A History of Trauma is Associated with Aggression, Depression, Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Behavior, and Suicide Ideation in First-Episode Psychosis.

The association between trauma and psychosis outcomes is well-established, and yet the impact of trauma on comorbid clinical symptoms-such as aggression, non-suicidal self-injury behavior (NSSIB), suicide ideation, and suicide behavior-for those with psychosis is unclear. To effectively treat those with first-episode psychosis (FEP) and a history of trauma, we need to understand the impact of trauma on their whole presentation. FEP participants were recruited from an Early Psychosis Program (N = 187, ages 12-35, 72.2% male). Clinicians gathered history of trauma, aggression, and suicide data, and rated current symptom severity and functioning. Data was coded using clinician rated measures, self-report measures, and retrospective clinical chart review. Regression analyses examined whether trauma was associated with a history of aggression, suicidal ideation, suicide behavior, NSSIB, symptoms, and functioning. Trauma was associated with aggression, aggression severity and type of aggression (aggression towards others). Trauma was also associated with depression severity, suicide ideation, most severe suicide ideation, and NSSIB. Trauma was not associated with suicide behavior, severity of suicide behavior or psychosocial functioning. Integrating trauma treatment into FEP care could reduce rates of depression, aggression, suicide ideation, and NSSIB for those with a history of trauma. To reduce suicide attempt occurrence and improve functioning, more research is needed

Quantum Tunneling Effect in Oscillating Friedmann Cosmology

It is shown that the tunneling effect in quantum cosmology is possible not only at the very beginning or the very end of the evolution, but also at the moment of maximum expansion of the universe. A positive curvature expanding Friedmann universe changes its state of evolution spontaneously and completely, {\it without} any changes in the matter content, avoiding recollapse, and falling into oscillations between the nonzero values of the scale factor. On the other hand, an oscillating nonsingular universe can tunnel spontaneously to a recollapsing regime. The probability of such kind of tunneling is given explicitly. It is inversely related to the amount of nonrelativistic matter (dust), and grows from a certain fixed value to unity if the negative cosmological constant approaches zero.Comment: 18 pages Latex + 2 figures available by fax upon reques

Function of specialized regulatory proteins and signaling pathways in exercise-induced muscle mitochondrial biogenesis

AbstractSkeletal muscle mitochondrial content and function are regulated by a number of specialized molecular pathways that remain to be fully defined. Although a number of proteins have been identified to be important for the maintenance of mitochondria in quiescent muscle, the requirement for these appears to decrease with the activation of multiple overlapping signaling events that are triggered by exercise. This makes exercise a valuable therapeutic tool for the treatment of mitochondrially based metabolic disorders. In this review, we summarize some of the traditional and more recently appreciated pathways that are involved in mitochondrial biogenesis in muscle, particularly during exercise

Spontaneous Creation of Inflationary Universes and the Cosmic Landscape

We study some gravitational instanton solutions that offer a natural realization of the spontaneous creation of inflationary universes in the brane world context in string theory. Decoherence due to couplings of higher (perturbative) modes of the metric as well as matter fields modifies the Hartle-Hawking wavefunction for de Sitter space. Generalizing this new wavefunction to be used in string theory, we propose a principle in string theory that hopefully will lead us to the particular vacuum we live in, thus avoiding the anthropic principle. As an illustration of this idea, we give a phenomenological analysis of the probability of quantum tunneling to various stringy vacua. We find that the preferred tunneling is to an inflationary universe (like our early universe), not to a universe with a very small cosmological constant (i.e., like today's universe) and not to a 10-dimensional uncompactified de Sitter universe. Such preferred solutions are interesting as they offer a cosmological mechanism for the stabilization of extra dimensions during the inflationary epoch.Comment: 52 pages, 7 figures, 1 table. Added discussion on supercritical string vacua, added reference

Do UK universities communicate their brands effectively through their websites?

This paper attempts to explore the effectiveness of UK universities’ websites. The area of branding in higher education has received increasing academic investigation, but little work has researched how universities demonstrate their brand promises through their websites. The quest to differentiate through branding can be challenging in the university context, however. It is argued that those institutions that have a strong distinctive image will be in a better position to face a changing future. Employing a multistage methodology, the web pages of twenty UK universities were investigated by using a combination of content and multivariable analysis. Results indicated ‘traditional values’ such as teaching and research were often well communicated in terms of online brand but ‘emotional values’ like social responsibility and the universities’ environments were less consistently communicated, despite their increased topicality. It is therefore suggested that emotional values may offer a basis for possible future online differentiation

Gas emissions and active tectonics within the submerged section of the North Anatolian Fault zone in the Sea of Marmara

The submerged section of the North Anatolian fault within the Marmara Sea was investigated using acoustic techniques and submersible dives. Most gas emissions in the water column were found near the surface expression of known active faults. Gas emissions are unevenly distributed. The linear fault segment crossing the Central High and forming a seismic gap – as it has not ruptured since 1766, based on historical seismicity, exhibits relatively less gas emissions than the adjacent segments. In the eastern Sea of Marmara, active gas emissions are also found above a buried transtensional fault zone, which displayed micro-seismic activity after the 1999 events. Remarkably, this zone of gas emission extends westward all along the southern edge of Cinarcik basin, well beyond the zone where 1999 aftershocks were observed. The long term monitoring of gas seeps could hence be highly valuable for the understanding of the evolution of the fluid-fault coupling processes during the earthquake cycle within the Marmara Sea

A Comparative Study of National Infrastructures for Digital (Open) Educational Resources in Higher Education

This paper reports on the first stage of an international comparative study for the project “Digital educational architectures: Open learning resources in distributed learning infrastructures–EduArc”, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. This study reviews the situation of digital educational resources (or (O)ER) framed within the digital transformation of ten different Higher Education (HE) systems (Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Turkey and the United States). Following a comparative case study approach, we investigated issues related to the existence of policies, quality assurance mechanisms and measures for the promotion of change in supporting infrastructure development for (O)ER at the national level in HE in the different countries. The results of this mainly documentary research highlight differences and similarities, which are largely due to variations in these countries’ political structure organisation. The discussion and conclusion point at the importance of understanding each country’s context and culture, in order to understand the differences between them, as well as the challenges they face

Identifying foundation species in North American forests using long‐term data on ant assemblage structure

Foundation species are locally abundant and uniquely control associated biodiversity, whereas dominant species are locally abundant but are thought to be replaceable in ecological systems. It is important to distinguish foundation from dominant species to direct conservation efforts. Long‐term studies that remove abundant species while measuring community dynamics have the potential to (1) aid in the identification of foundation vs. dominant species and, (2) once a foundation species is identified, determine how long its effects persist within a community after its loss. Long‐term data on ant assemblages within two canopy‐manipulation experiments—the Harvard Forest Hemlock Removal Experiment (HF‐HeRE) and the Black Rock Future of Oak Forests Experiment (BRF‐FOFE)—provide insights into how ant assemblages change and reassemble following the loss of Tsuga canadensis or Quercus spp. Previous research documented foundation species effects on ants in the HF‐HeRE for up to four years after T. canadensis loss. Six additional years of data at HF‐HeRE presented for the first time here show that removal of T. canadensis resulted in taxonomic and some measures of functional shifts in ant assemblages that persisted for ten years, further supporting the hypothesis that T. canadensis is a foundation species at Harvard Forest. In contrast, ant assemblages at BRF‐FOFE varied little regardless of whether oaks or other tree species were removed from the canopy, suggesting that Quercusspecies do not act as foundation species at Black Rock Forest. Deer and moose exclosures within each experiment also allowed for comparisons between effects on ants of foundation or dominant tree species relative to effects of large herbivores. At HF‐HeRE, effects of T. canadensis were stronger than effects of large herbivores on taxonomic and functional diversity of ant assemblages. At BRF‐FOFE, in contrast, effects of Quercus species were weaker than effects of large herbivores on ant taxonomic diversity and some measures of ant functional diversity. These findings illustrate the importance of distinguishing between the roles of irreplaceable foundation species and replaceable dominant ones in forested ecosystems along with other drivers of biodiversity (e.g., herbivory)