Systematic review and meta-analysis: anxiety and depressive disorders in offspring of parents with anxiety disorders

Objective: We conducted meta-analyses to assess risk of anxiety disorders among offspring of parents with anxiety disorders and to establish whether there is evidence of specificity of risk for anxiety disorders as opposed to depression in offspring, and whether particular parent anxiety disorders confer risks for particular child anxiety disorders. We also examined whether risk was moderated by offspring age, gender, temperament and the presence of depressive disorders in parents. Method: We searched PsycINFO, PubMed and Web of Science in June, 2016 and July, 2017 (PROSPERO CRD42016048814). Study inclusion criteria: published in peer-reviewed journals; contained at least one group of parents with anxiety disorders and at least one comparison group of parents who did not have anxiety disorders; reported rates of anxiety disorders in offspring, and used validated diagnostic tools to ascertain diagnoses. We used random and mixed-effects models and evaluated study quality. Results: We included 25 studies (7285 offspring). Where parents had an anxiety disorder, offspring were significantly more likely to have anxiety (RR: 1.76, 95% CI = 1.58-1.96) and depressive disorders (RR: 1.31, 95% CI = 1.13-1.52) than offspring of parents without anxiety disorders. Parent Panic Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder appeared to confer particular risk. Risk was greater for offspring anxiety than depressive disorders (RR: 2.50, 95% CI = 1.50-4.16), and specifically for offspring Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Separation Anxiety Disorder and Specific Phobia, but there was no evidence that children of parents with particular anxiety disorders were at increased risk for the same particular anxiety disorders. Moderation analyses were possible only for offspring age, gender and parental depressive disorder; none were significant. Conclusions: Parent anxiety disorders pose specific risks of anxiety disorders to offspring. However, there is limited support for transmission of the same particular anxiety disorder. These results support the potential for targeted prevention of anxiety disorders

Biodiversity climate change impacts report card technical paper:10. Implications of climate change for coastal and inter-tidal habitats in the UK

Executive summary - Coastal habitats are complex, dynamic and interdependent. They are important in providing sea defences, areas for recreation, biodiversity and a range of other ecosystem services. - Increased air- and sea-surface temperatures have resulted in changes in the distribution of marine and coastal species. Both warmer- and colder-water species are shifting northwards. However, warmer-water species are shifting northwards faster than colder-water species are retreating, resulting in changes in community composition. Changes in the abundance of keystone taxa can cause a cascade of responses, further altering community composition. - Changes in the phenology of coastal species have been observed, with the rates of change in marine species being considerably greater than those in terrestrial and freshwater systems. Recent advances in the phenology of species have not all occurred at the same rate, in some cases resulting in mismatches of timing of annual cycles of animals and their food organisms. - Changes in precipitation are likely to affect coastal habitats, but the projected increase in winter rainfall and decrease in summer rainfall will tend to have opposing effects; the net result of these is not known. High winter rainfall and milder winter temperatures may extend the growing season and lead to faster succession and dominance by taller competitive plant species. This will be exacerbated by anthropogenic nutrient enrichment. However, increasing frequency and severity of summer droughts may counteract the effects of nutrient enrichment and winter precipitation. Increased drought will have impacts on habitats that are highly dependent on the maintenance of hydrological regimes, such as machair lochs and dune slacks. - Rising sea levels have been associated with the loss of coastal habitats. Predicted future rises will have significant impacts on coastal and intertidal habitats, including changing geomorphological processes, further habitat loss and increasing the vulnerability of infrastructure. However, coastal systems are dynamic and have the potential to adapt to rising sea levels, but only if there is an adequate supply of sediment to allow accretion and if there is landward space for the coast to roll-back into. Sea defences and other coastal management interrupt the movement of sediment between systems and prevent natural coastal realignment. - Managed coastal realignment is beneficial because it offers the potential to create habitat and provide flood defence benefits. Inevitably, there will be conflict between the need to maintain intertidal and other coastal habitats (e.g. saltmarsh, mud flat and sand dune) by realignment, and the need to protect valuable inland coastal habitats, such as grazing marsh and saline lagoons. - Future changes in coastal habitats are hard to predict because it is difficult to separate the impacts of rising sea levels from those of coastal management, including sea defences. Coastal zone management and adaptation, and the interactions with other climate drivers, nutrient deposition and habitat management, will have significant influence on the quantity, quality and location of future coastal habitats

Influence of a Moving Endwall on the Tip Clearance Vortex in an Axial Compressor Cascade

This experiment involved the design, construction, validation and testing of a new facility for the investigation of vortices generated by compressor rotor blade tip clearance with a moving endwall. A five-tube pressure rake placed downstream of the trailing edge of a cascade of blades measured the pressure field for flow coefficients ranging from 20 to 1.66 and tip clearances of 0.33, 1.0, 1.7 and 2.4 percent chord. Contour plots of mass averaged pressure loss coefficient appear to show the no-flow tip vortex becomes entrained and diffused by the moving wall boundary layer. The high loss region near the moving wall contracts toward and extends toward the pressure side of the adjacent blade. This contraction results in a reduction in overall blockage in the passage with a corresponding reduction in passage losses, toward an apparent steady-state value, for increasing end wall speed and decreasing tip clearance

Modelling evacuation using escalators: a London Underground dataset

This paper presents a brief analysis of an escalator human factors dataset collected in a London Underground (subway) station in England. The data analysis highlights and quantifies a variety of escalator human factors. Using the buildingEXODUS evacuation software, a series of evacuation scenarios of a hypothetical underground station are then presented. The simulation results demonstrate that escalator strategies and associated human factors can have a considerably influence upon an evacuation compared to using stairs alone

Pathways to inflated responsibility beliefs in adolescent obsessive-compulsive disorder: a preliminary investigation

Background: An inflated sense of responsibility is characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). No previous studies have investigated its origins. Five potential pathways to inflated responsibility beliefs have been proposed; these are tested in this study. Method: A novel measure, the Origins Questionnaire for Adolescents (OQA), was developed to assess experiences on these five pathways. Reliability of the OQA was investigated. The experiences on the five pathways to inflated responsibility beliefs of sixteen adolescents with a history of OCD were compared to sixteen adolescents with no history of OCD. Parents also reported on adolescents’ experiences on the five pathways. Results: Inter-rater reliability was high. The internal consistency of the subscales were only partly satisfactory. The groups differed on one pathway; the clinical group reported a higher sense of responsibility for significant incidents with a negative outcome prior to onset of OCD. Conclusions: An inflated sense of responsibility, in combination with the occurrence of specific incidents, might act as a vulnerability factor for development of OCD. Future research should consider how to measure the subtle effects of experiences of responsibility over the course of development

Bargaining with Incomplete Information

A central question in economics is understanding the difficulties that parties have in reaching mutually beneficial agreements. Informational differences provide an appealing explanation for bargaining inefficiencies. This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical and empirical literature on bargaining with incomplete information. The chapter begins with an analysis of bargaining within a mechanism design framework. A modern development is provided of the classic result that, given two parties with independent private valuations, ex post efficiency is attainable if and only if it is common knowledge that gains from trade exist. The classic problems of efficient trade with one-sided incomplete information but interdependent valuations, and of efficiently dissolving a partnership with two-sided incomplete information, are also reviewed using mechanism design. The chapter then proceeds to study bargaining where the parties sequentially exchange offers. Under one-sided incomplete information, it considers sequential bargaining between a seller with a known valuation and a buyer with a private valuation. When there is a "gap" between the seller's valuation and the support of buyer valuations, the seller-offer game has essentially a unique sequential equilibrium. This equilibrium exhibits the following properties: it is stationary, trade occurs in finite time, and the price is favorable to the informed party (the Coase Conjecture). The alternating-offer game exhibits similar properties, when a refinement of sequential equilibrium is applied. However, in the case of "no gap" between the seller's valuation and the support of buyer valuations, the bargaining does not conclude with probability one after any finite number of periods, and it does not follow that sequential equilibria need be stationary. If stationarity is nevertheless assumed, then the results parallel those for the "gap" case. However, if stationarity is not assumed, then instead a folk theorem obtains, so substantial delay is possible and the uninformed party may receive substantial surplus. The chapter also briefly sketches results for sequential bargaining with two-sided incomplete information. Finally, it reviews the empirical evidence on strategic bargaining with private information by focusing on one of the most prominent examples of bargaining: union contract negotiations.Bargaining; Delay; Incomplete Information

Modeling and analysis methodology for aeroelastically tailored chordwise deformable wings

Structural concepts have been created which produce chordwise camber deformation that results in enhanced lift. A wing box can be tailored to utilize each of these with composites. In attempting to optimize the aerodynamic benefits, we have found there are two optimal designs that are of interest. There is a weight optimum which corresponds to the maximum lift per unit structural weight. There is also a lift optimum that corresponds to maximum absolute lift. New structural models, the basic deformation mechanisms that are utilized and typical analytical results are presented. It appears that lift enhancements of sufficient magnitude can be produced to render this type of wing tailoring of practical interest. Experiments and finite element correlations are performed which confirm the validity of the theoretical models utilized

Evolution of photon and particle spectra in compact, luminous objects

The physics of high energy photons and particles (especially electrons and positrons) in the compact, high-energy-density of galactic nuclei and quasars was investigated. A numerical code was developed which follows the nonlinear spectral evolution of a pair/photon plasma, due to two-body scattering and interaction process, in an unmagnetized system. The code was applied both to static plasmas and to relativistic expanding winds