The Interpersonal Style and Complementarity Between Crisis Negotiators and Forensic Inpatients

Previous negotiation research has explored the interaction and communication between crisis negotiators and perpetrators. A crisis negotiator attempts to resolve a critical incident through negotiation with an individual, or group of persons in crisis. The purpose of this study was to establish the interpersonal style of crisis negotiators and complementarity of the interpersonal interaction between them and forensic inpatients. Crisis negotiators, clinical workers and students (n = 90) used the Check List of Interpersonal Transactions-Revised (CLOIT-R) to identify interpersonal style, along with eight vignettes detailing interpersonal styles. Crisis negotiators were most likely to have a friendly interpersonal style compared to the other non-trained groups. Complementarity theory was not exclusively supported as submissive individuals did not show optimistic judgments in working with dominant forensic inpatients and vice versa. Exploratory analysis revealed that dominant crisis negotiators were optimistic in working with forensic inpatients with a dominant interpersonal style. This study provides insight into the area of interpersonal complementarity of crisis negotiators and forensic inpatients. Whilst further research is required, a potential new finding was established, with significant ‘similarity’ found when dominant crisis negotiators are asked to work with dominant forensic inpatients

Effect of a Herbal-Leucine mix on the IL-1β-induced cartilage degradation and inflammatory gene expression in human chondrocytes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Conventional treatments for the articular diseases are often effective for symptom relief, but can also cause significant side effects and do not slow the progression of the disease. Several natural substances have been shown to be effective at relieving the symptoms of osteoarthritis (OA), and preliminary evidence suggests that some of these compounds may exert a favorable influence on the course of the disease. The objective of this study was to investigate the anti-inflammatory/chondroprotective potential of a Herbal and amino acid mixture containing extract of the <it>Uncaria </it>tomentosa, <it>Boswellia spp</it>., <it>Lepidium meyenii and L-Leucine </it>on the IL-1β-induced production of nitric oxide (NO), glycosaminoglycan (GAG), matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), aggrecan (ACAN) and type II collagen (COL2A1) in human OA chondrocytes and OA cartilage explants.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Primary OA chondrocytes or OA cartilage explants were pretreated with Herbal-<it>Leucine </it>mixture (HLM, 1-10 μg/ml) and then stimulated with IL-1β (5 ng/ml). Effect of HLM on IL-1β-induced gene expression of iNOS, MMP-9, MMP-13, ACAN and COL2A1 was verified by real time-PCR. Estimation of NO and GAG release in culture supernatant was done using commercially available kits.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>HLM tested in these <it>in vitro </it>studies was found to be an effective anti-inflammatory agent, as evidenced by strong inhibition of iNOS, MMP-9 and MMP-13 expression and NO production in IL-1β-stimulated OA chondrocytes (p < 0.05). Supporting these gene expression results, IL-1β-induced cartilage matrix breakdown, as evidenced by GAG release from cartilage explants, was also significantly blocked (p < 0.05). Moreover, in the presence of herbal-<it>Leucine </it>mixture (HLM) up-regulation of ACAN and COL2A1 expression in IL-1β-stimulated OA chondrocytes was also noted (p < 0.05). The inhibitory effects of HLM were mediated by inhibiting the activation of nuclear factor (NF)-kB in human OA chondrocytes in presence of IL-1β.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our data suggests that HLM could be chondroprotective and anti-inflammatory agent in arthritis, switching chondrocyte gene expression from catabolic direction towards anabolic and regenerative, and consequently this approach may be potentially useful as a new adjunct therapeutic/preventive agent for OA or injury recovery.</p

Pattern recognition receptors as potential therapeutic targets in inflammatory rheumatic disease

The pattern recognition receptors of the innate immune system are part of the first line of defence against pathogens. However, they also have the ability to respond to danger signals that are frequently elevated during tissue damage and at sites of inflammation. Inadvertent activation of pattern recognition receptors has been proposed to contribute to the pathogenesis of many conditions including inflammatory rheumatic diseases. Prolonged inflammation most often results in pain and damage to tissues. In particular, the Toll-like receptors and nucleotide-binding oligomerisation domain-like receptors that form inflammasomes have been postulated as key contributors to the inflammation observed in rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, gout and systemic lupus erythematosus. As such, there is increasing interest in targeting these receptors for therapeutic treatment in the clinic. Here the role of pattern recognition receptors in the pathogenesis of these diseases is discussed, with an update on the development of interventions to modulate the activity of these potential therapeutic targets

Differential Expression of MicroRNAs in Adipose Tissue after Long-Term High-Fat Diet-Induced Obesity in Mice

Obesity is a major health concern worldwide which is associated with increased risk of chronic diseases such as metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and cancer. The elucidation of the molecular mechanisms involved in adipogenesis and obesogenesis is of essential importance as it could lead to the identification of novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets for the development of anti-obesity drugs. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been shown to play regulatory roles in several biological processes. They have become a growing research field and consist of promising pharmaceutical targets in various fields such as cancer, metabolism, etc. The present study investigated the possible implication of miRNAs in adipose tissue during the development of obesity using as a model the C57BLJ6 mice fed a high-fat diet

Enhanced Pro-Inflammatory Cytokine Responses following Toll-Like-Receptor Ligation in Schistosoma haematobium-Infected Schoolchildren from Rural Gabon

BACKGROUND: Schistosoma infection is thought to lead to down-regulation of the host's immune response. This has been shown for adaptive immune responses, but the effect on innate immunity, that initiates and shapes the adaptive response, has not been extensively studied. In a first study to characterize these responses, we investigated the effect of Schistosoma haematobium infection on cytokine responses of Gabonese schoolchildren to a number of Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands. METHODOLOGY: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were collected from S. haematobium-infected and uninfected schoolchildren from the rural area of Zile in Gabon. PBMCs were incubated for 24 h and 72 h with various TLR ligands, as well as schistosomal egg antigen (SEA) and adult worm antigen (AWA). Pro-inflammatory TNF-alpha and anti-inflammatory/regulatory IL-10 cytokine concentrations were determined in culture supernatants. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Infected children produced higher adaptive IL-10 responses than uninfected children against schistosomal antigens (72 h incubation). On the other hand, infected children had higher TNF-alpha responses than uninfected children and significantly higher TNF-alpha to IL-10 ratios in response to FSL-1 and Pam3, ligands of TLR2/6 and TLR2/1 respectively. A similar trend was observed for the TLR4 ligand LPS while Poly(I:C) (Mda5/TLR3 ligand) did not induce substantial cytokine responses (24 h incubation). CONCLUSIONS: This pilot study shows that Schistosoma-infected children develop a more pro-inflammatory TLR2-mediated response in the face of a more anti-inflammatory adaptive immune response. This suggests that S. haematobium infection does not suppress the host's innate immune system in the context of single TLR ligation

Renal amyloidosis in children

Renal amyloidosis is a detrimental disease caused by the deposition of amyloid fibrils. A child with renal amyloidosis may present with proteinuria or nephrotic syndrome. Chronic renal failure may follow. Amyloid fibrils may deposit in other organs as well. The diagnosis is through the typical appearance on histopathology. Although chronic infections and chronic inflammatory diseases used to be the causes of secondary amyloidosis in children, the most frequent cause is now autoinflammatory diseases. Among this group of diseases, the most frequent one throughout the world is familial Mediterranean fever (FMF). FMF is typically characterized by attacks of clinical inflammation in the form of fever and serositis and high acute-phase reactants. Persisting inflammation in inadequately treated disease is associated with the development of secondary amyloidosis. The main treatment is colchicine. A number of other monogenic autoinflammatory diseases have also been identified. Among them cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome (CAPS) is outstanding with its clinical features and the predilection to develop secondary amyloidosis in untreated cases. The treatment of secondary amyloidosis mainly depends on the treatment of the disease. However, a number of new treatments for amyloid per se are in the pipeline

UNCOVER: A NIRSpec Identification of a Broad-line AGN at z = 8.50

Deep observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed an emerging population of red pointlike sources that could provide a link between the postulated supermassive black hole seeds and observed quasars. In this work, we present a JWST/NIRSpec spectrum from the JWST Cycle 1 UNCOVER Treasury survey of a massive accreting black hole at z = 8.50 displaying a clear broad-line component as inferred from the Hβ line with FWHM = 3439 ± 413 km s−1, typical of the broad-line region of an active galactic nucleus (AGN). The AGN nature of this object is further supported by high ionization, as inferred from emission lines, and a point-source morphology. We compute a black hole mass of log 10 ( M BH / M ⊙ ) = 8.17 ± 0.42 and a bolometric luminosity of L bol ∼ 6.6 × 1045 erg s−1. These values imply that our object is accreting at ∼40% of the Eddington limit. Detailed modeling of the spectral energy distribution in the optical and near-infrared, together with constraints from ALMA, indicate an upper limit on the stellar mass of log 10 ( M * / M ⊙ ) < 8.7 , which would lead to an unprecedented ratio of black hole to host mass of at least ∼30%. This is orders of magnitude higher compared to the local QSOs but consistent with recent AGN studies at high redshift with JWST. This finding suggests that a nonnegligible fraction of supermassive black holes either started out from massive seeds and/or grew at a super-Eddington rate at high redshift. Given the predicted number densities of high-z faint AGN, future NIRSpec observations of larger samples will allow us to further investigate galaxy-black hole coevolution in the early Universe

Ebola: translational science considerations

We are currently in the midst of the most aggressive and fulminating outbreak of Ebola-related disease, commonly referred to as “Ebola”, ever recorded. In less than a year, the Ebola virus (EBOV, Zaire ebolavirus species) has infected over 10,000 people, indiscriminately of gender or age, with a fatality rate of about 50%. Whereas at its onset this Ebola outbreak was limited to three countries in West Africa (Guinea, where it was first reported in late March 2014, Liberia, where it has been most rampant in its capital city, Monrovia and other metropolitan cities, and Sierra Leone), cases were later reported in Nigeria, Mali and Senegal, as well as in Western Europe (i.e., Madrid, Spain) and the US (i.e., Dallas, Texas; New York City) by late October 2014. World and US health agencies declared that the current Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak has a strong likelihood of growing exponentially across the world before an effective vaccine, treatment or cure can be developed, tested, validated and distributed widely. In the meantime, the spread of the disease may rapidly evolve from an epidemics to a full-blown pandemic. The scientific and healthcare communities actively research and define an emerging kaleidoscope of knowledge about critical translational research parameters, including the virology of EBOV, the molecular biomarkers of the pathological manifestations of EVD, putative central nervous system involvement in EVD, and the cellular immune surveillance to EBOV, patient-centered anthropological and societal parameters of EVD, as well as translational effectiveness about novel putative patient-targeted vaccine and pharmaceutical interventions, which hold strong promise, if not hope, to curb this and future Ebola outbreaks. This work reviews and discusses the principal known facts about EBOV and EVD, and certain among the most interesting ongoing or future avenues of research in the field, including vaccination programs for the wild animal vectors of the virus and the disease from global translational science perspective

Why medical students choose psychiatry - a 20 country cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND: Recruitment to psychiatry is insufficient to meet projected mental health service needs world-wide. We report on the career plans of final year medical students from 20 countries, investigating factors identified from the literature which influence psychiatric career choice. METHODS: Cross sectional electronic or paper survey. Subjects were final year medical students at 46 medical schools in participating countries. We assessed students' career intentions, motivations, medical school teaching and exposure to psychiatry. We assessed students' attitudes and personality factors. The main outcome measure was likelihood of specializing in psychiatry. Multilevel logistic regression was used to examine the joint effect of factors upon the main outcome. RESULTS: 2198 of 9135 (24%) of students responded (range 4 to 91%) across the countries. Internationally 4.5% of students definitely considered psychiatry as a career (range 1 to 12%). 19% of students (range 0 to 33%) were "quite likely", and 25% were "definitely not" considering psychiatry. Female gender, experience of mental/physical illness, media portrayal of doctors, and positive attitudes to psychiatry, but not personality factors, were associated with choosing psychiatry. Quality of psychiatric placement (correlation coefficient = 0.22, p < 0.001) and number of placements (correlation coefficient =0.21, p < 0.001) were associated with higher ATP scores. During medical school, experience of psychiatric enrichment activities (special studies modules and university psychiatry clubs), experience of acutely unwell patients and perceived clinical responsibility were all associated with choice of psychiatry.Multilevel logistic regression revealed six factors associated with students choosing psychiatry: importance of own vocation, odds ratio (OR) 3.01, 95% CI 1.61 to 5.91, p < 0.001); interest in psychiatry before medical school, OR 10.8 (5.38 to 21.8, p < 0.001); undertaking a psychiatry special study module, OR 1.45 (1.05 to 2.01, p = 0.03) or elective OR 4.28 (2.87- 6.38, p < 0.001); membership of a university psychiatry club, OR 3.25 (2.87 to 6.38, p < 0.001); and exposure to didactic teaching, OR 0.54 (0.40 to 0.72, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: We report factors relevant to medical student selection and psychiatry teaching which affect career choice. Addressing these factors may improve recruitment to psychiatry internationally