Piloting of a suicide first aid gatekeeper training (online) for children and young people in conflict affected areas in Syria

Suicide among internally displaced people remains an under-researched public health issue especially in conflict affected countries. Given the limited and sometimes inaccessible mental health services, there is a need for scalable evidence-based suicide prevention programmes that could be delivered by trained and supervised non-specialists. The Suicide First Aid Guidelines approach aims to support humanitarian workers who deal directly with children and families with the appropriate knowledge and skills to identify and support those at risk of suicide until they can access further specialized support services or until the crisis passes. This paper presents the findings of an online pilot training of 56 humanitarian workers from different sectors (e.g. Child Protection, Nutrition and Mental Health and Psychosocial Support) in conflict affected areas in Syria. The quantitative and qualitative evaluations were based on pre- and post-training questionnaires and revision journals completed between training sessions. Suggestions and examples provided in the journals and during the trainings were incorporated into the succeeding trainings. This was to contextualize and modify the gatekeeper training to fit the Syrian context and provide adaptations for future research and suicide prevention guidelines. Overall, the evaluation indicated that the pilot training raised awareness and improved participants’ knowledge on how to assist a suicidal person, including warning signs. It also contributed to a positive change in attitude or beliefs towards suicide. Although the pilot training was considered adequate for the Syrian context some improvements were suggested

Relativistically covariant state-dependent cloning of photons

The influence of the relativistic covariance requirement on the optimality of the symmetric state-dependent 1 -> 2 cloning machine is studied. Namely, given a photonic qubit whose basis is formed from the momentum-helicity eigenstates, the change to the optimal cloning fidelity is calculated taking into account the Lorentz covariance unitarily represented by Wigner's little group. To pinpoint some of the interesting results, we found states for which the optimal fidelity of the cloning process drops to 2/3 which corresponds to the fidelity of the optimal classical cloner. Also, an implication for the security of the BB84 protocol is analyzed.Comment: corrected, rewritten and accepted in PR

Composition and functionality of the wild and cultivated common bean rhizosphere microbiome.

Abstract: Plants rely on their rhizosphere microbiome for specific functions, such as, nutrient acquisition and protection against diseases. The domestication and subsequent plant breeding neglected the important role of the rhizosphere microbiome on plant performance. Here, we tested the hypothesis that ancestor materials have higher ability to host beneficial microorganisms in the rhizosphere when compared to modern cultivars. For this, we assessed the composition and functionality of the rhizosphere microbiome associated with a wild (Wild Mex) and with a cultivated (IAC Alvorada) common bean grown in highly biodiverse soil (Amazonian Dark Earth). Antagonistic bacteria were isolated from common bean rhizosphere and total rhizosphere DNA was extracted for shotgun sequencing using Illumina MiSeq. Eleven out of 104 isolated bacteria showed antagonistic in vitro activity against soil borne pathogens Rhizoctonia solani and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. phaseoli. The bacterial isolates were identified belonging to Streptomyces, Kitasatospora, Alcaligenes, Achromobacter, Pseudomonas, Stenotrophomonas, Brevibacillus and Paenibacillus genus. The cultivation-independent approach revealed that microbial community composition in the Wild Mex bean rhizosphere was characterized by higher relative abundance of bacterial phyla Acidobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, Gemmatimonadetes and fungal phylum Glomeromycota when compared with IAC Alvorada cultivated bean, which showed a higher relative abundance of bacterial phyla Firmicutes, Planctomycetes, Deinococcus-Thermus and fungal phylum Ascomycota. Wild Mex rhizosphere microbiome showed higher relative frequency of nitrogen-fixing, nitrifying, antagonists and plant growth promoting microorganisms. The wild bean also showed higher relative abundance of functions related to nitrogen fixation, siderophore and indole acetic acid (IAA) production, when compared with IAC Alvorada bean. Ordination analysis revealed that the wild genotype is more selective in recruiting microorganisms and functions in the rhizosphere when compared with modern cultivar. In conclusion, the results revealed that domestication and plant breeding potentially undermined rhizosphere microbiome composition and functions debilitating the host?s ability to select and support beneficial microbes

A human antibody against Zika virus crosslinks the E protein to prevent infection

The recent Zika virus (ZIKV) epidemic has been linked to unusual and severe clinical manifestations including microcephaly in fetuses of infected pregnant women and Guillian-Barré syndrome in adults. Neutralizing antibodies present a possible therapeutic approach to prevent and control ZIKV infection. Here we present a 6.2 Å resolution three-dimensional cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) structure of an infectious ZIKV (strain H/PF/2013, French Polynesia) in complex with the Fab fragment of a highly therapeutic and neutralizing human monoclonal antibody, ZIKV-117. The antibody had been shown to prevent fetal infection and demise in mice. The structure shows that ZIKV-117 Fabs cross-link the monomers within the surface E glycoprotein dimers as well as between neighbouring dimers, thus preventing the reorganization of E protein monomers into fusogenic trimers in the acidic environment of endosomes

A unified evaluation of iterative projection algorithms for phase retrieval

Iterative projection algorithms are successfully being used as a substitute of lenses to recombine, numerically rather than optically, light scattered by illuminated objects. Images obtained computationally allow aberration-free diffraction-limited imaging and the possibility of using radiation for which no lenses exist. The challenge of this imaging technique is transfered from the lenses to the algorithms. We evaluate these new computational ``instruments'' developed for the phase retrieval problem, and discuss acceleration strategies.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, revte