Gemeenschap der burgers:Sociaal kapitaal in buurt, school en verenigingen

Inhoud: Beate Völker Sociaal kapitaal, gemeenschap en burgerschap: bij wijze van inleiding BURGERWACHT: OVER SOCIALE (WAN)ORDE IN BUURTEN Henk Flap en Beate Völker Gemeenschap, informele controle en collectieve kwaden Herman Lelieveldt en Henk van der Kolk Structureel sociaal kapitaal en het oplossen van buurtproblemen BURGERSCHOOL: OVER COLLECTIEVE EN INDIVIDUELE SOCIALE HULPBRONNEN René Veenstra, AnneBert Dijkstra en Jules Peschar Sociaal kapitaal van middelbare scholieren: effecten van netwerkbindingen en intergenerationele relaties van leerlingen op scholen voor voortgezet onderwijs Herman G. van de Werfhorst De invloed van normafdwingend en horizonverbredend sociaal kapitaal op schoolprestaties in een gedifferentieerd schoolsysteem BURGERZIN: OVER VERENIGINGEN EN POLITIEKE PARTICIPATIE Ronan van Rossem en Chris Baerveldt Activisme en het middenveld: lidmaatschap en actiebereidheid in België en Nederland René Bekkers, Marc Hooghe, Dietlind Stolle Langetermijneffecten van jeugdparticipatie: persistente effecten van deelname aan jeugdverenigingen in Nederland en de Verenigde Staten René Bekkers ‘Nee heb je, ja kun je krijgen’: de effectiviteit van fondsenwervings- en rekruteringsstrategieën van maatschappelijke organisatie

Deep learning image recognition enables efficient genome editing in zebrafish by automated injections

<div><p>One of the most popular techniques in zebrafish research is microinjection. This is a rapid and efficient way to genetically manipulate early developing embryos, and to introduce microbes, chemical compounds, nanoparticles or tracers at larval stages. Here we demonstrate the development of a machine learning software that allows for microinjection at a trained target site in zebrafish eggs at unprecedented speed. The software is based on the open-source deep-learning library Inception v3. In a first step, the software distinguishes wells containing embryos at one-cell stage from wells to be skipped with an accuracy of 93%. A second step was developed to pinpoint the injection site. Deep learning allows to predict this location on average within 42 μm to manually annotated sites. Using a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), both steps together take less than 100 milliseconds. We first tested our system by injecting a morpholino into the middle of the yolk and found that the automated injection efficiency is as efficient as manual injection (~ 80%). Next, we tested both CRISPR/Cas9 and DNA construct injections into the zygote and obtained a comparable efficiency to that of an experienced experimentalist. Combined with a higher throughput, this results in a higher yield. Hence, the automated injection of CRISPR/Cas9 will allow high-throughput applications to knock out and knock in relevant genes to study their mechanisms or pathways of interest in diverse areas of biomedical research.</p></div

Traumatic life events and suicide risk among jail inmates: The influence of types of events, time period and significant others.

Relationships between traumatic life events and suicide risk were studied in two samples of jail inmates with a low (N D 216) and a high (N D 51) suicide risk. Although nonsuicidal inmates reported a high prevalence of traumatic life events, suicidal inmates reported even higher prevalence rates. Suicidal inmates reported more episodes of sexual abuse, physical maltreatment, emotional maltreatment, abandonment, and suicide attempts by significant others. They also had experienced more traumatic life events during childhood, later life, and detention. It is concluded that traumatic life events are associated with suicide risk and that such an association remains in a population with a high prevalence of traumatic life events. It is also concluded that suicide risk is dependent of the type of life event, the timing of the event, and the type of persons involved in the event

Plasma levels of heart failure biomarkers are primarily a reflection of extracardiac production

Plasma heart failure (HF) biomarkers, like natriuretic peptides, are important in diagnosis, prognosis and HF treatment. Several novel HF biomarkers have been identified, including Gal-3, GDF-15 and TIMP-1, but their clinical potential remains vague. Here we investigated plasma biomarker levels in relation to tissue expression and structural and functional cardiac changes. Methods: Cardiac remodeling, cardiac function, and plasma and tissue biomarker levels were investigated in mice after myocardial infarction induced by temporal and permanent LAD ligation (tLAD and pLAD). In addition, a pressure overload model induced by transverse aortic constriction (TAC) and an obese/hypertensive HFpEF-like mouse model were investigated. Results: Plasma levels of ANP and its cardiac expression were strictly associated with cardiac remodeling and function. Gal-3, GDF-15 and TIMP-1 cardiac expressions were also related to cardiac remodeling and function, but not their plasma levels. Only directly after myocardial infarction could elevated plasma levels of Gal-3 and TIMP-1 be detected. Eight weeks after infarction, plasma levels were not elevated despite enhanced cardiac expression and low EF (18.3±3.3%, pLAD). Plasma levels of TIMP-1 and GDF-15 were elevated after TAC, but this also correlated with increased lung expression and congestion. In obese-hypertensive mice, elevated plasma levels of Gal-3, GDF-15 and TIMP1 were associated with increased adipose tissue expression and not with cardiac function. Conclusions: The Gal-3, GDF-15 and TIMP-1 plasma pool levels are hardly influenced by dynamic changes in cardiac expression. These biomarkers are not specific for indices of cardiac remodeling, but predominantly reflect stress in other affected tissues and hence provide health information beyond the heart

Negative and positive childhood experiences across developmental periods in psychiatric patients with different diagnoses – an explorative study

BACKGROUND: A high frequency of childhood abuse has often been reported in adult psychiatric patients. The present survey explores the relationship between psychiatric diagnoses and positive and negative life events during childhood and adulthood in psychiatric samples. METHODS: A total of 192 patients with diagnoses of alcohol-related disorders (n = 45), schizophrenic disorders (n = 52), affective disorders (n = 54), and personality disorders (n = 41) completed a 42-item self-rating scale (Traumatic Antecedents Questionnaire, TAQ). The TAQ assesses personal positive experiences (competence and safety) and negative experiences (neglect, separation, secrets, emotional, physical and sexual abuse, trauma witnessing, other traumas, and alcohol and drugs abuse) during four developmental periods, beginning from early childhood to adulthood. Patients were recruited from four Psychiatric hospitals in Germany, Switzerland, and Romania; 63 subjects without any history of mental illness served as controls. RESULTS: The amount of positive experiences did not differ significantly among groups, except for safety scores that were lower in patients with personality disorders as compared to the other groups. On the other side, negative experiences appeared more frequently in patients than in controls. Emotional neglect and abuse were reported in patients more frequently than physical and sexual abuse, with negative experiences encountered more often in late childhood and adolescence than in early childhood. The patients with alcohol-related and personality disorders reported more negative events than the ones with schizophrenic and affective disorders. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings add evidence to the relationship between retrospectively reported childhood experiences and psychiatric diagnoses, and emphasize the fact that a) emotional neglect and abuse are the most prominent negative experiences, b) adolescence is a more 'sensitive' period for negative experiences as compared to early childhood, and c) a high amount of reported emotional and physical abuse occurs in patients with alcohol-related and personality disorders respectively

Predictive processing and the varieties of psychological trauma

A recently popular framework in the cognitive sciences takes the human nervous system to be a hierarchically arranged Bayesian prediction machine. In this paper, we examine psychological trauma through the lens of this framework. We suggest that this can help us to understand the nature of trauma, and the different effects that different kinds of trauma can have. We end by exploring synergies between our approach and current theories of PTSD, and gesture toward future directions

The phospholamban p.(Arg14del) pathogenic variant leads to cardiomyopathy with heart failure and is unreponsive to standard heart failure therapy

Phospholamban (PLN) plays a role in cardiomyocyte calcium handling as primary inhibitor of sarco/endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA). The p.(Arg14del) pathogenic variant in the PLN gene results in a high risk of developing dilated or arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy with heart failure. There is no established treatment other than standard heart failure therapy or heart transplantation. In this study, we generated a novel mouse model with the PLN-R14del pathogenic variant, performed detailed phenotyping, and tested the efficacy of established heart failure therapies eplerenone or metoprolol. Heterozygous PLN-R14del mice demonstrated increased susceptibility to ex vivo induced arrhythmias, and cardiomyopathy at 18 months of age, which was not accelerated by isoproterenol infusion. Homozygous PLN-R14del mice exhibited an accelerated phenotype including cardiac dilatation, contractile dysfunction, decreased ECG potentials, high susceptibility to ex vivo induced arrhythmias, myocardial fibrosis, PLN protein aggregation, and early mortality. Neither eplerenone nor metoprolol administration improved cardiac function or survival. In conclusion, our novel PLN-R14del mouse model exhibits most features of human disease. Administration of standard heart failure therapy did not rescue the phenotype, underscoring the need for better understanding of the pathophysiology of PLN-R14del-associated cardiomyopathy. This model provides a great opportunity to study the pathophysiology, and to screen for potential therapeutic treatments

Author Correction:The phospholamban p.(Arg14del) pathogenic variant leads to cardiomyopathy with heart failure and is unresponsive to standard heart failure therapy (Scientific Reports, (2020), 10, 1, (9819), 10.1038/s41598-020-66656-9)

The title in the original version of this Article contained a typographical error of ‘unresponsive’. The error has now been corrected in the PDF and HTML versions of the Article