Association between labour market trends and trends in young people's mental health in ten European countries 1983-2005

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mental health problems have become more common among young people over the last twenty years, especially in certain countries. The reasons for this have remained unclear. The hypothesis tested in this study is that national trends in young people's mental health are associated with national trends in young people's labour market.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>National secular changes in the proportion of young people with mental health problems and national secular labour market changes were studied from 1983 to 2005 in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The correlation between the national secular changes in the proportion of young people not in the labour force and the national secular changes in proportion of young people with mental health symptoms was 0.77 for boys and 0.92 for girls.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Labour market trends may have contributed to the deteriorating trend in mental health among young people. A true relationship, should other studies confirm it, would be an important aspect to take into account when forming labour market policies or policies concerning the delivery of higher education.</p

Reactive oxygen species regulate activity-dependent neuronal plasticity in Drosophila.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have been extensively studied as damaging agents associated with ageing and neurodegenerative conditions. Their role in the nervous system under non-pathological conditions has remained poorly understood. Working with the Drosophila larval locomotor network, we show that in neurons ROS act as obligate signals required for neuronal activity-dependent structural plasticity, of both pre- and postsynaptic terminals. ROS signaling is also necessary for maintaining evoked synaptic transmission at the neuromuscular junction, and for activity-regulated homeostatic adjustment of motor network output, as measured by larval crawling behavior. We identified the highly conserved Parkinson's disease-linked protein DJ-1β as a redox sensor in neurons where it regulates structural plasticity, in part via modulation of the PTEN-PI3Kinase pathway. This study provides a new conceptual framework of neuronal ROS as second messengers required for neuronal plasticity and for network tuning, whose dysregulation in the ageing brain and under neurodegenerative conditions may contribute to synaptic dysfunction.This work was supported by BBSRC research grants (BB/IO1179X/1, BB/M002934/1) to ML, (BB/I012273/1, BB/M002322/1) to STS and (BB/N/014561/1) to RAB

Measuring the positive psychological well-being of people with rheumatoid arthritis: a cross-sectional validation of the subjective vitality scale

Introduction: People with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) frequently suffer from compromised physical and psychological health, however, little is known about positive indicators of health, due to a lack of validated outcome measures. This study aims to validate a clinically relevant outcome measure of positive psychological well-being for people with RA. The first study examined the reliability and factorial validity of the Subjective Vitality Scale (SVS), whilst study 2 tested the instruments convergent validity. Methods: In study 1, National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society members (N = 333; M age = 59.82 years SD = 11.00) completed a postal questionnaire. For study 2, participants (N = 106; M age = 56 years, SD = 12 years) were those recruited to a randomized control trial comparing two physical activity interventions who completed a range of health-related questionnaires. Results: The SVS had a high level of internal consistency (α = .93, Rho = .92). Confirmatory factor analysis supported the uni-dimensional factor structure of the questionnaire among RA patients [χ = 1327 (10), CFI = 1.0, SRMSR = .01 and RMSEA = .00 (.00 - .08)]. Support for the scales convergent validity was revealed by significant (p < .05) relationships, in expected directions, with health related quality of life (r = .59), physical function (r = .58), feelings of fatigue (r = −.70), anxiety (r = −.57) and depression (r = −.73). Conclusions: Results from two studies have provided support for the internal consistency, factorial structure and convergent validity of the Subjective Vitality Scale. Researchers and healthcare providers may employ this clinically relevant, freely available and brief assessment with the confidence that it is a valid and reliable measure of positive psychological well-being for RA patients

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles at high transverse momenta in PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

The azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in PbPb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV is measured with the CMS detector at the LHC over an extended transverse momentum (pt) range up to approximately 60 GeV. The data cover both the low-pt region associated with hydrodynamic flow phenomena and the high-pt region where the anisotropies may reflect the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the created medium. The anisotropy parameter (v2) of the particles is extracted by correlating charged tracks with respect to the event-plane reconstructed by using the energy deposited in forward-angle calorimeters. For the six bins of collision centrality studied, spanning the range of 0-60% most-central events, the observed v2 values are found to first increase with pt, reaching a maximum around pt = 3 GeV, and then to gradually decrease to almost zero, with the decline persisting up to at least pt = 40 GeV over the full centrality range measured.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Search for new physics with same-sign isolated dilepton events with jets and missing transverse energy

A search for new physics is performed in events with two same-sign isolated leptons, hadronic jets, and missing transverse energy in the final state. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.98 inverse femtobarns produced in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. This constitutes a factor of 140 increase in integrated luminosity over previously published results. The observed yields agree with the standard model predictions and thus no evidence for new physics is found. The observations are used to set upper limits on possible new physics contributions and to constrain supersymmetric models. To facilitate the interpretation of the data in a broader range of new physics scenarios, information on the event selection, detector response, and efficiencies is provided.Comment: Published in Physical Review Letter

Measurement of jet fragmentation into charged particles in pp and PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

Jet fragmentation in pp and PbPb collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV per nucleon pair was studied using data collected with the CMS detector at the LHC. Fragmentation functions are constructed using charged-particle tracks with transverse momenta pt > 4 GeV for dijet events with a leading jet of pt > 100 GeV. The fragmentation functions in PbPb events are compared to those in pp data as a function of collision centrality, as well as dijet-pt imbalance. Special emphasis is placed on the most central PbPb events including dijets with unbalanced momentum, indicative of energy loss of the hard scattered parent partons. The fragmentation patterns for both the leading and subleading jets in PbPb collisions agree with those seen in pp data at 2.76 TeV. The results provide evidence that, despite the large parton energy loss observed in PbPb collisions, the partition of the remaining momentum within the jet cone into high-pt particles is not strongly modified in comparison to that observed for jets in vacuum.Comment: Submitted to the Journal of High Energy Physic

Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals

During 2015–2016, record temperatures triggered a pan-tropical episode of coral bleaching, the third global-scale event since mass bleaching was first documented in the 1980s. Here we examine how and why the severity of recurrent major bleaching events has varied at multiple scales, using aerial and underwater surveys of Australian reefs combined with satellite-derived sea surface temperatures. The distinctive geographic footprints of recurrent bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in 1998, 2002 and 2016 were determined by the spatial pattern of sea temperatures in each year. Water quality and fishing pressure had minimal effect on the unprecedented bleaching in 2016, suggesting that local protection of reefs affords little or no resistance to extreme heat. Similarly, past exposure to bleaching in 1998 and 2002 did not lessen the severity of bleaching in 2016. Consequently, immediate global action to curb future warming is essential to secure a future for coral reefs

Localized Plasticity in the Streamlined Genomes of Vinyl Chloride Respiring Dehalococcoides

Vinyl chloride (VC) is a human carcinogen and widespread priority pollutant. Here we report the first, to our knowledge, complete genome sequences of microorganisms able to respire VC, Dehalococcoides sp. strains VS and BAV1. Notably, the respective VC reductase encoding genes, vcrAB and bvcAB, were found embedded in distinct genomic islands (GEIs) with different predicted integration sites, suggesting that these genes were acquired horizontally and independently by distinct mechanisms. A comparative analysis that included two previously sequenced Dehalococcoides genomes revealed a contextually conserved core that is interrupted by two high plasticity regions (HPRs) near the Ori. These HPRs contain the majority of GEIs and strain-specific genes identified in the four Dehalococcoides genomes, an elevated number of repeated elements including insertion sequences (IS), as well as 91 of 96 rdhAB, genes that putatively encode terminal reductases in organohalide respiration. Only three core rdhA orthologous groups were identified, and only one of these groups is supported by synteny. The low number of core rdhAB, contrasted with the high rdhAB numbers per genome (up to 36 in strain VS), as well as their colocalization with GEIs and other signatures for horizontal transfer, suggests that niche adaptation via organohalide respiration is a fundamental ecological strategy in Dehalococccoides. This adaptation has been exacted through multiple mechanisms of recombination that are mainly confined within HPRs of an otherwise remarkably stable, syntenic, streamlined genome among the smallest of any free-living microorganism