Case report: A community case study of the human-animal bond in animal-assisted therapy: the experiences of psychiatric prisoners with therapy dogs.

Prisoners frequently experience chronic loneliness and lack social support, which can exacerbate their struggles with incarceration. According to attachment theory, individuals who are insecurely attached may be more likely to develop unstable relationships and engage in antisocial behavior as adults. In 2015 an animal-assisted therapy (AAT) program was implemented in a Canadian forensic psychiatric facility/prison, a "hybrid" facility that adheres to federal legislation regarding correctional services but follows provincial mental health legislation. The program centers on the development of a human-animal bond (HAB), which serves as a connection between the animals and prisoners. The HAB also addresses issues related to toxic masculinity, which are often present among men incarcerated in correctional facilities, including psychiatric prisons. An instrumental community case study design involving 6 prisoners at a forensic psychiatric facility/prison over 24 AAT sessions between 2015-2019 was undertaken. Interviews with the prisoners and their mental health clinicians were thematically analyzed to explore how the HAB was experienced as a form of attachment. Four themes emerged: safety, physical touch, reciprocity, and acceptance. These themes suggest that the therapy dogs have the potential to serve as a surrogate attachment figure for prisoners, mitigating their experiences of disconnection and fostering their development of interpersonal connections. This suggests attachment theory underpins the HAB and highlights the contribution of AAT practice and research in forensic psychiatric facilities/prisons. This study also suggests that the program's offering of prosocial support and nurturance/caring aligns with the specific criminogenic risks and needs identified within Correctional Service Canada's Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model for rehabilitation. Continued research and attention should be paid to AAT programs as a valuable addition to the range of support networks available to prisoners in psychiatric or non-psychiatric institutions.

Evaluation of the One Love Escalation Workshop for Dating Abuse Prevention: a Randomized Controlled Trial Pilot Study with a Sample of US Navy Sailors.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the Escalation Workshop with a sample of US Navy sailors. Escalation is a one-session workshop designed to promote bystander behavior related to dating abuse. We conducted a two-arm RCT with follow-up at 4 and 8 months. Participants were 335 Navy sailors, recruited from two comparable ships based in the USA. The unit of randomization was the ship. The primary outcomes were as follows: (a) attitudes related to intervening as a bystander in dating abuse situations, (b) injunctive norms about dating abuse, (c) dating abuse-related prevention-oriented behaviors (e.g., such as posting dating violence prevention messages online), and (d) bystander behaviors including acting as a bystander to prevent peer self-harm, peer bullying, peer intoxication, or peer dating abuse, or being a proactive bystander and initiating conversations about dating abuse prevention with friends and others. Hierarchal linear models (HLMs) indicated that, compared to participants in the control group, participants in the intervention group demonstrated improvement in attitudes [ß = .09, p < .001] and had more engagement than controls in prevention-oriented behavior at 8-month follow-up [ß = 0.11, p < .01]. Those in the intervention group also reported larger increases than controls in bystander behavior related to peer self-harm, peer bullying, peer intoxication, and starting conversations about dating abuse. Results for dating abuse bystander behavior were mixed. At 4 months, workshop participation was marginally associated with increased bystander behavior with peers who had perpetrated dating abuse (ß = 0.89, p = 0.06) and with peers experiencing physical or sexual dating abuse, or stalking or threats (ß = 1.11, p = .07). However, workshop participation was not associated with increased bystander behavior with peers experiencing only physical abuse. The Escalation Workshop may be a promising strategy to promote change in dating abuse-related attitudinal change and prevention-oriented behavior, and bystander behavior with peers related to self-harm, bullying, intoxication, and some aspects of dating abuse prevention.

A sheltered place, a sheltered person? Ordering wellbeing in a time between wars in the northern Galilee.

This paper explores how wellbeing is cultivated inside of domestic bomb shelters on Israel's contested and heavily militarised northern borders with Lebanon and Syria. It draws from ethnographic research conducted during what is locally referred to as being a time between wars, or a 'period of quiet', in the ongoing regional conflicts affecting these borders. Contrasting the upkeep and organisation of shelters situated in two private homes on the same street, the paper explores how shelters are used to foster a localised sense of wellbeing in a time of 'quiet', as well as who is seen to demonstrate wellbeing in this context. Each shelter is a place where the temporal position of being between past and future war is visceral. Memories of past wars, present uncertainty and the anticipated threats of future war are easily encountered in each shelter, although in varied ways. Yet, the arrangement of each shelter reflects how their owners make sense of the time they understand themselves to inhabit, while allowing them to re-organise and edit out what is problematic, uncomfortable or threatening about dwelling in a present between wars. A sense of wellbeing comes from the thoughtful, creative and aspirational ordering of past, present and future inside of each shelter, and through an ordering of one's position in time. These observations contribute to the broader conceptualisation and pragmatic study of wellbeing, a term that is often illusive and abstract.

Structure-Based Virtual Screening, Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Potential FAK-FAT Domain Inhibitors for Treatment of Metastatic Cancer.

Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) is a tyrosine kinase that is overexpressed and activated in several advanced-stage solid cancers. In cancer cells, FAK promotes the progression and metastasis of tumours. In this study, we used structure-based virtual screening to filter a library of more than 210K compounds against the focal adhesion targeting FAK-focal adhesion targeting (FAT) domain to identify 25 virtual hit compounds which were screened in the invasive breast cancer line (MDA-MB-231). Most notably, compound I showed low micromolar antiproliferative activity, as well as antimigratory activity. Moreover, examination in a model of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), revealed that, despite not effecting FAK phosphorylation, compound I significantly impairs proliferation whilst impairing focal adhesion growth and turnover leading to reduced migration. Further optimisation and synthesis of analogues of the lead compound I using a four-step synthetic procedure was performed, and analogues were assessed for their antiproliferative activity against three breast cancer (MDA-MB-231, T47D, BT474) cell lines and one pancreatic cancer (MIAPaCa2) cell line. Compound 5f was identified as a promising lead compound with IC50 values in the range of 4.59-5.28 µM in MDA-MB-231, T47D, BT474, and MIAPaCa2. Molecular modelling and pharmacokinetic studies provided more insight into the therapeutic features of this new series.

An Idiographic Investigation of Diabetic Alert Dogs' Ability to Learn From a Small Sample of Breath Samples From People With Type 1 Diabetes.

OBJECTIVE: There is a growing market for diabetes-alert dogs but little has been published regarding their ability to reliably detect hypoglycemia. We aimed to determine whether 2 dogs could detect hypoglycemic breath samples from people with type 1 diabetes (T1D) and then transfer detection to novel hypoglycemic breath samples. METHODS: Breath samples were collected from individuals with T1D during times of normo-, hypo- and hyperglycemia. Two dogs, previously trained (3 alternative forced choice) with breath samples from 3 different individuals with T1D, were presented with 3 breath samples from the same individual: 1 hypoglycemic, 1 normoglycemic and 1 hyperglycemic, and trained to identify the hypoglycemic sample using a "yes/no" procedure. The dogs' ability to transfer detection was then tested by presenting them with a novel sample set from the same individual. Then we tested whether 1 dog could transfer detection of the odour of hypoglycemia by presenting new samples from a different individual. RESULTS: One dog was able to transfer detection of the odour of hypoglycemia to samples from the same individual (specificity 89%, sensitivity 62%), but a second dog was not. Results were inconclusive regarding the ability of 1 dog to transfer detection of the odour of hypoglycemia across 2 individuals. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that some dogs can be trained to detect hypoglycemic breath of an individual with T1D, but detection may not transfer to novel samples from other individuals. Results should be interpreted with caution, as the dogs were trained with only a small number of breath samples before testing.

A generic bioanalytical method development strategy and fit-for-purpose qualification to support hERG in vitro sample analysis.

BACKGROUND: The amount of method development and assay validation required to support analysis of solutions from in vitro systems is a consideration of analytical laboratories performing this type of analysis. As there is little information from regulatory bodies as to how much assay development and validation is required, analytical laboratories need to decide on the best approach for this type of work. In this paper, we describe an efficient 'fit-for-purpose' approach that has been developed to support buffer sample analysis from Safety Pharmacology hERG studies. RESULTS: Method development has been minimized with the aid of compound modeling software and generic HPLC-MS/MS analytical systems. The assay is evaluated prior to sample analysis using simple qualification procedures to support 'one-off' analyses. CONCLUSION: The result is an efficient process that allows speedy and confident analysis of in vitro samples to successfully support regulatory hERG in vitro studies without the additional workload of a full validation procedure.