Pathways to program entry: Factors promoting entry and participation in veteran peer-support programs.

Given the documented underutilization of community-based services by veterans, this study aims to identify factors promoting engagement in programs. Qualitative data from interviews with 154 veterans in peer support programs were analyzed to identify factors promoting program entry and participation. Findings confirm the importance of both internal and external factors for program engagement.

Promoting patient and nurse safety: testing a behavioural health intervention in a learning healthcare system: results of the DEMEANOR pragmatic, cluster, cross-over trial.

Background: Based on clinical staff safety within a learning healthcare system, the purpose of this study was to test an innovative model of care for addressing disruptive behaviour in hospitalised patients to determine whether it should be scaled up at the system level.

Methods: The Disruptive bEhaviour manageMEnt ANd prevention in hospitalised patients using a behaviOuRal (DEMEANOR) intervention team was a pragmatic, cluster, cross-over trial. A behavioural intervention team (BIT) with a psychiatric mental health advanced practice nurse and a social worker, with psychiatrist consultation, switched between units each month and occurrences of disruptive behaviours (eg, documented violence control measures, violence risk) compared.

Production of Substituted Styrene Bioproducts from Lignin and Lignocellulose Using Engineered Pseudomonas putida KT2440.

Ferulic acid is a renewable chemical found in lignocellulose from grasses such as wheat straw and sugarcane. Pseudomonas putida is able to liberate and metabolize ferulic acid from plant biomass. Deletion of the hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA hydratase-lyase gene (ech) produced a strain of P.

The Disruptive bEhavior manageMEnt ANd prevention in hospitalized patients using a behaviORal intervention team (DEMEANOR) study protocol: a pragmatic, cluster, crossover trial.

Background: Disruptive behavior in hospitalized patients has become a priority area of safety concern for clinical staff, and also has consequences for patient management and hospital course. Proactive screening and intervention of patients with behavioral comorbidities has been reported to reduce disruptive behavior in some settings, but it has not been studied in a rigorous way.

Methods: The Disruptive bEhavior manageMEnt ANd prevention in hospitalized patients using a behaviORal intervention team (DEMEANOR) study is a pragmatic, cluster, crossover trial that is being conducted.

Neighborhood Perceptions of Gun Violence and Safety: Findings from a Public Health-Social Work Intervention.

Efforts to reduce gun violence have moved away from models that rely solely on law enforcement approaches, toward public health-focused models of intervention. This paper discusses urban gun violence from a public health and social work perspective, examining a method to interrupt, reduce and prevent gun violence at the community level. A qualitative research design was utilized to evaluate perceptions held by thirty-seven community members regarding the impact of a gun and related violence prevention program, Albany SNUG.

Breaking down lignin to high-value chemicals: the conversion of lignocellulose to vanillin in a gene deletion mutant of Rhodococcus jostii RHA1.

The aromatic polymer lignin represents a possible renewable source of aromatic chemicals, if biocatalytic routes for lignin breakdown can be developed. The availability of a genome sequence for Rhodococcus jostii RHA1, a bacterium that breaks down lignin, has allowed the application of a targeted pathway engineering strategy to lignin breakdown to produce vanillin, a valuable food/flavor chemical. A gene deletion strain of R.

Isolation of bacterial strains able to metabolize lignin from screening of environmental samples.

Aims: To develop a method to detect bacteria from environmental samples that are able to metabolize lignin.

Methods And Results: A previously developed UV-vis assay method for lignin degradation activity has been developed for use as a spray assay on agar plates. Nine mesophilic strains were isolated using this method from woodland soil incubated in enrichment cultures containing wheat straw lignocellulose: four Microbacterium isolates, two Micrococcus isolates, Rhodococcus erythropolis (all Actinobacteria) and two Ochrobactrum isolates (Alphaproteobacteria).

Pathways for degradation of lignin in bacteria and fungi.

Lignin is a heterogeneous aromatic polymer found as 10-35% of lignocellulose, found in plant cell walls. The bio-conversion of plant lignocellulose to glucose is an important part of second generation biofuel production, but the resistance of lignin to breakdown is a major obstacle in this process, hence there is considerable interest in the microbial breakdown of lignin. White-rot fungi are known to break down lignin with the aid of extracellular peroxidase and laccase enzymes.

Identification of DypB from Rhodococcus jostii RHA1 as a lignin peroxidase.

Rhodococcus jostii RHA1, a polychlorinated biphenyl-degrading soil bacterium whose genome has been sequenced, shows lignin degrading activity in two recently developed spectrophotometric assays. Bioinformatic analysis reveals two unannotated peroxidase genes present in the genome of R. jostii RHA1 with sequence similarity to open reading frames in other lignin-degrading microbes.

The emerging role for bacteria in lignin degradation and bio-product formation.

The microbial degradation of lignin has been well studied in white-rot and brown-rot fungi, but is much less well studied in bacteria. Recent published work suggests that a range of soil bacteria, often aromatic-degrading bacteria, are able to break down lignin. The enzymology of bacterial lignin breakdown is currently not well understood, but extracellular peroxidase and laccase enzymes appear to be involved.

The activity of family 11 xylanases at alkaline pH.

Xylanases have several industrial uses, particularly in baking, modification of animal feed and in pulp bleaching in the paper industry. Process conditions in kraft pulp bleaching generally favour an enzyme that is active at high pH values. The activities of several glycosyl hydrolase family 11 xylanases reported to be active under alkaline conditions were determined under optimal conditions and found to have optima in the pH 5-6 range.

Directed evolution of a thermophilic beta-glucosidase for cellulosic bioethanol production.

Characteristics that would make enzymes more desirable for industrial applications can be improved using directed evolution. We developed a directed evolution technique called random drift mutagenesis (RNDM). Mutant populations are screened and all functional mutants are collected and put forward into the next round of mutagenesis and screening.

Applications of flow cytometry in environmental microbiology and biotechnology.

Flow cytometry (FCM) is a technique for counting, examining and sorting microscopic particles suspended in a stream of fluid. It uses the principles of light scattering, light excitation and the emission from fluorescent molecules to generate specific multiparameter data from particles and cells. The cells are hydrodynamically focussed in a sheath solution before being intercepted by a focused light source provided by a laser.

Considering abortion: a 12-month audit of records of women contacting a Pregnancy Advisory Service.

Objective: To characterise the demographic and psychosocial circumstances of women contacting Victoria's largest public pregnancy advisory service (PAS).

Design And Setting: Audit of PAS electronic records for the 12 months from 1 October 2006 to 30 September 2007. De-identified data were extracted from a comprehensive electronic database used for recording consultations.

Outreach and peer-delivered mental health services in New York City following September 11, 2001.

Objective: Following the tragedy of September 11, 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funded Project Liberty, an umbrella program operating from multiple sites throughout New York City to provide free crisis counseling and other assistance. One particular Project Liberty site provided peer support services for individuals with pre-existing psychiatric disabilities. This article reports on the outreach efforts undertaken by Project Liberty's Peer Initiative.

Referral to consumer-run programs by mental health providers: a national survey.

This study describes mental health providers' awareness of, attitudes toward, and likelihood to refer to consumer-run programs. A mail survey method was used with a total of 301 questionnaires returned (33.5% response rate) from a national random sample.

Promoting healthy organizational partnerships and collaboration between consumer-run and community mental health agencies.

Community mental health agencies (CMHAs) and consumer-run agencies (CRAs) both provide critically important services to persons with severe psychiatric disabilities. Emerging research has begun to support the effectiveness of the CRA approach, a newer service delivery mechanism. However, collaboration between the two service systems, when it occurs, is often problematic.

Making sense of it all: consumer providers' theories about factors facilitating and impeding recovery from psychiatric disabilities.

This qualitative study examined the accounts of fifteen adults regarding how they recovered from serious psychiatric disability. Interviews were analyzed using a grounded theory approach within a framework of Symbolic Interactionism. Recovery was identified as a dynamic process of personal growth and transformation.

Factors in decisions to seek help from self-help and co-located community mental health agencies.

This study examined 673 new users of co-located mental health self-help agencies run by consumers and community mental health agencies to evaluate the relative importance of predisposing, enabling, and need factors in site selection. Although need dominated help site choice, clients' attitudes toward the helpfulness of mental health treatment and their fears of coerced or inadequate care played an important role in setting choice, a choice indicative of a more complex motivational dynamic in help seeking.

Community membership and social networks in mental health self-help agencies.

This article explores community membership among self-help agency (SHA) participants. It is suggested that SHAs foster the enhancement of peer-oriented social networks, leading to the experience of shared community. Social network analysis was used to examine the structure of support mechanisms, and to assess levels of community membership through peer inclusion.

Predictors of Hope Among Members of Mental Health Self-Help Agencies.

Hope is a key construct for successful community adjustment among those with severe mental illnesses, particularly given the strengths-based recovery model increasingly prevalent in mental health services and in social work. Consumer-run mental health self-help agencies (SHAs) are well suited to fostering hope via their supportive program environments. This study examines factors associated with hope among members of four self-help agencies via a two-stage least squares regression model (N = 310).

Characteristics of new clients at self-help and community mental health agencies in geographic proximity.

Objective: Self-help agencies are funded as adjuncts of, referral sources for, or alternatives to community mental health agencies. Little is known about how these two types of organization in geographic proximity interact, whom they attract as prospective clients, and what their clients bring to the service situation. The authors compared the characteristics and past service use of new enrollees of self-help agencies and community mental health agencies serving the same geographic area.

Psychiatric morbidity in sentenced segregated HIV-positive prisoners.

In this comparative study with a control group of prisoners, psychiatric morbidity was measured in two groups of sentenced prisoners, each group completing the GHQ-30 and 21-item Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Group 1 consisted of 40 segregated HIV-positive prisoners and group 2 a matched control group in the main prison who had no history of HIV seropositivity. All members of group 1 had a history of intravenous drug abuse.