An objective measure of hyperactivity aspects with compressed webcam video

Background: Objective measures of physical activity are currently not considered in clinical guidelines for the assessment of hyperactivity in the context of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) due to low and inconsistent associations between clinical ratings, missing age-related norm data and high technical requirements. Methods: This pilot study introduces a new objective measure for physical activity using compressed webcam video footage, which should be less affected by age-related variables. A pre-test established a preliminary standard procedure for testing a clinical sample of 39 children aged 6–16 years (21 with a clinical ADHD diagnosis, 18 without). Subjects were filmed for 6 min while solving a standardized cognitive performance task. Our webcam video-based video-activity score was compared with respect to two independent video-based movement ratings by students, ratings of Inattentiveness, Hyperactivity and Impulsivity by clinicians (DCL-ADHS) giving a clinical diagnosis of ADHD and parents (FBB-ADHD) and physical features (age, weight, height, BMI) using mean scores, correlations and multiple regression. Results: Our video-activity score showed a high agreement (r = 0.81) with video-based movement ratings, but also considerable associations with age-related physical attributes. After controlling for age-related confounders, the video-activity score showed not the expected association with clinicians’ or parents’ hyperactivity ratings. Conclusions: Our preliminary conclusion is that our video-activity score assesses physical activity but not specific information related to hyperactivity. The general problem of defining and assessing hyperactivity with objective criteria remains.<br

Implementing psychiatric day treatment for infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their families: a study from a clinical and organizational perspective

Background: An increasing number of empirical studies indicate that infants, toddlers and preschoolers may suffer from non-transient mental illnesses featuring developmental psychopathology. A few innovative child psychiatric approaches have been developed to treat infants, toddlers and preschoolers and their families, but have not yet been conceptually presented and discussed in the framework of different healthcare systems. The organizational and clinical experience gained while developing specific approaches may be important across disciplines and guide future developments in psychiatric treatment of infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their families. Results: This article introduces the Preschool Family Day Hospital for Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers and their Families at Münster University Hospital, Germany. This hospital is unique in the German healthcare system with regard to its social-service institution division of labor. Specifically, it uses an intermittent treatment approach and an integrated interactional family psychiatric approach to treat children and their parents as separate patients. This multidisciplinary, developmentally and family-oriented approach includes components of group treatments with children and separate treatments with parents. Specific techniques include video-assisted treatments of the parent–child interaction, psychiatric and psychotherapeutic treatments for parents, and conjoint family therapies that include both parents and siblings. Conclusions: The Family Day Hospital for infants, toddlers and preschoolers and their families offers innovative family-oriented treatments for those who suffer from a wide range of severe child psychiatric disorders that cannot be sufficiently treated in outpatient settings. Treatment is based on the need for family-oriented approaches to the early psychiatric treatment of infants, toddlers and preschoolers. Family day hospitals are an innovative approach to preschool child psychiatry that requires further evaluation.<br

Inter-rater reliability and aspects of validity of the parent-infant relationship global assessment scale (PIR-GAS)

Background: The Parent-Infant Relationship Global Assessment Scale (PIR-GAS) signifies a conceptually relevant development in the multi-axial, developmentally sensitive classification system DC:0-3R for preschool children. However, information about the reliability and validity of the PIR-GAS is rare. A review of the available empirical studies suggests that in research, PIR-GAS ratings can be based on a ten-minute videotaped interaction sequence. The qualification of raters may be very heterogeneous across studies. Methods: To test whether the use of the PIR-GAS still allows for a reliable assessment of the parent-infant relationship, our study compared a PIR-GAS ratings based on a full-information procedure across multiple settings with ratings based on a ten-minute video by two doctoral candidates of medicine. For each mother-child dyad at a family day hospital (N = 48), we obtained two video ratings and one full-information rating at admission to therapy and at discharge. This pre-post design allowed for a replication of our findings across the two measurement points. We focused on the inter-rater reliability between the video coders, as well as between the video and full-information procedure, including mean differences and correlations between the raters. Additionally, we examined aspects of the validity of video and full-information ratings based on their correlation with measures of child and maternal psychopathology. Results: Our results showed that a ten-minute video and full-information PIR-GAS ratings were not interchangeable. Most results at admission could be replicated by the data obtained at discharge. We concluded that a higher degree of standardization of the assessment procedure should increase the reliability of the PIR-GAS, and a more thorough theoretical foundation of the manual should increase its validity. <br

Approach to ergodicity in quantum wave functions

According to theorems of Shnirelman and followers, in the semiclassical limit the quantum wavefunctions of classically ergodic systems tend to the microcanonical density on the energy shell. We here develop a semiclassical theory that relates the rate of approach to the decay of certain classical fluctuations. For uniformly hyperbolic systems we find that the variance of the quantum matrix elements is proportional to the variance of the integral of the associated classical operator over trajectory segments of length $T_H$, and inversely proportional to $T_H^2$, where $T_H=h\bar\rho$ is the Heisenberg time, $\bar\rho$ being the mean density of states. Since for these systems the classical variance increases linearly with $T_H$, the variance of the matrix elements decays like $1/T_H$. For non-hyperbolic systems, like Hamiltonians with a mixed phase space and the stadium billiard, our results predict a slower decay due to sticking in marginally unstable regions. Numerical computations supporting these conclusions are presented for the bakers map and the hydrogen atom in a magnetic field.Comment: 11 pages postscript and 4 figures in two files, tar-compressed and uuencoded using uufiles, to appear in Phys Rev E. For related papers, see http://www.icbm.uni-oldenburg.de/icbm/kosy/ag.htm

The RESET project: constructing a European tephra lattice for refined synchronisation of environmental and archaeological events during the last c. 100 ka

This paper introduces the aims and scope of the RESET project (. RESponse of humans to abrupt Environmental Transitions), a programme of research funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (UK) between 2008 and 2013; it also provides the context and rationale for papers included in a special volume of Quaternary Science Reviews that report some of the project's findings. RESET examined the chronological and correlation methods employed to establish causal links between the timing of abrupt environmental transitions (AETs) on the one hand, and of human dispersal and development on the other, with a focus on the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic periods. The period of interest is the Last Glacial cycle and the early Holocene (c. 100-8 ka), during which time a number of pronounced AETs occurred. A long-running topic of debate is the degree to which human history in Europe and the Mediterranean region during the Palaeolithic was shaped by these AETs, but this has proved difficult to assess because of poor dating control. In an attempt to move the science forward, RESET examined the potential that tephra isochrons, and in particular non-visible ash layers (cryptotephras), might offer for synchronising palaeo-records with a greater degree of finesse. New tephrostratigraphical data generated by the project augment previously-established tephra frameworks for the region, and underpin a more evolved tephra 'lattice' that links palaeo-records between Greenland, the European mainland, sub-marine sequences in the Mediterranean and North Africa. The paper also outlines the significance of other contributions to this special volume: collectively, these illustrate how the lattice was constructed, how it links with cognate tephra research in Europe and elsewhere, and how the evidence of tephra isochrons is beginning to challenge long-held views about the impacts of environmental change on humans during the Palaeolithic. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.RESET was funded through Consortium Grants awarded by the Natural Environment Research Council, UK, to a collaborating team drawn from four institutions: Royal Holloway University of London (grant reference NE/E015905/1), the Natural History Museum, London (NE/E015913/1), Oxford University (NE/E015670/1) and the University of Southampton, including the National Oceanography Centre (NE/01531X/1). The authors also wish to record their deep gratitude to four members of the scientific community who formed a consultative advisory panel during the lifetime of the RESET project: Professor Barbara Wohlfarth (Stockholm University), Professor Jørgen Peder Steffensen (Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen), Dr. Martin Street (Romisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Neuwied) and Professor Clive Oppenheimer (Cambridge University). They provided excellent advice at key stages of the work, which we greatly valued. We also thank Jenny Kynaston (Geography Department, Royal Holloway) for construction of several of the figures in this paper, and Debbie Barrett (Elsevier) and Colin Murray Wallace (Editor-in-Chief, QSR) for their considerable assistance in the production of this special volume.Peer Reviewe

Interaction of Bacillus subtilis CsaA with SecA and precursor proteins

CsaA from the Gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis has been identified previously as a suppressor of the growth and protein-export defect of Escherichia coli secA(Ts) mutants. CsaA has chaperone-like activities in vivo and in vitro. To examine the role of CsaA in protein export in B. subtilis, expression of the csaA gene was repressed. While export of most proteins remained unaffected, export of at least two proteins was significantly reduced upon CsaA depletion. CsaA co-immunoprecipitates and co-purifies with the SecA proteins of E. coli and B. subtilis, and binds the B. subtilis preprotein prePhoB. Purified CsaA stimulates the translocation of prePhoB into E. coli membrane vesicles bearing the B. subtilis translocase, whereas it interferes with the SecB-mediated translocation of proOmpA into membrane vesicles of E. coli. The specific interaction with the SecA translocation ATPase and preproteins suggests that CsaA acts as a chaperone that promotes the export of a subset of preproteins in B. subtilis.

Influence of Identity Development on Weight Gain in Adolescent Anorexia Nervosa

BACKGROUND: Anorexia Nervosa (AN) typically begins during early adolescence, an important phase of personality development. A substantial proportion of adolescent AN patients shows impaired personality functioning, which might be a relevant but understudied aspect of illness severity. The developmental status of identity as key element of personality is suggested to influence inpatient treatment outcome in adolescents with AN. METHODS: This study analyzed existing data of N = 60 adolescents with AN. Multilevel models assessed the influence of identity functioning, measured by the Assessment of Identity Development in Adolescence (AIDA) at admission, on weight gain [BMI (body mass index), BMI-SDS (BMI standard deviation score)] during 10 weeks of inpatient treatment. Moreover, the influence of other indicators of illness severity, i.e., eating disorders and comorbid psychopathologies, was explored. RESULTS: As expected, higher AIDA scores negatively influenced the course of weight gain. A similar effect was observed for other psychopathology measures, especially body image distortion. In general, higher weight at admission was associated with less weight gain. Higher weight at admission was also predicted by higher other psychopathology measures, but not AIDA scores. CONCLUSION: The course of weight gain during inpatient treatment was hampered in adolescent AN patients who have difficulties developing a stable identity. Unlike other aspects of psychopathology, this was independent of the initial weight. Thus, in addition to the level of underweight and other aspects of psychopathology, difficulties in identity development constitute a relevant aspect of illness severity in AN. This recommends consideration of identity development during treatment