyoctadecadienoic acid (13-HPODE), the hydroxy fatty acid 13-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid (13-HODE), and the 2,4-dienone 13-oxooctadecadienoic acid (13-OXO). In the present work, the peroxidase activity of glutathione transferases (GST) A1-1, M1-1, M2-2, and P1-1(Val 105) toward 13-HPODE has been examined. The alpha class enzyme is the most efficient peroxidase while the two enzymes from the mu class exhibit weak peroxidase activity toward 13-HPODE.

Psychoactive medications and risk of delirium in hospitalized cancer patients.

Purpose: Psychoactive medications are biologically plausible and potentially modifiable risk factors of delirium. To date, however, research findings are inconsistent regarding their association with delirium. The association between exposure to anticholinergics, benzodiazepines, corticosteroids, and opioids and the risk of delirium was studied.

Association between psychoactive medications and delirium in hospitalized patients: a critical review.

Psychoactive medications are often reported as delirium risk factors in hospitalized patients, and delirium induced by medication is potentially avoidable. The authors critically reviewed the evidence for a role of medications in delirium etiology. Only a few positive associations were noted.

Impact on delirium detection of using a sensitive instrument integrated into clinical practice.

Early symptoms of delirium often go unnoticed. The Nursing Delirium Screening Scale (Nu-DESC) is a recently developed short, accurate and sensitive 24-h screening instrument. The Nu-DESC is more sensitive than the instrument from which it was derived, the Confusion Rating Scale (CRS).

Fast, systematic, and continuous delirium assessment in hospitalized patients: the nursing delirium screening scale.

Because no rigorously validated, simple yet accurate continuous delirium assessment instrument exists, we developed the Nursing Delirium Screening Scale (Nu-DESC). The Nu-DESC is an observational five-item scale that can be completed quickly. To test the validity of the Nu-DESC, 146 consecutive hospitalized patients from a prospective cohort study were continuously assessed for delirium symptoms by bedside nurses using the Nu-DESC.

Psychotogenic drugs and delirium pathogenesis: the central role of the thalamus.

Delirium is thought to be a temporary psychiatric disorder resulting from a reduced central cholinergic transmission, combined with an increased dopaminergic transmission. The cholinergic and the dopaminergic systems interact not only with each other but with glutamatergic and gamma-amino-butyric acid (GABA) pathways. Besides the cerebral cortex, critical anatomical substrates of psychosis pathophysiology would comprise the striatum, the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area, and the thalamus.

Response of turf and quality of water runoff to manure and fertilizer.

Manure applications can benefit turfgrass production and unused nutrients in manure residues can be exported through sod harvests. Yet, nutrients near the soil surface could be transported in surface runoff. Our research objective was to evaluate responses of bermudagrass [Cynodon dactylon (L.

The challenge of making the school environment safe for children with food allergies.

An ever-increasing number of children are entering schools with life-threatening food allergies. Despite efforts of well-educated school nurses, Sampson, Mendelson, and Rosen (1992) found more children succumbed to a fatal anaphylactic shock at school than at home or another setting. The strain on the school nurse who works on the front lines in an attempt to keep these children safe is evident.

Results of a lead decontamination program.

An epidemiological survey was conducted in August 1991 to evaluate the impact of a public health program. The objective of the program was to decrease the level of exposure to lead of children who lived within 200 m of a lead- reclamation plant. In 1989, these children had a geometric mean blood lead level of 9.

[Aurore, child martyr. Essay on violence done to children].

This article draws on the sad story of Aurore Gagnon, a battered child raised in rural Québec and whose turmoil was dramatized on film. By elaborating on this symbol, the author is able to generate, at least in a systemic perspective, a number of issues and outlooks that go far beyond the generalities usually associated with this tale. For instance, there is ample evidence showing that the behaviour of Aurore's stepmother, aberrant as it may be, is largely caused by a set of environmental circumstances.

Potential role of HBGF (FGF) and TGF-beta on prostate growth.

We review in this paper the role of heparin-binding growth factor (HBGF*) or fibroblast growth factor (FGF*), rat prostate cancer cells produce TGF-beta, IGF-II* and OGF*. Of these growth factors, TGF-beta and unknown labile factor with 19 kDa are the most probable candidates responsible for osteoblastic bony metastasis of prostate cancer. In vitro experiments suggest that TGF-beta modulates cell detachment of prostate cancer cells together with nutritional factors.

Elevated in vitro translation of a 25-kDa protein in renal cell carcinoma.

As a first step in understanding the changes in protein synthesis that occur in renal cell carcinoma, we have prepared poly(A)+ RNA from surgically removed tumors and from their normal tissue counterpart. These RNAs were then translated in vitro in the rabbit reticulocyte lysate system and the synthesized labeled polypeptides were separated by one- and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. A major 25-kDa primary translation product was observed with all renal cell carcinomas.

L'ABC de la supervision clinique par discussion de cas.

Beginning with a review of the literature and a survey of instructors in family medicine, the authors show that supervision through case discussions is one of the least studied teaching tools in medicine, even though it is one of the most frequently used. On the basis of individual and collective consideration, they suggest the basic elements that seem to be requisite to this type of teaching activity: clarification of the aims of the supervisor and the resident by means of a verbal contract; a method of practice based on a clinical approach; provision of several examples of problems and various strategies for raising or solving problems.