The Feasibility of Using an Evidence-Informed Screening Protocol to Identify and Treat Youth Firesetters in an Outpatient Psychiatric Population

This study examines the feasibility of using an evidence-informed protocol to assess and treat youth from an outpatient population for fire interest and/or previous involvement with fire. Clinicians at a nonprofit community organization were trained in the use of 3 screening tools designed to identify children and adolescents with elevated fire interest and fire involvement. Sixty-two cases were examined over a 6-month period, 53 of which were generated through consecutive intakes. The results revealed few youth with elevated fire interest or fire involvement. However, useful aspects of the screening protocol are indentified and indicate a need to continue this line of research

Exploring the Behavioral and Psychological Differences between Male and Female Youth with a History of Fire Involvement

Study objectives were to explore a sample of fire-involved youth by 1) describing their overall psychological characteristics, thoughts, and behaviors, 2) comparing the psychological characteristics, thoughts, and behaviors of their male and female subgroups, 3) examining how specific psychological problems are related to fire-specific thoughts and behaviors for the overall group, and 4) examining how relations between specific psychological problems and fire-specific thoughts and behaviors may differ for the male and female subgroups. Data were gathered from a chart review of clinical files of youth with a history of fire involvement. There were 186 participants, ages 9 to18, 72% male. Data about general and fire-specific characteristics were collected using the Child Behavior Checklist, the Aggression Questionnaire, and the Children's Firesetting Interview. Results indicated that 85% of youth had clinically significant problems in at least 1 psychological domain. The proportions with clinically significant ratings for each domain were as follows: externalizing problems (77%), internalizing problems (53%), thought problems (32%), and social problems (21%). Nearly one-third of the sample had clinically significant problems in 3 or more domains. A majority of the sample reported having at least some fire curiosity, thoughts about fire, and enjoyment in reading about fire. Closer to half reported wanting to play with fire or view fire-related media. Favorite characteristics of fire were predominantly related to its functionality or observational aspects. Close to half of the sample reported having hid fire-starting materials or having left burn marks on things in their homes. Although there were no significant sex differences for internalizing and externalizing problems, the males had higher levels of social problems, thought problems, fire curiosity, and involvement in fire-related activities. Further discussions of sex differences are included. Regression models predicting fire-related thoughts and behaviors were explored for males, females, and the overall sample. This study found sex differences in the overall pattern of correlations between psychological and behavioral problems of males and females with a history of fire involvement. Treatment implications include a strong need for clinicians not only to address externalizing problems, but to also incorporate interventions for internalizing, thought, and social problems

Exactly Soluble Quantum Wormhole in Two Dimensions

We are presenting a quantum traversable wormhole in an exactly soluble two-dimensional model. This is different from previous works since the exotic negative energy that supports the wormhole is generated from the quantization of classical energy-momentum tensors. This explicit illustration shows the quantum-mechanical energy can be used as a candidate for the exotic source. As for the traversability, after a particle travels through the wormhole, the static initial wormhole geometry gets a back reaction which spoils the wormhole structure. However, it may still maintain the initial structure along with the appropriate boundary condition.Comment: v1. 13 pages, 1 figure, REVTeX3; v2. 1 Ref. added, REVTeX4, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Exactly soluble model for self-gravitating D-particles with the wormhole

We consider D-particles coupled to the CGHS dilaton gravity and obtain the exact wormhole geometry and trajectories of D-particles by introducing the exotic matter. The initial static wormhole background is not stable after infalling D-particles due to the classical backreaction of the geometry so that the additional exotic matter source should be introduced for the stability. Then, the traversable wormhole geometry naturally appears and the D-particles can travel through it safely. Finally, we discuss the dynamical evolution of the wormhole throat and the massless limit of D-particles.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, revte

Effect of monovalent cations on calcium-induced assemblies of kappa carrageenan

The effect of Na+, K+ and Ca2+ cations on the thermal stability and aggregation of kappa carrageenan double helices has been explored by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Previous studies have shown that kappa carrageenan helices bind K+ cations, but not Na+. The kappa carrageenan used in this work was therefore in the Na+ salt form, to avoid complications from site-bound counterions to the polymer, and was studied at a fixed concentration of 1.0 wt % (∼25 mN w.r.t. sulfate groups). Na+, K+ and Ca2+ cations were added as chloride salts. Values of peak-maximum temperature (Tmax) in DSC cooling and heating scans (0.5 °C/min) increased progressively with increasing salt concentration, following the order Na+< Ca2+< K+, but greatest thermal hysteresis was seen with Ca2+. Our proposed interpretation is that Ca2+ cations "cement" the carrageenan helices together by binding directly between them, giving greater thermal stability, and thus greater hysteresis, than K+ cations which act indirectly by suppressing charge. On progressive addition of NaCl or KCl to solutions incorporating Ca2+ at concentrations of 5 mM or 12.5 mM (stoichiometric equivalence) the values of Tmax moved asymptotically towards those seen for the same concentrations of the monovalent cations in the absence of calcium, suggesting progressive displacement of site-bound Ca2+. Thus Tmax for the order–disorder transition was increased by KCl but reduced by NaCl, with the strange consequence that addition of NaCl lowered the transition temperature rather than raising it

A plug-in architecture for connecting to new data sources on mobile devices

Abstract—A key use for mobile devices is to search and view online information while on the go. As a result, many mobile ap-plications serve as front ends for online databases. While there are many thousands of data sources that provide web service APIs giving access to their databases, creating mobile applica-tions to use those sources requires significant mobile program-ming knowledge and a significant amount of time. We introduce Spinel, a plug-in architecture for Android, and a set of web-based configuration tools that together enable users to connect mobile applications to new data sources without programming. Spinel also provides APIs that make it easy for developers to create new applications that use those data sources. We provide three dem-onstration Android applications that use such data: Listpad for entering personal lists, Listviewer for viewing results of data que-ries, and Mapviewer for displaying query results on a map. An informal usability study showed that users could successfully attach new data sources to those applications. Keywords—end-user programming; mobile devices; plug-ins; web APIs; mashups I

C5a impairs phagosomal maturation in the neutrophil through phosphoproteomic remodeling.

Critical illness is accompanied by the release of large amounts of the anaphylotoxin, C5a. C5a suppresses antimicrobial functions of neutrophils which is associated with adverse outcomes. The signaling pathways that mediate C5a-induced neutrophil dysfunction are incompletely understood. Healthy donor neutrophils exposed to purified C5a demonstrated a prolonged defect (7 hours) in phagocytosis of Staphylococcus aureus. Phosphoproteomic profiling of 2712 phosphoproteins identified persistent C5a signaling and selective impairment of phagosomal protein phosphorylation on exposure to S. aureus. Notable proteins included early endosomal marker ZFYVE16 and V-ATPase proton channel component ATPV1G1. An assay of phagosomal acidification demonstrated C5a-induced impairment of phagosomal acidification, which was recapitulated in neutrophils from critically ill patients. Examination of the C5a-impaired protein phosphorylation indicated a role for the PI3K VPS34 in phagosomal maturation. Inhibition of VPS34 impaired neutrophil phagosomal acidification and killing of S. aureus. This study provides a phosphoproteomic assessment of human neutrophil signaling in response to S. aureus and its disruption by C5a, identifying a defect in phagosomal maturation and mechanisms of immune failure in critical illness.AJTW was a Gates Cambridge Scholar supported by the Gates Cambridge Trust from 2015-2018. ACM is supported by a Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust (WT 2055214/Z/16/Z). Grants to ACM from the Academy of Medical Sciences and European Society for Intensive Care Medicine supported this work. The study was also supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre (IS-BRC-1215-20001) and the Medical Research Council SHIELD antimicrobial resistance consortium (MR/ N02995X/1

Ernst Freund as Precursor of the Rational Study of Corporate Law

Gindis, David, Ernst Freund as Precursor of the Rational Study of Corporate Law (October 27, 2017). Journal of Institutional Economics, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2905547, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2905547The rise of large business corporations in the late 19th century compelled many American observers to admit that the nature of the corporation had yet to be understood. Published in this context, Ernst Freund's little-known The Legal Nature of Corporations (1897) was an original attempt to come to terms with a new legal and economic reality. But it can also be described, to paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, as the earliest example of the rational study of corporate law. The paper shows that Freund had the intuitions of an institutional economist, and engaged in what today would be called comparative institutional analysis. Remarkably, his argument that the corporate form secures property against insider defection and against outsiders anticipated recent work on entity shielding and capital lock-in, and can be read as an early contribution to what today would be called the theory of the firm.Peer reviewe