Climate change is a threat multiplier for violence against children.

BACKGROUND: The climate crisis is the biggest threat to the health, development, and wellbeing of the current and future generations. While there is extensive evidence on the direct impacts of climate change on human livelihood, there is little evidence on how children and young people are affected, and even less discussion and evidence on how the climate crisis could affect violence against children. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: In this commentary, we review selected research to assess the links between the climate crisis and violence against children. METHODS: We employ a social-ecological perspective as an overarching framework to organize findings from the literature and call attention to increased violence against children as a specific, yet under-examined, direct and indirect consequence of the climate crisis. RESULTS: Using such a perspective, we examine how the climate crisis exacerbates the risk of violence against children at the continually intersecting and interacting levels of society, community, family, and the individual levels. We propose increased risk of armed conflict, forced displacement, poverty, income inequality, disruptions in critical health and social services, and mental health problems as key mechanisms linking the climate crisis and heightened risk of violence against children. Furthermore, we posit that the climate crisis serves as a threat multiplier, compounding existing vulnerabilities and inequities within populations and having harsher consequences in settings, communities, households, and for children already experiencing adversities. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude with a call for urgent efforts from researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to further investigate the specific empirical links between the climate crisis and violence against children and to design, test, implement, fund, and scale evidence-based, rights-based, and child friendly prevention, support, and response strategies to address violence against children.

Inequality amplifies the negative association between life expectancy and air pollution: A cross-national longitudinal study.

Ambient air pollution, in the form of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), poses serious population health risks. We estimate cross-national longitudinal models to test whether the negative relationship between life expectancy and PM2.5 concentration is larger in nations with higher levels of income inequality. The dependent variable is average life expectancy at birth, and the focal predictor variables include PM2.5 concentration, income inequality, and the two-way interaction between them. We also estimate the average marginal effects of PM2.5 concentration from low to high values of income inequality, and the predicted values of life expectancy from low to high values of PM2.5 concentration and income inequality. Results indicate that the negative relationship between life expectancy and PM2.5 concentration is larger in nations with higher levels of income inequality, and the reductions in predicted life expectancy are substantial when both PM2.5 concentration and income inequality are high. We suggest that the theoretical principles of Power, Proximity, and Physiology help explain our findings. This study underscores the importance in considering the multiplicative impacts of environmental conditions and socioeconomic factors in the modeling of population health.

The multiplicative impacts of working hours and fine particulate matter concentration on life expectancy: A longitudinal analysis of US States.

This study contributes to interdisciplinary research on the social and environmental determinants of population health, with a focus on the interaction between working hours and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentration. The authors estimate longitudinal models of the relationship between US state-level average life expectancy and both average working hours and PM2.5 concentration for the 2005-2014 period. Results obtained from two-way fixed effects models indicate that average life expectancy is negatively associated with both average working hours and fine particulate matter concentration. Findings also indicate clear moderating relationships: the negative association between life expectancy and working hours is amplified as PM2.5 concentration increases, and the negative relationship between life expectancy and fine particulate matter concentration is amplified when average working hours increase. The results of this study underscore the need for additional research on the multiplicative impacts of socioeconomic factors and environmental factors in the modeling of population health.

Acute Bilateral Compartment Syndrome of the Forearms.

A 43-year-old woman presented to our emergency department with severe bilateral forearm pain. On examination, both forearms were tense and swollen and the patient had excruciating pain, made much worse on passive extension of the fingers. The pain did not resolve with analgesia. The symptoms and clinical examination were highly suspicious for compartment syndrome. However, there was no history of trauma, strenuous physical activity, or any other obvious factor that might have precipitated the onset of a compartment syndrome. The serum creatinine kinase at presentation was greater than 37,000. The patient, however, did have a history of hypertension and was taking losartan, an angiotensinogen II antagonist that has been associated with rhabdomyolysis. The patient was brought to surgery for emergency fasciotomies and made an excellent recovery after surgery. The etiology of this patient's bilateral compartment syndrome is uncertain but may be a manifestation of drug-induced rhabdomyolysis.

Deprescribing: is the law on your side?

Deprescribing can feel risky: prescribers need to consider the consequence of stopping a medication medicolegally, particularly where there may be a guideline or accepted practice that suggests its use. This review aims to provide reassurance and encouragement to safely deprescribe. Experience suggests that for many patients the prescribing of multiple medicines is the norm. In the right setting and at the right time, deprescribing provides a real opportunity to minimise side effects and unwanted interactions through patient-centred conversations. How does the prescriber stand if they stop a medication for which there is an evidence-based guideline to use it? This review explores the concepts of clinical negligence and informed patient consent in the context of deprescribing. Using examples from UK case law, the review discusses the legal tests which are applied to establish an action based on clinical negligence and lack of informed consent. It describes the recent changes in law which reinforce the importance of providing information focused on what is material to individual patients. The use of prescribing tools to support safe deprescribing and informed consent are also discussed. When deprescribing is undertaken in partnership with patients, supported by the knowledge, skills and experience of both patient and clinicians and the patient's values and preferences based on clinical skill, judgement and evidence-based medicine, law presents no barriers to deprescribing.

Near ultraviolet photochemistry of 2-bromo- and 2-iodothiophene: Revealing photoinduced ring opening in the gas phase?

Velocity map imaging methods, with a new and improved ion optics design, have been used to explore the near ultraviolet photodissociation dynamics of gas phase 2-bromo- and 2-iodothiophene molecules. In both cases, the ground (X) and spin-orbit excited (X*) (where X = Br, I) atom products formed at the longest excitation wavelengths are found to recoil with fast, anisotropic velocity distributions, consistent with prompt C-X bond fission following excitation via a transition whose dipole moment is aligned parallel to the breaking bond. Upon tuning to shorter wavelengths, this fast component fades and is progressively replaced by a slower, isotropic recoil distribution. Complementary electronic structure calculations provide a plausible explanation for this switch in fragmentation behaviour­namely, the opening of a rival C-S bond extension pathway to a region of conical intersection with the ground state potential energy surface. The resulting ground state molecules are formed with more than sufficient internal energy to sample the configuration space associated with several parent isomers and to dissociate to yield X atom products in tandem with both cyclic and ring-opened partner fragments.

Fragmentation of neutral amino acids and small peptides by intense, femtosecond laser pulses.

High power femtosecond laser pulses have unique properties that could lead to their application as ionization or activation sources in mass spectrometry. By concentrating many photons into pulse lengths approaching the timescales associated with atomic motion, very strong electric field strengths are generated, which can efficiently ionize and fragment molecules without the need for resonant absorption. However, the complex interaction between these pulses and biomolecular species is not well understood. To address this issue, we have studied the interaction of intense, femtosecond pulses with a number of amino acids and small peptides. Unlike previous studies, we have used neutral forms of these molecular targets, which allowed us to investigate dissociation of radical cations without the spectra being complicated by the action of mobile protons. We found fragmentation was dominated by fast, radical-initiated dissociation close to the charge site generated by the initial ionization or from subsequent ultrafast migration of this charge. Fragments with lower yields, which are useful for structural determinations, were also observed and attributed to radical migration caused by hydrogen atom transfer within the molecule.

Effects of charge location on the absorptions and lifetimes of protonated tyrosine peptides in vacuo.

Nearby charges affect the electronic energy levels of chromophores, with the extent of the effect being determined by the magnitude of the charge and degree of charge-chromophore separation. The molecular configuration dictates the charge-chromophore distance. Hence, in this study, we aim to assess how the location of the charge influences the absorption of a set of model protonated and diprotonated peptide ions, and whether spectral differences are large enough to be identified. The studied ions were the dipeptide YK, the tripeptide KYK (Y = tyrosine; K = lysine) and their complexes with 18-crown-6-ether (CE). The CE targets the ammonium group by forming internal ionic hydrogen bonds and limits the folding of the peptide. In the tripeptide, the distance between the chromophore and the backbone ammonium is enlarged relative to that in the dipeptide. Experiments were performed in an electrostatic ion storage ring using a tunable laser system, and action spectra based on lifetime measurements were obtained in the range from 210 to 310 nm. The spectra are all quite similar though there seems to be some changes in the absorption band between 210 and 250 nm, while in the lower energy band all ions had a maximum absorption at ~275 nm. Lifetimes after photoexcitation were found to shorten upon protonation and lengthen upon CE complexation, in accordance with the increased number of degrees of freedom and an increase in activation energies for dissociation as the mobile proton model is no longer operative.

Femtosecond lasers for mass spectrometry: proposed application to catalytic hydrogenation of butadiene.

Mass spectra from the interaction of intense, femtosecond laser pulses with 1,3-butadiene, 1-butene, and n-butane have been obtained. The proportion of the fragment ions produced as a function of intensity, pulse length, and wavelength was investigated. Potential mass spectrometry applications, for example in the analysis of catalytic reaction products, are discussed.

Conformations of substituted benzophenones.

The inclination of the two aryl rings (ring twists) in a series of benzophenone molecules has been examined. For each structure the dihedral angle (between the planes of the two sets of six aromatic C atoms) relates to both the steric considerations of the single molecule and the packing forces related to the crystal structure. Six new benzophenone structures are incorporated into the study including 2,2'-dihydroxy-4,4'-dimethoxybenzophenone (I), C(15)H(14)O(5), that appears to have the smallest reported twist angle, 37.85 (5) degrees , of any substituted benzophenone reported to date. Three further benzophenones, 4,4'-bis(diethylamino)benzophenone (II), C(21)H(28)N(2)O, 3,4-dihydroxybenzophenone (III), C(13)H(10)O(3), and 3-hydroxybenzophenone (IV), C(13)H(10)O(2), have similar ring twists [49.83 (5), 49.84 (5) and 51.61 (5) degrees , respectively] that are comparable with the value of 54 degrees found for the orthorhombic form of unsubstituted benzophenone. 4-Chloro-4'-hydroxybenzophenone (V), C(13)H(9)ClO(2), has a ring twist of 64.66 (8) degrees that is close to the value of 65 degrees found in the metastable monoclinic form of unsubstituted benzophenone and 2-amino-2',5-dichlorobenzophenone (VI), C(13)H(9)Cl(2)NO(2), has a large ring twist of 83.72 (6) degrees . Comparisons with a further 98 substituted benzophenone molecules from the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) have been made.