ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Although high expressed emotions (EE) is one of the most significant predictors for schizophrenic relapse, the assessment of EE is often impeded by the demanding Camberwell Family Interview (CFI) that is required to be conducted by specifically trained staff. To enable a more efficient assessment of EE, we developed the 12-item Concise Chinese Level of Expressed Emotion Scale (CCLEES) and reported its predictive and concurrent validity in this study. METHODS: A one-year prospective study design was adopted. Totally 101 participants diagnosed with schizophrenia were recruited from the department of psychiatry of a major acute hospital in Hong Kong. CCLEES was administered and subsequent relapse information was collected from all participants. At baseline, 10 family members of the participants were also administered CFI. RESULTS: Participants who scored above the optimal cut-off point (Score 13 on Criticism, and/or 13 on Hostility, and/or 15 on Emotional Over-involvement) showed a 6.3 times elevated 12-month schizophrenic relapse rate compared to those who scored below cut-off. The CCLEES also demonstrated excellent correspondence with CFI, the widely-recognized golden benchmark of EE assessment. CONCLUSIONS: The results support the CCLEES as a brief and psychometrically sound self-report measurement for EE in Chinese people with schizophrenia.
Subject(s)
Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale/standards , Schizophrenia/diagnosis , Schizophrenic Psychology , Adult , Emotions , Expressed Emotion , Family/psychology , Female , Hong Kong , Hostility , Humans , Male , Prospective Studies , Psychometrics , Recurrence , Reference Values , Reproducibility of Results , Self ReportABSTRACT
The use of the conventional 5-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) method in BOD determination is greatly hampered by its time-consuming sampling procedure and its technical difficulty in the handling of a large pool of wastewater samples. Thus, it is highly desirable to develop a fast and high-throughput biosensor for BOD measurements. This paper describes the construction of a microplate-based biosensor consisting of an organically modified silica (ORMOSIL) oxygen sensing film for high-throughput determination of BOD in wastewater. The ORMOSIL oxygen sensing film was prepared by reacting tetramethoxysilane with dimethyldimethoxysilane in the presence of the oxygen-sensitive dye tris(4,7-diphenyl-1,10-phenanthroline)ruthenium-(II) chloride. The silica composite formed a homogeneous, crack-free oxygen sensing film on polystyrene microtiter plates with high stability, and the embedded ruthenium dye interacted with the dissolved oxygen in wastewater according to the Stern-Volmer relation. The bacterium Stenotrophomonas maltophilia was loaded into the ORMOSIL/ PVA composite (deposited on the top of the oxygen sensing film) and used to metabolize the organic compounds in wastewater. This BOD biosensor was found to be able to determine the BOD values of wastewater samples within 20 min by monitoring the dissolved oxygen concentrations. Moreover, the BOD values determined by the BOD biosensor were in good agreement with those obtained by the conventional BOD5 method.
Subject(s)
Biosensing Techniques , Oxygen/analysis , Stenotrophomonas maltophilia/metabolism , Water/chemistry , Biofilms , Biosensing Techniques/instrumentation , Calibration , Hydrogen-Ion Concentration , Metals, Heavy/chemistry , Stenotrophomonas maltophilia/physiology , Temperature , Water PurificationABSTRACT
Highly enantioselective hydrogenation of beta-alkyl-substituted (E)-beta-(acylamino)-acrylates catalyzed by Ru((R)-Xyl-P-Phos)(C(6)H(6))Cl(2) complex (cat. 1c) was achieved in up to 99.7% ee. Moderate to good enantioselectivities in the hydrogenation of corresponding (Z)-isomers in the presence of [Rh((R)-Xyl-P-Phos)(COD)]BF(4) (cat. 2c) were also obtained. The results demonstrated that the electronic and steric properties of the dipyridylphosphine ligands as well as the different transition metal ions have significant influences on the catalytic properties in the hydrogenation of beta-(acylamino)acrylates.
ABSTRACT
A series of chiral trans-[RuCl(2)(dipyridylphosphine)(1,2-diamine)] complexes have been synthesized and characterized by NMR and single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies. These Ru complexes combined with (CH(3))(3)COK in 2-propanol formed a very effective catalyst system for the hydrogenation of a diverse range of simple aromatic ketones with high activity (substrate-to-catalyst ratio up to 100 000) and excellent enantioselectivity (up to >99.9%). The catalyst system was also found to be stable in solution even under a normal atmosphere.
