Are empirically-supported therapies for bulimic symptoms associated with better self-rated outcomes than non-empirically supported therapies?

Aim: To investigate whether engaging in empirically-supported psychological therapies (ESTs) is associated with improved self-rated treatment outcomes in clients with bulimia nervosa and related disorders (BN-RDs). Method: 98 people who had engaged in psychological therapy for BN-RD completed a questionnaire which assessed the recalled specific contents of their most recent set of psychological therapy and self-rated therapy outcomes. Results: Contrary to prediction, self-rated treatment outcomes did not differ between respondents who engaged in ESTs and non-ESTs, or between respondents who engaged in CBT judged as ‘adequate’ and CBT judged as ‘inadequate’. Respondents who engaged in a specialist form of CBT for bulimia nervosa (CBT-BN) reported greater improvement than those who engaged in standard CBT. Conclusions: The findings suggest that treatments that are labelled as ESTs are not necessarily perceived as more beneficial by clients with eating disorders than non-ESTs. However, there is some evidence that a specific evidence-based therapy (CBT-BN) led to better self-rated treatment outcomes than standard CBT

Unraveling proteoform complexity by native liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry

Proteins are widely known as key players that fulfill crucial roles at the molecular level in the human body but also for their involvement in many processes in everyday life. For example, proteins can be used as medicine in health care or for their enzymatic function in the food industry. All these proteins do not exist as a single species but rather as a complex mixture of structural variants, so-called proteoforms. This heterogeneity results mainly from the presence of post-translational modifications (PTMs), such as glycosylation and glycation. To further complicate this matter, these PTMs can induce structural as well as functional changes. To allow in-depth structural and functional characterization of these proteoforms, novel analytical approaches are required to resolve proteoform heterogeneity while persevering protein nativity. The hyphenation of native separation techniques with mass spectrometry has emerged as a powerful approach to reliably study these aspects. The work in this thesis describes the (further) development and application of such methodologies for biopharmaceutical and biotechnological products.This work was supported by Dutch Research Council (NWO), SATIN project. Grant number: 731.017.202.LUMC / Geneeskund

Compensating biodiversity loss : Dutch companies’ experience with biodiversity compensation, including their supply chain : the ‘BioCom’ project

Compensation for damage to biodiversity is a relatively new topic in the business environment. Most private sector companies dealing with compensation do so because of a legal obligation. Companies are increasingly becoming aware, though, that our welfare and well-being depend on healthy ecosystems and biodiversity. Also, from a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) point of view, companies start to realize that securing continued access to natural resources is a key factor to their profitability. This inspires more and more companies to take up the challenge to start a project aiming to voluntarily compensate for biodiversity loss or damag

New beginnings: A time-limited, group intervention for high-risk infants and mothers

‘New Beginnings’ (NB) is a structured, manualized program that addresses the mother–baby relationship within a group format. The program, developed at the Anna Freud Centre (Baradon, 2009, 2013), works with the nuanced, cross-modal emotional interactions between mother and infant, tracking attunement and communication errors and emphasizing interactive repair. To this purpose, open (non-defended) and genuine transactions are privileged, confounding intergenerational transference expectancies of rejection and shaming by a ‘bad’ world in which the individual is not seen as a worthwhile person. NB aims to increase mentalization in relation to self, baby, and the relationship between them (Baradon, with Biseo, Broughton, James, & Joyce, 2016). This takes place via the content of sessions, group processes (between the adults, adults and babies and the baby-group) and personalization of the program. A reopening of epistemic trust – trust in the authenticity and personal relevance of interpersonally transmitted knowledge (Fonagy, Luyten, & Allison, 2015) – is seen as the product of the above, and the vehicle for the socialization of the babies into a more benign social context. This chapter will begin by setting out the basic structure and aims of the program, before going on to explain how the program was developed, how the program runs and its theoretical foundations in attachment and mentalizing. We will then describe how NB has thus far been evaluated, and will finish with a more detailed account of the implementation of the program