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BACKGROUND: Infant crying and sleep problems (e.g. frequent night waking, difficulties settling to sleep) each affect up to 30% of infants and often co-exist. They are costly to manage and associated with adverse outcomes including postnatal depression symptoms, early weaning from breast milk, and later child behaviour problems. Preventing such problems could improve these adverse outcomes and reduce costs to families and the health care system. Anticipatory guidance-i.e. providing parents with information about normal infant sleep and cry patterns, ways to encourage self-settling in infants, and ways to develop feeding and settling routines before the onset of problems-could prevent such problems. This paper outlines the protocol for our study which aims to test an anticipatory guidance approach. METHODS/DESIGN: 750 families from four Local Government Areas in Melbourne, Australia have been randomised to receive the Baby Business program (intervention group) or usual care (control group) offered by health services. The Baby Business program provides parents with information about infant sleep and crying via a DVD and booklet (mailed soon after birth), telephone consultation (at infant age 6-8 weeks) and parent group session (at infant age 12 weeks). All English speaking parents of healthy newborn infants born at > 32 weeks gestation and referred by their maternal and child health nurse at their first post partum home visit (day 7-10 postpartum), are eligible. The primary outcome is parent report of infant night time sleep as a problem at four months of age and secondary outcomes include parent report of infant daytime sleep or crying as a problem, mean duration of infant sleep and crying/24 hours, parental depression symptoms, parent sleep quality and quantity and health service use. Data will be collected at two weeks (baseline), four months and six months of age. An economic evaluation using a cost-consequences approach will, from a societal perspective, compare

OBJECTIVE: Neural connectivity differences between adults reporting childhood, adulthood or no history of trauma were examined. METHODS: A total of 39 participants completed the Post-traumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale (PDS; Foa EB. Post-traumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale (PDS) Manual. Minneapolis, MN: National Computer Systems, 1995), a Word Memory Task (WMT; [McNally RJ, Metzger LJ, Lasko NB, Clancy SA, Pitman RK. Directed forgetting of trauma cues in adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse with and without post-traumatic stress disorder. J Abnorm Psychol 1998;107:596-601]) and EEG analysis. Intelligence was not assessed during the study. RESULTS: As predicted, those with childhood trauma had significantly higher EEG coherence than those with either adulthood trauma or no past trauma. CONCLUSIONS: Significant differences were observed over frontal, central, temporal and parietal areas. Evidence was found suggesting that childhood psychological trauma may have a lasting impact on neuronal connectivity. SIGNIFICANCE: This is the first study to demonstrate the suspected long term effect of trauma over central, temporal and parietal areas. Long term neural correlates of childhood and adult trauma appear to suggest information processing differences--differences that may, eventually, lead to better interventions following trauma.

An experimental system has been set up to investigate the reaction kinetics of framboidal pyrite oxidation in real, reactive acid sulfate soil assemblages. This study was undertaken to determine the degree to which pyrite oxidation rates are reduced by bacteriological reactions and organic matter, which both modify the net reaction mechanisms and compete for available oxygen. The results from these experimental runs not only confirm the role of organic matter in mitigating pyrite oxidation, but indicate that, at least initially, the acidity produced is consumed or otherwise ameliorated by parallel reactions. Tracking pH or [H+] in both a reactor and in soil does not accurately reflect reaction progress, and may not correctly indicate the true level of risk. In comparison, the tracking of pyrite oxidation with the concentration of sulfate in solution is not affected by side reactions or precipitation, and is therefore a better indicator for the rate of pyrite destruction.

[Background]: The Board of the National Program for Sustainable Irrigation commissioned this scoping document to assist in its research investment deliberations. The key question addressed by this scoping study is: What has to be developed or modified to understand and monitor the three dimensional flow of water and salt movement in: (a) the root zone when precision irrigation systems are used, and (b) the soil profile, assuming that we are able to manage the preferred salt storage zones? The key issues which the NPSI Board requested should be addressed in the document were: • What are precision irrigation systems and what are the problems currently being encountered in relation to water and salt movement in these systems? • What is the potential size of production and water losses associated with inappropriate water and salt management under precision systems? • What is the latest research and what current soil-water models are being used to investigate water and salt movement in soils, including their usefulness and gaps? • How well we can manage where salt is stored under precision irrigation systems? and • What is the effect of rainfall under various climatic zones in determining where salt is stored?