Daily coping moderates the relations between stress and actigraphic sleep: a daily intensive longitudinal study with ecological momentary assessments

BackgroundTheoretical models argue that coping reduces stress responses, yet no studies have tested whether coping moderates the prospective stress effects on sleep in daily life.PurposeThis study tested if coping moderates the stress-sleep association using a daily, intensive longitudinal design across 7–12 days.Methods326 young adults (M_age = 23.24 ± 5.46) reported perceived stress and coping (problem-focused, emotional-approach, and avoidance) every evening between 20:00–02:00, providing over 2400 nights of sleep data and 3000 stress surveys from all participants. Actigraphy and sleep diaries measured total-sleep-time and sleep efficiency. Multilevel models tested the interaction effects of within- and between-person stress and coping on sleep.ResultsWithin-person problem-focused and emotional-approach coping moderated the within-person stress effects on actigraphic total-sleep-time (both p = 0.02); higher stress predicted shorter total-sleep-time only during high use of problem-focused or emotional-approach coping (both p = 0.01). Between-person avoidance moderated the between-person stress effect on actigraphic total-sleep-time (p = 0.04); higher stress predicted shorter total-sleep-time for high avoidance coping (p = 0.02). Within-person emotional-approach coping buffered the between-person stress effect on actigraphic sleep efficiency (p = 0.02); higher stress predicted higher sleep efficiency for high emotional-approach coping (p = 0.04).ConclusionsThis study showed that daily coping moderates the effects of evening stress on sleep that night. More efforts to cope with stress before bedtime had a short-term cost of shorter sleep that night. However, high use of emotional-approach coping buffered the impact of stress to promote sleep efficiency.     

A Case of a Patient with a Rectal Ulcer Who Had an Unusual Defecation Habit

Abstract: This case report describes a patient with a rectal ulcer who had an unusual defecation habit. Complete healing was recognized colonoscopically after the patient was instructed to break this habit. A polyp of the ascending colon was detected by a barium enema in a 37-year-old man complaining of anal bleeding. He was admitted to our division to undergo a polypectomy. At the time of the polypectomy, a round ulcer, measuring 1 cm in diameter, was detected on the right wall of the rectum 3 cm from the anal verge. A diagnosis of mucosal prolapse syndrome of the rectum could not be made because the patient did not exhibit the characteristic habit of excessive “straining” mentioned by patients with this syndrome, and no characteristic finding of fibromuscular obliteration was found on histological examination of biopsied specimens taken endoscopically from the lesion. Repeated history taking, however, revealed that the patient had the unusual habit of inserting his finger into his rectum after defecation. He broke this habit following instruction to do so. As a result, on colonoscopic examination 15 month later, the ulcer was found to have become a scar:     

云南阳春砂仁的质量与生态环境关系的探讨

当前云南阳春砂仁产量,占全国总产量的65.5％,商品有左右全国砂仁市场之势。经调查云南产区生态环境较原产区广东阳春县为优,故表现出植株生长较高,果实较大,每室籽粒数较多等性状特征之差,这些差异并非是物种的变异,而是生态环境较好所致。从两地商品中的精油成分和微量元素分析结果也基本一致,认为影响云南阳春砂仁质量的酸味,两地商品均有,并都来源于假种皮,只不过云南商品果实较大,假种皮较厚,总酸含量较高,但是总酸均为无毒副作用的低分子有机酸,不影响砂仁的质量。因此我们认为云南引种区的阳春砂仁质量,与广东原产区的阳春砂仁质量应基本一致。     

The Relationship Between Psychogenic Cough and the Diagnosis and Misdiagnosis of Asthma: A Review

The differential diagnoses of persistent nonproductive cough include numerous pulmonary and nonpulmonary organic disorders as well as functional illnesses. Many diseases can cause cough, and several studies have shown asthma among the most common etiologies associated with chronic cough in adult nonsmokers, as well as children. Psychogenic cough and its relationship to asthma and other asthma-like illnesses is complex since distinct maladies with similar features may coexist individually or in combination in any given patient. While chronic cough may occur as a sole presenting manifestation of bronchial asthma in all age groups, recent findings suggest that most children with persistent cough without other respiratory symptoms do not have asthma. Since several organic, as well as functional diseases, may present with persistent cough as their sole manifestation in either adults or children, cough should not be used as a single or major determinant to diagnose and treat asthma, especially when empirically focused therapy trials fail. Given the range of illnesses causing cough, no single management guideline can be expected to be universally effective.     

聚合酶链反应在鼠疫菌检测中的应用 研究

本文采用聚合酶链反应（ＰＣＲ）技术，通过扩增鼠疫菌９．５ｋｂ质粒ｐｌａ基础上一个４７８ｂｌ片段，用于鼠疫菌检测，被试的４５株鼠疫菌扩增产物经琼脂糖凝胶电泳分析均呈现单一ＤＮＡ带，其分子量大小与预期结果符合。而假结核菌和一株缺６ＭＤ质粒鼠疫菌未见扩增带，洽部实验可在４ｈ内完成。本法具有快速、特异、敏感等优点，可用于不同生态型鼠疫菌的快速诊断和流行病学研究．     

Development and reproducibility of a tool to assess school food-purchasing practices and lifestyle habits of Australian primary school-aged children

Objective: To describe the development and reproducibility of a self‐report instrument, for use with children in years 4–6, to identify sources of food eaten during the day, and type and frequency of food purchases at school. Design: Tool development stages included formulation of content and format, expert review, piloting and a test–retest study. Subjects/setting: The pilot study included school students (n = 20) in years 4 and 5 (seven girls, mean age 9.7 ± 0.7 years) attending an Australian public primary school. The test–retest study was performed in a large metropolitan public primary school (n = 245 children, 52% female, mean age 10.7 ± 0.91 years) including children from years 4 (n = 88), 5 (n = 84) and 6 (n = 73). Statistical analysis: A Kappa statistic was used to assess level of agreement between the two time periods separated by 1 week. The results were analysed using SAS version 8.2 with each question compared at time 1 and 2. Results: The mean kappa was 0.529 using pairings from 17 questions. Values ranged from 0.18 to 0.71 (CI 0.46–0.60). Conclusions and applications: The School Eating Habits and Lifestyle Survey has been developed and pilot‐tested in primary school‐aged children and shown to have moderate stability over time. The results show that each phase of development, particularly those spent in consultation and testing, led to progressive improvement of this instrument. This process improved the quality of information produced and gave insights to self‐report of dietary intake and behaviours among children.     

地学与环境研究

对地学与环境科学研究之间的关系进行了描述,说明学习、掌握了地学的基本知识,才能控制和消除环境污染,改善环境质量,维护经济活动的物质基础与生态平衡.     

Paternal and Maternal Smoking Habits before Conception and During the First Trimester: Relation to Spontaneous Abortion

PURPOSE: This study examined the association between maternal smoking before and during the first trimester of pregnancy and spontaneous abortion.

METHODS: We have been conducting a hospital-based case-control study on risk factors for spontaneous abortion in the greater Milan area. We collected information from 782 cases of spontaneous abortions and 1543 controls (women who delivered at term healthy infants).

RESULTS: With respect to never smokers, the odds ratio (OR) were 0.7 (95%, confidence interval (CI), 0.5–1.0) for women who quit smoking and 1.3 (95% CI, 1.0–1.6) for those who continued during pregnancy. Women who smoked more than 10 cigarettes/day in the first trimester were at increased risk of miscarriage, with an OR of 1.4 (95% CI, 1.0–2.1). No relationship was evident between the number of cigarettes smoked before conception and the risk of abortion. Likewise, no association emerged between paternal smoking and miscarriage. Moreover, no significant interaction or modification effect was obtained when strata of age and other major characteristics were investigated.

CONCLUSIONS: The risk of abortion associated with cigarette smoking during the first trimester of pregnancy was measurable and noticeable in this population, and accounted for 9% (95% CI, 6–13%) of all cases. The increased risk of spontaneous abortion in women smoking during pregnancy is a further reason to encourage pregnant women to quit.     

A comparison of the Fishbein and Ajzen and the Triandis attitudinal models for the prediction of exercise intention and behavior

The main purpose of the study was to compare the efficiency of the Fishbein and Ajzen and the Triandis models to predict (1) the intention to participate regularly in some physical activities during free time within a 3-week period and (2) the exercise behavior within these 3 weeks among a group of 166 subjects, aged 22 to 65 years. Our results show that the Triandis model was as efficient as the Fishbein and Ajzen model in predicting the exercise behavior. However, the results obtained from the Triandis model demonstrate the importance of the habit of exercising in predicting the exercise behavior. Moreover, the Triandis model was superior to the Fishbein and Ajzen model in explaining behavioral intention. Of particular interest was the salience of the affective, social, and personal belief components of the Triandis model. In addition, from a practical perspective, this comparative study showed that (1) to exercise regularly is perceived as hard work, and (2) individuals believe that it is their own responsibility to exercise or not to exercise.     

HLA antigens are candidate markers for prediction of lymph node metastasis in gastric cancer

We investigated the association between human leucocyte antigen (HLA) antigens and lymph node metastasis in 724 gastric cancer patients. Among patients who had poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma with or without HLA-DR4 antigen, lymph node metastasis was detected in 80.8 and 54.9%, respectively (relative risk (RR)=3.5, P = 0.0005, corrected P = 0.0285). It was more common in patients with a family history of cancer death (RR = 7.7). Among signet ring cell carcinoma patients with or without HLA-1152 antigen, lymph node metastasis was detected in 57.7 and 19.7%, respectively (RR =5.6, P=0.0001, corrected P=0.0086). It was more common in patients who were smokers (RR = 8.3). Our findings suggest that HLA-DR4 and HLA-1152 antigens are associated with lymph node metastasis in gastric cancer.