The Pittsburgh Sleep Diary

SUMMARY  Increasingly, there is a need in both research and clinical practice to document and quantify sleep and waking behaviors in a comprehensive manner. The Pittsburgh Sleep Diary (PghSD) is an instrument with separate components to be completed at bedtime and waketime. Bedtime components relate to the events of the day preceding the sleep, waketime components to the sleep period just completed. Two-week PghSD data is presented from 234 different subjects, comprising 96 healthy young middle-aged controls, 37 older men, 44 older women, 29 young adult controls and 28 sleep disorders patients in order to demonstrate the usefulness, validity and reliability of various measures from the instrument. Comparisons are made with polysomnographic and actigraphic sleep measures, as well as personality and circadian type questionnaires. The instrument was shown to have sensitivity in detecting differences due to weekends, age, gender, personality and circadian type, and validity in agreeing with actigraphic estimates of sleep timing and quality. Over a 12–31 month delay, PghSD measures of both sleep timing and sleep quality showed correlations between 0.56 and 0.81 ( n = 39, P < 0.001).     

Economic Assessment of Zoonotic Diseases: An Illustrative Study of Rift Valley Fever in the United States

This study evaluates the economic consequences of a Rift Valley Fever outbreak, a virus that spreads from livestock to humans, often through mosquitoes. Developing a ‘one health’ economic framework, economic impacts on agricultural producers and consumers, government costs of response, costs and disruptions to non‐agricultural activities in the epidemiologically impacted region, and human health costs (morbidity and mortality) are estimated. We find the agricultural firms bear most of the negative economic impacts, followed by regional non‐agricultural firms, human health and government. Further, consumers of agricultural products benefit from small outbreaks due to bans on agricultural exports.     

Time spent moving is related to systolic blood pressure among older women

Isolated systolic hypertension is present in the majority of older women. Exercise is an attractive antihypertensive lifestyle therapy for older women with isolated systolic hypertension, but the amount of exercise needed to reduce blood pressure (BP) is not clear. Evidence is accumulating that lower levels of physical exertion are associated with decreased BP. The authors sought to determine if BP was related to daily time spent moving. Participants were 109 women (mean +/- SD, 75.2+/-7.2 yr). A majority (63.3%) had hypertension, and 48.6% had isolated systolic hypertension. Systolic BP was lower among women moving > or =5 h/d (142.2+/-18.7 mm Hg) than those moving <5 h/d (149.8+/-19.0 mm Hg) (p=0.038). Multiple regression analysis indicated that the potentially strong confounding effects of antihypertensive medication use, adiposity, and age did not eliminate these favorable associations between daily time spent moving and systolic BP. Older women should be encouraged to regularly engage in physical activities typical of everyday life such as walking because of its BP benefits.     

铸造作业粉尘的不同连续采样方法检测结果若干关系探讨

[目的]探讨铸造行业作业场所粉尘连续性采样中，个体采样和区域采样两种测定结果间的相关关系和相关程度，以及季节因素和不同作业场所对采样结果的影响。[方法]选择3家工厂的铸造车间作为采样现场，分别在各工种选取36、23、14人进行个体全工作班随身采样，并同时进行工作区域定点采样。冬、夏两季每季重复进行3次。以重量法测定粉尘总量并计算出粉尘浓度。对各工厂夏冬两季各工种以及各工作区域的空气粉尘平均浓度，进行工种浓度和区域浓度、季节和工厂之间的比较分析。[结果]工种浓度各厂都有从造型各工种到开箱各工种浓度渐高的趋势排列，其中两个厂的浓度排列趋势有极显著性的统计学意义，F值分别为9．30和16．36，P〈0．01。区域采样所得的区域浓度与相应的工人个体采样所得的工种浓度或缺乏显著性相关，或未见显著性差别。冬季各工种的个体样品和区域样品所测得的粉尘平均浓度普遍高于夏季时的相应样品，其中造型（t=4．56）、制芯（t=4．34）、开箱冷却（t=5．88）、开箱打磨（t=3．49）、以及铸造车间行车（t=2．97）工种和制芯间（t=2．79）区域的季节差异表现出统计上的显著性。3个厂之间，某些类似工种个体接触和类似工作区域的空气粉尘平均浓度的差异有极显著性，有色金属铸造厂的浓度都是最低。[结论]在大中型的黑色金属铸造生产场所，区域采样不能很好地代表或替代个体采样以反映作业者实际的粉尘接触浓度。在有色金属铸造中，如考虑到含二氧化硅砂的国家卫生标准值，区域采样还是不能代表作业者实际的粉尘接触浓度是否在国家标准以下。季节因素（实际上是工作场所的自然通风因素）在决定实际接触粉尘浓度方面，具有至关重要的作用。在中等规模生产标准产品的铸铁工艺过程在造型工段的粉尘对工人危害最大；大规模的铸钢工艺生产在熔炼和开箱清砂工段的粉尘对工人危害最大。     

REM sleep in primary depression: a computerized analysis.

REM sleep in 35 inpatients with primary depression was automatically analyzed for 7 consecutive nights during placebo administration. For the total night of sleep, as well as each individual REM period, the number of REMs, their total voltage integral over time, the sum of their durations and the average REM size were automatically calculated. Validity of these automated REM measures was established by significant correlations with manually scored REM measures. Changes in REM sleep across the night were also investigated. Similar to findings in normal subjects, REM time did not change from REM period to REM period. Average REM size increased significantly from REM period 2-3 and 3-4. Contrary to what is seen in normal subjects, REM frequency was high during the first REM period, significantly decreased from the first to second REM period and then remained constant. Finally, a significant inverse correlation between REM frequency for the first REM period and REM latency was noted. This pattern of REM sleep is interpreted as indicating a high pressure for phasic REM at the beginning of the night which is dissipated by the first REM period.     

Electroencephalographic sleep findings in depressed outpatients

We compared the electroencephalographic (EEG) sleep characteristics of 20 outpatients with those of 20 age-matched inpatients with major primary depressive disorders. Both groups showed similar patterns of sleep disturbance: reduced rapid eye movement (REM) sleep latencies, sleep efficiencies, and slow wave sleep. While the inpatients had greater REM activity in the first REM period than did the outpatients, both groups showed evidence of greater REM sleep time and REM activity during the first half of the night than do normals. The outpatients demonstrated a level of adaptation in that more REM sleep time and activity were present on night 2 than on night 1.