Sarti (ed), Women and Economic Power in Premodern Royal Courts (Arc Humanities Press, 2020)

Review of Cathleen Sarti, ed., Women and Economic Power in Premodern Royal Courts (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2020)

Fleming, Juana I: Legitimacy and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Castile (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)

Review of Gillian B. Fleming, Juana I: Legitimacy and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Castile (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)

Emotional Salience of Positive and Negative Aspects of Cannabis Use in Cannabis Use Disorder: The Development of a Novel Self-referential Processing Task Using the Late Positive Potential

Background: Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) is increasingly prevalent in the United States, while perceived addiction risk and treatment-seeking are declining. Emotional salience of cannabis-use-related problems and benefits likely contribute to motivation to change, but measurement of this process has been limited. The present study sought to validate a novel assessment of emotional appraisal of self-referential cannabis use-related information across subjective and neurophysiological units of analysis. Method: Non-treatment-seeking individuals with DSM-5 severe CUD (N=42) completed a task that presented auditory self-referential, personalized cannabis-use-related problem and benefit statements, as well as neutral self-referential statements, during electroencephalography recording. The late positive potential (LPP) was used as a neurophysiological measure of emotional salience. Valence/arousal ratings of each statement, along with their motivational importance in sustaining vs. reducing cannabis use, were also obtained. Results: As predicted, valence and arousal ratings significantly differentiated cannabis use-related problems and benefits from neutral statements. Cannabis-use-related benefits were rated as more motivationally important relative to problems at a trend level. Partially consistent with predictions, the LPP to cannabis-use-related benefits was significantly larger than LPPs to cannabis-use-related problems and neutral statements, which did not differ from each other. Bonferroni-adjusted exploratory correlations revealed that the LPP to cannabis-use-related problems was sensitive to recent cannabis use and change attempts. Conclusion: These results provide some support for the validity of this novel multi-method assessment of emotional reactivity to personalized cannabis-use-related self-referential information in non-treatment-seeking individuals with severe CUD. The dissociation between subjective and neurophysiological reactivity to self-referential cannabis-related problem statements should be further explored

Emotional salience of positive and negative aspects of cannabis use in cannabis use disorder: The development of a novel self-referential processing task using the late positive potential

Background: Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) is increasingly prevalent in the United States, while perceived addiction risk and treatment-seeking are declining. Emotional salience of cannabis-use-related problems and benefits likely contribute to motivation to change, but measurement of this process has been limited. The present study sought to validate a novel assessment of emotional appraisal of self-referential cannabis-use-related information across subjective and neurophysiological units of analysis. Method: Non-treatment-seeking individuals with DSM-5 severe CUD (N = 42) completed a task that presented auditory self-referential, personalized cannabis-use-related problem and benefit statements, as well as neutral self-referential statements, during electroencephalography recording. The late positive potential (LPP) was used as a neurophysiological measure of emotional salience. Valence/arousal ratings of each statement, along with their motivational importance in sustaining vs. reducing cannabis use, were also obtained. Results: As predicted, valence and arousal ratings significantly differentiated cannabis-use-related problems and benefits from neutral statements. Partially consistent with predictions, the LPP to cannabis-use-related benefits was significantly larger than LPPs to cannabis-use-related problems and neutral statements, which did not differ from each other. Bonferroni-adjusted exploratory correlations revealed that the LPP to cannabis-use-related problems was sensitive to recent cannabis use frequency. Conclusion: These results provide some support for the validity of this novel multi-method assessment of emotional reactivity to personalized cannabis-use-related self-referential information in non-treatment-seeking individuals with severe CUD. The dissociation between subjective and neurophysiological reactivity to self-referential cannabis-related problem statements should be further explored

Growth performances, chemical composition, and microbiological loads of mealworm reared with brewery spent grains and bread leftovers

Tenebrio molitor (mealworm) larvae are one of the most intriguing edible insects, and they may be raised on a variety of substrates, including by-products, side-stream products, and former foodstuff. The substrates could affect drastically the productive performances as well as the chemical-nutritional value of the larvae. In this study we tested two main substrate ingredients, brewery spent grains (SG) and bread leftovers (B), without adding any other dry ingredients. In order to correlate the chemical composition of the substrates to the larvae characteristics, five different diets were tested as 100% of a single ingredient (SG100 and B100), 75–25% mixes (SG75B25 and SG25B75) and 50–50% mixes (SG50B50). The effects of the substrate were tested on the development rates, chemical composition, and microbial loads of mealworm larvae. The effects of fasting, washing, and cooking were also tested on the microbiological determinations. Results indicate that all the parameters were affected by the chemical compositions of the substrates. The larvae fed the higher contents of SG showed the best growth performances along with higher nutritional values. The diet with only bread (B100) showed the worst parameters, both on the growth performances and on the nutritive values. Microbial loads were also affected by the diets, with minor effects in relation to the washing and fasting procedures, while cooking drastically reduced all the microbial loads. Taking into account that the two employed ingredients were former foodstuff or by-products it is important to highlight the capacity of mealworms to positively convert side-stream materials into rich nutritional animal products.Highlights Mealworm could be proficiently reared on brewery spent grains and bread leftovers converting them into nutritional animal products. Mealworm productive performances and nutritional value could be affected by the employed substrate. Evidence of high mealworms plasticity and potential tailor made of the final outcomes