Infertility problems and mental health symptoms in a community-based sample: depressive symptoms among infertile men, but not women

Most researchers agree that men’s and women’s experiences of infertility are fundamentally different, and impacts upon the nature of psychological distress encountered. However, design flaws, including non-random samples unrepresentative of the general population, compromise many existing studies. Data derived from a random general community sample provides prevalence of current infertility, and permits examination of longitudinal associations between mental health symptoms and infertility among 1,978 participants aged 28-32 years. In the previous 12-months, infertility was experienced by 2.1% and 5.4% partnered men and women. Infertility independently predicted depressive symptomatology in men, and anxiety symptoms among women. Gender differences were sustained, even controlling for prior depression and anxiety. Health professionals are encouraged to proactively enquire about affective symptoms experienced by both women and men with infertility problems

On the Fault Line: A Qualitative Exploration of High School Teachers’ Involvement with Student Mental Health Issues

School-based mental health (SBMH) research often underplays the crucial role that teachers play in supporting student mental health, even as teachers often find themselves encountering student mental health issues. Further, teachers’ and school-based mental health practitioners’ (SBMHPs) work with shared students has historically tended toward distance rather than collaboration. This article explores the virtual fault line where SBMHPs’ and teachers’ work intersect, concerning student mental health issues. Drawing on qualitative data gathered at three high schools that, to varying degrees, required teachers’ involvement with student mental health issues, this study analyzes the nature of teachers’ work in this area. In particular, the study identifies ways in which teachers provided psychosocial support, as well as how teachers’ and SBMHPs’ work intersected. Findings indicate that uncertainty existed at the three schools about teachers’ involvement with student mental health issues, and that this uncertainty was reinforced by organizational structures that promoted a separation of teaching from SBMH. Implications for practice, professional learning, and research are discussed

The influence of the Al stabilizer layer thickness on the normal zone propagation velocity in high current superconductors

The stability of high-current superconductors is challenging in the design of superconducting magnets. When the stability requirements are fulfilled, the protection against a quench must still be considered. A main factor in the design of quench protection systems is the resistance growth rate in the magnet following a quench. The usual method for determining the resistance growth in impregnated coils is to calculate the longitudinal velocity with which the normal zone propagates in the conductor along the coil windings. Here, we present a 2D numerical model for predicting the normal zone propagation velocity in Al stabilized Rutherford NbTi cables with large cross section. By solving two coupled differential equations under adiabatic conditions, the model takes into account the thermal diffusion and the current redistribution process following a quench. Both the temperature and magnetic field dependencies of the superconductor and the metal cladding materials properties are included. Unlike common normal zone propagation analyses, we study the influence of the thickness of the cladding on the propagation velocity for varying operating current and magnetic field. To assist in the comprehension of the numerical results, we also introduce an analytical formula for the longitudinal normal zone propagation. The analysis distinguishes between low-current and high-current regimes of normal zone propagation, depending on the ratio between the characteristic times of thermal and magnetic diffusion. We show that above a certain thickness, the cladding acts as a heat sink with a limited contribution to the acceleration of the propagation velocity with respect to the cladding geometry. Both numerical and analytical results show good agreement with experimental data.Comment: To be published in Physics Procedia (ICEC 25 conference special issue

A journey of embedding mental health lived experience in social work education

The value of learning from mental health lived experience is widely acknowledged, however, the nature of lived experience involvement in Australian social work education seldom extends beyond guest lecturing. Further, few opportunities exist that build the capacity of people with lived experience to become educators within tertiary settings. In this paper we present the Valuing Lived Experience Project (VLEP), an initiative led by a Lived Experience Academic (LEA) that seeks to systematically and meaningfully embed lived experience into the social work curriculum at a Western Australian university by providing significant opportunities for the capacity building of both individuals with mental health lived experience and academics. Given the relative infancy of service user involvement in Australian social work education, the VLEP offers a number of opportunities for reflection and consideration. A long-standing partnership between a LEA and Social Work Academic is described, the activities and key learnings of the VLEP to date are outlined, and we offer our reflections on challenges encountered throughout the journey. We hope that our experiences and learnings can be drawn upon to progress lived experience participation in tertiary settings and further legitimise lived experience involvement in the education of social workers

High-Resolution Near-Infrared Imaging and Polarimetry of Four Proto-Planetary Nebulae

High-resolution near-infrared HST NICMOS (F160W, F222M) images and polarization (2 um) observations were made of four bipolar proto-planetary nebulae (PPNs): IRAS 17150-3224, IRAS 17441-2411, IRAS 17245-3951, and IRAS 16594-4656. The first three of these are viewed nearly edge-on, and for the first time the central stars in them are seen. Color maps reveal a reddened torus between the bipolar lobes in the edge-on cases, with bluer lobes. The polarization values are high, with maximum values ranging from 40 to 80%. The polarization patterns are basically centrosymmetric, with some deviations in the low polarization equatorial regions. For IRAS 17150-3224, circumstellar arcs are seen at 1.6 um, along with a newly-discovered loop in the equatorial region. Bright caps are seen at the end of the lobes, indicating that they are not open-ended. A distinct point-symmetric pattern is seen in the strengths of the polarization vectors, especially in IRAS 17150-3224. HST NICMOS observations provide a valuable complement to the WFPC2 visible images in deriving the basic structure of bipolar PPNs.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomical Journal higher resolution figures are available on http://katherine.as.arizona.edu/~ksu/cv/su_nicmos7840.ps.g

Evaluation and revision of inferential comprehension in narrative texts: an eye movement study

We investigated the processes of how adult readers evaluate and revise their situation model during reading by monitoring their eye movements as they read narrative texts and subsequent critical sentences. In each narrative text, a short introduction primed a knowledge-based inference, followed by a target concept that was either expected (e.g., “oven”) or unexpected (e.g., “grill”) in relation to the inferred concept. Eye movements showed that readers detected a mismatch between the new unexpected information and their prior interpretation, confirming their ability to evaluate inferential information. Just below the narrative text, a critical sentence included a target word that was either congruent (e.g., “roasted”) or incongruent (e.g., “barbecued”) with the expected but not the unexpected concept. Readers spent less time reading the congruent than the incongruent target word, reflecting the facilitation of prior information. In addition, when the unexpected (but not expected) concept had been presented, participants with lower verbal (but not visuospatial) working memory span exhibited longer reading times and made more regressions (from the critical sentence to previous information) on encountering congruent information, indicating difficulty in inhibiting their initial incorrect interpretation and revising their situation mode

Becoming a written word: eye movements reveal order of acquisition effects following incidental exposure to new words during silent reading

We know that from mid-childhood onwards most new words are learned implicitly via reading; however, most word learning studies have taught novel items explicitly. We examined incidental word learning during reading by focusing on the well-documented finding that words which are acquired early in life are processed more quickly than those acquired later. Novel words were embedded in meaningful sentences and were presented to adult readers early (day 1) or later (day 2) during a five-day exposure phase. At test adults read the novel words in semantically neutral sentences. Participants’ eye movements were monitored throughout exposure and test. Adults also completed a surprise memory test in which they had to match each novel word with its definition. Results showed a decrease in reading times for all novel words over exposure, and significantly longer total reading times at test for early than late novel words. Early-presented novel words were also remembered better in the offline test. Our results show that order of presentation influences processing time early in the course of acquiring a new word, consistent with partial and incremental growth in knowledge occurring as a function of an individual’s experience with each word

Population trajectory and stressors of Acropora palmata sites in the Florida Keys

The decline of elkhorn coral, Acropora palmata, has been ongoing for decades, but the causes of decline and the resulting population status continue to be topics of study. Past efforts to categorize stressors have ranged from spatially and/or temporally focused efforts that detect local stressors but may miss broader patterns to meta-analyses that identify large-scale trends but may not account for finer-scale variability. We here conduct an analysis of sites surveyed across five years (2010-2015) and much of the Florida Reef Tract in order to look at large-scale patterns while also accounting for site, habitat, seasonal, and annual variability. Through fate-tracking across nine sites, we assess trends in total tissue amount, fragmentation and fragment survival, and prevalence and severity of stressors. Acute stressors included severe bleaching events and spikes in disease prevalence, while chronic stressors were dominated by corallivorous snail predation. Four of nine survey sites experienced near total declines in population over the survey period, but the timing and cause of each differed, even among sites within a few kilometers of each other. There were notable differences in the prevalence and severity of stressors between forereef and backreef sites. We conclude that generalizing the population trajectories and stressors of A. palmata can misrepresent the conditions at individual sites. We also conclude that the forereef and backreef environments examined here differ in their stressors, and that habitat should be identified as a variable of interest in assessing A. palmata trajectories. We use this information to speculate that the remaining population of A. palmata within Dry Tortugas National Park may have survived as a result of its unique backreef geography

A multiwavelength study of young massive star forming regions: II. The dust environment

We present observations of 1.2-mm dust continuum emission, made with the Swedish ESO Submillimeter Telescope, towards eighteen luminous IRAS point sources, all with colors typical of compact HII regions and associated with CS(2-1) emission, thought to be representative of young massive star forming regions. Emission was detected toward all the IRAS objects. We find that the 1.2-mm sources associated with them have distinct physical parameters, namely sizes of 0.4 pc, dust temperatures of 30 K, masses of 2x10^3 Msun, column densities of 3x10^23 cm^-2, and densities of 4x10^5 cm^-3. We refer to these dust structures as massive and dense cores. Most of the 1.2-mm sources show single-peaked structures, several of which exhibit a bright compact peak surrounded by a weaker extended envelope. The observed radial intensity profiles of sources with this type of morphology are well fitted with power-law intensity profiles with power-law indices in the range 1.0-1.7. This result indicates that massive and dense cores are centrally condensed, having radial density profiles with power-law indices in the range 1.5-2.2. We also find that the UC HII regions detected with ATCA towards the IRAS sources investigated here (Paper I) are usually projected at the peak position of the 1.2-mm dust continuum emission, suggesting that massive stars are formed at the center of the centrally condensed massive and dense cores.Comment: 6 figures, accepted by Ap