The effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy versus antidepressants for treatment of post-stroke depression in adults

Stroke is a common disorder with profound lasting effects and is the UK’s fourth leading cause of morbidity. One important after-effect is post-stroke depression (PSD). PSD can impact overall recovery, however treatment guidelines remain unclear. Usual care generally consists of antidepressants despite cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) being a first-line treatment for depression. This evidence review aims to assess the effectiveness of CBT compared with antidepressants for treating PSD in adult stroke patients. Evidence searches of MEDLINE, PUBMED, The Cochrane Library, PsycINFO and NICE Evidence Search were conducted using strict search terms. The results were screened and appraised. A reference list search was carried out on included reviews with these results also screened and appraised. Appraisals used the AGREE II tool for guidelines and the CASP systematic review and randomised controlled trial (RCT) frameworks. Each stage was carried out by two independent reviewers, with disagreements resolved by a third reviewer. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, two guidelines, four reviews and one RCT were included in the synthesis. One review found CBT effective for treating PSD. Two reviews found CBT combined with antidepressants more effective than antidepressants alone. One review concluded CBT was ineffective for treating PSD. A single RCT found CBT more effective than antidepressants if PSD onset was nine months post-stroke, but PSD onset six months post-stroke was most effectively treated by antidepressants. Results for less than six months post-stroke were inconclusive. The findings of this evidence review suggest it is not possible to definitively conclude whether CBT is more or less effective than antidepressants. A combination of both is likely to be most effective. Lack of research means conclusions for clinical practice are difficult to draw. More research is needed before specific guidelines can be compiled

The ABC130 barrel module prototyping programme for the ATLAS strip tracker

For the Phase-II Upgrade of the ATLAS Detector, its Inner Detector, consisting of silicon pixel, silicon strip and transition radiation sub-detectors, will be replaced with an all new 100 % silicon tracker, composed of a pixel tracker at inner radii and a strip tracker at outer radii. The future ATLAS strip tracker will include 11,000 silicon sensor modules in the central region (barrel) and 7,000 modules in the forward region (end-caps), which are foreseen to be constructed over a period of 3.5 years. The construction of each module consists of a series of assembly and quality control steps, which were engineered to be identical for all production sites. In order to develop the tooling and procedures for assembly and testing of these modules, two series of major prototyping programs were conducted: an early program using readout chips designed using a 250 nm fabrication process (ABCN-25) and a subsequent program using a follow-up chip set made using 130 nm processing (ABC130 and HCC130 chips). This second generation of readout chips was used for an extensive prototyping program that produced around 100 barrel-type modules and contributed significantly to the development of the final module layout. This paper gives an overview of the components used in ABC130 barrel modules, their assembly procedure and findings resulting from their tests.Comment: 82 pages, 66 figure

Addressing the climate challenge

In 2021, colleagues from across the University of Birmingham community were invited to write articles about topics relevant to the COP26 climate change summit. In this series of articles, experts from across many different disciplines provide new insight and evidence on how we might all understand and tackle climate change

Emily Collins Pyatt

Interview between Eric Crawford, Coastal Carolina University faculty researcher, and Emily Collins Pyatt at Rosalyn Geather\u27s home in Georgetown, South Carolina. Pyatt was a teacher at the Sandy Island School, as well as a resident on Sandy Island. Pyatt discusses growing up as a child on the island on her family\u27s farm. She discusses Reverend George Washington and his wife Stella who was a school teacher on the island. She discusses how people would make mattresses on the island and how before they would use fresh straw to sleep on. She discusses the teachers at the school that Mr. Huntington built on the island including Mr. Bolt and Professor Bland. She discusses how some of the men from the island would go to Conway to work in the mills. She also discusses her time at Whittemore High School and how she became involved in teaching while still in school. She discusses how she ended up attending Bentley College. She discusses how she stopped teaching in 1943 and how she was friends with Miss Ruby who was a teacher in Conway. She discusses hurricane Hazel and how she had to use the paddle on some of the children. She discusses how her granddaughter is a chemist for the Coca-Cola Company and how over the years of teaching she has had to give educational advice to many of her students

Exonic deletions in AUTS2 cause a syndromic form of intellectual disability and suggest a critical role for the C terminus.

Genomic rearrangements involving AUTS2 (7q11.22) are associated with autism and intellectual disability (ID), although evidence for causality is limited. By combining the results of diagnostic testing of 49,684 individuals, we identified 24 microdeletions that affect at least one exon of AUTS2, as well as one translocation and one inversion each with a breakpoint within the AUTS2 locus. Comparison of 17 well-characterized individuals enabled identification of a variable syndromic phenotype including ID, autism, short stature, microcephaly, cerebral palsy, and facial dysmorphisms. The dysmorphic features were more pronounced in persons with 3'AUTS2 deletions. This part of the gene is shown to encode a C-terminal isoform (with an alternative transcription start site) expressed in the human brain. Consistent with our genetic data, suppression of auts2 in zebrafish embryos caused microcephaly that could be rescued by either the full-length or the C-terminal isoform of AUTS2. Our observations demonstrate a causal role of AUTS2 in neurocognitive disorders, establish a hitherto unappreciated syndromic phenotype at this locus, and show how transcriptional complexity can underpin human pathology. The zebrafish model provides a valuable tool for investigating the etiology of AUTS2 syndrome and facilitating gene-function analysis in the future

The ABC130 barrel module prototyping programme for the ATLAS strip tracker

For the Phase-II Upgrade of the ATLAS Detector [1], its Inner Detector, consisting of silicon pixel, silicon strip and transition radiation sub-detectors, will be replaced with an all new 100% silicon tracker, composed of a pixel tracker at inner radii and a strip tracker at outer radii. The future ATLAS strip tracker will include 11,000 silicon sensor modules in the central region (barrel) and 7,000 modules in the forward region (end-caps), which are foreseen to be constructed over a period of 3.5 years. The construction of each module consists of a series of assembly and quality control steps, which were engineered to be identical for all production sites. In order to develop the tooling and procedures for assembly and testing of these modules, two series of major prototyping programs were conducted: an early program using readout chips designed using a 250 nm fabrication process (ABCN-250) [2,2] and a subsequent program using a follow-up chip set made using 130 nm processing (ABC130 and HCC130 chips). This second generation of readout chips was used for an extensive prototyping program that produced around 100 barrel-type modules and contributed significantly to the development of the final module layout. This paper gives an overview of the components used in ABC130 barrel modules, their assembly procedure and findings resulting from their tests