Search

Copyright of Zgodovinski Casopis is the property of Zveza Zgodovinskih Drustev Slovenije and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Gathered from a real-world discrete manufacturing floor, this dataset features measurements of pneumatic pressure and electrical current during production. Spanning 7 days and encompassing approximately 150 processed units, the data is organized into time series sampled at 100 Hz. The observed machine performs 24 steps to process each unit. Each measurement in the time series, is annotated, linking it to one of the 24 processing steps performed by the machine for processing of a single piece. Segmenting the time series into contiguous regions of constant processing step labels results in 3674 labeled segments, each encompassing one part of the production process. The dataset enriched with labels facilitates the use of supervised learning techniques, like time series classification, and supports the testing of unsupervised methods, such as clustering of time series data.The focus of this dataset is on an end-of-line testing machine for small consumer-grade electric drive assemblies (device under test – DUT). The machine performs multiple actions in the process of evaluating each DUT, with the dataset capturing the pneumatic pressures and electrical currents involved. These measurements are segmented in alignment with the testing machine's internal state transitions, each corresponding to a distinct action undertaken in manipulating the device under observation.The included segments offer distinct signatures of pressure and current for each action, making the dataset valuable for developing algorithms for the non-invasive monitoring of industrial (specifically discrete) processes.

We report on a quantum critical behavior in the quasi-1D spin-1/2 zigzag frustrated chain antiferromagnet CaCoV_{2}O_{7}, induced by an applied magnetic field. Below T_{N}=3.3 K our zero-field neutron diffraction studies revealed the up-up-down-down spin structure, stabilized by an order-by-disorder phenomenon. At base temperature, the magnetic order is suppressed by an applied magnetic field (B), inducing a transition into a quantum paramagnetic state at B_{c}=3 T, as revealed by both neutron diffraction and ESR data. The transition exhibits an unusually sharp phase boundary with the critical exponent ϕ=0.164(3)≈1/6, in contrast to the earlier experimental observations for uniform spin-1/2 chain systems. Such a sharp QPT is anticipated due to a rare combination of spin-orbit coupling and competing NN and NNN exchange interactions J_{1} and J_{2} of the zigzag spin chain.

IntroductionPatients with schizophrenia typically exhibit deficits in working memory (WM) associated with abnormalities in brain activity. Alterations in the encoding, maintenance and retrieval phases of sequential WM tasks are well established. However, due to the heterogeneity of symptoms and complexity of its neurophysiological underpinnings, differential diagnosis remains a challenge. We conducted an electroencephalographic (EEG) study during a visual WM task in fifteen schizophrenia patients and fifteen healthy controls. We hypothesized that EEG abnormalities during the task could be identified, and patients successfully classified by an interpretable machine learning algorithm.MethodsWe tested a custom dense attention network (DAN) machine learning model to discriminate patients from control subjects and compared its performance with simpler and more commonly used machine learning models. Additionally, we analyzed behavioral performance, event-related EEG potentials, and time-frequency representations of the evoked responses to further characterize abnormalities in patients during WM.ResultsThe DAN model was significantly accurate in discriminating patients from healthy controls, ACC = 0.69, SD = 0.05. There were no significant differences between groups, conditions, or their interaction in behavioral performance or event-related potentials. However, patients showed significantly lower alpha suppression in the task preparation, memory encoding, maintenance, and retrieval phases F(1,28) = 5.93, p = 0.022, η2 = 0.149. Further analysis revealed that the two highest peaks in the attention value vector of the DAN model overlapped in time with the preparation and memory retrieval phases, as well as with two of the four significant time-frequency ROIs.DiscussionThese results highlight the potential utility of interpretable machine learning algorithms as an aid in diagnosis of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders presenting oscillatory abnormalities.

It is well established that basic research underpins long-term innovation outputs such as transformative drugs and medical devices. However, Australia may be hobbling its long-term innovation capabilities by decreasing investment in basic research. Although there has been recent growth in our local venture capital and biopharmaceutical business sectors (that typically fund applied research and experimental development), both are comparatively undersized. Initiatives are needed to ensure long-term commitment to basic research at globally competitive levels and to ensure that long-term innovation capabilities are supported.

Depression is a common mental disorder with a high burden of disease worldwide and requires effective treatment. On behalf of the General Advisory Council for Psychiatry, clinical recommendations were formed to help clinicians make decisions to improve the treatment of patients with unipolar depressive disorder; several international guidelines served as the basis for developing these recommendations. In terms of therapeutic approaches, pharmacological treatment is discussed with additional recommendations on the management of a partial response to treatment and treatment resistance. Psychotherapy, psychoeducation, and other psychosocial approaches represent non-pharmacological interventions for the treatment of depressive disorder. Biological methods for treating depression include non-invasive brain stimulation methods. The second part of the recommendations addresses special populations: children and adolescents, the elderly, and the treatment of depression in the perinatal period.

HPV immunization programs are mainly focused on girls and boys, but adult women and men could also benefit from vaccination. A multinational CoheaHr-WP4 study investigated the acceptability of HPV vaccination among 25–45 years old women. A total of 607 women from Slovenia participated in the study, and 49.6% (301/607) agreed with HPV vaccination, with a significant difference (p < 0.0001) between the two centers. Non-vaccinated women had a higher education (p = 0.0068) and were more frequently in a committed relationship or married (p = 0.01). The most trusted source of medical and vaccination information was healthcare providers (55.2%). The main reasons for vaccine acceptance were protection against HPV-related disease (93.4%), severity of preventable diseases (82.7%), HPV vaccine safety (66.8%), free HPV vaccine availability (62.8%), and the existence of vaccination recommendations (55.5%). The main reasons for refusing vaccination were the need for additional vaccine-related information (31.4%) and vaccine safety concerns (29.4%). To increase vaccine coverage, information about the benefits and safety of HPV vaccination must be widely disseminated to all health professionals and the general public. We are convinced that the knowledge obtained in this study can be reliably applied to other countries in the region that lack such information and have a very high cervical cancer burden.

The article deals with the detection of stress using the electrodermal activity (EDA) signal measured at the wrist. We present an approach for feature extraction from EDA. The approach uses frequency spectrum analysis in multiple frequency bands. We evaluate the proposed approach using the 4 Hz EDA signal measured at the wrist in the publicly available Wearable Stress and Affect Detection (WESAD) dataset. Seven existing approaches to stress detection using EDA signals measured by wrist-worn sensors are analysed and the reported results are compared with ours. The proposed approach represents an improvement in accuracy over the other techniques studied. Moreover, we focus on time to detection (TTD) and show that our approach is able to outperform competing techniques, with fewer data points. The proposed feature extraction is computationally inexpensive, thus the presented approach is suitable for use in real-world wearable applications where both short response times and high detection performance are important. We report both binary (stress vs. no stress) as well as three-class (baseline/stress/amusement) results.

El núcleo de este artículo es una lista de traducciones, reseñas y diferentes tipos de artículos sobre autores latinoamericanos y/o sus obras literarias vertidas al esloveno, publicados entre 1960 y 1970 en esloveno. Dicha lista ha sido compuesta a partir de la base de datos conservada en el Departamento de Literatura de la Academia de Ciencias de Eslovenia. Estos datos han sido cotejados, a su vez, con los que figuran en Cobiss, el sistema informático de las bibliotecas eslovenas, para los años 60, con el fin de establecer un cierto marco comparativo. La lista de textos relativos a la recepción de la literatura latinoamericana en Eslovenia es un documento que permite y exige muchos tipos diferentes de lecturas, y en este artículo se bocetan algunas. Una visión retrospectiva, apoyada en datos y estadísticas más recientes, nos ha permitido esbozar una respuesta a la cuestión del significado de los autores latinoamericanos y la importancia de sus obras en Eslovenia, tanto hace cincuenta años como en la actualidad.

La literatura infantil y juvenil representa un subsistema literario relativamente nuevo (Blažić, 2009), por lo cual no sorprende que a principios de los 80 los expertos se preguntaran si la literatura infantil argentina en realidad existía (Cabal). Esta pregunta, como ha señalado Graciela Cabal, está relacionada con la calidad de la LIJ y la LIJ, según afirma Teresa Colomer, repetidas veces ha tenido que defenderse ante los prejuicios de su baja calidad, ante la imagen de una literatura de «castillos de arena al lado de casas auténticas» (Colomer, 2010, 87–88). Sin embargo, la LIJ no deja de tener un papel esencial de la socialización de lectores (Pregelj, 2017, 293) y forma, por lo tanto, una parte importante del sistema literario (Blažić, 2009).

En el prólogo a uno de los números de la revista Bukla su editor Samo Rugelj (2016: 3) llama la atención sobre la inversión en la que pueden convertirse los libros, sobre todo los libros antiguos. Parece que en estos tiempos en los que los libros valen bien poco un amante de libros, dispuesto a demostrar su amor por las letras con una inversión concreta, parece raro hasta tal punto de ser digno de alabanzas emitidas por el prologuista de la revista eslovena sobre novedades libreras.

Los temas considerados tabú o difíciles llevan ganando terreno en la literatura infantil y juvenil desde los años noventa. También la crítica literaria, sobre todo los investigadores y los estudiosos de la literatura infantil y juvenil, ha percibido el fenómeno que se viene desarrollando sistemáticamente desde el inicio del siglo XXI. El monográfico A Grey Background in Children‘s literature: Death, Shipwreck, War, and Disasters - Literatura infantil y juvenil con fondo gris: muerte, naufragios, guerras y desastres es un buen ejemplo del intento de abarcar lo inabarcable, pues presta atención investigadora a un fenómeno simultáneo a sí mismo, lo que dificulta su trabajo. En primer lugar, porque a falta de distancia temporal, el corpus de los textos es incontrolable. Otra de las dificultades del trabajo con ‚la materia viva‘ es una posible falta de distanciamiento y dejarse influir por los autores, las editoriales, el mercado, etc. Todo esto hace que la reflexión crítica sea todavía más ardua, no obstante, también más necesaria, ya que requiere más valentía, conceptos críticos todavía más claros y una visión panorámica sobre un terreno difícilmente abarcable.

Los eslovenos tenemos varios héroes míticos marcados por la experiencia de la interculturalidad: el buen soberano Kralj Matjaž (el Rey Matías) que duerme bajo el monte de Peca, esperando a que le crezca lo suficientemente la barba para poder entrar en acción; Martin Krpan, hombre fuerte como un roble que liberó Viena del mal y a cambio consiguió un permiso especial para traficar con sal; Peter Klepec, un chico humilde que compartía con los demás su fuerza; y Lepa Vida (Hermosa Vida), la joven madre que por engaño abandona a su hijo y su hogar para viajar en barco al extranjero. Todos ellos tienen origen en el bagaje cultural popular y todos ellos posteriormente han sido objeto de nuevas y distintas adaptaciones artísticas. Entre las adaptaciones literarias por frecuencia sobresale Hermosa Vida, que a su vez ha tenido eco (aunque mucho menor) en la pintura: sobresale la obra de Maksim Gaspari, y la obra de Marko Kociper (2010) en cómic ‒recogida en una de las versiones literarias más recientes, Hermosa Vida en acción de Andrej Rozman Roza.

El tema del tiempo es, sin duda, uno de los temas más tratados de la literatura y tema clave de algunos periodos literarios. El tiempo es también el eje central de la historia literaria. En mi ponencia trataré de destacar algunas formas que obtiene el tiempo en la historia literaria eslovena: el lineal, el paralelo, el cíclico, el que marcha atrás, el eterno y el tiempo perdido. Todas estas formas aparecen en la creación literaria y quizá precisamente por ello pueden percibirse también en algunos casos de la historia de la literatura.

Na podlagi literature, tiskanih virov (Ave Maria koledar) in lastnega vprašalnika, nam avtorica oriše pogoje delovanja verskih šol v Združenih državah, med njimi tudi katoliških. Konkretno jo je zanimal razvoj šol po slovenskih župnijah. V razpravi podaja kratek historiat teh šol po posameznih državah.

El carácter de toda la sociedad en el territorio esloveno entre los siglos IX y XVI –y sobre todo de los siglos XV y XVI– está fuertemente marcado por los constantes ataques de los turcos y por la organización de la defensa contra ellos.2 No es de extrañar, entonces, que la referencia a los turcos1 sea un tema constante de la literatura eslovena antigua, en la que la imagen de los turcos la mayoría de las veces está asociada al miedo, a la pobreza, a la ignorancia, a los secuestros y a la muerte. Pero los hechos históricos en distintas épocas provocaban distintas interpretaciones. Para ilustrarlos, en este artículo recurro a tres poemas diferentes para trazar la imagen del Otro –los árabes y los turcos, en concreto– en dos épocas distintas de la literatura antigua eslovena: en la Edad Media y en el Renacimiento.

El título del presente ensayo, El Kitsch en el Barraco castellano, puede aludir a un tópico con el que muchas veces se ha designado a todo el arte barroco. Por muy exagerada que hoy en dia puede parecernos esta noción tan negativa e injustanocion que en este trabajo no me he propuesto defender, pero que por considerarla ya tan absurda, tampoco hay que refutarlala idea que expresa no representa ninguna novedad: tan sólo se asemeja a la imagen del Seiscientos prevaleciente en casi toda la época de Ia Ilustración. Pero en la memoria popular que deja intuir el mencionado tópico, puede hallarse también otro rasgo de la cultura (y en particular de Ia literatura) del siglo XVII al que no siempre se ha estudiado con la debida atención: el principia del proceso, típicamente moderno, de la división de la literatura en dos tipos cada vez más opuestos. Por un lado tendríamos la literatura elitista, hermética y canonizada, y por el otro Ia literatura popular, masiva y no-canonizada, es decir, la del kitsch. La división bipolar de Ia Iiteratura, que precisamente en el Modernismo habia visto su culminación, parece haberse terminado con Ia Postmodernidad. El fu­ neral del elitismo modernista que todos hemos podido presenciar, ya ha entrado en Ia fase del ban­ quete que con su lema anything goes deja abiertos numerosos caminos hacia el futuro. Alguno, acaso, también hacia el pasado.

Como dice el mismo de Las Casas en la Brevísima, el descubrimiento de América y todas las casas que han acaecido en las Indias, desde su maravilloso descublimiento /.../han sido tan admirables y tan no creíbles en todo género a quien no las vida, que parece haber añublado y puesto silencio y bastantes a poner olvido a todas cuantas, par hazañosas que fuesen, en los siglos pasados se vieron y oyeron en el mwzdo. El encuentro de dos culturas y naciones ha sido sorprendente para las dos, pero parece que los españoles se sorprendieron con menor tolerancia y menor conocimiento. El hombre europeo, igual que el indio, reaccionó ante el encuentro como si no hubiera encontrado una raza nueva e intentó entenderlo con su filosofía, describirlo con los objetos del mundo que bien conocía; los indios con la vieja leyenda del hombre blanco, venido del cielo y los españoles intentando identificar al nuevo continente con sus viejas esperanzas y leyendas. Sólo con esto se puede explicar que aunque conscientes de su fracaso volvían a él, buscando el Dorado.

Introduction: Patients with schizophrenia typically exhibit deficits in working memory (WM) associated with abnormalities in brain activity. Alterations in the encoding, maintenance and retrieval phases of sequential WM tasks are well established. However, due to the heterogeneity of symptoms and complexity of its neurophysiological underpinnings, differential diagnosis remains a challenge. We conducted an electroencephalographic (EEG) study during a visual WM task in fifteen schizophrenia patients and fifteen healthy controls. We hypothesized that EEG abnormalities during the task could be identified, and patients successfully classified by an interpretable machine learning algorithm., Methods: We tested a custom dense attention network (DAN) machine learning model to discriminate patients from control subjects and compared its performance with simpler and more commonly used machine learning models. Additionally, we analyzed behavioral performance, event-related EEG potentials, and time-frequency representations of the evoked responses to further characterize abnormalities in patients during WM., Results: The DAN model was significantly accurate in discriminating patients from healthy controls, ACC = 0.69, SD = 0.05. There were no significant differences between groups, conditions, or their interaction in behavioral performance or event-related potentials. However, patients showed significantly lower alpha suppression in the task preparation, memory encoding, maintenance, and retrieval phases F (1,28) = 5.93, p = 0.022, η 2 = 0.149. Further analysis revealed that the two highest peaks in the attention value vector of the DAN model overlapped in time with the preparation and memory retrieval phases, as well as with two of the four significant time-frequency ROIs., Discussion: These results highlight the potential utility of interpretable machine learning algorithms as an aid in diagnosis of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders presenting oscillatory abnormalities., Competing Interests: GR consults for and holds equity in Neumora Therapeutics and Manifest Technologies. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Perellón-Alfonso, Oblak, Kuclar, Škrlj, Pileckyte, Škodlar, Pregelj, Abellaneda-Pérez, Bartrés-Faz, Repovš and Bon.)

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on the mental health of the population. Many studies reported high levels of psychological distress and rising rates of suicidal ideation (SI). Data on a range of psychometric scales from 1790 respondents were collected in Slovenia through an online survey between July 2020 and January 2021. As a worrying percentage (9.7%) of respondents reported having SI within the last month, the goal of this study was to estimate the presence of SI, as indicated by the Suicidal Ideation Attributes Scale (SIDAS). The estimation was based on the change of habits, demographic features, strategies for coping with stress, and satisfaction with three most important aspects of life (relationships, finances, and housing). This could both help recognize the telltale factors indicative of SI and potentially identify people at risk. The factors were specifically selected to be discreet about suicide, likely sacrificing some accuracy in return. We tried four machine learning algorithms: binary logistic regression, random forest, XGBoost, and support vector machines. Logistic regression, random forest, and XGBoost models achieved comparable performance with the highest area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.83 on previously unseen data. We found an association between various subscales of Brief-COPE and SI; Self-Blame was especially indicative of the presence of SI, followed by increase in Substance Use, low Positive Reframing, Behavioral Disengagement, dissatisfaction with relationships and lower age. The results showed that the presence of SI can be estimated with reasonable specificity and sensitivity based on the proposed indicators. This suggests that the indicators we examined have a potential to be developed into a quick screening tool that would assess suicidality indirectly, without unnecessary exposure to direct questions on suicidality. As with any screening tool, subjects identified as being at risk, should be further clinically examined., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Background: The severity of both the COVID-19 clinical picture and confinement measures in Slovenia was higher during the initial phase of the pandemic in 2020 than during the Omicron wave in 2022. This could lead us to expect a higher level of distress during the initial phase. On the other hand, prolonged stress can have a detrimental effect on mental health. This study aimed to explore how the prolonged stress of the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying changes affected the mental health of young adults in Slovenia. We analyzed and compared the levels of depression, anxiety, stress, and suicidal ideation in young adults during the initial phase of the pandemic and the Omicron wave, as well as between the COVID-19-infected and non-infected individuals., Methods: An online survey was used to survey 587 young adults in the first wave (July-December 2020) and 511 in the Omicron wave (January-February 2022). Levels of depression, anxiety, stress, and suicidal ideation were compared using Mann-Whitney U test., Results: Results show that the Omicron wave significantly worsened depression, anxiety, stress, and suicidal ideation. Young adults who had tested positive for COVID-19 reported no worse or only slightly worse mental health than those who never tested positive., Conclusions: The current study provides new evidence about the mental health of young adults during the Omicron wave. Our results show that two years into the pandemic, they expressed more negative emotions and suicidal thoughts than at the beginning.

The spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to numerous negative consequences on the mental health of the population throughout the world. The main aim of our study was to compare the risk for depression, anxiety, and stress during the second wave of the pandemic in Slovenia. An additional goal was to analyze the association of depression, anxiety, and stress, with the most relevant subjective factors that define the quality of life. Furthermore, we aimed at determining whether health workers have a higher risk for depression following the course of the pandemic. The study was conducted on the general population, between July 2020 and January 2021 through an online survey. The data of 1,728 respondents in two samples of respondents (782 at baseline - first measurement point and 946 during the second measurement point) of the second wave were analyzed using zero-inflated negative binomial regression and Mann-Whitney U -test. The findings of this study show that the rise the second wave was associated with a higher risk for depression, anxiety and stress. The risk for all three was higher for younger participants. Women showed a higher risk for anxiety and stress. Finances, relationships, and housing dissatisfaction were relevant predictors for depression, anxiety and stress. Health workers in our sample showed a higher risk for stress, but not for depression or anxiety, than the general population. Our findings highlight the urgent need for coordinating and developing mental health services and tailored interventions to reduce the mental health burden, especially in the younger., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Rus Prelog, Matić, Pregelj and Sadikov.)

Background: Compulsory admission procedures of patients with mental disorders vary between countries in Europe. The Ethics Committee of the European Psychiatric Association (EPA) launched a survey on involuntary admission procedures of patients with mental disorders in 40 countries to gather information from all National Psychiatric Associations that are members of the EPA to develop recommendations for improving involuntary admission processes and promote voluntary care., Methods: The survey focused on legislation of involuntary admissions and key actors involved in the admission procedure as well as most common reasons for involuntary admissions., Results: We analyzed the survey categorical data in themes, which highlight that both medical and legal actors are involved in involuntary admission procedures., Conclusions: We conclude that legal reasons for compulsory admission should be reworded in order to remove stigmatization of the patient, that raising awareness about involuntary admission procedures and patient rights with both patients and family advocacy groups is paramount, that communication about procedures should be widely available in lay-language for the general population, and that training sessions and guidance should be available for legal and medical practitioners. Finally, people working in the field need to be constantly aware about the ethical challenges surrounding compulsory admissions.

Many patients with opioid addiction continue to use opioids during and after treatment, and their career of drug taking is usually punctuated by repeated treatment admissions and relapses. Personality traits are considered risk factors for drug use, and, in turn, the psychoactive substances impact individuals' traits. The most widely used system of traits is called the Five-Factor Model (FFM). Studies have shown that persons who use heroin are consistently depicted as high on Neuroticism and higher Extroversion, also they are described as more impulsive and less sociable. Those who maintain abstinence are characterized by a higher Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Treatment programs for opioid addiction vary substantially in treatment processes, and an early identification of patients traits that address their strengths and weaknesses within specific treatment settings could be useful in decreasing the possibility of relapse.

Background: It is well known that suicidal rates vary considerably among European countries and the reasons for this are unknown, although several theories have been proposed. The effect of economic variables has been extensively studied but not that of climate., Methods: Data from 29 European countries covering the years 2000-2012 and concerning male and female standardized suicidal rates (according to WHO), economic variables (according World Bank) and climate variables were gathered. The statistical analysis included cluster and principal component analysis and categorical regression., Results: The derived models explained 62.4 % of the variability of male suicidal rates. Economic variables alone explained 26.9 % and climate variables 37.6 %. For females, the respective figures were 41.7, 11.5 and 28.1 %. Male suicides correlated with high unemployment rate in the frame of high growth rate and high inflation and low GDP per capita, while female suicides correlated negatively with inflation. Both male and female suicides correlated with low temperature., Discussion: The current study reports that the climatic effect (cold climate) is stronger than the economic one, but both are present. It seems that in Europe suicidality follows the climate/temperature cline which interestingly is not from south to north but from south to north-east. This raises concerns that climate change could lead to an increase in suicide rates. The current study is essentially the first successful attempt to explain the differences across countries in Europe; however, it is an observational analysis based on aggregate data and thus there is a lack of control for confounders.

Inappropriate verbal and physical sexual behaviour is not common among individuals with dementia, but when it does occur, it can have profound consequences. We report a case of 79-year-old woman with dementia of the Alzheimer's type who complained of increased libido after an increased dose of donepezil, which was being used along with tianeptine. Donepezil withdrawal led to the resolution of increased libido, but when it was reintroduced, increased libido reappeared once again (Naranjo score: 7). Increased libido was not reported by the patient during the 6-year follow-up period after donepezil withdrawal. A potential mechanism of acetylcholinesterase inhibitor-induced increased libido and the current literature on hypersexuality as a side-effect of donepezil treatment are discussed., (© 2015 The Authors. Psychogeriatrics © 2015 Japanese Psychogeriatric Society.)

Background: It is unclear whether there is a direct link between economic crises and changes in suicide rates., Aims: The Lopez-Ibor Foundation launched an initiative to study the possible impact of the economic crisis on European suicide rates., Method: Data was gathered and analysed from 29 European countries and included the number of deaths by suicide in men and women, the unemployment rate, the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, the annual economic growth rate and inflation., Results: There was a strong correlation between suicide rates and all economic indices except GPD per capita in men but only a correlation with unemployment in women. However, the increase in suicide rates occurred several months before the economic crisis emerged., Conclusions: Overall, this study confirms a general relationship between the economic environment and suicide rates; however, it does not support there being a clear causal relationship between the current economic crisis and an increase in the suicide rate., (Royal College of Psychiatrists.)

Aim: To investigate the influence of socioeconomic factors, mental health service availability, and prevalence of mental disorders on regional differences in the suicide rate in Slovenia., Methods: The effects of different socioeconomic factors, mental health service availability, and mental disorders factors on suicide rates from 2000-2009 were analyzed using a general linear mixed model (GLMM). Pearson correlations were used to explore the direction and magnitude of associations., Results: Among socioeconomic factors, unemployment rate ranked as the most powerful predictor of suicide and an increase of one unit in the unemployment rate increased regional suicide rate by 2.21 (β=2.21, 95% confidence intervals [CI]=1.87-2.54, P<0.001). On the other hand, higher marriage/divorce ratio was negatively related to the suicide rate and an increase of one unit in marriage/divorce ratio reduced regional suicide rate by 1.16 (β=-1.16, 95% CI=-2.20 to -0.13, P<0.031). The most influential mental health service availability parameter was higher psychiatrist availability (4 psychiatrists and more working at outpatient clinics per 100 000 inhabitants), which was negatively correlated with the suicide rate and reduced regional suicide rate by 2.95 (β=-2.95, 95% CI=-4.60 to -1.31, P=0.002). Another negatively correlated factor was the antidepressant/anxiolytic ratio higher than 0.5, which reduced the regional suicide rate by 2.32 (β=-2.32, 95% CI=-3.75 to -0.89, P=0.003). Among mental health disorders, only the prevalence of alcohol use disorders was significantly related to the regional suicide rates and an increase of one unit in the prevalence of alcohol use disorders per 1000 inhabitants increased the regional suicide rate by 0.02 (β=0.02, 95% CI=0.01- 0.03, P=0.008)., Conclusions: Besides unemployment, which was a very strong predictor of suicide rates, unequal availability of mental health services and quality of depressive disorder treatment may contribute to variations in suicide rates in different regions.

Suicidal behaviour has multiple causes. Psychiatric disorder is a major contributing factor. Consecutively, diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders has an impact on suicide rate. The studies that investigated the possible impact of psychopharmacotherapy prescription practise on suicide rate have been gathered in the present article. Ongoing discussion of potential benefits and risks of antidepressant treatment with respect to suicidal behaviours includes many ecological, or population- based, correlational studies of temporal or regional trends in suicide rates and rates of usage of modern antidepressants including SSRIs. A number of studies have found a relationship between increase in national antidepressant prescribing and declining suicide rates, with general agreement but some exceptions. In general, studies showed that increased prescribing of antidepressants may indicate improved diagnosis and treatment of depression. On the other hand, studies that investigated the impact of prescription of anxyolitics on suicide rate were scarce, although the ratio of anxiolytics to antidepressants has been described as a quality indicator regarding treatment of depression, which is in most cases combined with anxiety and increased suicide risk. Importantly, sedatives and hypnotics are widely prescribed to elderly persons with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance, but studies demonstrated that sedatives and hypnotics were both associated with increased risk for suicide in the elderly. Finally, studies on antipsychotic prescription demonstrated that particularly treatment with clozapine decreased suicide mortality among individuals with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders and on the other hand lithium reduced suicide rate among individuals with mood disorders.

Suicidal behaviour is a major public health concern. It is known that the pathogenesis of suicidal behaviour involves altered neural plasticity, resulting in the aberrant stress response of the central nervous system to environmental factors. Indeed, altered brain structure and function was found in suicide victims. Neurotrophins are growth factors that are involved in the regulation of structural, synaptic, and morphological plasticity and in the modulation of the strength and number of synaptic connections and neurotransmission. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) the most studied and the most widely distributed among neurotrophins binds to a tropomyosin-related kinase B (TrkB) receptor and to a pan75 neurotrophins receptor. It has been reported that BDNF production is decreased in all patients with suicidal behaviour and in all suicide victims regardless of a psychiatric diagnosis. It was also found that the mRNA and protein level of BDNF was significantly lower in both the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus of suicide subjects. Different mechanisms could be involved in the regulation of BDNF gene expression, among which epigenetic mechanisms seem to play a key role. However, also for a functional polymorphism (rs6265) Val66Metit has been shown that the Met allele is associated with the reduced BDNF activity. Further, a recent meta-analysis including 12 studies showed a trend for the Met-carrying genotypes and Met allele conferring risk for suicide. Among included studies, our study with the largest sample size, indicated that the combined Met/Met and Met/Val genotypes of the BDNF Val66Met variant could be the risk factor for violent suicide in female subjects and for suicide in victims exposed to childhood trauma. In accordance with previous reports, our findings demonstrate that aberrant regulation of BDNF synthesis is associated with suicidal behaviour.

Background: This study describes the validation process for the Slovenian version of the Drug Addiction Treatment Efficacy Questionnaire (DATEQ)., Subjects and Methods: DATEQ was constructed from the questionnaires used at the Centre for the Treatment of Drug Addiction, Ljubljana University Psychiatric Hospital, and within the network of Centres for the Prevention and Treatment of Drug Addiction in Slovenia during the past 14 years. The Slovenian version of the DATEQ was translated to English using the 'forward-backward' procedure by its authors and their co-workers. The validation process included 100 male and female patients with established addiction to illicit drugs who had been prescribed opioid substitution therapy. The DATEQ questionnaire was used in the study, together with clinical evaluation to measure psychological state and to evaluate the efficacy of treatment in the last year. To determinate the validity of DATEQ the correlation with the clinical assessments of the outcome was calculated using one-way ANOVA., Results: The F value was 44.4, p<0.001 (sum of squares: between groups 210.4, df=2, within groups 229.7, df=97, total 440.1, df=99). At the cut-off 4 the sensitivity is 81% and specificity 83%., Conclusion: The validation process for the Slovenian DATEQ version shows metric properties similar to those found in international studies of similar questionnaires, suggesting that it measures the same constructs, in the same way and as similar questionnaires. However, the relatively low sensitivity and specificity suggests caution when using DATEQ as the only measure of outcome.

Despite different treatment approaches many patients with drug addiction continue to use drugs during and after treatment. Approximately 50 percent of the patients in substance abuse treatment do not complete the first month of treatment ,and this is associated with poor outcome. Attempts have been made to improve outcomes of addiction treatment by addressing patient characteristics that predict continued drug use. Appropriate instruments have been developed in order to facilitate assessment and outcome research. It could be concluded that different psychosocial factors could serve as a predictor of drug addiction treatment outcome. However the interplay of these factors is still poorly understood and further research is needed.

Background: Suicide has been identified as a serious public health problem that is often accompanied by alcohol misuse and dependence. It seems that suicide is a result of an interplay between distal (e.g. genetic loading, family history of suicide) and proximal factors (e.g. existence of psychiatric disorder, events conferring acute stress), as well as their interactions. However, like suicide, alcohol dependence seems to be a multifactorial disorder caused by genetic and environmental factors. Serotonergic dysfunction has been implicated to be involved in the pathophysiology of substance abuse, and has also an important role in suicidal behaviour. Studies investigating suicide, alcohol-related suicide and the rate limiting enzyme of serotonin synthesis, tryptophan hydroxylase 2 (TPH2), remain to date rather limited., Results: Recent studies of TPH2 showed a range of strong, mild or no association with suicide and alcohol-related suicide, depending on a study group and genetic variants tested. Overall, to date the clinical effects seems to be quite modest. Among suicide victims with more impulsive and verbal aggressive behaviour more alcohol misuse or dependency was present., Conclusions: Suicide and alcoholism are often comorbid disorders with a complex nature. They are both strongly linked to serotonin modulation, and therefore association studies of SNPs in genes from the serotonergic system could provide an insight into the genetic background of such disorders. However, based on current results we cannot draw any conclusions, but further research to clarify the interplay between serotonergic system dysfunction, suicide, alcohol dependence, impulsivity and the role of TPH2 enzyme is needed.

In rat fast muscles, collagen Q (ColQ) expression is restricted to the neuromuscular junctions. In contrast, it is high also extrajunctionally in the slow soleus muscles. Fast muscles activated by chronic low-frequency electrical stimulation, similar to neural activation of the soleus muscles, did not increase their extrajunctional expression of ColQ. We assumed that the myogenic stem cells (satellite cells) in fast and slow muscles were intrinsically different in regard to the capacity that they convey to their respective muscle fibers to increase the extrajunctional ColQ expression upon innervation. ColQ mRNA levels were determined by quantitative real-time PCR. Extensive neural suppression of the extrajunctional ColQ expression in regenerating fast muscles during maturation is a very slow process requiring 30-60 days. If the immature regenerating fast EDL muscles were indirectly or directly electrically stimulated immediately after innervation by chronic low-frequency impulse pattern for 8 days, no significant increase of the extrajunctional ColQ mRNA levels was observed in stimulated regenerates in comparison to non-stimulated ones. In contrast, the extrajunctional ColQ mRNA levels in the regenerates of the soleus muscles, trans-innervated by the EDL nerve at the time of muscle injury, increased 4- to 5-fold after 8 days of the same chronic low-frequency electrical stimulation in comparison to those in the stimulated EDL regenerates. Since both fast and slow muscles completely regenerated only from their own myogenic stem cells and were innervated by the same nerve and later activated by the same tonic pattern of impulses, these results demonstrated that the mechanism causing incapacity of regenerating fast muscles to increase their extrajunctional ColQ expression upon tonic activation is encoded in their satellite cells, which in this respect differ from those in the slow muscles., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Aim: To determine the risk factors for fatal outcome in patients with opioid dependence treated with methadone at the primary care level., Methods: A group of 287 patients with opioid dependence was monitored prospectively from 1995 to 2007. At the beginning of the study, we collected the data on patient baseline characteristics, treatment characteristics, and living environment. At the annual check-up, we collected the data on daily methadone dose, method of methadone therapy administration, and family physician's assessment of the patient's drug use status., Results: Out of 287 patients, 8% died. Logistic regression analysis showed that the predictors of fatal outcome were continuation of drug use during previous therapeutic attempts (odds ratio [OR], 19.402; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.659-226.873), maintenance therapy as the planned treatment modality (OR, 3.738; 95% CI, 1.045-13.370), living in an unstable relationship (OR, 9.275; 95% CI, 2.207-38.984), and loss of continuity of care (OR, 12.643; 95% CI, 3.001-53.253)., Conclusion: The patients presenting these risk factors require special attention. It is important for family physicians to insist on compliance with the treatment protocol and intervene when they lose contact with the patient to prevent the fatal outcome.

Diisopropylfluorophosphate exerts its toxic effect by irreversibly inhibiting acetylcholinesterase. This results in over-stimulation of central and peripheral cholinergic activity. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the possible preventive effects of acute treatment with reversible acetylcholinesterase inhibitor galantamine against the signs of cholinergic toxic syndrome provoked by diisopropylfluorophosphate, such as hypothermia, muscular fasciculations, oral dyskinesia and decreased locomotor performance in a rat model of intoxication. The effects of these two anticholinesterases on acetylcholinesterase activity and on the expression of mRNA of the immediate early response gene c-fos in the brain were assessed by histochemical acetylcholinesterase staining and by in situ hybridization, respectively. Diisopropylfluorophosphate induced rapidly progressing hypothermia, muscular fasciculations, oral dyskinesia and decreased locomotor performance. The increased cholinergic cortical and hippocampal activity due to irreversible acetylcholinerase inhibition were indicated by the increased c-fos mRNA autoradiographic signal and by the inhibition of acetylcholinesterase staining, respectively. Galantamine by itself provoked transient and relatively weak inhibition of the acetylcholinesterase staining, while it did not induce increased c-fos mRNA expression or significant behavioural signs of cholinergic toxicity. Galantamine significantly reduced the rate of the onset, but not the maximal hypothermia induced by diisopropylfluorophosphate. Importantly, all the above-mentioned behavioural and neurochemical effects of diisopropylfluorophosphate were significantly reduced by galantamine. These results indicate that the acute pre-treatment with galantamine may have prophylactic effects against the intoxication by diisopropylfluorophosphate.

Background: Addiction is a major social and health problem. Studies on suicide and alcohol at the individual and aggregated level have confirmed a link between alcohol and suicide., Aim: To assess the impact of the new national alcohol policy in Slovenia on the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) in BAC-positive suicide victims before, during and after the implementation of the new national alcohol policy in 2003., Method: Blood samples were collected by forensic pathologists during medicolegal autopsies of suicide victims in order to establish their BAC levels at the time of death. BAC was measured using two routine independent headspace gas chromatography methods (HSS-GC-FID) and expressed in grams per kilogram., Results: During the period before the implementation of the act which limited the availability of alcohol in Slovenia, the BACs of BAC-positive suicide victims were higher than those tested in the period after the implementation of the act., Conclusion: Despite certain limitations, this study demonstrates that legislation measures restricting alcohol availability may be an effective measure of BAC reduction in BAC-positive suicide victims., (Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel.)