A novel immunodeficiency disorder characterized by genetic amplification of interleukin 25

Many primary immunodeficiency disorders of differing etiologies have been well characterized, and much understanding of immunological processes has been gained by investigating the mechanisms of disease. Here, we have used a whole-genome approach, employing single-nucleotide polymorphism and gene expression microarrays, to provide insight into the molecular etiology of a novel immunodeficiency disorder. Using DNA copy number profiling, we define a hyperploid region on 14q11.2 in the immunodeficiency case associated with the interleukin (IL)-25 locus. This alteration was associated with significantly heightened expression of IL25 following T-cell activation. An associated dominant type 2 helper T cell bias in the immunodeficiency case provides a mechanistic explanation for recurrence of infections by pathogens met by Th1-driven responses. Furthermore, this highlights the capacity of IL25 to alter normal human immune responses.

A meta-analytic clarification of the relationship between posttraumatic growth and symptoms of posttraumatic distress disorder

Traumatic experiences can have a powerful impact on individuals and communities but the relationship between perceptions of beneficial and pathological outcomes are not known. Therefore, this meta-analysis examined both the strength and the linearity of the relationship between symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and perceptions of posttraumatic growth (PTG) as well as identifying the potential moderating roles of trauma type and age. Literature searches of all languages were conducted using the ProQuest, Wiley Interscience, ScienceDirect, Informaworld and Web of Science databases. Linear and quadratic (curvilinear) rs as well as βs were analysed. Forty-two studies (N=11, 469) that examined both PTG and symptoms of PTSD were included in meta-analytic calculations. The combined studies yielded a significant linear relationship between PTG and PTSD symptoms (r=.315, CI = 0.299, 0.331), but also a significantly stronger (as tested by Fisher’s transformation) curvilinear relationship (r=.372, CI = 0.353, 0.391). The strength and linearity of these relationships differed according to trauma type and age. The results remind those working with traumatised people that positive and negative post-trauma outcomes can co-occur. A focus only on PTSD symptoms only may limit or slow recovery and mask the potential for growth.

Expression pattern of the cannabinoid receptor genes in the frontal cortex of mood disorder patients and mice selectively bred for high and low fear

Although the endocannabinoid system (ECS) has been implicated in brain development and various psychiatric disorders, precise mechanisms of the ECS on mood and anxiety disorders remain unclear. Here, we have investigated developmental and disease-related expression pattern of the cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) and the cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB2) genes in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) of humans. Using mice selectively bred for high and low fear, we further investigated potential association between fear memory and the cannabinoid receptor expression in the brain. The CB1, not the CB2, mRNA levels in the PFC gradually decrease during postnatal development ranging in age from birth to 50 years (r 2 > 0.6 & adj. p < 0.05). The CB1 levels in the PFC of major depression patients were higher when compared to the age-matched controls (adj. p < 0.05). In mice, the CB1, not the CB2, levels in the PFC were positively correlated with freezing behavior in classical fear conditioning (p < 0.05). These results suggest that the CB1 in the PFC may play a significant role in regulating mood and anxiety symptoms. Our study demonstrates the advantage of utilizing data from postmortem brain tissue and a mouse model of fear to enhance our understanding of the role of the cannabinoid receptors in mood and anxiety disorders

Gambling revenues as a public administration issue : electronic gaming machines in Victoria

Gambling activities and the revenues derived have been seen as a way to increase economic development in deprived areas. There are also, however, concerns about the effects of gambling in general and electronic gaming machines (EGMs) in particular, on the resources available to the localities in which they are situated. This paper focuses on the factors that determine the extent and spending of community benefit-related EGM-generated resources within Victoria, Australia, focusing in particular on the relationships between EGM activity and socio-economic and social capital indicators, and how this relates to the community benefit resources generated by gaming.

Demystifying paradoxical characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder

This letter is aimed for psychotherapy clinicians and researchers who should acknowledge the relationship linking Kohut's self-psychology and Glasser's Choice theory that can demystify relationship difficulties and mental health problems in narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).

Dispute resolution across platforms : offshore gambling industry & EVE online

Contemporary online environments suffer from a regulatory gap; that is there are few options for participants between customer service departments and potentially expensive court cases in foreign jurisdictions. Whatever form of regulation ultimately fills that gap will be charged with determining whether specific behavior, within a specific environment, is fair or foul; whether it’s cheating or not. However, cheating is a term that, despite substantial academic study, remains problematic. Is anything the developer doesn’t want you to do cheating? Is it only if your actions breach the formal terms of service? What about the community norms, do they matter at all? All of these remain largely unresolved questions, due to the lack of public determination of cases in such environments, which have mostly been settled prior to legal action. In this paper, I propose a re-branding of participant activity in such environments into developer-sanctioned, advantage play, and cheating. Advantage play, ultimately, is activity within the environment in which the player is able to turn the mechanics of the environment to their advantage without breaching the rules of the environment. Such a definition, and the term itself, is based on the usage of the term within the gambling industry, in which advantage play is considered betting with the advantage in the players’ favor rather than that of the house. Through examples from both the gambling industry and the Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Game Eve Online, I consider the problems in defining cheating, suggest how the term ‘advantage play’ may be useful in understanding participants behavior in contemporary environments, and ultimately consider the use of such terminology in dispute resolution models which may overcome this regulatory gap.

Slicing big data - Twitter, gambling and time sensitive information

Big Data presents many challenges related to volume, whether one is interested in studying past datasets or, even more problematically, attempting to work with live streams of data. The most obvious challenge, in a ‘noisy’ environment such as contemporary social media, is to collect the pertinent information; be that information for a specific study, tweets which can inform emergency services or other responders to an ongoing crisis, or give an advantage to those involved in prediction markets. Often, such a process is iterative, with keywords and hashtags changing with the passage of time, and both collection and analytic methodologies need to be continually adapted to respond to this changing information. While many of the data sets collected and analyzed are preformed, that is they are built around a particular keyword, hashtag, or set of authors, they still contain a large volume of information, much of which is unnecessary for the current purpose and/or potentially useful for future projects. Accordingly, this panel considers methods for separating and combining data to optimize big data research and report findings to stakeholders. The first paper considers possible coding mechanisms for incoming tweets during a crisis, taking a large stream of incoming tweets and selecting which of those need to be immediately placed in front of responders, for manual filtering and possible action. The paper suggests two solutions for this, content analysis and user profiling. In the former case, aspects of the tweet are assigned a score to assess its likely relationship to the topic at hand, and the urgency of the information, whilst the latter attempts to identify those users who are either serving as amplifiers of information or are known as an authoritative source. Through these techniques, the information contained in a large dataset could be filtered down to match the expected capacity of emergency responders, and knowledge as to the core keywords or hashtags relating to the current event is constantly refined for future data collection. The second paper is also concerned with identifying significant tweets, but in this case tweets relevant to particular prediction market; tennis betting. As increasing numbers of professional sports men and women create Twitter accounts to communicate with their fans, information is being shared regarding injuries, form and emotions which have the potential to impact on future results. As has already been demonstrated with leading US sports, such information is extremely valuable. Tennis, as with American Football (NFL) and Baseball (MLB) has paid subscription services which manually filter incoming news sources, including tweets, for information valuable to gamblers, gambling operators, and fantasy sports players. However, whilst such services are still niche operations, much of the value of information is lost by the time it reaches one of these services. The paper thus considers how information could be filtered from twitter user lists and hash tag or keyword monitoring, assessing the value of the source, information, and the prediction markets to which it may relate. The third paper examines methods for collecting Twitter data and following changes in an ongoing, dynamic social movement, such as the Occupy Wall Street movement. It involves the development of technical infrastructure to collect and make the tweets available for exploration and analysis. A strategy to respond to changes in the social movement is also required or the resulting tweets will only reflect the discussions and strategies the movement used at the time the keyword list is created — in a way, keyword creation is part strategy and part art. In this paper we describe strategies for the creation of a social media archive, specifically tweets related to the Occupy Wall Street movement, and methods for continuing to adapt data collection strategies as the movement’s presence in Twitter changes over time. We also discuss the opportunities and methods to extract data smaller slices of data from an archive of social media data to support a multitude of research projects in multiple fields of study. The common theme amongst these papers is that of constructing a data set, filtering it for a specific purpose, and then using the resulting information to aid in future data collection. The intention is that through the papers presented, and subsequent discussion, the panel will inform the wider research community not only on the objectives and limitations of data collection, live analytics, and filtering, but also on current and in-development methodologies that could be adopted by those working with such datasets, and how such approaches could be customized depending on the project stakeholders.

Asking the wrong questions about gambling

OVERSHADOWED by the debate about the government’s media legislation, the final report of the review of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, published last week, received comparatively little attention. Like the government’s response to the report, the sparse media coverage focused on measures to prevent problem gambling – undoubtedly an important issue – but failed to discuss the fact that Australian gamblers, recreational or otherwise, continue to get a raw deal. The report seems likely to perpetuate a culture of high-margin, low-risk bookmaking, cutting Australians off from the global market under the guise of consumer protection. Also missing from the debate are two other questions: are Australian gamblers getting value for money, and where do the growing number of social games fit into the regulatory landscape?

Differences between first episode schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder

Background: The diagnostic and clinical overlap between schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder is an important nosological issue in psychiatry that is yet to be resolved. The aim of this study was to compare the clinical and functional characteristics of an epidemiological treated cohort of first episode patients with an 18-month discharge diagnosis of schizophrenia (FES) or schizoaffective disorder (FESA). Methods: This study was part of the larger First Episode Psychosis Outcome Study (FEPOS) which involved a medical file audit study of all 786 patients treated at the Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre between 1998 and 2000. Of this cohort, 283 patients had a 18-month discharge diagnosis of FES and 64 had a diagnosis of FESA. DSM-IV diagnoses, clinical and functional ratings were derived and validated by two consultant psychiatrists. Results: Compared to FES patients, those with FESA were significantly more likely to have a later age of onset (p=.004), longer prodrome (p=.020), and a longer duration of untreated psychosis (p<.001). At service entry, FESA patients presented with a higher illness severity (p=.020), largely due to the presence of more severe manic symptoms (p<.001). FESA patients also had a greater number of subsequent inpatient admissions (p=.017), had more severe depressive symptoms (p=.011), and higher levels of functioning at discharge. Discussion: The findings support the notion that these might be considered two discernable disorders; however, further research is required to ascertain the ways and extent to which these disorders are discriminable at presentation and over time.

Road crash risk after whiplash associated disorder

The future on-road safety of drivers affected by Whiplash Associated Disorder (WAD), the most common soft-tissue injury suffered in a traffic crash, has not been extensively explored. We obtained an anonymised file of 4280 insurance claimants with WAD and, as controls, 1116 claimants with comparably severe soft-tissue injuries who are considered to be at no increased risk than the general population. Their demographic information, road user type and traffic crash records both prior and subsequent to the traffic incident in which the injury occurred, the index crash, were obtained. Rates of subsequent crash involvement in these two groups were then compared, adjusting for age, sex, road user type and prior crash experience. The risk of a subsequent crash in the WAD group relative to controls was 1.14 (95% confidence interval, 0.87–1.48). To allow for differentially altered driving exposure after index crash we distributed a brief survey asking about changes in driving habits after a traffic crash involving injury via physiotherapy clinics and online through the electronic newsletter of a local motoring organisation. The survey yielded responses from 113 drivers who had experienced WAD in a traffic crash and 53 with other soft tissue injuries. There were no differences on average between the groups in their prior driving levels or their percentage change therein at one, three or six months after injury. There was thus no evidence that drivers with WAD are at any higher safety risk than drivers with other types of relatively minor post-crash soft tissue injury.

Comprehensive Addictive Behaviors and Disorders, Volume 1 : Principles of Addiction

"Principles of Addiction provides a solid understanding of the definitional and diagnostic differences between use, abuse, and disorder. It describes in great detail the characteristics of these syndromes and various etiological models. The book's three main sections examine the nature of addiction, including epidemiology, symptoms, and course; alcohol and drug use among adolescents and college students; and detailed descriptions of a wide variety of addictive behaviors and disorders, encompassing not only drugs and alcohol, but caffeine, food, gambling, exercise, sex, work, social networking, and many other areas. This volume is especially important in providing a basic introduction to the field as well as an in-depth review of our current understanding of the nature and process of addictive behaviors. Principles of Addiction is one of three volumes comprising the 2,500-page series, Comprehensive Addictive Behaviors and Disorders. This series provides the most complete collection of current knowledge on addictive behaviors and disorders to date. In short, it is the definitive reference work on addictions."--publisher website

Posttraumatic stress disorder and traumatic stress : from bench to bedside, from war to disaster

War is a tragic event and its mental health consequences can be profound. Recent studies indicate substantial rates of posttraumatic stress disorder and other behavioral alterations because of war exposure. Understanding the psychological, behavioral, and neurobiological mechanism of mental health and behavioral changes related to war exposure is critical to helping those in need of care. Substantial work to encourage bench to bedside to community knowledge and communication is a core component of addressing this world health need.

The schooling experience of six adolescent boys who have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD)

This thesis explored the experience of schooling of six adolescent boys diagnosed with AD/HD from the perspectives of the boys, their mothers and their teachers. The study utilised social constructionism as the theoretical orientation and an explanatory theory of AD/HD, the Dynamic Developmental Theory (DDT) of AD/HD as a framework. Findings included the importance of making and managing friendships for young people with AD/HD, the importance of being informed about AD/HD as well classroom strategies that support the learning of students for teachers, and the apparent role that medication in concert with an engaging classroom environment can play in the successful schooling of boys with AD/HD.

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder diagnosis and counselling

The Foetal Alcohol Syndrome has long gone unrecognised and undiagnosed in Australia. In the last few years of the 21st Century (2010-14) health practitioners are finally seeking ways of diagnosing the effects of alcohol in pregnancy on the next generation. The author offers a power point presentation which gives guidance on making an accurate diagnosis.