Clinician experiences on training and awareness of sexual orientation in NHS Talking Therapies Services for Anxiety and Depression

Previous research that explored sexual minority service users’ experiences of accessing NHS Talking Therapies for Anxiety and Depression Services highlighted the need for specific sexual orientation training. Inconsistent or lack of training may contribute to disparities in treatment outcomes between sexual minority service users and heterosexual service users. The aim of the study was to explore clinicians’ competencies working with sexual minority service users, their experiences of sexual orientation training, their view of current gaps intraining provision, and ways to improve training. Self-reported sexual orientation competency scales and open ended questions were used to address the aims of the study. Participants (n=83) included Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (PWPs) and high-intensity CBT therapists (HITs). Responses on competency scales were analysed using Kruskal–Wallis tests and thematic analysis was used to analyse qualitative responses. Participants who identified as 25–29 years old had higher scores on the knowledge scale than 45+-year-olds.Bisexual participants also had higher scores on the knowledge subscale than heterosexual participants. Threeover-arching themes were identified: (a) training received on sexual minority issues by Talking Therapies clinicians, (b) clinicians’ experiences of accessing and receiving sexual minority training, and (c) perceived gaps in current sexual minority training and ways to improve training. Findings were linked to previous literature and recommendations to stakeholders are made throughout the Discussion section with the view of improving sexual orientation training

Delayed efficacy of radiofrequency catheter ablation on arrhythmias originating in the interventricular basal septum

Delayed efficacy of radiofrequency energy can suppress ventricular arrhythmias after a failed ablation procedure. The implant of cardiac defibrillator for arrhythmia-induced cardiomyopathy should be procrastinated after a period of follow-up. Waiting for delayed efficacy is a reasonable choice to reduce the risk of complications associated with aggressive ablative approaches

Supervised fully polarimetric classification of the Black Forest test site: From MAESTROI to MAC Europe

A study on the performance of a supervised fully polarimetric maximum likelihood classifier for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data when applied to a specific classification context: forest classification based on age classes and in the presence of a sloping terrain is presented. For the experimental part, the polarimetric AIRSAR data at P, L, and C-band, acquired over the German Black Forest near Freiburg in the frame of the 1989 MAESTRO-1 campaign and the 1991 MAC Europe campaign was used, MAESTRO-1 with an ESA/JRC sponsored campaign, and MAC Europe (Multi-sensor Aircraft Campaign); in both cases the multi-frequency polarimetric JPL Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) radar was flown over a number of European test sites. The study is structured as follows. At first, the general characteristics of the classifier and the dependencies from some parameters, like frequency bands, feature vector, calibration, using test areas lying on a flat terrain are investigated. Once it is determined the optimal conditions for the classifier performance, we then move on to the study of the slope effect. The bulk of this work is performed using the Maestrol data set. Next the classifier performance with the MAC Europe data is considered. The study is divided into two stages: first some of the tests done on the Maestro data are repeated, to highlight the improvements due to the new processing scheme that delivers 16 look data. Second we experiment with multi images classification with two goals: to assess the possibility of using a training set measured from one image to classify areas in different images; and to classify areas on critical slopes using different viewing angles. The main points of the study are listed and some of the results obtained so far are highlighted

Genome-wide analyses of cassava Pathogenesis-related (PR) gene families reveal core transcriptome responses to whitefly infestation, salicylic acid and jasmonic acid.

BACKGROUND:Whiteflies are a threat to cassava (Manihot esculenta), an important staple food in many tropical/subtropical regions. Understanding the molecular mechanisms regulating cassava's responses against this pest is crucial for developing control strategies. Pathogenesis-related (PR) protein families are an integral part of plant immunity. With the availability of whole genome sequences, the annotation and expression programs of the full complement of PR genes in an organism can now be achieved. An understanding of the responses of the entire complement of PR genes during biotic stress and to the defense hormones, salicylic acid (SA) and jasmonic acid (JA), is lacking. Here, we analyze the responses of cassava PR genes to whiteflies, SA, JA, and other biotic aggressors. RESULTS:The cassava genome possesses 14 of the 17 plant PR families, with a total of 447 PR genes. A cassava PR gene nomenclature is proposed. Phylogenetic relatedness of cassava PR proteins to each other and to homologs in poplar, rice and Arabidopsis identified cassava-specific PR gene family expansions. The temporal programs of PR gene expression in response to the whitefly (Aleurotrachelus socialis) in four whitefly-susceptible cassava genotypes showed that 167 of the 447 PR genes were regulated after whitefly infestation. While the timing of PR gene expression varied, over 37% of whitefly-regulated PR genes were downregulated in all four genotypes. Notably, whitefly-responsive PR genes were largely coordinately regulated by SA and JA. The analysis of cassava PR gene expression in response to five other biotic stresses revealed a strong positive correlation between whitefly and Xanthomonas axonopodis and Cassava Brown Streak Virus responses and negative correlations between whitefly and Cassava Mosaic Virus responses. Finally, certain associations between PR genes in cassava expansions and response to biotic stresses were observed among PR families. CONCLUSIONS:This study represents the first genome-wide characterization of PR genes in cassava. PR gene responses to six biotic stresses and to SA and JA are demonstrably different to other angiosperms. We propose that our approach could be applied in other species to fully understand PR gene regulation by pathogens, pests and the canonical defense hormones SA and JA

Supersymmetry in models with strong on-site Coulomb repulsion - application to t-J model

A supersymmetric way of imposing the constraint of no double occupancy in models with strong on-site Coulomb repulsion is presented in this paper. In this formulation the physical operators in the constrainted Hilbert space are invariant under local unitary transformations mixing boson and fermion representations. As an illustration the formulation is applied to the $t-J$ model. The model is studied in the mean-field level in the J=0 limit where we show how both the slave-boson and slave-fermion formulations are included naturally in the present approach and how further results beyond both approaches are obtained.Comment: 12 pages, Latex file, 1 figur