Internet- and mobile-based psychological interventions: applications, efficacy, and potential for improving mental health.

The majority of mental health disorders remain untreated. Many limitations of traditional psychological interventions such as limited availability of evidence-based interventions and clinicians could potentially be overcome by providing Internet- and mobile-based psychological interventions (IMIs). This paper is a report of the Taskforce E-Health of the European Federation of Psychologists’ Association and will provide an introduction to the subject, discusses areas of application, and reviews the current evidence regarding the efficacy of IMIs for the prevention and treatment of mental disorders. Meta-analyses based on randomized trials clearly indicate that therapist-guided stand-alone IMIs can result in meaningful benefits for a range of indications including, for example, depression, anxiety, insomnia, or posttraumatic stress disorders. The clinical significance of results of purely self-guided interventions is for many disorders less clear, especially with regard to effects under routine care conditions. Studies on the prevention of mental health disorders (MHD) are promising. Blended concepts, combining traditional face-to-face approaches with Internet- and mobile-based elements might have the potential of increasing the effects of psychological interventions on the one hand or to reduce costs of mental health treatments on the other hand. We also discuss mechanisms of change and the role of the therapist in such approaches, contraindications, potential limitations, and risk involved with IMIs, briefly review the status of the implementation into routine health care across Europe, and discuss confidentiality as well as ethical aspects that need to be taken into account, when implementing IMIs. Internet- and mobile-based psychological interventions have high potential for improving mental health and should be implemented more widely in routine care

Sphingomyelinase D Activity in Model Membranes: Structural Effects of in situ Generation of Ceramide-1-Phosphate

The toxicity of Loxosceles spider venom has been attributed to a rare enzyme, sphingomyelinase D, which transforms sphingomyelin to ceramide-1-phosphate. The bases of its inflammatory and dermonecrotic activity, however, remain unclear. In this work the effects of ceramide-1-phosphate on model membranes were studied both by in situ generation of this lipid using a recombinant sphingomyelinase D from the spider Loxosceles laeta and by pre-mixing it with sphingomyelin and cholesterol. The systems of choice were large unilamellar vesicles for bulk studies (enzyme kinetics, fluorescence spectroscopy and dynamic light scattering) and giant unilamellar vesicles for fluorescence microscopy examination using a variety of fluorescent probes. The influence of membrane lateral structure on the kinetics of enzyme activity and the consequences of enzyme activity on the structure of target membranes containing sphingomyelin were examined. The findings indicate that: 1) ceramide-1-phosphate (particularly lauroyl ceramide-1-phosphate) can be incorporated into sphingomyelin bilayers in a concentration-dependent manner and generates coexistence of liquid disordered/solid ordered domains, 2) the activity of sphingomyelinase D is clearly influenced by the supramolecular organization of its substrate in membranes and, 3) in situ ceramide-1-phosphate generation by enzymatic activity profoundly alters the lateral structure and morphology of the target membranes

A Molecular Clock Infers Heterogeneous Tissue Age Among Patients with Barrett's Esophagus

National Institutes of Health (www.nih.gov) and the National Cancer Institute (www.cancer.gov) under grants U01CA182940 (BG-U01) (to EGL, CJW, WDH, WMG, and KC), 5P30CA015704 (to WMG and CJW), 5U01CA152756 (to WMG and CJW), 5U54CA163060 (to AC), and NIH1P50CA150964-01A1 (to JEW

THE MATERHORN: Unraveling the Intricacies of Mountain Weather

Emerging application areas such as air pollution in megacities, wind energy, urban security, and operation of unmanned aerial vehicles have intensified scientific and societal interest in mountain meteorology. To address scientific needs and help improve the prediction of mountain weather, the U.S. Department of Defense has funded a research effort—the Mountain Terrain Atmospheric Modeling and Observations (MATERHORN) Program—that draws the expertise of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional, and multinational group of researchers. The program has four principal thrusts, encompassing modeling, experimental, technology, and parameterization components, directed at diagnosing model deficiencies and critical knowledge gaps, conducting experimental studies, and developing tools for model improvements. The access to the Granite Mountain Atmospheric Sciences Testbed of the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, as well as to a suite of conventional and novel high-end airborne and surface measurement platforms, has provided an unprecedented opportunity to investigate phenomena of time scales from a few seconds to a few days, covering spatial extents of tens of kilometers down to millimeters. This article provides an overview of the MATERHORN and a glimpse at its initial findings. Orographic forcing creates a multitude of time-dependent submesoscale phenomena that contribute to the variability of mountain weather at mesoscale. The nexus of predictions by mesoscale model ensembles and observations are described, identifying opportunities for further improvements in mountain weather forecasting

Sharing and community curation of mass spectrometry data with Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking

The potential of the diverse chemistries present in natural products (NP) for biotechnology and medicine remains untapped because NP databases are not searchable with raw data and the NP community has no way to share data other than in published papers. Although mass spectrometry techniques are well-suited to high-throughput characterization of natural products, there is a pressing need for an infrastructure to enable sharing and curation of data. We present Global Natural Products Social molecular networking (GNPS, http://gnps.ucsd.edu), an open-access knowledge base for community wide organization and sharing of raw, processed or identified tandem mass (MS/MS) spectrometry data. In GNPS crowdsourced curation of freely available community-wide reference MS libraries will underpin improved annotations. Data-driven social-networking should facilitate identification of spectra and foster collaborations. We also introduce the concept of ‘living data’ through continuous reanalysis of deposited data

Prevalence of Broad-Host-Range Lytic Bacteriophages of \u3ci\u3eSphaerotilus natans\u3c/i\u3e, \u3ci\u3eEscherichia coli\u3c/i\u3e, and \u3ci\u3ePseudomonas aeruginosa\u3c/i\u3e

Two bacteriophage collections were examined with regard to their ability to form plaques on multiple bacterial host species. Nine of 10 phages studied were found to be broad-host-range bacteriophages. These phages fell into two groups. Group 1, the SN series, was isolated from sewage treatment plant samples with Sphaerotilus natans ATCC 13338 as a host. The DNAs of these bacteriophages contained modified bases and were insensitive to cleavage by type I and II restriction endonucleases. The efficiency of plating of these bacteriophages was changed only slightly on the alternate host. Group 2, the BHR series, was isolated by a two-host enrichment protocol. These bacteriophages were sensitive to restriction, and their efficiency of plating was dramatically reduced on the alternate host. Our results suggest that a multiple-host enrichment protocol may be more effective for the isolation of broad-host-range bacteriophages by avoiding the selection bias inherent in single-host methods. At least two of the broad-host-range bacteriophages mediated generalized transduction. We suggest that broad-host-range bacteriophages play a key role in phage ecology and gene transfer in nature