Mental toughness and transitions to high school and to undergraduate study

Mental toughness can be conceptualised as a set of attributes that allow people to deal effectively with challenges, stressors and pressure. Recent work has suggested that it may be a valuable construct to consider within educational settings. The current studies explored the associations between mental toughness and educational transitions. Study 1 examined the relationships between mental toughness and concerns about moving to a new school in 105 children aged 12–13 years of age. The results revealed significant relationships between several aspects of mental toughness, but particularly confidence in abilities, and children’s concerns. Study 2 examined the relationships between mental toughness and adjustment to university in 200 undergraduate students at various stages of their course. The results revealed a role for several aspects of mental toughness; commitment, control of life, control of emotion, confidence in abilities and interpersonal confidence. The results are discussed in terms of implications for educational practice. It is suggested that measures of mental toughness could be used to identify individuals who may benefit from additional support during transition to a new school or to university, and that future research should explore the potential benefits of mental toughness training. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Inverse Relationship between PSA and IL-8 in Prostate Cancer: An Insight into a NF-κB-Mediated Mechanism

Background: Prostate specific antigen (PSA) is traditionally used as an indicator for the presence of prostate cancer (PCa) and radiotherapy is generally used to treat inoperable and locally advanced PCa. However, how cellular PSA level is associated with sensitivity of PCa to radiotherapy is unknown. The previous finding that the RelB-based NF-kB alternative pathway differentially regulates PSA and interleukin-8 (IL-8) in aggressive PCa has directed our attention to the role of RelB in the response of PCa to radiotherapy. Methodology/Principal Findings: RelB and its targets PSA and IL-8 in PCa cells were manipulated by ectopic expression in PCa cells with a low endogenous level of RelB (LNCaP) and by RNAi-based knock-down in PCa cells with a high constitutive level of RelB (PC3). The effects of RelB, PSA and IL-8 on the response of PCa to radiation treatment were examined in vitro and in xenograft tumors. RelB regulates PSA and IL-8 in an inverse manner. When the cellular levels of PSA and IL-8 were directly modulated by genetic manipulations or by the addition of recombinant proteins, the results demonstrate that upregulation of IL-8 enhanced radioresistance of PCa cells and concurrently down-regulated PSA. In contrast, up-regulation of PSA resulted in reduced radioresistance with concurrent down-regulation of IL-8. Conclusion/Significance: RelB plays a critical role in the response of PCa to radiotherapy and the inverse expression of IL-8 and PSA. The results identify a previously unrecognized relationship between IL-8 and PSA in the response of PCa cells t

Atmospheric Acetaldehyde: Importance of Air-Sea Exchange and a Missing Source in the Remote Troposphere.

We report airborne measurements of acetaldehyde (CH3CHO) during the first and second deployments of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATom). The budget of CH3CHO is examined using the Community Atmospheric Model with chemistry (CAM-chem), with a newly-developed online air-sea exchange module. The upper limit of the global ocean net emission of CH3CHO is estimated to be 34 Tg a-1 (42 Tg a-1 if considering bubble-mediated transfer), and the ocean impacts on tropospheric CH3CHO are mostly confined to the marine boundary layer. Our analysis suggests that there is an unaccounted CH3CHO source in the remote troposphere and that organic aerosols can only provide a fraction of this missing source. We propose that peroxyacetic acid (PAA) is an ideal indicator of the rapid CH3CHO production in the remote troposphere. The higher-than-expected CH3CHO measurements represent a missing sink of hydroxyl radicals (and halogen radical) in current chemistry-climate models

Missing OH reactivity in the global marine boundary layer

The hydroxyl radical (OH) reacts with thousands of chemical species in the atmosphere, initiating their removal and the chemical reaction sequences that produce ozone, secondary aerosols, and gas-phase acids. OH reactivity, which is the inverse of OH lifetime, influences the OH abundance and the ability of OH to cleanse the atmosphere. The NASA Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) campaign used instruments on the NASA DC-8 aircraft to measure OH reactivity and more than 100 trace chemical species. ATom presented a unique opportunity to test the completeness of the OH reactivity calculated from the chemical species measurements by comparing it to the measured OH reactivity over two oceans across four seasons. Although the calculated OH reactivity was below the limit of detection for the ATom instrument used to measure OH reactivity throughout much of the free troposphere, the instrument was able to measure the OH reactivity in and just above the marine boundary layer. The mean measured value of OH reactivity in the marine boundary layer across all latitudes and all ATom deployments was 1.9 s⁻¹, which is 0.5 s⁻¹ larger than the mean calculated OH reactivity. The missing OH reactivity, the difference between the measured and calculated OH reactivity, varied between 0 and 3.5 s⁻¹, with the highest values over the Northern Hemisphere Pacific Ocean. Correlations of missing OH reactivity with formaldehyde, dimethyl sulfide, butanal, and sea surface temperature suggest the presence of unmeasured or unknown volatile organic compounds or oxygenated volatile organic compounds associated with ocean emissions

Paneth cell - rich regions separated by a cluster of Lgr5+ cells initiate crypt fission in the intestinal stem cell niche

The crypts of the intestinal epithelium house the stem cells that ensure the continual renewal of the epithelial cells that line the intestinal tract. Crypt number increases by a process called crypt fission, the division of a single crypt into two daughter crypts. Fission drives normal tissue growth and maintenance. Correspondingly, it becomes less frequent in adulthood. Importantly, fission is reactivated to drive adenoma growth. The mechanisms governing fission are poorly understood. However, only by knowing how normal fission operates can cancer-associated changes be elucidated. We studied normal fission in tissue in three dimensions using high-resolution imaging and used intestinal organoids to identify underlying mechanisms. We discovered that both the number and relative position of Paneth cells and Lgr5+ cells are important for fission. Furthermore, the higher stiffness and increased adhesion of Paneth cells are involved in determining the site of fission. Formation of a cluster of Lgr5+ cells between at least two Paneth-cell-rich domains establishes the site for the upward invagination that initiates fission

When is working memory important for arithmetic?: the impact of strategy and age

Our ability to perform arithmetic relies heavily on working memory, the manipulation and maintenance of information in mind. Previous research has found that in adults, procedural strategies, particularly counting, rely on working memory to a greater extent than retrieval strategies. During childhood there are changes in the types of strategies employed, as well as an increase in the accuracy and efficiency of strategy execution. As such it seems likely that the role of working memory in arithmetic may also change, however children and adults have never been directly compared. This study used traditional dual-task methodology, with the addition of a control load condition, to investigate the extent to which working memory requirements for different arithmetic strategies change with age between 9-11 years, 12-14 years and young adulthood. We showed that both children and adults employ working memory when solving arithmetic problems, no matter what strategy they choose. This study highlights the importance of considering working memory in understanding the difficulties that some children and adults have with mathematics, as well as the need to include working memory in theoretical models of mathematical cognition

Faster maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents : Converging behavioral and event-related potential evidence

Previous work suggests that musical training in childhood is associated with enhanced executive functions. However, it is unknown whether this advantage extends to selective attention-another central aspect of executive control. We recorded a well-established event-related potential (ERP) marker of distraction, the P3a, during an audio-visual task to investigate the maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents aged 10-17 years and a control group of untrained peers. The task required categorization of visual stimuli, while a sequence of standard sounds and distracting novel sounds were presented in the background. The music group outperformed the control group in the categorization task and the younger children in the music group showed a smaller P3a to the distracting novel sounds than their peers in the control group. Also, a negative response elicited by the novel sounds in the N1/MMN time range (similar to 150-200 ms) was smaller in the music group. These results indicate that the music group was less easily distracted by the task-irrelevant sound stimulation and gated the neural processing of the novel sounds more efficiently than the control group. Furthermore, we replicated our previous finding that, relative to the control group, the musically trained children and adolescents performed faster in standardized tests for inhibition and set shifting. These results provide novel converging behavioral and electrophysiological evidence from a cross-modal paradigm for accelerated maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents and corroborate the association between musical training and enhanced inhibition and set shifting.Peer reviewe

Mental toughness

The final publication is available at Springer via https://www.springer.com/gb/book/9783319956800Since the turn of the 21st Century, Mental Toughness has been defined in a variety of ways (e.g. Clough, Earle & Sewell, 2002; Coulter, Mallett & Gucciardi, 2010; Fourie & Potgieter, 2001; Golby & Sheard, 2006; Gucciardi, Gordon & Dimmock, 2008; Jones, Hanton & Connaughton, 2007). Although they differ in many respects, the conceptualisation share a number of similarities. For example, self-belief is at the core of most definitions, motivation is central to most as is persistence in achieving and the ability to deal with setbacks. As such, Mental Toughness is an umbrella term that entails positive psychological resources, which are crucial across a wide range of achievement contexts and in the domain of mental health. Clough and Strycharczyk (2015: 33) suggest that: Mental Toughness is a narrow plastic personality trait which explains in large part how individuals respond differently to the same or similar stressors, pressures, opportunities and challenges… irrespective of prevailing circumstances

Targeted Next-Generation Sequencing Analysis of 1,000 Individuals with Intellectual Disability.

To identify genetic causes of intellectual disability (ID), we screened a cohort of 986 individuals with moderate to severe ID for variants in 565 known or candidate ID-associated genes using targeted next-generation sequencing. Likely pathogenic rare variants were found in ∼11% of the cases (113 variants in 107/986 individuals: ∼8% of the individuals had a likely pathogenic loss-of-function [LoF] variant, whereas ∼3% had a known pathogenic missense variant). Variants in SETD5, ATRX, CUL4B, MECP2, and ARID1B were the most common causes of ID. This study assessed the value of sequencing a cohort of probands to provide a molecular diagnosis of ID, without the availability of DNA from both parents for de novo sequence analysis. This modeling is clinically relevant as 28% of all UK families with dependent children are single parent households. In conclusion, to diagnose patients with ID in the absence of parental DNA, we recommend investigation of all LoF variants in known genes that cause ID and assessment of a limited list of proven pathogenic missense variants in these genes. This will provide 11% additional diagnostic yield beyond the 10%-15% yield from array CGH alone.Action Medical Research (SP4640); the Birth Defect Foundation (RG45448); the Cambridge National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre (RG64219); the NIHR Rare Diseases BioResource (RBAG163); Wellcome Trust award WT091310; The Cell lines and DNA bank of Rett Syndrome, X-linked mental retardation and other genetic diseases (member of the Telethon Network of Genetic Biobanks (project no. GTB12001); the Genetic Origins of Congenital Heart Disease Study (GO-CHD)- funded by British Heart Foundation (BHF)This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/humu.2290