Relationships between paranoid thinking, self-esteem and the menstrual cycle.

This study aimed to investigate whether paranoid experiences and levels of self-esteem fluctuate over the menstrual cycle and whether levels of self-esteem are lower when perceived persecution is felt to be deserved. Measures of anxiety, depression, persecution, deservedness and self-esteem were completed on-line by 278 women over their menstrual cycle. Responses were compared at the paramenstrual (3 days before and after menses onset) and mid-cycle phase. At the paramenstrual phase persecution, negative self-esteem, anxiety and depression were higher and positive self-esteem was lower than at mid-cycle. A greater proportion of women experienced persecution as deserved at the paramenstrual phase. This was associated with higher depression and negative self-esteem scores. Increased levels of deservedness significantly strengthened the relationship between persecution and negative, but not positive, self-esteem. These findings suggest that the paramenstrual phase is a time of vulnerability to increased paranoid experiences, an increased likelihood that feelings of persecution will feel deserved and lowered self-esteem. The findings support the view that interpersonal sensitivities may be key to menstrual cycle symptoms and have an impact on relationships. Further, the study illustrated that ideas developed for psychosis could make a valuable contribution to understanding and managing this aspect of menstruation-related distress

Dendritic cell-specific delivery of Flt3L by coronavirus vectors secures induction of therapeutic antitumor immunity

Efficacy of antitumor vaccination depends to a large extent on antigen targeting to dendritic cells (DCs). Here, we assessed antitumor immunity induced by attenuated coronavirus vectors which exclusively target DCs in vivo and express either lymphocyte- or DC-activating cytokines in combination with a GFP-tagged model antigen. Tracking of in vivo transduced DCs revealed that vectors encoding for Fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 ligand (Flt3L) exhibited a higher capacity to induce DC maturation compared to vectors delivering IL-2 or IL-15. Moreover, Flt3L vectors more efficiently induced tumor-specific CD8(+) T cells, expanded the epitope repertoire, and provided both prophylactic and therapeutic tumor immunity. In contrast, IL-2- or IL-15-encoding vectors showed a substantially lower efficacy in CD8(+) T cell priming and failed to protect the host once tumors had been established. Thus, specific in vivo targeting of DCs with coronavirus vectors in conjunction with appropriate conditioning of the microenvironment through Flt3L represents an efficient strategy for the generation of therapeutic antitumor immunity

Feasibility of a walking virtual reality system for rehabilitation: objective and subjective parameters

[EN] Background: Even though virtual reality (VR) is increasingly used in rehabilitation, the implementation of walking navigation in VR still poses a technological challenge for current motion tracking systems. Different metaphors simulate locomotion without involving real gait kinematics, which can affect presence, orientation, spatial memory and cognition, and even performance. All these factors can dissuade their use in rehabilitation. We hypothesize that a marker-based head tracking solution would allow walking in VR with high sense of presence and without causing sickness. The objectives of this study were to determine the accuracy, the jitter, and the lag of the tracking system and its elicited sickness and presence in comparison of a CAVE system. Methods: The accuracy and the jitter around the working area at three different heights and the lag of the head tracking system were analyzed. In addition, 47 healthy subjects completed a search task that involved navigation in the walking VR system and in the CAVE system. Navigation was enabled by natural locomotion in the walking VR system and through a specific device in the CAVE system. An HMD was used as display in the walking VR system. After interacting with each system, subjects rated their sickness in a seven-point scale and their presence in the Slater-Usoh-Steed Questionnaire and a modified version of the Presence Questionnaire. Results: Better performance was registered at higher heights, where accuracy was less than 0.6 cm and the jitter was about 6 mm. The lag of the system was 120 ms. Participants reported that both systems caused similar low levels of sickness (about 2.4 over 7). However, ratings showed that the walking VR system elicited higher sense of presence than the CAVE system in both the Slater-Usoh-Steed Questionnaire (17.6 +/- 0.3 vs 14.6 +/- 0.6 over 21, respectively) and the modified Presence Questionnaire (107.4 +/- 2.0 vs 93.5 +/- 3.2 over 147, respectively). Conclusions: The marker-based solution provided accurate, robust, and fast head tracking to allow navigation in the VR system by walking without causing relevant sickness and promoting higher sense of presence than CAVE systems, thus enabling natural walking in full-scale environments, which can enhance the ecological validity of VR-based rehabilitation applications.The authors wish to thank the staff of LabHuman for their support in this project, especially José Miguel Martínez and José Roda for their assistance. 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Evaluating the Potential Effectiveness of Compensatory Mitigation Strategies for Marine Bycatch

Conservationists are continually seeking new strategies to reverse population declines and safeguard against species extinctions. Here we evaluate the potential efficacy of a recently proposed approach to offset a major anthropogenic threat to many marine vertebrates: incidental bycatch in commercial fisheries operations. This new approach, compensatory mitigation for marine bycatch (CMMB), is conceived as a way to replace or reduce mandated restrictions on fishing activities with compensatory activities (e.g., removal of introduced predators from islands) funded by levies placed on fishers. While efforts are underway to bring CMMB into policy discussions, to date there has not been a detailed evaluation of CMMB's potential as a conservation tool, and in particular, a list of necessary and sufficient criteria that CMMB must meet to be an effective conservation strategy. Here we present a list of criteria to assess CMMB that are tied to critical ecological aspects of the species targeted for conservation, the range of possible mitigation activities, and the multi-species impact of fisheries bycatch. We conclude that, overall, CMMB has little potential for benefit and a substantial potential for harm if implemented to solve most fisheries bycatch problems. In particular, CMMB is likely to be effective only when applied to short-lived and highly-fecund species (not the characteristics of most bycatch-impacted species) and to fisheries that take few non-target species, and especially few non-seabird species (not the characteristics of most fisheries). Thus, CMMB appears to have limited application and should only be implemented after rigorous appraisal on a case-specific basis; otherwise it has the potential to accelerate declines of marine species currently threatened by fisheries bycatch

Binding and neutralization of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and related ligands by VEGF Trap, ranibizumab and bevacizumab

Pharmacological inhibition of VEGF-A has proven to be effective in inhibiting angiogenesis and vascular leak associated with cancers and various eye diseases. However, little information is currently available on the binding kinetics and relative biological activity of various VEGF inhibitors. Therefore, we have evaluated the binding kinetics of two anti-VEGF antibodies, ranibizumab and bevacizumab, and VEGF Trap (also known as aflibercept), a novel type of soluble decoy receptor, with substantially higher affinity than conventional soluble VEGF receptors. VEGF Trap bound to all isoforms of human VEGF-A tested with subpicomolar affinity. Ranibizumab and bevacizumab also bound human VEGF-A, but with markedly lower affinity. The association rate for VEGF Trap binding to VEGF-A was orders of magnitude faster than that measured for bevacizumab and ranibizumab. Similarly, in cell-based bioassays, VEGF Trap inhibited the activation of VEGFR1 and VEGFR2, as well as VEGF-A induced calcium mobilization and migration in human endothelial cells more potently than ranibizumab or bevacizumab. Only VEGF Trap bound human PlGF and VEGF-B, and inhibited VEGFR1 activation and HUVEC migration induced by PlGF. These data differentiate VEGF Trap from ranibizumab and bevacizumab in terms of its markedly higher affinity for VEGF-A, as well as its ability to bind VEGF-B and PlGF

Online methods in geography educational research

Online methods in geography educational researc