Increasing microbiological confirmation and changing epidemiology of meningococcal disease on Merseyside, England

ObjectivesTo determine, for the last 5 years in children on Merseyside with clinical meningococcal disease (MCD), the impact on diagnostic yield of newer bacteriologic methods; bacterial antigen detection (AD) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR).MethodsProspective data collection at Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital over two epochs: 1 September 1992 to 30 April 1994 (epoch A, n = 126) and 17 November 1997 to 15 September 1998 (epoch B, n = 85).ResultsEpoch Awas compared with epoch B. Diagnosis was confirmed by detection of meningococci in 78 of 126 (61.9%) versus 64 of 85 (75.3%, P = 0.04), but with a significantly lower rate of positive blood and cerebrospinal fluid culture in the later epoch. The proportion of cases receiving penicillin pretreatment was unchanged at 32%, but the proportion undergoing lumbar puncture decreased significantly. Median ages were higher in epoch B: 1.7 years versus 2.49 years (P = 0.013, Mann-Whitney). There was a significant increase in the proportion of cases due to serogroup C (14/78 (18%) versus 30/64 (46.9%), P = 0.001).ConclusionsCulture detection of meningococci from children with MCD has reduced, as less lumbar punctures are done. However, improved diagnosis by PCR and AD has increased microbiological confirmation overall. Serogroup C disease and the median age of cases continue to rise

A Systematic Literature Review of Emotion Regulation Measurement in Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder

DOI: 10.1002/aur.1426Emotion regulation (ER) difficulties are a potential common factor underlying the presentation of multiple emotional and behavioral problems in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). To provide an overview of how ER has been studied in individuals with ASD, we conducted a systematic review of the past 20 years of ER research in the ASD population, using established keywords from the most comprehensive ER literature review of the typically developing population to date. Out of an initial sampling of 305 studies, 32 were eligible for review. We examined the types of methods (self-report, informant report, naturalistic observation/ behavior coding, physiological, and open-ended) and the ER constructs based on Gross and Thompson’s modal model (situation selection, situation modification, attention deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation). Studies most often assessed ER using one type of method and from a unidimensional perspective. Across the 32 studies, we documented the types of measures used and found that 38% of studies used self-report, 44% included an informant report measure, 31% included at least one naturalistic observation/behavior coding measure, 13% included at least one physiological measure, and 13% included at least one open-ended measure. Only 25% of studies used more than one method of measurement. The findings of the current review provide the field with an in-depth analysis of various ER measures and how each measure taps into an ER framework. Future research can use this model to examine ER in a multicomponent way and through multiple methods.Spectrum of Hope Autism Foundation, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, NeuroDevNet, Sinneave Family Foundation, CASDA, Autism Speaks Canada, Health Canad

Horizontal Branch Stars: The Interplay between Observations and Theory, and Insights into the Formation of the Galaxy

We review HB stars in a broad astrophysical context, including both variable and non-variable stars. A reassessment of the Oosterhoff dichotomy is presented, which provides unprecedented detail regarding its origin and systematics. We show that the Oosterhoff dichotomy and the distribution of globular clusters (GCs) in the HB morphology-metallicity plane both exclude, with high statistical significance, the possibility that the Galactic halo may have formed from the accretion of dwarf galaxies resembling present-day Milky Way satellites such as Fornax, Sagittarius, and the LMC. A rediscussion of the second-parameter problem is presented. A technique is proposed to estimate the HB types of extragalactic GCs on the basis of integrated far-UV photometry. The relationship between the absolute V magnitude of the HB at the RR Lyrae level and metallicity, as obtained on the basis of trigonometric parallax measurements for the star RR Lyrae, is also revisited, giving a distance modulus to the LMC of (m-M)_0 = 18.44+/-0.11. RR Lyrae period change rates are studied. Finally, the conductive opacities used in evolutionary calculations of low-mass stars are investigated. [ABRIDGED]Comment: 56 pages, 22 figures. Invited review, to appear in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

A MODEST review

We present an account of the state of the art in the fields explored by the research community invested in 'Modeling and Observing DEnse STellar systems'. For this purpose, we take as a basis the activities of the MODEST-17 conference, which was held at Charles University, Prague, in September 2017. Reviewed topics include recent advances in fundamental stellar dynamics, numerical methods for the solution of the gravitational N-body problem, formation and evolution of young and old star clusters and galactic nuclei, their elusive stellar populations, planetary systems, and exotic compact objects, with timely attention to black holes of different classes of mass and their role as sources of gravitational waves. Such a breadth of topics reflects the growing role played by collisional stellar dynamics in numerous areas of modern astrophysics. Indeed, in the next decade, many revolutionary instruments will enable the derivation of positions and velocities of individual stars in the Milky Way and its satellites and will detect signals from a range of astrophysical sources in different portions of the electromagnetic and gravitational spectrum, with an unprecedented sensitivity. On the one hand, this wealth of data will allow us to address a number of long-standing open questions in star cluster studies; on the other hand, many unexpected properties of these systems will come to light, stimulating further progress of our understanding of their formation and evolution.Comment: 42 pages; accepted for publication in 'Computational Astrophysics and Cosmology'. We are much grateful to the organisers of the MODEST-17 conference (Charles University, Prague, September 2017). We acknowledge the input provided by all MODEST-17 participants, and, more generally, by the members of the MODEST communit

Evaluation of Hanford high level waste vitrification chemistry for an NCAW simulant -- FY 1994: Potential exothermic reactions in the presence of formic acid, glycolic acid, and oxalic acid

A potential for an uncontrollable exothermic reaction between nitrate and organic salts during preparation of a high level waste melter feed has been identified. In order to examine this potential more closely, the thermal behavior of simulated neutralized current acid waste (NCAW) treated with various organic reductants was studied. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements were collected on simulated waste samples and their supernates treated with organics. Organic reductants used were formic acid, glycolic acid, and oxalic acid. For comparison, samples of untreated simulant and untreated simulant with added noble metals were tested. When heated, untreated simulant samples both with and without noble metals showed no exothermic behavior. All of the treated waste simulant samples showed exothermic behavior. Onset temperatures of exothermic reactions were 120 C to 210 C. Many onset temperatures, particularly those for formic acid treated samples, are well below 181 C, the estimated maximum steam coil temperature (considered to be a worst case maximum temperature for chemical process tank contents). The enthalpies of the reactions were {minus}180 {times} 10{sup {minus}3} J/Kg supernate ({minus}181 J/g) for the oxalic acid treated simulant supernate to {minus}1,150 {times} 10{sup {minus}3} J/Kg supernate ({minus}1,153 J/g) for the formic acid treated simulant supernate

Ophthalmological screening of shildren with seronegative juvenile chronic arthritis for the detection of chronic anterior uveitis Guidelines from the British Paediatric Rheumatology Group

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:98/19019 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Response to drug treatment in newly diagnosed epilepsy: a pilot study of 1H NMR- and MS-based metabonomic analysis

Understanding the biological basis of drug resistance and developing techniques which facilitate prediction of outcome have the potential to revolutionise the pharmacotherapy of epilepsy.We have performed a pilot study of metabonomic analysis using nuclear magnetic resonance(NMR) spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS) in an effort to identify metabolic biomarkers of response to antiepileptic drug treatment. Pretreatment serum samples were obtained from 125 patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy who were taking part in a randomized monotherapy trial. Outcome (responder, nonresponder) was assessed at 6 weeks, 6 months, and 12 months after starting treatment. Serum samples were subject to investigation by both NMR and MS and the resulting data interrogated by principal component analysis. There was no clear distinction in the metabolic profile, acquired by either NMR or MS, of responders and nonresponders to AED treatment at any of the three clinical end points investigated, suggesting that pretreatment serum samples do not contain any prominent biomarkers of responsiveness to initial treatment in new-onset epilepsy. Metabonomic analysis is undoubtedly applicable to the search for biological predictors of response to drug treatment in epilepsy, but future studies should employ larger patient cohorts, more discriminatory analyses, and a less equivocal clinical phenotype

Breaking the silence: the traumatic circle of policing

Operational police officers often work in traumatic situations. Whilst training and support is provided to officers in these areas in the UK, and some debriefing and counselling is provided, this is not fully effective in addressing the so-called ‘attitudinal’ problem of the police. We believe that one of the reasons for this is that police training does not adequately address the effects of working in traumatic conditions, and certainly does not take into account new work in the area of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which shows that trauma, and its vicarious effects, is not necessarily a mental disorder (though its symptoms may manifest as such) but is caused by physiological and emotional changes in the body. Further, studies on the social nature of trauma indicate that it is often the isolated conditions of trauma victims that can increase PTSD. Drawing on secondary data from one of the authors’ work on spirituality in the police force, we explore the connections between the physiological and emotional aspects of trauma and the conditions in which police in the UK work. We suggest that police officers’ reports of the work they do, and the way in which they learn to live with it, keeps them in an ongoing cycle of retraumatisation. We suggest that we need to take into account the physiological, social as well as psychological (or attitudinal) aspects of working in traumatic conditions if we are to provide adequate training support for police officers, so that they are not left isolated in this cycle. This has potentially far-reaching implications for the training of police officers