Feasibility and Acceptability of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction and Prenatal Sleep Classes for Poor Prenatal Sleep Quality: Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.

OBJECTIVES: The main objectives of the current paper were to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and adherence of a remotely delivered intervention consisting of mindfulness-based stress reduction plus prenatal sleep classes (MBSR+PS) compared with treatment as usual (TAU). METHOD: In this pilot randomized controlled trial, 52 pregnant women with poor sleep quality were randomized to MBSR+PS or TAU. MBSR was delivered through eight weekly 2.5-hour sessions, and PS was delivered through eight weekly 30-minute sessions. PS content drew material from cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia tailored for the perinatal period and from a mindfulness- and acceptance-based lens. Participants completed endpoint measures 10-12 weeks after randomization. RESULTS: We surpassed all acceptability targets, including the percentage of eligible participants willing to be randomized (96%), percentage of participants who initiated treatment (88%), and satisfaction scores (Client Satisfaction Questionnaire-8 score M = 28.04, SD = 3.6). We surpassed all feasibility targets, including our enrollment target, retention rate (92%), and measure completion (96%). Finally, we surpassed adherence targets, including MBSR and PS session attendance (≥80%). Though sleep outcomes were exploratory, increases in sleep efficiency were greater in the MBSR+PS group relative to TAU (SMD=.68). CONCLUSIONS: Patient-reported poor sleep quality during pregnancy has high public health significance because it is common, consequential, and under-treated. The current feasibility and acceptability data for using remotely delivered MBSR and PS to improve prenatal sleep quality are encouraging and warranting future research that is sufficiently powered and designed to provide efficacy data. In addition, exploratory sleep outcomes offer preliminary evidence that this sleep program may improve sleep efficiency during pregnancy.

Effects of short-term hyposalinity stress on four commercially important bivalves: A proteomic perspective.

Increased heavy rainfall can reduce salinity to values close to 0 in estuaries. Lethal and sublethal physiological and behavioural effects of decreases in salinity below ten have already been found to occur in the commercially important clam species Venerupis corrugata, Ruditapes decussatus and R. philippinarum and the cockle Cerastoderma edule, which generate an income of ∼74 million euros annually in Galicia (NW Spain). However, studies of the molecular response to hyposaline stress in bivalves are scarce. This 'shotgun' proteomics study evaluates changes in mantle-edge proteins subjected to short-term hyposaline episodes in two different months (March and May) during the gametogenic cycle. We found evidence that the mantle-edge proteome was more responsive to sampling time than to hyposalinity, strongly suggesting that reproductive stages condition the stress response. However, hyposalinity modulated proteome profiles in V. corrugata and C. edule in both months and R. philippinarum in May, involving proteins implicated in protein folding, redox homeostasis, detoxification, cytoskeleton modulation and the regulation of apoptotic, autophagic and lipid degradation pathways. However, proteins that are essential for an optimal osmotic stress response but which are highly energy demanding, such as chaperones, osmoprotectants and DNA repair factors, were found in small relative abundances. In both months in R. decussatus and in March in R. philippinarum, almost no differences between treatments were detected. Concordant trends in the relative abundance of stress response candidate proteins were also obtained in V. corrugata and C. edule in the different months, but not in Ruditapes spp., strongly suggesting that the osmotic stress response in bivalves is complex and possibly influenced by a combination of controlled (sampling time) and uncontrolled variables. In this paper, we report potential molecular targets for studying the response to osmotic stress, especially in the most osmosensitive native species C. edule and V. corrugata, and suggest factors to consider when searching for biomarkers of hyposaline stress in bivalves.

Thermocavitation: a mechanism to pulse fiber lasers.

In this paper, we present a novel mechanism for the generation of laser pulses based on the phenomenon of thermocavitation. Thermocavitation bubbles were generated within a glass cuvette filled with copper nitrate dissolved in water, where the tip of an optical fiber was placed very close to the bubble generation region. Once the bubble is generated, it expands rapidly and the incoming laser light transmitted through the optical fiber is reflected at the vapor-solution interface and reflected back into the fiber, which is coupled to an erbium-doped fiber ring laser. Laser pulses were extracted from the ring cavity and detected by a fast photodetector, which corresponds to a single thermocavitation event, obtaining a pulse repetition rate from 118 Hz to 2 kHz at 1560 nm, with a pulse width ranging from 64 to 57 µs. The repetition rate can be controlled by adjusting the laser power to induce thermocavitation. To our knowledge, this novel mechanism of laser pulses has not been reported in the literature.

Gene expression and in vitro replication of bovine gammaherpesvirus type 4.

In vitro cell cultures are widely used models for dissecting cellular and molecular mechanisms that lead to certain physiological conditions and diseases. The pathogenesis of BoHV-4 in the bovine reproductive tract has been studied by conducting tests on primary cultures. However, many questions remain to be answered about the role of BoHV-4 in endometrial cells. The aim of this study was to compare the replication and gene expression of BoHV-4 in cell lines and bovine reproductive tract primary cells as an in vitro model for the study of this virus. We demonstrated that BoHV-4 strains differ in their in vitro growth kinetics and gene expression but have the same cell type preference. Our results demonstrate that BoHV-4 replicates preferentially in bovine endometrial cells (BEC). However, its replication capacity extends to various cell types, since all cells that were tested were permissive to BoHV-4 infection. The highest virus titers were obtained in BEC cells. Nevertheless, virus replication efficiency could not be fully predicted from the mRNA expression profiles. This implies that there are multiple cell-type-dependent factors and strain properties that determine the level of BoHV-4 replication. The results of this study provide relevant information about the in vitro behavior of two field isolates of BoHV-4 in different cell cultures. These findings may be useful for the design of future in vitro experiments to obtain reliable results not only about the pathogenic role of BoHV-4 in the bovine female reproductive tract but also in the development of efficient antiviral strategies.

Optothermal generation, trapping, and manipulation of microbubbles.

The most common approach to optically generate and manipulate bubbles in liquids involves temperature gradients induced by CW lasers. In this work, we present a method to accomplish both the generation of microbubbles and their 3D manipulation in ethanol through optothermal forces. These forces are triggered by light absorption from a nanosecond pulsed laser (λ = 532 nm) at silver nanoparticles photodeposited at the distal end of a multimode optical fiber. Light absorbed from each laser pulse quickly heats up the silver-ethanol interface beyond the ethanol critical-point (∼ 243 °C) before the heat diffuses through the liquid. Therefore, the liquid achieves a metastable state and owing to spontaneous nucleation converted to a vapor bubble attached to the optical fiber. The bubble grows with semi-spherical shape producing a counterjet in the final stage of the collapse. This jet reaches the hot nanoparticles vaporizing almost immediately and ejecting a microbubble. This microbubble-generation mechanism takes place with every laser pulse (10 kHz repetition rate) leading to the generation of a microbubbles stream. The microbubbles' velocities decrease as they move away from the optical fiber and eventually coalesce forming a larger bubble. The larger bubble is attracted to the optical fiber by the Marangoni force once it reaches a critical size while being continuously fed with each bubble of the microbubbles stream. The balance of the optothermal forces owing to the laser-pulse drives the 3D manipulation of the main bubble. A complete characterization of the trapping conditions is provided in this paper.

Theoretical and experimental study of acoustic waves generated by thermocavitation and its application in the generation of liquid jets.

Numerical simulations using the Finite-Difference Time-Domain method were used to study the propagation of an acoustic wave within a truncated ellipsoidal cavity. Based in our simulations, a fluidic device was designed and fabricated using a 3D printer in order to focus an acoustic wave more efficiently and expel a liquid jet. The device consists of an ellipsoidal shaped chamber filled with a highly absorbent solution at the operating wavelength (1064 nm) in order to create a vapor bubble using a continuous wavelength laser. The bubble rapidly expands and collapses emitting an acoustic wave that propagates inside the cavity, which was measured by using a needle hydrophone. The bubble collapse, and source of the acoustic wave, occurs in one focus of the cavity and the acoustic wave is focused on the other one, expelling a liquid jet to the exterior. The physical mechanism of the liquid jet generation is momentum transfer from the acoustic wave, which is strongly focused due to the geometry of the cavity. This mechanism is different to the methods that uses pulsed lasers for the same purpose. The maximum speed of the generated liquid microjets was approximately 20 m/s. One potential application of this fluidic device can be found for inkjet printing, coating and, maybe the most attractive, for drug delivery.

Temperature-independent genome-wide DNA methylation profile in turbot post-embryonic development.

The morphological and biological characteristics of ectothermic vertebrates are known to be strongly influenced by environmental conditions, particularly temperature. Epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation have been reported to contribute to the phenotypic plasticity observed in vertebrates in response to environmental changes. Additionally, DNA methylation is a dynamic process that occurs throughout vertebrate ontogeny and it has been associated with the activation and silencing of gene expression during post-embryonic development and metamorphosis. In this study, we investigated genome-wide DNA methylation profiles during turbot metamorphosis, as well as the epigenetic effects of temperature on turbot post-embryonic development. Fish growth and rates of development were greatly affected by rearing temperature. Thus, turbot raised at ambient temperature (18 °C) achieved greater body weights and progressed through development more quickly than those reared at a colder temperature (14 °C). Genome-wide DNA methylation dynamics analyzed via a methylation-sensitive amplified polymorphism (MSAP) technique were not significantly different between animals reared within the two different thermal environments. Furthermore, comparisons between phenotypically similar fish revealed that genome-wide DNA methylation profiles do not necessarily correlate with specific developmental stages in turbot.

General hospital admission rates in people diagnosed with personality disorder.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the frequency of all-cause general hospital admissions for individuals with personality disorder (PD) in a large clinical population using linked secondary mental healthcare and hospitalisation data. METHOD: A retrospective cohort study, using anonymised electronic mental health records from South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM), linked to Hospital Episodes Statistics in England. People with PD aged 15 years or older, receiving care within SLaM between April 2007 and March 2013, were identified and compared to residents from the local catchment area. Standardised admission ratios (SARs) were calculated for all major categories of causes of general hospital admission for this defined group, with local residents in 2011 UK Census as the standard population. RESULTS: For the 7677 people identified with PD, SAR for all causes of admission was 2.75 (95% CI: 2.70, 2.81). Both men and women with PD had increased SARs across multiple ICD-10 categories, including circulatory, respiratory, digestive, nervous, and musculoskeletal system disorders and endocrine, blood and infectious disorders. Sensitivity analysis (removing the impact of repeated admissions by same individual for same diagnosis in the same year) yielded similar findings. CONCLUSIONS: By comparison with members of the general population, individuals with a diagnosis of personality disorder are at significantly higher risk of hospital admission resulting from a wide range of physical health problems.

Influence on the saturable absorption of the induced losses by photodeposition of zinc nanoparticles in an optical fiber.

In this work, the influence of induced losses on the saturable absorption by zinc nanoparticles photodeposited onto the core of an optical fiber end is reported. Samples with different losses were obtained by the photodeposition technique using a continuous wave laser at 1550 nm. The nonlinear absorption of the saturable absorber was characterized by the P-scan technique using a high-gain pulsed erbium-doped fiber amplifier. The results have demonstrated that for optical fibers with variable induced losses by deposited nanoparticles, the modulation depth increases proportionally based on the nonlinear absorption coefficient. With induced losses fixed at 3 dB, it was demonstrated that the modulation depth increased as a function of the optical power used in the photodeposition process. The saturation intensity of the saturable absorber presents small shifts for higher intensities.

Marangoni force-driven manipulation of photothermally-induced microbubbles.

The generation and manipulation of microbubbles by means of temperature gradients induced by low power laser radiation is presented. A laser beam (λ = 1064 nm) is divided into two equal parts and coupled to two multimode optical fibers. The opposite ends of each fiber are aligned and separated a distance D within an ethanol solution. Previously, silver nanoparticles were photo deposited on the optical fibers ends. Light absorption at the nanoparticles produces a thermal gradient capable of generating a microbubble at the optical fibers end in non-absorbent liquids. The theoretical and experimental studies carried out showed that by switching the thermal gradients, it is possible to generate forces in opposite directions, causing the migration of microbubbles from one fiber optic tip to another. Marangoni force induced by surface tension gradients in the bubble wall is the driving force behind the manipulation of microbubbles. We estimated a maximum Marangoni force of 400nN for a microbubble with a radius of 110 µm.

Impact of dysfunctional maternal personality traits on risk of offspring depression, anxiety and self-harm at age 18 years: a population-based longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND: The impact of underlying parental psychological vulnerability on the future mental health of offspring is not fully understood. Using a prospective cohort design, we investigated the association between dysfunctional parental personality traits and risks of offspring self-harm, depression and anxiety. METHODS: The association between dysfunctional parental personality traits (monotony avoidance, impulsivity, anger, suspicion, and detachment), measured in both mothers and fathers when offspring were age 9 years, and risk of offspring depression, anxiety and self-harm at age 18 years, was investigated in a population-based cohort (ALSPAC) from over 8000 parents and children. RESULTS: Higher levels of dysfunctional maternal, but not paternal, personality traits were associated with an increased risk of self-harm, depression, and anxiety in offspring. Maternal associations were best explained by the accumulation of dysfunctional traits. Associations were strongest for offspring depression: Offspring of mothers with three or more dysfunctional personality traits were 2.27 (1.45-3.54, p < 0.001) times as likely to be depressed, compared with offspring of mothers with no dysfunctional personality traits, independently of maternal depression and other variables. CONCLUSIONS: The accumulation of dysfunctional maternal personality traits is associated with the risk of self-harm, depression, anxiety in offspring independently of maternal depression and other confounding variables. The absence of associations for equivalent paternal traits makes a genetic explanation for the findings unlikely. Further research is required to elucidate the underlying mechanism. Mothers with high levels of dysfunctional personality traits may benefit from additional support to reduce the risk of adverse psychological outcomes occurring in their offspring.

Demonstration of a CW diode-pumped Ar metastable laser operating at 4 W.

Optically pumped rare gas lasers are being investigated as potential high-energy, high beam quality systems. The lasing medium consists of rare gas atoms (Rg=Ne, Ar, Kr, or Xe) that have been electric discharge excited to the metastable np5(n+1)s P32 state. Following optical excitation, helium (He) at pressures of 200-1000 Torr is used as the energy transfer agent to create a population inversion. The primary technical difficulty for this scheme is the discharge production of sufficient Rg* metastables in the presence of >200 Torr of He. In this Letter, we describe a pulsed discharge that yields >1013 cm-3Ar* in the presence of He at total pressures up to 750 Torr. Using this discharge, a diode-pumped Ar* laser providing 4.1 W has been demonstrated.

Economic evaluation of chronic disease self-management for people with diabetes: a systematic review.

AIMS: To systematically review the evidence on the costs and cost-effectiveness of self-management support interventions for people with diabetes. BACKGROUND: Self-management support is the provision of education and supportive interventions to increase patients' skills and confidence in managing their health problems, potentially leading to improvements in HbA1c levels in people with diabetes. METHODS: Randomized controlled trials, observational studies or economic modelling studies were eligible for inclusion in the review. The target population was adults with diabetes. Interventions had to have a substantial component of self-management support and be compared with routine care. Study quality was evaluated using the Consensus on Health Economic Criteria and International Society of Pharmacoeconomic Outcomes Research questionnaires. A narrative review approach was used. RESULTS: A total of 16 costing and 21 cost-effectiveness studies of a range of self-management support interventions were identified. There was reasonably consistent evidence across 22 studies evaluating education self-management support programmes suggesting these interventions are cost-effective or superior to usual care. Telemedicine-type interventions were more expensive than usual care and potentially not cost-effective. There was insufficient evidence regarding the other types of self-management interventions, including pharmacist-led and behavioural interventions. The identified studies were predominantly of poor quality, with outcomes based on short-term follow-up data and study designs at high risk of bias. CONCLUSIONS: Self-management support education programmes may be cost-effective. There was limited evidence regarding other formats of self-management support interventions. The poor quality of many of the studies undermines the evidence base regarding the economic efficiency of self-management support interventions for people with diabetes.

A rare exception to Haldane's rule: Are X chromosomes key to hybrid incompatibilities?

The prevalence of Haldane's rule suggests that sex chromosomes commonly have a key role in reproductive barriers and speciation. However, the majority of research on Haldane's rule has been conducted in species with conventional sex determination systems (XY and ZW) and exceptions to the rule have been understudied. Here we test the role of X-linked incompatibilities in a rare exception to Haldane's rule for female sterility in field cricket sister species (Teleogryllus oceanicus and T. commodus). Both have an XO sex determination system. Using three generations of crosses, we introgressed X chromosomes from each species onto different, mixed genomic backgrounds to test predictions about the fertility and viability of each cross type. We predicted that females with two different species X chromosomes would suffer reduced fertility and viability compared with females with two parental X chromosomes. However, we found no strong support for such X-linked incompatibilities. Our results preclude X-X incompatibilities and instead support an interchromosomal epistatic basis to hybrid female sterility. We discuss the broader implications of these findings, principally whether deviations from Haldane's rule might be more prevalent in species without dimorphic sex chromosomes.

Controllable direction of liquid jets generated by thermocavitation within a droplet.

A high-velocity fluid stream ejected from an orifice or nozzle is a common mechanism to produce liquid jets in inkjet printers or to produce sprays among other applications. In the present research, we show the generation of liquid jets of controllable direction produced within a sessile water droplet by thermocavitation. The jets are driven by an acoustic shock wave emitted by the collapse of a hemispherical vapor bubble at the liquid-solid/substrate interface. The generated shock wave is reflected at the liquid-air interface due to acoustic impedance mismatch generating multiple reflections inside the droplet. During each reflection, a force is exerted on the interface driving the jets. Depending on the position of the generation of the bubble within the droplet, the mechanical energy of the shock wave is focused on different regions at the liquid-air interface, ejecting cylindrical liquid jets at different angles. The ejected jet angle dependence is explained by a simple ray tracing model of the propagation of the acoustic shock wave inside the droplet.

Setting spatial conservation priorities despite incomplete data for characterizing metapopulations.

Management of spatially structured species poses unique challenges. Despite a strong theoretical foundation, practitioners rarely have sufficient empirical data to evaluate how populations interact. Rather, assumptions about connectivity and source-sink dynamics are often based on incomplete, extrapolated, or modeled data, if such interactions are even considered at all. Therefore, it has been difficult to evaluate whether spatially structured species are meeting conservation goals. We evaluated how estimated metapopulation structure responded to estimates of population sizes and dispersal probabilities and to the set of populations included. We then compared outcomes of alternative management strategies that target conservation of metapopulation processes. We illustrated these concepts for Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the Snake River, USA. Our description of spatial structure for this metapopulation was consistent with previous characterizations. We found substantial differences in estimated metapopulation structure when we had incomplete information about all populations and when we used different sources of data (three empirical, two modeled) to estimate dispersal, whereas responses to population size estimates were more consistent. Together, these findings suggest that monitoring efforts should target all populations occasionally and populations that play key roles frequently and that multiple types of data should be collected when feasible. When empirical data are incomplete or of uneven quality, analyses using estimates produced from an ensemble of available datasets can help conservation planners and managers weigh near-term options. Doing so, we found trade-offs in connectivity and source dominance in metapopulation-level responses to alternative management strategies that suggest which types of approaches may be inherently less risky.

The male handicap: male-biased mortality explains skewed sex ratios in brown trout embryos.

Juvenile sex ratios are often assumed to be equal for many species with genetic sex determination, but this has rarely been tested in fish embryos due to their small size and absence of sex-specific markers. We artificially crossed three populations of brown trout and used a recently developed genetic marker for sexing the offspring of both pure and hybrid crosses. Sex ratios (SR = proportion of males) varied widely one month after hatching ranging from 0.15 to 0.90 (mean = 0.39 ± 0.03). Families with high survival tended to produce balanced or male-biased sex ratios, but SR was significantly female-biased when survival was low, suggesting that males sustain higher mortality during development. No difference in SR was found between pure and hybrid families, but the existence of sire × dam interactions suggests that genetic incompatibility may play a role in determining sex ratios. Our findings have implications for animal breeding and conservation because skewed sex ratios will tend to reduce effective population size and bias selection estimates.

Saturable and two-photon absorption in zinc nanoparticles photodeposited onto the core of an optical fiber.

In this work, the simultaneous presence of saturable (SA) and two-photon absorption (TPA) in zinc nanoparticles (ZnNPs) photodeposited onto the core of an optical fiber was studied in the nanosecond regime with the P-scan method using a high gain pulsed erbium-doped fiber amplifier. An analysis based on Mie theory was carried out to demonstrate the influence of the absorption coefficient with the particles sizes in the proximity of surface plasmon resonance (SPR). The shift from TPA to SA has been observed as the irradiance is increased. It was found that for irradiances lower than 5 MW/cm², TPA is dominant, whereas for irradiances higher than 5 MW/cm², the SA becomes dominant. Furthermore, the values of the nonlinear absorption coefficient and the imaginary part of third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility were calculated numerically from the transmittance measured. Such TPA makes ZnNPs a candidate for optical limiting applications, and SA makes them a candidate for applications in pulsed fiber laser systems.

Violent and non-violent crime against adults with severe mental illness.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the relative extent of crime against people with severe mental illness (SMI). AIMS: To assess the prevalence and impact of crime among people with SMI compared with the general population. METHOD: A total of 361 psychiatric patients were interviewed using the national crime survey questionnaire, and findings compared with those from 3138 general population controls participating in the contemporaneous national crime survey. RESULTS: Past-year crime was experienced by 40% of patients v. 14% of controls (adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 2.8, 95% CI 2.0-3.8); and violent assaults by 19% of patients v. 3% of controls (adjusted OR = 5.3, 95% CI 3.1-8.8). Women with SMI had four-, ten- and four-fold increases in the odds of experiencing domestic, community and sexual violence, respectively. Victims with SMI were more likely to report psychosocial morbidity following violence than victims from the general population. CONCLUSIONS: People with SMI are at greatly increased risk of crime and associated morbidity. Violence prevention policies should be particularly focused on people with SMI.