Innovations and Future Directions in the Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies

Across the globe, cognitive and behavioural therapies (CBT) are used every day by a wide variety of health professionals including psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses, and social workers to change peoples’ lives. Since 1995 the World Congress of Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies (WCBCT) has showcased the latest advances in CBT to an international professional audience. Now for the first time this unique book draws together a veritable ‘who’s who’ of leading CBT researchers and practitioners presenting their work at the 2016 WCBCT. Over 190 leading researchers and practitioners from across Britain, Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia contribute to 53 concise and insightful essays summarising their work, where it fits in the broader field, clinical implications, and directions for future research and practice. Together they illustrate the tremendous capacity for CBT to contribute to the mental and physical wellbeing of people everywhere

Singular Control-Invariance PDEs for Nonlinear Systems

First published in Multiscale Modeling & Simulation in 3(4), 2005, published by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). © 2005, SIAM Publications.In the present study a new method is proposed that allows the derivation of control laws capable of enforcing the desirable dynamics on an invariant manifold in state space. The problem of interest naturally surfaces in broad classes of physical and chemical systems whose dynamic behavior needs to be controlled and favorably shaped by external driving forces. In particular, the formulation of the problem under consideration is mathematically realized through a system of first-order quasi-linear singular invariance partial differential equations (PDEs), and a rather general set of conditions is derived that ensures the existence and uniqueness of a solution. The solution to the above system of singular PDEs is proven to be locally analytic, thus allowing the development of a series solution method that is easily programmable with the aid of a symbolic software package. Furthermore, through the solution to the above system of singular PDEs, an analytic manifold and a nonlinear control law are computed that render the manifold invariant for the nonlinear dynamical system considered. In particular, the restriction of the system dynamics on the invariant manifold is shown to represent exactly the desirable target dynamics of the controlled system. Finally, an illustrative case study of molecular dissociation is considered, and the proposed method is evaluated through simulation studies

Quantity and Quality of Homework Compliance: A Meta-Analysis of Relations With Outcome in Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Homework assignments have been shown to produce both causal and correlational effects in prior meta-analytic reviews of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), but this research area has been characterized by a focus on the amount of compliance (i.e., quantity), and little is known about the role of skill acquisition (i.e., quality). A landmark study by Neimeyer and Feixas (1990) showed stronger homework-outcome relations when quality was assessed, but previous reviews have not considered whether the same pattern is evident across studies. Seventeen studies of CBT (N = 2,312 clients) published following calls for research on homework quality were included in the current meta-analysis. In the present review, homework compliance relations were demonstrated when outcome was assessed at posttreatment (quality Hedges’ g = 0.78, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] = 0.03 to 1.53, k = 3, n = 417; quantity g = 0.79, 95% CI = 0.57 to 1.02, k = 15, n = 1537) and at follow-up (quality g = 1.07, 95% CI = 0.06 to 2.08, k = 3, n = 417; quantity g = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.28 to 0.74, k = 7, n = 1291). All effect sizes were different from 0, ps < .05. Differences that were obtained in homework-outcome relations among sources of compliance data (client, therapist, objective) were tentative due to overlapping CIs, but suggest a potential moderating effect. If confirmed by further research, the present findings would suggest that trial methods capable of assessing both quantity and quality have been an important omission in research on homework-outcome relations in CBT

Data for "Thermodynamic feasibility of shipboard conversion of marine plastics to blue diesel for self-powered ocean cleanup"

The data provided here accompanies the soon to be published article titled "Thermodynamic feasibility of shipboard conversion of marine plastics to blue diesel for self-powered ocean cleanup". Contained within the file is the raw data generated from the integrated Monte Carlo simulation and sensitivity analysis. Data is provided for Figure 2 as well as SI Figures SI.2 and SI.3. The data shows the probability of meeting ship exergy requirements in percentage for varying surface plastic volume percent for all the plastics studied for HTL, pyrolysis and varying flowrates. Data is also provided for Figure 4 generated from the framework showing the varying time to clear the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the associated number of booms for varying boom-boom distances