A neuroimaging study to characterise adolescent major depressive disorder, the effects of cognitive behavioural therapy, and potential subtypes based on familial loading

Adolescent major depressive disorder (MDD) can have devastating consequences that remain into adulthood. Although the severe effects on those that suffer from MDD are well understood, the neural mechanisms underpinning the illness are still unclear, as the past literature exploring adolescent MDD has suffered greatly from a lack of consistency. In particular, it is still unclear as to what deviations of brain structure and function actually occur in adolescent MDD. Furthermore, though much of the past literature has claimed that cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has a normalising effect on disrupted brain function in adolescent MDD, this has not been directly tested. Additionally, past literature has found that adult MDD patients with a high familial loading for MDD, defined as having at least one first degree relative with MDD, show different symptom profiles to MDD patients with a low familial loading for the illness. However, it is not yet clear whether these symptom differences also occur in adolescent MDD patients with differing familial loadings, nor is it clear whether these two patient groups also differ with respect to brain structure and function. If so, familial loading for MDD could potentially be used to subtype adolescent MDD patients. This thesis aimed to further elucidate the neural processes that may be unfolding within the depressed adolescent brain by investigating pre-treatment differences in cortical thickness, white matter volume, and resting-state functional connectivity, using the largest studied sample of adolescent MDD patients under the age of 18 years. This thesis further aimed to investigate CBT’s effects on brain function, and whether adolescent MDD patients could be subtyped based on familial loading for MDD. Before receiving treatment, adolescent MDD patients showed structural deviations in the form of greater cortical thickness and white matter volume within frontal and limbic regions of the brain. Furthermore, adolescent MDD patients also showed extensive pre-treatment overconnectivity within multiple functional brain networks, being the fronto-limbic, default mode, central executive, and salience networks. Moreover, when investigating the CBT-related changes to resting-state functional connectivity, in adolescent MDD patients, and how they relate to regions showing pre-treatment functional disruption, it was found that regions showing the greatest pre-treatment functional disruption actually showed the weakest CBT-related changes in resting-state functional connectivity. This suggests that CBT does not have a normalising effect on brain function in adolescent MDD but instead may have a rehabilitative effect on resting-state functional connectivity. Finally, when separating adolescent MDD patients into those with a high or low familial loading for MDD, the two patient groups differed with respect to the structure and function of the default mode network, as well as differing in rumination symptoms. Together, this work demonstrates the need for larger sample sizes to be used when investigating an illness as heterogenous as adolescent MDD, as well as direct investigations into the potential mechanisms of CBT. Moreover, it appears that some of this heterogeneity found in adolescent MDD may be partly addressed by subtyping patients, which may have implications for how the illness is viewed and treated in the future.Oon Khye Beng Ch’hia Tsio Studentship in preventative medicine, Downing College, University of Cambridg

Systematic analysis of mesh and meshless CFD methods for water impact problems

Two types of numerical simulations for the hydrodynamic solution of water entry problems are performed and systematically compared in order to highlight their peculiarities: a viscous Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (URANS) based on Volume of Fluid (VoF) approach and a meshless Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) solver. In both cases open-source software have been chosen. The numerical solutions from the two proposed CFD methods are verified against experimental measurements. The systematic analysis is performed considering a prescribed motion of the wedge aiming to a better understanding of the effect of the model set-up on the prediction of both local and global field variables. Even if a both codes shows a high ability to capture the global physics of the problem, due to the strongly non- linear dynamic of the body-flow interactions involved in impact problems, the local pressure peaks can be hardly predicted if the numerical method is not suitably tuned for the specific problem. Finally the two approaches are performed also for a free falling simulation, comparing the numerical predictions to the available experimental drop tests results

Electronic structure of defected polyethylene for Schottky emission

Polyethylene is one of the most used solid state insulators in electrical power industry. It is particularly used to electrically insulate high-voltage cables. Under the stresses associated with AC power supplies, this material undergoes ageing, which is often associated with treeing. It is thought that this phenomenon starts from gaseous defects embedded in the insulator bulk, leading to the formation of a cluster of cavities. Treeing is able to dig the matrix until complete breakdown of the insulating components. Cavities are generated by a sequence of partial discharges. Each discharge is triggered by an electron emission from the surface at the interface with gas. The Schottky effect is believed to be the most likely mechanism able to cause this electron emission.Our DFT modelling has suggested that electron emission is highly unlikely to occur if the surface is neutral. DOS analysis has revealed that the Schottky effect is also related to chemical defects. The latter must exhibit electronic states slightly under the conduction band. Furthermore, these sites must be able to act as a trap for negative charge excess. A polyethylene system with an excess electron, combined with specific oxidative groups, has proved to be consistent with experimental data

iALMA Cryofacility dry-run specifications

The iALMA Cryofacility consist of a 2x1 meter Cryofacility that will permit to test the ALMA band 2+3 cartridge at operational conditions. The Cryofacility will be setup at INAF/IASF-Bologna

Semantics and computation of the evolution of hybrid systems with ariadne

In this talk we will present material on the semantics, computability, and algorithms for the evolution of hybrid dynamical systems, and an overview of the tool Ariadne for verification of hybrid systems [1]. Hybrid systems are characterised by undergoing continuous evolution interspersed by discrete jumps. They exhibit all the complexities of finite automata, nonlinear dynamic systems and differential equations, and are extremely difficult to analyze. We will consider hybrid systems in which the continuous dynamics is given by a differential equation x = f(x), with discrete jumps x' = ri(x) which occur as soon as a guard condition gi(x) = 0 is activated. It is clear that the evolution of a hybrid system undergoes discontinuities, but since only continuous functions are computable, it is not clear to what extent, if any, it is possible to perform a rigorous analysis of a hybrid system. We will first show that we can define lower and upper semantics of evolution under which it is possible to compute reachable sets, and that away from discontinuity points (such as grazing or corner collision points), these semantics agree [2]. In order to perform reachability analysis, it is necessary to define the evolution over bounded initial sets of states. We show that this can be done using the operations of range, compose, flow and solve operations on functions. We will see that constrained image sets of the form {f(x) | x ? D | g(x) ? C}, are sufficient to express the evolution exactly, except for the case of degenerate (non-transverse) cross- ings [3]. The flow operation is the most computationally demanding, and we will give some details of the implementation and efficiency considerations [4]. We will give examples of reachability analysis in Ariadne, including electrical power converters and heating systems. Finally, we will outline some areas of active research, including differential inclusions [5] and modular reasoning

Brief Strategic Therapy vs Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for the Inpatient and Telephone-Based Outpatient Treatment of Binge Eating Disorder: The STRATOB Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

This paper describes the results of the STRATOB (Systemic and STRATegic psychotherapy for OBesity) study, a two-arm randomized controlled clinical trial (RCT) comparing Brief Strategic Therapy (BST, Nardone or Arezzo model) with the gold standard CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) for the inpatient and telephone-based outpatient treatment of obese people with Binge Eating Disorder (BED) seeking treatment for weight reduction. Primary outcome measure of the randomized trial was change in the Global Index of the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ 45.2). Secondary outcome measures were BED remission (weekly binge episodes < 2) and weight loss. Data were collected at baseline, at discharge from the hospital (c.a. 1 month after) and after 6 months from discharge.. No significant difference between groups (BST vs CBT) was found in the primary outcome at discharge. However, a greater improvement was seen in the BST vs the CBT group (P<.01) in the primary outcome at 6 months. About secondary outcomes, no significant difference between groups were found in weight change both at discharge and at 6 months. Notably, a significant association emerged between treatment groups and BED remission at 6 months in favor of BST (only 20% of patients in BST group reported a number of weekly binge episodes > 2 vs 63.3% in CBT group)