Production and Properties of the Liquid Scintillators used in the Stereo Reactor Neutrino Experiment

The electron antineutrino spectrum in the Stereo reactor experiment (ILL Grenoble) is measured via the inverse beta decay signals in an organic liquid scintillator. The six target cells of the Stereo detector are filled with about 1800 litres of Gd-loaded liquid scintillator optimised for the requirements of the experiment. These target cells are surrounded by similar cells containing liquid scintillator without the Gd-loading. The development and characteristics of these scintillators are reported. In particular, the transparency, light production and pulse shape discrimination capabilities of the organic liquids are discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Lexical characteristics of emotional narratives in schizophrenia : Relationships with symptoms, functioning, and social cognition

Previous research has suggested that complexity of speech, speech rate, use of emotion words, and use of pronouns are all potential indicators of important clinical components of schizophrenia, but little research has examined the relationships of these disturbances to cognitive variables impaired in schizophrenia, including social cognition. The current study examined these lexical differences to better characterize the cognitive substrates of speech disturbances in schizophrenia. Brief narratives of individuals with schizophrenia (n = 42) and non-clinical controls (n = 48) were compared according to their lexical characteristics, and these were examined for relationships to social cognition and real-world functioning. Significant differences between the groups were found in words per sentence (related to functioning, but not negative symptoms) as well as pronoun use (related to attributional style and theory of mind). Additionally, lexical characteristics effectively distinguished individuals with schizophrenia from non-clinical controls. Language disturbances in schizophrenia seem related to social cognition impairments and real-world functioning, and are a robust indicator of clinical status

Novel Opaque Scintillator for Neutrino Detection

There is rising interest in organic scintillators with low scattering length for future neutrino detectors. Therefore, a new scintillator system was developed based on admixtures of paraffin wax in linear alkyl benzene. The transparency and viscosity of this gel-like material can be tuned by temperature adjustment. Whereas it is a colorless transparent liquid at temperatures around 40C it has a milky wax structure below 20C. The production and properties of such a scintillator as well as its advantages compared to transparent liquids are described.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Automatic And Controlled Components Of Attribution Biases In Schizophrenia; Examination Of Novel Measures Of Intentionality And Immorality Bias

Social cognition is a strong predictor of outcome in schizophrenia and it is responsive to psychosocial intervention. In schizophrenia research, it has been shown to comprise two categories of cognitive variables, skills and biases. Existing measures of one core social cognitive bias – hostile attribution bias – do not allow access to assessment of the processes underlying such judgments, they conflate multiple constructs, and relationships to criterion outcomes are modest. To address these limitations, the present study applied two innovative paradigms from social psychology – the intentionality bias (Rosset, 2008) and the immorality bias (Hester, Payne & Gray, 2017) – to a sample of individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and a comparison group of non-clinical controls. Results suggested that individuals with schizophrenia do present with an elevated bias to interpret intentionality in others’ ambiguous actions, and this bias appears modestly related to interpersonal conflict, paranoia, hostile cognition and behavior, though unrelated to positive symptoms. The immorality bias, on the other hand, was not elevated in schizophrenia or paranoia, nor was it related to any disorder-related processes. In examining parameters separating controlled and automatic processes, the present study raises a number of questions about measurement of biases and dual-process procedures in schizophrenia.Doctor of Philosoph

For hospitalized dementia patients, do nonpharmacological interventions reduce agitation?

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The Narrative of Emotions Task: A psychometric study of social cognition and social functioning in individuals with schizophrenia

Social cognitive deficits in schizophrenia are well documented and related to functional outcome. Current social cognition measures are often not psychometrically validated, too heterogeneous for standardization, and focus principally on one domain of social cognition rather than the simultaneous activation of multiple domains. Also, few if any allow for personalization of stimuli and interpretation of personally evocative events. An alternative methodology that addresses these limitations is the analysis of personal narratives. The present study creates and evaluates the psychometric properties of a measure of emotional narratives potentially indicative of social cognition skills called the Narrative of Emotions Task (NET). The NET was used to assess the performance of 50 participants with a diagnosis of schizophrenia spectrum disorders and 50 nonclinical controls. Overall, the NET's psychometric properties justify further use of narrative methods of social cognition assessment in this population.Master of Art