Distinguished Brief

Pagonia and Bretoria have submitted the settlement of their dispute by special agreement to this Court, and both parties have accepted the jurisdiction of this Court

Measuring Psychological Change during Cognitive Behaviour Therapy in Primary Care: A Polish Study Using ‘PSYCHLOPS’ (Psychological Outcome Profiles)

Psychological outcome measures are evolving into measures that depict progress over time. Interval measurement during therapy has not previously been reported for a patient-generated measure in primary care. We aimed to determine the sensitivity to change throughout therapy, using ‘PSYCHLOPS’ (Psychological Outcome Profiles), and to determine if new problems appearing during therapy diminish overall improvement.Responses to PSYCHLOPS, pre-, during- and post-therapy were compared. Setting: patients offered brief cognitive behaviour therapy in primary care in Poland.238 patients completed the pre-therapy questionnaire, 194 (81.5%) the during-therapy questionnaire and 142 the post-therapy questionnaire (59.7%). For those completing all three questionnaires (n = 135), improvement in total scores produced an overall Effect Size of 3.1 (2.7 to 3.4). We estimated change using three methods for dealing with missing values. Single and multiple imputation did not significantly change the Effect Size; ‘Last Value Carried Forward’, the most conservative method, produced an overall Effect Size of 2.3 (1.9 to 2.6). New problems during therapy were reported by 81 patients (60.0%): new problem and original problem scores were of similar magnitude and change scores were not significantly different when compared to patients who did not report new problems.A large proportion of outcome data is lost when outcome measures depend upon completed end of therapy questionnaires. The use of a during-therapy measure increases data capture. Missing data still produce difficulties in interpreting overall effect sizes for change. We found no evidence that new problems appearing during therapy hampered overall recovery

Collective mindset: developing beliefs about intelligence in the dynamic social context of a school

Implicit beliefs that we hold about intelligence are influential, especially our beliefs about its malleability (Sauce and Matzel, 2018). Is intelligence unchangeable, or can it be grown and developed? Existing research suggests that an individual’s implicit belief about malleability of intelligence can support the development of a mastery-approach goal orientation through growth Mindset, which can positively impact on achievement and outcomes (Dweck and Yeager, 2019). This appears to be a simple and logical conclusion, but it can be problematic putting theory into practice in real-world, social primary school settings. This presentation shares new research that engages critically with Mindset Theory to understand how teachers might practically ameliorate for challenges associated with implementation in real-world sociocultural contexts. It will then particularly focus on practical implications this has for children’s knowledge acquisition (Speer, 2005) and our own practice in teaching and teacher education. This research is a case study of a primary school where teachers were deliberately and collaboratively adopting a pedagogical approach for the development of individual’s growth Mindset. It set out to investigate characteristics of the learning environment using ethnographic approaches that combined participatory observation, interviews and focus groups with teachers and children (Walsh and Seale, 2018). Ongoing thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2019) explored incongruences, congruence and alignment between behaviours and espoused beliefs as the research evolved. Findings identify characteristics that support a new social model of pedagogy informed by Mindset Theory. The interdependence of six key practices is important to the model’s structure, with the centrality of ‘metacognition’ and ‘negotiation of meaning’ making it distinctive. These two central practices focus on accurate interpretation of Mindset Theory and acknowledging complexity of beliefs. Dialogue and self-social regulation play a pivotal, integrative role in the development of these practices, which encourage teachers and children involved to critically challenge each other’s understanding of Mindset Theory. As this research evolved a substantive- theory of ‘Collective Mindset’ developed to explain the relationship between the practices, principles and beliefs that underpin the model. In this context, ‘Collective Mindset’ is defined as a shared belief held by teachers and children in their capacity to take action together to develop growth Mindset (Leslie, 2021, p. 177). This is a shared belief in their conjoint capabilities to execute the courses of action required to develop intelligence; where they believe that together they have agency to cultivate and sustain practices that develop growth Mindset for themselves and each other. Key References: Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2019) ‘Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis’, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(4), pp. 589-597. Dweck, C. and Yeager, D. (2019) ‘Mindsets: A view from two eras’, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(3), pp. 481-496. Leslie, P. (2021) Collective Mindset: The role of culture, community and metacognition in the development of shared beliefs about intelligence. Lancaster University. Sauce, B. and Matzel, L.D. (2018) ‘The paradox of intelligence: Heritability and malleability coexist in hidden gene-environment interplay’, Psychological Bulletin, 144(1), pp. 26-47. Speer, N. M. (2005) ‘Issues of methods and theory in the study of mathematics teachers’ professed and attributed beliefs’, Educational Studies in Mathematics, 58(3), pp. 361-391. Walsh, D. and Seale, C. (2018) ‘Doing ethnography’ in C. Seale (ed.) Researching Society and Culture, 4th edn. London: Sage, pp. 257-284

Deep coverage whole genome sequences and plasma lipoprotein(a) in individuals of European and African ancestries.

Lipoprotein(a), Lp(a), is a modified low-density lipoprotein particle that contains apolipoprotein(a), encoded by LPA, and is a highly heritable, causal risk factor for cardiovascular diseases that varies in concentrations across ancestries. Here, we use deep-coverage whole genome sequencing in 8392 individuals of European and African ancestry to discover and interpret both single-nucleotide variants and copy number (CN) variation associated with Lp(a). We observe that genetic determinants between Europeans and Africans have several unique determinants. The common variant rs12740374 associated with Lp(a) cholesterol is an eQTL for SORT1 and independent of LDL cholesterol. Observed associations of aggregates of rare non-coding variants are largely explained by LPA structural variation, namely the LPA kringle IV 2 (KIV2)-CN. Finally, we find that LPA risk genotypes confer greater relative risk for incident atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases compared to directly measured Lp(a), and are significantly associated with measures of subclinical atherosclerosis in African Americans

Publisher Correction: Deep coverage whole genome sequences and plasma lipoprotein(a) in individuals of European and African ancestries.

The original version of this article contained an error in the name of the author Ramachandran S. Vasan, which was incorrectly given as Vasan S. Ramachandran. This has now been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the article

Seed fill, viability and germination of NSW species in the family Rutaceae

The New South Wales Seedbank (at Mount Annan Botanic Garden) stores seeds of both common and threatened species for conservation, research and restoration or revegetation projects. The value of the collections depends on our ability to germinate seeds once they have been retrieved from storage. The collection includes 129 collections representing 93 taxa in the family Rutaceae, but seed viability in Rutaceae is variable, germination cues are poorly-understood and problems are likely to arise in trying to grow plants from seed. In this study we quantified seed fill and/or viability and germination for 112 species in the Rutaceae family. For many of the species, this is the first time that these seed characteristics have been recorded. We found that seed fill (0–100%) and seed viability (0–97%), were highly variable, with 80% of collections having low viability (<75%). There was also a trend for threatened species to have lower seed fill than common species, while viability and germination were similar. This review reaffirms the need for further study of seed characteristics in Rutaceae

Deep-coverage whole genome sequences and blood lipids among 16,324 individuals.

Large-scale deep-coverage whole-genome sequencing (WGS) is now feasible and offers potential advantages for locus discovery. We perform WGS in 16,324 participants from four ancestries at mean depth &gt;29X and analyze genotypes with four quantitative traits-plasma total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglycerides. Common variant association yields known loci except for few variants previously poorly imputed. Rare coding variant association yields known Mendelian dyslipidemia genes but rare non-coding variant association detects no signals. A high 2M-SNP LDL-C polygenic score (top 5th percentile) confers similar effect size to a monogenic mutation (~30 mg/dl higher for each); however, among those with severe hypercholesterolemia, 23% have a high polygenic score and only 2% carry a monogenic mutation. At these sample sizes and for these phenotypes, the incremental value of WGS for discovery is limited but WGS permits simultaneous assessment of monogenic and polygenic models to severe hypercholesterolemia

Male Circumcision and HIV Prevention: Looking to the Future

Now that male circumcision has been shown to have a protective effect for men against HIV infection when engaging in vaginal intercourse with HIV-infected women, the research focus needs to shift towards the operational studies that can pave the way for effective implementation of circumcision programs. Behavioral research is needed to find out how people perceive the procedure and the barriers to and facilitators of uptake. It should also assess the risk of an increase in unsafe sex after circumcision. Social research must examine cultural perceptions of the practice, in Africa and beyond, including how likely uncircumcised communities are to access surgery and what messages are needed to persuade them. Advocates of male circumcision would benefit from research on how to influence health policy-makers, how best to communicate the benefits to the public, and how to design effective delivery models

Human Challenge Pilot Study with Cyclospora cayetanensis

We describe a pilot study that attempted to infect human volunteers with Cyclospora cayetanensis. Seven healthy volunteers ingested an inoculum of Cyclospora oocysts (approximately 200–49,000 oocysts). The volunteers did not experience symptoms of gastroenteritis, and no oocysts were detected in any stool samples during the 16 weeks volunteers were monitored