Restricted Family Research Articles

Strong evidence for universality in homogeneous compressible turbulence

Quantifying the degree of universality in compressible turbulence is challenging due to the existence of different modes and their complex interactions. For a restricted family of flows, Donzis and John [Phys. Rev. Fluids 5, 084609 (2020)] showed that universal behavior is indeed observed in compressible turbulence if the ratio of dilatational to solenoidal root mean square (rms) velocities (δ=u′d/u′s) is incorporated as a scaling parameter along with the traditional turbulent Mach number (Mt=u′/〈c〉, where u′ is the rms velocity and 〈c〉 is the mean speed of sound). In this paper, we argue for the generality of those results by analyzing a wide range of compressible turbulent flows spanning a variety of flow configurations and setups to assess the degree of universal behavior. These include, among others, reacting flows, flows with solenoidal, thermal, and dilatational forcing, and flows with mean shear and bulk viscosity. We also performed new direct numerical simulations, which include turbulence in situations where vibrational modes of constitutive molecules are not in thermal equilibrium. Collectively, we offer the largest comparison across studies in the literature to date. We find that despite the wide range of forcing conditions and physical processes, universality holds across all these turbulent flows to a very satisfactory degree when both δ and Mt are considered as intrinsic compressibility parameters. The statistics investigated here—single-point statistics up to order four—are chosen such that they represent different ranges across the spectrum of dynamically relevant turbulence scales. We discuss the applicability of the purposed universal behavior for other key statistics in these turbulent flows, including two-point statistics and inhomogeneity effects, and the perspective it opens for modeling them.

The approximation property for the predual of weighted spaces of holomorphic mappings on Banach spaces

In this paper, we investigate the approximation property for the predual of the weighted space of holomorphic mappings, where is a countable family of weights defined on a balanced open subset U of a Banach space E. We introduce a locally convex topology on and show that is topologically isomorphic to for a suitably restricted family . As a consequence, certain characterizations of the approximation property for the space are proved.

Barriers, Solutions, and Opportunities for Adapting Critical Care Clinical Trials in the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented challenges for clinical trials worldwide, threatening premature closure and trial integrity. Every phase of research operations was affected, often requiring modifications to protocol design and implementation. To identify the barriers, solutions, and opportunities associated with continuing critical care trials that were interrupted during the pandemic, and to generate suggestions for future trials. This mixed-methods study performed an explanatory sequential analysis involving a self-administered electronic survey and focus groups of principal investigators (PIs) and project coordinators (PCs) conducting adult and pediatric individual-patient randomized trials of the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eligible trials were actively enrolling patients on March 11, 2020. Data were analyzed between September 2023 and January 2024. Importance ratings of barriers to trial conduct and completion, solutions employed, opportunities arising, and suggested strategies for future trials. Quantitative data examining barriers were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Data addressing solutions, opportunities, and suggestions were analyzed by qualitative content analysis. Integration involved triangulation of data sources and perspectives about 13 trials, synthesized by an interprofessional team incorporating reflexivity and member-checking. A total of 13 trials run by 29 PIs and PCs (100% participation rate) were included. The highest-rated barriers (on a 5-point scale) to ongoing conduct during the pandemic were decisions to pause all clinical research (mean [SD] score, 4.7 [0.8]), focus on COVID-19 studies (mean [SD] score, 4.6 [0.8]), and restricted family presence in hospitals (mean [SD] score, 4.1 [0.8]). Suggestions to enable trial progress and completion included providing scientific leadership, implementing technology for communication and data management, facilitating the informed consent process, adapting the protocol as necessary, fostering site engagement, initiating new sites, streamlining ethics and contract review, and designing nested studies. The pandemic necessitated new funding opportunities to sustain trial enrollment. It increased public awareness of critical illness and the importance of randomized trial evidence. While underscoring the vital role of research in society and drawing the scientific community together with a common purpose, the pandemic signaled the need for innovation to ensure the rigor and completion of ongoing trials. Lessons learned to optimize research procedures will help to ensure a vibrant clinical trials enterprise in the future.

Impact of COVID-19-related restricted family presence policies on Canadian pediatric intensive care unit clinicians: a qualitative study

PurposePediatric intensive care units (PICUs) worldwide restricted family presence in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to explore the experiences and impact of restricted family presence policies on Canadian PICU clinicians.MethodsWe conducted a qualitative study that followed an interpretive phenomenological design. Participants were PICU clinicians providing direct patient care in Canada during periods of COVID-19-related restricted family presence. We purposively sampled for maximum variation among survey participants who consented to be contacted for further research on the same topic. In-depth interviews were conducted remotely via telephone or video-call, audio-recorded, and transcribed. Interviews were inductively coded and underwent thematic analysis. Proposed themes were member-checked by interviewees.ResultsSixteen PICU clinicians completed interviews. Interviewees practiced across Canada, represented a range of disciplines (eight nurses, two physicians, two respiratory therapists, two child life specialists, two social workers) and years in profession (0–34 years). We identified four themes representing the most meaningful aspects of restricted family presence for participants: 1) balancing infection control and family presence; 2) feeling disempowered by hospital and policy-making hierarchies; 3) empathizing with family trauma; and 4) navigating threats to the therapeutic relationship.ConclusionPediatric intensive care unit clinicians were impacted by restricted family presence policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. These policies contributed to feelings of disempowerment and challenged clinicians’ perceived ability to provide the best family-centred care possible. Frontline expertise should be incorporated into the design and implementation of policies to best support family-centred care in any context and minimize risks of moral distress for PICU clinicians.

A rare case of disseminated tuberculosis presenting as multiple visceral abscesses: retropharyngeal abscess, epidural abscess, pulmonary Koch’s, hepatic granuloma and splenic abscess

Extrapulmonary TB can present with plethora of clinical signs and symptoms, the spectrum of which remains boundless. Retropharyngeal abscess, epidural abscess, splenic abscess, hepatic granuloma are rare presentations of extrapulmonary TB which requires paramount clinical expertise for diagnosis and timely management thereby preventing dangerous complications. Here is a case report of a 6 year old boy presenting with 2 months history of fever, neck pain and swelling, difficulty in swallowing solid food, restricted neck movements, weight loss and family history of TB contact. Examination revealed bilateral jugulodigastric (level I and II) cervical lymphadenopathy (around 2×2 cm), neck rigidity and a paramedian bulge over posterior pharyngeal wall (measuring 3×3 cm), the inferior extent of which was difficult to visualize on oral cavity examination. Patient was worked up keeping in mind the high possibility of TB, radiography and ultrasonography of neck confirmed the presence of retropharyngeal abscess. CECT neck, chest and abdomen was done to find the extent of lesion and to look any other evidence of tuberculosis which revealed presence of retropharyngeal abscess, epidural abscess, pulmonary Koch’s, hepatic granuloma and splenic abscess with features s/o tuberculosis. He was started on ATT on clinico-radiological basis, his abscess was drained and cheesy material and pus were sent for microbiological and histo-pathological examination, although microbiological evidence was non-contributory, histopathology confirmed tuberculous retropharyngeal abscess. This case reporting was done to elicit the rare presentation of EPTB and the need of high degree of clinical suspicion for early diagnosis and timely treatment to prevent future complications.

Pandemic Patient Engagement Success: Maintaining Family Presence Through Partnership

This presentation is relevant for patients of hospitals and residents of long-term care facilities, their loved ones and essential partners in care, and staff and leadership of healthcare facilities.
 A painful pandemic challenge for patients, families and staff in hospitals was the absence of loved ones or essential care partners through Family Presence/Visitor Policy restrictions. Leadership at Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC) worked proactively with the Patient and Family Advisory Council and a small, diverse group of Patient Experience Advisors to plan for possible restrictions and consider how best to approach ongoing changes and challenges to the policy expected in the face of the pandemic. The group continues to work together at this time of uncertainty.
 An initial meeting of eight advisors and leaders took place prior to the World Health Organization’s official announcement of the pandemic. Due to growing concern about hospital infections, the meeting venue was a local coffee shop, hence the group became known throughout the hospital as The Balzac’s Group. Synchronous virtual meetings and asynchronous communication were employed by the group to address concerns and create family presence opportunities on a rapid response basis. Group collaboration remains evident as new concerns arise with the ongoing ebb and flow of COVID-19 hospitalizations, staff shortages and less restrictive family presence policies. This partnership has been pivotal to the organization’s pandemic planning and response, enabling family presence while respecting government directives, organizational challenges, and patient/family priorities.
 This collaboration informed several new and sustained initiatives including: a virtual visits process, ePostcards, a Care Partner Program, expanded cell phone use in restricted areas, resources for loved ones traveling distances, careful and measured increases in family presence and a family presence policy Exceptions Committee.
 An unexpected outcome was an increased level of respect and strengthened patient engagement. Factors influencing this success were transparency and trust in sharing sensitive or confidential information, mutual decision-making, frank and honest sharing of both personal and professional perspectives, and active listening. Many KHSC advisors increased their patient partnership activities during the pandemic and felt an enhanced sense of agency in their efforts to improve the patient experience in healthcare.
 
 This initiative may be a source of new ideas, inspiration, and encouragement for patient partners and hospital leaders to actively partner in co-design and delivery of compassionate person-centred policies and care, especially during times of crisis.
 The group continues to be the “go-to” group for family presence policy questions. The strengthened relationship with Patient Advisors has had a spillover effect more broadly into other hospital initiatives and increased awareness of the value of their input. We hope to continue to share this success story broadly to encourage other healthcare facilities to partner with the precious resource of patients, families, and patient advisors, at all levels of health care. We are considering a Patient Advisor led publication in the future.

Interaction, Satisfaction, and the PCC

The Person-Case Constraint (PCC) is a family of restrictions on the relative person of the two objects of a ditransitive. PCC effects offer a testing ground for theories of Agree and of syntactic features, both those on nominals and those found on agreement probes. This article offers a new theory of PCC effects in an interaction/satisfaction theory of Agree (Deal 2015a) and shows the advantages of this framework in capturing PCC typology. On this model, probes are specified for interaction, determining which features will be copied to them, and for satisfaction, determining which features will cause probing to stop. Applied to the PCC, this theory (a) captures all four types of PCC effect recognized by Nevins (2007) under a unified notion of Agree; (b) captures the restriction of PCC effects to contexts of “Double Weakness” in many prominent examples (e.g., in Italian, Greek, and Basque, where PCC effects hold only when both objects are expressed with clitics); (c) naturally extends to PCC effects in syntactic environments without visible clitics or agreement for one or both objects, as well as to the absence of PCC effects in some languages with clitics or agreement for both objects. Two refinements of the interaction/ satisfaction theory are offered: a new notation for probes’ interaction and satisfaction specifications, clarifying the absence of uninterpretable/unvalued features as drivers of Agree; and a proposal for the way that probes’ behavior may change over the course of a derivation, dubbed dynamic interaction.

The impact of COVID-19 on the provision of bereavement support in Australian intensive care units: A national survey

BackgroundBereavement support is a vital part of caring for families when a patient dies in the intensive care unit (ICU). Previous research has demonstrated that while many ICUs provide some informal aspects of bereavement care, formalised follow-up programmes are uncommon. The impacts of COVID-19 on ICU-based bereavement support are currently unknown. ObjectivesThe objectives of this study were to explore the current provision of bereavement support in Australian ICUs and identify the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on these services. MethodsA cross-sectional exploratory web-based survey was used. The survey was distributed to one senior nurse in each public and private adult, paediatric, and neonatal ICU in Australia between April and July 2022. Descriptive statistics and reflexive thematic analysis were used to analyse the data. Ethical approval was received from La Trobe University. ResultsOne hundred and four ICUs from 82 hospitals responded to the survey, with 36 units reporting a formal bereavement follow-up service. When compared to prepandemic levels, almost all of the common bereavement care practices explored in the survey were significantly reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Open-ended responses also demonstrated significant impacts of COVID-19 on bereavement care provision, particularly related to Restricted family togetherness, Logistical Challenges, and Impacts on Staff. Staff members reported adjusting care provision in response to these challenges by exploring Alternative family communications, Facilitation of family togetherness, and Increasing familysupports. ConclusionsMany of the common elements of ICU-based bereavement care were significantly reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the number of formal bereavement follow-up services in Australian ICUs remains largely unchanged since 2015. Ongoing research is needed to explore the long-term effects of these changes on staff and family wellbeing and on ongoing provision of ICU-based bereavement support.

Time‐inconsistent contract theory

AbstractThis paper investigates the moral hazard problem in finite horizon with both continuous and lump‐sum payments, involving a time‐inconsistent sophisticated agent and a standard utility maximizer principal: Building upon the so‐called dynamic programming approach in Cvitanić et al. (2018) and the recently available results in Hernández and Possamaï (2023), we present a methodology that covers the previous contracting problem. Our main contribution consists of a characterization of the moral hazard problem faced by the principal. In particular, it shows that under relatively mild technical conditions on the data of the problem, the supremum of the principal's expected utility over a smaller restricted family of contracts is equal to the supremum over all feasible contracts. Nevertheless, this characterization yields, as far as we know, a novel class of control problems that involve the control of a forward Volterra equation via Volterra‐type controls, and infinite‐dimensional stochastic target constraints. Despite the inherent challenges associated with such a problem, we study the solution under three different specifications of utility functions for both the agent and the principal, and draw qualitative implications from the form of the optimal contract. The general case remains the subject of future research. We illustrate some of our results in the context of a project selection contracting problem between an investor and a time‐inconsistent manager.

"We Aren't Meant to Go Through the Hardest Parts of Our Lives Alone": Family Experience With Restricted PICU Presence During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

PICUs across Canada restricted family presence (RFP) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic from allowing two or more family members to often only one family member at the bedside. The objective of this study was to describe the experiences and impact of RFP on families of critically ill children to inform future policy and practice. RFP policies negatively impacted families of PICU patients and caused moral distress. National, cross-sectional, online, self-administered survey. Family members of children admitted to a Canadian PICU between March 2020 and February 2021 were invited to complete the survey. RFP-attributable distress was measured with a modified distress thermometer (0-10). Closed-ended questions were reported with descriptive statistics and multivariable linear regression assessed factors associated with RFP-attributable distress. Open-ended questions were analyzed using inductive content analysis. Of 250 respondents who experienced RFP, 124 (49.6%) were restricted to one family member at the bedside. The median amount of distress that families attributed to RFP policies was 6 (range: 0-10). Families described isolation, removal of supports, and perception of trauma related to RFP. Most families (183, 73.2%) felt that policies were enforced in a way that made them feel valued by PICU clinicians, which was associated with less RFP-attributable distress. Differential impact was seen where families with lower household income indicated higher RFP-attributable distress score (2.35; 95% CI, 0.53-4.17; p = 0.03). Most respondents suggested that future policies should allow at least two family members at the bedside. Families of children admitted to PICUs during the COVID-19 pandemic described increased distress, trauma, and removal of supports due to RFP policies. Vulnerable families showed an increased odds of higher distress. Healthcare professionals played an important role in mitigating distress. Allowance of at least two family members at the bedside should be considered for future policy.

Fertility and Labor Supply Responses to Child Allowances: The Introduction of Means-Tested Benefits in France

This article examines fertility and labor supply responses to a 2014 French policy reform that consisted of conditioning the amount of child allowances on household income. Employing regression discontinuity design and French administrative income data, I find that restricting family allowance eligibility criteria decreases fertility among the richest households. The results also highlight that receiving half the amount of the allowances or none leads to an increase in both male and female labor supply through an increase in overtime work. The implied change in earned income, due to an increase in weekly working hours, is found to be comparable to the euro value reduction in benefits. Auxiliary regression analyses show that the fertility decline reflects a decrease in the probability of having an additional child for parents rather than in the probability of becoming parents for households without children.

A survey of pediatric intensive care unit clinician experience with restricted family presence during COVID-19

PurposeLimiting family presence runs counter to the family-centred values of Canadian pediatric intensive care units (PICUs). This study explores how implementing and enforcing COVID-19-related restricted family presence (RFP) policies impacted PICU clinicians nationally.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional, online, self-administered survey of Canadian PICU clinicians to assess experience and opinions of restrictions, moral distress (Moral Distress Thermometer, range 0–10), and mental health impacts (Impact of Event Scale [IES], range 0–75 and attributable stress [five-point Likert scale]). For analysis, we used descriptive statistics, multivariate regression modelling, and a general inductive approach for free text.ResultsRepresenting 17/19 Canadian PICUs, 368 of 388 respondents (94%) experienced RFP policies and were predominantly female (333/368, 91%), English speaking (338/368, 92%), and nurses (240/368, 65%). The mean (standard deviation [SD]) reported moral distress score was 4.5 (2.4) and was associated with perceived differential impact on families. The mean (SD) total IES score was 29.7 (10.5), suggesting moderate traumatic stress with 56% (176/317) reporting increased/significantly increased stress from restrictions related to separating families, denying access, and concern for family impacts. Incongruence between RFP policies/practices and PICU values was perceived by 66% of respondents (217/330). Most respondents (235/330, 71%) felt their opinions were not valued when implementing policies. Though respondents perceived that restrictions were implemented for the benefit of clinicians (252/332, 76%) and to protect families (236/315, 75%), 57% (188/332) disagreed that their RFP experience was mainly positive.ConclusionPediatric intensive care unit-based RFP rules, largely designed and implemented without bedside clinician input, caused increased psychological burden for clinicians, characterized as moderate moral distress and trauma triggered by perceived impacts on families.

Projection theorems for linear-fractional families of projections

AbstractMarstrand’s theorem states that applying a generic rotation to a planar setAbefore projecting it orthogonally to thex-axis almost surely gives an image with the maximal possible dimension$\min(1, \dim A)$. We first prove, using the transversality theory of Peres–Schlag locally, that the same result holds when applying a generic complex linear-fractional transformation in$PSL(2,\mathbb{C})$or a generic real linear-fractional transformation in$PGL(3,\mathbb{R})$. We next show that, under some necessary technical assumptions, transversality locally holds for restricted families of projections corresponding to one-dimensional subgroups of$PSL(2,\mathbb{C})$or$PGL(3,\mathbb{R})$. Third, we demonstrate, in any dimension, local transversality and resulting projection statements for the families of closest-point projections to totally-geodesic subspaces of hyperbolic and spherical geometries.

Perspectives of Intensive Care patients and family members on competencies for Advanced Intensive Care nurses in Europe

Background
 One output from the International Nursing Advanced Competency-based Training for Intensive Care (INACTIC) collaboration is a set of core competencies for advanced practice Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurses across Europe. Some European countries, such as the UK, have identified such competencies, however, these advanced practice roles are rarely practiced across the rest of Europe. The INACTIC competencies were developed with an expert panel of 184 ICU nurses from 20 countries. It is also important to examine what patients and relatives with experience of intensive care felt about these competencies. 
 Aim
 To examine the views of recovered ICU patients and relatives regarding the INACTIC competencies.
 Methods
 Three patient and relative focus groups were conducted in England (n=5), Scotland (n=4) and Greece (n=4) to discuss a lay version of the INACTIC competencies. Discussions were open ended, followed a topic guide, recorded and transcribed verbatim. Analysis followed a conventional thematic approach, with the findings discussed iteratively among the authors.
 Results
 The feedback from across the focus groups resulted in three themes: 1) the importance of nurses being empowered to advocate for the patient; 2) the centrality of communication; and, 3) the impact of variability in ICU practices. There was a notable difference with the Greek focus group; because of restricted family visiting policies, relatives did not feel encouraged to participate in patient care.
 Conclusions
 The perspectives of patients and relatives largely aligned with the consensus of the INACTIC expert panel. Local differences in ICU experience highlight the changes that some ICUs would need to make for the INACTIC competencies to be embedded.

Quasipolynomiality of the Smallest Missing Induced Subgraph

We study the problem of finding the smallest graph that does not occur as an induced subgraph of a given graph. This missing induced subgraph has at most logarithmic size and can be found by a brute-force search, in an $n$-vertex graph, in time $n^{O(\log n)}$. We show that under the Exponential Time Hypothesis this quasipolynomial time bound is optimal. We also consider variations of the problem in which either the missing subgraph or the given graph comes from a restricted graph family; for instance, we prove that the smallest missing planar induced subgraph of a given planar graph can be found in polynomial time.

Understanding the Challenges of Intensive Care Staff in Communicating With Patients and Patients' Families During the COVID-19 Crisis: A Qualitative Exploration.

Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) isolation protocols in India restricted family members of COVID-19 patients from visiting them in hospitals and in intensive care units, especially during the peak of the pandemic. This along with the elaborate personal protective equipment (PPE) created challenges for intensivists and nurses in COVID ICUs in effectively communicating with patients and patients' families, especially in shared decision-making processes. Methods This article is the outcome of a qualitative study using in-depth one-on-one interviews with 10 intensivists and four intensive care nurses in two teaching hospitals in Bengaluru, South India. Each participant, purposively selected till data saturation was reached,had spent extensive periods of time in a COVID ICU during both COVID-19 waves in 2020 and 2021.A framework of descriptive phenomenology led to the design of the study in which varied experiences and insights of participants were captured using an interview guide to understand their lived reality. The interviews were conducted online or in person between July 2021 and October 2021 and were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim.Coding of transcripts using the NVivo 12 (Burlington, MA: QSR International Pty Ltd) software helped with the thematic analysis. This was guided by interpretive phenomenological methods that derived meaning from participants' life experiences. Results Four themes involving challenges in effective communication in the COVID ICU emerged as follows: physical barriers, emotional and mental stressors, infrastructural challenges, and ethical and moral dilemmas. Sub-themes included personal protective equipment as a barrier, reduced energy levels, and isolation of family from patientsunder the domain of physical challenges; fears of the unknown, handling death of patients in isolation, and the frustrations of families were challenges under the emotional and mental domain. Infrastructural/systemic challenges included poor connectivity and insufficient mobile phones, and the absence of rules to handle interruptions. Privacy breaches, taking consent over the phone, end-of-life discussions, and medico-legal risks emerged as the subthemes under the domain of ethical and moral challenges. A mobile phone communication policy specifying usage times and operating methods, a mandatory communication and counseling training module for intensivists and intensive care nurses, and a set of protocols for highly restrictive, intensive care units in pandemic situations were recommendations and lessons learned. Conclusions The lack of face-to-face interactions was a serious barrier to communication between ICU staff and patients and their caregivers. It had a bearing on trust levels and had emotional and ethical consequences for healthcare teams to handle.Opportunities for self-care, venting of anxiety and distress, and opportunities to celebrate and reward special efforts and cooperation between consultants, residents, nurses, and technicians in stressful environments like a pandemic ICU were important to sustain empathy and keep care and communication humane.

A note on Kakeya sets of horizontal and SL(2)$SL(2)$ lines

AbstractWe consider unions of lines in . These are lines of the form where . We show that if is a Kakeya set of lines, then the union has Hausdorff dimension 3. This answers a question of Wang and Zahl. The lines can be identified with horizontal lines in the first Heisenberg group, and we obtain the main result as a corollary of a more general statement concerning unions of horizontal lines. This statement is established via a point‐line duality principle between horizontal and conical lines in , combined with recent work on restricted families of projections to planes, due to Gan, Guo, Guth, Harris, Maldague and Wang. Our result also has a corollary for Nikodym sets associated with horizontal lines, which answers a special case of a question of Kim.

Do "Newly Born" orphan proteins resemble "Never Born" proteins? A study using three deep learning algorithms.

"Newly Born" proteins, devoid of detectable homology to any other proteins, known as orphan proteins, occur in a single species or within a taxonomically restricted gene family. They are generated by the expression of novel open reading frames, and appear throughout evolution. We were curious if three recently developed programs for predicting protein structures, namely, AlphaFold2, RoseTTAFold, and ESMFold, might be of value for comparison of such "Newly Born" proteins to random polypeptides with amino acid content similar to that of native proteins, which have been called "Never Born" proteins. The programs were used to compare the structures of two sets of "Never Born" proteins that had been expressed-Group 1, which had been shown experimentally to possess substantial secondary structure, and Group 3, which had been shown to be intrinsically disordered. Overall, although the models generated were scored as being of low quality, they nevertheless revealed some general principles. Specifically, all four members of Group 1 were predicted to be compact by all three algorithms, in agreement with the experimental data, whereas the members of Group 3 were predicted to be very extended, as would be expected for intrinsically disordered proteins, again consistent with the experimental data. These predicted differences were shown to be statistically significant by comparing their accessible surface areas. The three programs were then used to predict the structures of three orphan proteins whose crystal structures had been solved, two of which display novel folds. Surprisingly, only for the protein which did not have a novel fold, and was taxonomically restricted, rather than being a true orphan, did all three algorithms predict very similar, high-quality structures, closely resembling the crystal structure. Finally, they were used to predict the structures of seven orphan proteins with well-identified biological functions, whose 3D structures are not known. Two proteins, which were predicted to be disordered based on their sequences, are predicted by all three structure algorithms to be extended structures. The other five were predicted to be compact structures with only two exceptions in the case of AlphaFold2. All three prediction algorithms make remarkably similar and high-quality predictions for one large protein, HCO_11565, from a nematode. It is conjectured that this is due to many homologs in the taxonomically restricted family of which it is a member, and to the fact that the Dali server revealed several nonrelated proteins with similar folds. An animated Interactive 3D Complement (I3DC) is available in Proteopedia at http://proteopedia.org/w/Journal:Proteins:3.

How genuine are sub-replacement ideal family sizes in urban China?

Ideal family sizes remain at or above two in most low-fertility settings, but sub-replacement fertility ideals have been reported for urban China. The presence of restrictive family planning policies has led to a debate as to whether such ideals are genuine. This study exploits the ending of the one-child policy and the beginning of a universal two-child policy in October 2015 to investigate whether relaxing the restrictions led to an increase in ideal family size. We apply difference-in-differences and individual-level fixed-effect models to longitudinal data from a near-nationwide survey. For married individuals aged 20–39, relaxing the restrictions from one to two children increased the mean ideal family size by around 0.2 and the proportion who desired two or more children by around 19 percentage points. Findings suggest that although reported ideal family sizes have been reduced by policy restrictions, sub-replacement ideal family sizes in urban China appear to be genuine.

СЪВРЕМЕННИ СЕМЕЙНИ ПОЛИТИКИ В КИТАЙ. ПОЛИТИКА ЗА ЕДНО ДЕТЕ В СЕМЕЙСТВОТО (ПРИЧИНИ, ПРОБЛЕМИ, ПОСЛЕДИЦИ)

The article is an attempt to summarize briefly the reasons, problems and consequences for China of the introduction of one of the most restrictive family planning policies in the world – the One Child Per Family Policy. China’s demographic dynamics over the past few decades have been extremely influenced by this family policy. This scholarly presentation includes a historical overview, the specific causes, the nature of the problems and the consequences of China’s family planning strategy.