Advances In Cross-Border Insolvency Cooperation: The Uncitral Model Law On Cross-Border Insolvency

International insolvencies have proliferated in the past decade, but the law of international insolvency has not kept pace

The iconography of Asphyxiophilia: From fantasmatic fetish to forensic fact

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Age-related macular degeneration: choroidal ischaemia?

Aim: Our aim is to use ultrasound to non-invasively detect differences in choroidal microarchitecture possibly related to ischaemia among normal eyes and those with wet and dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Design Prospective case series of subjects with dry AMD, wet AMD and age-matched controls. Methods: Digitized 20 MHz B-scan radiofrequency ultrasound data of the region of the macula were segmented to extract the signal from the retina and choroid. This signal was processed by a wavelet transform, and statistical modelling was applied to the wavelet coefficients to examine differences among dry, wet and non-AMD eyes. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate a multivariate classifier. Results: In the 69 eyes of 52 patients, 18 did not have AMD, 23 had dry AMD and 28 had wet AMD. Multivariate models showed statistically significant differences between groups. Multiclass ROC analysis of the best model showed an excellent volume-under-curve of 0.892±0.17. The classifier is consistent with ischaemia in dry AMD. Conclusions: Wavelet augmented ultrasound is sensitive to the organisational elements of choroidal microarchitecture relating to scatter and fluid tissue boundaries such as seen in ischaemia and inflammation, allowing statistically significant differentiation of dry, wet and non-AMD eyes. This study further supports the association of ischaemia with dry AMD and provides a rationale for treating dry AMD with pharmacological agents to increase choroidal perfusion

HPA axis related genes and response to psychological therapies: genetics and epigenetics

Background Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis functioning has been implicated in the development of stress-related psychiatric diagnoses and response to adverse life experiences. This study aimed to investigate the association between genetic and epigenetics in HPA axis and response to cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). Methods Children with anxiety disorders were recruited into the Genes for Treatment project (GxT, N = 1,152). Polymorphisms of FKBP5 and GR were analyzed for association with response to CBT. Percentage DNA methylation at the FKBP5 and GR promoter regions was measured before and after CBT in a subset (n = 98). Linear mixed effect models were used to investigate the relationship between genotype, DNA methylation, and change in primary anxiety disorder severity (treatment response). Results Treatment response was not associated with FKBP5 and GR polymorphisms, or pretreatment percentage DNA methylation. However, change in FKBP5 DNA methylation was nominally significantly associated with treatment response. Participants who demonstrated the greatest reduction in severity decreased in percentage DNA methylation during treatment, whereas those with little/no reduction in severity increased in percentage DNA methylation. This effect was driven by those with one or more FKBP5 risk alleles, with no association seen in those with no FKBP5 risk alleles. No significant association was found between GR methylation and response. Conclusions Allele-specific change in FKBP5 methylation was associated with treatment response. This is the largest study to date investigating the role of HPA axis related genes in response to a psychological therapy. Furthermore, this is the first study to demonstrate that DNA methylation changes may be associated with response to psychological therapies in a genotype-dependent manner

Phospholipid Scramblase 1 Potentiates The Antiviral Activity of Interferon

Phospholipid scramblase 1 (PLSCR1) is an interferon (IFN)- and growth factor-inducible, calcium-binding protein that either inserts into the plasma membrane or binds DNA in the nucleus depending on its state of palmyitoylation. In certain hematopoietic cells, PLSCR1 is required for normal maturation and terminal differentiation from progenitor cells as regulated by select growth factors, where it promotes recruitment and activation of Src kinases. PLSCR1 is a substrate of Src (and Abl) kinases, and transcription of the PLSCR1 gene is regulated by the same growth factor receptor pathways in which PLSCR1 potentiates afferent signaling. The marked transcriptional upregulation of PLSCR1 by IFNs led us to explore whether PLSCR1 plays an analogous role in cellular responses to IFN, with specific focus on antiviral activities. Accordingly, human cells in which PLSCR1 expression was decreased with short interfering RNA were rendered relatively insensitive to the antiviral activity of IFNs, resulting in higher titers of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) and encephalomyocarditis virus. Similarly, VSV replicated to higher titers in mouse PLSCR1−/− embryonic fibroblasts than in identical cells transduced to express PLSCR1. PLSCR1 inhibited accumulation of primary VSV transcripts, similar to the effects of IFN against VSV. The antiviral effect of PLSCR1 correlated with increased expression of a subset of IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs), including ISG15, ISG54, p56, and guanylate binding proteins. Our results suggest that PLSCR1, which is itself an ISG-encoded protein, provides a mechanism for amplifying and enhancing the IFN response through increased expression of a select subset of potent antiviral genes

Object Relations in the Museum: A Psychosocial Perspective

This article theorises museum engagement from a psychosocial perspective. With the aid of selected concepts from object relations theory, it explains how the museum visitor can establish a personal relation to museum objects, making use of them as an ‘aesthetic third’ to symbolise experience. Since such objects are at the same time cultural resources, interacting with them helps the individual to feel part of a shared culture. The article elaborates an example drawn from a research project that aimed to make museum collections available to people with physical and mental health problems. It draws on the work of the British psychoanalysts Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion to explain the salience of the concepts of object use, potential space, containment and reverie within a museum context. It also refers to the work of the contemporary psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas on how objects can become evocative for individuals both by virtue of their intrinsic qualities and by the way they are used to express personal idiom

Genetic variation in the endocannabinoid system and response to cognitive behavioural therapy for child anxiety disorders

Extinction learning is an important mechanism in the successful psychological treatment of anxiety. Individual differences in response and relapse following Cognitive Behavior Therapy may in part be explained by variability in the ease with which fears are extinguished or the vulnerability of these fears to re-emerge. Given the role of the endocannabinoid system in fear extinction, this study investigates whether genetic variation in the endocannabinoid system explains individual differences in response to CBT. Children (N = 1,309) with a primary anxiety disorder diagnosis were recruited. We investigated the relationship between variation in the CNR1, CNR2, and FAAH genes and change in primary anxiety disorder severity between pre- and post-treatment and during the follow-up period in the full sample and a subset with fear-based anxiety disorder diagnoses. Change in symptom severity during active treatment was nominally associated (P < 0.05) with two SNPs. During the follow-up period, five SNPs were nominally associated with a poorer treatment response (rs806365 [CNR1]; rs2501431 [CNR2]; rs2070956 [CNR2]; rs7769940 [CNR1]; rs2209172 [FAAH]) and one with a more favorable response (rs6928813 [CNR1]). Within the fear-based subset, the effect of rs806365 survived multiple testing corrections (P < 0.0016). We found very limited evidence for an association between variants in endocannabinoid system genes and treatment response once multiple testing corrections were applied. Larger, more homogenous cohorts are needed to allow the identification of variants of small but statistically significant effect and to estimate effect sizes for these variants with greater precision in order to determine their potential clinical utility

Alu elements mediate MYB gene tandem duplication in human T-ALL

Recent studies have demonstrated that the MYB oncogene is frequently duplicated in human T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). We find that the human MYB locus is flanked by 257-bp Alu repeats and that the duplication is mediated somatically by homologous recombination between the flanking Alu elements on sister chromatids. Nested long-range PCR analysis indicated a low frequency of homologous recombination leading to MYB tandem duplication in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of ∼50% of healthy individuals, none of whom had a MYB duplication in the germline. We conclude that Alu-mediated MYB tandem duplication occurs at low frequency during normal thymocyte development and is clonally selected during the molecular pathogenesis of human T-ALL

The utility of the SCAS-C/P to detect specific anxiety disorders among clinically anxious children

Questionnaire measures offer a time and cost-effective alternative to full diagnostic assessments for identifying and differentiating between potential anxiety disorders and are commonly used in clinical practice. Little is known, however, about the capacity of questionnaire measures to detect specific anxiety disorders in clinically anxious preadolescent children. This study aimed to establish the ability of the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS) subscales to identify children with specific anxiety disorders in a large clinic-referred sample (N = 1,438) of children aged 7 to 12 years. We examined the capacity of the Separation Anxiety, Social Phobia, Generalized Anxiety, and Physical Injury Fears (phobias) subscales to discriminate between children with and without the target disorder. We also identified optimal cutoff scores on subscales for accurate identification of children with the corresponding disorder, and examined the contribution of child, mother, and father reports. The Separation Anxiety subscale was able to accurately identify children with separation anxiety disorder, and this was replicated across all 3 reporters. Mother- and father-reported Social Phobia subscales also accurately identified children with social anxiety disorder, although child report was only able to accurately detect social anxiety disorder in girls. Using 2 or more reporters improved the sensitivity of the Separation Anxiety and Social Phobia subscales but reduced specificity. The Generalized Anxiety and Physical Injury Fears subscales failed to accurately identify children with the corresponding disorders. These findings have implications for the potential use of mother-, father-, and child-report SCAS subscales to detect specific disorders in preadolescent children in clinical settings