Publications by authors named "James Donnelly"

Article Synopsis
  • Infants with Congenital Heart Defects (CHD) are surviving longer but face challenges in bonding due to maternal stress and hospital experiences during initial treatments.
  • * A study surveyed 148 mothers of CHD infants to explore the relationship between maternal stress, the Mother-Infant Bond (MIB), and parenting, finding a strong correlation between stress and poorer bond quality.
  • * The research suggests the need for individualized psychological support for mothers during their child’s treatment to improve mental health outcomes and strengthen the mother-infant relationship.
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The recently published European Society of Cardiology guidelines for infective endocarditis management recommends daptomycin combination therapy for the treatment of staphylococcal endocarditis in severe penicillin allergy, rather than daptomycin monotherapy. We discuss the evidence base behind this recommendation, highlighting concerns regarding the lack of robust clinical studies, increased cost and logistical considerations, and adverse effects of combination therapy. Although further studies are required to elucidate the role of combination vs monotherapy in these patients, we propose a pragmatic management approach to reduce the risk of adverse antimicrobial side effects and limit costs, while aiming to maintain treatment efficacy.

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A prior randomized trial found a school social intervention yielded significantly better outcomes (social and autism features) immediately following intervention compared to typical school programming (services-as-usual [SAU]) for children on the autism spectrum. In that study, children in the SAU condition subsequently completed a summer social intervention. This study tested longer-term maintenance of effects for children who completed both interventions.

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In response to growing concerns surrounding the relationship between climate change and escalating flood risk, there is an increasing urgency to develop precise and rapid flood prediction models. Although high-resolution flood simulations have made notable advancements, they remain computationally expensive, underscoring the need for efficient machine learning surrogate models. As a result of sparse empirical observation and expensive data collection, there is a growing need for the models to perform effectively in 'small-data' contexts, a characteristic typical of many scientific problems.

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Pathological features of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) include alterations in the structure and function of neurons as well as of myelin sheaths. Accumulated evidence shows that aerobic type of exercise can enhance neuroplasticity in mouse models of AD. However, whether and how aerobic exercise can affect myelin sheath repair and neuroprotection in the AD models remains unclear.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aims to compare the immune response in individuals who were naturally infected with SARS-CoV-2 and then vaccinated, looking at how vaccination enhances their immunity.
  • It involved 197 men who had natural infections followed by vaccinations, measuring various antibody levels while ensuring all participants were PCR negative during the test.
  • Results indicated a significant increase in antibody levels, particularly a 3.3-fold rise in anti-S antibodies after vaccination, showing that vaccination after natural infection substantially boosts immune protection.
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Point-of-care testing (POCT) provides rapid, accurate results that facilitate diagnosis and patient management. POCT for infectious agents allows timely infection prevention and control interventions and informs decisions around safe patient placement. However, POCT implementation requires careful governance as they are primarily operated by staff with limited prior education on laboratory quality control and assurance processes.

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Introduction: The induction and speed of production of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) immune biomarkers may vary by type and number of inoculated vaccine doses. This study aimed to explore variations in SARS-CoV-2 anti-spike (anti-S), anti-nucleocapsid (anti-N), and neutralizing immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies, and T-cell response by type and number of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine doses received.

Methods: In a naturally exposed and SARS-CoV-2-vaccinated population, we quantified the anti-S, anti-N, and neutralizing IgG antibody concentration and assessed T-cell response.

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Objectives: We investigated the reinfection rate of vaccinated or convalescent immunized SARS-CoV-2 in 952 expatriate workers with SARS-CoV-2 serological antibody (Ab) patterns and surrogate T cell memory at recruitment and follow-up.

Methods: Trimeric spike, nucleocapsid, and neutralizing Abs were measured, along with a T cell stimulation assay, targeting SARS-CoV-2 memory in clusters of differentiation (CD) 4+ and CD8+ T cells. The subjects were then followed up for reinfection for up to 6 months.

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Radiation therapy (RT) is frequently used to locally treat tumors. One of the major issues in RT is normal tissue toxicity; thus, it is necessary to limit dose escalation for enhanced local control in patients that have locally advanced tumors. Integrating radiosensitizing agents such as gold nanoparticles (GNPs) into RT has been shown to greatly increase the cure rate of solid tumors.

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Objective: The objective of this multihospital study was to investigate how the intervention of coaching to bedside shift report (BSR) correlates with Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) outcomes and relates to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program points over a 4-year period (2017-2020) for an acute care hospital health system.

Background: Hospital leaders' responsibilities include intertwined areas of patient experience and fiscal accountability. Coaching to BSR is reported to have numerous benefits to the patient's experience.

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The computational limitations of complex numerical models have led to adoption of statistical emulators across a variety of problems in science and engineering disciplines to circumvent the high computational costs associated with numerical simulations. In flood modelling, many hydraulic and hydrodynamic numerical models, especially when operating at high spatiotemporal resolutions, have prohibitively high computational costs for tasks requiring the instantaneous generation of very large numbers of simulation results. This study examines the appropriateness and robustness of Gaussian Process (GP) models to emulate the results from a hydraulic inundation model.

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Inhibition of DNA repair enzymes is an attractive target for increasing the efficacy of DNA damaging chemotherapies. The ERCC1-XPF heterodimer is a key endonuclease in numerous single and double strand break repair processes, and inhibition of the heterodimerization has previously been shown to sensitize cancer cells to DNA damage. In this work, the previously reported ERCC1-XPF inhibitor 4 was used as the starting point for an study of further modifications of the piperazine side-chain.

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This study assessed the potential short-term effects of COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions on ratings of ASD and comorbid symptoms severity and adaptive functioning of 69 youth, ages 8-16 years with ASD without intellectual disability. Parent/caregiver ratings were being collected in fall and spring over approximately two years when the restrictions were imposed four months prior to the final data collection point. Results indicated no significant changes in parent/caregiver ratings of ASD symptom severity, comorbid symptoms severity, social skills, or adaptive behaviors following the stay-at-home restrictions and little variability across the four data collection points.

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Objectives: The present research used a continuous measurement approach to extend the evidence that autism is associated with significant struggles in physical health as well as mental health and psychological well-being.

Methods: The relationship of autism characteristics to physical health and psychological well-being was examined in 294 individuals (M age = 70.51, SD age = 8.

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Unlabelled: The historical focus on autism as a childhood disorder means that evidence regarding autism in adulthood lags significantly behind research in other age groups. Emerging studies on the relationship of age with autism characteristics do not target older adult samples, which presents a barrier to studying the important variability that exists in life span developmental research. This study aims to further our understanding of the relationship between the Autism-Spectrum Quotient Scale and age in a large adult sample.

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This study examined the psychometric characteristics of the Cambridge-Mindreading Face-Voice Battery for Children (CAM-C) for a sample of 333 children, ages 6-12 years with ASD (with no intellectual disability). Internal consistency was very good for the Total score (0.81 for both Faces and Voices) and respectable for the Complex emotions score (0.

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Objective: To determine the interrelationships among traumatic brain injury (TBI), maladaptive personality traits (MPT), psychological distress, and cognitive flexibility in the prediction of subjective well-being of post-9/11 veterans concurrently and over time.

Setting: Five Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers and 1 VA outpatient clinic in urban, suburban, and rural areas.

Participants: Five hundred Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans at baseline (219 with TBI), 292 at 18-month follow-up (108 with TBI), drawn from a regional registry and clinic referrals.

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This study tested the efficacy of an intensive outpatient psychosocial treatment for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) without intellectual disability (ID). Eighty-eight children (ages 7-12 years) were randomly assigned to the treatment or control (waitlist) condition. The 18-week cognitive-behavioral treatment (two 90-min sessions per week) included small-group instruction and therapeutic activities targeting social/social-communication skills, face-emotion recognition, nonliteral language skills, and interest expansion.

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A prior cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) compared outcomes for a comprehensive school intervention (schoolMAX) to typical educational programming (services-as-usual [SAU]) for 103 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) without intellectual disability. The schoolMAX intervention was superior to SAU in improving social-cognitive understanding (emotion-recognition), social/social-communication skills, and ASD-related impairment (symptoms). In the current study, a range of demographic, clinical, and school variables were tested as potential moderators of treatment outcomes from the prior RCT.

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: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) without intellectual disability (ID) exhibit social and motor impairments and circumscribed interests/behaviors that contribute to lower physical activity (PA) levels. Despite the need for exercise interventions for these children, there is a dearth of evidence-based treatments. This study tested the feasibility of a high-intensity exercise program for children with ASD without ID, and associated changes in physical performance.

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This study assessed the reliability and criterion-related validity of teacher ratings on the Adapted Skillstreaming Checklist for a sample of 133 children, aged 6-11 years, with autism spectrum disorder (without intellectual disability). Internal consistency for the total sample was 0.93.

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The Adapted Skillstreaming Checklist measures social/social-communication skills and behavioral flexibility/regulation of children with autism spectrum disorder without intellectual disability. Prior studies provided support for the reliability and criterion-related validity of the Adapted Skillstreaming Checklist total score for these children; however, no studies have examined the Adapted Skillstreaming Checklist factor structure. This exploratory factor analysis examined the factor structure and internal consistency of parent ratings on the Adapted Skillstreaming Checklist for a sample of 331 children, ages 6-12 years, with autism spectrum disorder without intellectual disability.

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This study examined sex differences in externalizing and internalizing symptoms of children with ASD without intellectual disability (ID). The sample (n = 80) included 40 girls and 40 boys, ages 6-12 years, with ASD (without ID) matched on age and IQ. Externalizing and internalizing symptoms were significantly elevated for this sample (girls and boys) relative to normative estimates for all the scales (hyperactivity, aggression, anxiety, and depression) except conduct problems.

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In the last decade, the prevalence of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) without intellectual disability (ID) in schools has increased. However, there is a paucity of information on special education placement, service use, and relationships between service use and demographic variables for children with ASD without ID. This study aimed to describe and explore variation in type and amount of special education services provided to (N = 89) children with ASD.

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