The Self and Society: Critical Reflection of Taking Root

This story, Taking Root, was in its brainstorming stages back in the summer of 2016, while the actual writing began in the fall of the same year. Since the beginning, I considered this my own “coming out” story, a full-length novel for and about queer people. I had dabbled with the inclusion of queer characters in short stories before, but they were shy attempts compared to Taking Root. Although I had considered writing outside of my genre comfort zone for my first longer story with queer characters, going a more traditional slice-of-life young adult route, in the end I wanted to write what I wanted to read: queer characters in a fantastical setting. Influenced by similar genre pieces, I tested my hand at a different type of fantasy and horror, where there is less violence and more of a haunting, unsettling experience. Considering the character’s struggles--and, perhaps, my own, too--this was easier said than done. Self-discovery is never an easy or enjoyable process, but that is essentially what this story is about, as well as the acceptance that hopefully follows. Anxiety and tension is a part of that process: at the beginning, with self-denial; in the middle, where there is an inner struggle against the self and an outer struggle of finding a safe space; and the ending, where the discovery is acknowledged, regardless of what is done with that knowledge. Taking Root depicts four characters, and thus four different ways of maneuvering through this self-discovery process, and the tension it creates between themselves and their environment along the way

Hannah Cribben - Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of doctor of clinical psychology (DClinPsych)

ABSTRACTS SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE TITLE: THE EFFECTIVENESS AND ACCEPABILITY OF PARENTING INTERVENTIONS TO REDUCE THE RISK OF CHILD MALTREATMENT IN THE UK: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW Objectives: Evidence regarding the effectiveness and acceptability of parenting programs to reduce maltreatment in the UK is limited; there are no NICE guidelines for these interventions, and it is an area consistently highlighted as needing further research. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the effectiveness and acceptability of parenting interventions in the UK based on reported outcome measures and uptake/drop-out data. Method: Five databases were searched and PRISMA guidelines were followed throughout. Studies were included if they were published in a scientific journal or official report, were based in the UK, evaluated an intervention for reducing the risk of child maltreatment with parents/caregivers of a child aged 0-17, and reported quantitative outcomes relating to the impact of the intervention. Results: 19 studies were identified for inclusion in this review. The interventions were based on a range of theoretical underpinnings and evaluated for use with heterogeneous populations including specific at-risk samples, maltreating parents, and the general population. Conclusion: The existing evidence is not robust enough to draw firm conclusions regarding the effectiveness and acceptability of parenting interventions to reduce child maltreatment in the UK. Further gold-standard research is needed to inform evidence-based guidelines. SERVICE IMPROVEMENT PROJECT TITLE: IMPROVING SUPPORT FOR PARENTS WHO ARE ACCESSING TREATMENT IN BERKSHIRE TRAUMATIC STRESS SERVICE Background: Research suggests that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can impact upon parenting practices and parent-child relationships. As such, parents accessing psychological treatment for PTSD have specific parenting needs but it is currently unknown how best to meet these needs within services. The aim of this study was to understand the experiential perspectives of parents receiving treatment for PTSD and to make specific recommendations for meeting parents’ needs. Procedure: Semi-structured interviews with 10 parents currently accessing support in a traumatic stress service were conducted. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using an inductive approach. A focus group was held with clinical staff to establish a list of feasible recommendations. Main findings: Five key themes were identified: i) parental role, ii) parent-child relationships, iii) challenges with service provision, iv) positive service provision and v) future directions for service provision. Recommendations were made in terms of considering parental needs at all stages of service provision: assessment, formulation, intervention and service consultation. Conclusion: The findings highlight unmet needs for parents currently accessing support for PTSD. A whole-family approach to service provision is required to improve support for parents and their families. THEORY DRIVEN RESEARCH PROJECT TITLE: INVESTIGATING THE COGNITIVE AND BEHAVIOURAL PROFILES OF ADOLESCENTS WITH EMETOPHOBIA COMPARED TO PANIC DISORDER Purpose: Emetophobia (vomit phobia) is often misdiagnosed in clinical populations; one key differential diagnostic profile is panic disorder. The purpose of the present research was to explore key cognitions and safety seeking behaviours in adolescents with emetophobia compared to panic disorder, to contribute to improved clinical assessment and formulation. Method: A cross-sectional, self-report methodology was used with between-group analyses in a community sample of clinically significant emetophobia (n = 28), panic disorder (n = 23) and healthy control (n = 22) adolescents. Results: The emetophobia group reported greater endorsements of the belief that, when anxious, they will be sick relative to panic disorder participants and healthy controls. Emetophobia participants also reported greater endorsements of the feared aversive consequences of vomiting relative to panic disorder participants and healthy controls. There was no difference between clinical participants in their endorsement of non-sickness related beliefs. There was no significant difference in the reported use of emetophobia- and panic-related safety seeking behaviours in the emetophobia group, whilst the panic group reported significantly greater use of disorder specific safety seeking behaviours relative to emetophobia-specific behaviours

The state of play of reproducibility in Statistics: an empirical analysis

Reproducibility, the ability to reproduce the results of published papers or studies using their computer code and data, is a cornerstone of reliable scientific methodology. Studies where results cannot be reproduced by the scientific community should be treated with caution. Over the past decade, the importance of reproducible research has been frequently stressed in a wide range of scientific journals such as \textit{Nature} and \textit{Science} and international magazines such as \textit{The Economist}. However, multiple studies have demonstrated that scientific results are often not reproducible across research areas such as psychology and medicine. Statistics, the science concerned with developing and studying methods for collecting, analyzing, interpreting and presenting empirical data, prides itself on its openness when it comes to sharing both computer code and data. In this paper, we examine reproducibility in the field of statistics by attempting to reproduce the results in 93 published papers in prominent journals utilizing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data during the 2010-2021 period. Overall, from both the computer code and the data perspective, among all the 93 examined papers, we could only reproduce the results in 14 (15.1%) papers, that is, the papers provide both executable computer code (or software) with the real fMRI data, and our results matched the results in the paper. Finally, we conclude with some author-specific and journal-specific recommendations to improve the research reproducibility in statistics

Factorized Binary Search: change point detection in the network structure of multivariate high-dimensional time series

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) time series data presents a unique opportunity to understand temporal brain connectivity, and models that uncover the complex dynamic workings of this organ are of keen interest in neuroscience. Change point models can capture and reflect the dynamic nature of brain connectivity, however methods that translate well into a high-dimensional context (where $p>>n$) are scarce. To this end, we introduce $\textit{factorized binary search}$ (FaBiSearch), a novel change point detection method in the network structure of multivariate high-dimensional time series. FaBiSearch uses non-negative matrix factorization, an unsupervised dimension reduction technique, and a new binary search algorithm to identify multiple change points. In addition, we propose a new method for network estimation for data between change points. We show that FaBiSearch outperforms another state-of-the-art method on simulated data sets and we apply FaBiSearch to a resting-state and to a task-based fMRI data set. In particular, for the task-based data set, we explore network dynamics during the reading of Chapter 9 in $\textit{Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone}$ and find that change points across subjects coincide with key plot twists. Further, we find that the density of networks was positively related to the frequency of speech between characters in the story. Finally, we make all the methods discussed available in the R package $\textbf{fabisearch}$ on CRAN

Detecting Dependence Change Points in Multivariate Time Series with Applications in Neuroscience and Finance

In many applications there are dynamic changes in the dependency structure between multivariate time series. Two examples include neuroscience and finance. The second and third chapters focus on neuroscience and introduce a data-driven technique for partitioning a time course into distinct temporal intervals with different multivariate functional connectivity patterns between a set of brain regions of interest (ROIs). The technique, called Dynamic Connectivity Regression (DCR), detects temporal change points in functional connectivity and estimates a graph, or set of relationships between ROIs, for data in the temporal partition that falls between pairs of change points. Hence, DCR allows for estimation of both the time of change in connectivity and the connectivity graph for each partition, without requiring prior knowledge of the nature of the experimental design. Permutation and bootstrapping methods are used to perform inference on the change points. In the second chapter of this work, we focus on multi-subject data while in the third chapter, we concentrate on single-subject data and extend the DCR methodology in two ways: (i) we alter the algorithm to make it more accurate for individual subject data with a small number of observations and (ii) we perform inference on the edges or connections between brain regions in order to reduce the number of false positives in the graphs. We also discuss a Likelihood Ratio test to compare precision matrices (inverse covariance matrices) across subjects as well as a test across subjects on the single edges or partial correlations in the graph. In the final chapter of this work, we turn to a finance setting. We use the same DCR technique to detect changes in dependency structure in multivariate financial time series for situations where both the placement and number of change points is unknown. In this setting, DCR finds the dependence change points and estimates an undirected graph representing the relationship between time series within each interval created by pairs of adjacent change points. A shortcoming of the proposed DCR methodology is the presence of an excessive number of false positive edges in the undirected graphs, especially when the data deviates from normality. Here we address this shortcoming by proposing a procedure for performing inference on the edges, or partial dependencies between time series, that effectively removes false positive edges. We also discuss two robust estimation procedures based on ranks and the tlasso (Finegold and Drton, 2011) technique, which we contrast with the glasso technique used by DCR

Computer-based cognitive intervention for aphasia: Behavioural and neurobiological outcomes

Aphasia, an acquired impairment of language that commonly occurs after stroke, can have significant consequences on all aspects of functioning of affected individuals. Some have proposed that the language deficits observed in aphasia are due to underlying limitations in cognitive processes that support language1-3. This ‘cognitive’ theory of aphasia is gaining increased attention in the research literature4, and is the impetus for the study of treatments for aphasia that target these underlying cognitive processes5-8. Indeed, studies of cognitive interventions in healthy populations have reported positive outcomes in behavioural (i.e. language and overall cognitive functioning9, 10) as well as neurobiological (i.e., brain function and/or structure11-13) domains, offering promise for the application of these types of interventions to aphasia. Recently, computer-based ‘brain training’ programs have become increasingly prevalent. BrainFitness (BF) is one such commercially available program; it has been used to show improvement in auditory processing speed, attention and working memory in typically aging adults14, 15. This program has the potential to be a useful intervention for individuals with aphasia, but questions regarding the clinical utility of the program and neural correlates of training-related behavioural changes remain. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of BF training in people with aphasia using behavioural and neurobiological outcome measures