Naresuan University Journal
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Suicide in patients suffering from late-life anxiety disorders; a comparison with younger patients.
No full textABSTRACT Background: Anxiety disorders are assumed to increase suicide risk, although confounding by comorbid psychiatric disorders may be one explanation. This study describes the characteristics of older patients with an anxiety disorder who died by suicide in comparison to younger patients. Method: A 15-year national clinical survey of all suicides in the UK (n = 25,128). Among the 4,481 older patients who died by suicide (≥ 60 years), 209 (4.7%) suffered from a primary anxiety disorder, and 533 (11.9%) from a comorbid anxiety disorder. Characteristics of older (n = 209) and younger (n = 773) patients with a primary anxiety disorder were compared by logistic regression adjusted for sex and living arrangement. Results: Compared to younger patients, older patients with a primary anxiety disorder were more often males and more often lived alone. Although 60% of older patients had a history of psychiatric admissions and 50% of deliberate self-harm, a history of self-harm, violence, and substance misuse was significantly less frequent compared to younger patients, whereas physical health problems and comorbid depressive illness were more common. Older patients were prescribed significantly more psychotropic drugs and received less psychotherapy compared to younger patients. Conclusion: Anxiety disorders are involved in one of every six older patients who died by suicide. Characteristics among patients who died by suicide show severe psychopathology, with a more prominent role for physical decline and social isolation compared to their younger counterparts. Moreover, treatment was less optimal in the elderly, suggesting ageism. These results shed light on the phenomenon of suicide in late-life anxiety disorder and suggest areas where prevention efforts might be focused
Accurate dynamics in an azimuthally-symmetric accelerating cavity
No full textWe consider beam dynamics in azimuthally-symmetric accelerating cavities, using the EMMA FFAG cavity as an example. By fitting a vector potential to the field map, we represent the linear and non-linear dynamics using truncated power series and mixed-variable generating functions. The analysis provides an accurate model for particle trajectories in the cavity, reveals potentially significant and measurable effects on the dynamics, and shows differences between cavity focusing models. The approach provides a unified treatment of transverse and longitudinalmotion, and facilitates detailed map-based studies of motion in complex machines like FFAGs
Quantifying crime associated with drug use among a large cohort of sanctioned offenders in England and Wales
No full textAIM: To assess the relationship between testing positive for opiates and/or cocaine and prior offending.METHODS: 139,925 persons (107,573 men) identified from a saliva test for opiate and cocaine metabolites following arrest in England and Wales, 1 April 2005-31 March 2009, were case-linked with 2-year recorded offending history. The prior offending rate, accounting for estimated incarceration periods, was calculated by: drug-test outcome; gender; four main crime categories (acquisitive, non-acquisitive, serious acquisitive, and non-serious acquisitive) and 16 sub-categories. Rate ratio (RR) compared opiate and/or cocaine positive to dual-negative testers. Adjusted rate ratio (aRR) controlled for age at drug test.RESULTS: The relationship between testing positive for opiates and cocaine and prior 2-year offending was greater for women than men (aRR men 1.77; 95% CI: 1.75-1.79: women 3.51; 3.45-3.58). The association was weaker for those testing positive for opiates only (aRR: men: 1.66, 1.64-1.68; women 2.73, 2.66-2.80). Men testing positive for cocaine only had a lower rate of prior offending (aRR: 0.93, 0.92-0.94), women had a higher rate (aRR: 1.69, 1.64-1.74). The strongest associations were for non-serious acquisitive crimes (e.g. dually-positive: prostitution (women-only): aRR 24.9, 20.9-29.7; shoplifting: aRR men 4.05, 3.95-4.16; women 6.16, 5.92-6.41). Testing positive for opiates and cocaine was associated with violent offences among women (aRR: 1.54, 1.40-1.69) but not men (aRR: 0.98, 0.93-1.02).CONCLUSIONS: Among drug-tested offenders, opiate use is associated with elevated prior offending and the association is stronger for women than men. Cocaine use is associated with prior offending only among women.</p
Migration in the social stage of Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae impacts competition.
No full textInteraction conditions can change the balance of cooperation and conflict in multicellular groups. After aggregating together, cells of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum may migrate as a group (known as a slug) to a new location. We consider this migration stage as an arena for social competition and conflict because the cells in the slug may not be from a genetically homogeneous population. In this study, we examined the interplay of two seemingly diametric actions, the solitary action of kin recognition and the collective action of slug migration in D. discoideum, to more fully understand the effects of social competition on fitness over the entire lifecycle. We compare slugs composed of either genetically homogenous or heterogeneous cells that have migrated or remained stationary in the social stage of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. After migration of chimeric slugs, we found that facultative cheating is reduced, where facultative cheating is defined as greater contribution to spore relative to stalk than found for that clone in the clonal state. In addition our results support previous findings that competitive interactions in chimeras diminish slug migration distance. Furthermore, fruiting bodies have shorter stalks after migration, even accounting for cell numbers at that time. Taken together, these results show that migration can alleviate the conflict of interests in heterogeneous slugs. It aligns their interest in finding a more advantageous place for dispersal, where shorter stalks suffice, which leads to a decrease in cheating behavior
Quantitative imaging of volcanic plumes - Results, needs, and future trends
No full textRecent technology allows two-dimensional "imaging" of trace gas distributions in plumes. In contrast to older, one-dimensional remote sensing techniques, that are only capable of measuring total column densities, the new imaging methods give insight into details of transport and mixing processes as well as chemical transformation within plumes. We give an overview of gas imaging techniques already being applied at volcanoes (SO2 cameras, imaging DOAS, FT-IR imaging), present techniques where first field experiments were conducted (LED-LIDAR, tomographic mapping), and describe some techniques where only theoretical studies with application to volcanology exist (e.g. Fabry-Perot Imaging, Gas Correlation Spectroscopy, hi-static LIDAR). Finally, we discuss current needs and future trends in imaging technology. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
Manchester Museum collection of human mummies - a CT scan review revealing unusual findings relating to pathology, embalming and wrapping techniques
No full textThe glucocorticoid receptor regulates accurate chromosome segregation and is associated with malignancy
No full textThe glucocorticoid receptor (GR) is a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily, which controls programs regulating cell proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. We have identified an unexpected role for GR in mitosis. We discovered that specifically modified GR species accumulate at the mitotic spindle during mitosis in a distribution that overlaps with Aurora kinases. We found that Aurora A was required to mediate mitosis-driven GR phosphorylation, but not recruitment of GR to the spindle. GR was necessary for mitotic progression, with increased time to complete mitosis, frequency of mitotic aberrations, and death in mitosis observed following GR knockdown. Complementation studies revealed an essential role for the GR ligand-binding domain, but no clear requirement for ligand binding in regulating chromosome segregation. The GR N-terminal domain, and specifically phosphosites S203 and S211, were not required. Reduced GR expression results in a cell cycle phenotype, with isolated cells from mouse and human subjects showing changes in chromosome content over prolonged passage. Furthermore, GR haploinsufficient mice have an increased incidence of tumor formation, and, strikingly, these tumors are further depleted for GR, implying additional GR loss as a consequence of cell transformation. We identified reduced GR expression in a panel of human liver, lung, prostate, colon, and breast cancers. We therefore reveal an unexpected role for the GR in promoting accurate chromosome segregation during mitosis, which is causally linked to tumorigenesis, making GR an authentic tumor suppressor gene
Association analyses identify 38 susceptibility loci for inflammatory bowel disease and highlight shared genetic risk across populations.
No full textUlcerative colitis and Crohn's disease are the two main forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Here we report the first trans-ancestry association study of IBD, with genome-wide or Immunochip genotype data from an extended cohort of 86,640 European individuals and Immunochip data from 9,846 individuals of East Asian, Indian or Iranian descent. We implicate 38 loci in IBD risk for the first time. For the majority of the IBD risk loci, the direction and magnitude of effect are consistent in European and non-European cohorts. Nevertheless, we observe genetic heterogeneity between divergent populations at several established risk loci driven by differences in allele frequency (NOD2) or effect size (TNFSF15 and ATG16L1) or a combination of these factors (IL23R and IRGM). Our results provide biological insights into the pathogenesis of IBD and demonstrate the usefulness of trans-ancestry association studies for mapping loci associated with complex diseases and understanding genetic architecture across diverse populations
