Association of Prenatal Maternal Depression and Anxiety Symptoms with Infant White Matter Microstructure

Importance: Maternal depression and anxiety can have deleterious and lifelong consequences on child development. However, many aspects of the association of early brain development with maternal symptoms remain unclear. Understanding the timing of potential neurobiological alterations holds inherent value for the development and evaluation of future therapies and interventions. Objective: To examine the association between exposure to prenatal maternal depression and anxiety symptoms and offspring white matter microstructure at 1 month of age. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cohort study of 101 mother-infant dyads used a composite of depression and anxiety symptoms measured in mothers during the third trimester of pregnancy and measures of white matter microstructure characterized in the mothers' 1-month offspring using diffusion tensor imaging and neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging performed from October 1, 2014, to November 30, 2016. Magnetic resonance imaging was performed at an academic research facility during natural, nonsedated sleep. Main Outcomes and Measures: Brain mapping algorithms and statistical models were used to evaluate the association between maternal depression and anxiety and 1-month infant white matter microstructure as measured by diffusion tensor imaging and neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging findings. Results: In the 101 mother-infant dyads (mean [SD] age of mothers, 33.22 [3.99] years; mean age of infants at magnetic resonance imaging, 33.07 days [range, 18-50 days]; 92 white mothers [91.1%]; 53 male infants [52.5%]), lower 1-month white matter microstructure (decreased neurite density and increased mean, radial, and axial diffusivity) was associated in right frontal white matter microstructure with higher prenatal maternal symptoms of depression and anxiety. Significant sex × symptom interactions with measures of white matter microstructure were also observed, suggesting that white matter development may be differentially sensitive to maternal depression and anxiety symptoms in males and females during the prenatal period. Conclusions and Relevance: These data highlight the importance of the prenatal period to early brain development and suggest that the underlying white matter microstructure is associated with the continuum of prenatal maternal depression and anxiety symptoms

'Education, education, education' : legal, moral and clinical

This article brings together Professor Donald Nicolson's intellectual interest in professional legal ethics and his long-standing involvement with law clinics both as an advisor at the University of Cape Town and Director of the University of Bristol Law Clinic and the University of Strathclyde Law Clinic. In this article he looks at how legal education may help start this process of character development, arguing that the best means is through student involvement in voluntary law clinics. And here he builds upon his recent article which argues for voluntary, community service oriented law clinics over those which emphasise the education of students

Effect of left ventricular hypertrophy on long-term survival of patients with coronary artery disease following percutaneous coronary intervention

The impact of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) on survival among patients with established coronary artery disease (CAD) is not well understood. We sought to evaluate the effect of LVH on the survival of patients with CAD following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Three hospitals in New York City contributed prospectively defined data on 4284 consecutive patients undergoing PCI. Allcause mortality at a mean follow-up of three years was the primary endpoint. LVH was present in 383 patients (8.9%). LVH patients had a greater prevalence of hypertension (88% vs. 68%, p<0.001), vascular disease (21% vs. 6.6%, p=0.001), and prior heart failure (10% vs. 5.5%, p<0.001). LVH patients presented less often with one-vessel disease (38% vs. 50%, p=0.040) and more often with two- (34% vs. 29%, p=0.014) or three-vessel (22% vs. 18%, p=0.044) disease. Ejection fractions and angiographic success were similar in both groups. In-hospital mortality did not differ between groups. At three-year follow-up, the survival rate for patients with LVH was 86% vs. 91% in patients without LVH (log-rank p=0.001). However, after adjustment for differences in baseline characteristics using Cox proportional hazards analysis, LVH was found not to be an independent predictor of mortality (hazard ratio, 0.93; 95% confidence interval, 0.68–1.28; p=0.67). We conclude that LVH at the time of PCI is not independently associated with an increase in the hazard of death at three years

A discursive approach to narrative accounts of hearing voices and recovery

Substantive objective: To research the range of discursive constructions ‘recovered’ voice hearers employ to describe hearing voices and the implications for positioning and subjectivity (what can be thought and felt) using each construction. Methodological objective and method: To explore a ‘sympathetic’ application of Foucauldian discourse analysis, adapting Willig’s (2008 Willig, C. 2008. Introducing Qualitative Research in Psychology, Maidenhead: Open University Press. ) method, analysing two published accounts. Results and conclusions: Heterogeneous discursive constructions for talking about hearing voices were identified, including: ‘many-’selves’’, ‘taking-the-lead-in-your-own-recovery’, ‘voices-as-an-’imagined-world’’ and ‘voices-as-a-coping-strategy-for-dealing-with-trauma’. The discourse of the biomedical model was not prominent, suggesting alternate discursive constructions may create subjects with a greater capacity for ‘living with voices’ and create a subjectivity from which vantage point the experience holds meaning and value and can be integrated into life experiences. This research may have useful clinical applications for mental health services aiming to collaboratively explore service users’ ways of understanding hearing voices

Methods and algorithms for unsupervised learning of morphology

This is an accepted manuscript of a chapter published by Springer in Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing. CICLing 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8403 in 2014 available online: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54906-9_15 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.This paper is a survey of methods and algorithms for unsupervised learning of morphology. We provide a description of the methods and algorithms used for morphological segmentation from a computational linguistics point of view. We survey morphological segmentation methods covering methods based on MDL (minimum description length), MLE (maximum likelihood estimation), MAP (maximum a posteriori), parametric and non-parametric Bayesian approaches. A review of the evaluation schemes for unsupervised morphological segmentation is also provided along with a summary of evaluation results on the Morpho Challenge evaluations.Published versio

Spatial rigid-multi-body systems with lubricated spherical clearance joints : modeling and simulation

The dynamic modeling and simulation of spatial rigid-multi-body systems with lubricated spherical joints is the main purpose of the present work. This issue is of paramount importance in the analysis and design of realistic multibody mechanical systems undergoing spatial motion. When the spherical clearance joint is modeled as dry contact; i.e., when there is no lubricant between the mechanical elements which constitute the joint, a body-to-body (typically metal-to-metal) contact takes place. The joint reaction forces in this case are evaluated through a Hertzian-based contact law. A hysteretic damping factor is included in the dry contact force model to account for the energy dissipation during the contact process. The presence of a fluid lubricant avoids the direct metal-to-metal contact. In this situation, the squeeze film action, due to the relative approaching motion between the mechanical joint elements, is considered utilizing the lubrication theory associated with the spherical bearings. In both cases, the intra-joint reaction forces are evaluated as functions of the geometrical, kinematical and physical characteristics of the spherical joint. These forces are then incorporated into a standard formulation of the system’s governing equations of motion as generalized external forces. A spatial four bar mechanism that includes a spherical clearance joint is considered here as example. The computational simulations are carried out with and without the fluid lubricant, and the results are compared with those obtained when the system is modeled with perfect joints only. From the general results it is observed that the system’s performance with lubricant effect presents fewer peaks in the kinematic and dynamic outputs, when compared with those from the dry contact joint model.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

On the contact detection for contact-impact analysis in multibody systems

One of the most important and complex parts of the simulation of multibody systems with contact-impact involves the detection of the precise instant of impact. In general, the periods of contact are very small and, therefore, the selection of the time step for the integration of the time derivatives of the state variables plays a crucial role in the dynamics of multibody systems. The conservative approach is to use very small time steps throughout the analysis. However, this solution is not efficient from the computational view point. When variable time step integration algorithms are used and the pre-impact dynamics does not involve high-frequencies the integration algorithms may use larger time steps and the contact between two surfaces may start with initial penetrations that are artificially high. This fact leads either to a stall of the integration algorithm or to contact forces that are physically impossible which, in turn, lead to post-impact dynamics that is unrelated to the physical problem. The main purpose of this work is to present a general and comprehensive approach to automatically adjust the time step, in variable time step integration algorithms, in the vicinity of contact of multibody systems. The proposed methodology ensures that for any impact in a multibody system the time step of the integration is such that any initial penetration is below any prescribed threshold. In the case of the start of contact, and after a time step is complete, the numerical error control of the selected integration algorithm is forced to handle the physical criteria to accept/reject time steps in equal terms with the numerical error control that it normally uses. The main features of this approach are the simplicity of its computational implementation, its good computational efficiency and its ability to deal with the transitions between non contact and contact situations in multibody dynamics. A demonstration case provides the results that support the discussion and show the validity of the proposed methodology.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT