The role of emotional resilience, childhood parentification, and attachment style on antisocial behaviour in adulthood: a comparison of an offender and normative population

Purpose: Despite a robust link between poor caregiver attachment and antisociality, few studies have examined the influence of parentification and emotional resilience on delinquency in later life, in groups at differing risk for antisocial conduct. Methodology: This pilot study compared the influence of parentification, attachment style (avoidant or anxious) and emotional resilience on adulthood antisocial behaviour in an offender and normative sample. Of the 137 participants in this study, 66 were supervised by the National Probation Service (age M = 36.90, SD = 13.91), and 71 were recruited from community-dwelling and student populations (age M = 31.83, SD = 13.25). Findings: In partial support of the predictions, participants in the offender group reported significantly greater levels of attachment anxiety compared to the normative group. However, emotional resilience was positively associated with antisociality in the normative sample. Research implications: This small-scale investigation indicates value in exploring these specific variables in a larger, matched samples study, to enable clearer comparisons to be made between offender and normative groups. Practical implications: The preliminary findings suggest that attachment anxiety is associated with antisociality in offender populations, which indicate a therapeutic focus on attachment anxiety as part of correctional care and offender rehabilitation. Originality: This study is novel in its aim to examine the influence of childhood parentification, attachment deficits and emotional resilience on adulthood antisociality in participants from a high-risk offender sample and non-high-risk normative sample

The impact of nature of onset of pain and posttraumatic stress on adjustment to chronic pain and treatment outcome

Despite the demonstrated efficacy of cognitive-behavioural therapy for chronic pain, recent research has attempted to identify predictors of treatment outcome in order to improve the effectiveness of such treatments. This research has indicated that variables such as the nature of the onset of the pain and psychopathology are associated with poor adjustment to chronic pain. Accordingly, these variables might also be predictive of poor response to treatment. Individuals who experience a sudden onset of pain following an injury or accident, particularly when the instigating event is experienced as psychologically traumatic, may present for treatment with high levels of distress, including symptoms consistent with a posttraumatic stress response. The impact of this type of onset of pain and posttraumatic stress symptoms on adjustment to chronic pain and treatment outcome is the focus of this thesis. Three studies were conducted to clarify and extend earlier research findings in this area. Using 536 patients referred for treatment in a tertiary referral pain management centre, the first study examined the psychometric properties of a widely used self-report measure of posttraumatic stress symptoms (the PTSD Checklist, or PCL), modified for use in a chronic pain sample. This study provided preliminary support for the suitability of the PCL as a self-report measure of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms in chronic pain patients. However, the study also highlighted a number of issues with the use of self-report measures of posttraumatic stress symptoms in chronic pain patient samples. In particular, PCL items enquiring about symptoms which are a common aspect of the chronic pain experience (e.g. irritability, sleep problems) appeared to contribute to high mean scores on the PCL Avoidance and Arousal subscales. Furthermore, application of diagnostic cut-off scores and an algorithm recommended for the PCL in other trauma groups suggested that a much larger proportion of the sample was identified as potentially meeting diagnostic criteria for PTSD than would have been expected from previous research. The second study utilised the modified PCL to investigate the impact of different types of onset of pain (e.g. traumatic onset) and posttraumatic stress symptoms on adjustment to chronic pain in a sample of 196 chronic pain patients referred to the same centre. For patients who experienced the onset of pain related to a specific event, two independent experts in the field of PTSD determined whether these events satisfied the definition of a traumatic event according to DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. Adjustment was assessed through a number of validated measures of mood, disability, pain experience, and pain-related cognitions. Contrary to expectations, comparisons between patients who had experienced different types of onset of pain revealed few significant differences between them. That is, analyses comparing patients presenting with accident-related pain, or pain related to other specific events, to patients who had experienced spontaneous or insidious onset of pain revealed no significant differences between the groups on measures of pain severity, pain-related disability, and symptoms of affective distress after adjustment for age, pain duration, and compensation status. Similarly, comparisons between patients who had experienced a potentially traumatic onset of pain with those who had experienced a non-traumatic or spontaneous or insidious onset of pain also revealed no significant differences on the aforementioned variables. In contrast, compensation status, age, and a number of cognitive variables were significant predictors of pain severity, pain-related disability, and depression. The final study investigated the impact of type of pain onset and posttraumatic stress symptoms on response to a multidisciplinary cognitive-behavioural pain management program. Unlike the previous study, this treatment outcome study revealed a number of differences between onset groups. Most notably, patients who had experienced an insidious or spontaneous onset of pain reported greater improvements in pain severity and maintained these improvements more effectively over a one month period than patients who had experienced pain in the context of an accident or other specific incident. There was also limited evidence that improvements in depression favoured patients who had experienced an insidious or spontaneous and non-traumatic onset of pain. Consistent with this, posttraumatic stress symptoms were a significant predictor of treatment outcome, with higher levels of symptoms being associated with smaller improvements in pain-related disability and distress. Notably, this study also revealed that certain cognitive variables (i.e. catastrophising, self-efficacy, and fear-avoidance beliefs) were also significant predictors of treatment outcome, consistent with previous findings in the pain literature. This provided some perspective on the relative roles of both PTSD symptoms and cognitive variables in adjustment to persisting pain and treatment response. These findings were all consistent with expectations and with previous research. Implications for future research and for the assessment and treatment of chronic pain patients who present with posttraumatic stress symptoms are discussed

Early impact of COVID-19 on individuals with self-reported eating disorders: A survey of ~1,000 individuals in the United States and the Netherlands

Objective: We evaluated the early impact of COVID-19 on people with self-reported eating disorders. Method: Participants in the United States (US, N = 511) and the Netherlands (NL, N = 510), recruited through ongoing studies and social media, completed an online survey that included both quantitative measures and free-text responses assessing the impact of COVID-19 on situational circumstances, eating disorder symptoms, eating disorder treatment, and general well-being. Results: Results revealed strong and wide-ranging effects on eating disorder concerns and illness behaviors that were consistent with eating disorder type. Participants with anorexia nervosa (US 62% of sample; NL 69%) reported increased restriction and fears about being able to find foods consistent with their meal plan. Individuals with bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder (US 30% of sample; NL 15%) reported increases in their binge-eating episodes and urges to binge. Respondents noted marked increases in anxiety since 2019 and reported greater concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on their mental health than physical health. Although many participants acknowledged and appreciated the transition to telehealth, limitations of this treatment modality for this population were raised. Individuals with past histories of eating disorders noted concerns about relapse related to COVID-19 circumstances. Encouragingly, respondents also noted positive effects including greater connection with family, more time for self-care, and motivation to recover. Discussions: COVID-19 is associated with increased anxiety and poses specific disorder-related challenges for individuals with eating disorders that require attention by healthcare professionals and carers

Field Measurements of Terrestrial and Martian Dust Devils

Surface-based measurements of terrestrial and martian dust devils/convective vortices provided from mobile and stationary platforms are discussed. Imaging of terrestrial dust devils has quantified their rotational and vertical wind speeds, translation speeds, dimensions, dust load, and frequency of occurrence. Imaging of martian dust devils has provided translation speeds and constraints on dimensions, but only limited constraints on vertical motion within a vortex. The longer mission durations on Mars afforded by long operating robotic landers and rovers have provided statistical quantification of vortex occurrence (time-of-sol, and recently seasonal) that has until recently not been a primary outcome of more temporally limited terrestrial dust devil measurement campaigns. Terrestrial measurement campaigns have included a more extensive range of measured vortex parameters (pressure, wind, morphology, etc.) than have martian opportunities, with electric field and direct measure of dust abundance not yet obtained on Mars. No martian robotic mission has yet provided contemporaneous high frequency wind and pressure measurements. Comparison of measured terrestrial and martian dust devil characteristics suggests that martian dust devils are larger and possess faster maximum rotational wind speeds, that the absolute magnitude of the pressure deficit within a terrestrial dust devil is an order of magnitude greater than a martian dust devil, and that the time-of-day variation in vortex frequency is similar. Recent terrestrial investigations have demonstrated the presence of diagnostic dust devil signals within seismic and infrasound measurements; an upcoming Mars robotic mission will obtain similar measurement types

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV

A search for a Higgs boson decaying into two photons is described. The analysis is performed using a dataset recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC from pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.8 inverse femtobarns. Limits are set on the cross section of the standard model Higgs boson decaying to two photons. The expected exclusion limit at 95% confidence level is between 1.4 and 2.4 times the standard model cross section in the mass range between 110 and 150 GeV. The analysis of the data excludes, at 95% confidence level, the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in the mass range 128 to 132 GeV. The largest excess of events above the expected standard model background is observed for a Higgs boson mass hypothesis of 124 GeV with a local significance of 3.1 sigma. The global significance of observing an excess with a local significance greater than 3.1 sigma anywhere in the search range 110-150 GeV is estimated to be 1.8 sigma. More data are required to ascertain the origin of this excess.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02