Effectiveness of hygienic-dietary recommendations as enhancers of antidepressant treatment in patients with Depression: Study protocol of a randomized controlled trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In recent years some studies have been published supporting the efficacy of light exposure, physical activity, sleep control and a Mediterranean diet pattern on the improvement or prevention of Depression. However, to our knowledge, there have been no studies using all these measures together as an adjuvant antidepressant strategy.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Multicenter, randomized, controlled, two arm-parallel, clinical trial. Eighty depressed patients undergoing standard antidepressant treatment will be advised to follow four additional hygienic-dietary recommendations about exercise, diet, sunlight exposure and sleep. Outcome measures will be assessed before and after the 6 month intervention period.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>We expect the patients in the active recommendations group to experience a greater improvement in their depressive symptoms. If so, this would be a great support for doctors who might systematically recommend these simple and costless measures, especially in primary care.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>ISRCTN59506583</p

Speculating on London's housing future

London's housing crisis is rooted in a neo-liberal urban project to recommodify and financialise housing and land in a global city. But where exactly is the crisis heading? What future is being prepared for London's urban dwellers? How can we learn from other country and city contexts to usefully speculate about London's housing future? In this paper, we bring together recent evidence and insights from the rise of what we call ‘global corporate landlords’ (GCLs) in ‘post-crisis’ urban landscapes in North America and Europe to argue that London's housing crisis—and the policies and processes impelling and intervening in it—could represent a key moment in shaping the city's long-term housing future. We trace the variegated ways in which private equity firms and institutional investors have exploited distressed housing markets and the new profitable opportunities created by states and supra-national bodies in coming to the rescue of capitalism in the USA, Spain, Ireland and Greece in response to the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. We then apply that analysis to emerging developments in the political economy of London's housing system, arguing that despite having a very low presence in the London residential property market and facing major entry barriers, GCLs are starting to position themselves in preparation for potential entry points such as the new privatisation threat to public and social rented housing

Centrality and investment strategies at the beginning of industrialisation in mid-nineteenth-century Catalonia

We apply social networks analysis to the study of an important database on investment and companies' share in the Catalonia (Spain) of the nineteenth century. In contrast with most of the existing related literature, usually addressing power relationships across administration boards, we focus on the structure of interactions among individual investors and firms. Centrality analysis uncovers interesting roles played by certain economic sectors (e.g. textile and financial). Furthermore, the diverse composition (in terms of economic activity) of communities in the network (subgroups more densely connected internally than with the rest of the network) reveals a high investment diversification, which nicely agrees with a known characteristic of traditional Catalan business strategies.social networks analysis, investment strategies, Barcelona, nineteenth century, centrality, structural communities,

Territorial tourism planning in Spain: from boosterism to tourism degrowth?

Tourism saturation and unsustainability have been studied in urban political ecology. Both of these problems are inseparable from tourism planning and they have resulted in proposed solutions based on growth containment and even degrowth. These types of measures have been applied to varying degrees in mature coastal destinations in Spain since the 1990s, and they are currently being used for the country's main urban destinations due to problems generated by tourism saturation. This study examines the progressive incorporation of these measures in territorial tourism planning in Spain and it points out that the traditional emphasis on urban-tourism growth is declining and that more restrictive policies are now being implemented. This shift is illustrated through the analysis of three innovative territorial tourism planning instruments in Barcelona, the Balearic Islands and the Autonomous Region of Valencia. These ostensibly progressive processes suffer from crippling contradictions due to their inability to directly confront the capitalist accumulation model underlying the tourism growth they address. Consequently, much stronger measures capable of transcending this accumulation model in pursuit of genuine, and fair degrowth without systemic constraints are needed

Coalitions and public action in the reshaping of corporate responsibility: the case of the retail banking industry

This paper addresses the question of whether and how public action via civil society and/or government can meaningfully shape industry-wide corporate responsibility (ICR) behaviour. We explore how, in principle, ICR can come about and what conditions might be effective in promoting more ethical behaviour. We propose a framework to understand attempts to develop more responsible behaviour at an industry level through processes of negotiation and coalition building. We suggest that any attempt to meaningfully influence ICR would require stakeholders to possess both power and legitimacy; moreover, magnitude and urgency of the issue at stake may affect the ability to influence ICR. The framework is applied to the retail banking industry, focusing on post-crisis experiences in two countries—Spain and the UK—where there has been considerable pressure on the retail banking industry by civil society and/or government to change behaviours, especially to abandon unethical practices. We illustrate in this paper how corporate responsibility at the sector level in retail banking is the product of context-specific processes of negotiation between civil society and public authorities, on behalf of customers and other stakeholders, drawing on legal and other institutions to influence industry behaviour