Perspectives of autistic adolescent girls and women on the determinants of their mental health and social and emotional well-being: A systematic review and thematic synthesis of lived experience

Autistic girls and women experience more mental health difficulties and poorer well-being than their non-autistic peers. Little emphasis has been placed on the perspectives of the girls and women within the literature. This review aims to provide an overview of the factors that impact autistic females’ emotional and social well-being and mental health, as described in self-report qualitative studies. The protocol for the present review was pre-registered on PROSPERO (CRD42020184983), and this article follows Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. PsycInfo, Academic Search Complete and MEDLINE were systematically searched using a pre-defined search string. This yielded 877 unique records, which were systematically screened by two reviewers, resulting in 52 eligible studies. Structured data extraction and quality appraisal were completed. The present review presents the perspectives of 973 autistic females aged 13–70+. Thematic synthesis identified three themes and nine subthemes. Our findings suggest that autistic girls’ and women’s experiences can be conceptualised within a social model, where biological and psychological factors (‘The Autistic Neurotype’) are experienced through the lens of social factors (‘The Neurotypical World’ and ‘Stigma’), together shaping well-being and mental health outcomes. Lay abstract Difficulties with mental health and low levels of well-being are more common among autistic girls and women than non-autistic people, but we do not fully understand why. Research does not focus enough on what autistic girls and women could tell us about this. This review aims to summarise the studies where autistic girls and women explain things that affect their mental health and well-being to help us understand how to prevent these difficulties from developing. Three research databases were searched to find possibly relevant studies. There were 877 studies found, which two researchers screened according to particular criteria. They found 52 studies that could be included in this review. One researcher evaluated the quality of these studies and extracted the key information from them. This review summarises the views of 973 autistic girls and women aged between 13 and 70+. The findings from the 52 studies were analysed, and we found many factors that affect the mental health and well-being of autistic girls and women. These factors fall into two categories: (1) difficulties living in a world not designed for autistic people and (2) the impact of stigma due to being autistic

Projections of future air quality are uncertain. But which source of uncertainty is most important?

Understanding how air pollution events may change in the future is of key importance to decision makers. Multi-model intercomparison projects focusing on atmospheric chemistry and air quality have been performed to inform the latest IPCC assessments. Future anthropogenic emission changes have generally been the foci of such model experiments, envisaged as the dominant driver of future atmospheric composition. The latest model assessments such as AerChemMIP utilize multi-model ensembles but also have limited individual model ensembles which permit different sources of uncertainty to be characterized. The recent study by Fiore et al. (2022, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JD035985) specifically considers a multi-model and multi-member ensemble approach. It adds to the quantification of uncertainty in future projections through delineating uncertainty due to model diversity and due to internal or natural climate variability within the climate system, for mean and high PM2.5 air pollution events over the Eastern USA in the 21st century. Exploring the separate roles of internal climate variability and model diversity adds further value to the important research issue of quantifying how future anthropogenic climate change impacts air quality. Future multi-model intercomparisons need to balance the additional knowledge gained from research into understanding multiple sources of uncertainty that can inform decision making vs. the resource costs of performing these experiments using Earth System Models with interactive chemistry

SCOOTER: A compact and scalable dynamic labeling scheme for XML updates

Although dynamic labeling schemes for XML have been the focus of recent research activity, there are significant challenges still to be overcome. In particular, though there are labeling schemes that ensure a compact label representation when creating an XML document, when the document is subject to repeated and arbitrary deletions and insertions, the labels grow rapidly and consequently have a significant impact on query and update performance. We review the outstanding issues todate and in this paper we propose SCOOTER - a new dynamic labeling scheme for XML. The new labeling scheme can completely avoid relabeling existing labels. In particular, SCOOTER can handle frequently skewed insertions gracefully. Theoretical analysis and experimental results confirm the scalability, compact representation, efficient growth rate and performance of SCOOTER in comparison to existing dynamic labeling schemes

Plant Oils and Products of Their Hydrolysis as Substrates for Polyhydroxyalkanoate Synthesis

Plant oils could provide a sustainable source of carbon for polyhydroxyalkanoate production as they are both renewable and inexpensive. No study to our knowledge has undertaken a comparative study of the use of major European and global commodity plants oils and products of their hydrolysis as substrates for medium chain length polyhydroxyalkanoate (mcl-PHA) production. There have been several studies which have investigated the use of plant oils and their hydrolysis products for short chain length PHA (scl-PHA) production, therefore, in this study, we have focused specifically on mcl-PHA-producing organisms. A comparison between direct growth on oils and the products of their hydrolysis is described here for several mcl-PHA-producing Pseudomonas strains. Pseudomonas putida KT2440, CA-3, GO16, Pseudomonas chlororaphis 555 were screened for their ability to utilize a range of common plant oils (olive, sunflower, rapeseed, and palm) and their hydrolysis products as sole sources of carbon and energy for growth and PHA accumulation. When the oils were supplied in shaken flask experiments, P. putida CA-3 and P. putida KT2440 showed little or no growth, while P. putida GO16 reached a cell dry weight of between 0.33 and 0.56 g L–1, and accumulated mcl-PHA to between 12 and 25 % of CDW, P. chlororaphis 555 reached a cell dry weight of between 0.67 and 0.86 g L–1, and accumulated mcl-PHA to between 27 and 34 % CDW in 48 h. In contrast, when the hydrolyzed fatty acid mixtures were supplied, all 4 strains tested grew and accumulated mcl-PHA. P. putida CA-3 and GO16 achieved the highest biomass (1.02 – 1.06 g L–1) with the majority of the hydrolyzed plant oil fatty acids, however P. chlororaphis 555 accumulated similar levels of PHA as these two strains. Despite being the strain of choice for mcl-PHA accumulation, for the majority of studies, P. putida KT2440 achieved less biomass and accumulated less PHA than other strains tested with the majority of oil-derived fatty acids. It is important to note that both biomass and PHA levels varied significantly across strain and hydrolyzed oil type. Due to the fact that P. chlororaphis 555 was able to grow and accumulate PHA from both plant oils and hydrolyzed oil fatty acids, it was selected for bioreactor trials to try to achieve high cell density and high PHA productivity using rapeseed oil and hydrolyzed rapeseed oil fatty acids. Rapeseed oil (RO) and its hydrolysis product (HROFA) were chosen for these experiments because P. chlororaphis 555 accumulated approximately 30 % mcl-PHA from both substrates, and as this oil can be produced globally, it would offer less barriers to scale-up than Palm oil. The mcl-PHA volumetric productivity with RO as the substrate was 0.53 g L–1 h–1 after 25 h with a yield of 0.22 g PHA g–1 oil, while the volumetric productivity with HROFA as the substrate was 0.54 g L–1 h–1 after 25 h with again a lower yield of 0.15 g PHA g–1 HROFA. Thus, under the fermentation conditions tested, HROFA was an inferior substrate for PHA production when compared to RO

Diet quality, liveweight change and responses to N supplements by cattle grazing Astrebla spp. (Mitchell grass) pastures in the semi-arid tropics in north-western Queensland, Australia

Experiments during 4 years examined the diets selected, growth, and responses to N supplements by Bos indicus-cross steers grazing summer-rainfall semi-arid C4 Astrebla spp. (Mitchell grass) rangelands at a site in north-western Queensland, Australia. Paddock groups of steers were not supplemented (T-NIL), or were fed a non-protein N (T-NPN) or a cottonseed meal (T-CSM) supplement. In Experiment 1, young and older steers were measured during the late dry season (LDS) and the rainy season (RS), while steers in Experiments 2–4 were measured through the annual cycle. Because of severe drought the measurements during Experiment 3 annual cycle were limited to T-NIL steers. Pasture availability and species composition were measured twice annually. Diet was measured at 1–2 week intervals using near infrared spectroscopy of faeces (F.NIRS). Annual rainfalls (1 July–30 June) were 42–68% of the long-term average (471 mm), and the seasonal break ranged from 17 December to 3 March. There was wide variation in pasture, diet (crude protein (CP), DM digestibility (DMD), the CP to metabolisable energy (CP/ME) ratio) and steer liveweight change (LWC) within and between annual cycles. High diet quality and steer liveweight (LW) gain during the RS declined progressively through the transition season (TS) and early dry season (EDS), and often the first part of the LDS. Steers commenced losing LW as the LDS progressed. In Experiments 1 and 2 where forbs comprised ≤15 g/kg of the pasture sward, steers selected strongly for forbs so that they comprised 117–236 g/kg of the diet. However, in Experiments 3 and 4 where forbs comprised substantial proportions of the pasture (173–397 g/kg), there were comparable proportions in the diet (300–396 g/kg). With appropriate stocking rates the annual steer LW gains were acceptable (121–220 kg) despite the low rainfall. The N supplements had no effect on steer LW during the TS and the EDS, but usually reduced steer LW loss by 20–30 kg during the LDS. Thus during low rainfall years in Mitchell grass pastures there were substantial LW responses by steers to N supplements towards the end of the dry season when the diet contained c. <58 g CP/kg or c. <7.0 g CP/MJ ME

Active Layer Groundwater Flow: The Interrelated Effects of Stratigraphy, Thaw, and Topography

The external drivers and internal controls of groundwater flow in the thawed “active layer” above permafrost are poorly constrained because they are dynamic and spatially variable. Understanding these controls is critical because groundwater can supply solutes such as dissolved organic matter to surface water bodies. We calculated steady‐state three‐dimensional suprapermafrost groundwater flow through the active layer using measurements of aquifer geometry, saturated thickness, and hydraulic properties collected from two major landscape types over time within a first‐order Arctic watershed. The depth position and thickness of the saturated zone is the dominant control of groundwater flow variability between sites and during different times of year. The effect of water table depth on groundwater flow dwarfs the effect of thaw depth. In landscapes with low land‐surface slopes (2–4%), a combination of higher water tables and thicker, permeable peat deposits cause relatively constant groundwater flows between the early and late thawed seasons. Landscapes with larger land‐surface slopes (4–10%) have both deeper water tables and thinner peat deposits; here the commonly observed permeability decrease with depth is more pronounced than in flatter areas, and groundwater flows decrease significantly between early and late summer as the water table drops. Groundwater flows are also affected by microtopographic features that retain groundwater that could otherwise be released as the active layer deepens. The dominant sources of groundwater, and thus dissolved organic matter, are likely wet, flatter regions with thick organic layers. This finding informs fluid flow and solute transport dynamics for the present and future Arctic.Plain Language SummaryGroundwater flow in permafrost watersheds is potentially a key component of global carbon budgets because permafrost soil stores vast amounts of carbon that could be mobilized due to a warming climate and the corresponding increase in soil thaw. In addition to carrying carbon, groundwater can supply important nutrients and solutes to surface waters. However, we do not yet understand the factors that control groundwater flow in soils above permafrost because saturation changes rapidly and continuously, and soil hydraulic properties are largely unknown. We created measurement‐informed calculations of groundwater flow from areas of permafrost with different characteristics and found that soil types, which vary based on the slope of the land surface, are the most important control. Near‐surface soils were identical in hillslopes and valleys, whereas deeper soils in hillslopes allowed for less groundwater flow than in valleys. In early summer, when only the near‐surface soils were thawed, groundwater flows in the hillslopes and valley were similar. In late summer, when the deeper soil was thawed, groundwater flow in the valley remained high, but flow in the hillslope was negligible. Our observations also showed that small mounds on the land surface caused groundwater to be trapped behind underground ice dams.Key PointsDetailed measurements of hydraulic head, hydraulic conductivity, and saturated thicknesses in active layers were made over time and spaceThree main soil layers consistently comprise the stratigraphy of the active layer across the studied Arctic watershedGroundwater flow depends most on the depth of the water table and the subsurface stratigraphy, which varies based on landscape typePeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151862/1/wrcr24085_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151862/2/wrcr24085.pd

Competing magnetic fluctuations in Sr3Ru2O7 probed by Ti doping

We report the effect of nonmagnetic Ti4+ impurities on the electronic and magnetic properties of Sr3Ru2O7. Small amounts of Ti suppress the characteristic peak in magnetic susceptibility near 16 K and result in a sharp upturn in specific heat. The metamagnetic quantum phase transition and related anomalous features are quickly smeared out by small amounts of Ti. These results provide strong evidence for the existence of competing magnetic fluctuations in the ground state of Sr3Ru2O7. Ti doping suppresses the low temperature antiferromagnetic interactions that arise from Fermi surface nesting, leaving the system in a state dominated by ferromagnetic fluctuations.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

'Mindless markers of the nation': The routine flagging of nationhood across the visual environment

The visual environment has increasingly been used as a lens with which to understand wider processes of social and economic change with studies employing in-depth qualitative approaches to focus on, for example, gentrification or trans-national networks. This exploratory paper offers an alternative perspective by using a novel method, quantitative photo mapping, to examine the extent to which a particular socio-cultural marker, the nation, is ‘flagged’ across three contrasting sites in Britain. As a multi-national state with an increasingly diverse population, Britain offers a particularly fruitful case study, drawing in debates around devolution, European integration and Commonwealth migration. In contributing to wider debates around banal nationalism, the paper notes the extent to which nations are increasingly articulated through commerce, consumption and market exchange and the overall significance of everyday markers (signs, objects, infrastructure) in naturalising a national view of the world

Modulation of daily PM2.5 concentrations over China in winter by large-scale circulation and climate change

We use the United Kingdom Earth System Model, UKESM1, to investigate the influence of the winter large-scale circulation on daily concentrations of PM2.5 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 &mu;m or less) and their sensitivity to emissions over major populated regions of China over the period 1999&ndash;2019. We focus on the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), where weak flow of cold, dry air from the north and weak inflow of maritime air are particularly conducive to air pollution. These provide favourable conditions for the accumulation of local pollution but limit the transport of air pollutants into the region from the north. Based on the dominant large-scale circulation, we construct a new index using the north-south pressure gradient and apply it to characterize PM2.5 concentrations over the region. We show that this index can effectively distinguish different levels of pollution over YRD and explain changes in PM2.5 sensitivity to emissions from local and surrounding regions. We then project future changes in PM2.5 concentrations using this index and find an increase in PM2.5 concentrations over the region due to climate change that is likely to partially offset the effect of emission control measures in the near-term future. To benefit from future emission reductions, more stringent emission controls are required to offset the effects of climate change.</p

Correlated Gravitational Wave and Neutrino Signals from General-Relativistic Rapidly Rotating Iron Core Collapse

We present results from a new set of 3D general-relativistic hydrodynamic simulations of rotating iron core collapse. We assume octant symmetry and focus on axisymmetric collapse, bounce, the early postbounce evolution, and the associated gravitational wave (GW) and neutrino signals. We employ a finite-temperature nuclear equation of state, parameterized electron capture in the collapse phase, and a multi-species neutrino leakage scheme after bounce. The latter captures the important effects of deleptonization, neutrino cooling and heating and enables approximate predictions for the neutrino luminosities in the early evolution after core bounce. We consider 12-solar-mass and 40-solar-mass presupernova models and systematically study the effects of (i) rotation, (ii) progenitor structure, and (iii) postbounce neutrino leakage on dynamics, GW, and, neutrino signals. We demonstrate, that the GW signal of rapidly rotating core collapse is practically independent of progenitor mass and precollapse structure. Moreover, we show that the effects of neutrino leakage on the GW signal are strong only in nonrotating or slowly rotating models in which GW emission is not dominated by inner core dynamics. In rapidly rotating cores, core bounce of the centrifugally-deformed inner core excites the fundamental quadrupole pulsation mode of the nascent protoneutron star. The ensuing global oscillations (f~700-800 Hz) lead to pronounced oscillations in the GW signal and correlated strong variations in the rising luminosities of antineutrino and heavy-lepton neutrinos. We find these features in cores that collapse to protoneutron stars with spin periods <~ 2.5 ms and rotational energies sufficient to drive hyper-energetic core-collapse supernova explosions. Hence, joint GW + neutrino observations of a core collapse event could deliver strong evidence for or against rapid core rotation. [abridged]Comment: 29 pages, 14 figures. Replaced with version matching published versio