Flood- and Weather-Damaged Homes and Mental Health: An Analysis Using England's Mental Health Survey

There is increasing evidence that exposure to weather-related hazards like storms and floods adversely affects mental health. However, evidence of treated and untreated mental disorders based on diagnostic criteria for the general population is limited. We analysed the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, a large probability sample survey of adults in England (n = 7525), that provides the only national data on the prevalence of mental disorders assessed to diagnostic criteria. The most recent survey (2014–2015) asked participants if they had experienced damage to their home (due to wind, rain, snow or flood) in the six months prior to interview, a period that included months of unprecedented population exposure to flooding, particularly in Southern England. One in twenty (4.5%) reported living in a storm- or flood-damaged home in the previous six months. Social advantage (home ownership, higher household income) increased the odds of exposure to storm or flood damage. Exposure predicted having a common mental disorder over and above the effects of other known predictors of poor mental health. With climate change increasing the frequency and severity of storms and flooding, improving community resilience and disaster preparedness is a priority. Evidence on the mental health of exposed populations is key to building this capacity

Variational Formulation for the KPZ and Related Kinetic Equations

We present a variational formulation for the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation that leads to a thermodynamic-like potential for the KPZ as well as for other related kinetic equations. For the KPZ case, with the knowledge of such a potential we prove some global shift invariance properties previously conjectured by other authors. We also show a few results about the form of the stationary probability distribution function for arbitrary dimensions. The procedure used for KPZ was extended in order to derive more general forms of such a functional leading to other nonlinear kinetic equations, as well as cases with density dependent surface tension.Comment: RevTex, 8pgs, double colum

Kaluza-Klein Dark Matter and the Positron Excess

The excess of cosmic positrons observed by the HEAT experiment may be the result of Kaluza-Klein dark matter annihilating in the galactic halo. Kaluza-Klein dark matter annihilates dominantly into charged leptons that yield a large number and hard spectrum of positrons per annihilation. Given a Kaluza-Klein dark matter particle with a mass in the range of 300-400 GeV, no exceptional substructure or clumping is needed in the local distribution of dark matter to generate a positron flux that explains the HEAT observations. This is in contrast to supersymmetric dark matter that requires unnaturally large amounts of dark substructure to produce the observed positron excess. Future astrophysical and collider tests are outlined that will confirm or rule out this explanation of the HEAT data.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, REVTeX

System Size Stochastic Resonance: General Nonequilibrium Potential Framework

We study the phenomenon of system size stochastic resonance within the nonequilibrium potential's framework. We analyze three different cases of spatially extended systems, exploiting the knowledge of their nonequilibrium potential, showing that through the analysis of that potential we can obtain a clear physical interpretation of this phenomenon in wide classes of extended systems. Depending on the characteristics of the system, the phenomenon results to be associated to a breaking of the symmetry of the nonequilibrium potential or to a deepening of the potential minima yielding an effective scaling of the noise intensity with the system size.Comment: LaTex, 24 pages and 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Finding the way forward for forensic science in the US:a commentary on the PCAST report

A recent report by the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) [1] has made a number of recommendations for the future development of forensic science. Whereas we all agree that there is much need for change, we find that the PCAST report recommendations are founded on serious misunderstandings. We explain the traditional forensic paradigms of match and identification and the more recent foundation of the logical approach to evidence evaluation. This forms the groundwork for exposing many sources of confusion in the PCAST report. We explain how the notion of treating the scientist as a black box and the assignment of evidential weight through error rates is overly restrictive and misconceived. Our own view sees inferential logic, the development of calibrated knowledge and understanding of scientists as the core of the advance of the profession

Anti-microbial Use in Animals: How to Assess the Trade-offs

Antimicrobials are widely used in preventive and curative medicine in animals. Benefits from curative use are clear – it allows sick animals to be healthy with a gain in human welfare. The case for preventive use of antimicrobials is less clear cut with debates on the value of antimicrobials as growth promoters in the intensive livestock industries. The possible benefits from the use of antimicrobials need to be balanced against their cost and the increased risk of emergence of resistance due to their use in animals. The study examines the importance of animals in society and how the role and management of animals is changing including the use of antimicrobials. It proposes an economic framework to assess the trade-offs of anti-microbial use and examines the current level of data collection and analysis of these trade-offs. An exploratory review identifies a number of weaknesses. Rarely are we consistent in the frameworks applied to the economic assessment anti-microbial use in animals, which may well be due to gaps in data or the prejudices of the analysts. There is a need for more careful data collection that would allow information on (i) which species and production systems antimicrobials are used in, (ii) what active substance of antimicrobials and the application method and (iii) what dosage rates. The species need to include companion animals as well as the farmed animals as it is still not known how important direct versus indirect spread of resistance to humans is. In addition, research is needed on pricing antimicrobials used in animals to ensure that prices reflect production and marketing costs, the fixed costs of anti-microbial development and the externalities of resistance emergence. Overall, much work is needed to provide greater guidance to policy, and such work should be informed by rigorous data collection and analysis systems

Disorder-Induced Shift of Condensation Temperature for Dilute Trapped Bose Gases

We determine the leading shift of the Bose-Einstein condensation temperature for an ultracold dilute atomic gas in a harmonic trap due to weak disorder by treating both a Gaussian and a Lorentzian spatial correlation for the quenched disorder potential. Increasing the correlation length from values much smaller than the geometric mean of the trap scale and the mean particle distance to much larger values leads first to an increase of the positive shift to a maximum at this critical length scale and then to a decrease.Comment: Author information under http://www.theo-phys.uni-essen.de/tp/ags/pelster_di

Weak noise approach to the logistic map

Using a nonperturbative weak noise approach we investigate the interference of noise and chaos in simple 1D maps. We replace the noise-driven 1D map by an area-preserving 2D map modelling the Poincare sections of a conserved dynamical system with unbounded energy manifolds. We analyze the properties of the 2D map and draw conclusions concerning the interference of noise on the nonlinear time evolution. We apply this technique to the standard period-doubling sequence in the logistic map. From the 2D area-preserving analogue we, in addition to the usual period-doubling sequence, obtain a series of period doubled cycles which are elliptic in nature. These cycles are spinning off the real axis at parameters values corresponding to the standard period doubling events.Comment: 22 pages in revtex and 8 figures in ep

Human papillomavirus E2 regulates SRSF3 (SRp20) to promote capsid protein expression in infected differentiated keratinocytes

The human papillomavirus (HPV) life cycle is tightly linked to differentiation of the infected epithelial cell suggesting a sophisticated interplay between host cell metabolism and virus replication. Previously we demonstrated in differentiated keratinocytes in vitro and in vivo that HPV16 infection caused increased levels of the cellular SR splicing factors (SRSFs) SRSF1 (ASF/SF2), SRSF2 (SC35) and SRSF3 (SRp20). Moreover, the viral E2 transcription and replication factor that is expressed at high levels in differentiating keratinocytes could bind and control activity of the SRSF1 gene promoter. Here we reveal that E2 proteins of HPV16 and HPV31 control expression of SRSFs 1, 2 and 3 in a differentiation-dependent manner. E2 has the greatest trans-activation effect on expression of SRSF3. siRNA depletion experiments in two different models of the HPV16 life cycle (W12E and NIKS16) and one model of the HPV31 life cycle (CIN612-9E) revealed that only SRSF3 contributed significantly to regulation of late events in the virus life cycle. Increased levels of SRSF3 are required for L1 mRNA and capsid protein expression. Capsid protein expression was regulated specifically by SRSF3 and appeared independent of other SRSFs. Taken together these data suggest a significant role of the HPV E2 protein in regulating late events in the HPV life cycle through transcriptional regulation of SRSF3 expression. IMPORTANCE Human papillomavirus replication is accomplished in concert with differentiation of the infected epithelium. Virus capsid protein expression is confined to the upper epithelial layers so as to avoid immune detection. In this study we demonstrate that the viral E2 transcription factor activates the promoter of the cellular SRSF3 RNA processing factor. SRSF3 is required for expression of the E4̂L1 mRNA and so controls expression of the HPV L1 capsid protein. Thus we reveal a new dimension of virus-host interaction crucial for production of infectious virus. SRSF proteins are known drug targets. Therefore, this study provides an excellent basis for developing strategies to regulate capsid protein production in the infected epithelium and production of new virions