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Supporting Transitions:A Scoping Review of Interventions for Students with Mental Health Conditions Entering Higher Education
Get PDFBackground:Emerging adulthood is a peak period for mental health problems, and transition to university heightens both risks and opportunities. Targeted interventions may support students with pre-existing conditions, but the evidence base has not been systematically updated since 2021.Methods:Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Embase, and ERIC (2015–2025) for peer-reviewed studies evaluating interventions supporting students with diagnosed or self-reported mental health conditions during transition to higher education. Eligible designs included quantitative pre–post and controlled studies. Data extraction followed the TIDieR checklist, and risk of bias was assessed using a modified NIH tool.Results:Eight studies (five interventions) were identified. Four interventions used controlled designs, three were randomised controlled trials. Common components included peer mentorship, goal setting, psychoeducation, and skills for independence. Several targeted help-seeking barriers, empowerment, and loneliness. Interventions were generally acceptable, with evidence of improvements in educational outcomes, adjustment, and depressive symptoms, but not anxiety. Most were opt-in, reliant on disclosure, and none were university-led.Conclusions:Targeted interventions show promise in supporting students with mental health conditions during university transition. However, evidence remains limited, heterogeneous, and predominantly North American. Larger, equity-focused, and university-led trials are urgently required.<br/
Researcher positionality and relational power:Playing with 'researching up' and 'researching down' in critical reflexivity
Get PDFCritical development scholars and feminist geographers call for reflexivity on the relationships between researchers and the subjects of their research. This includes questioning the power dynamics that shape knowledge generation, while recognising the partiality of these insights and the subjectivity of knowledge production. To advance these debates, I draw on the concepts of ‘researching up’ and ‘researching down’, sometimes used to distinguish between relative ‘power over’ and ‘power under’ interlocutors. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Hmong village in northern Thailand, I reflect on the relationality between myself and research participants, including moments of entering into more or less relational power. I suggest that by mobilising the heuristic of ‘researching up’ and ‘researching down’ as a relational analytic rather than oppositional categories, we can generate new insights into our own positionalities, and subsequently, the social difference, relationality and power dynamics within the populations we learn from. This approach helps to reject homogenising narratives of ‘vulnerable subjects’ to better unravel shifting power dimensions and affect within positional spaces
Q_B-optimal two-level designs for the baseline parameterization
Get PDFThere has been recent interest in the baseline parameterization for two-level factorial designs. The association matrix that expresses the estimator of effects under the baseline parameterization is obtained in an equivalent form as a linear function of estimators of effects under the traditional centered parameterization. This allows the generalization of the Q_B criterion which evaluates designs under model uncertainty in the traditional centered parameterization to be applicable to the baseline parameterization. Some optimal designs under the baseline parameterization seen in the previous literature are evaluated and it has been shown that at a given prior probability of a main effect being in the best fitted model from the experimental data, the design in the literature converges to being Q_B optimal as the probability of an interaction being in that model converges to 0 from above. The Q_B optimal designs for two setups of factors and run sizes at various priors are found by an extended coordinate exchange algorithm and the evaluation of their performances are discussed. Comparisons have been made to those optimal designs restricted to be level balanced and orthogonal
Triplet RNA Lipid Nanoparticles for Locoregional Cancer Immunotherapy
No full textIonizable lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are a proven means of delivering nucleic acid-based therapeutics. This project aims to expand the LNP platform for the delivery of immunostimulatory polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (pIpC). It is demonstrated that pIpC could be successfully incorporated into LNPs with minimal modification to existing protocols. LNPs encapsulating pIpC (pIpC-LNPs) exhibit a spherical shape with a diameter under 200 nm. When administered intratumorally, pIpC-LNPs are significantly more potent than the soluble adjuvant, resulting in complete remission in 25% of tumors. To identify potential synergistic targets, T cell activation markers are screened following pIpC-LNP treatment. OX40 and CD27 are strongly upregulated and associated with intratumoral pIpC-LNP administration. Furthermore, direct treatment of a cancer cell line with pIpC-LNPs results in upregulation of the immunosuppressive PDL1. To develop a comprehensive RNA-based immunotherapeutic strategy, LNPs are formulated with mRNAs encoding CD70 (the CD27 ligand) and OX40L, or with siRNA targeting PDL1, and are evaluated in combination. Tumor growth reduction is observed when pIpC-LNPs are combined with siPDL1. This study demonstrates the potential of a triplet RNA platform-comprising immunostimulatory RNA, mRNA, and siRNA, delivered via a single versatile LNP. The data support development of pIpC-LNPs as potent intratumoral therapeutics and highlight several potential synergistic targets.</p
Longitudinal, Multi-Cycle Evaluation of Passive Function Improvement in People with Arm Spasticity Treated with Botulinum Toxin A
Get PDFImprovement in passive function (i.e., ease of caring for a limb) is a common goal for treatment of spasticity in the arm with botulinum toxin. A large international, observational, 2-year longitudinal study (ULIS-III, N = 953) was conducted in real-life practice. This original secondary analysis examines whether improvement in passive function goals were met over repeated injection cycles. We report changes by cycle measured by the Passive Function sub-scale of the Arm Activity measure (ArmA-PF) and examine predictors of improvement and injection occurrence. Inclusion in this analysis was based on passive function being selected as a primary or secondary goal for one or more cycle of treatment (n = 542/953). Goals were assessed at the start and end of each cycle using the Goal Attainment Test score and the ArmA-PF. Over all cycles of treatment, goals were set for 1641/2187 injections (75.0%) and achieved in 1250 (76.2%). Significant improvements in ArmA-PF score were identified for at least six cycles (p < 0.001) with evidence of cumulative benefit over successive cycles. This occurred regardless of patient-related baseline characteristics, with the possible exception of some relationship with injection localization techniques. In conclusion, repeated botulinum toxin injections provide significant improvement in passive function, which was sustained over repeated cycles of treatment.</p
Feasibility and Validity of Ultra-Low-Field MRI for Measurement of Regional Infant Brain Volumes in Structures Associated With Antenatal Maternal Anemia
Get PDFThe availability of ultra-low-field (ULF) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has the potential to improve neuroimaging accessibility in low-resource settings. However, the utility of ULF MRI in detecting child brain changes associated with anemia is unknown. The aim of this study was to assess the comparability of 3T high-field (HF) and 64mT ULF volumes in infants for brain regions associated with antenatal maternal anemia. This neuroimaging substudy is nested within Khula South Africa, a population-based birth cohort. Pregnant women were enrolled antenatally and postnatally, and mother-child dyads (n = 394) were followed prospectively at approximately 3, 6, 12, and 18 months. A subgroup of infants was scanned on 3T and 64mT MRI systems across study visits and images were segmented using MiniMORPH. Correlations and concordance coefficients were used to cross-validate HF and ULF infant brain volumes for the caudate nucleus, putamen, and corpus callosum. Seventy-eight children (53.85% male) had paired HF (mean [SD] age = 9.64 [5.26] months) and ULF (mean [SD] age = 9.47 [5.32] months) datasets. Results indicated strong agreement between systems for intracranial volume (ICV; r = 0.96, ρ ccc = 0.95) and brain regions of interest in anemia including the caudate nucleus (r = 0.89, ρ ccc = 0.86), putamen (r = 0.97, ρ ccc = 0.96) and corpus callosum (r = 0.87, ρ ccc = 0.79). This cross-validation study demonstrates excellent correspondence between 3T and 64mT volumes for infant brain regions implicated in antenatal maternal anemia. Findings validate the use of ULF MRI for pediatric neuroimaging on anemia in Africa. </p
Q_B-optimal two-level designs for the baseline parameterization
Get PDFThere has been recent interest in the baseline parameterization for two-level factorial designs. The association matrix that expresses the estimator of effects under the baseline parameterization is obtained in an equivalent form as a linear function of estimators of effects under the traditional centered parameterization. This allows the generalization of the Q_B criterion which evaluates designs under model uncertainty in the traditional centered parameterization to be applicable to the baseline parameterization. Some optimal designs under the baseline parameterization seen in the previous literature are evaluated and it has been shown that at a given prior probability of a main effect being in the best fitted model from the experimental data, the design in the literature converges to being Q_B optimal as the probability of an interaction being in that model converges to 0 from above. The Q_B optimal designs for two setups of factors and run sizes at various priors are found by an extended coordinate exchange algorithm and the evaluation of their performances are discussed. Comparisons have been made to those optimal designs restricted to be level balanced and orthogonal
OntoScope: Using a Divergent-Convergent Interaction Framework to Support LLM-based Ontology Scoping
Get PDFAn ontology is a formal, explicit specification of a shared conceptualization that, with problem‑solving and reasoning methods, supports efficient semantic technology development. In ontology engineering, Competency Questions (CQs) capture functional requirements that define an ontology's application domain. Auditing this domain scope with CQs is challenging because in nature, there are no clear domain boundaries, and ontology engineers must then decide which subdomains to cover (horizontal coverage) and how much detail to model (vertical granularity) in an ontology. LLM‑based systems can generate many candidate CQs to guide these decisions, but current tools underuse this potential: they lack support for users' divergent (lateral) and convergent (vertical) thinking in a visualized CQs space organized by coverage and granularity. As a result, users struggle to systematically decide which CQs to adopt, discard, or refine. We propose an interaction framework that fills this gap, demonstrated through OntoScope, an LLM‑based interactive system, and a user study with 15 ontology engineers. To our knowledge, this is the first validated interaction framework with an LLM‑based system that helps ontology engineers audit domain boundaries and unifies fragmented, expert‑driven ontology scoping practices into a coherent, accessible approach. More broadly, it shows how LLM‑based systems can transparently and accountably support a wider range of knowledge‑intensive tasks
Persistent structural alteration of the extended limbic system in adolescents with childhood maltreatment
Get PDFBackground Childhood maltreatment (CM) is related to structural alterations in adult limbic regions. However, the change in limbic structures remains unclear in adolescents from the general population since most reports stem from clinical samples. Additionally, large longitudinal neuroimaging studies in community adolescents reporting CM are scarce. Hence, we aimed to investigate the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between CM and the structure and function of the extended limbic and reward systems throughout adolescence. Methods We analysed data of 634 community adolescents from the IMAGEN cohort at age 14, followed up at age 18. CM was inferred from the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire completed at age 18, yielding subgroups with CM (N=105) or without CM (N=529). Using 3-Tesla T1 MRI, we performed between-group voxel-wise analyses at ages 14 and 18 to investigate grey matter volumes (GMV). In addition, GMV were investigated longitudinally between ages 14 and 18. Finally, using functional MRI and the Monetary Incentive Delay task, we measured reward anticipation and feedback sensitivity between groups at ages 14 and 18. Results Both at ages 14 and 18, adolescents reporting CM had lower GMV in the right insula, left orbitofrontal cortex, putamen, superior medial frontal gyrus, paracentral lobule, and other paralimbic regions but no significant differences in reward response. Longitudinal analyses revealed no GMV difference between age groups. Conclusion CM was associated with GMV alterations persisting from early to late adolescence in the limbic regions in community individuals.</p
