Participatory Action Research on School Culture and Student Mental Health: A Study Protocol

Background: Young people spend a large proportion of their time in school, which presents both risk and protective factors for their mental health. A supportive school culture can promote and protect good mental health by creating experiences of safety and belonging amongst staff and students. In this qualitative study, we seek to explore whether a participatory action research (PAR) approach is an effective way to promote and improve student mental health. Methods: Participatory action research is an approach in which people collaboratively research their own experience: the researched communities become co-researchers of their own experiences in a specific context. We will work with four secondary schools in the UK to develop PAR projects. In each school, a group of 2–4 staff and 6–8 students will work together to develop a shared understanding of their school culture and to introduce activities or changes to make the culture more supportive of student mental health. We will evaluate the effectiveness of the PAR approach through i) a review of school documents pertaining to mental health (e.g., policies and Ofsted reports), ii) interviews with staff members ( n = 40), parents ( n = 8) and students ( n = 24–40) before and after the PAR intervention, iii) observations and reports of the PAR group meetings and iv) interviews with members of the PAR groups after the PAR intervention. Discussion: We anticipate that our research findings will advance knowledge on effective methods to develop a positive school culture that will contribute to the improvement of young people’s mental health and well-being. We will seek to identify the mechanisms through which school culture can have a positive impact on mental health and develop a logic model and a school culture toolkit that can be utilised as a resource to inform public health interventions to promote mental health in a range of educational settings.National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) School for Public Health Research (Grant Reference Number PD–SPH–2015)

Unique presentation of a giant mediastinal tumor as kyphosis: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Although posture distortion is a common problem in elderly patients, spinal deformity caused by a thymoma has not been previously reported. Thymomas are slowly growing tumors that predominantly cause respiratory symptoms.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report the case of an 83-year-old woman who was admitted with a giant mediastinal mass that had caused progressive spinal distortion and weight loss to our department. The clinical and laboratory investigations that followed revealed one of the largest thymomas ever reported in the medical literature, presenting as a mass lesion placed at the left hemithorax. She underwent complete surgical excision of the tumor via a median sternotomy. Two years after the operation, she showed significant improvement in her posture, no pulmonary discomfort, and a gain of 20 kg; she remains disease free based on radiographic investigations.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In this case, a chronic asymmetric load on the spine resulted in an abnormal vertebral curvature deformity that presented as kyphosis.</p

Nanoscale Dynamics of Phase Flipping in Water near its Hypothesized Liquid-Liquid Critical Point

Achieving a coherent understanding of the many thermodynamic and dynamic anomalies of water is among the most important unsolved puzzles in physics, chemistry, and biology. One hypothesized explanation imagines the existence of a line of first order phase transitions separating two liquid phases and terminating at a novel "liquid-liquid" critical point in a region of low temperature ($T \approx 250 \rm{K}$) and high pressure ($P \approx 200 \rm{MPa}$). Here we analyze a common model of water, the ST2 model, and find that the entire system flips between liquid states of high and low density. Further, we find that in the critical region crystallites melt on a time scale of nanoseconds. We perform a finite-size scaling analysis that accurately locates both the liquid-liquid coexistence line and its associated liquid-liquid critical point.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure

To respond or not to respond - a personal perspective of intestinal tolerance

For many years, the intestine was one of the poor relations of the immunology world, being a realm inhabited mostly by specialists and those interested in unusual phenomena. However, this has changed dramatically in recent years with the realization of how important the microbiota is in shaping immune function throughout the body, and almost every major immunology institution now includes the intestine as an area of interest. One of the most important aspects of the intestinal immune system is how it discriminates carefully between harmless and harmful antigens, in particular, its ability to generate active tolerance to materials such as commensal bacteria and food proteins. This phenomenon has been recognized for more than 100 years, and it is essential for preventing inflammatory disease in the intestine, but its basis remains enigmatic. Here, I discuss the progress that has been made in understanding oral tolerance during my 40 years in the field and highlight the topics that will be the focus of future research

In vivo Expansion of Naïve CD4+CD25high FOXP3+ Regulatory T Cells in Patients with Colorectal Carcinoma after IL-2 Administration

Regulatory T cells (Treg cells) are increased in context of malignancies and their expansion can be correlated with higher disease burden and decreased survival. Initially, interleukin 2 (IL-2) has been used as T-cell growth factor in clinical vaccination trials. In murine models, however, a role of IL-2 in development, differentiation, homeostasis, and function of Treg cells was established. In IL-2 treated cancer patients a further Treg-cell expansion was described, yet, the mechanism of expansion is still elusive. Here we report that functional Treg cells of a naïve phenotype - as determined by CCR7 and CD45RA expression - are significantly expanded in colorectal cancer patients. Treatment of 15 UICC stage IV colorectal cancer patients with IL-2 in a phase I/II peptide vaccination trial further enlarges the already increased naïve Treg-cell pool. Higher frequencies of T-cell receptor excision circles in naïve Treg cells indicate IL-2 dependent thymic generation of naïve Treg cells as a mechanism leading to increased frequencies of Treg cells post IL-2 treatment in cancer patients. This finding could be confirmed in naïve murine Treg cells after IL-2 administration. These results point to a more complex regulation of Treg cells in context of IL-2 administration. Future strategies therefore might aim at combining IL-2 therapy with novel strategies to circumvent expansion and differentiation of naïve Treg cells

The Drosophila melanogaster host model

The deleterious and sometimes fatal outcomes of bacterial infectious diseases are the net result of the interactions between the pathogen and the host, and the genetically tractable fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, has emerged as a valuable tool for modeling the pathogen–host interactions of a wide variety of bacteria. These studies have revealed that there is a remarkable conservation of bacterial pathogenesis and host defence mechanisms between higher host organisms and Drosophila. This review presents an in-depth discussion of the Drosophila immune response, the Drosophila killing model, and the use of the model to examine bacterial–host interactions. The recent introduction of the Drosophila model into the oral microbiology field is discussed, specifically the use of the model to examine Porphyromonas gingivalis–host interactions, and finally the potential uses of this powerful model system to further elucidate oral bacterial-host interactions are addressed