Dissociating effects of acute photic stress on spatial, episodic-like and working memory in the rat.

Adaptively responding to acute stress has been of great importance for human and animal survival. However, for our species, stress-related disorders are putting an ever-increasing burden on healthcare systems. It is thus crucial to understand the basic processes and cognitive changes associated with acute stress. Here, we examined the effects of acute stress exposure on spatial (water maze) and memory (delayed match to sample and episodic-memory-like tasks) performance. We found striking performance deficits in stressed animals navigating in the water maze. We also found, in an episodic-like memory task, striking object-location deficits, but not in temporal-object association learning in stressed animals. Finally, no differences were apparent for any delay periods (up to 30 s) in a delayed match to sample task. Taken together, these results show a strong differential effect of acute stress on differing memory processes

Interferon-alpha-induced deficits in novel object recognition are rescued by chronic exercise

The anti-viral drug interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) is widely-known to induce psychiatric and cognitive effects in patients. Previous work has shown that physical exercise can have a positive effect against brain insult. We investigated the effects of a clinically-comparable treatment regime of IFN-alpha on cognitive function in male Wistar rats and assessed the impact of chronic treadmill running on the deficits generated by IFN-alpha. We found that IFN-alpha induced significant impairments in performance on both spatial novelty and object novelty recognition. Chronic forced exercise did not protect against IFN-alpha-induced learning deficits in reactivity to spatial change, but did restore the capacity for novel object recognition in IFN-alpha-treated animals

Comments on alternative calculations of the broadening of spectral lines of neutral sodium by H-atom collisions

With the exception of the sodium D-lines recent calculations of line broadening cross-sections for several multiplets of sodium by Leininger et al (2000) are in substantial disagreement with cross-sections interpolated from the tables of Anstee and O'Mara (1995) and Barklem and O'Mara (1997). The discrepancy is as large as a factor of three for the 3p-4d multiplet. The two theories are tested by using the results of each to synthesize lines in the solar spectrum. It is found that generally the data from the theory of Anstee, Barklem and O'Mara produce the best match to the observed solar spectrum. It is found, using a simple model for reflection of the optical electron by the potential barrier between the two atoms, that the reflection coefficient is too large for avoided crossings with the upper states of subordinate lines to contribute to line broadening, supporting the neglect of avoided ionic crossings by Anstee, Barklem and O'Mara for these lines. The large discrepancies between the two sets of calculations is a result of an approximate treatment of avoided ionic crossings for these lines by Leininger et al (2000).Comment: 18 pages, 5 ps figures included, to appear in J Phys B: At. Mol. Opt. Phy

Koori Quit Pack mailout smoking cessation support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who smoke: A feasibility study protocol

Introduction Smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who smoke are more likely to make a quit attempt than their non-Aboriginal counterparts but less likely to sustain the quit attempt. There is little available evidence specifically for and by Indigenous peoples to inform best practice smoking cessation care. The provision of a free Koori Quit Pack with optional nicotine replacement therapy sent by mail may be a feasible, acceptable and effective way to access stop smoking support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Methods and analysis An Aboriginal-led, multisite non-randomised single-group, pre–post feasibility study across three states in Australia will be conducted. Participants will be recruited via service-targeted social media advertising and during usual care at their Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services. Through a process of self-referral, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who smoke daily will complete a survey and receive mailout smoking cessation support. Data will be collected over the phone by an Aboriginal Research Assistant. This pilot study will inform the development of a larger, powered trial. Ethics and dissemination Ethics approval has been obtained from the Aboriginal Health & Medical Research Council Ethics Committee of New South Wales (NSW) (#1894/21) and the University of Newcastle (#H-2022-0174). Findings will be reported through peer-reviewed journals and presentations at relevant local, national and international conferences. The findings will be shared with the NSW and Victoria Quitline, Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council and Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation and the National Heart Foundation

An examination of business occupier relocation decision making : distinguishing small and large firm behaviour

This paper explores how business occupiers decide whether and where to relocate. It captures the experience and behaviour of a range of sizes and types of business occupier and subjects their decision-making processes to detailed scrutiny. A linear three-stage decision model is used to sequence and structure interviews with individuals who have intimate involvement with the relocation of 28 firms and organizations in Tyne and Wear, in the north-east of England. The 'constant comparative' method is used to analyse the interview data, from which emerges 18 key concepts, comprising 51 characteristic components. Using an axial approach, these are organized into 10 cross-cutting themes that represent the main areas of consideration or influence on the thinking of the people involved in determining whether a firm or organization should relocate and, if so, where to. The resulting analysis finds that organizations adopt varying degrees of sophistication when making relocation decisions; small firms are more inclined to make decisions based on constrained information; larger organizations adopt a more complex approach. Regardless of firm size, key individuals exert considerable influence over the decision-making process and its outcome

The Human Behaviour-Change Project: Harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for evidence synthesis and interpretation

Background Behaviour change is key to addressing both the challenges facing human health and wellbeing and to promoting the uptake of research findings in health policy and practice. We need to make better use of the vast amount of accumulating evidence from behaviour change intervention (BCI) evaluations and promote the uptake of that evidence into a wide range of contexts. The scale and complexity of the task of synthesising and interpreting this evidence, and increasing evidence timeliness and accessibility, will require increased computer support. The Human Behaviour-Change Project (HBCP) will use Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to (i) develop and evaluate a ‘Knowledge System’ that automatically extracts, synthesises and interprets findings from BCI evaluation reports to generate new insights about behaviour change and improve prediction of intervention effectiveness and (ii) allow users, such as practitioners, policy makers and researchers, to easily and efficiently query the system to get answers to variants of the question ‘What works, compared with what, how well, with what exposure, with what behaviours (for how long), for whom, in what settings and why?’. Methods The HBCP will: a) develop an ontology of BCI evaluations and their reports linking effect sizes for given target behaviours with intervention content and delivery and mechanisms of action, as moderated by exposure, populations and settings; b) develop and train an automated feature extraction system to annotate BCI evaluation reports using this ontology; c) develop and train machine learning and reasoning algorithms to use the annotated BCI evaluation reports to predict effect sizes for particular combinations of behaviours, interventions, populations and settings; d) build user and machine interfaces for interrogating and updating the knowledge base; and e) evaluate all the above in terms of performance and utility. Discussion The HBCP aims to revolutionise our ability to synthesise, interpret and deliver evidence on behaviour change interventions that is up-to-date and tailored to user need and context. This will enhance the usefulness, and support the implementation of, that evidence.The project is funded by a Wellcome Trust collaborative award [The Human Behaviour-Change Project: Building the science of behaviour change for complex intervention development’, 201,524/Z/16/Z]. During the preparation of the manuscript RW’s salary was funded by Cancer Research UK

Comparison of gene targets and sampling regimes for SARS-CoV-2 quantification for wastewater epidemiology in UK prisons

Prisons are high-risk settings for infectious disease transmission, due to their enclosed and semi-enclosed environments. The proximity between prisoners and staff, and the diversity of prisons reduces the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as social distancing. Therefore, alternative health monitoring methods, such as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), are needed to track pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2. This pilot study assessed WBE to quantify SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in prison wastewater to determine its utility within a health protection system for residents. The study analysed 266 samples from six prisons in England over a 12-week period for nucleoprotein 1 (N1 gene) and envelope protein (E gene) using quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. Both gene assays successfully detected SARS-CoV-2 fragments in wastewater samples, with both genes significantly correlating with COVID-19 case numbers across the prisons (p < 0.01). However, in 25% of the SARS-positive samples, only one gene target was detected, suggesting that both genes be used to reduce false-negative results. No significant differences were observed between 14- and 2-h composite samples, although 2-h samples showed greater signal variance. Population normalisation did not improve correlations between the N1 and E genes and COVID-19 case data. Overall, WBE shows considerable promise for health protection in prison settings

The Human Behaviour-Change Project: An artificial intelligence system to answer questions about changing behaviour [version 1; peer review: not peer reviewed]

Changing behaviour is necessary to address many of the threats facing human populations. However, identifying behaviour change interventions likely to be effective in particular contexts as a basis for improving them presents a major challenge. The Human Behaviour-Change Project harnesses the power of artificial intelligence and behavioural science to organise global evidence about behaviour change to predict outcomes in common and unknown behaviour change scenarios

Integrating the framing of clinical questions via PICO into the retrieval of medical literature for systematic reviews

The PICO process is a technique used in evidence based practice to frame and answer clinical questions. It involves structuring the question around four types of clinical information: Population, Intervention, Control or comparison and Outcome. The PICO framework is used extensively in the compilation of systematic reviews as the means of framing research questions. However, when a search strategy (comprising of a large Boolean query) is formulated to retrieve studies for inclusion in the review, PICO is offen ignored. This paper evaluates how PICO annotations can be applied and integrated into retrieval to improve the screening of studies for inclusion in systematic reviews. The task is to increase precision while maintaining the high level of recall essential to ensure systematic reviews are representative and unbiased. Our results show that restricting the search strategies to match studies using PICO annotations improves precision, however recall is slightly reduced, when compared to the non-PICO baseline. This can lead to both time and cost savings when compiling systematic reviews