Protocol for a feasibility study of a self help cognitive behavioural therapy resource for the reduction of dental anxiety in young people

Background Childhood dental anxiety is very common, with 10–20 % of children and young people reporting high levels of dental anxiety. It is distressing and has a negative impact on the quality of life of young people and their parents as well as being associated with poor oral health. Affected individuals may develop a lifelong reliance on general anaesthetic or sedation for necessary dental treatment thus requiring the support of specialist dental services. Children and young people with dental anxiety therefore require additional clinical time and can be costly to treat in the long term. The reduction of dental anxiety through the use of effective psychological techniques is, therefore, of high importance. However, there is a lack of high-quality research investigating the impact of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) approaches when applied to young people’s dental anxiety. Methods/design The first part of the study will develop a profile of dentally anxious young people using a prospective questionnaire sent to a consecutive sample of 100 young people referred to the Paediatric Dentistry Department, Charles Clifford Dental Hospital, in Sheffield. The second part will involve interviewing a purposive sample of 15–20 dental team members on their perceptions of a CBT self-help resource for dental anxiety, their opinions on whether they might use such a resource with patients, and their willingness to recruit participants to a future randomised controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the resource. The third part of the study will investigate the most appropriate outcome measures to include in a trial, the acceptability of the resource, and retention and completion rates of treatment with a sample of 60 dentally anxious young people using the CBT resource. Discussion This study will provide information on the profile of dentally anxious young people who could potentially be helped by a guided self-help CBT resource. It will gain the perceptions of dental care team members of guided self-help CBT for dental anxiety in young people and their willingness to recruit participants to a trial. Acceptability of the resource to participants and retention and completion rates will also be investigated to inform a future RCT

The Functions of Myosin II and Myosin V Homologs in Tip Growth and Septation in Aspergillus nidulans

Because of the industrial and medical importance of members of the fungal genus Aspergillus, there is considerable interest in the functions of cytoskeletal components in growth and secretion in these organisms. We have analyzed the genome of Aspergillus nidulans and found that there are two previously unstudied myosin genes, a myosin II homolog, myoB (product = MyoB) and a myosin V homolog, myoE (product = MyoE). Deletions of either cause significant growth defects. MyoB localizes in strings that coalesce into contractile rings at forming septa. It is critical for septation and normal deposition of chitin but not for hyphal extension. MyoE localizes to the Spitzenkörper and to moving puncta in the cytoplasm. Time-lapse imaging of SynA, a v-SNARE, reveals that in myoE deletion strains vesicles no longer localize to the Spitzenkörper. Tip morphology is slightly abnormal and branching occurs more frequently than in controls. Tip extension is slower than in controls, but because hyphal diameter is greater, growth (increase in volume/time) is only slightly reduced. Concentration of vesicles into the Spitzenkörper before incorporation into the plasma membrane is, thus, not required for hyphal growth but facilitates faster tip extension and a more normal hyphal shape

Aspergillus Myosin-V Supports Polarized Growth in the Absence of Microtubule-Based Transport

In the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans, both microtubules and actin filaments are important for polarized growth at the hyphal tip. Less clear is how different microtubule-based and actin-based motors work together to support this growth. Here we examined the role of myosin-V (MYOV) in hyphal growth. MYOV-depleted cells form elongated hyphae, but the rate of hyphal elongation is significantly reduced. In addition, although wild type cells without microtubules still undergo polarized growth, microtubule disassembly abolishes polarized growth in MYOV-depleted cells. Thus, MYOV is essential for polarized growth in the absence of microtubules. Moreover, while a triple kinesin null mutant lacking kinesin-1 (KINA) and two kinesin-3s (UNCA and UNCB) undergoes hyphal elongation and forms a colony, depleting MYOV in this triple mutant results in lethality due to a severe defect in polarized growth. These results argue that MYOV, through its ability to transport secretory cargo, can support a significant amount of polarized hyphal tip growth in the absence of any microtubule-based transport. Finally, our genetic analyses also indicate that KINA (kinesin-1) rather than UNCA (kinesin-3) is the major kinesin motor that supports polarized growth in the absence of MYOV

The oyster genome reveals stress adaptation and complexity of shell formation

The Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas belongs to one of the most species-rich but genomically poorly explored phyla, the Mollusca. Here we report the sequencing and assembly of the oyster genome using short reads and a fosmid-pooling strategy, along with transcriptomes of development and stress response and the proteome of the shell. The oyster genome is highly polymorphic and rich in repetitive sequences, with some transposable elements still actively shaping variation. Transcriptome studies reveal an extensive set of genes responding to environmental stress. The expansion of genes coding for heat shock protein 70 and inhibitors of apoptosis is probably central to the oyster's adaptation to sessile life in the highly stressful intertidal zone. Our analyses also show that shell formation in molluscs is more complex than currently understood and involves extensive participation of cells and their exosomes. The oyster genome sequence fills a void in our understanding of the Lophotrochozoa. © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

DNA glycosylases: in DNA repair and beyond

The base excision repair machinery protects DNA in cells from the damaging effects of oxidation, alkylation, and deamination; it is specialized to fix single-base damage in the form of small chemical modifications. Base modifications can be mutagenic and/or cytotoxic, depending on how they interfere with the template function of the DNA during replication and transcription. DNA glycosylases play a key role in the elimination of such DNA lesions; they recognize and excise damaged bases, thereby initiating a repair process that restores the regular DNA structure with high accuracy. All glycosylases share a common mode of action for damage recognition; they flip bases out of the DNA helix into a selective active site pocket, the architecture of which permits a sensitive detection of even minor base irregularities. Within the past few years, it has become clear that nature has exploited this ability to read the chemical structure of DNA bases for purposes other than canonical DNA repair. DNA glycosylases have been brought into context with molecular processes relating to innate and adaptive immunity as well as to the control of DNA methylation and epigenetic stability. Here, we summarize the key structural and mechanistic features of DNA glycosylases with a special focus on the mammalian enzymes, and then review the evidence for the newly emerging biological functions beyond the protection of genome integrity

Search for displaced vertices of oppositely charged leptons from decays of long-lived particles in pp collisions at s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for long-lived particles decaying into an oppositely charged lepton pair, μμ, ee, or eμ, is presented using 32.8fb−1 of pp collision data collected at s=13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Candidate leptons are required to form a vertex, within the inner tracking volume of ATLAS, displaced from the primary pp interaction region. No lepton pairs with an invariant mass greater than 12 GeV are observed, consistent with the background expectations derived from data. The detection efficiencies for generic resonances with lifetimes (cτ) of 100–1000 mm decaying into a dilepton pair with masses between 0.1–1.0 TeV are presented as a function of pT and decay radius of the resonances to allow the extraction of upper limits on the cross sections for theoretical models. The result is also interpreted in a supersymmetric model in which the lightest neutralino, produced via squark–antisquark production, decays into ℓ+ℓ′−ν (ℓ,ℓ′=e, μ) with a finite lifetime due to the presence of R-parity violating couplings. Cross-section limits are presented for specific squark and neutralino masses. For a 700 GeV squark, neutralinos with masses of 50–500 GeV and mean proper lifetimes corresponding to cτ values between 1 mm to 6 m are excluded. For a 1.6 TeV squark, cτ values between 3 mm to 1 m are excluded for 1.3 TeV neutralinos

Measurement of Azimuthal Anisotropy of Muons from Charm and Bottom Hadrons in pp Collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS Detector

The elliptic flow of muons from the decay of charm and bottom hadrons is measured in p p collisions at √ s = 13     TeV using a data sample with an integrated luminosity of 150     pb − 1 recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The muons from heavy-flavor decay are separated from light-hadron decay muons using momentum imbalance between the tracking and muon spectrometers. The heavy-flavor decay muons are further separated into those from charm decay and those from bottom decay using the distance-of-closest-approach to the collision vertex. The measurement is performed for muons in the transverse momentum range 4–7 GeV and pseudorapidity range | η | < 2.4 . A significant nonzero elliptic anisotropy coefficient v 2 is observed for muons from charm decays, while the v 2 value for muons from bottom decays is consistent with zero within uncertainties

Search for squarks and gluinos in final states with jets and missing transverse momentum using 139 fb−1 of s√ = 13 TeV pp collision data with the ATLAS detector

A search for the supersymmetric partners of quarks and gluons (squarks and gluinos) in final states containing jets and missing transverse momentum, but no electrons or muons, is presented. The data used in this search were recorded by the ATLAS experiment in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of s√ = 13 TeV during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1. The results are interpreted in the context of various R-parity-conserving models where squarks and gluinos are produced in pairs or in association and a neutralino is the lightest supersymmetric particle. An exclusion limit at the 95% confidence level on the mass of the gluino is set at 2.30 TeV for a simplified model containing only a gluino and the lightest neutralino, assuming the latter is massless. For a simplified model involving the strong production of mass-degenerate first- and second-generation squarks, squark masses below 1.85 TeV are excluded if the lightest neutralino is massless. These limits extend substantially beyond the region of supersymmetric parameter space excluded previously by similar searches with the ATLAS detector

Properties of jet fragmentation using charged particles measured with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV

This paper presents a measurement of quantities related to the formation of jets from high-energy quarks and gluons (fragmentation). Jets with transverse momentum 100 GeV 500 MeV and |η| < 2.5 are used to probe the detailed structure of the jet. The fragmentation properties of the more forward and the more central of the two leading jets from each event are studied. The data are unfolded to correct for detector resolution and acceptance effects. Comparisons with parton shower Monte Carlo generators indicate that existing models provide a reasonable description of the data across a wide range of phase space, but there are also significant differences. Furthermore, the data are interpreted in the context of quark- and gluon-initiated jets by exploiting the rapidity dependence of the jet flavor fraction. A first measurement of the charged-particle multiplicity using model-independent jet labels (topic modeling) provides a promising alternative to traditional quark and gluon extractions using input from simulation. The simulations provide a reasonable description of the quark-like data across the jet Pt range presented in -this measurement, but the gluon-like data have systematically fewer charged particles than the simulation

Reconstruction and identification of boosted di-τ systems in a search for Higgs boson pairs using 13 TeV proton-proton collision data in ATLAS

In this paper, a new technique for reconstructing and identifying hadronically decaying τ+τ− pairs with a large Lorentz boost, referred to as the di-τ tagger, is developed and used for the first time in the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. A benchmark di-τ tagging selection is employed in the search for resonant Higgs boson pair production, where one Higgs boson decays into a boosted bb¯¯ pair and the other into a boosted τ+τ− pair, with two hadronically decaying τ-leptons in the final state. Using 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data recorded at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, the efficiency of the di-τ tagger is determined and the background with quark- or gluon-initiated jets misidentified as di-τ objects is estimated. The search for a heavy, narrow, scalar resonance produced via gluon-gluon fusion and decaying into two Higgs bosons is carried out in the mass range 1–3 TeV using the same dataset. No deviations from the Standard Model predictions are observed, and 95% confidence-level exclusion limits are set on this model