Refugees, trauma and adversity-activated development

The nature of the refugee phenomenon is examined and the position of mental health professionals is located in relation to it. The various uses of the word 'trauma' are explored and its application to the refugee context is examined. It is proposed that refugees' response to adversity is not limited to being traumatized but includes resilience and Adversity-Activated Development (AAD). Particular emphasis is given to the distinction between resilience and AAD. The usefulness of the 'Trauma Grid' in the therapeutic process with refugees is also discussed. The Trauma Grid avoids global impressions and enables a more comprehensive and systematic way of identifying the individual refugee's functioning in the context of different levels, i.e. individual, family, community and society/culture. Finally, I discuss implications for therapeutic work with refugees

Changes in concentration and size distribution of aerosols during fog over the south Indian Ocean

Measurements of the concentration and size distribution of aerosol particles in the size-ranges of 0.5-20 μm and 16-700 nm diameters were made during six fog episodes over the south Indian Ocean. Observations show that concentrations of particles of all sizes start decreasing 1-2 hours before the occurrence of fog. This decrease is more prominent for coarse particles of >1 μm diameter and continues until 10-20 minutes before the onset of fog when particle concentrations in all size ranges rapidly increase by one/two orders of magnitude in ~20 minutes. Thereafter, concentrations of particles of all sizes gradually decrease until the dissipation of fog. After the fog dissipation, concentrations of coarse mode particles rapidly increase and restore to their pre-fog levels but concentrations of the Aitken mode particles decrease slowly and reach their pre-fog levels only after 1-2 hours. The net effect of fog is to change the bimodal size distributions of aerosols with a coarse mode at 1.0 μm and an accumulation mode at 40-60 nm to a power law size distribution. It is proposed that the preferential growth and sedimentation of the coarse mode hygroscopic particles in the initial phase cause a large decrease in the aerosol surface area. As a result, the low vapour pressure gases which were initially being used for the growth of coarse mode particles, now accelerate the growth rates of the accumulation and Aitken mode particles

Effect of relative humidity on the electrical conductivity of marine air

Measurements of the atmospheric electric conductivity made in the equatorial Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea in August and September 1991 show that the value of conductivity decreases from 2.3 × 10−14 mho m−1 in the equatorial Indian Ocean, where relative humidity of the surface air is 70-80%, to 1.1 × 10−14 mho m−1 in the region of the Somali current, where relative humidity of the surface air increases to 80-90%. the inverse relationship observed between conductivity and relative humidity, in spite of showing a large scatter, is stronger in the case of negative than positive conductivity. the sharp increase in the sizes of ions and marine aerosol particles when the relative humidity exceeds 75-80% is proposed as the cause of the observed decrease in conductivity in the region of the Somali curren

Changes in concentration and size distribution of aerosols during fog over the south Indian Ocean

Measurements of the concentration and size distribution of aerosol particles in the size-ranges of 0.5-20 μm and 16-700 nm diameters were made during six fog episodes over the south Indian Ocean. Observations show that concentrations of particles of all sizes start decreasing 1-2 hours before the occurrence of fog. This decrease is more prominent for coarse particles of >1 μm diameter and continues until 10-20 minutes before the onset of fog when particle concentrations in all size ranges rapidly increase by one/two orders of magnitude in ~20 minutes. Thereafter, concentrations of particles of all sizes gradually decrease until the dissipation of fog. After the fog dissipation, concentrations of coarse mode particles rapidly increase and restore to their pre-fog levels but concentrations of the Aitken mode particles decrease slowly and reach their pre-fog levels only after 1-2 hours. The net effect of fog is to change the bimodal size distributions of aerosols with a coarse mode at 1.0 μm and an accumulation mode at 40-60 nm to a power law size distribution. It is proposed that the preferential growth and sedimentation of the coarse mode hygroscopic particles in the initial phase cause a large decrease in the aerosol surface area. As a result, the low vapour pressure gases which were initially being used for the growth of coarse mode particles, now accelerate the growth rates of the accumulation and Aitken mode particles

Holographic Anyons in the ABJM Theory

We consider the holographic anyons in the ABJM theory from three different aspects of AdS/CFT correspondence. First, we identify the holographic anyons by using the field equations of supergravity, including the Chern-Simons terms of the probe branes. We find that the composite of Dp-branes wrapped over CP3 with the worldvolume magnetic fields can be the anyons. Next, we discuss the possible candidates of the dual anyonic operators on the CFT side, and find the agreement of their anyonic phases with the supergravity analysis. Finally, we try to construct the brane profile for the holographic anyons by solving the equations of motion and Killing spinor equations for the embedding profile of the wrapped branes. As a by product, we find a BPS spiky brane for the dual baryons in the ABJM theory.Comment: 1+33 pages, 3 figures; v2 discussion for D4-D6 case added, references added; v3 comments adde

Thoracic duct fistula and renal transplantation

Thoracic duct drainage (TDD) was established for 21-115 days in 40 kidney recipients with an average removal per patient day of 4.7 1 lymph and 1.88 billion cells. Cellular and humoral immunity were depressed. TDD and immunosuppressive drugs were started at transplantation in 35 recipients of cross-match negative grafts. Although the results were better than in precedent non-TDD controls, eight patients rejected their grafts before a full TDD effect, and three of the eight developed predominantly anti-B lymphocyte cytotoxic antibodies which were probably responsible for positive cross-matches with their next donors. With continuing TDD, all eight patients had good initial function after early retransplantation. In five more 'nontransplantable' patients with performed cytotoxic antibodies, TDD was started 30-56 days before transplantation. In these five pretreated patients, antibodies persisted with positive antidonor cross-matches. Hyperacute rejection occurred repeatedly in two patients with high anti-T (and anti-B) titers, but was surmounted in three patients with lower titers. From the clinical and immunologic data, we have concluded that TDD should be used for pretreatment of all cases with or without prior antibodies, and have suggested an adjustable management plan that takes into account new developments in antibody monitoring

Effects of blocking GABA degradation on corticotropin-releasing hormone gene expression in selected brain regions.

PurposeThe gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) degradation blocker gamma-vinyl-GABA (VGB) is used clinically to treat seizures in both adult and immature individuals. The mechanism by which VGB controls developmental seizures is not fully understood. Specifically, whether the anticonvulsant properties of VGB arise only from its elevation of brain GABA levels and the resulting activation of GABA receptors, or also from associated mechanisms, remains unresolved. Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), a neuropeptide present in many brain regions involved in developmental seizures, is a known convulsant in the immature brain and has been implicated in some developmental seizures. In certain brain regions, it has been suggested that CRH synthesis and release may be regulated by GABA. Therefore we tested the hypothesis that VGB decreases CRH gene expression in the immature rat brain, consistent with the notion that VGB may decrease seizures also by reducing the levels of the convulsant molecule, CRH.MethodsVGB was administered to immature, 9-day-old rats in clinically relevant doses, whereas littermate controls received vehicle.ResultsIn situ hybridization histochemistry demonstrated a downregulation of CRH mRNA levels in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus but not in other limbic regions of VGB-treated pups compared with controls. In addition, VGB-treated pups had increased CRH peptide levels in the anterior hypothalamus, as shown by radioimmunoassay.ConclusionsThese findings are consistent with a reduction of both CRH gene expression and secretion in the hypothalamus, but do not support an indirect anticonvulsant mechanism of VGB via downregulation of CRH levels in limbic structures. However, the data support a region-specific regulation of CRH gene expression by GABA

Dark spinor models in gravitation and cosmology

We introduce and carefully define an entire class of field theories based on non-standard spinors. Their dominant interaction is via the gravitational field which makes them naturally dark; we refer to them as Dark Spinors. We provide a critical analysis of previous proposals for dark spinors noting that they violate Lorentz invariance. As a working assumption we restrict our analysis to non-standard spinors which preserve Lorentz invariance, whilst being non-local and explicitly construct such a theory. We construct the complete energy-momentum tensor and derive its components explicitly by assuming a specific projection operator. It is natural to next consider dark spinors in a cosmological setting. We find various interesting solutions where the spinor field leads to slow roll and fast roll de Sitter solutions. We also analyse models where the spinor is coupled conformally to gravity, and consider the perturbations and stability of the spinor.Comment: 43 pages. Several new sections and details added. JHEP in prin

New D1-D5-P geometries from string amplitudes

We derive the long range supergravity fields sourced by a D1-D5-P bound state from disk amplitudes for massless closed string emission. We suggest that since the parameter controlling the string perturbation expansion for this calculation decreases with distance from the bound state, the resulting asymptotic fields are valid even in the regime of parameters in which there is a classical black hole solution with the same charges. The supergravity fields differ from the black hole solution by multipole moments and are more general than those contained within known classes of solutions in the literature, whilst still preserving four supersymmetries. Our results support the conjecture that the black hole solution should be interpreted as a coarse-grained description rather than an exact description of the gravitational field sourced by D1-D5-P bound states in this regime of parameters.Comment: 48 pages, 2 figures, v2: typos correcte

The fidelity of dynamic signaling by noisy biomolecular networks

This is the final version of the article. Available from Public Library of Science via the DOI in this record.Cells live in changing, dynamic environments. To understand cellular decision-making, we must therefore understand how fluctuating inputs are processed by noisy biomolecular networks. Here we present a general methodology for analyzing the fidelity with which different statistics of a fluctuating input are represented, or encoded, in the output of a signaling system over time. We identify two orthogonal sources of error that corrupt perfect representation of the signal: dynamical error, which occurs when the network responds on average to other features of the input trajectory as well as to the signal of interest, and mechanistic error, which occurs because biochemical reactions comprising the signaling mechanism are stochastic. Trade-offs between these two errors can determine the system's fidelity. By developing mathematical approaches to derive dynamics conditional on input trajectories we can show, for example, that increased biochemical noise (mechanistic error) can improve fidelity and that both negative and positive feedback degrade fidelity, for standard models of genetic autoregulation. For a group of cells, the fidelity of the collective output exceeds that of an individual cell and negative feedback then typically becomes beneficial. We can also predict the dynamic signal for which a given system has highest fidelity and, conversely, how to modify the network design to maximize fidelity for a given dynamic signal. Our approach is general, has applications to both systems and synthetic biology, and will help underpin studies of cellular behavior in natural, dynamic environments.We acknowledge support from a Medical Research Council and Engineering and Physical Sciences Council funded Fellowship in Biomedical Informatics (CGB) and a Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance chair in Systems Biology (PSS). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript