Mental health and mediumship: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

There is a lack of research examining the lived experience of mental health as a practicing medium, yet the nature of mediumship work inherently presents a number of challenges to the mental health of practitioners. In this study, we aimed to gain an understanding of how mediums experience their mental health in relation to their mediumistic practice and how they recognise and respond to psychological difficulties experienced by their clients. Fourteen mediums from the North West of England took part in one-to-one interviews, which were transcribed and subject to interpretative phenomenological analysis. Four themes were identified: From past traumas to mediumistic identity; Spirit makes sense, mental illness is chaos; Being resilient but vulnerable; and Ethical mediumistic practice. The research highlights the value of not dismissing or attempting to change appraisals of valued aspects of mediums’ anomalous experiences. However, the findings do indicate that support for exposure to clients’ difficulties (such as vicarious trauma) might be helpful, in the same way in which other professionals might receive support with such experiences. Future research into mediums’ help-seeking for mental health difficulties and their experiences of counselling or psychotherapy would be valuable in identifying if and how their psychological needs are met

Locating bugs without looking back

Bug localisation is a core program comprehension task in software maintenance: given the observation of a bug, e.g. via a bug report, where is it located in the source code? Information retrieval (IR) approaches see the bug report as the query, and the source code files as the documents to be retrieved, ranked by relevance. Such approaches have the advantage of not requiring expensive static or dynamic analysis of the code. However, current state-of-the-art IR approaches rely on project history, in particular previously fixed bugs or previous versions of the source code. We present a novel approach that directly scores each current file against the given report, thus not requiring past code and reports. The scoring method is based on heuristics identified through manual inspection of a small sample of bug reports. We compare our approach to eight others, using their own five metrics on their own six open source projects. Out of 30 performance indicators, we improve 27 and equal 2. Over the projects analysed, on average we find one or more affected files in the top 10 ranked files for 76% of the bug reports. These results show the applicability of our approach to software projects without history

Identifying the favored mutation in a positive selective sweep.

Most approaches that capture signatures of selective sweeps in population genomics data do not identify the specific mutation favored by selection. We present iSAFE (for "integrated selection of allele favored by evolution"), a method that enables researchers to accurately pinpoint the favored mutation in a large region (∼5 Mbp) by using a statistic derived solely from population genetics signals. iSAFE does not require knowledge of demography, the phenotype under selection, or functional annotations of mutations

Measures of satisfaction with care during labour and birth: a comparative review

Background Satisfaction is the one of the most frequently reported outcome measures for quality of care. Assessment of satisfaction with maternity services is crucial, and psychometrically sound measures are needed if this is to inform health practices. This paper comparatively reviews current measures of satisfaction with care during labour and birth. Methods A review of the literature was conducted. Studies were located through computerised databases and hand searching references of identified articles and reviews. Inclusion criteria were that the questionnaire was a multi-item scale of satisfaction with care during labour and birth, and some form of psychometric information (either information about questionnaire construction, or reliability, or validity) had to be reported. Results Nine questionnaires of satisfaction with care during labour and birth were identified. Instruments varied in psychometric properties and dimensions. Most described questionnaire construction and tested some form of reliability and validity. Measures were generally not based on the main theoretical models of satisfaction and varied in scope and application to different types of samples (e.g. satisfaction following caesarean section). For an in-depth measure of satisfaction with intrapartum care, the Intrapartal-Specific Quality from the Patient’s Perspective questionnaire (QPP-I) is recommended. Brief measures with good reliability and validity are provided by the Six Simple Questions (SSQ) or Perceptions of Care Adjective Checklist (PCACL-R). Conclusions Despite the interest in measures of satisfaction there are only a small number of validated measures of satisfaction with care during labour and birth. It is important that brief, reliable and valid measures are available for use in general and specific populations in order to assist research and inform practice

Improvements in 25 Years of Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator Therapy

In 1980, Dr. Michel Mirowski and his team inserted the first implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) in a patient. Initially, ICD therapy was not widely accepted, and many physicians actually considered this therapy unethical. Large secondary and primary prevention trials, demonstrating a beneficial effect of ICD therapy in selected patients not only on arrhythmic death but also on all-cause mortality, stimulated a rapid growth in the number of implants and increased patient’s and physician’s acceptance. Improvements in size and weight, arrhythmia discrimination capabilities, battery technology, shock waveform and output, monitoring capabilities and defibrillator electrode technology eventually resulted in the current large number of yearly implants. Today, almost 40 years after the conception of the ICD and 25 years after the first human implant, ICD therapy is the treatment of choice for patients at risk for life-threatening arrhythmias either as secondary or primary prevention. Furthermore, with the more recent addition of resynchronisation therapy to standard ICD therapy, it became possible to treat selected patients with advanced symptoms of heart failure and to lower the risk of sudden death

Reducing US cardiovascular disease burden and disparities through national and targeted dietary policies: A modelling study

Background Large socio-economic disparities exist in US dietary habits and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. While economic incentives have demonstrated success in improving dietary choices, the quantitative impact of different dietary policies on CVD disparities is not well established. We aimed to quantify and compare the potential effects on total CVD mortality and disparities of specific dietary policies to increase fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption and reduce sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption in the US. Methods and findings Using the US IMPACT Food Policy Model and probabilistic sensitivity analyses, we estimated and compared the reductions in CVD mortality and socio-economic disparities in the US population potentially achievable from 2015 to 2030 with specific dietary policy scenarios: (a) a national mass media campaign (MMC) aimed to increase consumption of F&Vs and reduce consumption of SSBs, (b) a national fiscal policy to tax SSBs to increase prices by 10%, (c) a national fiscal policy to subsidise F&Vs to reduce prices by 10%, and (d) a targeted policy to subsidise F&Vs to reduce prices by 30% among Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants only. We also evaluated a combined policy approach, combining all of the above policies. Data sources included the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program, National Vital Statistics System, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and published meta-analyses. Among the individual policy scenarios, a national 10% F&V subsidy was projected to be most beneficial, potentially resulting in approximately 150,500 (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 141,400–158,500) CVD deaths prevented or postponed (DPPs) by 2030 in the US. This far exceeds the approximately 35,100 (95% UI 31,700–37,500) DPPs potentially attributable to a 30% F&V subsidy targeting SNAP participants, the approximately 25,800 (95% UI 24,300–28,500) DPPs for a 1-y MMC, or the approximately 31,000 (95% UI 26,800–35,300) DPPs for a 10% SSB tax. Neither the MMC nor the individual national economic policies would significantly reduce CVD socio-economic disparities. However, the SNAP-targeted intervention might potentially reduce CVD disparities between SNAP participants and SNAP-ineligible individuals, by approximately 8% (10 DPPs per 100,000 population). The combined policy approach might save more lives than any single policy studied (approximately 230,000 DPPs by 2030) while also significantly reducing disparities, by approximately 6% (7 DPPs per 100,000 population). Limitations include our effect estimates in the model; these estimates use interventional and prospective observational studies (not exclusively randomised controlled trials). They are thus imperfect and should be interpreted as the best available evidence. Another key limitation is that we considered only CVD outcomes; the policies we explored would undoubtedly have additional beneficial effects upon other diseases. Further, we did not model or compare the cost-effectiveness of each proposed policy. Conclusions Fiscal strategies targeting diet might substantially reduce CVD burdens. A national 10% F&V subsidy would save by far the most lives, while a 30% F&V subsidy targeting SNAP participants would most reduce socio-economic disparities. A combined policy would have the greatest overall impact on both mortality and socio-economic disparities

Scalable non-volatile tuning of photonic computational memories by automated silicon ion implantation

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record Data Availability Statement: All data used in this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable requestPhotonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) are revolutionizing the realm of information technology, promising unprecedented speeds and efficiency in data processing and optical communication. However, the nanoscale precision required to fabricate these circuits at scale presents significant challenges, due to the need to maintain consistency across wavelength-selective components, which necessitates individualized adjustments after fabrication. Harnessing spectral alignment by automated silicon ion implantation, in this work scalable and non-volatile photonic computational memories are demonstrated in high quality resonant devices. Precise spectral trimming of large-scale photonic ensembles from few picometers to several nanometres is achieved with long-term stability and marginal loss penalty. Based on this approach spectrally aligned photonic memory and computing systems for general matrix multiplication are demonstrated, enabling wavelength multiplexed integrated architectures at large scales. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.European Union’s Horizon 2020European Research CouncilDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)Volkswagen Foundatio