Ethical Challenges and Opportunities at the Edge: Incorporating Spirituality and Religion Into Psychotherapy

Incorporating spirituality and religion into psychotherapy has been controversial, but recent contributions have argued the importance and provided foundations for doing so. Discussions of ethical challenges in this process are emerging, and this contribution discusses several preliminary issues, relying on the Resolution on Religious, Religion-Based and/or Religion-Derived Prejudice adopted by the American Psychological Association in 2007, as guidance when used with the American Psychological Association’s (2002) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Specifically, this discussion of preliminary challenges addresses competence, bias, maintaining traditions and standards of psychology, and integrity in labeling services for reimbursement. Commentators deepen the discussion, addressing what constitutes minimal competence in this area; effective and truly mutual collaboration with clergy; the high level of ethical complexity and “inherent messiness” of this domain of psychological practice; and the particular challenges of demarcating the boundaries of these domains for regulatory and billing purposes. This discussion offers decidedly preliminary ideas on managing the interface of these domains. Further development is needed before this nascent area approximates precise guidelines or standards

Obesity: A Biobehavioral Point of View

Excerpt: If you ask an overweight person, “Why are you fat?’, you will, almost invariably, get the answer, “Because 1 eat too much.” You will get this answer in spite of the fact that of thirteen studies, six find no significant differences in the caloric intake of obese versus nonobese subjects, five report that the obese eat significantly less than the nonobese, and only two report that they eat significantly more

Near-Field Pressure Signature Splicing for Low-Fidelity Design Space Exploration of Supersonic Aircraft

As interest in supersonic overland flight intensifies, new ways to meet government restrictions on sonic boom loudness must be implemented. Low-fidelity aerodynamic tools, such as PANAIR, can estimate the near-field pressure signature that ultimately determines the loudness of the sonic boom at the ground. These tools can greatly benefit the exploration of large design spaces due to their computational efficiency. One of the limitations of low-fidelity tools is the accuracy of the solution produced, which is dependent on the fundamental physical assumptions made in the development of the governing equations. If flow patterns are produced that severely violate these fundamental assumptions, the validity of the near-field pressure signature is compromised. A method is proposed that splices together near-field pressure signatures from a low-fidelity and a higher-fidelity tool by cutting each pressure signature at a critical point and then blending the low-fidelity signature into the higher-fidelity signature. By splicing the signatures together, sections of the low-fidelity signature that represent fundamental violations of the governing equation are removed. This method allows for the exploration of the design space corresponding to areas on the geometry that produce accurate results in a low-fidelity signature. The method is tested on the JAXA Wing Body geometry from the Second AIAA Sonic Boom Prediction Workshop and shows that perturbations to this geometry can produce loudness results that match the high-fidelity results to within 0.4 PLdB

Source identification and distribution reveals the potential of the geochemical Antarctic sea ice proxy IPSO25

The presence of a di-unsaturated highly branched isoprenoid (HBI) lipid biomarker (diene II) in Southern Ocean sediments has previously been proposed as a proxy measure of palaeo Antarctic sea ice. Here we show that a source of diene II is the sympagic diatom Berkeleya adeliensis Medlin. Furthermore, the propensity for B. adeliensis to flourish in platelet ice is reflected by an offshore downward gradient in diene II concentration in >100 surface sediments from Antarctic coastal and near-coastal environments. Since platelet ice formation is strongly associated with super-cooled freshwater inflow, we further hypothesize that sedimentary diene II provides a potentially sensitive proxy indicator of landfast sea ice influenced by meltwater discharge from nearby glaciers and ice shelves, and re-examination of some previous diene II downcore records supports this hypothesis. The term IPSO25-Ice Proxy for the Southern Ocean with 25 carbon atoms-is proposed as a proxy name for diene II

Far upstream element binding protein 1 binds the internal ribosomal entry site of enterovirus 71 and enhances viral translation and viral growth

Enterovirus 71 (EV71) is associated with severe neurological disorders in children, and has been implicated as the infectious agent in several large-scale outbreaks with mortalities. Upon infection, the viral RNA is translated in a cap-independent manner to yield a large polyprotein precursor. This mechanism relies on the presence of an internal ribosome entry site (IRES) element within the 5′-untranslated region. Virus–host interactions in EV71-infected cells are crucial in assisting this process. We identified a novel positive IRES trans-acting factor, far upstream element binding protein 1 (FBP1). Using binding assays, we mapped the RNA determinants within the EV71 IRES responsible for FBP1 binding and mapped the protein domains involved in this interaction. We also demonstrated that during EV71 infection, the nuclear protein FBP1 is enriched in cytoplasm where viral replication occurs. Moreover, we showed that FBP1 acts as a positive regulator of EV71 replication by competing with negative ITAF for EV71 IRES binding. These new findings may provide a route to new anti-viral therapy

Mortality and implant revision rates of hip arthroplasty in patients with osteoarthritis:registry based cohort study

Objectives To examine mortality and revision rates among patients with osteoarthritis undergoing hip arthroplasty and to compare these rates between patients undergoing cemented or uncemented procedures and to compare outcomes between men undergoing stemmed total hip replacements and Birmingham hip resurfacing. Design Cohort study. Setting National Joint Registry. Population About 275 000 patient records. Main outcome measures Hip arthroplasty procedures were linked to the time to any subsequent mortality or revision (implant failure). Flexible parametric survival analysis methods were used to analyse time to mortality and also time to revision. Comparisons between procedure groups were adjusted for age, sex, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) grade, and complexity. Results As there were large baseline differences in the characteristics of patients receiving cemented, uncemented, or resurfacing procedures, unadjusted comparisons are inappropriate. Multivariable survival analyses identified a higher mortality rate for patients undergoing cemented compared with uncemented total hip replacement (adjusted hazard ratio 1.11, 95% confidence interval 1.07 to 1.16); conversely, there was a lower revision rate with cemented procedures (0.53, 0.50 to 0.57). These translate to small predicted differences in population averaged absolute survival probability at all time points. For example, compared with the uncemented group, at eight years after surgery the predicted probability of death in the cemented group was 0.013 higher (0.007 to 0.019) and the predicted probability of revision was 0.015 lower (0.012 to 0.017). In multivariable analyses restricted to men, there was a higher mortality rate in the cemented group and the uncemented group compared with the Birmingham hip resurfacing group. In terms of revision, the Birmingham hip resurfacings had a similar revision rate to uncemented total hip replacements. Both uncemented total hip replacements and Birmingham hip resurfacings had a higher revision rate than cemented total hip replacements. Conclusions There is a small but significant increased risk of revision with uncemented rather than cemented total hip replacement, and a small but significant increased risk of death with cemented procedures. It is not known whether these are causal relations or caused by residual confounding. Compared with uncemented and cemented total hip replacements, Birmingham hip resurfacing has a significantly lower risk of death in men of all ages. Previously, only adjusted analyses of hip implant revision rates have been used to recommend and justify use of cheaper cemented total hip implants. Our investigations additionally consider mortality rates and suggest a potentially higher mortality rate with cemented total hip replacements, which merits further investigation

A Procedure for the Calculation of the Perceived Loudness of Sonic Booms

Implementing a method to calculate the human ear’s perceived loudness of a sonic boom requires consulting scattered literature with varying amounts of detail. This work describes a comprehensive implementation of Stevens’ Mark VII in Python, called PyLdB. References to literary works are included in enough detail so that the reader could use this work as a guide to implement the Mark VII algorithm. The details behind the mathematics of the Mark VII algorithm are included and PyLdB is used to calculate the perceived loudness of an example pressure signature. PyLdB is benchmarked against a widely used and validated code by NASA called the Loudness Code for Asymmetric Sonic Booms that also implements the Mark VII methodology. PyLdB can be applied in conjunction with other tools to calculate the perceived loudness of sonic booms and facilitate the optimization of aircraft to reduce loudness levels

Molecular Analysis of Virulent Determinants of Enterovirus 71

Enterovirus 71 (EV71) is the most important causative agent of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) in children. In most cases, it is a self-limiting illness. However some EV71 infectious cases can develop severe clinical outcomes, such as encephalitis, meningitis, poliomyelitis like paralysis, and even death. To identify the determinants of virulence, the deduced amino acid sequence of polyprotein and nucleotide sequence of 5′-NTR and 3′-NTR in 25 SC-EV71 strains (strains from severe cases) and 31 MC-EV71 strains (strains from mild cases) were analyzed. Results showed four amino acids on two positions (GlyP710/GlnP710/ArgP710 and GluP729) on the DE and EF loop of VP1, one (LysP930) on the surface of protease 2A and four nucleotides on three positions (GP272, UP488 and AP700/UP700) in the 5'-NTR region are associated with EV71 virulent phenotype. Predicted secondary structure of RNA using the consensus sequence of 5'-NTR by RNAStructure showed the mutation of nucleotide at position 488 in strain BJ08-Z004-3 (position 491 in prototype strain BrCr) can result in the discrepancy of an additional pair of nucleotides and thus change the stability of the second structure of IRES. Fragment base content analysis showed that in the region 696 to 714 bp at the 5'-NTR, where the AP700/UP700 was located, the nucleotide constitution ratios differed significantly between SC-EV71 and MC-EV71 strains. In conclusion, comparative genomic analysis showed that virulence of EV71 strains are mainly determined by the amino acids on two positions of VP1, one position of protease 2A and the nucleotides on three positions in 5'-NTR