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Music therapy has been a recognised form of therapy for mental illness for many years. This commentary on a Cochrane Review on music therapy for depression sheds light on the evidence. It aims to give further clinical context to the findings, to help guide practice and examine music therapy as an evidence-based practice. The review compares music therapy plus ‘treatment as usual’ (TAU) with TAU alone, music therapy with psychological therapy, and ‘active’ with ‘receptive’ music therapy (the two main types of music therapy). The review points to music therapy being beneficial for people with depression when combined with TAU (versus TAU alone) in the short term, as well as improving anxiety and functioning. We need more evidence looking at longer-term outcomes, comparing music therapy with psychological therapies and comparing different forms of music therapy.
As heatwaves increase and intensify worldwide, so has the research aimed at outlining strategies to protect individuals from their impact. Interventions that promote adaptive measures to heatwaves are encouraged, but evidence on how to develop such interventions is still scarce. Although the Health Belief Model is one of the leading frameworks guiding behavioral change interventions, the evidence of its use in heatwave research is limited. This rapid review aims to identify and describe the main themes and key findings in the literature regarding the use of the Health Belief Model in heatwaves research. It also highlights important research gaps and future research priorities. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, 10 articles were included, with a geographic distribution as follows: United States (n = 1), Australia (n = 1), Pakistan (n = 1), and China (n = 1), as well as Malaysia (n = 2), Germany (n = 1), and Austria (n = 1). Results showed a lack of research using the Health Belief Model to study heatwaves induced by climate change. Half of the studies assessed heatwave risk perception, with the 2 most frequently used constructs being Perceived Susceptibility and Perceived Severity. The Self-efficacy construct was instead used less often. Most of the research was conducted in urban communities. This review underscores the need for further research using the Health Belief Model.
The outgoing Editor in Chief of BJPsych Advances considers the 30-year history of the journal, outlining its development from a slim four-paper issue to an authoritative publication offering blended learning approaches for consultant psychiatrists and also for trainees preparing for their examinations.
This research studies the robustness of permanence and the continuous dependence of the stationary distribution on the parameters for a stochastic predator–prey model with Beddington–DeAngelis functional response. We show that if the model is extinct (resp. permanent) for a parameter, it is still extinct (resp. permanent) in a neighbourhood of this parameter. In the case of extinction, the Lyapunov exponent of predator quantity is negative and the prey quantity converges almost to the saturated situation, where the predator is absent at an exponential rate. Under the condition of permanence, the unique stationary distribution converges weakly to the degenerate measure concentrated at the unique limit cycle or at the globally asymptotic equilibrium when the diffusion term tends to 0.
The field of developmental psychopathology has made significant contributions to our understanding of both typical and atypical development. However, while there are established theories for developmental psychopathology with detailed criteria for pathological outcomes, there is less agreement regarding development under optimal conditions and the definition of positive outcomes. In this conceptual paper, I make the case that a better understanding of positive child development is crucial because it will not only advance our general knowledge on human development but also complement current work on developmental psychopathology. After defining positive development as the development of positive functioning in children, such as skills, strengths, competencies, and wellbeing, rather than the absence of problems, current concepts with relevance for positive development are reviewed, before highlighting gaps in our knowledge on positive development and suggestions for future research. Although several of the reviewed frameworks provide important contributions to the conceptualization of positive development, most of them focus on positive functioning in adults with limited consideration of development in the early years. More research is needed that specifically targets the development of positive outcomes from early childhood onward in order to develop a more comprehensive and holistic theory of positive child development.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep disorder with no widely accepted pharmacological therapy. Cannabinoids have been suggested to reduce OSA severity in small human studies. The purpose of this retrospective cohort study was to explore the association of self-reported cannabis use on OSA severity and sleep parameters in a large cohort of adults undergoing in-laboratory polysomnography.
Methods:
Sleep and medication data were collected for all consecutive adults who completed diagnostic polysomnography at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre from 2010 to 2022. Multivariable linear regression models were employed that adjusted for age, sex, and BMI (minimally adjusted model), as well as medication and comorbidity data (maximally adjusted model). An exploratory subgroup analysis was additionally run in patients with moderate to severe OSA.
Results:
Of 6,958 individuals (mean age 54.7 ± 16.3, BMI 29.1 ± 6.8, 51.0% female), 71 reported cannabis use. In our minimally adjusted models, cannabis use predicted a reduced respiratory disturbance index (RDI) (β: −4.8 [95% CI: −9.4, −0.2]; p = 0.042); this association became nonsignificant in the fully adjusted models. In an exploratory analysis of patients with moderate to severe OSA (n = 613), cannabis use (n = 7) predicted increased stage N3 sleep (β: 33.5 [95% CI: 15.6, 51.4]; p < 0.001) and decreased REM sleep (β: 16.0 [95% CI: 0.3, 31.7]; p = 0.046).
Conclusion:
Self-reported cannabis use was not associated with OSA severity after adjusting for confounders. In an exploratory subgroup analysis of patients with moderate to severe OSA, cannabis use impacted sleep architecture. Future studies should further explore these findings.
This article argues that China's foreign investor complaints system constitutes ‘state-centric investment mediation’. The Rules on Handling Complaints of Foreign-Invested Enterprises, which entered into force on 1 October 2020, place a state agency in the position of facilitating negotiations between a foreign investor and the agency being complained against. The prospects for this complaints system depend on how the state-as-mediator dynamic is perceived by foreign investors. To this end, it will be argued that settlement agreements reached pursuant to this system may be enforceable under the Singapore Convention on Mediation in certain circumstances. Investors and government entities operating similar systems worldwide should be cognisant of the broad drafting terminology of the Singapore Convention. Moreover, it is proposed that further clarification of the procedural rules and the inclusion of China's foreign-related dispute resolution institutions may enhance investor confidence and encourage use of the complaints system.
Pseudechinus magellanicus is an ecologically important and small sea urchin in coastal and nearshore habitats off southern South America. We provide the first growth assessment for the species using tag (calcein) and recapture procedures in central Patagonia (Argentina). The individual growth rate of P. magellanicus ranged 0.05–1.3 mm year−1. The Brody–Bertalanffy and Richards growth models provided asymptotic maximum diameters of 29.89 and 26.01 mm, respectively. Both models yielded low values for the growth constant (k), with 0.046 (Brody–Bertalanffy) and 0.062 (Richards). Maximum instantaneous growth rate was estimated at 1.36 mm year−1 for the Brody–Bertalanffy model, and 2.69 mm year−1 for the Richards model. Model selection (corrected Akaike information criterion) showed a slight better fit for the Brody–Bertalanffy growth model compared to the Richards model. A significant variability in growth was observed within the studied population, which can be attributed to genetic factors and micro-environmental effects. P. magellanicus displays a combination of slow growth and small body size, with the lowest recorded growth performance index (θ = 3.72) recorded so far in sea urchins. The species has a long lifespan, with the most common adult sizes estimated to range from 15 to 21 years according to the Brody–Bertalanffy model. Due to the broad geographic distribution and occupation of contrasting habitats, further studies are necessary to explore growth of P. magellanicus under different environmental conditions and/or along a bathymetric gradient.
The Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site (REAC/TS) is one of the US Department of Energy (DOE)/National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Nuclear Emergency Response Team (NEST) assets and has been responding to radiological incidents since 1976. REAC/TS is in the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE). A critical part of the REAC/TS mission is to provide emergency response, advice, and consultation on injuries and illnesses caused from ionizing radiation. Fortunately, radiation injuries are not frequent, but when they occur, they are more likely to be cutaneous radiation injuries (CRI) or internal contamination. In this paper, we will review selected cases from the REAC/TS experience in order to illustrate cutaneous patterns of injury and treatment options.
Australia has a diverse and unique native flora with thousands of edible plant taxa, many of which are wild relatives of important food crops. These have the potential to diversify and improve the sustainability of Australian farming systems. However, the current level of domestication and cultivation of Australian plants as food crops is extremely limited by global standards. This review examines the current status and potential for future de novo domestication and large-scale cultivation of Australian plants as food crops. This is done in the context of international new crop development and factors that impact the success or failure of such efforts. Our review finds considerable potential for native Australian plants to be developed as food crops, but the industry faces several significant challenges. The current industry focuses on niche food markets that are susceptible to oversupply. It also suffers from inconsistent quantity and quality of product, which is attributed to a reliance on wild harvesting and the cultivation of unimproved germplasm. More active cultivation is necessary for industry growth, but attempts have historically failed due to poorly adapted germplasm and a lack of agronomic information. The de novo domestication and large-scale cultivation of Australian plants as food crops will require an investment in publicly supported multidisciplinary research and development programmes. Research programmes must prioritize the exploration of plants throughout Australia and the collection and evaluation of germplasm. Programmes must also seek to engage relevant stakeholders, pursue participatory research models and provide appropriate engagement and benefit-sharing opportunities with Indigenous Australian communities.
There is strong evidence that a biodiversity crisis is underway, fuelled by pollution, climate change, and invasive species. These impacts are especially important in northern Canadian regions. However, insect and other arthropod monitoring in Northern Canada urgently needed for land preservation is lacking. This paper presents the Nunavik Sentinels, a community-based participatory research programme (see definition, Table 1), that is aiming to fill those knowledge gaps while promoting collaboration among all stakeholders (organisations and members of northern communities, and scientists). Nunavik Sentinels is a unique insect-monitoring programme facilitated by the Montréal Insectarium – Espace pour la vie (Montréal, Québec, Canada), making entomology accessible to Indigenous youth by providing them with tools to lead expeditions in unexplored habitats and involving them in data collection. We present how this programme came to existence and its four-pillar framework (i.e., training land camp, summer employment, educational kit, and research). We touch upon how the programme is continually evolving. Finally, we demonstrate the benefits of the programme and how it will help better define the actions to be taken to prepare for future changes in northern biodiversity.
We define a notion of modular forms of half-integral weight on the quaternionic exceptional groups. We prove that they have a well-behaved notion of Fourier coefficients, which are complex numbers defined up to multiplication by ${\pm }1$. We analyze the minimal modular form $\Theta _{F_4}$ on the double cover of $F_4$, following Loke–Savin and Ginzburg. Using $\Theta _{F_4}$, we define a modular form of weight $\tfrac {1}{2}$ on (the double cover of) $G_2$. We prove that the Fourier coefficients of this modular form on $G_2$ see the $2$-torsion in the narrow class groups of totally real cubic fields.
In summer 1947, African American anthropologist John Gibbs St. Clair Drake arrived in Tiger Bay, the port neighborhood of Cardiff in South Wales, to begin field work for his doctoral thesis, “Race Relations in the British Isles.” Drake's academic reputation had already been established by the publication of Black Metropolis (1945), a seminal study of Chicago's so-called Black Belt that Drake co-authored with researcher Horace Cayton. What attracted him to Tiger Bay for his next project was a scandal that erupted on both sides of the Atlantic around Britain's growing population of what were referred to as brown babies. These children were the product of sexual encounters that sometimes took place between local white women and some of the 200,000 African American GIs who were at different points stationed across the United Kingdom during the later part of the Second World War. Using the extensive field notes Drake kept during his sojourn in Cardiff, this article reconstructs the nature and feel of a neighborhood where, by the 1940s, half of all residents were from ethnic minority backgrounds. Drake's work serves as a window onto the nature of racism and ideas about race in late-imperial Britain, alongside the parallel presence of metropolitan community life in Tiger Bay, one of Britain's oldest multicultural communities.
Across three studies, we explored the link between an abstract mindset and subjective well-being (SWB) in participants with real and/or perceived financial scarcity. In Studies 1 and 2, samples presented real objective financial vulnerability: Adolescents from lower-middle income districts (Study 1; N = 256), and adults without higher education and with very low incomes (Study 2; N = 210). In Studies 1 and 2 participants completed a survey including measures of thinking style and SWB. In Studies 2 and 3 perception of financial difficulty and SWB were also measured. Study 3 (N = 161) used a sample of university students and employed an experimental design manipulating participants’ thinking style (i.e., concrete versus abstract mindset conditions); additionally, all participants were induced to perceive financial scarcity. Correlations revealed a significant and positive relationship between an abstract thinking style and SWB (Studies 1 and 2). Thus, these results showed that a relatively more abstract thinking style was associated with greater life satisfaction. In Studies 2 and 3 mediation analyses indicated that adults who presented a more abstract thinking style, perceived lower financial difficulties and then reported greater SWB. Overall, given that an abstract thinking style can be induced, these results offer a new intervention approach for improving the SWB of people living in situations of financial scarcity.
Nationalism, nationhood, and ethnicity, as Eric Hobsbawm argued, are social processes constructed essentially from above, yet cannot be understood unless also analyzed from below.1 Inspired by European Orientalism, the intellectual advocates of Western-oriented nationalism attempted to establish a new Iranian identity based on Persian language and Iran's pre-Islamic past.2 This made Iranian nationalism an attractive ideology for some political elites, and was later endorsed by the Pahlavi dynasty (1925–79) when nationalist ideology replaced Iranianness with Persianity. In this conception, there was no room for the ethnic diversity of a nation-state that is the heir of an ancient empire. The elites’ aspirations to uniformity put pressure on members of ethnic groups to conform their way of life to a new model of Iranianness, Persianized and pro-Western. Every nonconforming element was regarded as a sign of backwardness and possible threat to the modern nation and its territorial integrity.