University of North Carolina at Charlotte

About: University of North Carolina at Charlotte is a education organization based out in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 8772 authors who have published 22239 publications receiving 562529 citations. The organization is also known as: UNC Charlotte & UNCC.

Intimate partner violence and physical health consequences

Abstract: Background: Domestic violence results in long-term and immediate health problems. This study compared selected physical health problems of abused and never abused women with similar access to health care. Methods: A case-control study of enrollees in a multisite metropolitan health maintenance organization sampled 2535 women enrollees aged 21 to 55 years who responded to an invitation to participate; 447 (18%) could not be contacted, 7 (0.3%) were ineligible, and 76 (3%) refused, yielding a sample of 2005. The Abuse Assessment Screen identified women physically and/or sexually abused between January 1, 1989, and December 31, 1997, resulting in 201 cases. The 240 controls were a random sample of never abused women. The general health perceptions subscale of the Medical Outcomes Study 36Item Short-Form Health Survey measured general health. The Miller Abuse Physical Symptom and Injury Scale measured abuse-specific health problems. tal status, educational level, and income. Direct weights were used to standardize for comparisons. Significance was tested using logistic and negative binomial regressions. Abused women had more (P.05) headaches, back pain, sexually transmitted diseases, vaginal bleeding, vaginal infections, pelvic pain, painful intercourse, urinary tract infections, appetite loss, abdominal pain, and digestive problems. Abused women also had more (P.001) gynecological, chronic stress–related, central nervous system, and total health problems. Conclusions: Abused women have a 50% to 70% increase in gynecological, central nervous system, and stressrelated problems, with women sexually and physically abused most likely to report problems. Routine universal screening and sensitive in-depth assessment of women presenting with frequent gynecological, chronic stress– related, or central nervous system complaints are needed to support disclosure of domestic violence. Arch Intern Med. 2002;162:1157-1163

Recent findings on the viable but nonculturable state in pathogenic bacteria.

Abstract: Many bacteria, including a variety of important human pathogens, are known to respond to various environmental stresses by entry into a novel physiological state, where the cells remain viable, but are no longer culturable on standard laboratory media. On resuscitation from this ‘viable but nonculturable’ (VBNC) state, the cells regain culturability and the renewed ability to cause infection. It is likely that the VBNC state is a survival strategy, although several interesting alternative explanations have been suggested. This review describes the VBNC state, the various chemical and physical factors known to induce cells into this state, the cellular traits and gene expression exhibited by VBNC cells, their antibiotic resistance, retention of virulence and ability to attach and persist in the environment, and factors that have been found to allow resuscitation of VBNC cells. Along with simple reversal of the inducing stresses, a variety of interesting chemical and biological factors have been shown to allow resuscitation, including extracellular resuscitation-promoting proteins, a novel quorum-sensing system (AI-3) and interactions with amoeba. Finally, the central role of catalase in the VBNC response of some bacteria, including its genetic regulation, is described.

Combinative effects of innovation types and organizational Performance: A longitudinal study of service organizations

Abstract: Innovation research suggests that innovation types have different attributes, determinants, and effects. This study focuses on consequences of adoption of three types of innovation (service, technological process, and administrative process) in service organizations. Its main thesis is that the impact of innovation on organizational performance depends on compositions of innovation types over time. We examine this proposition by analysing innovative activity in a panel of 428 public service organizations in the UK over four years. Our findings suggest that focus on adopting a specific type of innovation every year is detrimental, consistency in adopting the same composition of innovation types over the years has no effect, and divergence from the industry norm in adopting innovation types could possibly be beneficial to organizational performance. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and research on innovation types.

Cognitive enhancers as adjuncts to psychotherapy: use of D-cycloserine in phobic individuals to facilitate extinction of fear.

Abstract: Background Traditional pharmacological approaches to treating psychiatric disorders focus on correcting presumed biochemical abnormalities. However, some disorders, particularly the anxiety-related disorders exemplified by specific phobia, have an emotional learning component to them that can be facilitated with psychotherapy. Objective To determine whether D-cycloserine (DCS), a partial agonist at theN-methyl-D-aspartate receptor that has previously been shown to improve extinction of fear in rodents, will also improve extinction of fear in human phobic patients undergoing behavioral exposure therapy. Design Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial examining DCS vs placebo treatment in combination with a precisely controlled exposure paradigm. Setting Participants were recruited from the general community to a research clinic. Participants Twenty-eight subjects with acrophobia diagnosed by the Structured Clinical Interview forDSM-IVwere enrolled. Interventions After we obtained pretreatment measures of fear, subjects were treated with 2 sessions of behavioral exposure therapy using virtual reality exposure to heights within a virtual glass elevator. Single doses of placebo or DCS were taken prior to each of the 2 sessions of virtual reality exposure therapy. Subjects, therapists, and assessors were blind to the treatment condition. Subjects returned at 1 week and 3 months posttreatment for measures to determine the presence and severity of acrophobia symptoms. Main Outcome Measures Included were measures of acrophobia within the virtual environment, measures of acrophobia in the real world, and general measures of overall improvement. An objective measure of fear, electrodermal skin fluctuation, was also included during the virtual exposure to heights. Symptoms were assessed by self-report and by independent assessors at approximately 1 week and 3 months posttreatment. Results Exposure therapy combined with DCS resulted in significantly larger reductions of acrophobia symptoms on all main outcome measures. Subjects receiving DCS had significantly more improvement compared with subjects receiving placebo within the virtual environment (1 week after treatment,P≤.001; 3 months later,P≤.05). Subjects receiving DCS also showed significantly greater decreases in posttreatment skin conductance fluctuations during the virtual exposure (P≤.05). Additionally, subjects receiving DCS had significantly greater improvement compared with subjects receiving placebo on general measures of real-world acrophobia symptoms (acrophobia avoidance [P≤.02], acrophobia anxiety [P≤.01], attitudes toward heights [P≤.04], clinical global improvement [P≤.01], and number of self-exposures to real-world heights [P≤.01]); the improvement was evident early in treatment and was maintained at 3 months. Conclusion These pilot data provide initial support for the use of acute dosing of DCS as an adjunct to exposure-based psychotherapy to accelerate the associative learning processes that contribute to correcting psychopathology.