A feasibility randomised controlled trial of the New Orleans intervention of infant mental health: a study protocol

Child maltreatment is associated with life-long social, physical, and mental health problems. Intervening early to provide maltreated children with safe, nurturing care can improve outcomes. The need for prompt decisions about permanent placement (i.e., regarding adoption or return home) is internationally recognised. However, a recent Glasgow audit showed that many maltreated children “revolve” between birth families and foster carers. This paper describes the protocol of the first exploratory randomised controlled trial of a mental health intervention aimed at improving placement permanency decisions for maltreated children. This trial compares an infant's mental health intervention with the new enhanced service as usual for maltreated children entering care in Glasgow. As both are new services, the trial is being conducted from a position of equipoise. The outcome assessment covers various fields of a child’s neurodevelopment to identify problems in any ESSENCE domain. The feasibility, reliability, and developmental appropriateness of all outcome measures are examined. Additionally, the potential for linkage with routinely collected data on health and social care and, in the future, education is explored. The results will inform a definitive randomised controlled trial that could potentially lead to long lasting benefits for the Scottish population and which may be applicable to other areas of the world

A mixed methods systematic review on the effects of arts interventions for children and young people at-risk of offending, or who have offended on behavioural, psychosocial, cognitive and offending outcomes: A systematic review

Background Young people who enter the justice system experience complex health and social needs, and offending behaviour is increasingly recognised as a public health problem. Arts interventions can be used with the aim of preventing or reducing offending or reoffending. Objectives 1. To evaluate evidence on the effectiveness and impact of arts interventions on keeping children and young people safe from involvement in violence and crime. 2. To explore factors impacting the implementation of arts interventions, and barriers and facilitators to participation and achievement of intended outcomes. 3. To develop a logic model of the processes by which arts interventions might work in preventing offending behaviours. Search Methods We searched AMED, Academic Search Complete; APA PsycInfo; CINAHL Plus; ERIC; SocIndex; SportDiscus, Medline, CENTRAL, Web of Science, Scopus, PTSDPubs and Performing Arts Periodicals Database, Sage, the US National Criminal Justice Reference Service, the Global Policing and British Library EThOS databases, and the National Police Library from inception to January 2023 without language restrictions. Selection Criteria We included randomised and non-randomised controlled trials and quasi-experimental study designs. We included qualitative studies conducted alongside intervention trials investigating experiences and perceptions of participants, and offering insight into the barriers and facilitators to delivering and receiving arts interventions. We included qualitative and mixed methods studies focused on delivery of arts interventions. We included studies from any global setting. We included studies with CYP (8–25 years) who were identified as at-risk of offending behaviour (secondary populations) or already in the criminal justice system (tertiary populations). We included studies of interventions involving arts participation as an intervention on its own or alongside other interventions. Primary outcomes were: (i) offending behaviour and (ii) anti-pro-social behaviours. Secondary outcomes were: participation/attendance at arts interventions, educational attainment, school attendance and engagement and exclusions, workplace engagement, wellbeing, costs and associated economic outcomes and adverse events. Data Collection and Analysis We included 43 studies (3 quantitative, 38 qualitative and 2 mixed methods). We used standard methodological procedures expected by The Campbell Collaboration. We used GRADE and GRADE CERQual to assess the certainty of and confidence in the evidence for quantitative and qualitative data respectively. Main Results We found insufficient evidence from quantitative studies to support or refute the effectiveness of arts interventions for CYP at-risk of or who have offended for any outcome. Qualitative evidence suggested that arts interventions may lead to positive emotions, the development of a sense of self, successful engagement in creative practices, and development of positive personal relationships. Arts interventions may need accessible and flexible delivery and are likely to be engaging if they have support from staff, family and community members, are delivered by professional artists, involve culturally relevant activity, a youth focus, regularity and a sustainable strategy. We found limited evidence that a lack of advocacy, low funding, insufficient wider support from key personnel in adjacent services could act as barriers to success. Methodological limitations resulted in a judgement of very low confidence in these findings. Authors' Conclusions We found insufficient evidence from quantitative studies to support or refute the effectiveness of arts interventions for CYP at-risk of offending or who have offended for any outcome. We report very low confidence about the evidence for understanding the processes influencing the successful design and delivery of arts interventions in this population of CYP and their impact on behavioural, psychosocial, cognitive and offending outcomes.Brunel University London Information Services, UK | Youth Endowment Foundation, UK | Arts Council England, U

Loop amplitudes in gauge theories: modern analytic approaches

This article reviews on-shell methods for analytic computation of loop amplitudes, emphasizing techniques based on unitarity cuts. Unitarity techniques are formulated generally but have been especially useful for calculating one-loop amplitudes in massless theories such as Yang-Mills theory, QCD, and QED.Comment: 34 pages. Invited review for a special issue of Journal of Physics A devoted to "Scattering Amplitudes in Gauge Theories." v2: typesetting macro error fixe

On-shell Recursion in String Theory

We prove that all open string theory disc amplitudes in a flat background obey Britto-Cachazo-Feng-Witten (BCFW) on-shell recursion relations, up to a possible reality condition on a kinematic invariant. Arguments that the same holds for tree level closed string amplitudes are given as well. Non-adjacent BCFW-shifts are related to adjacent shifts through monodromy relations for which we provide a novel CFT based derivation. All possible recursion relations are related by old-fashioned string duality. The field theory limit of the analysis for amplitudes involving gluons is explicitly shown to be smooth for both the bosonic string as well as the superstring. In addition to a proof a less rigorous but more powerful argument based on the underlying CFT is presented which suggests that the technique may extend to a much more general setting in string theory. This is illustrated by a discussion of the open string in a constant B-field background and the closed string on the level of the sphere.Comment: 36 + 9 pages text, one figure, v3: added discussion on relation to old-fashioned factorization, typos corrected, published versio

Unraveling L_{n,k}: Grassmannian Kinematics

It was recently proposed that the leading singularities of the S-Matrix of N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory arise as the residues of a contour integral over a Grassmannian manifold, with space-time locality encoded through residue theorems generalizing Cauchy's theorem to more than one variable. We provide a method to identify the residue corresponding to any leading singularity, and we carry this out very explicitly for all leading singularities at tree level and one-loop. We also give several examples at higher loops, including all generic two-loop leading singularities and an interesting four-loop object. As a special case we consider a 12-pt N^4MHV leading singularity at two loops that has a new kinematic structure involving double square roots. Our analysis results in a simple picture for how the topological structure of loop graphs is reflected in various substructures within the Grassmannian.Comment: 26+11 page

Practical and effective diagnosis of animal anthrax in endemic low-resource settings

Anthrax threatens human and animal health, and people’s livelihoods in many rural communities in Africa and Asia. In these areas, anthrax surveillance is challenged by a lack of tools for on-site detection. Furthermore, cultural practices and infrastructure may affect sample availability and quality. Practical yet accurate diagnostic solutions are greatly needed to quantify anthrax impacts. We validated microscopic and molecular methods for the detection of Bacillus anthracis in field-collected blood smears and identified alternative samples suitable for anthrax confirmation in the absence of blood smears. We investigated livestock mortalities suspected to be caused by anthrax in northern Tanzania. Field-prepared blood smears (n = 152) were tested by microscopy using four staining techniques as well as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) followed by Bayesian latent class analysis. Median sensitivity (91%, CI 95% [84–96%]) and specificity (99%, CI 95% [96–100%]) of microscopy using azure B were comparable to those of the recommended standard, polychrome methylene blue, PMB (92%, CI 95% [84–97%] and 98%, CI 95% [95–100%], respectively), but azure B is more available and convenient. Other commonly-used stains performed poorly. Blood smears could be obtained for <50% of suspected anthrax cases due to local customs and conditions. However, PCR on DNA extracts from skin, which was almost always available, had high sensitivity and specificity (95%, CI 95% [90–98%] and 95%, CI 95% [87–99%], respectively), even after extended storage at ambient temperature. Azure B microscopy represents an accurate diagnostic test for animal anthrax that can be performed with basic laboratory infrastructure and in the field. When blood smears are unavailable, PCR using skin tissues provides a valuable alternative for confirmation. Our findings lead to a practical diagnostic approach for anthrax in low-resource settings that can support surveillance and control efforts for anthrax-endemic countries globally

Rational Terms in Theories with Matter

We study rational remainders associated with gluon amplitudes in gauge theories coupled to matter in arbitrary representations. We find that these terms depend on only a small number of invariants of the matter-representation called indices. In particular, rational remainders can depend on the second and fourth order indices only. Using this, we find an infinite class of non-supersymmetric theories in which rational remainders vanish for gluon amplitudes. This class includes all the "next-to-simplest" quantum field theories of arXiv:0910.0930. This provides new examples of amplitudes in which rational remainders vanish even though naive power counting would suggest their presence.Comment: 10+4 pages. (v2) typos corrected, references adde

Cortico-amygdalar connectivity and externalizing/internalizing behavior in children with neurodevelopmental disorders

Background: Externalizing and internalizing behaviors contribute to clinical impairment in children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Although associations between externalizing or internalizing behaviors and cortico-amygdalar connectivity have been found in clinical and non-clinical pediatric samples, no previous study has examined whether similar shared associations are present across children with different NDDs. Methods: Multi-modal neuroimaging and behavioral data from the Province of Ontario Neurodevelopmental Disorders (POND) Network were used. POND participants aged 6–18 years with a primary diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), as well as typically developing children (TDC) with T1-weighted, resting-state fMRI or diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) and parent-report Child Behavioral Checklist (CBCL) data available, were analyzed (total n = 346). Associations between externalizing or internalizing behavior and cortico-amygdalar structural and functional connectivity indices were examined using linear regressions, controlling for age, gender, and image-modality specific covariates. Behavior-by-diagnosis interaction effects were also examined. Results: No significant linear associations (or diagnosis-by-behavior interaction effects) were found between CBCL-measured externalizing or internalizing behaviors and any of the connectivity indices examined. Post-hoc bootstrapping analyses indicated stability and reliability of these null results. Conclusions: The current study provides evidence towards an absence of a shared linear relationship between internalizing or externalizing behaviors and cortico-amygdalar connectivity properties across a transdiagnostic sample of children with different primary NDD diagnoses and TDC. Different methodological approaches, including incorporation of multi-dimensional behavioral data (e.g., task-based fMRI) or clustering approaches may be needed to clarify complex brain-behavior relationships relevant to externalizing/internalizing behaviors in heterogeneous clinical NDD populations

No triangles on the moduli space of maximally supersymmetric gauge theory

Maximally supersymmetric gauge theory in four dimensions has a remarkably simple S-matrix at the origin of its moduli space at both tree and loop level. This leads to the question what, if any, of this structure survives at the complement of this one point. Here this question is studied in detail at one loop for the branch of the moduli space parameterized by a vacuum expectation value for one complex scalar. Motivated by the parallel D-brane picture of spontaneous symmetry breaking a simple relation is demonstrated between the Lagrangian of broken super Yang-Mills theory and that of its higher dimensional unbroken cousin. Using this relation it is proven both through an on- as well as an off-shell method there are no so-called triangle coefficients in the natural basis of one-loop functions at any finite point of the moduli space for the theory under study. The off-shell method yields in addition absence of rational terms in a class of theories on the Coulomb branch which includes the special case of maximal supersymmetry. The results in this article provide direct field theory evidence for a recently proposed exact dual conformal symmetry motivated by the AdS/CFT correspondence.Comment: 39 pages, 4 figure

Role of P-selectin in platelet sequestration in pulmonary capillaries during endotoxemia

Background: There is growing evidence that platelets accumulate in the lung and contribute to the pathogenesis of acute lung injury during endotoxemia. The aims of the present study were to localize platelet sequestration in the pulmonary microcirculation and to investigate the role of P-selectin as a molecular mechanism of platelet endothelial cell interaction. Methods: We used in vivo fluorescence microscopy to quantify the kinetics of fluorescently labeled erythrocytes and platelets in alveolar capillary networks in rabbit lungs. Results: Six hours after onset of endotoxin infusion we observed a massive rolling along and firm adherence of platelets to lung capillary endothelial cells whereas under control conditions no platelet sequestration was detected. P-selectin was expressed on the surface of separated platelets which were incubated with endotoxin and in lung tissue. Pretreatment of platelets with fucoidin, a P-selectin antagonist, significantly attenuated the endotoxin-induced platelet rolling and adherence. In contrast, intravenous infusion of fucoidin in endotoxin-treated rabbits did not inhibit platelet sequestration in pulmonary capillaries. Conclusion: We conclude that platelets accumulate in alveolar capillaries following endotoxemia. P-selectin expressed on the surface of platelets seems to play an important role in mediating this platelet-endothelial cell interaction. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel