Interactions Between Child-Rearing and Other Risk Factors in Predicting Delinquency, and Implications for Prevention

This article aims to identify interactions between harsh discipline and poor supervision and other childhood risk factors (all measured at age 8–10) in predicting delinquency. It analyzes data collected in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD), which is a prospective longitudinal study of 411 London males first assessed at age 8. Of these males, 26% were convicted between ages 10 and 17. Harsh discipline and poor supervision significantly predicted delinquency, as did 16 other childhood risk factors. Generally, harsh discipline predicted delinquency more strongly in the presence of other risk factors, whereas poor supervision predicted delinquency more strongly in the absence of other risk factors. It is suggested that parent training programs targeting harsh discipline should focus particularly on children and families who possess other risk factors, whereas parent training programs targeting poor supervision should focus particularly on children and families who do not possess other risk factors.David P. Farrington, Catia G. Malvas

Redefining intimacy: a qualitative study on sexual function experiences and perspectives among migrant and refugee women in South Australia.

Background: Sexual function is a fundamental aspect of sexual health, yet migrant and refugee women from Lowand Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) often face unique challenges in navigating intimacy and sexual function postmigration. While sociocultural norms, migration-related stressors, and healthcare access influence their experiences, yet these perspectives remain underexplored. Methods: This qualitative exploratory study explored the perspectives and experiences of sexual function among first-generation migrant and refugee women from low- and middle-income countries residing in South Australia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 reproductive-aged cisgender heterosexual women from diverse cultural backgrounds, recruited through multiple culturally appropriate approaches including community organisations supporting migrant and refugee populations and online outreach via the purpose-built RISE website. Although multilingual support and professional interpreters were available, all participants opted to be interviewed in English. Interviews were conducted by a trained qualitative researcher with shared migrant background, and reflexive, inductive thematic analysis guided by social constructivist epistemology was used to identify key influences on sexual health and intimacy. Results: Participants reported that cultural norms, sociocultural expectations, and migration-related stressors shaped their sexual experiences. Many described difficulties in navigating cultural taboos, communication barriers, and limited access to culturally sensitive healthcare services. Conversely, while migration provided opportunities for increased sexual autonomy, self-discovery, and improved partner communication, deeply ingrained cultural beliefs and emotional struggles continued to impact their sexual well-being. Conclusions: The findings highlight the need for culturally sensitive, gender-appropriate sexual health services and the removal of financial, linguistic, and systemic barriers to healthcare access. Healthcare providers, policymakers, and community organisations play a crucial role in fostering inclusive environments that support migrant and refugee women’s sexual health and well-being.Negin Mirzaei Damabi, Jodie C. Avery, Mumtaz Begum, Salima Meherali, and Zohra S. Lass

Phenoconversion of CYP3A4, CYP2C19 and CYP2D6 in Pediatrics, Adolescents and Young Adults With Lymphoma: Rationale and Design of the PEGASUS Study.

Phenoconversion is the discrepancy between genotype-predicted phenotype and clinical phenotype, due to nongenetic factors. In oncology patients, the impact of phenoconversion on drug selection, efficacy, toxicity, and treatment outcomes is unknown. This study will assess acceptability and feasibility of investigating phenoconversion using probe medications in a pediatric and adolescent and young adult (AYA) oncology population. This prospective, single-arm, single-blind, nonrandomized feasibility study, will enroll individuals aged 6–25 years with a new diagnosis of Hodgkin Lymphoma or Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Genotyping will be performed at baseline using whole genome sequencing or targeted panel testing. Longitudinal phenotyping will be conducted throughout the cancer treatment using exogenous oral enzyme-specific probes, specifically subtherapeutic dextromethorphan (CYP2D6) and omeprazole (CYP2C19, CYP3A4) for enzyme activity assessment. The primary outcome measure will be the proportion of patients who consent to the study and successfully complete baseline and at least two longitudinal time points with valid probe drug metabolic ratio measurements. Secondary outcomes include classification of clinical phenotypes based on probe drug metabolic ratios, probe drug safety, barriers to consent, acceptability of pharmacogenomic and phenoconversion testing, longitudinal genotype/phenotype concordance, inflammatory profiles, and patient and disease factors influencing phenoconversion. The trial has received ethics approval (2023/ETH1954) and is registered at Clini calTr ials. gov (NCT06383338). Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and professional conferences, providing critical insights to advance the understanding of phenoconversion in oncology from pediatrics to adults. These results will help shape future research and drive the implementation of more personalized precision medicine strategies for all people with cancer.Rachel Conyers, Tayla Stenta, Andrew A. Somogyi, Carl Kirkpatrick, Andreas Halman, Sophie Wang, Claire Moore, Dhrita Khatri, Elizabeth Williams, Roxanne Dyas, Tim Spelman, David A. Elliott, Amanda Gwee, Marliese Alexande

Interventions to Improve Nontechnical Skills in Surgery: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis

Objective: Many surgical adverse events are due to failures in nontechnical skills. Improving nontechnical skills has become a priority for surgical training organizations, yet there is little evidence to guide improvement activities. aim of this review was to investigate the effectiveness of interventions to improve surgeon nontechnical skills overall and by individual domains. Design: A systematic search of Embase, Med-line (including PubMed), and PsycINFO were conducted using a predefined search strategy. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs), non-RCTs, and pre vs post intervention cohort studies from data-base inception to February 3, 2025, reporting change in surgeon nontechnical skills in the context of an improvement intervention were included. Two independent reviewers screened all articles first by title and abstract, then by full text. All disagreements were resolved by a third independent reviewer. Data was extracted by 2 independent reviewers in accordance with a predefined data extraction template in accordance with both PRISMA and MOOSE guidelines. Any disagreements were resolved by a third reviewer. Data was pooled using a random-effects model. Main outcome for meta-analysis was change in overall nontechnical skills measured either pre vs post intervention or control vs intervention. Secondary outcomes included change in nontechnical skill domains explored through narrative review. Results: About 2682 studies were identified, after screening 65 were included comprised of 20 RCT's and 45 non-RCT's. Meta analysis demonstrated statistically significant association between nontechnical skill improvement and 4 intervention types: practice with debrief/feedback (SMD:1.80, 95%CI: 1.18,2.41), coaching (SMD:0.82, 95%CI: 0.25,1.40), checklists/standardized procedures (SMD:0.53, 95%CI: 0.12, 0.94), and didactic/workshop (SMD:1.26, 95%CI:0.49,2.04). Practice with debrief/feedback, coaching, and curriculum interventions demonstrated a trend towards improving individual NTS domains. Conclusions: The results of this meta-analysis provide evidence of the effectiveness of several intervention types to improve surgical nontechnical skill both overall and by individual domain. These effective interventions can be used to guide future non- technical skill improvement activities in real-world surgical settings.Jesse Ey, Ellie Treloar, Victoria Kollias, Octavia Lee, Stevie Young, Suzanne Edwards, Adam Wells, Martin Bruening, Guy Maddern

The associations and effects of mindfulness on anger and aggression: A meta-analytic review.

Dispositional mindfulness and mindfulness-based interventions have been linked to emotion regulation and may reduce anger and aggression. The present set of four meta-analyses examined and quantified correlational relationships between trait mindfulness, trait anger, and trait aggression, as well as the effects of experimental mindfulness-based interventions on anger and aggression. These meta-analyses contained data from 118 correlational (dispositional mindfulness) and experimental (mindfulness-based intervention) studies. For the subset of self-report correlational studies (kanger = 243, kaggression = 286), we found small-to-medium inverse relationships between dispositional mindfulness and both anger (r = – 0.23, p < .001) and aggression (r = – 0.19, p < .001). For experimental studies (kanger = 95, kaggression = 38), we found medium effects. Specifically, mindfulness-based interventions produced lower anger (d = – 0.48, p < .001) and aggression (d = – 0.61, p < .001) relative to the control groups. In sum, results suggest that mindfulness can curb angry and aggressive responses. Effect sizes for the interventions were largest in Asia. Studies with passive versus active control groups showed larger effect sizes. Effect sizes were largely equivalent for all populations studied (e.g., clinical, forensic, healthy adults, medical, students). Our meta-analytic findings suggest that mindfulness training may aid the effective regulation of anger and aggression for diverse populations. They also highlight the need for more rigorous control groups in future research.Siobhan M. O'Dean, Elizabeth Summerell, Eddie Harmon-Jones, J. David Creswell, Thomas F. Denso

Exceptionally Low-Coordinated Bismuth–Oxygen Vacancy Defect Clusters for Generating Black In₂O₃ Photocatalysts with Superb CO₂ Reduction Performance

Indium oxide (In₂O₃) is a widely used catalyst for CO₂ reduction, yet its inherent properties, such as a wide band gap and low-active surface, necessitate a modification to achieve broad-wavelength absorption and enhanced surface activity. However, simultaneously achieving these goals through a single material modulation approach remains challenging. Here, we present a simple yet innovative strategy to develop a black catalyst, BixIn₂–xO₃–y, comprising notably low-coordinated bismuth on oxygen-defect-laden In₂O₃. This approach induces local structural and charge carrier changes, resulting in remarkably high visible light absorption and preeminent surface activity. In situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) confirms the spontaneous dissociation of CO₂ species into CO even in the dark on the BixIn₂–xO₃–y surface, underscoring the catalyst’s enhanced activity. Compared to pristine In₂O₃, BixIn₂–xO₃–y exhibits approximately 24 times greater CO production. Characterization techniques, including extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) and X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) analyses, along with density functional theory (DFT) calculations, reveal that oxygen vacancies in the reduced sample decrease both the average coordination number of bismuth and its effective oxidation state. Our findings indicate that the unusually low-coordinated bismuth dopant preferably promotes the formation of oxygen vacancies close to bismuth (Bi-Vö) rather than near indium, which induces local structural and charge carrier changes. These Bi-Vö clusters enhance light harvesting, charge separation, and CO₂ adsorption/activation/reduction. Importantly, our approach demonstrates promise for a wide range of applications, addressing key challenges in catalyst modification for CO₂ reduction and offering opportunities for further advancement in this field.Farzin Nekouei, Christopher J. Pollock, Tianyi Wang, Zhong Zheng, Yanzhao Zhang, Zelio Fusco, Huanyu Jin, Thrinath Reddy Ramireddy, Ary Anggara Wibowo, Teng Lu, Shahram Nekouei, Farzaneh Keshtpour, Julien Langley, Elwy H. Abdelkader, Nicholas Cox, Zongyou Yin, Hieu Nguyen, Alexey Glushenkov, Siva Karuturi, Zongwen Liu, Li Wei, Hao Li, Yun Li

Chasing non-existent "microRNAs" in cancer

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important regulators of gene expression whose dysregulation is widely linked to tumourigenesis, tumour progression and Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT), a developmental process that promotes metastasis when inappropriately activated. However, controversy has emerged regarding how many functional miRNAs are encoded in the genome, and to what extent non-regulatory products of RNA degradation have been mis-identified as miRNAs. Central to miRNA function is their capacity to associate with an Argonaute (AGO) protein and form an RNA-Induced Silencing Complex (RISC), which mediates target mRNA suppression. We report that numerous "miRNAs" previously reported in EMT and cancer contexts, are not incorporated into RISC and are not capable of endogenously silencing target genes, despite the fact that hundreds of publications in the cancer field describe their roles. Apparent function can be driven through the expression of artificial miRNA mimics which is not necessarily reflective of any endogenous gene regulatory function. We present biochemical and bioinformatic criteria that can be used to distinguish functional miRNAs from mistakenly annotated RNA fragments.Ayla Orang, Nicholas I. Warnock, Melodie Migault, B. Kate Dredge, Andrew G. Bert, Julie M. Bracken, Philip A. Gregory, Katherine A. Pillman, Gregory J. Goodall, and Cameron P. Bracke

Appropriateness of lumbar spine imaging in patients presenting to the emergency department with low back pain in a Western Australian tertiary hospital

Background: The Australian Rheumatology Association identified the use of imaging in patients with low back pain without indication of serious pathology as a low-value practice. Aims: To determine the appropriateness of diagnostic lumbar spine imaging requests in patients with low back pain presenting to a Western Australian hospital’s emergency department. Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of all adult patients (18 years and older) who presented with low back pain to the Fiona Stanley Hospital emergency department from 1 July 2020 to 31 December 2020. The appropriateness of the imaging requests was judged using the American College of Radiology’s Appropriateness Criteria. The number and proportion of appropriate and inappropriate lumbar spine imaging requests were reported overall and by imaging modality together with reasons for the judgements. Results: A total of 1459 patients were included. Three hundred eight patients (21.1%) received lumbar spine imaging requests, with 350 diagnostic imaging requests eligible for analysis. Two hundred eighty (80.0%) imaging requests were judged to be appropriate (194/253 (76.7%) plain radiographs, 57/66 (86.4%) computed tomography, 29/31 (93.5%) magnetic resonance imaging). The most common reasons for an appropriate imaging request were suspected vertebral fracture (n = 223, 79.6%), followed by malignancy (n = 26, 9.3%). Of the 70 inappropriate imaging requests, 62 (88.6%) requests occurred in the absence of alerting features and eight (11.4%) requests were the wrong choice of modality. Conclusions: Four in five lumbar spine imaging requests for investigating low back pain were appropriate. Of the inappropriate requests, the most common reason was the absence of alerting features, while a small number were the incorrect imaging modality.Aaron W. K. Mau, Helen I. Keen, Catherine L. Hill, and Rachelle Buchbinde

Probabilistic emotion and sentiment modelling of patient-reported experiences

Available online 8 June 2025Patient feedback is necessary to assess the extent to which healthcare delivery aligns with public needs and expectations. Surveys provide structured feedback that is readily analysed; however, they are costly, infrequent, and constrained by predefined questions, limiting a comprehensive understanding of patient experience. In contrast, the unstructured nature of online reviews and social-media posts can reveal unique insights into patient perspectives, yet that very lack of structure presents a challenge for analysis. In this study, we present a methodology for interpretable probabilistic modelling of patient emotions from patient-reported experiences. We employ metadata-network topic modelling to uncover key themes in 13,380 patient-reported experiences from Care Opinion (2012-2022) and reveal insightful relationships between these themes and labelled emotions. Our results show positivity and negativity relate most strongly to aspects of patient experience, such as patient-caregiver interactions, rather than clinical outcomes. Patient educational engagement exhibits strong positivity, whereas dismissal and rejection are linked to suicidality and depression. We develop a context-specific probabilistic emotion recommender system that predicts both multi-label emotions and binary sentiments with a Naïve Bayes classifier using topics as predictors. We assess performance with nDCG and Q-measure and achieve an F1 of 0.921, significantly outperforming standard sentiment lexicons. This methodology offers a cost-effective, timely, and transparent approach to harness unconstrained patient-reported feedback, with the potential to augment traditional patient-reported experience collection. Our R package and interactive dashboard make the approach readily accessible for future research and clinical practice applications, enabling hospitals to integrate emotional insights into surveys and tailor care to patient needs. Overall, this study provides a new avenue for understanding and improving patient experience and the quality of healthcare delivery.Curtis Murray, Lewis Mitchell, Jonathan Tuke, Mark Macka

Maternal asthma during pregnancy and risks of allergy and asthma in progeny: A systematic review and meta-analysis

First published: 08 July 2024Background: Clinical and preclinical evidence indicate that in utero maternal asthma exposure increases progeny asthma risk. Whether maternal asthma also increases the risks of progeny allergy is unclear. Objectives: To synthesise the available evidence on the relationship between in utero exposure to maternal asthma and postnatal asthma, wheezing and allergic diseases (Prospero: CRD42020201538). Search Strategy: We systematically searched MEDLINE [PubMed], Embase [Ovid], Web of Science, Informit Health, the Cochrane Library, CINAHL [EBSCOhost], MedNar [Deep Web Technologies], ProQuest Theses and Dissertations, Scopus [Elsevier] and Trove, to the end of 2023. Selection Criteria: Studies reporting asthma, wheeze and/or allergic disease in progeny of women with and without asthma or with asthma classified by control, exacerbation or severity. Data Collection and Analysis: Double screening, selection, data extraction and quality assessment were performed, using Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) scoring. Main Results: Of 134 non-overlapping studies, 127 were included in ≥1 meta-analysis. Maternal asthma ever was associated with greater risks of asthma (65 studies, risk ratio [95% confidence interval] 1.76 [1.57–1.96]), wheeze (35 studies, 1.59 [1.52–1.66]), food allergy (5 studies, 1.32 [1.23–1.40]), allergic rhinitis (7 studies, 1.18 [1.06–1.31]) and allergic dermatitis (14 studies, 1.17 [1.11–1.23]) ever in progeny. Asthma during the pregnancy, more severe, and uncontrolled maternal asthma were each associated with greater risks of progeny asthma. Conclusions: Children of mothers with asthma are at increased risk for the development of allergic diseases. Whether improved maternal asthma control reduces risks of child allergy as well as asthma requires further investigation.Andrea J. Roff, Joshua L. Robinson, Sarah J. Hammond, Jana Bednarz, Andrew Tai, Vicki L. Clifton, Janna L. Morrison, Kathryn L. Gatfor