What are children's trusts? Early findings from a national survey

<i>Background:</i> The Children Act 2004 and National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services require fuller integration of health, education and social services for children and young people in England and Wales. The UK government supported the establishment of 35 experimental children's trust pathfinders (henceforth called children's trusts) in England. <i>Methods:</i> A questionnaire was completed by managers in all 35 children's trusts a year after their start. Children's trust documents were examined. Census and performance indicators were compared between children's trust areas and the rest of England. <i>Results</i> Children's trust areas had demographic and social characteristics typical of England. All children's trusts aimed to improve health, education and social services by greater managerial and service integration. All had boards representing the three sectors; other agencies’ representation varied. Two-thirds of children's trusts had moved towards pooling budgets in at least some service areas. At this stage in their development, some had prioritized joint procurement or provision of services, with formal managerial structures, while others favoured an informal strategic planning, co-ordination and information sharing approach. The commonest priorities for services development were for disabled children (16 children's trusts), followed by early intervention (11) and mental health services (8). <i>Conclusions:</i> The diverse strategies adopted by these 35 children's trusts during their first year is due to their own characteristics and to the way government strategy developed during this period. Whilst some prioritized organizational development, joint financing and commissioning, and information sharing, others laid more emphasis on mechanisms for bringing front-line professionals closer together. Their experiences are of value to others deciding how best to integrate children's services

Complexity of effector mechanisms in cyclosporine-induced syngeneic graft-versus-host disease

AbstractAdministration of the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine after syngeneic or autologous bone marrow transplantation elicits a T-lymphocyte-dependent autoimmune syndrome similar to graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). The onset of this autoaggression syndrome, termed syngeneic GVHD, is associated with the development of a highly restricted repertoire of CD8+ autoreactive T cells that recognize a peptide from the invariant chain, termed CLIP, presented by major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II molecules. Clonal analysis reveals 2 distinct subsets of autoreactive T cells defined by their activation requirement for either the N-terminal or the C-terminal flanking regions of CLIP and by their cytokine profile. The studies here reveal that the autoreactive T-cell clones requiring the N-terminal flanking region of CLIP produce type 1 cytokines (interferon [IFN]-gamma, interleukin [IL]-2, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha). In contrast, the autoreactive T-cell clones that require the C-terminal flanking region of CLIP produce type 2 cytokines (IL-4, IL-10, transforming growth factor-beta). As assessed in a local graft-versus-host reaction assay, the N-terminal flanking-restricted clones mediate changes consistent with acute GVHD, whereas the clones responsive to the C-terminal flanking region do not. Moreover, the autoreactive T-cell clones restricted by the C-terminal flanking region of CLIP ameliorate the pathogenic potential of the cells responsive to the N-terminal flanking region of CLIP. The mechanism accounting for this regulatory affect appears to be the downregulation of mRNA message for type 1 cytokines (IFN-gamma and IL-2). The C-terminal-restricted autoreactive T-cell clones, however, could manifest disease with dermal changes similar to those seen in chronic syngeneic GVHD, provided that IFN-gamma was present. Consistent with these observations was the demonstration that type 1 cytokines are preferentially detected during the acute phase of syngeneic GVHD, whereas type 2 cytokines dominate during the chronic phase. The results suggest that acute and chronic syngeneic GVHD is mediated by distinct autoreactive T cells, which are separated by their fine specificity for the CLIP-MHC class II complex and by their cytokine profiles.Biol Blood Marrow Transplant 2000;6(2):13-24

Temperature Controls Guest Uptake and Release from Zn4L4 Tetrahedra.

We report the preparation of triazatruxene-faced tetrahedral cage 1, which exhibits two diastereomeric configurations (T1 and T2) that differ in the handedness of the ligand faces relative to that of the octahedrally coordinated metal centers. At lower temperatures, T1 is favored, whereas T2 predominates at higher temperatures. Host-guest studies show that T1 binds small aliphatic guests, whereas T2 binds larger aromatic molecules, with these changes in binding preference resulting from differences in cavity size and degree of enclosure. Thus, by a change in temperature the cage system can be triggered to eject one bound guest and take up another.This work was supported by the European Research Council (695009) and the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC EP/M008258/1). The authors thank the Department of Chemistry NMR Facility at the University of Cambridge for performing some NMR experiments and the EPSRC UK National Mass Spectrometry Facility at Swansea University for carrying out high-resolution mass spectrometry. D.Z. acknowledges a Herchel Smith Research Fellowship from the University of Cambridge. J.D.T. acknowledges the Rashkind Family Endowment and the Chenery Endowment from Randolph-Macon College

Pathways to permanence in England and Norway: A critical analysis of documents and data

The English language term ‘permanence’ is increasingly used in high income countries as a ‘short-hand’ translation for a complex set of aims around providing stability and family membership for children who need child welfare services and out-of-home care. From a scrutiny of legislative provisions, court judgments, government documents and a public opinion survey on child placement options, the paper draws out similarities and differences in understandings of the place of ‘permanence’ within the child welfare discourse in Norway and England. The main differences are that in England the components of permanence are explicitly set out in legislation, statutory guidance and advisory documents whilst in Norway the terms ‘stability’ and ‘continuity’ are used in a more limited number of policy documents in the context of a wide array of services available for children and families. The paper then draws on these sources, and on administrative data on children in care, to tease out possible explanations for the similarities and differences identified. We hypothesise that both long-standing policies and recent changes can be explained by differences in public and political understandings of child welfare and the balance between universal services and those targeted on parents and children identified as vulnerable and in need of specialist services

Coordination Cages Selectively Transport Molecular Cargoes Across Liquid Membranes.

Chemical purifications are critical processes across many industries, requiring 10-15% of humanity's global energy budget. Coordination cages are able to catch and release guest molecules based upon their size and shape, providing a new technological basis for achieving chemical separation. Here, we show that aqueous solutions of FeII4L6 and CoII4L4 cages can be used as liquid membranes. Selective transport of complex hydrocarbons across these membranes enabled the separation of target compounds from mixtures under ambient conditions. The kinetics of cage-mediated cargo transport are governed by guest binding affinity. Using sequential transport across two consecutive membranes, target compounds were isolated from a mixture in a size-selective fashion. The selectivities of both cages thus enabled a two-stage separation process to isolate a single compound from a mixture of physicochemically similar molecules

Returning children home from care: What can be learned from local authority data?

International Human Rights and child rights conventions as well as U.K. wide legislation and guidance require that children in care should be returned home to one or both parents wherever possible. Reunification with parents is the most common route out of care, but rates of re‐entry are often higher than for other exit routes. This study used 8 years of administrative data (on 2,208 care entrants), collected by one large English local authority, to examine how many children were returned home and to explore factors associated with stable reunification (not re‐entering care for at least 2 years). One‐third of children (36%) had been reunified, with adolescent entrants being the most likely age group to return home. Three quarters (75%) of reunified children had a stable reunification. In a fully adjusted regression model, age at entry, being on a care order prior to return home, staying longer in care, being of minority ethnicity, and having fewer placements in care were all significant in predicting chances of stable reunification. The results underline the importance of properly resourcing reunification services. The methods demonstrate the value to local authorities of analysing their own data longitudinally to understand the care pathways for children they look after

Glucose Binding Drives Reconfiguration of a Dynamic Library of Urea-Containing Metal-Organic Assemblies.

A bis-urea-functionalized ditopic subcomponent assembled with 2-formylpyridine and FeII , resulting in a dynamic library of metal-organic assemblies: an irregular FeII4 L6 structure and three FeII2 L3 stereoisomers: left- and right-handed helicates and a meso-structure. This library reconfigured in response to the addition of monosaccharide derivatives, which served as guests for specific library members, and the rate of saccharide mutarotation was also enhanced by the library. The (P) enantiomer of the FeII2 L3 helical structure bound β-D-glucose selectively over α-D-glucose. As a consequence, the library collapsed into the (P)-FeII2 L3 helicate following glucose addition. The α-D-glucose was likewise transformed into the β-D-anomer during equilibration and binding. Thus, β-D-glucose and (P)-3 amplified each other in the product mixture, as metal-organic and saccharide libraries geared together into a single equilibrating system.European Research Council (695009), UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC EP/P027067/1), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21971210), Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (2019KJXX-062) and the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for a Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship, the Rashkind Family Endowment, the Chenery Endowment, and the Donors of the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fun

A measurement of the energy spectra of cosmic rays from 20 to 1000 GeV per amu

A group collaboration was made in the development of the Bristol University Gas Spectrometer number 4 (BUGS 4). The BUGS 4 detector is designed to measure the charge spectrum for species between oxygen and the iron peak as a function of energy per nucleon, between 20 and 1000 GeV/amu. It is particularly concerned with energies above 50 GeV/amu. The high energy component is considerably less affected by propagation through the interstellar medium than the lower energy component and is expected to approach the original charge spectrum of the source more closely. This information allows one to unravel the effects of cosmic ray production, acceleration, and propagation. The detector is described in total detail. The method of estimating the charge and energy of a cosmic ray depends on the energy of the particle. Calculations and experiments lead to the expectation of a nearly constant charge resolution of about 0.2 charge units over the whole energy range except 4.5 less than gamma less than 20. In this band, the experiment is insensitive to energy. A balloon flight is planned in 1993