Temporal inabilities and decision-making capacity in depression

We report on an interview-based study of decision-making capacity in two classes of patients suffering from depression. Developing a method of second-person hermeneutic phenomenology, we articulate the distinctive combination of temporal agility and temporal inability characteristic of the experience of severely depressed patients. We argue that a cluster of decision-specific temporal abilities is a critical element of decision-making capacity, and we show that loss of these abilities is a risk factor distinguishing severely depressed patients from mildly/moderately depressed patients. We explore the legal and clinical consequences of this result

Preclinical correction of human Fanconi anemia complementation group A bone marrow cells using a safety-modified lentiviral vector.

One of the major hurdles for the development of gene therapy for Fanconi anemia (FA) is the increased sensitivity of FA stem cells to free radical-induced DNA damage during ex vivo culture and manipulation. To minimize this damage, we have developed a brief transduction procedure for lentivirus vector-mediated transduction of hematopoietic progenitor cells from patients with Fanconi anemia complementation group A (FANCA). The lentiviral vector FancA-sW contains the phosphoglycerate kinase promoter, the FANCA cDNA, and a synthetic, safety-modified woodchuck post transcriptional regulatory element (sW). Bone marrow mononuclear cells or purified CD34(+) cells from patients with FANCA were transduced in an overnight culture on recombinant fibronectin peptide CH-296, in low (5%) oxygen, with the reducing agent, N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC), and a combination of growth factors, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), Flt3 ligand, stem cell factor, and thrombopoietin. Transduced cells plated in methylcellulose in hypoxia with NAC showed increased colony formation compared with 21% oxygen without NAC (P<0.03), showed increased resistance to mitomycin C compared with green fluorescent protein (GFP) vector-transduced controls (P<0.007), and increased survival. Thus, combining short transduction and reducing oxidative stress may enhance the viability and engraftment of gene-corrected cells in patients with FANCA

Risk factors for falls in community-dwelling older people with mild cognitive impairment: a prospective one-year study

Objective: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is considered an intermediate stage between normal cognitive function and dementia. Fall risk is increased in this group, but there is limited literature exploring specific fall risk factors that may be addressed in fall prevention strategies. The aim of this study was to examine risk factors for falls in older people with MCI, focusing on cognitive, psychological and physical factors. Methods: Participants (n = 266, 45% women) were community-dwelling older people aged 70–90 years who met the criteria for MCI. Cognitive, psychological, sensorimotor and physical assessments, physical activity levels, medication use, general health and disability were ascertained at baseline. Falls were monitored prospectively for 12 months. Results: During follow-up, 106 (40%) participants reported one or more falls. Poorer visual contrast sensitivity, increased postural sway, lower levels of weekly walking activity, higher levels of depressive symptoms and psychotropic medication use were significantly associated with faller status (≥1 falls) in univariable analyses. Of these factors, poor visual contrast sensitivity, increased postural sway and psychotropic medication use were found to be significant independent predictors of falls in multivariable analysis while controlling for age and sex. No measures of cognitive function were associated with falls. Conclusions: Poor visual contrast sensitivity, impaired balance and psychotropic medication use predicted falls in community-dwelling people with MCI. These risk factors may be amenable to intervention, so these factors could be carefully considered in fall prevention programs for this population

6D supergravity without tensor multiplets

We systematically investigate the finite set of possible gauge groups and matter content for N = 1 supergravity theories in six dimensions with no tensor multiplets, focusing on nonabelian gauge groups which are a product of SU(N) factors. We identify a number of models which obey all known low-energy consistency conditions, but which have no known string theory realization. Many of these models contain novel matter representations, suggesting possible new string theory constructions. Many of the most exotic matter structures arise in models which precisely saturate the gravitational anomaly bound on the number of hypermultiplets. Such models have a rigid symmetry structure, in the sense that there are no moduli which leave the full gauge group unbroken.Comment: 31 pages, latex; v2, v3: minor corrections, references adde

Access to interpreting services in England: secondary analysis of national data

Background: Overcoming language barriers to health care is a global challenge. There is great linguistic diversity in the major cities in the UK with more than 300 languages, excluding dialects, spoken by children in London alone. However, there is dearth of data on the number of non-English speakers for planning effective interpreting services. The aim was to estimate the number of people requiring language support amongst the minority ethnic communities in England. Methods: Secondary analysis of national representative sample of subjects recruited to the Health Surveys for England 1999 and 2004. Results: 298,432 individuals from the four main minority ethnic communities (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Chinese) who may be unable to communicate effectively with a health professional. This represents 2,520,885 general practice consultations per year where interpreting services might be required. Conclusion: Effective interpreting services are required to improve access and health outcomes of non-English speakers and thereby facilitate a reduction in health inequalities

Dp-branes, NS5-branes and U-duality from nonabelian (2,0) theory with Lie 3-algebra

We derive the super Yang-Mills action of Dp-branes on a torus T^{p-4} from the nonabelian (2,0) theory with Lie 3-algebra. Our realization is based on Lie 3-algebra with pairs of Lorentzian metric generators. The resultant theory then has negative norm modes, but it results in a unitary theory by setting VEV's of these modes. This procedure corresponds to the torus compactification, therefore by taking a transformation which is equivalent to T-duality, the Dp-brane action is obtained. We also study type IIA/IIB NS5-brane and Kaluza-Klein monopole systems by taking other VEV assignments. Such various compactifications can be realized in the nonabelian (2,0) theory, since both longitudinal and transverse directions can be compactified, which is different from the BLG theory. We finally discuss U-duality among these branes, and show that most of the moduli parameters in U-duality group are recovered. Especially in D5-brane case, the whole U-duality relation is properly reproduced.Comment: 1+26 page

Impact of the Nursing and Midwifery Council Future Nurse Standards on children's nursing: A critical discussion

Edge et al explore the current concerns and ongoing debate around the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Future Nurse: Standards of proficiency for registered nurses (2018). This article looks at the impact of the standards on changes to pre-registration children's nursing education, exploring the impact on ensuring students are equipped with the right knowledge and skills to meet children, young people and their families' needs. Central to the discussion is the importance of hearing the voice of children and young people, and families are considered central to the ongoing discussion that is integral in shaping our future nursing workforce

Non-Perturbative Superpotentials in F-theory and String Duality

We use open-closed string duality between F-theory on K3xK3 and type II strings on CY manifolds without branes to study non-perturbative superpotentials in generalized flux compactifications. On the F-theory side we obtain the full flux potential including D3-instanton contributions and show that it leads to an explicit and simple realization of the three ingredients of the KKLT model for stringy dS vacua. The D3-instanton contribution is highly non-trivial, can be systematically computed including the determinant factors and demonstrates that a particular flux lifts very effectively zero modes on the instanton. On the closed string side, we propose a generalization of the Gukov-Vafa-Witten superpotential for type II strings on generalized CY manifolds, depending on all moduli multiplets.Comment: 49 pages, harvmac, 1 figure; references & figures adde

Action for the eleven dimensional multiple M-wave system

We present the covariant supersymmetric and kappa-symmetric action for a system of N nearly coincident M-waves (multiple M0-brane system) in flat eleven dimensional superspace.Comment: 4+ pages, RevTeX4, no figures. V2: misprints corrected, discussion extended, references added, LaTeX, 10 pages. V3: misprints corrected. V4, extended version, 1+13 pages, to appear in JHE