Intensive community care services for children and young people in psychiatric crisis: an expert opinion.

BACKGROUND: Children and young people's (CYP) mental health is worsening, and an increasing number are seeking psychiatric and mental health care. Whilst many CYPs with low-to-medium levels of psychiatric distress can be treated in outpatient services, CYPs in crisis often require inpatient hospital treatment. Although necessary in many cases, inpatient care can be distressing for CYPs and their families. Amongst other things, inpatient stays often isolate CYPs from their support networks and disrupt their education. In response to such limitations, and in order to effectively support CYPs with complex mental health needs, intensive community-based treatment models, which are known in this paper as intensive community care services (ICCS), have been developed. Although ICCS have been developed in a number of settings, there is, at present, little to no consensus of what ICCS entails. METHODS: A group of child and adolescent mental health clinicians, researchers and academics convened in London in January 2023. They met to discuss and agree upon the minimum requirements of ICCS. The discussion was semi-structured and used the Dartmouth Assertive Community Treatment Fidelity Scale as a framework. Following the meeting, the agreed features of ICCS, as described in this paper, were written up. RESULTS: ICCS was defined as a service which provides treatment primarily outside of hospital in community settings such as the school or home. Alongside this, ICCS should provide at least some out-of-hours support, and a minimum of 90% of CYPs should be supported at least twice per week. The maximum caseload should be approximately 5 clients per full time equivalent (FTE), and the minimum number of staff for an ICCS team should be 4 FTE. The group also confirmed the importance of supporting CYPs engagement with their communities and the need to remain flexible in treatment provision. Finally, the importance of robust evaluation utilising tools including the Children's Global Assessment Scale were agreed. CONCLUSIONS: This paper presents the agreed minimum requirements of intensive community-based psychiatric care. Using the parameters laid out herein, clinicians, academics, and related colleagues working in ICCS should seek to further develop the evidence base for this treatment model

The Yeast Spore Wall Enables Spores to Survive Passage through the Digestive Tract of Drosophila

In nature, yeasts are subject to predation by flies of the genus Drosophila. In response to nutritional starvation Saccharomyces cerevisiae differentiates into a dormant cell type, termed a spore, which is resistant to many types of environmental stress. The stress resistance of the spore is due primarily to a spore wall that is more elaborate than the vegetative cell wall. We report here that S. cerevisiae spores survive passage through the gut of Drosophila melanogaster. Constituents of the spore wall that distinguish it from the vegetative cell wall are necessary for this resistance. Ascospores of the distantly related yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe also display resistance to digestion by D. melanogaster. These results suggest that the primary function of the yeast ascospore is as a cell type specialized for dispersion by insect vectors

Alternative Oxidase Dependent Respiration Leads to an Increased Mitochondrial Content in Two Long-Lived Mutants of the Ageing Model Podospora anserina

The retrograde response constitutes an important signalling pathway from mitochondria to the nucleus which induces several genes to allow compensation of mitochondrial impairments. In the filamentous ascomycete Podospora anserina, an example for such a response is the induction of a nuclear-encoded and iron-dependent alternative oxidase (AOX) occurring when cytochrome-c oxidase (COX) dependent respiration is affected. Several long-lived mutants are known which predominantly or exclusively respire via AOX. Here we show that two AOX-utilising mutants, grisea and PaCox17::ble, are able to compensate partially for lowered OXPHOS efficiency resulting from AOX-dependent respiration by increasing mitochondrial content. At the physiological level this is demonstrated by an elevated oxygen consumption and increased heat production. However, in the two mutants, ATP levels do not reach WT levels. Interestingly, mutant PaCox17::ble is characterized by a highly increased release of the reactive oxygen species (ROS) hydrogen peroxide. Both grisea and PaCox17::ble contain elevated levels of mitochondrial proteins involved in quality control, i. e. LON protease and the molecular chaperone HSP60. Taken together, our work demonstrates that AOX-dependent respiration in two mutants of the ageing model P. anserina is linked to a novel mechanism involved in the retrograde response pathway, mitochondrial biogenesis, which might also play an important role for cellular maintenance in other organisms

Assessing the impact of hydropeaking on benthic invertebrates

Der Betrieb von Speicherkraftwerken führt zu häufigen Abflussschwankungen (Schwall) in Flussabschnitten unterhalb der Kraftwerke. Schwall verändert die hydraulischen Bedingungen und beeinträchtigt auch physikalische und chemische Parameter, wie zum Beispiel die Sauerstoffkonzentration. Obwohl die Drift eine wichtige Rolle in der Lebensweise von benthischen Invertebraten einnimmt, führen Veränderungen des natürlichen Abflussgeschehens zu einer Zunahme der Katastrophendrift und führen somit zu reduzierten Biomassen in betroffenen Fließgewässern. In Versuchsrinnen in Lunz am See (Österreich) wurde ein künstlicher Schwall induziert um das Driftverhalten von Makrozoobenthos (MZB) zu untersuchen. Diese Arbeit befasst sich mit saisonalen Unterschieden des Driftverhaltens von MZB während Schwallereignissen. In zwei verschiedenen Saisonen (Frühling und Herbst) wurde das durch Schwall verursachte Driftverhalten von aquatischen Evertebraten untersucht. Die gemessenen Driftraten waren im Herbst höher als im Frühling. Taxa der Köcherfliegen und der Steinfliegen zeigten einen deutlichen Zusammenhang der Driftraten und der Körpergröße, da vor allem kleine Individuen im Herbst gefunden wurden und diese stärker von der Schwalleinwirkung betroffen waren. Eintagsfliegen und Zweiflügler kamen hingegen im Frühling in höherer Dichte vor, wobei erstere höhere Driftraten im Herbst zeigten, Dipteren jedoch im Frühling. Grund dafür sind die unterschiedlichen Lebenszyklen verschiedener Arten, da sie unterschiedliche Reproduktionsstrategien verfolgen. Die Habitatpräferenz der unterschiedlichen Arten spielt ebenfalls eine wichtige Rolle bei der Driftsenitivität. Schwimmende und linitische Arten die bevorzugt in Bereichen mit langsamer Fließgeschwindigkeit vorkommen, zeigten höhere Driftraten als Arten, die im Interstitial leben.The operation of storage-power plants leads to irregularly increased runoff (hydropeaking) at flow paths beneath a hydropower plant. Hydropeaking leads to changes in hydraulic conditions and physico-chemical parameters, such as oxygen concentration. Even though drift plays an important role in the life history of benthic invertebrates, hydropeaking leads to increases in catastrophic drift and to a reduction of biomass in affected river stretches. In Lunz am See (Austria) experimental channels (HyTEC) were constructed to simulate hydropeaking and thus investigate the drift of benthic invertebrates following hydraulic stress. In this study, seasonal patterns of macroinvertebrate drift caused by hydropeaking have been investigated. In two different seasons (autumn & spring) the hydropeaking-induced drift of aquatic macroinvertebrates was quantified and analyzed. In general, higher drift rates were detected in autumn than in spring. This especially applied to Trichoptera and Plecoptera, of which small larvae were mainly found in autumn. A strong link between drift rates and larval size could be identified for these groups. Ephemeroptera and Diptera were most abundant in spring. Mayflies showed highest drift rates in autumn and Diptera in spring. Therefore, the life cycles of individual species have to be considered, as they show different life-history patterns. It was found that early larval stages are more susceptible to drift than larger individuals. Furthermore, a dependency of drift response to habitat preferences of single taxon is very likely. Swimming and lentic taxa that mostly occur in low-flowing habitats showed higher drift rates than interstitial taxa

Warum wir Webseiten geschrumpft und Quadratetiketten geklebt haben: Neue mobile Webangebote der Universitätsbibliothek Wien

Why we shrank web pages and posted barcodes in the library: new mobile web services at Vienna University Library (translation of the title). Contrary to traditional computers, the market for mobile end user devices (smartphones, tablets) is growing disproportionally fast and strong. Is has therefore become inevitable that libraries offer online information in a format that can be retrieved and displayed by these devices. In 2011, Vienna University Library developed a mobile web presence that attempts to fulfil user expectations of easy-to-find information and fast access times. For reasons of faster implementation and lower costs, it was decided to develop an HTML-based solution rather than a smartphone app. The mobile web pages are created by means of additional templates in the library's existing content management system (CMS). For the online catalogue, the existing Primo Mobile module was adapted. In addition to the mobile web pages, there were trials to assess access to information through quick response (QR) codes posted in the library