Complete recovery from anxiety disorders following Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in children and adolescents: a meta analysis

Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is a well-established treatment for childhood anxiety disorders. Meta-analyses have concluded that approximately 60% of children recover following treatment, however these include studies using a broad range of diagnostic indices to assess outcomes including whether children are free of the one anxiety disorder that causes most interference (i.e. the primary anxiety disorder) or whether children are free of all anxiety disorders. We conducted a meta-analysis to establish the efficacy of CBT in terms of absence of all anxiety disorders. Where available we compared this rate to outcomes based on absence of primary disorder. Of 56 published randomized controlled trials, 19 provided data on recovery from all anxiety disorders (n = 635 CBT, n = 450 control participants). There was significant heterogeneity across those studies with available data and full recovery rates varied from 47.6 to 66.4% among children without autistic spectrum conditions (ASC) and 12.2 to 36.7% for children with ASC following treatment, compared to up to 20.6% and 21.3% recovery in waitlist and active treatment comparisons. The lack of consistency in diagnostic outcomes highlights the urgent need for consensus on reporting in future RCTs of childhood anxiety disorders for the meaningful synthesis of data going forwards

Quantum simulation of artificial Abelian gauge field using nitrogen-vacancy center ensembles coupled to superconducting resonators

We propose a potentially practical scheme to simulate artificial Abelian gauge field for polaritons using a hybrid quantum system consisting of nitrogen-vacancy center ensembles (NVEs) and superconducting transmission line resonators (TLR). In our case, the collective excitations of NVEs play the role of bosonic particles, and our multiport device tends to circulate polaritons in a behavior like a charged particle in an external magnetic field. We discuss the possibility of identifying signatures of the Hofstadter "butterfly" in the optical spectra of the resonators, and analyze the ground state crossover for different gauge fields. Our work opens new perspectives in quantum simulation of condensed matter and many-body physics using hybrid spin-ensemble circuit quantum electrodynamics system. The experimental feasibility and challenge are justified using currently available technology.Comment: 6 papes+supplementary materia

Assessing a standardised approach to measuring corticospinal integrity after stroke with DTI

The structural integrity of the corticospinal tract (CST) after stroke is closely linked to the degree of motor impairment. Simple and reliable methods of assessing white matter integrity within the CST would facilitate the use of this measure in routine clinical practice. Commonly, diffusion tensor imaging is used to measure voxel-wise fractional anisotropy (FA) in a variety of regions of interest (ROIs) representing the CST. Several methods are currently in use with no consensus about which approach is best. ROIs are usually either the whole CST or the posterior limb of the internal capsule (PLIC). These are created manually on brain images or with reference to an individual's CST determined by tractography. Once the ROI has been defined, the FA can be reported as an absolute measure from the ipsilesional side or as a ratio in comparison to the contralesional side. Both corticospinal tracking and manual ROI definition in individual stroke patients are time consuming and subject to bias. Here, we investigated whether using a CST template derived from healthy volunteers was a feasible method for defining the appropriate ROI within which to measure changes in FA. We reconstructed the CST connecting the primary motor cortex to the ipsilateral pons in 23 age-matched control subjects and 21 stroke patients. An average healthy CST template was created from the 23 control subjects. For each patient, FA values were then calculated for both the template CST and for their own CST. We compared patients' FA metrics between the two tracts by considering four measures (FA in the ipsilesional side, FA in the contralesional side, FA ratio of the ipsilesional side to the contralesional side and FA asymmetry between the two sides) and in two tract-based ROIs (whole tract and tract section traversing the PLIC). There were no significant differences in FA metrics for either method, except for contralesional FA. Furthermore, we found that FA metrics relating to CST damage all correlated with motor ability post-stroke equally well. These results suggest that the healthy CST template could be a surrogate structure for defining tract-based ROIs with which to measure stroke patients' FA metrics, avoiding the necessity for CST tracking in individual patients. CST template-based automated quantification of structural integrity would greatly facilitate implementation of practical clinical applications of diffusion tensor imaging

Mott-Hubbard Transition of Bosons in Optical Lattices with Three-body Interactions

In this paper, the quantum phase transition between superfluid state and Mott-insulator state is studied based on an extended Bose-Hubbard model with two- and three-body on-site interactions. By employing the mean-field approximation we find the extension of the insulating 'lobes' and the existence of a fixed point in three dimensional phase space. We investigate the link between experimental parameters and theoretical variables. The possibility to obverse our results through some experimental effects in optically trapped Bose-Einstein Condensates(BEC) is also discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; to be appear in Phys. Rev.

Coexistence of Itinerant Electrons and Local Moments in Iron-Based Superconductors

In view of the recent experimental facts in the iron-pnictides, we make a proposal that the itinerant electrons and local moments are simultaneously present in such multiband materials. We study a minimal model composed of coupled itinerant electrons and local moments to illustrate how a consistent explanation of the experimental measurements can be obtained in the leading order approximation. In this mean-field approach, the spin-density-wave (SDW) order and superconducting pairing of the itinerant electrons are not directly driven by the Fermi surface nesting, but are mainly induced by their coupling to the local moments. The presence of the local moments as independent degrees of freedom naturally provides strong pairing strength for superconductivity and also explains the normal-state linear-temperature magnetic susceptibility above the SDW transition temperature. We show that this simple model is supported by various anomalous magnetic properties and isotope effect which are in quantitative agreement with experiments.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; an expanded versio

Development and Application of a Diaphragm Micro-Pump with Piezoelectric Device

In this study, a new type of thin, compact, and light weighed diaphragm micro-pump has been successfully developed to actuate the liquid by the vibration of a diaphragm. The micro-diaphragm pump with two valves is fabricated in an aluminum case by using highly accurate CNC machine, and the cross-section dimension is 5mm x 8mm. Both valves and diaphragm are manufactured from PDMS. The amplitude of vibration by a piezoelectric device produces an oscillating flow which may change the chamber volume by changing the curvature of a diaphragm. Several experimental set-ups for performance test in a single micro-diaphragm pump, isothermal flow open system, and a closed liquid cooling system is designed and implemented. The performance of one-side actuating micro-diaphragm pump is affected by the design of check valves, diaphragm, piezoelectric device, chamber volume, input voltage and frequency. The measured maximum flow rate of present design is 72 ml/min at zero total pump head in the range of operation frequency 70-180 Hz.Comment: Submitted on behalf of EDA Publishing Association (http://irevues.inist.fr/EDA-Publishing

Study of color suppressed modes B0→Dˉ(∗)0η(′)B^0 \to \bar D^{(*)0} \eta^{(\prime)}

The color suppressed modes $B^0 \to \bar D^{(*)0} \eta^{(\prime)}$ are analyzed in perturbative QCD approach. We find that the dominant contribution is from the non-factorizable diagrams. The branching ratios calculated in our approach for $B^0 \to \bar D^{(*)0} \eta$ agree with current experiments. By neglecting the gluonic contribution, we predict the branching ratios of $B^0 \to \bar D^{(*)0} \eta'$ are at the comparable size of $B^0 \to \bar D^{(*)0} \pi^0$, but smaller than that of $B^0 \to \bar D^{(*)0} \eta$.Comment: revtex, 5 pages, axodraw.st