Barriers and Facilitators in Adolescent Psychotherapy Initiated by Adults – Experiences That Differentiate Adolescents’ Trajectories Through Mental Health Care

Mental health problems start early in life. However, the majority of adolescents fulfilling the criteria for mental health disorders do not receive treatment, and half of those who do get treatment drop out. This begs the question of what differentiates helpful from unhelpful treatment processes from the perspective of young clients. In this study, we interviewed 12 young people who entered mental health care reluctantly at the initiative of others before the age of 18. Their journeys through mental health care varied significantly despite sharing the same starting point. Our analyses resulted in a model of three trajectories. We describe relational and structural facilitators and obstacles within each trajectory and have formulated narratives highlighting core experiences differentiating them. Trajectory 1 (I never saw the point – Being met as a case) was characterized by a rapid loss of hope, leading the adolescents to conclude that mental health care was not worth the investment. Trajectory 2 (I gave it a go, but nothing came of it – Being met by a therapist representing a rigid and unhelpful system) was characterized by a lingering hope that never materialized into a constructive therapeutic process despite prevailing efforts by both therapists and adolescents. Trajectory 3 (Something good came of it – Being met by a therapist who cares and wants to help) was characterized by genuine meetings, allowing the therapist to transform from an unsafe stranger into a safe, competent, and benevolent adult. We discuss how our results have implications for understanding agency displayed by adolescent clients in therapy, therapist flexibility and authenticity, service organization, and attributional processes influencing clinical judgment and therapeutic processes when adolescent psychotherapy has a difficult starting point (i.e., initiated by adults).publishedVersio

Astrocytes actively support long-range molecular clock synchronization of segregated neuronal populations

In mammals, the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus is the master circadian pacemaker that synchronizes the clocks in the central nervous system and periphery, thus orchestrating rhythms throughout the body. However, little is known about how so many cellular clocks within and across brain circuits can be effectively synchronized. In this work, we investigated the implication of two possible pathways: (i) astrocytes-mediated synchronization and (ii) neuronal paracrine factors-mediated synchronization. By taking advantage of a lab-on-a-chip microfluidic device developed in our laboratory, here we report that both pathways are involved. We found the paracrine factors-mediated synchronization of molecular clocks is diffusion-limited and, in our device, effective only in case of a short distance between neuronal populations. Interestingly, interconnecting astrocytes define an active signaling channel that can synchronize molecular clocks of neuronal populations also at longer distances. At mechanism level, we found that astrocytes-mediated synchronization involves both GABA and glutamate, while neuronal paracrine factors-mediated synchronization occurs through GABA signaling. These findings identify a previously unknown role of astrocytes as active cells that might distribute long-range signals to synchronize the brain clocks, thus further strengthening the importance of reciprocal interactions between glial and neuronal cells in the context of circadian circuitry

Maple-Swarm: programming collective behavior for ensembles by extending HTN-planning

Programming goal-oriented behavior in collective adaptive systems is complex, requires high effort, and is failure-prone. If the system's user wants to deploy it in a real-world environment, hurdles get even higher: Programs urgently require to be situation-aware. With our framework Maple, we previously presented an approach for easing the act of programming such systems on the level of particular robot capabilities. In this paper, we extend our approach for ensemble programming with the possibility to address virtual swarm capabilities encapsulating collective behavior to whole groups of agents. By using the respective concepts in an extended version of hierarchical task networks and by adapting our self-organization mechanisms for executing plans resulting thereof, we can achieve that all agents, any agent, any other set of agents, or a swarm of agents execute (swarm) capabilities. Moreover, we extend the possibilities of expressing situation awareness during planning by introducing planning variables that can get modified at design-time or run-time as needed. We illustrate the possibilities with examples each. Further, we provide a graphical front-end offering the possibility to generate mission-specific problem domain descriptions for ensembles including a lightweight simulation for validating plans

Identification of a panel of tumor-associated antigens from breast carcinoma cell lines, solid tumors and testis cDNA libraries displayed on lambda phage

BACKGROUND: Tumor-associated antigens recognized by humoral effectors of the immune system are a very attractive target for human cancer diagnostics and therapy. Recent advances in molecular techniques have led to molecular definition of immunogenic tumor proteins based on their reactivity with autologous patient sera (SEREX). METHODS: Several high complexity phage-displayed cDNA libraries from breast carcinomas, human testis and breast carcinoma cell lines MCF-7, MDA-MB-468 were constructed. The cDNAs were expressed in the libraries as fusion to bacteriophage lambda protein D. Lambda-displayed libraries were efficiently screened with sera from patients with breast cancer. RESULTS: A panel of 21 clones representing 18 different antigens, including eight proteins of unknown function, was identified. Three of these antigens (T7-1, T11-3 and T11-9) were found to be overexpressed in tumors as compared to normal breast. A serological analysis of the 21 different antigens revealed a strong cancer-related profile for at least five clones (T6-2, T6-7, T7-1, T9-21 and T9-27). CONCLUSIONS: Preliminary results indicate that patient serum reactivity against five of the antigens is associated with tumor disease. The novel T7-1 antigen, which is overexpressed in breast tumors and recognized specifically by breast cancer patient sera, is potentially useful in cancer diagnosis

Historical literacy and consciousness

A ideia de literacia histórica - enquanto conjunto de competências de interpretação e compreensão do passado - surge associada à proposta de desenvolvimento da consciência histórica, tal como defende Peter Lee. Esta necessidade de orientação temporal exige identificações múltiplas, a várias escalas (do local ao global), e a consideração de pontos de vista diversificados, apresentados quer por historiadores quer por outras fontes para a História. Assumindo a relevância desta problemática para a formação da consciência histórica, é pertinente interrogarmo-nos acerca de como desenvolvem os alunos universitários (futuros professores de História) as suas competências de literacia histórica. No âmbito da disciplina de Metodologia do Ensino da História, no 4º ano da Licenciatura em Ensino de História (Universidade do Minho), explorararam-se as seguintes questões de investigação: 1) Que critérios utilizam os futuros professores de História quando decidem entre versões históricas diferentes? 2) Como é que estes futuros professores fundamentam os seus argumentos a favor ou contra uma determinada versão? Aos dezoito alunos do curso participantes neste estudo, foi proposta uma tarefa de avaliação de dois textos históricos, um de Luís de Albuquerque, historiador português, outro de Sanjay Subrahmanyam, historiador indiano, sobre a primeira viagem marítima dos portugueses à Índia (com suporte em várias fontes, nomeadamente um excerto do diário de viagem de Gama). Conjugando-se as dimensões de interpretação substantiva das mensagens com a de uso de critérios históricos, os dados sugeriram uma categorização global constituída por cinco níveis de ideias. Os padrões mais observados ligam-se a noções de viés (a validade histórica depende de uma maior ou menor neutralidade) ou de influência do contexto de produção nos historiadores. A aceitação da validade de versões diferentes, enquanto algo genuíno no conhecimento histórico, emergiu entre alguns poucos alunos universitários. Esta tipologia coincide com os níveis de idéias observados em adolescentes e crianças portuguesas, em estudos anteriores, embora os níveis mais elaborados apareçam mais frequentemente entre os alunos universitários.The idea of historical literacy - as a set of competences of historical interpretation and understanding - is emerging as linked to the proposal of developing historical consciousness, as Peter Lee argues. This need for temporal orientation demands multiple identifications at several scales (from the local up to the global scale) as well as the consideration of diversified points of view, given either by historians or many other sources of history. Assuming the relevance of this issue, it is pertinent to question about the way university students (preservice history teachers) are developing their own competences of historical literacy. In the context of the Methodology of History Teaching subject, at year 4 of the Teaching of History Graduate Course (University of Minho), the following research questions were explored: 1) What criteria do the preservice history teachers employ when deciding about different historical versions? 2) How those preservice history teachers support their arguments for or against a given version? An assessment task of two historical texts, one written by Luís de Albuquerque, Portuguese historian, another by Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Indian historian, was accomplished by the 18 participants of this study. The historical texts focussed on the first Portuguese maritime voyage to India (and they were grounded on several evidence, namely an excerpt of the Gama trip log). Combining the dimensions of substantive interpretation of messages and use of historical criteria, data suggested a global categorization with five levels of ideas. The most observed patterns are related to notions of bias (historical validity depends on neutrality) or notions of influence of the historical production context). The recognition of validity of different versions as a genuine element of the historical knowledge emerged just among a few university students. Such a tipology matches with the levels of ideas observed among Portuguese children and adolescents in former studies, although the most elaborate levels appear more frequently among the university students

Measurements of the transverse-momentum-dependent cross sections of J /ψ production at mid-rapidity in proton+proton collisions at s =510 and 500 GeV with the STAR detector

We present measurements of the differential cross sections of inclusive J/ψ meson production as a function of transverse momentum (pTJ/ψ) using the μ+μ- and e+e- decay channels in proton+proton collisions at center-of-mass energies of 510 and 500 GeV, respectively, recorded by the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The measurement from the μ+μ- channel is for

Bulk properties of the system formed in Au+Au collisions at sNN =14.5 GeV at the BNL STAR detector

We report systematic measurements of bulk properties of the system created in Au+Au collisions at sNN=14.5 GeV recorded by the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The transverse momentum spectra of π±, K±, and p(p) are studied at midrapidity (|y|<0.1) for nine centrality intervals. The centrality, transverse momentum (pT), and pseudorapidity (η) dependence of inclusive charged particle elliptic flow (v2), and rapidity-odd charged particles directed flow (v1) results near midrapidity are also presented. These measurements are compared with the published results from Au+Au collisions at other energies, and from Pb+Pb collisions at sNN=2.76 TeV. The results at sNN=14.5 GeV show similar behavior as established at other energies and fit well in the energy dependence trend. These results are important as the 14.5-GeV energy fills the gap in μB, which is of the order of 100 MeV, between sNN=11.5 and 19.6 GeV. Comparisons of the data with UrQMD and AMPT models show poor agreement in general

Charge-dependent pair correlations relative to a third particle in p + Au and d + Au collisions at RHIC

Quark interactions with topological gluon configurations can induce chirality imbalance and local parity violation in quantum chromodynamics. This can lead to electric charge separation along the strong magnetic field in relativistic heavy-ion collisions – the chiral magnetic effect (CME). We report measurements by the STAR collaboration of a CME-sensitive observable in p+Au and d+Au collisions at 200 GeV, where the CME is not expected, using charge-dependent pair correlations relative to a third particle. We observe strong charge-dependent correlations similar to those measured in heavy-ion collisions. This bears important implications for the interpretation of the heavy-ion data