Psychological distress, attachment, and conflict resolution in romantic relationships

Understanding the correlates of psychological distress has important implications for enhancing clinical treatments and promoting well-being and mental health in daily life. The present study examines the associations between attachment avoidance and anxiety, conflict resolution, and psychological distress in romantic relationships in a large sample (N = 697) recruited online. Anxiety and avoidance were associated with heightened psychological distress, and maladaptive conflict resolution strategies were found partially mediate these associations. Future directions and clinical implications highlighting attachment and conflict resolution are discussed

Gains from the upgrade of the cold neutron triple-axis spectrometer FLEXX at the BER-II reactor

The upgrade of the cold neutron triple-axis spectrometer FLEXX is described. We discuss the characterisation of the gains from the new primary spectrometer, including a larger guide and double focussing monochromator, and present measurements of the energy and momentum resolution and of the neutron flux of the instrument. We found an order of magnitude gain in intensity (at the cost of coarser momentum resolution), and that the incoherent elastic energy widths are measurably narrower than before the upgrade. The much improved count rate should allow the use of smaller single crystals samples and thus enable the upgraded FLEXX spectrometer to continue making leading edge measurements.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, 5 table

An Ultra-Stable Referenced Interrogation System in the Deep Ultraviolet for a Mercury Optical Lattice Clock

We have developed an ultra-stable source in the deep ultraviolet, suitable to fulfill the interrogation requirements of a future fully-operational lattice clock based on neutral mercury. At the core of the system is a Fabry-P\'erot cavity which is highly impervious to temperature and vibrational perturbations. The mirror substrate is made of fused silica in order to exploit the comparatively low thermal noise limits associated with this material. By stabilizing the frequency of a 1062.6 nm Yb-doped fiber laser to the cavity, and including an additional link to LNE-SYRTE's fountain primary frequency standards via an optical frequency comb, we produce a signal which is both stable at the 1E-15 level in fractional terms and referenced to primary frequency standards. The signal is subsequently amplified and frequency-doubled twice to produce several milliwatts of interrogation signal at 265.6 nm in the deep ultraviolet.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Occupational fraud risk, internal control initiatives and the sustainability of Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises in a developing country: A Literature Review

Prior research supports the view that South African Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) add significant socio-economic value to the national economy. Notwithstanding the latter, these business entities’ sustainability are deemed to be among the worst in the world as an estimated 80% of them fail after being in existence for three years. Although the sustainability of South African SMMEs is believed to be adversely affected by an array of risks which realise (stemming from a harsh economic environment), it is imperative that South African SMMEs make use of sound internal control initiatives to mitigate such risks. Unfortunately, scholarly literature suggests that South African SMMEs make use of customised internal control initiatives which are often viewed as inadequate and/or ineffective which, in turn, do not mitigate risks; resulting in an adverse influence on the sustainability of these business entities. In order to shed light on the aforementioned phenomenon, for this study, a literature review was conducted to investigate the theoretical relationship which exist internal control initiatives, occupational fraud risk, and SMME sustainability in a South African context

Effects of land use change on streamflow and stream water quality of a coastal catchment

This study aimed to link land cover/use change to water quality in an important water supply coastal catchment. The approach followed a spatial and temporal analysis of historical catchment land use change to assess how changes influenced water quality and river flow in the Touws and Duiwe Rivers, southwestern Cape, South Africa. Each sub-catchment has unique characteristics which influence land use and water quality and the purpose was to analyse each one separately. Historical water quality and flow analysis were based on the records available (Duiwe River: 1998-2013; Touws River: 1980-2013) together with rainfall data. Records were analysed to detect trends over time, which were linked to changes in land use activities. Agriculture intensified rapidly in the Duiwe River catchment with most arable land cultivated by 1960 and water storage as farm dams escalating. Concentrations of nutrients and electrical conductivity were higher in the Duiwe River than in the more natural Touws River, and were positively correlated to river flows. Mean values for total nitrogen and electrical conductivity were 0.03 mg/L and 16.7 mg/L, respectively, in the Touws River and 0.25 mg/L and 127 mg/L, respectively, in the Duiwe River. Nutrient concentrations decreased in the Duiwe River after 2006 as fertilizer applications to pastures were reduced. The South African Target Water Quality Ranges were exceeded at times and in the Touws catchment this appears to have been due to extensive fires. For instance, sodium concentrations reached a maximum of 1 874.5 mg/L in 1996 compared to a usual average concentration of 20.8 mg/L where the guidelines are between 0 and100 mg/L. The link between land cover/use and water quality was demonstrated and when spatial heterogeneity of the catchments was altered by human or natural events, this was reflected in changes in the water quality.IS

A four-season prospective study of muscle strain reoccurrences in a professional football club

The aim of this investigation was to characterise muscle strain reinjuries and examine their impact on playing resources in a professional football club. Muscle strains and reoccurrences were prospectively diagnosed over four seasons in first-team players (n = 46). Altogether, 188 muscle strains were diagnosed with 44 (23.4%) of these classed as reinjuries, leading to an incidence of 1.32 strain reoccurrences per 1,000 hours exposure (95% Confidence Interval [CI], 0.93–1.71). The incidence of recurrent strains was higher in match-play compared with training (4.51, 95% CI, 2.30–6.72 vs 0.94, 95% CI, 0.59–1.29). Altogether, 50.0% of players sustained at least 1 reoccurrence of a muscle strain, leading to approximately 3 days lost and 0.4 matches missed per player per season. The incidence of recurrent strains was highest in centre-forwards (2.15, 95% CI, 1.06–3.24), peaked in May (3.78, 95% CI, 0.47–7.09), and mostly affected the hamstrings (38.6% of all reoccurrences). Mean layoff for nonreoccurrences and recurrences was similar: ∼7.5 days. These results provide greater insight into the extent of the problem of recurrent muscle strains in professional football

Outbreak of West Nile virus causing severe neurological involvement in children, Nuba Mountains, Sudan, 2002.

An atypical outbreak of West Nile virus (WNV) occurred in Ngorban County, South Kordophan, Sudan, from May to August 2002. We investigated the epidemic and conducted a case-control study in the village of Limon. Blood samples were obtained for cases and controls. Patients with obvious sequelae underwent cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sampling as well. We used enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and neutralization tests for laboratory diagnosis and identified 31 cases with encephalitis, four of whom died. Median age was 36 months. Bivariate analysis did not reveal any significant association with the risk factors investigated. Laboratory analysis confirmed presence of IgM antibodies caused by WNV in eight of 13 cases, indicative of recent viral infection. The unique aspects of the WNW outbreak in Sudan, i.e. disease occurrence solely among children and the clinical domination of encephalitis, involving severe neurological sequelae, demonstrate the continuing evolution of WNV virulence. The spread of such a virus to other countries or continents cannot be excluded

Automatic Plane Pose Estimation for Cardiac Left Ventricle Coverage Estimation via Deep Adversarial Regression Network

Accurate segmentation of the ventricles plays a crucial role in determining cardiac functional parameters such as ventricular volume, ventricular mass, or ejection fraction. However, poor image quality, such as inadequate coverage of the left ventricle (LV) and right ventricle (RV) in cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) image sequences, can significantly affect the assessment of cardiac function. This study investigates issues related to missing or corrupted imaging planes, which often lead to incomplete ventricle coverage. To address the challenge of estimating ventricle coverage in CMR images regardless of variations in imaging parameters such as device type, magnetic field strength, and protocol execution, we introduce a novel convolutional neural network (CNN) based on adversarial learning. Additionally, we integrate supplementary information (e.g., cross-view image data) as privileged information to enhance the interpretability of our model’s predictions and identify potential biases or inaccuracies. This research represents the first attempt to automatically estimate ventricular coverage by identifying missing slices and plane orientations in CMR images using a dataset-agnostic approach. The effectiveness of the proposed model is demonstrated through the evaluation of datasets from three diverse and sizable image acquisition cohorts, demonstrating superior performance compared to existing methods