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Introduction Autism is a lifelong minority neurotype present from birth. There is a dearth of credible evidence to suggest gender variation in Autism prevalence, despite historical under-diagnosis of women. Autistic people Assigned Female At Birth (AFAB) have worse physical and mental health compared with non-Autistic peers. To date, the reproductive health experiences of Autistic AFAB people have been under-investigated.Methods and analysis This study aims to co-develop a quality improvement intervention to improve the reproductive health of Autistic people. The study uses Community Partnered Participatory Research (an approach similar to Community-Based Participatory Research), largely through a Community Council that co-governs the study. To understand reproductive health needs, a longitudinal qualitative investigation using creative methods will be undertaken with 100 Autistic AFAB people with 10 waves of data collection over 5 years (interview n=500–1000). Participants will be purposively selected to include harder-to-reach members of the Autistic community, including those who are non-speaking or semi-speaking, have a learning disability and those from marginalised ethnicities. Data will be analysed thematically with Community Council involvement. Intervention development will be undertaken from 2029 onwards.Ethics and dissemination We are an Autistic-led team that adopts a social model of disability. However, this study raises ethical issues relating to sensitive topics and marginalised populations. Accordingly, we have robust procedures in place to assess capacity to ensure informed consent and to allow participants to take part without opting into data sharing. Ethical approval has been awarded by the Swansea University School of Health and Social Care Research Ethics Committee. We will publish our findings as open access articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Autistic people experience more health conditions and earlier mortality. This study investigated views about a primary care health check for autistic adults to inform its design. Fifty-one people participated in consultation groups and interviews, comprising autistic adults (some with co-occurring intellectual disabilities), adults with intellectual disabilities, supporters and health professionals. Participants wanted the health check to cover physical and mental health and social functioning. They emphasised the importance of sharing information about individual needs and associated adjustments before the health check. They highlighted the need to change the way healthcare services communicate with autistic people, such as reducing phone contact and booking appointments online. They wanted individual choice in how the health check was completed, with video call or email offered alongside face-to-face. Participants raised the need for further training of primary care staff on autism, to highlight the diversity of experiences of autistic people and ways in which difficulties, such as pain, may present differently. Clinicians raised questions about the capacity of mental health and social care services to meet the additional needs potentially identified through the health check. This study represents a key step in the development and co-design of a UK primary care health check for autistic people.

IntroductionThe testing of visuocognitive development in preterm infants shows strong interactions between perinatal characteristics and cognition, learning and overall neurodevelopment evolution. The assessment of anticipatory gaze data of object-location bindings via eye-tracking can predict the neurodevelopment of preterm infants at the age of 3 years; little is known, however, about the early cognitive function and its assessment methods during the first year of life.MethodsThe current study presents data from a novel assessment tool, a Delayed Match Retrieval (DMR) paradigm via eye-tracking was used to measure visual working memory (VWM) and attention skills. The eye-tracking task that was designed to measure infants’ ability to actively localize objects and to make online predictions of object-location bindings. 63 infants participated in the study, 39 preterm infants and 24 healthy full term infants – at a corrected age of 8–9 months for premature infants and similar chronological age for full term infants. Infants were also administered the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development.ResultsThe analysis of the Bayley scores showed no significant difference between the two groups while the eye-tracking data showed a significant group effect on all measurements. Moreover, preterm infants’ VWM performance was significantly lower than full term’s. Birth weight affected the gaze time on all Areas Of Interest (AOIs), overall VWM performance and the scores at the Cognitive Bayley subscale. Furthermore, preterm infants with fetal growth restriction (FGR) showed significant performance effects in the eye-tracking measurements but not on their Bayley scores verifying the high discriminatory value of the eye gaze data.ConclusionVisual working memory and attention as measured via eye-tracking is a non-intrusive, painless, short duration procedure (approx. 4-min) was found to be a significant tool for identifying prematurity and FGR effects on the development of cognition during the first year of life. Bayley Scales alone may not pick up these deficits. Identifying tools for early neurodevelopmental assessments and cognitive function is important in order to enable earlier support and intervention in the vulnerable group of premature infants, given the associations between foundational executive functional skills and later cognitive and academic ability.

Autistic people experience disparities in employment which may be exacerbated for individuals in skilled employment. Little is known about the experiences of autistic people in skilled employment or how they define success. We used a community-based participatory research approach to conduct a thematic analysis with an inductive approach at a semantic level through a critical realist paradigm. We interviewed 45 autistic people with skilled training, 11 supervisors, and 8 key informants. We purposively sampled to maximize variation. We addressed trustworthiness through multiple coders and peer debriefing. Common themes included high stakes of disclosure, unconventional pathways to careers, disconnects with service and support systems, mental health challenges from trauma/burnout, autistic advantages in the workplace, and complex dimensions of discrimination. Participants defined success as opportunities for growth, work/life balance, financial independence, sense of community, and feeling valued, accepted, and like their work had meaning. Strategies to facilitate success suggested a multi-faceted and wholistic approach including attention to the role of supervisors. Our findings suggest a highly customizable, systems-focused, multifaceted approach to autism employment intervention could be useful in improving skilled employment outcomes. We recommend further work particularly in the areas of disclosure and destigmatizing disability in the workplace.

This study investigates the development of Greek vowel reduction across different prosodic positions (stressed, pre-stressed, post-stressed), examining normative data from 72 participants aged 3 years to adulthood and balanced for gender. Participants performed a delayed repetition task, producing real trisyllabic words with the vowels [i, ε, ɐ, o, u] examined in the second syllable. Measurements included relative vowel duration, normalized acoustic vowel space areas, and Euclidean distances of vowels from the centroid of the acoustic space. Our findings show that changes in speech motor control, system stiffness, and stress marking with age, along with children’s prosody sensitivity, contributed to several developmental milestones: the completion of the developmental trajectory of relative vowel duration and temporal vowel reduction at early adolescence; the attainment of adult-like spatial vowel characteristics and their reduction at preschool age; and the early acquisition of the prosodic strength of the stress conditions, leading to vowel reduction from the stressed to pre-stressed to post-stressed conditions. The correlation strength between temporal and spatial vowel reduction across ages revealed age-related differences in spatiotemporal speech organization, with significant gender-related differences observed only in vowel space areas, where females exhibited larger areas possibly related to sociophonetic factors. Intrinsic vowel duration appeared from age 3.

The High-Energy Particle Detector (HEPD-02) is one of the scientific payloads of the China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES-02). The HEPD-02’s main purpose is to characterize the particle environment in the Earth’s vicinity, identifying sudden changes in the fluxes and correlating them with solar and terrestrial phenomena. Additionally, HEPD-02 also has capabilities in detecting Gamma-Ray Bursts. At the core of HEPD-02, a tower of scintillation counters made of plastic and LYSO crystals is able to recognize electrons in the range between 3 and 100 MeV, protons and nuclei between 30 and 200 MeV/n. Plastic scintillators covering the calorimeter on five sides allow to reject particles entering from the top and not completely absorbed within its volume. In this work, the design of the HEPD-02 is reviewed in comparison to its predecessor, HEPD-01, highlighting the innovations of the new design. The design of each scintillation counter type has been fully validated through a campaign of prototype realization, testing, and characterization. The production of the scintillation counters, including the PMT selection process, is also discussed. Finally, the performance of the counters is compared with simulations, showing an agreement of within 20% with the expected performance, thereby meeting expectations.

Lay abstractMost autistic adults struggle with mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression. However, they often have trouble finding effective mental health treatment in their community. The goal of this study was to identify ways to improve community mental health services for autistic adults. We interviewed 22 autistic adults with mental healthcare experience, 44 community mental health clinicians (outpatient therapists, case managers, and intake coordinators), and 11 community mental health agency leaders in the United States. Our participants identified a variety of barriers to providing quality mental healthcare to autistic adults. Across all three groups, most of the reported barriers involved clinicians' limited knowledge, lack of experience, poor competence, and low confidence working with autistic adults. All three groups also discussed the disconnect between the community mental health and developmental disabilities systems and the need to improve communication between these two systems. Further efforts are needed to train clinicians and provide follow-up consultation to work more effectively with autistic adults. A common suggestion from all three groups was to include autistic adults in creating and delivering the clinician training. The autistic participants provided concrete recommendations for clinicians, such as consider sensory issues, slow the pace, incorporate special interests, use direct language, and set clear expectations. Our findings also highlight a need for community education about co-occurring psychiatric conditions with autism and available treatments, in order to increase awareness about treatment options.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) can improve anxiety and depression in autistic adults, but few autistic adults receive this treatment. We examined factors that may influence clinicians' use of CBT with autistic adults. One hundred clinicians completed an online survey. Clinicians reported stronger intentions (p = .001), more favorable attitudes (p

Autistic people often have poor outcomes over the life course, including in health, education, employment, and community inclusion. Many professionals working with Autistic adults in research, clinical, and educational settings devote their careers to trying to improve such outcomes. However, we maintain that real progress cannot happen without a fundamental mindshift. The status quo for professionals is to view autism as an illness. Instead, the neurodiversity movement encourages us to value and embrace autism as an aspect of human diversity and asks us to view Autistic people as a marginalized group that experiences significant disparities. While some professionals may be adopting language and concepts from the neurodiversity movement, we argue that making this mindshift fundamentally changes our practice across research, clinical, and educational settings. In this perspective, we call on professionals to embrace this mindshift to reduce discrimination and stigma, halt the spread of harmful ideologies, and help Autistic adults live fulfilling lives.

Our objective was to develop a measure of healthcare providers' self-efficacy in providing healthcare to autistic adults and to better understand their training needs. We used a community-based participatory research approach with academic researchers, autistic adults, supporters, and healthcare providers. We developed a one-page questionnaire which included the new 6-item self-efficacy scale, two items on how challenging and rewarding it is to provide care to autistic adults, and seven items on provider characteristics. We surveyed 143 healthcare providers from eight primary care clinics in Oregon and California, United States. Preliminary psychometric testing found the Academic Autism Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) Adult Autism Healthcare Provider Self-Efficacy Scale to have good internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha 0.87) and consist of a single factor. A priori hypothesis testing found correlations in the expected directions. Only a minority of providers reported high confidence in communicating with patients (25%); performing physical exams or procedures (43%); accurately diagnosing and treating other medical issues (40%); helping patients stay calm and comfortable during visits (38%); identifying accommodation needs (14%); and making necessary accommodations (16%). While providers need training across all aspects of care related to autism in adulthood, interventions should pay particular attention to helping providers communicate with patients and identify and make accommodations.

There is a growing recognition of the need for interventions to improve the healthcare of autistic adults. However, there is a dearth of validated measures to evaluate such interventions. Our objectives were to use a community-based participatory research approach to create an accessible set of patient- and proxy-reported instruments to measure healthcare outcomes and potential intervention targets in autistic adults and to assess the instruments' psychometric characteristics, including content validity, construct validity, and internal consistency reliability. We administered a survey to 244 autistic adults recruited from 12 primary care clinics in Oregon and California, USA (194 participating directly and 50 participating via a proxy reporter). Community partners ensured items were easy to understand and captured the intended construct. The Academic Autism Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) Visit Preparedness Scale, Healthcare Accommodations Scale, and Patient--Provider Communication Scale were each found to have a single factor. The AASPIRE Health and Healthcare Self-Efficacy Scale had two factors: Individual Healthcare Self-Efficacy and Relationship-Dependent Healthcare Self-Efficacy. Both patient- and proxy-reported versions of all scales had good to excellent internal consistency reliability, with alphas ranging from 0.81 to 0.96. The scales were associated with the Barriers to Healthcare Checklist and the Unmet Healthcare Needs Checklist in the hypothesized directions.

Parents of infants requiring neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) hospitalization often experience increased rates of distress, trauma, and perinatal mood disorders. Untreated parental mental health conditions have short- and long-term effects for infants and families. While some NICUs provide varying degrees of mental health supports for NICU families, these services are not universally or systematically integrated in US NICUs. Multiple factors contribute to this gap in care, including mental health stigma, funding constraints, and lack of staff training and capacity. In an effort to address this gap, we used a participatory action research approach, guided by a Patient and Stakeholder Engagement model, to partner with graduate NICU parents and patient-facing NICU staff to identify parental mental health needs and ideas to address them. Through efforts to mitigate power differentials and engage parents as research and program development partners, our work shaped NICU practices, programming, and subsequent research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The High-Energy Particle Detector (HEPD-01) on board the China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite, located on a Sun-synchronous orbit at 500 km of altitude with an inclination of 97°, features a dedicated logic counting low-energy event rates, which proved sensitive to intense Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB). The present work reports a comprehensive analysis of signals induced by GRBs in the event-rate data collected between 2018 August and 2022 June. After accurately modeling the background rate as observed in different passages of the satellite over the same geographical area, we detected significant deviations to be compared with observations of GRB candidates from other observatories. The analysis revealed 12 statistically significant excesses, that have been associated with GRB 181222B, GRB 190114C, GRB 190129B, GRB 190305A, GRB 190928A, GRB 200412B, GRB 200422A, GRB 200826B, GRB 201009A, GRB 210702A, GRB 211211A, and GRB 220624A. We report light curves for 0.3–50 MeV photons, comparing them with findings from other space telescopes. The catalog of observations is published, complete of GRB observation time, duration, integrated counts, and fluence.

The intricate behavior of particle acceleration and transport mechanisms complicates the overall efforts in formulating a comprehensive understanding of solar energetic particle (SEP) events; these efforts include observations of low-energy particles (from tens of keV to hundreds of MeV) by space-borne instruments and measurements by the ground-based neutron monitors of the secondary particles generated in the Earth atmosphere by SEPs in the GeV range. Numerous space-borne missions provided good data on the nature/characteristics of these solar particles in past solar cycles, but more recently—concurrently with the rise toward the maximum of solar cycle 25—the High-Energy Particle Detector (HEPD-01) proved to be well suited for the study of solar physics and space weather. Its nominal 30–300 MeV energy range for protons can enlarge the detection capabilities of solar particles at low Earth orbit, closer to the injection limit of many SEP events. In this work, we characterize three SEP events within the first six months of 2022 through spectral and velocity dispersion analysis, assessing the response of HEPD-01 to >M1 events.

An organic solar cell fabrication kit has been developed for demonstration in both undergraduate teaching classes and high school laboratories to promote the growing field of renewable energy and to facilitate empirical comprehension of solar technology. The laboratory focuses on fabricating organic photovoltaics (solar cells) and testing the efficiency of power generation. By restricting substances to nontoxic coating inks, and a Pb-free alloy for the cathode, chemical hazards are minimized. Usually, organic solar cell fabrication requires the use of expensive laboratory equipment only found in a university or an industry environment, such as fume hoods, large spin coaters, nitrogen glove boxes, and metal evaporation systems. Importantly, the solar cell kit has been specifically developed to remove the need for accessing this large and expensive equipment: nontoxic inks are used such that fume hoods are not necessary, a portable miniature spin coater has been developed such that large spin coaters with a vacuum connection are not required, and a low-melting-point (62°C) Pb-free alloy has been trialed such that access to high-vacuum metal evaporation equipment is not necessary. The exercise utilizes a pedagogical framework of preliminary predictive exercises, practical verification of device optimization and engineering to illuminate the key working principles of a solar cell, and a post-exercise quiz to provide feedback and assess embedded knowledge. This experiment is an introductory lesson in renewable energy and gives students exposure to the chemistry, physics, and materials science concepts of organic electronics.

Background: Compared with the general population, autistic adults experience higher rates of physical and mental health conditions, premature morbidity and mortality, and barriers to health care. A health check for autistic people may improve their health outcomes. Aim: To establish the views of autistic people towards a primary care health check for autistic people. Design & setting: Cross-sectional questionnaire study in England and Wales. Method: A questionnaire was sent to autistic adults with physical health conditions in England and Wales. A total of 458 people (441 autistic adults and 17 proxy responders) completed the questionnaire. Results: Most responders (73.4%, n = 336) thought a health check is needed for all autistic people. Around half of the participants thought a health check should be offered from childhood and the health check appointment should last between 15 and 30 minutes. Autistic people were positive about providing primary care staff with contextual information regarding their health and the reasonable adjustments they would like before their health check appointment. Training about autism and the health check was considered important, alongside adequate time for discussions in the health check appointment (all by over 70% of responders). The clinician’s autism knowledge, seeing a familiar clinician, environmental adaptations, appropriate information, and accessible appointments were considered particularly important in making a health check accessible. Conclusion: Autistic people and relatives were supportive of a primary care health check for autistic people. Information gathered was used to support the design of a primary care health check for autistic adults.

NUSES is a planned space mission aiming to test new observational and technological approaches related to the study of relatively low-energy cosmic rays, gamma rays, and high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. Two scientific payloads will be hosted onboard the NUSES space mission: Terzina and Zirè. Terzina will be an optical telescope readout by SiPM arrays, for the detection and study of Cerenkov light emitted by Extensive Air Showers generated by high-energy cosmic rays and neutrinos in the atmosphere. Zirè will focus on the detection of protons and electrons up to a few hundred MeV and to 0.1–10 MeV photons and will include the Low Energy Module (LEM). The LEM will be a particle spectrometer devoted to the observation of fluxes of relatively low-energy electrons in the 0.1–7-MeV range and protons in the 3–50 MeV range along the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) followed by the hosting platform. The detection of Particle Bursts (PBs) in this Physics channel of interest could give new insight into the understanding of complex phenomena such as eventual correlations between seismic events or volcanic activity with the collective motion of particles in the plasma populating van Allen belts. With its compact sizes and limited acceptance, the LEM will allow the exploration of hostile environments such as the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) and the inner Van Allen Belt, in which the anticipated electron fluxes are on the order of 106 to 107 electrons per square centimeter per steradian per second. Concerning the vast literature of space-based particle spectrometers, the innovative aspect of the LEM resides in its compactness, within 10 × 10 × 10 cm3, and in its “active collimation” approach dealing with the problem of multiple scattering at these very relatively low energies. In this work, the geometry of the detector, its detection concept, its operation modes, and the hardware adopted will be presented. Some preliminary results from the Monte Carlo simulation (Geant4) will be shown.

As interest in autism in adulthood grows, so does the need for methods to promote the inclusion of autistic adults in research. Our objective was to create practice-based guidelines for the inclusion of autistic adults, both as research team members and as study participants. We conducted an institutional ethnography of three closely related research partnerships that used participatory methods with autistic adults over the years 2006-2018. We used an iterative approach which combined discussions with community and academic partners and artifact review. Guidelines to promote the inclusion of autistic adults as co-researchers focus on being transparent about partnership goals, clearly defining roles and choosing partners, creating processes for effective communication and power-sharing, building and maintaining trust, disseminating findings, encouraging community capacitation, and fairly compensating partners. Guidelines to promote the inclusion of autistic adults as study participants focus on maximizing autonomy and inclusion, creating an accessible consent process, offering multiple modes of participation, adapting survey instruments for use with autistic adults, creating accessible qualitative interview guides, and handling data from proxy reporters. Although these practice-based guidelines may not apply to all research teams, we hope that other researchers can capitalize on these practical lessons when including autistic adults in research.

Autistic people are more likely to: be diagnosed with a range of physical health conditions (i.e. cardio-vascular disease); experience premature mortality (for most disease categories); and experience barriers to effectively accessing healthcare. This systematic review sought to identify studies that report on barriers and facilitators to physical healthcare access for autistic people. A total of 3111 records were screened and six studies were included: two quantitative, two qualitative, and two mixed-methodology studies. Patient-provider communication, sensory sensitivities, and executive functioning/planning issues emerged as important barriers to healthcare. Recommendations for clinicians and those planning services are discussed.

An accurate flux measurement of low-energy charged particles trapped in the magnetosphere is necessary for space weather characterization and to study the coupling between the lithosphere and magnetosphere, which allows for the investigation of the correlations between seismic events and particle precipitation from Van Allen belts. In this work, the project of a CubeSat space spectrometer, the low-energy module (LEM), is shown. The detector will be able to perform an event-based measurement of the energy, arrival direction, and composition of low-energy charged particles down to 0.1 MeV. Moreover, thanks to a CdZnTe mini-calorimeter, the LEM spectrometer also allows for photon detection in the sub-MeV range, joining the quest for the investigation of the nature of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs). The particle identification of the LEM relies on the ΔE−E technique performed by thin silicon detectors. This multipurpose spectrometer will fit within a 10 × 10 × 10 cm3 CubeSat frame, and it will be constructed as a joint project between the University of Trento, FBK, and INFN-TIFPA. To fulfil the size and mass requirements, an innovative approach, based on active particle collimation, was designed for the LEM; this avoids the heavy/bulky passive collimators of previous space detectors. In this paper, we will present the LEM geometry, its detection concept, the results from the developed GEANT4 simulation, and some characterisations of a candidate silicon detector for the instrument payload.

This study investigates the development of Greek vowel reduction across different prosodic positions (stressed, pre-stressed, post-stressed), examining normative data from 72 participants aged 3 years to adulthood and balanced for gender. Participants performed a delayed repetition task, producing real trisyllabic words with the vowels [i, ε, ɐ, o, u] examined in the second syllable. Measurements included relative vowel duration, normalized acoustic vowel space areas, and Euclidean distances of vowels from the centroid of the acoustic space. Our findings show that changes in speech motor control, system stiffness, and stress marking with age, along with children's prosody sensitivity, contributed to several developmental milestones: the completion of the developmental trajectory of relative vowel duration and temporal vowel reduction at early adolescence; the attainment of adult-like spatial vowel characteristics and their reduction at preschool age; and the early acquisition of the prosodic strength of the stress conditions, leading to vowel reduction from the stressed to pre-stressed to post-stressed conditions. The correlation strength between temporal and spatial vowel reduction across ages revealed age-related differences in spatiotemporal speech organization, with significant gender-related differences observed only in vowel space areas, where females exhibited larger areas possibly related to sociophonetic factors. Intrinsic vowel duration appeared from age 3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]