Investigating client dropout from psychotherapeutic treatments for personality disorders

Dropout from therapy for personality disorder (PD) represents a clinically-important but poorly understood phenomenon in the existing literature. The present grounded theory study explores the experiences of clients with PD, and their therapists, of treatment dropout from a National Health Service outpatient psychotherapy service, specialising in psychodynamic interventions for PD. Pre-therapy questionnaires for 20 clients were initially reviewed to generate hypotheses about the differences between treatment dropouts and completers, before a focus group was conducted with six therapists to explore their beliefs about and experiences of client dropout. Finally, six individual interviews were conducted with clients with PD, five of whom had dropped out from therapy at the host service. The final model highlighted the importance of clients’ treatment expectations, how they perceived their therapist’s behaviour, and their interpersonal history in making decisions about whether to stay in or drop out of therapy. The impact of therapy endings upon clients is also discussed, as well as therapists’ beliefs about managing complex clients, both individually and within a team, under current financial and clinical pressures. The findings are then discussed in relation to existing theory and research, and the clinical implications and limitations of the study are presented

Time series forecasting with neural networks: a comparative study using the air line data

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73285/1/1467-9876.00109.pd

Analysing Magnetism Using Scanning SQUID Microscopy

Scanning superconducting quantum interference device microscopy (SSM) is a scanning probe technique that images local magnetic flux, which allows for mapping of magnetic fields with high field and spatial accuracy. Many studies involving SSM have been published in the last decades, using SSM to make qualitative statements about magnetism. However, quantitative analysis using SSM has received less attention. In this work, we discuss several aspects of interpreting SSM images and methods to improve quantitative analysis. First, we analyse the spatial resolution and how it depends on several factors. Second, we discuss the analysis of SSM scans and the information obtained from the SSM data. Using simulations, we show how signals evolve as a function of changing scan height, SQUID loop size, magnetization strength and orientation. We also investigated 2-dimensional autocorrelation analysis to extract information about the size, shape and symmetry of magnetic features. Finally, we provide an outlook on possible future applications and improvements.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

Efficient On-the-fly Category Retrieval using ConvNets and GPUs

We investigate the gains in precision and speed, that can be obtained by using Convolutional Networks (ConvNets) for on-the-fly retrieval - where classifiers are learnt at run time for a textual query from downloaded images, and used to rank large image or video datasets. We make three contributions: (i) we present an evaluation of state-of-the-art image representations for object category retrieval over standard benchmark datasets containing 1M+ images; (ii) we show that ConvNets can be used to obtain features which are incredibly performant, and yet much lower dimensional than previous state-of-the-art image representations, and that their dimensionality can be reduced further without loss in performance by compression using product quantization or binarization. Consequently, features with the state-of-the-art performance on large-scale datasets of millions of images can fit in the memory of even a commodity GPU card; (iii) we show that an SVM classifier can be learnt within a ConvNet framework on a GPU in parallel with downloading the new training images, allowing for a continuous refinement of the model as more images become available, and simultaneous training and ranking. The outcome is an on-the-fly system that significantly outperforms its predecessors in terms of: precision of retrieval, memory requirements, and speed, facilitating accurate on-the-fly learning and ranking in under a second on a single GPU.Comment: Published in proceedings of ACCV 201

Nitric acid scavenging by mineral and biomass burning aerosols

The abundance of gas phase nitric acid in the upper troposphere is overestimated by global chemistry-transport models, especially during the spring and summer seasons. Recent aircraft data obtained over the central US show that mineral aerosols were abundant in the upper troposphere during spring. Chemical reactions on mineral dust may provide an important sink for nitric acid. In regions where the mineral dust abundance is low in the upper troposphere similar HNO3 removal processes may occur on biomass burning aerosols. We propose that mineral and biomass burning aerosols may provide an important global sink for gas phase nitric acid, particularly during spring and summer when aerosol composition in the upper troposphere may be greatly affected by dust storms from east Asia or tropical biomass burning plumes

Cytokinin oxidase activity from Phaseolus vulgaris L. cv. Great Northern callus tissues

Cytokinin oxidase activity in callus tissues of Phaseolus vulgaris L. cv. Great Northern has been examined using an assay based on the oxidation of radioactively labeled N⁶ -(Δ² -isopentenyl) adenine (i⁶Ade) to adenine (Ade). Conditions for the quantitative extraction and assay of the enzyme have been established. The substrate specificity of the enzyme appears similar to that reported for cytokinin oxidase preparations from other plant sources. Solutions of exogenous cytokinins applied directly to the surface of Great Northern callus tissues induced relatively rapid (in less than an hour) increases in cytokinin oxidase activity. The cytokinin-induced increase in cytokinin oxidase activity appears to require RNA and protein synthesis. All cytokinin-active compounds tested, including substrates and non-substrates of cytokinin oxidase, were effective in inducing elevated levels of the enzyme in Great Northern callus tissue. The cytokininactive urea derivative, Thidiazuron, was as effective as any adenine derivative in inducing this response. The addition of Cu⁺² to cytokinin oxidase assay mixtures containing imidazole buffer enhanced the in vitro activity of the enzyme more than 20-fold. The effect was enzyme dependent and specific for copper and the cytokinin oxidase catalyzed reaction. In the presence of copper and imidazole, the degradation of i⁶Ade to Ade catalyzed by cytokinin oxidase was observed to proceed under anaerobic conditions. This result suggests that the copper-imidazole complex is substituting for oxygen as an electron accepter in the cytokinin oxidase reaction. The chromatographic properties of the cytokinin oxidase activity have also been investigated. Most of the cytokinin oxidase activity extracted from callus tissues bound to concanavalin A-Sepharose 4B and was specifically eluted with methyl-mannose. This result suggests that the enzyme is a glycoprotein. DEAE-cellulose chromatography resolved the cytokinin oxidase activity into two peaks. The major fraction, which comprised 85% to 90% of the cytokinin oxidase activity extracted from the callus tissues, bound to concanavalin A-Sepharose 4B. The minor peak of cytokinin oxidase activity did not. These results provide evidence for the presence of multiple forms of cytokinin oxidase, but the possibility of artifacts generated during enzyme preparation cannot yet be excluded

Once only principle: Benefits, barriers & next steps

The Once-Once Principle (OOP) suggests that citizens and businesses should have the right to supply information only once to a public administration. It would then be the responsibility of public administration offices to take all necessary actions in order to internally share this data by respecting the relevant data protection rules. The overall aim is to reduce administrative burden. The implementation of the OOP is high on the political agenda of many countries including the Member States of the European Union. The aim of this panel is to enable an open discussion between the panelists and the audience in order to exchange good practices and also identify and prioritize benefits and barriers as well as possible next steps towards widely implementing the once only principle in public service provisioning