Mechanisms of intermittent state transitions in a coupled heterogeneous oscillator model of epilepsy

This is the final version of the article. Available from BioMed Central/SpringerOpen via the DOI in this record.We investigate the dynamic mechanisms underlying intermittent state transitions in a recently proposed neural mass model of epilepsy. A low dimensional model is constructed, which preserves two key features of the neural mass model, namely (i) coupling between oscillators and (ii) heterogeneous proximity of these oscillators to a bifurcation between distinct limit cycles. We demonstrate that state transitions due to intermittency occur in the abstract model. This suggests that there is a general bifurcation mechanism responsible for this behaviour and that this is independent of the precise form of the evolution equations. Such abstractions of neural mass models allow a deeper insight into underlying dynamic and physiological mechanisms, and also allow the more efficient exploration of large scale brain dynamics in disease.MG acknowledges funding from the EPSRC through a postdoctoral prize fellowship

Lessons from Youth in Focus

Youth in Focus (YIF) is a Big Lottery Fund initiative aimed at supporting vulnerable young people through difficult changes in their lives. Beyond Youth Custody (BYC) is one of three England-wide learning and awareness projects funded under the Big Lottery Fund’s YIF programme. BYC has been designed to challenge, advance, and promote better thinking in policy and practice for the effective resettlement of young people after release from custody. BYC brings together Nacro, the social justice charity, with three research and evaluation partners: ARCS (UK), and Salford and Bedfordshire universities, all of which have exceptional track records in action-based research focusing on youth offending and resettlement. The programme was initially funded for a five-year period ending in April 2017. During that period, the partnership delivered a multi-faceted programme of research, networking, publicity and awareness-raising activities. The BYC team produced a wide range of publications and resources for practitioners, policy-makers and researchers. The YIF programme also funded service delivery projects across the country to work with three different client groups: young care-leavers, young carers and young custody-leavers. There were 15 individual YIF projects that worked with young custody-leavers, although some of these projects also worked with care-leavers and young carers. The BYC work focused specifically on young people leaving custody, working alongside these projects and supporting them to evaluate and monitor their own service and compare and contrast different models of resettlement, facilitating young people’s participation and providing ongoing feedback about effective practice and lessons learnt through the research. A key part of BYC’s work involved close and regular involvement with individual YIF projects that worked with young custody-leavers, focusing on issues concerning data collection and evaluation but also on wider practice and policy issues. That involvement with YIF projects generated a substantial set of evidence concerning the implementation and effectiveness of resettlement practice and informed the team’s critical understanding of key resettlement issues

Nocardia kroppenstedtii sp. nov., a novel actinomycete isolated from a lung transplant patient with a pulmonary infection

An actinomycete, strain N1286T, isolated from a lung transplant patient with a pulmonary infection, was provisionally assigned to the genus Nocardia. The strain had chemotaxonomic and morphological properties typical of members of the genus Nocardia and formed a distinct phyletic line in the Nocardia 16S rRNA gene tree. It was most closely related to Nocardia farcinica DSM 43665T (99.8% gene similarity) but was distinguished from the latter by a low level of DNA:DNA relatedness. These strains were also distinguished by a broad range of phenotypic properties. On the basis of these data, it is proposed that isolate N1286T (=DSM 45810T = NCTC 13617T) should be classified as the type strain of a new Nocardia species for which the name Nocardia kroppenstedtii is proposed