We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To send content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about sending content to .
To send content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about sending to your Kindle.
Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common birth defect for infants born in the United States, with approximately 36,000 affected infants born annually. While mortality rates for children with CHD have significantly declined, there is a growing population of individuals with CHD living into adulthood prompting the need to optimise long-term development and quality of life. For infants with CHD, pre- and post-surgery, there is an increased risk of developmental challenges and feeding difficulties. Feeding challenges carry profound implications for the quality of life for individuals with CHD and their families as they impact short- and long-term neurodevelopment related to growth and nutrition, sensory regulation, and social-emotional bonding with parents and other caregivers. Oral feeding challenges in children with CHD are often the result of medical complications, delayed transition to oral feeding, reduced stamina, oral feeding refusal, developmental delay, and consequences of the overwhelming intensive care unit (ICU) environment. This article aims to characterise the disruptions in feeding development for infants with CHD and describe neurodevelopmental factors that may contribute to short- and long-term oral feeding difficulties.
Optical tracking systems typically trade off between astrometric precision and field of view. In this work, we showcase a networked approach to optical tracking using very wide field-of-view imagers that have relatively low astrometric precision on the scheduled OSIRIS-REx slingshot manoeuvre around Earth on 22 Sep 2017. As part of a trajectory designed to get OSIRIS-REx to NEO 101955 Bennu, this flyby event was viewed from 13 remote sensors spread across Australia and New Zealand to promote triangulatable observations. Each observatory in this portable network was constructed to be as lightweight and portable as possible, with hardware based off the successful design of the Desert Fireball Network. Over a 4-h collection window, we gathered 15 439 images of the night sky in the predicted direction of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Using a specially developed streak detection and orbit determination data pipeline, we detected 2 090 line-of-sight observations. Our fitted orbit was determined to be within about 10 km of orbital telemetry along the observed 109 262 km length of OSIRIS-REx trajectory, and thus demonstrating the impressive capability of a networked approach to Space Surveillance and Tracking.
To develop a pediatric research agenda focused on pediatric healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial stewardship topics that will yield the highest impact on child health.
Participants:
The study included 26 geographically diverse adult and pediatric infectious diseases clinicians with expertise in healthcare-associated infection prevention and/or antimicrobial stewardship (topic identification and ranking of priorities), as well as members of the Division of Healthcare Quality and Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (topic identification).
Methods:
Using a modified Delphi approach, expert recommendations were generated through an iterative process for identifying pediatric research priorities in healthcare associated infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship. The multistep, 7-month process included a literature review, interactive teleconferences, web-based surveys, and 2 in-person meetings.
Results:
A final list of 12 high-priority research topics were generated in the 2 domains. High-priority healthcare-associated infection topics included judicious testing for Clostridioides difficile infection, chlorhexidine (CHG) bathing, measuring and preventing hospital-onset bloodstream infection rates, surgical site infection prevention, surveillance and prevention of multidrug resistant gram-negative rod infections. Antimicrobial stewardship topics included β-lactam allergy de-labeling, judicious use of perioperative antibiotics, intravenous to oral conversion of antimicrobial therapy, developing a patient-level “harm index” for antibiotic exposure, and benchmarking and or peer comparison of antibiotic use for common inpatient conditions.
Conclusions:
We identified 6 healthcare-associated infection topics and 6 antimicrobial stewardship topics as potentially high-impact targets for pediatric research.
Gravitational waves from coalescing neutron stars encode information about nuclear matter at extreme densities, inaccessible by laboratory experiments. The late inspiral is influenced by the presence of tides, which depend on the neutron star equation of state. Neutron star mergers are expected to often produce rapidly rotating remnant neutron stars that emit gravitational waves. These will provide clues to the extremely hot post-merger environment. This signature of nuclear matter in gravitational waves contains most information in the 2–4 kHz frequency band, which is outside of the most sensitive band of current detectors. We present the design concept and science case for a Neutron Star Extreme Matter Observatory (NEMO): a gravitational-wave interferometer optimised to study nuclear physics with merging neutron stars. The concept uses high-circulating laser power, quantum squeezing, and a detector topology specifically designed to achieve the high-frequency sensitivity necessary to probe nuclear matter using gravitational waves. Above 1 kHz, the proposed strain sensitivity is comparable to full third-generation detectors at a fraction of the cost. Such sensitivity changes expected event rates for detection of post-merger remnants from approximately one per few decades with two A+ detectors to a few per year and potentially allow for the first gravitational-wave observations of supernovae, isolated neutron stars, and other exotica.
Maintaining nutritional adequacy contributes to successful ageing. B vitamins involved in one-carbon metabolism regulation (folate, riboflavin, vitamins B6 and B12) are critical nutrients contributing to homocysteine and epigenetic regulation. Although cross-sectional B vitamin intake in ageing populations is characterised, longitudinal changes are infrequently reported. This systematic review explores age-related changes in dietary adequacy of folate, riboflavin, vitamins B6 and B12 in community-dwelling older adults (≥65 years at follow-up). Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, databases (MEDLINE, Embase, BIOSIS, CINAHL) were systematically screened, yielding 1579 records; eight studies were included (n 3119 participants, 2–25 years of follow-up). Quality assessment (modified Newcastle–Ottawa quality scale) rated all of moderate–high quality. The estimated average requirement cut-point method estimated the baseline and follow-up population prevalence of dietary inadequacy. Riboflavin (seven studies, n 1953) inadequacy progressively increased with age; the prevalence of inadequacy increased from baseline by up to 22·6 and 9·3 % in males and females, respectively. Dietary folate adequacy (three studies, n 2321) improved in two studies (by up to 22·4 %), but the third showed increasing (8·1 %) inadequacy. Evidence was similarly limited (two studies, respectively) and inconsistent for vitamins B6 (n 559; −9·9 to 47·9 %) and B12 (n 1410; −4·6 to 7·2 %). This review emphasises the scarcity of evidence regarding micronutrient intake changes with age, highlighting the demand for improved reporting of longitudinal changes in nutrient intake that can better direct micronutrient recommendations for older adults. This review was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42018104364).
Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is a well-established cause of traveller's diarrhoea and occasional domestic foodborne illness outbreaks in the USA. Although ETEC are not detected by conventional stool culture methods used in clinical laboratories, syndromic culture-independent diagnostic tests (CIDTs) capable of detecting ETEC have become increasingly prevalent in the last decade. This study describes the epidemiology of ETEC infections reported to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) during 2016–2017. ETEC-positive stool specimens were submitted to MDH to confirm the presence of ETEC DNA by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Cases were interviewed to ascertain illness and exposures. Contemporaneous Salmonella cases were used as a comparison group in a case-case comparison analysis of risk factors. Of 222 ETEC-positive specimens received by MDH, 108 (49%) were concordant by PCR. ETEC was the sixth most frequently reported bacterial enteric pathogen among a subset of CIDT-positive specimens. Sixty-nine (64%) laboratory-confirmed cases had an additional pathogen codetected with ETEC, including enteroaggregative E. coli (n = 40) and enteropathogenic E. coli (n = 39). Although travel is a risk factor for ETEC infection, only 43% of cases travelled internationally, providing evidence for ETEC as an underestimated source of domestically acquired enteric illness in the USA.
What are Americans’ views on liberal democracy? Have their attitudes changed since the 1950s? How do their attitudes about liberal democracy shape political behavior, such as vote choice? We replicated McClosky’s (1964) seminal study on a module to the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. Our exploration of 26 survey questions reveals both continuity and change in Americans’ attitudes toward liberal democracy. Whereas Americans have become more hostile toward some standard democratic procedural rules of the game, we also find that they harbor more tolerant attitudes toward racial and ethnic equality. We subjected respondents’ answers to an exploratory factor analysis, which reveals three distinct dimensions regarding democratic values: elitism, authoritarianism, and racial supremacy. We find that elitism and racial supremacy significantly influenced political behavior in the 2016 presidential election and note that these factors contributed to mass unrest in 2020, exposing fault lines deeply rooted in America’s contentious political history.
Diet has a major influence on the composition and metabolic output of the gut microbiome. Higher-protein diets are often recommended for older consumers; however, the effect of high-protein diets on the gut microbiota and faecal volatile organic compounds (VOC) of elderly participants is unknown. The purpose of the study was to establish if the faecal microbiota composition and VOC in older men are different after a diet containing the recommended dietary intake (RDA) of protein compared with a diet containing twice the RDA (2RDA). Healthy males (74⋅2 (sd 3⋅6) years; n 28) were randomised to consume the RDA of protein (0⋅8 g protein/kg body weight per d) or 2RDA, for 10 weeks. Dietary protein was provided via whole foods rather than supplementation or fortification. The diets were matched for dietary fibre from fruit and vegetables. Faecal samples were collected pre- and post-intervention for microbiota profiling by 16S ribosomal RNA amplicon sequencing and VOC analysis by head space/solid-phase microextraction/GC-MS. After correcting for multiple comparisons, no significant differences in the abundance of faecal microbiota or VOC associated with protein fermentation were evident between the RDA and 2RDA diets. Therefore, in the present study, a twofold difference in dietary protein intake did not alter gut microbiota or VOC indicative of altered protein fermentation.
Clusters of Salmonella Enteritidis cases were identified by the Minnesota Department of Health using both pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and whole genome sequencing (WGS) single nucleotide polymorphism analysis from 1 January 2015 through 31 December 2017. The median turnaround time for obtaining WGS results was 11 days longer than for PFGE (12 vs. 1 day). WGS analysis more than doubled the number of clusters compared to PFGE analysis, but reduced the total number of cases included in clusters by 34%. The median cluster size was two cases for WGS compared to four for PFGE, and the median duration of WGS clusters was 27 days shorter than PFGE clusters. While the percentage of PFGE clusters with a confirmed source (46%) was higher than WGS clusters (32%), a higher percentage of cases in clusters that were confirmed as outbreaks reported the vehicle or exposure of interest for WGS (78%) than PFGE (46%). WGS cluster size was a significant predictor of an outbreak source being confirmed. WGS data have enhanced S. Enteritidis cluster investigations in Minnesota by improving the specificity of cluster case definitions and has become an integral part of the S. Enteritidis surveillance process.
Raw milk cheeses are commonly consumed in France and are also a common source of foodborne outbreaks (FBOs). Both an FBO surveillance system and a laboratory-based surveillance system aim to detect Salmonella outbreaks. In early August 2018, five familial FBOs due to Salmonella spp. were reported to a regional health authority. Investigation identified common exposure to a raw goats' milk cheese, from which Salmonella spp. were also isolated, leading to an international product recall. Three weeks later, on 22 August, a national increase in Salmonella Newport ST118 was detected through laboratory surveillance. Concomitantly isolates from the earlier familial clusters were confirmed as S. Newport ST118. Interviews with a selection of the laboratory-identified cases revealed exposure to the same cheese, including exposure to batches not included in the previous recall, leading to an expansion of the recall. The outbreak affected 153 cases, including six cases in Scotland. S. Newport was detected in the cheese and in the milk of one of the producer's goats. The difference in the two alerts generated by this outbreak highlight the timeliness of the FBO system and the precision of the laboratory-based surveillance system. It is also a reminder of the risks associated with raw milk cheeses.
Why patients with psychosis use cannabis remains debated. The self-medication hypothesis has received some support but other evidence points towards an alleviation of dysphoria model. This study investigated the reasons for cannabis use in first-episode psychosis (FEP) and whether strength in their endorsement changed over time.
Methods:
FEP inpatients and outpatients at the South London and Maudsley, Oxleas and Sussex NHS Trusts UK, who used cannabis, rated their motives at baseline (n = 69), 3 months (n = 29) and 12 months (n = 36). A random intercept model was used to test the change in strength of endorsement over the 12 months. Paired-sample t-tests assessed the differences in mean scores between the five subscales on the Reasons for Use Scale (enhancement, social motive, coping with unpleasant affect, conformity and acceptance and relief of positive symptoms and side effects), at each time-point.
Results:
Time had a significant effect on scores when controlling for reason; average scores on each subscale were higher at baseline than at 3 months and 12 months. At each time-point, patients endorsed ‘enhancement’ followed by ‘coping with unpleasant affect’ and ‘social motive’ more highly for their cannabis use than any other reason. ‘Conformity and acceptance’ followed closely. ‘Relief of positive symptoms and side effects’ was the least endorsed motive.
Conclusions:
Patients endorsed their reasons for use at 3 months and 12 months less strongly than at baseline. Little support for the self-medication or alleviation of dysphoria models was found. Rather, patients rated ‘enhancement’ most highly for their cannabis use.
Psychological stress is associated with accelerated cellular aging and increased risk for aging-related diseases, but the underlying molecular mechanisms are unclear.
Methods
We examined the effect of stress on a DNA methylation age predictor that was shown to correlate strongly with chronological age across human tissues (Horvath 2013). Genome-wide DNA methylation was measured in peripheral blood using the 450K Illumina array in three independent cohorts: the Grady Trauma Project/GTP (N=366); a panic disorder case/control sample recruited at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry/MPI-P (N=318); and the Conte Center for the Psychobiology of Early-Life Trauma/Conte (N=42). Age acceleration was calculated by subtracting chronological age from age predicted by DNA methylation. Psychiatric symptomatology and stressors were assessed using standard questionnaires.
Results
DNA methylation age strongly correlated with chronological age in all samples (r=0.9, p=2.5x10<sup>-133</sup>). Cumulative lifetime stress but not childhood or current stress predicted age acceleration in GTP (p=0.012) and MPI-P (p=0.021). Moreover, epigenetic age acceleration predicted depression (GTP: p=0.002; Conte: p=0.014) and panic disorder (p=0.007). In secondary analyses, we examined the effect of lifetime stress on individual CpGs of the DNA methylation age predictor. After correcting for multiple comparisons, we identified in both GTP and MPI-P a stress-regulated CpG near MCAM, a gene implicated in aging-related diseases, including cardiovascular disease and cancers.
Conclusions
Cumulative lifetime stress, but not childhood or current stress, and psychiatric phenotypes are associated with accelerated epigenetic aging. Our findings may explain the accelerated cellular aging and increased disease risk associated with chronic stress and psychiatric disorders.
The increased prevalence of metabolic syndrome in people with severe mental illness (SMI) is well documented. The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) criteria for metabolic syndrome are three or more of the following: waist circumference ( 80 cm (females), (94 cm (males) OR BMI (30, triglycerides >1.7 mmol/l or on treatment, raised blood pressure (systolic >130 mg Hg or diastolic >85 mm Hg, OR on treatment for hypertension), raised fasting blood glucose (.5.6 mmol/l) OR diagnosed type II diabetes) and reduced HDL cholesterol (< 1.03 mmol/l) OR on treatment.
The IMPACT RCT is a Department of Health funded trial of a health promotion intervention (HPI) delivered by care co-ordinators to people with SMI across South London, Kent and Sussex. The intervention is focussed on improving health by addressing modifiable lifestyle factors such as diet, physical activity, obesity, cigarette smoking, alcohol and substance use.
Objectives/aims
We investigated the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in a sample of 212 patients for whom we had relevant baseline measures.
Methods
Data (weight, BMI, waist circumference, blood pressure, fasting HDL cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose levels) were analysed on 212 patients.
Results
45% of the sample met IDF criteria for metabolic syndrome. Mean BMI was 30.6, glucose 6.4 mmol/L, triglycerides 2.0 mmol/L, HDL 1.2 (mmol/L), waist circumference 105.8 cm, and BP 122/82 mm Hg.
Conclusions
Metabolic syndrome was highly prevalent in this sample, significantly increasing the risk of physical morbidity and potentially lowering life expectancy. There is an unmet need for health promotion interventions in order to lower morbidity and mortality risk in these populations.
The Department of Health in the UK wants the National Health Service to make £20 Billion worth of efficiency savings by 2015 to reinvest.
In the UK the General Hospitals use paper records which are then scanned to create electronic records while Psychiatric Hospitals require that information to be typed on to their electronic records and these electronic records are not available to each other.
Therefore liaison psychiatry assessments require a written entry to be made in the Medical notes and a second entry typed on to the psychiatric electronic patient record which requires a full psychiatric history.
Objective
This duplication in typing information was consuming a considerable amount of this Teams time and resources which could have instead been spent with patients.
Aim
To identify how much time is spent by Staff typing information on to the psychiatric electronic patient records.
Methods
We electronically checked for the preceding three months the amount of time spent typing information on to the electronic records after every liaison psychiatry assessment.
We were then able to obtain the average for every week.
Result
On average about 36 to 40 hours were spent every week typing information on to the electronic records.
Conclusion
Liaison Psychiatry should dispense with the requirement for information to be duplicated on to the electronic patient records and should instead scan the written entry made in the Medical notes.
This should lead to a saving of about £50,000, enough to employ an additional member of Staff every week.
We describe an ultra-wide-bandwidth, low-frequency receiver recently installed on the Parkes radio telescope. The receiver system provides continuous frequency coverage from 704 to 4032 MHz. For much of the band (
${\sim}60\%$
), the system temperature is approximately 22 K and the receiver system remains in a linear regime even in the presence of strong mobile phone transmissions. We discuss the scientific and technical aspects of the new receiver, including its astronomical objectives, as well as the feed, receiver, digitiser, and signal processor design. We describe the pipeline routines that form the archive-ready data products and how those data files can be accessed from the archives. The system performance is quantified, including the system noise and linearity, beam shape, antenna efficiency, polarisation calibration, and timing stability.
In recent years the association between sexual dysfunction (SD) and obesity in the general population has drawn major attention. Although sexual dysfunction is common in psychosis, its relationship with weight gain and obesity remains unclear.
Aims
To investigate the association between sexual dysfunction and obesity in a cohort of patients with first episode psychosis.
Method
Sexual function was assessed in a cohort of patients with first episode psychosis using the Sexual Function Questionnaire (SFQ). Anthropometric measures, including weight, BMI, waist, waist–hip ratio were investigated. Additionally, leptin and testosterone were investigated in male patients.
Results
A total of 116 patients (61 males and 55 females) were included. Of these 59% of males and 67.3% of females showed sexual dysfunction (SD) according to the SFQ. In males, higher SFQ scores were significantly correlated with higher BMI (Std. β = 0.36, P = 0.01), higher leptin levels (Std. β = 0.34, P = 0.02), higher waist–hip ratio (Std. β = 0.32, P = 0.04) and lower testosterone levels (Std. β = −0.44, P = 0.002). In contrast, in females, SFQ scores were not associated with any of these factors.
Conclusions
While sexual dysfunction is present in both female and male patients with their first episode of psychosis, only in males is sexual dysfunction associated with increased BMI and waist–hip ratio. The association between SD, BMI, low levels of testosterone and high levels of leptin suggest that policies that lead to healthier diets and more active lifestyles can be beneficial at least, to male patients.
Populations of native North American parasitoids attacking Agrilus Curtis (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) species have recently been considered as part of an augmentative biological control programme in an attempt to manage emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire, a destructive wood-boring beetle discovered in North America in 2002. We evaluate trapping methods to detect and monitor populations of two important native larval parasitoids, Phasgonophora sulcata Westwood (Hymenoptera: Chalcididae) and Atanycolus Förster (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) species, attacking emerald ash borer in its introduced range. We found that purple prism traps captured more P. sulcata than green prism traps, yellow pan traps, and log samples and thus were considered better for detecting and monitoring P. sulcata populations. Trap type did not affect the number of captures of Atanycolus species. Surprisingly, baiting prism traps with a green leaf volatile or manuka oil did not significantly increase captures of P. sulcata or Atanycolus species. Based on these results, unbaited purple prism traps would be optimal for sampling these native emerald ash borer parasitoids in long-term management programmes.
Rules of thumb (RoTs) are proposed as a means of promoting higher levels of Defined Contribution (DC) pension saving and to help stimulate debate about the high and uncertain cost of pension provision, leading to the development of solutions. The Lifetime Pension Contribution (LPC) tells young people what pension contribution is required over a full working life to achieve a decent retirement income, calculated as 23% of average UK earnings. Another RoT is that each 1% of earnings provides a pension of 1.5% of earnings. Other RoTs show how costs vary by retirement age and if the saverʼs retirement planning is on track. The current high cost of pensions is partly due to low interest rates and the inefficiencies of the DC market, with inadequate bulk purchasing power and risk sharing. RoTs might help encourage higher employer contributions, either through automatic enrolment or on a voluntary basis.