Singlet Polaron Theory of Low-Energy Optical Excitations in NiPS_{3}.

We develop a theory that explains the low-energy optical excitations near 1.5 eV observed by optical experiments in NiPS_{3}. Using ab initio methods, we construct a two-band Hubbard model for two effective Ni orbitals.

Cultural aspects of time and ageing. Time is not the same in every culture and every circumstance; our views of aging also differ.

Time is not the same in every culture and every circumstance; our views of ageing also differ

Perceptions of childhood immunisations in rural Transkei--a qualitative study.

Objectives: To examine perceptions of childhood illnesses, and the role of immunisation in preventing them, among caretakers of young children in Mhlakulo, a rural community in Transkei, Eastern Cape, and to suggest reasons for the low uptake of immunisations in that area.

Design: In-depth qualitative research using semi-structured questionnaires, focus groups, and free listing.

Methods: Detailed interviews were conducted using standardised semi-structured questionnaires.

Remedy or cure? Lay beliefs about over-the-counter medicines for coughs and colds.

Background: Over 500 million is spent in the United Kingdom every year on over-the-counter medicines for coughs and colds. Evidence for their pharmacological efficacy is lacking.

Aim: To examine lay beliefs about over-the-counter medicines for coughs and colds.

Health beliefs and folk models of diabetes in British Bangladeshis: a qualitative study.

Objective: To explore the experience of diabetes in British Bangladeshis, since successful management of diabetes requires attention not just to observable behaviour but to the underlying attitudes and belief systems which drive that behaviour.

Design: Qualitative study of subjects' experience of diabetes using narratives, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and pile sorting exercises. A new qualitative method, the structured vignette, was developed for validating researchers' understanding of primary level culture.

The body image in health and disease: exploring patients' maps of body and self.

Patient education in chronic diseases should always take into account the many maps--individual, cultural and medical--that patients have of their own bodies, in both health and disease. Physicians should become explorers, working in co-operation with patients and their families to understand their perceptions of body and self--and whether or not these are compatible with medical interventions.

The family culture: a useful concept for family practice.

Each family can be regarded as a unique small-scale society, with its own internal organization and view of the world or family culture. A crucial aspect of each family culture are those beliefs, behaviors, habits, and life-styles that are either protective of health or pathogenic, depending on the context. For family physicians, the insights of medical anthropology are useful in understanding the role of family culture in health, illness, and medical care.

Basophilic leukemia and the hypersecretion of gastric acid and pepsin.

A 48-yr-old man with chronic myelogenous leukemia and basophilia developed a duodenal ulcer and hemorrhage. Gastric analysis revealed basal hyper-secretion of acid (33.1 mEq/h) and pepsin (44.

Chewing gum is as effective as food in stimulating cephalic phase gastric secretion.

Modified sham feeding-stimulated gastric secretion is a recognized means of testing vagal integrity. The chew-and-spit technique is esthetically distasteful and difficult to perform without some of the food being swallowed. Simple chewing of an inert substance does not stimulate acid secretion.

Gastric emptying in chronic renal failure patients on hemodialysis.

We studied gastric emptying of solid food, using a radionuclide technique, in 18 patients with chronic renal failure patients on hemodialysis: nine with nausea and vomiting or postprandial bloating and nine without. Both groups were compared with a group of normal subjects. Gastric emptying was consistent with a linear elimination in all groups.

Divergent effects of bombesin and bethanechol on stimulated gastric secretion in duodenal ulcer and in normal men.

To further investigate differences in the responses of normals and patients with duodenal ulcer with respect to gastrin release and acid and pepsin secretion, we infused bombesin (1 microgram/kg X h) or bethanechol (40 micrograms/kg X h) during the middle hour of a 3-h infusion of pentagastrin and compared the results with a pentagastrin infusion without added drug. Pentagastrin dosage (0.1 microgram/kg X h) was set to give about half-maximal response, to detect either inhibition or further stimulation of gastric secretion, whereas the dose of bombesin was chosen to give maximal gastrin but less than maximal acid secretion.

Heart disease and the cultural construction of time: the type A behaviour pattern as a Western culture-bound syndrome.

For over 20 years, the image of the coronary-prone 'type A' individual, ambitious, competitive, hostile, and time-obsessed has been a familiar feature of cardiology literature, and of popular discourse on health. A closer examination of the moral content of this model, suggests that it is based on a binary classification of social values type A (bad) and type B (good). But the type A individual is also a figure of moral ambiguity, embodying many of the inherent contradictions of Western industrial society.

Bombesin and G-17 dose responses in duodenal ulcer and controls.

Gastric acid and pepsin secretion and serum gastrin concentrations were measured in nine patients with uncomplicated duodenal ulcer (DU) and 10 normal controls in the fasting state and in response to graded doses of bombesin, a tetradecapeptide gastrin releaser, and, for reference, synthetic gastrin G-17. Serum gastrin with bombesin stimulation was significantly greater in duodenal ulcer (maximum 467 pg/ml) than in controls (153 pg/ml), while in seven of the DU group tested gastrin levels after a meal were not different from that seen in five of the normal controls. Gastric acid concentrations and outputs were greater in duodenal ulcer with both stimuli.

A simplified QRS scoring system for the estimation of the severity of acute inferior wall myocardial infarction.

Electrocardiographic assessment of the R/Q wave ratio (lead 2) of patients with a first acute inferior wall myocardial infarction (IWMI) offers important indirect quantitative information regarding the severity and extent of the myocardial damage. Eighty-eight consecutive patients with IWMI were investigated by echocardiography and radionuclear angiography. After measuring the R/Q ratio in lead 2 during the ST-wave stabilized stage of myocardial infarction, patients were separated into three groups--group 1 with an R/Q ratio greater than 2; group 2 with an R/Q ratio between 1 to 2; and group 3 with an R/Q ratio less than 1.

Psyche, soma, and society: the social construction of psychosomatic disorders.

This pilot-study examines the self-perceptions, and explanatory models, of 42 patients with either respiratory or gastrointestinal psychosomatic disorders. For several reasons, these disorders comprise an anomalous category within the biomedical model. It is suggested that clinicians explain their chronic, unpredictable course by 'psychologization'--shifting responsibility for etiology, exacerbations or therapeutic failure to patients' emotions, personality, or lifestyle.