Early urban development in the Near East.
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It has been thought that the first cities in the Near East were spatially extensive and grew outward from a core nucleated village while maintaining a more or less constant density in terms of persons or households per unit of area. The general applicability outside of the Near East of this southern Mesopotamian.derived model has been questioned recently, and variations from it are increasingly recognized. We can now demonstrate that such variation was present at the beginnings of urbanism in the Near East as well. (+info)
What is the heartland of psychiatry?
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Psychiatry has long identified schizophrenia as its defining disorder, its heartland as it has been called. In the past 20 years, this has had a number of negative consequences for psychiatry as a medical specialty, which result from the uncertainty of diagnosis and an increasing emphasis on demedicalising services in an attempt to provide social care outside hospital. These changes have probably increased the stigma attached to psychiatric practice and threaten to deskill doctors. They have also meant that services for other disorders do not meet the needs of patients. To continue to allow schizophrenia to be the paradigm condition is against the interests of psychiatrists and their patients. (+info)
The approach of medical students towards studies of the humanities and social sciences.
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OBJECTIVE: To analyze the attitudes of the medical students from Kaunas University of Medicine, Krakow Jagiellonian University, and St. Petersburg State University towards the studies of the humanities and social sciences. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The survey was carried out in three universities (Kaunas University of Medicine, Krakow Jagiellonian University, and St. Petersburg State University) during 2004-2005. The questionnaire for the investigation was developed based on R. D. Stenberg's works on the ways of knowledge-, practice-, and personality-oriented thinking. RESULTS: After the analysis of students' attitudes towards the importance of the disciplines of ethics, philosophy, sociology, and psychology at the universities of Kaunas, Krakow, and St. Petersburg, important differences have been found among them. Students gave the highest priority to ethics in their profession. Answering the question, "Are philosophical studies important in medical studies," statistically significant differences appeared among Krakow, Kaunas, and St. Petersburg universities. Students of all the universities agreed that sociology and psychology studies were important for their future profession. CONCLUSIONS: Having estimated the opinions of medical students' attitudes towards the importance of the humanities and social sciences, we may state that the students of Krakow and St. Petersburg universities more often agreed that ethics and philosophy were important for their studies. The importance of psychology science was emphasized by the students of all universities, and the students of Kaunas University of Medicine and St. Petersburg State University agreed more often that the discipline of sociology was important for the future studies. (+info)
Function, Impairment, and Disability are words in which many physicians have little interest. Most physicians are trained to deal with structure and physiology and not function and disability. The purpose of this article is to address some of the common questions that many physicians have with the use of functional capacity evaluation and disability and also to provide a unifying model that can explain the medical and societal variables in predicting disability. We will first define the functional capacity evaluation (FCE) and explore the different types available as well as their uses. We will review several studies exploring the validity and reliability of the FCE on healthy and chronic pain patients. We will examine the few studies that look into whether an FCE is predictive of return to work and whether an FCE is predictive of disability. In the second half of this article, we will focus on the Assessment of Disability from the origins of the United States Social Security Administration to a bold new concept, the World Health Organization's International Classification of Function, Disability and Health. (+info)
Comparison of health and social characteristics of people leaving New York City jails by age, gender, and race/ethnicity: implications for public health interventions.
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OBJECTIVES: We compared health and social needs by gender, age, and race/ ethnicity of people leaving New York City jails and assessed the implication of these differences for the development of jail reentry programs. METHODS: Surveys were completed with 1,946 individuals (536 men, 704 women, and 706 adolescent males) between 1997 and 2004. Structured questionnaires captured data on demographic, criminal justice, substance use, and health characteristics. Bivariate comparisons were performed to determine variations between men and women, men and male adolescents, and non-Latino black and Hispanic/Latino respondents. RESULTS: The majority of participants were black and Hispanic/Latino, reported high levels of substance use, had high rates of recidivism, and experienced difficult living circumstances. Compared with men, women were more likely to be homeless, use illicit drugs, report drug charges at index arrest, have health problems, and be parents. Adolescent males were more likely than men to rely on illegal activities for income and to have used marijuana and alcohol recently, and were less likely to report homelessness or health problems. Ethnic/racial differences between black and Hispanic/Latino respondents within gender and age groups were smaller than differences among these groups. CONCLUSIONS: Jails concentrate individuals with multifaceted health and social problems, providing opportunities to engage at-risk populations in comprehensive reentry programs. Gender, age, and ethnic/racial differences among incarcerated populations require that interventions be tailored to the specific needs of these different groups. (+info)
Studying the neurobiology of social interaction with transcranial direct current stimulation--the example of punishing unfairness.
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Studying social behavior often requires the simultaneous interaction of many subjects. As yet, however, no painless, noninvasive brain stimulation tool existed that allowed the simultaneous affection of brain processes in many interacting subjects. Here we show that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can overcome these limits. We apply right prefrontal cathodal tDCS and show that subjects' propensity to punish unfair behavior is reduced significantly. (+info)
Tobacco industry sociological programs to influence public beliefs about smoking.
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The relation between anger management style and organ system-related somatic symptoms in patients with depressive disorders and somatoform disorders.
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