A systematic review of the psychological correlates of adjustment outcomes in adults with inflammatory bowel disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic long term condition which poses significant psychosocial adjustment challenges. The purpose of this review was to systematically identify psychological factors related to adjustment in adults with IBD with the aim of suggesting evidence based targets that may be modifiable though psychological intervention. Twenty five studies met inclusion criteria and were included in the systematic review and a narrative synthesis was conducted. A wide range of psychological variables were addressed covering six broad categories; personality traits, interpersonal traits, stress and coping, emotions and emotional control, IBD related cognitions and non IBD related cognitions. The most consistent relationship was found between certain emotion focused coping strategies and worse adjustment outcomes in IBD. Some evidence also hi-lighted a relationship between personality traits (such as neuroticism,) perceived stress, emotions and emotional control (such as alexithymia) and IBD related cognitions (such as illness perceptions) and negative adjustment outcomes. The results of this review suggest that interventions to improve adjustment in IBD may benefit from a focus on coping strategies, perceived stress and IBD related cognitions

COPe-support - a multi-component digital intervention for family carers for people affected by psychosis: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Psychosis often causes significant distress and impacts not only in the individuals, but also those close to them. Many relatives and friends ('carers') provide long-term support and need resources to assist them. We have co-produced a digital mental health intervention called COPe-support (Carers fOr People with Psychosis e-support) to provide carers with flexible access to high quality psychoeducation and interactive support from experts and peers. This study evaluates the effectiveness of COPe-support to promote mental wellbeing and caregiving experiences in carers. METHODS: This study is a single-blind, parallel arm, individually randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing COPe-support, with attention control. Both groups continue to receive usual care. COPe-support provides interactive web-based psychoeducation on psychosis-related issues, wellbeing-promotion and network support through forums. The attention-control is a non-interactive online information resource pack. Carers living in England are eligible if they provide at least weekly support to a family member or close friend affected by psychosis, and use internet communication (including emails) daily. All trial procedures are run online, including collection of outcome measurements which participants will directly input into our secure platform. Following baseline assessment, a web-based randomization system will be used to allocate 360 carers to either arm. Participants have unlimited access to the allocated condition for 40 weeks. Data collection is at three time points (10, 20, and 40 weeks after randomization). Analyses will be conducted by trial statisticians blinded to allocation. The primary outcome is mental wellbeing measured by Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS), at 20 weeks. As well as an intention-to-treat analysis, a complier average causal effect (CACE) analysis will be conducted to estimate the intervention effect in participants who have accessed COPe-support content twice or more. The secondary objectives and analysis will examine other health and caregiving-related outcomes and explore mechanisms. In a process evaluation, we will interview 20% of the intervention arm participants regarding the acceptability of COPe-support. We will explore in detail participants' usage patterns. DISCUSSION: The results of this trial will provide valuable information about the effectiveness of COPe-support in promoting wellbeing and caregiving experiences in carers. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The RCT is registered with the Current Controlled Trials registration (ISRCTN 89563420, registration date: 02/03/2018)

The Dropping of In-Medium Hadron Mass in Holographic QCD

We study the baryon density dependence of the vector meson spectrum using the D4/D6 system together with the compact D4 baryon vertex. We find that the vector meson mass decreases almost linearly in density at low density for small quark mass, but saturates to a finite non-zero value for large density. We also compute the density dependence of the $\eta\prime$ mass and the $\eta\prime$ velocity. We find that in medium, our model is consistent with the GMOR relation up to a few times the normal nuclear density. We compare our hQCD predictions with predictions made based on hidden local gauge theory that is constructed to model QCD.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure

The epigenetic regulator ATF7ip inhibits Il2 expression, regulating Th17 responses.

T helper 17 cells (Th17) are critical for fighting infections at mucosal surfaces; however, they have also been found to contribute to the pathogenesis of multiple autoimmune diseases and have been targeted therapeutically. Due to the role of Th17 cells in autoimmune pathogenesis, it is important to understand the factors that control Th17 development. Here we identify the activating transcription factor 7 interacting protein (ATF7ip) as a critical regulator of Th17 differentiation. Mice with T cell-specific deletion of Atf7ip have impaired Th17 differentiation secondary to the aberrant overproduction of IL-2 with T cell receptor (TCR) stimulation and are resistant to colitis in vivo. ChIP-seq studies identified ATF7ip as an inhibitor of Il2 gene expression through the deposition of the repressive histone mark H3K9me3 in the Il2-Il21 intergenic region. These results demonstrate a new epigenetic pathway by which IL-2 production is constrained, and this may open up new avenues for modulating its production

A general approach to quenching and galactic conformity

We develop a conceptual framework and methodology to study the drivers of the quenching of galaxies, including the drivers of galactic conformity. The framework is centred on the statistic $\Delta$, which is defined as the difference between the observed star-formation state of a galaxy, and a prediction of its state based on an empirical model of quenching. In particular, this work uses the average quenching effects of stellar mass and local density to construct an empirical model of quenching. $\Delta$ is therefore a residual which reflects the effects of drivers of quenching not captured by stellar mass and local density, or so-called 'hidden variables'. Through a toy model, we explore how the statistical properties of $\Delta$ can be used to learn about the internal and external hidden variables which control the quenching of a sample of galaxies. We then apply this analysis to a sample of local galaxies and find that, after accounting for the average quenching effects of stellar mass and local density, $\Delta$ remains correlated out to separations of 3 Mpc. Furthermore, we find that external hidden variables remain important for driving the residual quenching of low-mass galaxies, while the residual quenching of high-mass galaxies is driven mostly by internal properties. These results, along with a similar analysis of a semi-analytical mock catalogue, suggest that it is necessary to consider halo-related properties as candidates for hidden variables. A preliminary halo-based analysis indicates that much of the correlation of $\Delta$ can be attributed to the physics associated with individual haloes.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, submitted to MNRA

Exploring the multi-humped fission barrier of 238U via sub-barrier photofission

The photofission cross-section of 238U was measured at sub-barrier energies as a function of the gamma-ray energy using, for the first time, a monochromatic, high-brilliance, Compton-backscattered gamma-ray beam. The experiment was performed at the High Intensity gamma-ray Source (HIgS) facility at beam energies between E=4.7 MeV and 6.0 MeV and with ~3% energy resolution. Indications of transmission resonances have been observed at gamma-ray beam energies of E=5.1 MeV and 5.6 MeV with moderate amplitudes. The triple-humped fission barrier parameters of 238U have been determined by fitting EMPIRE-3.1 nuclear reaction code calculations to the experimental photofission cross section.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Spacetime Fermions in Light-cone Gauge Superstring Field Theory and Dimensional Regularization

We consider the dimensional regularization of the light-cone gauge type II superstring field theories in the NSR formalism. In the previous work, we have calculated the tree-level amplitudes with external lines in the (NS,NS) sector using the regularization and shown that the desired results are obtained without introducing contact term interactions. In this work, we study the tree-level amplitudes with external lines in the Ramond sector. In order to deal with them, we propose a worldsheet theory to be used instead of that for the naive dimensional regularization. With the worldsheet theory, we regularize and define the tree-level amplitudes by analytic continuation. We show that the results coincide with those of the first quantized formulation.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures; v2: more details of our manipulations in subsection 3.2 added, figures and references added; v3: clarifications adde

Flowing Between Fermionic Fixed Points

We study holographic Wilsonian renormalization group flows for bulk spinor fields in AdS. We use this to compute the all-loop beta function for fermionic double trace operators in the dual conformal field theory.Comment: 21 pages. V2: Acknowledgement added; v3: Typo correcte

Mixed RG Flows and Hydrodynamics at Finite Holographic Screen

We consider quark-gluon plasma with chemical potential and study renormalization group flows of transport coefficients in the framework of gauge/gravity duality. We first study them using the flow equations and compare the results with hydrodynamic results by calculating the Green functions on the arbitrary slice. Two results match exactly. Transport coefficients at arbitrary scale is ontained by calculating hydrodynamics Green functions. When either momentum or charge vanishes, transport coefficients decouple from each other.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure

Holographic Superconductor for a Lifshitz fixed point

We consider the gravity dual of strongly coupled system at a Lifshitz-fixed point and finite temperature, which was constructed in a recent work arXiv:0909.0263. We construct an Abelian Higgs model in that background and calculate condensation and conductivity using holographic techniques. We find that condensation happens and DC conductivity blows up when temperature turns below a critical value.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, v4: improved version, references adde