Personality Traits in Juvenile Delinquents: Associations with Peer and Family Relations

Objective: To establish family and peer correlates of personality traits shown to be predictive of future criminal recidivism. Method: 137 incarcerated boys aged 13-18 (x = 16 ± 1.2), 35% black, 21% Hispanic, 43% white, and 1% other completed the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory (WAI) and a psychosocial history obtained by a social worker. Records were summarized using two raters who assigned numerical ratings to dimensions of family and peer relations. Results: As expected, observer ratings of family and peer relationships were correlated with the personality characteristics of distress, denial and restraint as measured by the WAI. Conclusion: Family and peer relations are associated with certain personality traits that are predictive of criminal recidivism in delinquents. This study further expands the knowledge base regarding the social and interpersonal correlates of individual traits predicting criminal recidivism

Pathological and phylogenetic characterization of Amphibiothecum sp. infection in an isolated amphibian (Lissotriton helveticus) population on the island of Rum (Scotland)

Outbreaks of cutaneous infectious disease in amphibians are increasingly being attributed to an overlooked group of fungal-like pathogens, the Dermocystids. During the last 10 years on the Isle of Rum, Scotland, palmate newts (Lissotriton helveticus) have been reportedly afflicted by unusual skin lesions. Here we present pathological and molecular findings confirming that the pathogen associated with these lesions is a novel organism of the order Dermocystida, and represents the first formally reported, and potentially lethal, case of amphibian Dermocystid infection in the UK. Whilst the gross pathology and the parasite cyst morphology were synonymous to those described in a study from infected L. helveticus in France, we observed a more extreme clinical outcome on Rum involving severe subcutaneous oedema. Phylogenetic topologies supported synonymy between Dermocystid sequences from Rum and France and as well as their distinction from Amphibiocystidium spp. Phylogenetic analysis also suggested that the amphibian-infecting Dermocystids are not monophyletic. We conclude that the L. helveticusinfecting pathogen represents a single, novel species; Amphibiothecum meredithae

Impact of surgical and of bronchoscopic lung volume reductions in patients with emphysema and hyperinflation on lung structure, function and inflammation

Background – A robust biomarker for predicting and evaluating the response to lung volume reduction (LVR) interventions remains elusive. We investigated the hypothesis that LVR will be accompanied by measurable changes in novel indices of lung structure, function, and inflammation that can be correlated with changes to the conventional clinical parameters and that reliable identifiers of baseline predictors of therapeutic response (minimal clinically important difference, MCID, of at least 10% reduction of residual volume) will be identified. Methods – 72 consecutive subjects with severe emphysema and hyperinflation scheduled for lung volume reductions were recruited: lung volume reduction surgery (LVRS) – 15; Endobronchial valve (EBV) – 29, Endobronchial coil (EBC) – 28. All underwent detailed clinical phenotyping comprising demographics, symptom scores, computed tomography imaging, exercise capacity and lung function measurements during exacerbation-free periods at baseline and at three months after intervention. Novel techniques including quantitative computed tomography (qCT), impulse oscillometry (IOS) and multiple breath nitrogen washout (MBNW), and microvesicle quantification were employed to assess changes in lung structure, function and inflammation, respectively. Results – Surgery achieved the greatest lung volume reductions, △residual volume (RV) of -1.26 ± 0.58 litres (p<0.01), and more than 90% of recipients met the MCID of ≥10% RV reduction. It was the only intervention to be accompanied by improvements in functional gas trapping on CT, IOS expiratory airways resistance at 5Hz, expiratory and within-breath reactance at 5Hz, and peripheral resonant frequency, attributable to recovery of small airways function. Valve implantations reduced residual volume by -0.91 ± 0.66 litres (p<0.01) and 62% of recipients attained the MCID of ≥10% RV reduction. This was in addition to a smaller reduction in IOS expiratory and within-breath reactance at 5Hz without an accompanying signal in resistance, resonant frequency, or functional gas trapping on CT. Modest improvements to alveolar gas mixing (AME) and small airways function (Sacin) were measured using MBNW in a subset of patients. These data suggest the impact of valves on the peripheral airway compartment was less pronounced than with surgery and was achieved predominantly by deflation of emphysematous lung tissue and restoration of the mechanical pump. Coil implantations resulted in modest volume reductions, △residual volume of -0.31 ± 0.60L (p=0.01): Only 35% of subjects achieved the MCID of ≥10% RV reduction. Three-month physiological outcomes were similarly disappointing with improvements limited to CT-intraparenchymal blood vessel volume (perhaps due to greater radial traction exerted by the coils on the surrounding parenchyma) and the area under reactance during expiration (AXex) on IOS. The comparatively minor degree of volume reduction achieved (and the fall in gas transfer) using this technique may explain the relatively small impact on peripheral airways function. An inflammatory sub-study identified a variety of microvesicle (MV) populations in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and in the plasma of patients with mild to very severe COPD. Of these, polymorphouclear (neutrophil)-derived MVs were found to be substantially increased in BALF and their numbers correlated with airflow limitation, reduced exercise capacity, impaired of quality of life, and the BODE index. BALF neutrophil-derived MVs correlated with BALF neutrophil cell numbers but not with circulating neutrophil MV numbers, implying local alveolar release rather than translocation from the circulation. BALF neutrophil-derived MVs were also shown to be a more robust biomarker of disease severity than BALF neutrophil cell and cytokine levels. In a subset of valve and coil recipients, BALF-neutrophil derived MV levels were evaluated before and after intervention. Mean volume reduction in the coil recipients was exceeded threefold by that of the valve beneficiaries. Unexpectedly there was no statistically significant change in MV numbers at three months in the valve arm. Possible explanations include contamination from more proximal airway sampling / spill over from the ipsilateral lobe(s) or induction of a localised inflammatory response to biofilm formation overlying the nitinol-silicone implants. In contrast, a statistically significant fall in MV numbers was observed in the coil cohort in the absence of clinically meaningful volume reduction. It must however be borne in mind that despite the thin profile of the nitinol endobronchial coil, the surface area of the airway epithelium exposed to sampling is reduced. There were no identifiable predictors of therapeutic response among the novel indices of lung structure, function, and inflammation analysed. Conclusions – The degree of lung volume reduction achieved is critical in determining favourable clinical outcomes for patients with severe emphysema and hyperinflation. Similarly, the structural and functional impacts of lung volume reduction on the small airways compartment, the principal site of airflow obstruction, are proportional to the degree of volume reduction achieved (surgery > valves > coils). The impact of these therapies on airways inflammation requires further scrutiny. qCT and IOS qualify as structural and functional biomarkers, respectively, for evaluating volume reduction – however, their predictive value for therapeutic response is not established from this small dataset. BALF neutrophil-derived MV observations are potentially useful contributors to disease phenotyping alongside lung function tests and qCT imaging – their role as biomarkers for predicting and assessing therapeutic response remains to be seen. Larger randomised controlled trial designs are recommended to further investigate these preliminary findings.Open Acces

The Changing Nature of Education in Youth Justice Centres in New South Wales (Australia)

Education is an important protective factor in preventing involvement in crime. For those young people that enter the youth justice system, and especially youth justice centres, education is a critical, but infrequently explored part of their time in custody following generally disrupted schooling experiences. There are currently six youth justice centres in New South Wales, Australia. Each of these centres have an Education and Training Unit which are schools funded by and staffed with Department of Education personnel. There is evidence that young people accessing these schools regard them very positively. However, this article, drawing on publicly available information, raises questions about how best the significant resources invested in these schools can be deployed. Greater flexibility in forms and modes of educational delivery, as well as in school day and year arrangements would better reflect the dynamic nature of these environments and the needs of young people. Moreover, much greater understanding of post-detention educational and employment outcomes of young people leaving youth justice centres is needed to determine the success of significant investments in these schools

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Launching a Neonatal Resuscitation Escape Room to Combat High Infant Mortality Rates in South India: A Quality Improvement Project

Background: In South India, infant mortality rates are high, and nurses require advanced training to respond to infants in fetal distress. Evidence shows that improved nurse competency in neonatal resuscitation and the ability of students to recognize and respond to distressed infants have led to decreased infant mortality rates. Purpose: The purpose of this quality improvement project was to design and implement a simulated escape room to improve neonatal resuscitation outcomes among undergraduate students in South India. Methods: A quantitative descriptive design was used. N=310 undergraduate nursing students from six schools in India participated in a simulated neonatal resuscitation (NNR) escape room in a simulation lab in South India, following completion of an asynchronous maternal/fetal nursing course. Results: 77.5% of students completed the neonatal resuscitation steps with minimal assistance, and 95.8% of students reported that the escape room experience helped them develop team-based skills and collaborate positively on a clinical team. Findings: This article provides an overview of the quality improvement project in which an NNR escape room was implemented as an innovative learning activity for nursing students in South India

Genomic modelling of the ESR1 Y537S mutation for evaluating function and new therapeutic approaches for metastatic breast cancer

Drugs that inhibit estrogen receptor-α (ER) activity have been highly successful in treating and reducing breast cancer progression in ER-positive disease. However, resistance to these therapies presents a major clinical problem. Recent genetic studies have shown that mutations in the ER gene are found in >20% of tumours that progress on endocrine therapies. Remarkably, the great majority of these mutations localize to just a few amino acids within or near the critical helix 12 region of the ER hormone binding domain, where they are likely to be single allele mutations. Understanding how these mutations impact on ER function is a prerequisite for identifying methods to treat breast cancer patients featuring such mutations. Towards this end, we used CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing to make a single allele knock-in of the most commonly mutated amino acid residue, tyrosine 537, in the estrogen-responsive MCF7 breast cancer cell line. Genomic analyses using RNA-seq and ER ChIP-seq demonstrated that the Y537S mutation promotes constitutive ER activity globally, resulting in estrogen-independent growth. MCF7-Y537S cells were resistant to the anti-estrogen tamoxifen and fulvestrant. Further, we show that the basal transcription factor TFIIH is constitutively recruited by ER-Y537S, resulting in ligand-independent phosphorylation of Serine 118 (Ser118) by the TFIIH kinase, cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)7. The CDK7 inhibitor, THZ1 prevented Ser118 phosphorylation and inhibited growth of MCF7-Y537S cells. These studies confirm the functional importance of ER mutations in endocrine resistance, demonstrate the utility of knock-in mutational models for investigating alternative therapeutic approaches and highlight CDK7 inhibition as a potential therapy for endocrine-resistant breast cancer mediated by ER mutations

Infections on the move: how transient phases of host movement influence disease spread.

Animal movement impacts the spread of human and wildlife diseases, and there is significant interest in understanding the role of migrations, biological invasions and other wildlife movements in spatial infection dynamics. However, the influence of processes acting on infections during transient phases of host movement is poorly understood. We propose a conceptual framework that explicitly considers infection dynamics during transient phases of host movement to better predict infection spread through spatial host networks. Accounting for host transient movement captures key processes that occur while hosts move between locations, which together determine the rate at which hosts spread infections through networks. We review theoretical and empirical studies of host movement and infection spread, highlighting the multiple factors that impact the infection status of hosts. We then outline characteristics of hosts, parasites and the environment that influence these dynamics. Recent technological advances provide disease ecologists unprecedented ability to track the fine-scale movement of organisms. These, in conjunction with experimental testing of the factors driving infection dynamics during host movement, can inform models of infection spread based on constituent biological processes

Epigenetic regulation of cyclooxygenase-2 by methylation of c8orf4 in pulmonary fibrosis

Fibroblasts derived from the lungs of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and systemic sclerosis (SSc) produce low levels of prostaglandin (PG) E(2), due to a limited capacity to up-regulate cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2). This deficiency contributes functionally to the fibroproliferative state, however the mechanisms responsible are incompletely understood. In the present study, we examined whether the reduced level of COX-2 mRNA expression observed in fibrotic lung fibroblasts is regulated epigenetically. The DNA methylation inhibitor, 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine (5AZA) restored COX-2 mRNA expression by fibrotic lung fibroblasts dose dependently. Functionally, this resulted in normalization of fibroblast phenotype in terms of PGE(2) production, collagen mRNA expression and sensitivity to apoptosis. COX-2 methylation assessed by bisulfite sequencing and methylation microarrays was not different in fibrotic fibroblasts compared with controls. However, further analysis of the methylation array data identified a transcriptional regulator, chromosome 8 open reading frame 4 (thyroid cancer protein 1, TC-1) (c8orf4), which is hypermethylated and down-regulated in fibrotic fibroblasts compared with controls. siRNA knockdown of c8orf4 in control fibroblasts down-regulated COX-2 and PGE(2) production generating a phenotype similar to that observed in fibrotic lung fibroblasts. Chromatin immunoprecipitation demonstrated that c8orf4 regulates COX-2 expression in lung fibroblasts through binding of the proximal promoter. We conclude that the decreased capacity of fibrotic lung fibroblasts to up-regulate COX-2 expression and COX-2-derived PGE(2) synthesis is due to an indirect epigenetic mechanism involving hypermethylation of the transcriptional regulator, c8orf4