Assessing Sexual Orientation Symptoms In Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Development And Validation Of The Sexual Orientation Obsessions And Reactions Test (SORT)

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) includes many symptom presentations, which creates unique diagnostic challenges. Fears surrounding one’s sexual orientation are common within OCD (also called SO-OCD), but SO-OCD is consistently misdiagnosed by physicians and psychologists. To address this issue, we describe the development of a self-report measure for assessing SO-OCD to help distinguish OCD from distress caused by a sexual orientation identity crisis. The current paper details two studies that established the psychometric properties and clinical utility of this measure. In Study 1, the factor structure, validity, and reliability were examined for the measure’s 12 items in a sample of 1,673 university students. The results revealed a two-factor solution for the measure (Factor 1: Transformation Fears; Factor 2: Somatic Checking) and preliminary evidence of validity and reliability. In Study 2, the measure was tested with LGBTQ and heterosexual community samples and clinical samples of individuals with SO-OCD and other types of OCD. The two-factor solution and evidence of validity and reliability were supported in these samples. Cut-off points were established to distinguish between community members and SO-OCD sufferers, as well as between those experiencing SO-OCD and other types of OCD. Limitations and future directions are discussed

Electronic structure and physical properties of the spinel-type phase of BeP2N4 from all-electron density functional calculations

Using density-functional-theory-based ab initio methods, the electronic structure and physical properties of the newly synthesized nitride BeP2N4 with a phenakite-type structure and the predicted high-pressure spinel phase of BeP2N4 are studied in detail. It is shown that both polymorphs are wide band-gap semiconductors with relatively small electron effective masses at the conduction-band minima. The spinel-type phase is more covalently bonded due to the increased number of P-N bonds for P at the octahedral sites. Calculations of mechanical properties indicate that the spinel-type polymorph is a promising superhard material with notably large bulk, shear, and Young’s moduli. Also calculated are the Be K, P K, P L3, and N K edges of the electron energy-loss near-edge structure for both phases. They show marked differences because of the different local environments of the atoms in the two crystalline polymorphs. These differences will be very useful for the experimental identification of the products of high-pressure syntheses targeting the predicted spinel-type phase of BeP2N4

P2P: Assessing a Peer Evaluation Strategy

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of peer evaluation in a performance-based, Web-enhanced undergraduate instructional technology course. The results of a survey administered at the end of three semesters indicated that learners believe the peer evaluation process helped them improve the quality of their own work, both as a result of being a peer evaluator themselves and from the quality of the feedback received from their classmate-evaluators. Higher quality final projects with fewer mistakes corroborated the students’ assessment. These findings provide valuable information for instructors who are currently utilizing or considering the implementation of a peer evaluation process as a part of their instructional strategy. The results of this study indicate that including peer evaluation in the final project enhanced student performance. Significant technology integration was used to facilitate the projects

Unconventional Gravitational Excitation of a Schwarzschild Black Hole

Besides the well-known quasinormal modes, the gravitational spectrum of a Schwarzschild black hole also has a continuum part on the negative imaginary frequency axis. The latter is studied numerically for quadrupole waves. The results show unexpected striking behavior near the algebraically special frequency $\Omega=-4i$. This reveals a pair of unconventional damped modes very near $\Omega$, confirmed analytically.Comment: REVTeX4, 4pp, 6 EPS figure files. N.B.: "Alec" is my first, and "Maassen van den Brink" my family name. v2: better pole placement in Fig. 1. v3: fixed Refs. [9,20]. v4: added context on "area quantum" research; trimmed one Fig.; textual clarification

Cas9+ conditionally-immortalized macrophages as a tool for bacterial pathogenesis and beyond.

Macrophages play critical roles in immunity, development, tissue repair, and cancer, but studies of their function have been hampered by poorly-differentiated tumor cell lines and genetically-intractable primary cells. Here we report a facile system for genome editing in non-transformed macrophages by differentiating ER-Hoxb8 myeloid progenitors from Cas9-expressing transgenic mice. These conditionally immortalized macrophages (CIMs) retain characteristics of primary macrophages derived from the bone marrow yet allow for easy genetic manipulation and a virtually unlimited supply of cells. We demonstrate the utility of this system for dissection of host genetics during intracellular bacterial infection using two important human pathogens: Listeria monocytogenes and Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Mechanosynthesis and mechanochemical treatment of bismuthdoped vanadium phosphorus oxide catalysts for the partial oxidation of n-butane to maleic anhydride

Three Bi-doped vanadyl pyrophosphate catalysts were prepared via dihydrate route (VPD method), which consisted of different preparation methods including mechanosynthesis, mechanochemical treatment, and the conventional reflux method. The catalysts produced by the above three methods were characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and temperature programmed reduction (TPR). Catalytic evaluation for the partial oxidation of n-butane to maleic anhydride (MA) was also carried out. The XRD patterns of all the Bi-doped catalysts showed the main peaks of pyrophosphate phase. Lower intensity peaks were observed for the mechanochemically treated Bi-doped catalyst (VPDBiMill) with two additional small peaks corresponding to the presence of a small amount of V5+ phase. The TPR profiles showed that the highest amount of active oxygen species, i.e, V4+–O− pair, responsible for n-butane activation, was removed from VPDBiMill. Furthermore, from the catalytic test results, the graph of selectivity to MA as a function of the conversion of n-butane demonstrated that VPDBiMill was the most selective catalyst. This suggests that the mechanochemical treatment of vanadium phosphate catalyst (VPDBiMill) is a potential method to improve the catalytic properties for the partial oxidation of n-butane to maleic anhydride

High-Order Contamination in the Tail of Gravitational Collapse

It is well known that the late-time behaviour of gravitational collapse is {\it dominated} by an inverse power-law decaying tail. We calculate {\it higher-order corrections} to this power-law behaviour in a spherically symmetric gravitational collapse. The dominant ``contamination'' is shown to die off at late times as $M^2t^{-4}\ln(t/M)$. This decay rate is much {\it slower} than has been considered so far. It implies, for instance, that an `exact' (numerical) determination of the power index to within $\sim 1$ requires extremely long integration times of order $10^4 M$. We show that the leading order fingerprint of the black-hole electric {\it charge} is of order $Q^2t^{-4}$.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

Pharmacology of DB844, an orally active aza analogue of pafuramidine, in a monkey model of second stage human African trypanosomiasis

Novel drugs to treat human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) are still urgently needed despite the recent addition of nifurtimox-eflornithine combination therapy (NECT) to WHO Model Lists of Essential Medicines against second stage HAT, where parasites have invaded the central nervous system (CNS). The pharmacology of a potential orally available lead compound, N-methoxy-6-{5-[4-(N-methoxyamidino) phenyl]-furan-2-yl}-nicotinamidine (DB844), was evaluated in a vervet monkey model of second stage HAT, following promising results in mice. DB844 was administered orally to vervet monkeys, beginning 28 days post infection (DPI) with Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense KETRI 2537. DB844 was absorbed and converted to the active metabolite 6-[5-(4-phenylamidinophenyl)-furanyl-2-yl]-nicotinamide (DB820), exhibiting plasma C(max) values of 430 and 190 nM for DB844 and DB820, respectively, after the 14th dose at 6 mg/kg qd. A 100-fold reduction in blood trypanosome counts was observed within 24 h of the third dose and, at the end of treatment evaluation performed four days post the last drug dose, trypanosomes were not detected in the blood or cerebrospinal fluid of any monkey. However, some animals relapsed during the 300 days of post treatment monitoring, resulting in a cure rate of 3/8 (37.5%) and 3/7 (42.9%) for the 5 mg/kg×10 days and the 6 mg/kg×14 days dose regimens respectively. These DB844 efficacy data were an improvement compared with pentamidine and pafuramidine both of which were previously shown to be non-curative in this model of CNS stage HAT. These data show that synthesis of novel diamidines with improved activity against CNS-stage HAT was possible