The Importance of Family-Centered Professional Behaviors to Parents of Children Receiving Day Treatment Services

Although many agencies and professionals identify their services as family-centered very few have evaluated their practice to determine the legitimacy of this claim. This exploratory quantitative study elicited survey responses from a random sample of 75 parents and/or guardians of children with severe emotional disturbances who have received family services through Catholic Charities Day Programs. Parents and/or guardians used the Family-Centered Behavior Scale to evaluate the professional behaviors of the family service providers, and rate the importance of these behaviors in the service process. The results indicate that the level of satisfaction with the family practitioner directly correlates with the family-centered professional behaviors of encouraging parental involvement, listening to the family, and identifying family strengths. The study concludes with an overview of the professional behaviors that these parents found most important to them in the service process. This study is particularly important for day treatment programming as the literature identifies effective family services as the strongest predictor of a successful outcome for children receiving this level of services

Editorial: Collaborative paediatric research in South Africa and beyond

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Measurement of the ttbar Production Cross Section in ppbar Collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV using Lepton + Jets Events with Lifetime b-tagging

We present a measurement of the top quark pair ($t\bar{t}$) production cross section ($\sigma_{t\bar{t}}$) in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV using 230 pb$^{-1}$ of data collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We select events with one charged lepton (electron or muon), missing transverse energy, and jets in the final state. We employ lifetime-based b-jet identification techniques to further enhance the $t\bar{t}$ purity of the selected sample. For a top quark mass of 175 GeV, we measure $\sigma_{t\bar{t}}=8.6^{+1.6}_{-1.5}(stat.+syst.)\pm 0.6(lumi.)$ pb, in agreement with the standard model expectation.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, 3 tables Submitted to Phys.Rev.Let

Measurement of Semileptonic Branching Fractions of B Mesons to Narrow D** States

Using the data accumulated in 2002-2004 with the DO detector in proton-antiproton collisions at the Fermilab Tevatron collider with centre-of-mass energy 1.96 TeV, the branching fractions of the decays B -> \bar{D}_1^0(2420) \mu^+ \nu_\mu X and B -> \bar{D}_2^{*0}(2460) \mu^+ \nu_\mu X and their ratio have been measured: BR(\bar{b}->B) \cdot BR(B-> \bar{D}_1^0 \mu^+ \nu_\mu X) \cdot BR(\bar{D}_1^0 -> D*- pi+) = (0.087+-0.007(stat)+-0.014(syst))%; BR(\bar{b}->B)\cdot BR(B->D_2^{*0} \mu^+ \nu_\mu X) \cdot BR(\bar{D}_2^{*0} -> D*- \pi^+) = (0.035+-0.007(stat)+-0.008(syst))%; and (BR(B -> \bar{D}_2^{*0} \mu^+ \nu_\mu X)BR(D2*0->D*- pi+)) / (BR(B -> \bar{D}_1^{0} \mu^+ \nu_\mu X)\cdot BR(\bar{D}_1^{0}->D*- \pi^+)) = 0.39+-0.09(stat)+-0.12(syst), where the charge conjugated states are always implied.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Postoperative atrial fibrillation in patients on statins undergoing isolated cardiac valve surgery: a meta-analysis

Introduction: The efficacy of perioperative statin therapy in decreasing postoperative morbidity in patients undergoing valve replacements and repairs is unknown. The aim of our study was to determine whether or not the literature supports the hypothesis that statins decrease postoperative atrial fibrillation (AF), and hence improve short-term postoperative outcomes in patients undergoing isolated cardiac valve surgery.Method: We conducted a meta-analysis of studies on postoperative outcomes associated with statin therapy following isolated valve replacement or repair. The data was taken from published studies on valvular heart surgery patients. Participants were patients who underwent either isolated cardiac valve replacement or repair. Patients in the intervention group received statins prior to their surgery. Three databases were searched: Ovid Healthstar, 1966 to April 2012; Ovid Medline, 1946 to 31 May 2012; and Embase, 1974 to 30 May 2012. The meta-analysis was conducted using Review Manager® version 5.1.Results: Statins did not decrease the incidence of postoperative AF in patients undergoing isolated cardiac valve surgery [odds ratio (OR) 1.19, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.80– 1.77)], although there was significant heterogeneity for the outcome of postoperative AF (I2 55%, 95% CI: 27–72). Statins were associated with a decrease in 30-day mortality (OR 0.43, 95% CI: 0.24–0.75).Conclusion: Although this meta-analysis suggests that chronic statin therapy did not prevent postoperative AF in unselected valvular heart surgical patients, the heterogeneity indicates that this outcome should be viewed with caution and further research is recommended.Keywords: atrial fibrillation, cardiac surgery, statin

Data assimilation in a system with two scales-combining two initialization techniques

11 pages, 11 figures, 1 tableFull-text version available Open Access at: http://clivar.iim.csic.es/?q=es/node/319An ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is used to assimilate data onto a non-linear chaotic model, coupling two kinds of variables. The first kind of variables of the system is characterized as large amplitude, slow, large scale, distributed in eight equally spaced locations around a circle. The second kind of variables are small amplitude, fast, and short scale, distributed in 256 equally spaced locations. Synthetic observations are obtained from the model and the observational error is proportional to their respective amplitudes. The performance of the EnKF is affected by differences in the spatial correlation scales of the variables being assimilated. This method allows the simultaneous assimilation of all the variables. The ensemble filter also allows assimilating only the large-scale variables, letting the small-scale variables to freely evolve. Assimilation of the large-scale variables together with a few small-scale variables significantly degrades the filter. These results are explained by the spurious correlations that arise from the sampled ensemble covariances. An alternative approach is to combine two different initialization techniques for the slow and fast variables. Here, the fast variables are initialized by restraining the evolution of the ensemble members, using a Newtonian relaxation toward the observed fast variables. Then, the usual ensemble analysis is used to assimilate the large-scale observationsThis study is supported by the Spanish National Science Program under contracts ESP2005–06823-C05 and ESP2007–65667-C04Peer reviewe