Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Lifestyle and health behavior changes play an important role in the primary and secondary prevention of ACS recurrence. ...Changes in unhealthy lifestyles after an acute coronary event have been analyzed by considering separate behaviors individually, even though research on the healthy population has demonstrated that unhealthy behaviors tend to co-occur.
The aim of this study was to identify lifestyle profiles of ACS patients and to explore their pathways of change for one year after their first coronary event by adopting a typological approach.
Two hundred and twenty-three patients (84% male; mean age = 57.14) completed self-report measures of health-related behaviors at the beginning of cardiac rehabilitation, and six months and twelve months after. At each wave depression, anxiety and heart rate were also evaluated. Cluster analysis was performed to identify lifestyle profiles and to analyze their change over time. Differences in psychological factors and heart rate among clusters were assessed.
Patients' diet, physical activity, and smoking behavior greatly improved six months after their first coronary event. No further improvements were detected after one year. At each wave specific lifestyle profiles were identified, ranging from more maladaptive to healthier clusters. Patients with multiple unhealthy behaviors experience greater difficulties in maintaining a healthier lifestyle over time. Moreover, the results demonstrated the association between lifestyle profiles at twelve months after the acute coronary event and depression measured six months earlier. Finally, the most maladaptive lifestyle profile had many members with elevated heart rate at twelve months after the cardiac rehabilitation.
Current findings may have a strong practical impact in the development and implementation of personalized secondary prevention programs targeting lifestyles of ACS patients.
Many studies have focused on Type A and Type D personality types in the context of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), but nothing is known about how these personality types combine to create new ...profiles. The present study aimed to develop a typology of Type A and Type D personality in two groups of patients affected by and at risk for coronary disease. The study involved 711 patients: 51.6% with acute coronary syndrome, 48.4% with essential hypertension (mean age = 56.4 years; SD = 9.7 years; 70.7% men). Cluster analysis was applied. External variables, such as socio-demographic, psychological, lifestyle, and clinical parameters, were assessed. Six groups, each with its own unique combined personality profile scores, were identified: Type D, Type A-Negatively Affected, Not Type A-Negatively Affected, Socially Inhibited-Positively Affected, Not Socially Inhibited, and Not Type A-Not Type D. The Type A-Negatively Affected cluster and, to a lesser extent, the Type D cluster, displayed the worst profile: namely higher total cardiovascular risk index, physical inactivity, higher anxiety and depression, and lower self-esteem, optimism, and health status. Identifying combined personality profiles is important in clinical research and practice in cardiovascular diseases. Practical implications are discussed.
The LZ collaboration aims to directly detect dark matter by using a liquid xenon Time Projection Chamber (TPC). In order to probe the dark matter signal, observed signals are compared with ...simulations that model the detector response. The most computationally expensive aspect of these simulations is the propagation of photons in the detector’s sensitive volume. For this reason, we propose to offload photon propagation modelling to the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), by integrating Opticks into the LZ simulations workflow. Opticks is a system which maps Geant4 geometry and photon generation steps to NVIDIA’s OptiX GPU raytracing framework. This paradigm shift could simultaneously achieve a massive speed-up and an increase in accuracy for LZ simulations. By using the technique of containerization through Shifter, we will produce a portable system to harness the NERSC supercomputing facilities, including the forthcoming Perlmutter supercomputer, and enable the GPU processing to handle different detector configurations. Prior experience with using Opticks to simulate JUNO indicates the potential for speed-up factors over 1000× for LZ, and by extension other experiments requiring photon propagation simulations.
Previous detections of individual astrophysical sources of neutrinos are limited to the Sun and the supernova 1987A, whereas the origins of the diffuse flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos remain ...unidentified. On 22 September 2017, we detected a high-energy neutrino, IceCube-170922A, with an energy of ~290 tera-electron volts. Its arrival direction was consistent with the location of a known γ-ray blazar, TXS 0506+056, observed to be in a flaring state. An extensive multiwavelength campaign followed, ranging from radio frequencies to γ-rays. These observations characterize the variability and energetics of the blazar and include the detection of TXS 0506+056 in very-high-energy γ-rays. This observation of a neutrino in spatial coincidence with a γ-ray-emitting blazar during an active phase suggests that blazars may be a source of high-energy neutrinos.
High Energy Physics experiments like the LUX-ZEPLIN dark matter experiment face unique challenges when running their computation on High Performance Computing resources. In this paper, we describe ...some strategies to optimize memory usage of simulation codes with the help of profiling tools. We employed this approach and achieved memory reduction of 10-30%. While this has been performed in the context of the LZ experiment, it has wider applicability to other HEP experimental codes that face these challenges on modern computer architectures.
Abstract
Background
Recovery and human rights promotion for people with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders (SSDs) is fundamental to provide good care in Residential Facilities (RFs). However, there is ...a concern about rehabilitation ethos in RFs. This study aimed to investigate the care quality of Italian RFs, the quality of life (QoL) and care experience of residents with SSD.
Methods
Fourty-eight RFs were assessed using a quality assessment tool (QuIRC-SA) and 161 residents with SSD were enrolled. Seventeen RFs provided high intensity rehabilitation (SRP1), 15 medium intensity (SRP2), and 16 medium-low level support (SRP3). Staff-rated tools measured psychiatric symptoms and psychosocial functioning; user-rated tools assessed QoL and satisfaction with services. RFs comparisons were made using ANOVA and Chi-squared.
Results
Over two-thirds patients (41.5 y.o., SD 9.7) were male. Seventy-six were recruited from SRP1 services, 48 from SRP2, and 27 from SRP3. The lowest QuIRC-SA scoring was Recovery Based Practice (45.8%), and the highest was promotion of Human Rights (58.4%). SRP2 had the lowest QuIRC-SA ratings and SRP3 the highest. Residents had similar psychopathology (
p
= 0.140) and functioning (
p
= 0.537). SRP3 residents were more employed (18.9%) than SRP1 (7.9%) or SRP2 (2.2%) ones, and had less severe negative symptoms (
p
= 0.016) and better QoL (
p
= 0.020) than SRP2 residents. There were no differences in the RF therapeutic milieu and their satisfaction with care.
Conclusions
Residents of the lowest supported RFs in Italy had less severe negative symptoms, better QoL and more employment than others. The lowest ratings for Recovery Based Practice across all RFs suggest more work is needed to improve recovery.
Care needs represent an essential paradigm in planning residential facility (RF) interventions. However, possible disagreements between users and staff are critical issues in service delivery. The ...Experience Sampling Method (ESM) tracks experiences in the real world and real time. This study aimed to evaluate the care needs of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) in RFs and its association with daily activities and mood monitored using the ESM.
As part of the DIAPASON project, 313 residents with SSD were recruited from 99 Italian RFs. Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics were recorded. Care needs, the severity of symptomatology and negative symptoms were assessed. Fifty-six residents were also assessed for 7 consecutive days using the mobile ESM. Descriptive, agreement, predictor and moderator analyses were conducted.
The staff rated a higher number of total and met needs than service users (
< 0.001). Only a slight agreement between users and staff on unmet needs was found in self-care (
= 0.106) and information (
= 0.100) needs, while a moderate agreement was found in accommodation (
= 0.484), food (
= 0.406), childcare (
= 0.530), physical health (
= 0.470), telephone (
= 0.458) and transport (
= 0.425) needs. Older age (-0.15;
< 0.01), longer SSD diagnosis (-0.16;
< 0.01), higher collaboration (-0.16;
< 0.01) and lower symptomatology (-0.16;
< 0.01) decreased the number of unmet needs, while being a female (0.27;
< 0.05) and a shorter length of stay in an RF (0.54;
< 0.001) increased the number of unmet needs. A higher number of unmet needs was associated with a lower amount of time spent in leisure activities or reporting a positive mood: on the contrary, more unmet needs were associated with a greater amount of time spent in religious or non-productive activities. The associations between unmet needs rated by staff and users and momentary mood as assessed using the ESM were not moderated by the severity of symptomatology.
Although care needs are fundamental in planning residential activities aimed at recovery-oriented rehabilitation, RF interventions did not fully meet users' needs, and some disagreements on unmet needs between users and staff were reported. Further efforts are necessary to overcome Italian RF limits in delivering rehabilitative interventions defined by real users' needs to facilitate users' productivity and progress towards personal recovery.
Abstract
This study evaluated the relationship between negative symptoms, daily time use (productive/non-productive activities, PA/NPA), and negative emotions in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders ...(SSDs): 618 individuals with SSDs (311 residential care patients RCPs, 307 outpatients) were surveyed about socio-demographic, clinical (BPRS, BNSS) and daily time use (paper-and-pencil Time Use Survey completed twice/week) characteristics. Among them 57 RCPs and 46 outpatients, matched to 112 healthy controls, also underwent ecological monitoring of emotions (8 times/day for a week) through Experience Sampling Method (ESM). RCPs spent significantly less time in PA than outpatients. Patients with more negative symptomatology spent more time in NPA and less in PA compared to patients with milder symptoms. Higher time spent in NPA was associated with negative emotions (
p
< 0.001 during workdays) even when correcting for BNSS total and antipsychotic polypharmacy (
p
= 0.002 for workdays,
p
= 0.006 for Sundays). Future studies are needed to explore in more detail the relationship between negative emotions, negative symptoms, time use, and functioning in individuals with SSDs, providing opportunities for more informed and personalised clinical treatment planning and research into interactions between different motivational, saliency and behavioural aspects in individuals with SSDs.
Millisecond pulsars (MSPs) are old neutron stars that spin hundreds of times per second and appear to pulsate as their emission beams cross our line of sight. To date, radio pulsations have been ...detected from all rotation-powered MSPs. In an attempt to discover radio-quiet gamma-ray MSPs, we used the aggregated power from the computers of tens of thousands of volunteers participating in the Einstein@Home distributed computing project to search for pulsations from unidentified gamma-ray sources in Fermi Large Area Telescope data. This survey discovered two isolated MSPs, one of which is the only known rotation-powered MSP to remain undetected in radio observations. These gamma-ray MSPs were discovered in completely blind searches without prior constraints from other observations, raising hopes for detecting MSPs from a predicted Galactic bulge population.
High Energy Physics experiments like the LUX-ZEPLIN dark matter experiment face unique challenges when running their computation on High Performance Computing resources. In this paper, we describe ...some strategies to optimize memory usage of simulation codes with the help of profiling tools. We employed this approach and achieved memory reduction of 10-30\%. While this has been performed in the context of the LZ experiment, it has wider applicability to other HEP experimental codes that face these challenges on modern computer architectures.
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