Disclosure of voice hearing and mental health problems : experiences and effects

Research suggests that people who experience mental health problems and people who hear voices are likely to experience stigmatising attitudes and discrimination. This portfolio considers the experiences and impact of disclosing these stigmatised experiences, both to immediate family, friends, and partners, and to people in wider society. The portfolio has three parts.Part one is a systematic literature review which considers the impact/effect of disclosing mental health problems by reviewing the literature base. Twelve articles which aimed to answer the research question were quality assessed, then compared and contrasted in order to provide conclusions and offer recommendations for future research and clinical practice.Part two is an empirical study which enquires into the personal experiences of people who hear voices using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Six participants were interviewed about their experiences of talking about hearing voices with family, friends, and other people they considered close to them. Themes were developed from the interviews and conclusions were drawn about future research and clinical implications.Part three of this portfolio contains the appendices, consisting of supporting documents from the literature review and empirical study, along with both epistemological and reflective statements

Bounding the distinguishing number of infinite graphs and permutation groups

A group of permutations G of a set V is k-distinguishable if there exists a partition of V into k cells such that only the identity permutation in G fixes setwise all of the cells of the partition. The least cardinal number k such that (G, V) is k-distinguishable is its distinguishing number, D(G, V). In particular, a graph X is k-distinguishable if its automorphism group Aut(X) satisfies D(Aut(X), VX) ≤ k. Various results in the literature demonstrate that when an infinite graph fails to have some property, then often some finite subgraph is similarly deficient. In this paper we show first that whenever an infinite connected graph X is not k-distinguishable (for a given cardinal k), then it contains a ball of finite radius whose distinguishing number is at least k. Moreover, this lower bound cannot be sharpened, since for any integer k ≥ 3 there exists an infinite, locally finite, connected graph X that is not k-distinguishable but in which every ball of finite radius is k-distinguishable. In the second half of this paper we show that a large distinguishing number for an imprimitive permutation group G is traceable to a high distinguishing number either of a block of imprimitivity or of the action induced by G on the corresponding system of imprimitiv ity. An immediate application is to automorphism groups of infinite imprimitive graphs. These results are companion to the study of the distinguishing number of infinite primitive groups and graphs in a previous paper by the authors together with T. W. Tucker

Service user perspectives of an early intervention in psychosis service: a service evaluation

This evaluation aimed to gather the perspectives of individuals accessing an early intervention in psychosis service (EIPS), in order to inform service development.Individual interviews (n=9) and one focus group (n=7) were conducted. Discussions focused on open questions pertaining to Service Users’ (SUs) experiences of accessing the EIPS. The results were analysed using inductive thematic analysis.Inductive thematic analysis was used and three main themes were generated; Consistency and Communication, facilitating therapeutic relationships between EIP service staff and SU’s. Pushing Boundaries, relating to the importance of services taking a graded approach to developing therapeutic relationships and (re)engaging in activities; and Normalising and Validating experiences of psychosis. Participants emphasised the importance of relationships with EIP service staff and fellow SUs and highlighted how SUs can feel fearful and vulnerable when staff are not accessible or they view their care as inconsistent. Participants further emphasised the need for practitioners to balance an approach that de-stigmatises psychotic experiences whilst validating distress.Consistency of support from EIP services can be as important as flexibility. Clinicians should carefully consider the balance between validating and normalising distressing experiences associated with Psychosis. Offering social activities with other SUs can facilitate therapeutic relationships and recovery but the results suggest that this should be facilitated in a graded way

Whos Ditching the Bus?

This paper uses stop-level passenger count data in four cities to understand the nation-wide bus ridership decline between 2012 and 2018. The local characteristics associated with ridership change are evaluated in Portland, Miami, Minneapolis/St-Paul, and Atlanta. Poisson models explain ridership as a cross-section and the change thereof as a panel. While controlling for the change in frequency, jobs, and population, the correlation with local socio-demographic characteristics are investigated using data from the American Community Survey. The effect of changing neighborhood demographics on bus ridership are modeled using Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics data. At a point in time, neighborhoods with high proportions of non-white, carless, and most significantly, high-school-educated residents are the most likely to have high ridership. Over time, white neighborhoods are losing the most ridership across all four cities. In Miami and Atlanta, places with high concentrations of residents with college education and without access to a car also lose ridership at a faster rate. In Minneapolis/St-Paul, the proportion of college-educated residents is linked to ridership gain. The sign and significance of these results remain consistent even when controlling for intra-urban migration. Although bus ridership is declining across neighborhood characteristics, these results suggest that the underlying cause of bus ridership decline must be primarily affecting the travel behavior of white bus riders

Distinguishability of infinite groups and graphs

The distinguishing number of a group G acting faithfully on a set V is the least number of colors needed to color the elements of V so that no non-identity element of the group preserves the coloring. The distinguishing number of a graph is the distinguishing number of its automorphism group acting on its vertex set. A connected graph Gamma is said to have connectivity 1 if there exists a vertex alpha \in V\Gamma such that Gamma \setminus \{\alpha\} is not connected. For alpha \in V, an orbit of the point stabilizer G_\alpha is called a suborbit of G. We prove that every nonnull, primitive graph with infinite diameter and countably many vertices has distinguishing number 2. Consequently, any nonnull, infinite, primitive, locally finite graph is 2-distinguishable; so, too, is any infinite primitive permutation group with finite suborbits. We also show that all denumerable vertex-transitive graphs of connectivity 1 and all Cartesian products of connected denumerable graphs of infinite diameter have distinguishing number 2. All of our results follow directly from a versatile lemma which we call The Distinct Spheres Lemma

Dynamin- and Rab5-Dependent Endocytosis of a Ca²⁺-Activated K⁺ Channel, KCa2.3

Regulation of the number of ion channels at the plasma membrane is a critical component of the physiological response. We recently demonstrated that the Ca2+-activated K+ channel, KCa2.3 is rapidly endocytosed and enters a Rab35- and EPI64C-dependent recycling compartment. Herein, we addressed the early endocytic steps of KCa2.3 using a combination of fluorescence and biotinylation techniques. We demonstrate that KCa2.3 is localized to caveolin-rich domains of the plasma membrane using fluorescence co-localization, transmission electron microscopy and co-immunoprecipitation (co-IP). Further, in cells lacking caveolin-1, we observed an accumulation of KCa2.3 at the plasma membrane as well as a decreased rate of endocytosis, as assessed by biotinylation. We also demonstrate that KCa2.3 and dynamin II are co-localized following endocytosis as well as demonstrating they are associated by co-IP. Further, expression of K44A dynamin II resulted in a 2-fold increase in plasma membrane KCa2.3 as well as a 3-fold inhibition of endocytosis. Finally, we evaluated the role of Rab5 in the endocytosis of KCa2.3. We demonstrate that expression of a dominant active Rab5 (Q79L) results in the accumulation of newly endocytosed KCa2.3 on to the membrane of the Rab5-induced vacuoles. We confirmed this co-localization by co-IP; demonstrating that KCa2.3 and Rab5 are associated. As expected, if Rab5 is required for the endocytosis of KCa2.3, expression of a dominant negative Rab5 (S34N) resulted in an approximate 2-fold accumulation of KCa2.3 at the plasma membrane. This was confirmed by siRNA-mediated knockdown of Rab5. Expression of the dominant negative Rab5 also resulted in a decreased rate of KCa2.3 endocytosis. These results demonstrate that KCa2.3 is localized to a caveolin-rich domain within the plasma membrane and is endocytosed in a dynamin- and Rab5-dependent manner prior to entering the Rab35/EPI64C recycling compartment and returning to the plasma membrane. © 2012 Gao et al

Automated imaging system for fast quantitation of neurons, cell morphology and neurite morphometry in vivo and in vitro

Producción CientíficaQuantitation of neurons using stereologic approaches reduces bias and systematic error, but is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Accurate methods for quantifying neurons in vitro are lacking; conventional methodologies are limited in reliability and application. The morphological properties of the soma and neurites are a key aspect of neuronal phenotype and function, but the assays commonly used in such evaluations are beset with several methodological drawbacks. Herein we describe automated techniques to quantify the number and morphology of neurons (or any cell type, e.g., astrocytes) and their processes with high speed and accuracy. Neuronal quantification from brain tissue using a motorized stage system yielded results that were statistically comparable to those generated by stereology. The approach was then adapted for in vitro neuron and neurite outgrowth quantification. To determine the utility of our methods, rotenone was used as a neurotoxicant leading to morphological changes in neurons and cell death, astrocytic activation, and loss of neurites. Importantly, our technique counted about 8 times as many neurons in less than 5-10% of the time taken by manual stereological analysis