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In Europe and Asia, long-term care funding is disability-based. This introduces a perverse effect by inappropriately adding value to functional decline among beneficiaries. To support the efforts in prevention and rehabilitation made by personnel in long-term care services, indicators have to be developed to promote functional improvement of beneficiaries. As people receiving those services are already experiencing a functional decline process, it is essential to know the natural magnitude of functional decline in order to assess deviation from this expected decline. The objective of the study was to estimate the natural decrease of autonomy in beneficiaries of home care services and nursing homes.

Suicide is an important public health problem, accounting for a significant proportion of total mortality among young people, particularly males. There is growing and consistent evidence suggesting that genetic factors play an important role in the predisposition to suicide. Based on several lines of evidence supporting a reduced serotonergic neurotransmission in subjects who committed suicide, we investigated variation at genes that code for serotonin receptor 1B (5-HTR1B), 1Dα (5-HTR1Dα), 1E (5-HTR1E), 1F (5-HTR1F), 2C (5-HTR2C), 5A (5-HTR5A), and 6 (5-HTR6) in a total sample of 106 suicide completers and 120 normal controls. No differences were observed in allelic or genotypic distributions between groups for any of the loci investigated. Moreover, further analysis according to suicide method or psychopathology also failed to reveal differences between groups. Our results do not support a substantial role of these serotonergic receptors in suicide completion. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

This study examined the intratester and intertester reliability of the electronic digital goniometer EDI-320 for the measurement of active neck flexion and extension in healthy subjects. In the context of evidence-based practice, the EDI-320 instrument has the potential to improve patient assessment, provide a clearer picture of patient progress, and confirm the effectiveness of physiotherapy interventions. However, the psychometric properties of the EDI-320 have not yet been documented for cervical spine range of motion. Forty-four individuals with no known history of cervical disorder within the three months prior to the testing, voluntarily consented to participate in this study. Repeated measurements with the EDI-320 were taken by two trained testers (TH1 and TH2) and data were recorded by two separate observers. Subjects performed a standardized warm-up. Testers were required to repeat palpation of bony landmarks prior to each trial. Measurements were taken at the end-range of active cervical flexion and extension for each subject. Both testers measured each subject twice. The intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were derived from one-way ANOVA for intratester reliability and a two-way ANOVA for intertester reliability. Pairedt-tests were then applied to verify for systematic error. Moderate intratester reliability was found for both testers for flexion (TH1: ICC=0.77; 95% CI: 0.62–0.87; TH2: ICC=0.77; 95% CI: 0.58–0.87). As for extension, high intratester reliability was found for TH1 (ICC=0.79; 95% CI: 0.65–0.88) and moderate for TH2: (ICC=0.83; 95% CI: 0.63–0.92). Intertester reliability results showed a moderate reliability for both flexion and extension (ICC=0.66; 95% CI: 0.24–0.84) on the first trial. On the second trial, reliability was moderate for flexion (ICC=0.73; 95% CI: 0.53–0.85) and high for extension (ICC=0.80; 95% CI: 0.64–0.89). The t-test analysis revealed the inclusion of systematic error by Tester 2 for intratester reliability. This error was also found for all but one of the intertester reliability calculations. This study has shown that the EDI-320 is a moderately reliable instrument for quantifying cervical flexion and extension range of motion. The presence of systematic error in the study highlights the importance of following standardized procedures and suggests that the EDI-320 could be more reliable than reported in this study. Further psychometric studies investigating the validity of the EDI and reliability with subjects affected by cervical pathology is warranted.

A new model of work disability was developed based on the assumption that four different groups of workers are present at the beginning of a prospective epidemiologic study: one group of workers without back pain, and three groups of workers with back pain and a gradient of work disability. The goal of this research was to verify if these groups comprise workers at different levels of risk of occurrence of complete work disability related to back injury. Prospective cohorts of manual workers (n=578) were followed for 1 year to document the risk of occurrence of complete disability related to back injury. The results showed that the workers who presented with back pain without work disability at the beginning of the study were at less risk compared to all the other workers in the cohort. Moreover, an effect modification was found between the workers who initially presented with back pain without work disability and a past history of compensation for back injury, adding credence to the non-similarity of these workers to the others. Based on these results, further studies should focus on improving the knowledge of the characteristics of these workers leading to a better understanding of how to prevent occupational low-back pain. Am. J. Ind. Med. 37:410–422, 2000. © 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Parental care was analyzed separately with the PBI for both father and mother or their surrogate to assess its association with suicidal behavior (attempt or serious ideation). The study was conducted on two French-speaking samples from Montreal: the first included 2,327 high school students and the second 701 young adults (18 to 24) reached by phone. Results showed poor care of father to be highly associated with suicidal behavior in the highschool group. Poor care of the mother and parental divorce obtained a lower association. In the second sample, only poor care of the father was significantly associated with suicidal behavior. The conclusion is that more attention should be focused on the father and that parental divorce may have a short-term effect but not a lasting influence when poor care is absent.

Summary Lethal necrosis development in tomato plants infected with cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) strain D containing the necrogenic satellite D-CARNA 5 and held at 32 °C is shown to be impaired. CARNA 5 accumulation in tomato at 32 °C is reduced about 100-fold compared to accumulation in plants held at 24 °C, while viral RNA accumulation is reduced about 5-fold. CMV-infected tomato held for 3 days at 24 °C prior to shift to 32 °C do not develop lethal necrosis. Longer incubations at 24 °C prior to shift to 32 °C allow necrosis to develop. CMV-infected plants held for up to 4 weeks at 32 °C required an additional 8–10 days at 24 °C to develop necrosis. Necrogenic CMV-infected plants held at 24 °C and analyzed 3 days p.i. contained detectable amounts of ss- and ds-CARNA 5; upon shift to 32 °C, such CARNA 5 declined to undetectable levels and lethal necrosis did not occur. There appear to be temperature-sensitive factors that are required for efficient satellite replication which are not required for efficient viral RNA replication. Whether these factor(s) are of host or satellite origin is uncertain.

Summary The effect of temperature on the response of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill. cv. Rutgers) to infections with the necrogenic cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) satellite D-CARNA 5 was investigated with each of four CMV strains D, 1, Y and S functioning as helper virus. At 24 °C lethal necrosis was observed in all infections. However, at 32 °C the response varied from total absence or reduction of necrosis with some strains to accelerated lethal necrosis with others. The total lack of necrotic response with CMV-S and the aggravated necrosis with CMV-Y at the higher temperature both turned out to be independent of the coinfecting satellite, and rather to correlate with the changing rate of viral RNA accumulation in tomato, which probably was responsible for the changes in pathogenic response. However, when CMV-D was helper virus, satellite accumulation decreased, while with CMV-1 it increased, respectively, while viral RNA accumulations were not seriously affected. Although these profound effects of temperature seem to link the necrotic response of tomato to the competitive replication dynamics of the infecting virus/satellite combination in the case of CMV-D/D-CARNA 5, temperature effects at other levels of disease induction probably play an important role as well.

Numerous field trials have been undertaken in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the behavior (persistence, dispersion, etc.) of Bacillus thuringiensis serovar. israelensis (B.t.i.) formulations when treating rivers or streams for blackfly control. After an extensive sampling of water and natural substrates (periphyton, sediments, moss), freezing is a useful procedure to prevent enzymatic deterioration or bacterial growth in samples before bioassays are to be performed. Using Aedes triseriatus neonate larvae, we quantified the effect on potency of freezing and thawing of B.t.i. suspensions at operational field concentrations. In addition, as samples varied in their content of natural substrates we tested the hypothesis that the presence of such suspended solids affected the mortality response of larvae. Our results showed that these parameters are of significant importance and should be accounted for when comparing bioassays performed on previously frozen or turbid samples.

Murphy H B M [Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, Canada], Negrete J C and Tousignant M. Exploring a new type of alcoholism survey. International Journal of Epidemiology 1979, 8: 119-126. A new type of method for surveying alcoholism and alcohol-abuse was tested in a way designed to cover about 20%of adults in a town of 50 000. The method proved able to identify types of alcohol-abuser which other survey techniques have difficulty with; it made no undue demands on respondents; and it is much more economical than conventional household surveys. However, more work is still needed on it, and for certain types of information the customary self-report is still going to be required.