Children with chronic illness often experience difficulties at school, yet little is known about the impact of the child's illness on siblings’ school experiences. This study investigated parents’ perceptions of siblings’ school experiences and school support. We conducted semi-structured telephone interviews with 27 parents of children with a chronic illness who had a sibling or siblings (4–25 years), representing the experiences of 31 siblings. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analysed using content analysis. Parents believed that 14 of 31 (45.2%) siblings had school difficulties related to the ill child, such as increased anxiety or stress at school, lack of attention from teachers, and changes in behaviour as a result of increased carer responsibilities. Parents identified increased absenteeism due to the ill child's hospitalisation and the impact of parent absences on sibling school functioning. Parents described general and psychological support from the school, and the importance of monitoring the sibling at school and focusing on their unique needs. Overall, our findings suggest the need for a school-based sibling support model that combines psycho-education for siblings and school personnel, individualised sibling psychological support, and shared school and parent responsibility in normalising the sibling experience and providing consistent support.

In the United States alone, ∼14,000 children are hospitalised annually with acute heart failure. The science and art of caring for these patients continues to evolve. The International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute was held on February 4 and 5, 2015. The 2015 International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute was funded through the Andrews/Daicoff Cardiovascular Program Endowment, a philanthropic collaboration between All Children’s Hospital and the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida (USF). Sponsored by All Children’s Hospital Andrews/Daicoff Cardiovascular Program, the International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit assembled leaders in clinical and scientific disciplines related to paediatric heart failure and created a multi-disciplinary “think-tank”. The purpose of this manuscript is to summarise the lessons from the 2015 International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute, to describe the “state of the art” of the treatment of paediatric cardiac failure, and to discuss future directions for research in the domain of paediatric cardiac failure.

There is limited evidence on the acceptability, feasibility and cost-effectiveness of task-sharing interventions to narrow the treatment gap for mental disorders in sub-Saharan Africa. The purpose of this article is to describe the rationale, aims and methods of the Africa Focus on Intervention Research for Mental health (AFFIRM) collaborative research hub. AFFIRM is investigating strategies for narrowing the treatment gap for mental disorders in sub-Saharan Africa in four areas. First, it is assessing the feasibility, acceptability and cost-effectiveness of task-sharing interventions by conducting randomised controlled trials in Ethiopia and South Africa. The AFFIRM Task-sharing for the Care of Severe mental disorders (TaSCS) trial in Ethiopia aims to determine the acceptability, affordability, effectiveness and sustainability of mental health care for people with severe mental disorder delivered by trained and supervised non-specialist, primary health care workers compared with an existing psychiatric nurse-led service. The AFFIRM trial in South Africa aims to determine the cost-effectiveness of a task-sharing counselling intervention for maternal depression, delivered by non-specialist community health workers, and to examine factors influencing the implementation of the intervention and future scale up. Second, AFFIRM is building individual and institutional capacity for intervention research in sub-Saharan Africa by providing fellowship and mentorship programmes for candidates in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Each year five Fellowships are awarded (one to each country) to attend the MPhil in Public Mental Health, a joint postgraduate programme at the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University. AFFIRM also offers short courses in intervention research, and supports PhD students attached to the trials in Ethiopia and South Africa. Third, AFFIRM is collaborating with other regional National Institute of Mental Health funded hubs in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, by designing and executing shared research projects related to task-sharing and narrowing the treatment gap. Finally, it is establishing a network of collaboration between researchers, non-governmental organisations and government agencies that facilitates the translation of research knowledge into policy and practice. This article describes the developmental process of this multi-site approach, and provides a narrative of challenges and opportunities that have arisen during the early phases. Crucial to the long-term sustainability of this work is the nurturing and sustaining of partnerships between African mental health researchers, policy makers, practitioners and international collaborators.

Introduction: Effective interventions for smoking cessation are critically needed. Yoga has only begun to be evaluated for smoking cessation.

Aims: The primary aim was to assess participant satisfaction and perceived benefit of Hatha yoga. Secondary aims were to test evaluation tools, recruitment and retention techniques, and to generate preliminary effect size for a randomized trial.

Methods: This was a non-randomized, single-group, pilot study. Thirty-one participants entered the study and received group behavioural therapy followed by 30 minutes of Hatha yoga instruction. Participant satisfaction was assessed at the conclusion of eight sessions. Point prevalence smoking abstinence was assessed at the end of the intervention period.

Results: Participants were 36% male with an average age of 47 years (range 22–72) and a mean of 12.7 ± 5.6 cigarettes per day. Mean duration of smoking was 26.1 ± 15 years. Participant satisfaction was very high (88% very satisfied). Smoking abstinence at the end of the intervention was 29%.

Conclusions: Hatha yoga is acceptable and feasible to aid in smoking cessation. A regimen that includes breathing, postures, and meditation has been developed for testing in a randomized trial.

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is one of three Square Kilometre Array Precursor telescopes and is located at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in the Murchison Shire of the mid-west of Western Australia, a location chosen for its extremely low levels of radio frequency interference. The MWA operates at low radio frequencies, 80–300 MHz, with a processed bandwidth of 30.72 MHz for both linear polarisations, and consists of 128 aperture arrays (known as tiles) distributed over a ~3-km diameter area. Novel hybrid hardware/software correlation and a real-time imaging and calibration systems comprise the MWA signal processing backend. In this paper, the as-built MWA is described both at a system and sub-system level, the expected performance of the array is presented, and the science goals of the instrument are summarised.

The Carnegie Hubble Program (CHP) is a Warm Spitzer program with the aim of reducing the uncertainty in the Hubble constant to below 3%. The program is calibrated using Galactic Cepheids with precise parallax distances from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), combined with a large sample of Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud. We extend the Cepheid distance scale to the Local Group and beyond, into the regime probed by the Tully–Fisher relation. The entire program—from Galactic Cepheids to the most distant galaxies—uses the Spitzer/IRAC instrument. Completing the entire program with a single instrument on a single telescope virtually eliminates instrumental effects, whilst moving to the mid-infrared drastically reduces the reddening and metallicity effects that trouble the optical Cepheid distance scale. Our first measurement of the Hubble constant, using only two CHP galaxies tied into the HST Key Project results has produced a measurement of H0 = 74.3 ± 2.1 (systematic) km s−1 Mpc−1, which corresponds to a systematic uncertainty of 2.8%.

The purpose of this study was to document the dynamics of HIV-1 subtypes in Scotland over a 6-year period. Viral RNA from all-new diagnoses was amplified by nested PCR and sequenced in the gag and/or env regions. Subtype was assigned by phylogenetic analysis, and aligned with demographic data including likely route and geographical origin of infection. We present data on 80% of all new diagnoses in Scotland between April 2000 and April 2006. Within the background of an expanding epidemic, subtype B predominates in men who have sex with men and intravenous drug users but there is a small but consistent number of UK-acquired infections in these risk groups caused by non-B subtypes. In heterosexuals, non-B subtypes acquired abroad, especially Africa, are still the largest group but again UK-acquired numbers are rising. The social and clinical significance of the spread of non-B subtypes in different ethnic and risk groups remains to be established.