How is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Taught in Graduate Counseling Programs?

The purpose of this study was to investigate how OCD is taught in graduate counseling programs. A quantitative approach with a qualitative element was used to explore the experiences of master’s-level counseling students learning about OCD as well as to examine specific information taught about OCD in graduate counseling programs. Participants completed the OCD Counselor Education Questionnaire to assess how OCD was taught in their diagnosis coursework. Quantitative survey questions were analyzed using a frequency analysis, and qualitative answers were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed significant gaps in graduate counseling curriculum related to OCD symptomology, misdiagnosis, and evidence-based treatments, as well as an overall lack of education on OCD. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu)

Genetic risk and a primary role for cell-mediated immune mechanisms in multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis is a common disease of the central nervous system in which the interplay between inflammatory and neurodegenerative processes typically results in intermittent neurological disturbance followed by progressive accumulation of disability. Epidemiological studies have shown that genetic factors are primarily responsible for the substantially increased frequency of the disease seen in the relatives of affected individuals, and systematic attempts to identify linkage in multiplex families have confirmed that variation within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) exerts the greatest individual effect on risk. Modestly powered genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have enabled more than 20 additional risk loci to be identified and have shown that multiple variants exerting modest individual effects have a key role in disease susceptibility. Most of the genetic architecture underlying susceptibility to the disease remains to be defined and is anticipated to require the analysis of sample sizes that are beyond the numbers currently available to individual research groups. In a collaborative GWAS involving 9,772 cases of European descent collected by 23 research groups working in 15 different countries, we have replicated almost all of the previously suggested associations and identified at least a further 29 novel susceptibility loci. Within the MHC we have refined the identity of the HLA-DRB1 risk alleles and confirmed that variation in the HLA-A gene underlies the independent protective effect attributable to the class I region. Immunologically relevant genes are significantly overrepresented among those mapping close to the identified loci and particularly implicate T-helper-cell differentiation in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis

Search for heavy lepton resonances decaying to a ZZ boson and a lepton in pppp collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for heavy leptons decaying to a $Z$ boson and an electron or a muon is presented. The search is based on $pp$ collision data taken at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb$^{-1}$, Three high-transverse-momentum electrons or muons are selected, with two of them required to be consistent with originating from a $Z$ boson decay. No significant excess above Standard Model background predictions is observed, and 95% confidence level limits on the production cross section of high-mass trilepton resonances are derived. The results are interpreted in the context of vector-like lepton and type-III seesaw models. For the vector-like lepton model, most heavy lepton mass values in the range 114-176 GeV are excluded. For the type-III seesaw model, most mass values in the range 100-468 GeV are excluded

Measurement of the muon reconstruction performance of the ATLAS detector using 2011 and 2012 LHC proton–proton collision data

This paper presents the performance of the ATLAS muon reconstruction during the LHC run with pp collisions at √s = 7–8 TeV in 2011–2012, focusing mainly on data collected in 2012. Measurements of the reconstruction efficiency and of the momentum scale and resolution, based on large reference samples of J/ψ → μμ, Z → μμ and ϒ → μμ decays, are presented and compared to Monte Carlo simulations. Corrections to the simulation, to be used in physics analysis, are provided. Over most of the covered phase space (muon |η| < 2.7 and 5 ≲pT ≲pT 100 GeV) the efficiency is above 99% and is measured with per-mille precision. The momentum resolution ranges from 1.7% at central rapidity and for transverse momentum pT ≃ 10 GeV, to 4% at large rapidity and pT ≃ 100 GeV. The momentum scale is known with an uncertainty of 0.05% to 0.2% depending on rapidity. A method for the recovery of final state radiation from the muons is also presented

Measurement of distributions sensitive to the underlying event in inclusive Z-boson production in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A measurement of charged-particle distributions sensitive to the properties of the underlying event is presented for an inclusive sample of events containing a TeX -boson, decaying to an electron or muon pair. The measurement is based on data collected using the ATLAS detector at the LHC in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of TeX TeV with an integrated luminosity of TeX fb TeX . Distributions of the charged particle multiplicity and of the charged particle transverse momentum are measured in regions of azimuthal angle defined with respect to the TeX -boson direction. The measured distributions are compared to similar distributions measured in jet events, and to the predictions of various Monte Carlo generators implementing different underlying event models

Search for invisible decays of the Higgs boson produced in association with a hadronically decaying vector boson in pppp collisions at s=8\sqrt{s} = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for Higgs boson decays to invisible particles is performed using 20.3 fb\).{-1}\) of $pp$ collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The process considered is Higgs boson production in association with a vector boson $V$ = $W$ or $Z$ that decays hadronically, resulting in events with two or more jets and large missing transverse momentum. No excess of candidates is observed in the data over the background expectation. The results are used to constrain $VH$ production followed by $H$ decaying to invisible particles for the Higgs mass range $115<m_H<300$ GeV. The 95% confidence-level observed upper limit on $\sigma_{VH} \times \text{BR}(H\rightarrow \text{inv.})$ varies from 1.6 pb at 115 GeV to 0.13 pb at 300 GeV. Assuming Standard Model production and including the $gg\rightarrow H$ contribution as signal, the results also lead to an observed upper limit of 78% at 95% confidence level on the branching ratio of Higgs bosons decays to invisible particles at a mass of 125 GeV.publishedVersio

Search for heavy lepton resonances decaying to a ZZ boson and a lepton in pppp collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for heavy leptons decaying to a $Z$ boson and an electron or a muon is presented. The search is based on $pp$ collision data taken at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb$^{-1}$, Three high-transverse-momentum electrons or muons are selected, with two of them required to be consistent with originating from a $Z$ boson decay. No significant excess above Standard Model background predictions is observed, and 95% confidence level limits on the production cross section of high-mass trilepton resonances are derived. The results are interpreted in the context of vector-like lepton and type-III seesaw models. For the vector-like lepton model, most heavy lepton mass values in the range 114-176 GeV are excluded. For the type-III seesaw model, most mass values in the range 100-468 GeV are excluded.publishedVersio

Multiple Sclerosis Susceptibility-Associated SNPs Do Not Influence Disease Severity Measures in a Cohort of Australian MS Patients

Recent association studies in multiple sclerosis (MS) have identified and replicated several single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) susceptibility loci including CLEC16A, IL2RA, IL7R, RPL5, CD58, CD40 and chromosome 12q13–14 in addition to the well established allele HLA-DR15. There is potential that these genetic susceptibility factors could also modulate MS disease severity, as demonstrated previously for the MS risk allele HLA-DR15. We investigated this hypothesis in a cohort of 1006 well characterised MS patients from South-Eastern Australia. We tested the MS-associated SNPs for association with five measures of disease severity incorporating disability, age of onset, cognition and brain atrophy. We observed trends towards association between the RPL5 risk SNP and time between first demyelinating event and relapse, and between the CD40 risk SNP and symbol digit test score. No associations were significant after correction for multiple testing. We found no evidence for the hypothesis that these new MS disease risk-associated SNPs influence disease severity

Search for new phenomena in events containing a same-flavour opposite-sign dilepton pair, jets, and large missing transverse momentum in s=\sqrt{s}= 13 pppp collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two searches for new phenomena in final states containing a same-flavour opposite-lepton (electron or muon) pair, jets, and large missing transverse momentum are presented. These searches make use of proton--proton collision data, collected during 2015 and 2016 at a centre-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider, which correspond to an integrated luminosity of 14.7 fb$^{-1}$, Both searches target the pair production of supersymmetric particles, squarks or gluinos, which decay to final states containing a same-flavour opposite-sign lepton pair via one of two mechanisms: a leptonically decaying Z boson in the final state, leading to a peak in the dilepton invariant-mass distribution around the Z boson mass; and decays of neutralinos (e.g. $\tilde{\chi}_2^0 \rightarrow \ell^+\ell^- \tilde{\chi}_1^0$), yielding a kinematic endpoint in the dilepton invariant-mass spectrum. The data are found to be consistent with the Standard Model expectation. Results are interpreted in simplified models of gluino-pair (squark-pair) production, and provide sensitivity to gluinos (squarks) with masses as large as 1.70 TeV (980 GeV).publishedVersio

Search for dark matter in events with heavy quarks and missing transverse momentum in pppp collisions with the ATLAS detector

This article reports on a search for dark matter pair production in association with bottom or top quarks in $20.3 fb^{-1}$ of $pp$ collisions collected at $\sqrt{s} = 8$ TeV by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events with large missing transverse momentum are selected when produced in association with high-momentum jets of which one or more are identified as jets containing $b$-quarks. Final states with top quarks are selected by requiring a high jet multiplicity and in some cases a single lepton. The data are found to be consistent with the Standard Model expectations and limits are set on the mass scale of effective field theories that describe scalar and tensor interactions between dark matter and Standard Model particles. Limits on the dark-matter--nucleon cross-section for spin-independent and spin-dependent interactions are also provided. These limits are particularly strong for low-mass dark matter. Using a simplified model, constraints are set on the mass of dark matter and of a coloured mediator suitable to explain a possible signal of annihilating dark matter