Disparities in Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Mental Health Services in the U.S.

This is one of a series of five papers outlining the particular domains and dimensions of inequality where new research may yield a better understanding of responses to this growing issue.Mental health is recognized as a central determinant of individual well-being, family relationships, and engagement in society, yet there are considerable variations in mental health and mental health care according to race and ethnicity among youth in the U.S.In their report, Margarita Alegría and colleagues investigate disparities in mental health and mental health services for minority youth. Taking a developmental perspective, the authors explore four areas that may give rise to inequalities in mental health outcomes, highlight specific protective factors and barriers to care, and, finally, outline an agenda for future research

The Chilcot Report: some thoughts on international law and legal advice

The Report of the Iraq (Chilcot) Inquiry was finally published, 7 years after the Inquiry’s creation, on 6 July 2016. The scope of the Inquiry’s work was vast, and this was reflected in the enormous size of its final Report. The publication of the Report thus raises a multitude of questions requiring further analysis. In this short article, we aim to contribute some initial thoughts, immediately following the Report’s publication, in just two (interrelated) areas. First, we comment on the role of international law in the Chilcot Inquiry. To what extent was international law considered and how was it presented in the Report? We also ask whether the Report reaches any implicit substantive legal conclusions, despite formally refraining from determinations of law. Secondly, we review the Inquiry’s findings concerning international legal advice and legal advisers. In particular, we contribute some thoughts on the Report’s treatment of questions relating to the appropriate recipients of legal advice and its transparency, the timeliness of advice, the perception and treatment of law and legal advice by the Government, and the independence and quality of that advice

The Linear-Size Evolution of Classical Double Radio Sources

Recent investigations of how the median size of extragalactic radio sources change with redshift have produced inconsistent results. Eales compared the radio and optical properties of a bright 3C and faint 6C sample and concluded that $D\propto(1+z)^{-1.1\pm0.5}$ ($\Omega_0 = 0$), with $D$ being the median size of the radio sources at a given epoch and z the redshift. Oort, Katgert, and Windhorst, on the other hand, from a comparison of the properties of a number of radio samples, found much stronger evolution, with $D\propto(1+z)^{-3.3 \pm0.5}$. In this paper we attempt to resolve the difference. We have repeated the analysis of Eales using the virtually complete redshift information that now exists for the 6C sample. Confining our analysis to FR2 sources, which we argue is the best-understood class of radio sources and the least likely to be affected by selection effects, we find $D\propto(1+z)^{-1.2\pm0.5}$ ($\Omega_0 = 0$) and $D\propto(1+z)^{-1.7\pm0.4}$ ($\Omega_0 = 1$). Our complete redshift information allows us to gain insight into our result by plotting a radio luminosity-size (P-D) diagram for the 6C sample. The most obvious difference between the 3C and 6C P-D diagrams is the clump of sources in the 6C diagram at $D\sim 100 kpc, P_{151}\sim 5x10^{27} WHz^{-1}sr^{-1}$. These clump sources have similar sizes to the emission-line regions found around high-redshift radio galaxies, suggesting that the presence of dense line-emitting gas around high-redshift radio galaxies is responsible for the size evolution. We show that this explanation can quantitatively explain the observed size evolution, as long as there is either little X-ray emitting gas around these objects or, if there is, it is distributed in a similar way to the emission-line gas: highly anisotropic and inhomogeneous.Comment: compressed and uuencoded postscript file. 33 pages including 5 figures (441951 bytes). Accepted for publication in September Ap

A four year longitudinal sero-epidemiological study of bovine herpesvirus type-1 (BHV-1) in adult cattle in 107 unvaccinated herds in south west England

Background: Bovine herpesvirus type-1 (BHV-1) is an important pathogen of cattle that presents with a variety of clinical signs, including the upper respiratory tract infection infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR). A seroepidemiological study of BHV-1 antibodies was conducted in England from 2002 – 2004: 29,782 blood samples were taken from 15,736 cattle from 114 herds which were visited on up to three occasions. Antibody concentration was measured using a commercial ELISA. Farm management information was collected using an interview questionnaire, and herd size and cattle movements were obtained from the cattle tuberculosis testing database and the British Cattle Movement Service. Hierarchical statistical models were used to investigate associations between cattle and herd variables and the continuous outcome percentage positive (PP) values from the ELISA test in unvaccinated herds. Results: There were 7 vaccinated herds, all with at least one seropositive bovine. In unvaccinated herds 83.2% had at least one BHV-1 seropositive bovine, and the mean cattle and herd BHV-1 seroprevalence were 42.5% and 43.1% respectively. There were positive associations between PP value, age, herd size, presence of dairy cattle. Adult cattle in herds with grower cattle had lower PP values than those in herds without grower cattle. Purchased cattle had significantly lower PP values than homebred cattle, whereas cattle in herds that were totally restocked after the foot-and-mouth epidemic in 2001 had significantly higher PP values than those in continuously stocked herds. Samples taken in spring and summer had significantly lower PP values than those taken in winter, whereas those taken in autumn had significantly higher PP values than those taken in winter. The risks estimated from a logistic regression model with a binary outcome (seropositive yes/no) were similar. Conclusion: The prevalence of BHV-1 seropositivity in cattle and herds has increased since the 1970s. Although the study population prevalence of BHV-1 was temporally stable during study period, the associations between serological status and cattle age, herd size, herd type, presence of young stock and restocked versus continuously stocked herds indicate that there is heterogeneity between herds and so potential for further spread of BHV-1 within and between herds

A four year longitudinal sero-epidemiology study of Neospora caninum in adult cattle from 114 cattle herds in south west England : associations with age, herd and dam-offspring pairs

Background: Neosporosis caused by the protozoan parasite Neospora caninum, is an economically important cause of abortion, stillbirth, low milk yield, reduced weight gain and premature culling in cattle. Consequently, a seroepidemiological study of N. caninum antibodies was conducted in England with 29,782 samples of blood taken from 15,736 cattle from 114 herds visited on three occasions at yearly intervals. Herds were categorised into lower (< 10%) and higher (≥ 10%) median herd seroprevalence. Hierarchical models were run to investigate associations between the sample to positive (S/P) ratio and herd and cattle factors. Results: Ninety-four percent of herds had at least one seropositive cow; 12.9% of adult cattle had at least one seropositive test. Approximately 90% of herds were seropositive at all visits; 9 herds (8%) changed serological status between visits. The median N. caninum seroprevalence in positive herds was 10% (range 0.4% to 58.8%). There was a positive association between the serostatus of offspring and dams that were ever seropositive. In the hierarchical model of low seroprevalence herds there was no significant association between S/P ratio and cattle age. There was a significantly lower S/P ratio in cattle in herds that were totally restocked after the foot-and-mouth epidemic of 2001 compared with those from continuously stocked herds and cattle purchased into these herds had a higher S/P ratio than homebred cattle. In the model of high seroprevalence herds the S/P ratio increased with cattle age, but was not associated with restocking or cattle origin. Conclusion: There were no strong temporal changes in herd seroprevalence of N. caninum but 90% of herds had some seropositive cattle over this time period. Vertical transmission from seropositive dams appeared to occur in all herds. In herds with a high seroprevalence the increasing S/P ratio in 2–4 year old cattle is suggestive of exposure to N. caninum: horizontal transmission between adult cattle, infection from a local source or recrudescence and abortions. Between-herd movements of infected cattle enhance the spread of N. caninum, particularly into low seroprevalence herds. Some restocked herds had little exposure to N. caninum, while in others infection had spread in the time since restocking

A silent speech system based on permanent magnet articulography and direct synthesis

In this paper we present a silent speech interface (SSI) system aimed at restoring speech communication for individuals who have lost their voice due to laryngectomy or diseases affecting the vocal folds. In the proposed system, articulatory data captured from the lips and tongue using permanent magnet articulography (PMA) are converted into audible speech using a speaker-dependent transformation learned from simultaneous recordings of PMA and audio signals acquired before laryngectomy. The transformation is represented using a mixture of factor analysers, which is a generative model that allows us to efficiently model non-linear behaviour and perform dimensionality reduction at the same time. The learned transformation is then deployed during normal usage of the SSI to restore the acoustic speech signal associated with the captured PMA data. The proposed system is evaluated using objective quality measures and listening tests on two databases containing PMA and audio recordings for normal speakers. Results show that it is possible to reconstruct speech from articulator movements captured by an unobtrusive technique without an intermediate recognition step. The SSI is capable of producing speech of sufficient intelligibility and naturalness that the speaker is clearly identifiable, but problems remain in scaling up the process to function consistently for phonetically rich vocabularies

Evolution of vertebrates as viewed from the crest

The origin of vertebrates was accompanied by the advent of a novel cell type: the neural crest. Emerging from the central nervous system, these cells migrate to diverse locations and differentiate into numerous derivatives. By coupling morphological and gene regulatory information from vertebrates and other chordates, we describe how addition of the neural-crest-specification program may have enabled cells at the neural plate border to acquire multipotency and migratory ability. Analysis of the topology of the neural crest gene regulatory network can serve as a useful template for understanding vertebrate evolution, including elaboration of neural crest derivatives

Tackling concentrated worklessness: integrating governance and policy across and within spatial scales

Spatial concentrations of worklessness remained a key characteristic of labour markets in advanced industrial economies, even during the period of decline in aggregate levels of unemployment and economic inactivity evident from the late 1990s to the economic downturn in 2008. The failure of certain localities to benefit from wider improvements in regional and national labour markets points to a lack of effectiveness in adopted policy approaches, not least in relation to the governance arrangements and policy delivery mechanisms that seek to integrate residents of deprived areas into wider local labour markets. Through analysis of practice in the British context, we explore the difficulties of integrating economic and social policy agendas within and across spatial scales to tackle problems of concentrated worklessness. We present analysis of a number of selected case studies aimed at reducing localised worklessness and identify the possibilities and constraints for effective action given existing governance arrangements and policy priorities to promote economic competitiveness and inclusion