Pressure Tuning of the Charge Density Wave in the Halogen-Bridged Transition-Metal (MX) Solid Pt2Br6(NH3)4Pt_2Br_6(NH_3)_4

We report the pressure dependence up to 95 kbar of Raman active stretching modes in the quasi-one-dimensional MX chain solid $Pt_2Br_6(NH_3)_4$. The data indicate that a predicted pressure-induced insulator-to-metal transition does not occur, but are consistent with the solid undergoing either a three-dimensional structural distortion, or a transition from a charge-density wave to another broken-symmetry ground state. We show that such a transition cacan be well-modeled within a Peierls-Hubbard Hamiltonian. 1993 PACS: 71.30.+h, 71.45.Lr, 75.30.Fv, 78.30.-j, 81.40.VwComment: 4 pages, ReVTeX 3.0, figures available from the authors on request (Gary Kanner, [email protected]), to be published in Phys Rev B Rapid Commun, REVISION: minor typos corrected, LA-UR-94-246

Evaluation of a gender-sensitive physical activity programme for inactive men in Ireland: Protocol paper for a pragmatic controlled trial

The excess burden of ill-health, mortality and premature death experienced by many men, and poorer men in particular, across the developed world has prompted calls for the development of gender sensitised health related services for men. An emergent body of evidence indicates that successful public health work with men can be accomplished when it utilises elements with which men are familiar and secure. In particular, physical activity (PA) is proven here to be a useful ‘hook’ to engage men. ‘Men on the Move’ (MoM) is a community-based PA programme designed to engage inactive men to improve their overall health and well-being. The MoM programme was delivered by practitioner partnerships in diverse communities and among diverse groups of men under ‘real world’ conditions to assess both its efficacy and replicability with a view to scaling-up the programme nationally for population wide impact. Establishing appropriate protocols is critical when conducting research that translates into practice, is replicable in practice and can be disseminated at a population level. The purpose of this paper is to detail the protocols used in the design, implementation and evaluation of the MoM programme. Specifically, the process of engaging men in a community based PA intervention and sustaining that engagement over the 12 weeks and the protocols used to evaluate the impact of participation in MoM on biopsychosocial health up to 52 weeks will be outlined. If the intervention proves successful, gender-sensitive community based PA interventions for men could be a promising avenue to address their health needs. These findings may be of support to both practitioners endeavouring to engage men and others engaged in translational research to ensure their research translates to meaningful action in practice

An Interprofessional Active-Learning Laboratory on Urinary Incontinence

Background/Objectives:Urinary incontinence (UI) is a common syndrome with peak prevalence in older adulthood. Involuntary loss of urine from the bladder may be due to physical abnormalities, pelvic floor dysfunction, or reversible causes, like medication or infection.1 UI is an underreported and underdiagnosed geriatric syndrome that significantly impacts quality of life, increases risk of institutionalization, and contributes to significant patient- and system-level healthcare expenditures.1 Healthcare practitioners require knowledge and skills necessary to provide quality care to older adults with UI. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institute on Aging, and American Geriatrics Society recommend the healthcare workforce work collaboratively and interprofessionally to meet the needs of those with UI.2,3 Occupational therapy (OT) practitioners assist individuals with activities of daily living, including self-care activities like toileting, health management, and social participation. UI content is necessary and important for OT students seeking to work in any setting of care.4 Nurse practitioner (NP) students often bring some experience with UI from their nursing background. NP students often lack familiarity with absorbent products and devices that many of their patients use at home. Across diverse care settings, nurse practitioners are tasked with helping patients manage UI. Understanding the benefits and drawbacks of non-pharmacologic interventions will be critical to providing high quality healthcare.5 Methods/Innovative Practice: Faculty from the Schools of Pharmacy and Nursing and the College of Health Professions Department of OT collaborated to expand a UI focused hands-on learning activity to incorporate interprofessional collaboration. In Fall 2022, a combined 94 students from the family NP and OT programs participated in a 2-hour active-learning laboratory session. The session consisted of five stations – pelvic floor musculature, absorbent products, urinary catheters, pharmacological treatment, and durable medical equipment (DME) for continence support – and concluded with a large group debriefing session. Students completed a pre- and post-lab assessment on knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding UI. Students also evaluated the UI laboratory. This project bridges educational gaps in UI among health professions students at VCU. Funds from a Geriatric Training and Education grant and a small grant offered by the Department of OT were used to purchase UI supplies such as absorbent products and home catheters. Results: Ninety-four students attended the lab session in fall 2023: 47 OT and 47 NP students. 90 students completed the post-lab assessment (95.7%). Preliminary data analysis indicates that the students felt the activity was effective and an enjoyable way to learn about UI. Self ratings of confidence improved from baseline; however, content knowledge scores did not. NP students ranked the absorbent products and pharmacological treatment stations as the most helpful while OT students ranked the DME and catheter stations as the most helpful. Conclusion:Active learning and interprofessional educational activities provide opportunities for health science students to bridge gaps in knowledge. Team teaching allows for synergy among the programs and also allows students to learn from other health profession educators. While educators need to be aware that each discipline has unique strengths and learning needs, mixing groups provides for peer teaching across disciplines and further reinforces the goal of interprofessional practice. Future plans include condensing the pelvic floor and DME stations into one station, increasing the time for each station, and ensuring adequate physical space for noise control

Photoinduced charge separation in Q1D heterojunction materials: Evidence for electron-hole pair separation in mixed-halide MXMX solids

Resonance Raman experiments on doped and photoexcited single crystals of mixed-halide $MX$ complexes ($M$=Pt; $X$=Cl,Br) clearly indicate charge separation: electron polarons preferentially locate on PtBr segments while hole polarons are trapped within PtCl segments. This polaron selectivity, potentially very useful for device applications, is demonstrated theoretically using a discrete, 3/4-filled, two-band, tight-binding, extended Peierls-Hubbard model. Strong hybridization of the PtCl and PtBr electronic bands is the driving force for separation.Comment: n LaTeX, figures available by mail from JTG ([email protected]

Heritability of neuropsychological measures in Schizophrenia and non-psychiatric populations: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Schizophrenia is characterized by neuropsychological deficits across many cognitive domains. Cognitive phenotypes with high heritability and genetic overlap with schizophrenia liability can help elucidate the mechanisms leading from genes to psychopathology. We performed a meta-analysis of 170 published twin and family heritability studies of >800 000 nonpsychiatric and schizophrenia subjects to accurately estimate heritability across many neuropsychological tests and cognitive domains. The proportion of total variance of each phenotype due to additive genetic effects (A), shared environment (C), and unshared environment and error (E), was calculated by averaging A, C, and E estimates across studies and weighting by sample size. Heritability ranged across phenotypes, likely due to differences in genetic and environmental effects, with the highest heritability for General Cognitive Ability (32%– 67%), Verbal Ability (43%–72%), Visuospatial Ability (20%–80%), and Attention/Processing Speed (28%–74%), while the lowest heritability was observed for Executive Function (20%–40%). These results confirm that many cognitive phenotypes are under strong genetic influences. Heritability estimates were comparable in nonpsychiatric and schizophrenia samples, suggesting that environmental factors and illness-related moderators (eg, medication) do not substantially decrease heritability in schizophrenia samples, and that genetic studies in schizophrenia samples are informative for elucidating the genetic basis of cognitive deficits. Substantial genetic overlap between cognitive phenotypes and schizophrenia liability (average rg = −.58) in twin studies supports partially shared genetic etiology. It will be important to conduct comparative studies in well-powered samples to determine whether the same or different genes and genetic variants influence cognition in schizophrenia patients and the general population

Docemur docemus:peer-assisted learning improves the knowledge gain of tutors in the highest quartile of achievement but not those in the lowest quartile

Objectives: Peer-assisted learning (PAL) is a form of collaborative learning where members of a peer group act as teachers for each other. A reciprocal PAL program was designed to investigate whether there were differential gains in knowledge acquisition among tutors compared with tutees. Design: Bayesian statistical analysis was used to quantitatively assess the effect of tutor status on performance in a knowledge-based examination. Subgroup analysis according to student achievement and question difficulty was performed. Participants and Setting: Final year undergraduate medical students in a 5-year degree program (n = 126). Results: The overall probability of getting a correct answer on the knowledge examination was 49.7%. For questions on topics where a student had acted as a tutor this improved to 57.3%. However, students who performed in the upper quartile had a greater percentage gain in the probability of a correct answer in topics that they had taught vs students who performed in the lowest quartile. Conclusions: There was demonstrable overall knowledge gain associated with acting as a tutor in a PAL program but the greatest gain occurred in students of highest academic ability.</p

Soliton excitations in halogen-bridged mixed-valence binuclear metal complexes

Motivated by recent stimulative observations in halogen (X)-bridged binuclear transition-metal (M) complexes, which are referred to as MMX chains, we study solitons in a one-dimensional three-quarter-filled charge-density-wave system with both intrasite and intersite electron-lattice couplings. Two distinct ground states of MMX chains are reproduced and the soliton excitations on them are compared. In the weak-coupling region, all the solitons are degenerate to each other and are uniquely scaled by the band gap, whereas in the strong-coupling region, they behave differently deviating from the scenario in the continuum limit. The soliton masses are calculated and compared with those for conventional mononuclear MX chains.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures embedded, to be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 71, No. 1 (2002

ENIGMA and global neuroscience: A decade of large-scale studies of the brain in health and disease across more than 40 countries

This review summarizes the last decade of work by the ENIGMA (Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta Analysis) Consortium, a global alliance of over 1400 scientists across 43 countries, studying the human brain in health and disease. Building on large-scale genetic studies that discovered the first robustly replicated genetic loci associated with brain metrics, ENIGMA has diversified into over 50 working groups (WGs), pooling worldwide data and expertise to answer fundamental questions in neuroscience, psychiatry, neurology, and genetics. Most ENIGMA WGs focus on specific psychiatric and neurological conditions, other WGs study normal variation due to sex and gender differences, or development and aging; still other WGs develop methodological pipelines and tools to facilitate harmonized analyses of "big data" (i.e., genetic and epigenetic data, multimodal MRI, and electroencephalography data). These international efforts have yielded the largest neuroimaging studies to date in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorders, epilepsy, and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. More recent ENIGMA WGs have formed to study anxiety disorders, suicidal thoughts and behavior, sleep and insomnia, eating disorders, irritability, brain injury, antisocial personality and conduct disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. Here, we summarize the first decade of ENIGMA's activities and ongoing projects, and describe the successes and challenges encountered along the way. We highlight the advantages of collaborative large-scale coordinated data analyses for testing reproducibility and robustness of findings, offering the opportunity to identify brain systems involved in clinical syndromes across diverse samples and associated genetic, environmental, demographic, cognitive, and psychosocial factors

Optical and Quasi-Optical Analysis of System Components for a Far-Infrared Space Interferometer

Many important astrophysical processes occur at wavelengths that fall within the far-infrared band of the EM spectrum, and over distance scales that require sub-arc second spatial resolution. It is clear that in order to achieve sub-arc second resolution at these relatively long wavelengths (compared to optical/near-IR), which are strongly absorbed by the atmosphere, a space-based far-IR interferometer will be required. We present analysis of the optical system for a proposed spatial-spectral interferometer, discussing the challenges that arise when designing such a system and the simulation techniques employed that aim to resolve these issues. Many of these specific challenges relate to combining the beams from multiple telescopes where the wavelengths involved are relatively short (compared to radio interferometry), meaning that care must be taken with mirror surface quality, where surface form errors not only present potential degradation of the single system beams, but also serve to reduce fringe visibility when multiple telescope beams are combined. Also, the long baselines required for sub-arc second resolution present challenges when considering propagation of the relatively long wavelengths of the signal beam, where beam divergence becomes significant if the beam demagnification of the telescopes is not carefully considered. Furthermore, detection of the extremely weak far-IR signals demands ultra-sensitive detectors and instruments capable of operating at maximum efficiency. Thus, as will be shown, care must be taken when designing each component of such a complex quasioptical system

ENIGMA and global neuroscience: A decade of large-scale studies of the brain in health and disease across more than 40 countries.

This review summarizes the last decade of work by the ENIGMA (Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta Analysis) Consortium, a global alliance of over 1400 scientists across 43 countries, studying the human brain in health and disease. Building on large-scale genetic studies that discovered the first robustly replicated genetic loci associated with brain metrics, ENIGMA has diversified into over 50 working groups (WGs), pooling worldwide data and expertise to answer fundamental questions in neuroscience, psychiatry, neurology, and genetics. Most ENIGMA WGs focus on specific psychiatric and neurological conditions, other WGs study normal variation due to sex and gender differences, or development and aging; still other WGs develop methodological pipelines and tools to facilitate harmonized analyses of "big data" (i.e., genetic and epigenetic data, multimodal MRI, and electroencephalography data). These international efforts have yielded the largest neuroimaging studies to date in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorders, epilepsy, and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. More recent ENIGMA WGs have formed to study anxiety disorders, suicidal thoughts and behavior, sleep and insomnia, eating disorders, irritability, brain injury, antisocial personality and conduct disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. Here, we summarize the first decade of ENIGMA's activities and ongoing projects, and describe the successes and challenges encountered along the way. We highlight the advantages of collaborative large-scale coordinated data analyses for testing reproducibility and robustness of findings, offering the opportunity to identify brain systems involved in clinical syndromes across diverse samples and associated genetic, environmental, demographic, cognitive, and psychosocial factors