The structure of the self-schema in clinical depression: Differences related to episode recurrence.

A central tenet of cognitive theories of depression implicates the organisation of self-referential material in the depressive process. However, few studies have extended beyond the examination of cognitive products and processes to assess the interconnectedness of the depressive self-schema. Clinically depressed participants completed a computerised measure of the cognitive organisation of positive and negative adjectives. Participants organised adjectives according to two dimensions (i.e., valence and self-descriptiveness), and an interstimulus distance index of interconnectedness was computed. The sample was divided into two groups to assess whether differential organisation was associated with the number of previous episodes individuals had experienced. Analyses indicated that the patient groups did not differ from one another on demographic characteristics, severity of symptomatology, or comorbidity. Those individuals with more recurrent depression demonstrated significantly greater organisation of negative content and less interconnectedness of positive content than those with less recurrent depression. The implications of these results for the organisation of cognitive content in depression are discussed and directions for future research are provide

Attentional biases in eating disorders: a meta-analytic review of Stroop performance.

The Stroop task has been adapted from cognitive psychology to be able to examine attentional biases in various forms of psychopathology, including the eating disorders. This paper reviews the research on the Stroop task in the eating disorders research area in both descriptive and meta-analytic fashions. Twenty-eight empirical studies are identified, which predominantly examine food and body/weight stimuli in bulimic, anorexic, or dieting/food-restricted samples. It is concluded that there is evidence of an attentional bias in bulimia for a range of stimuli but that the effect seems to be limited to body/weight stimuli in anorexia. The evidence to date is that there is no attentional bias in dieting samples. Limitations of the methodology employed in the extant literature include small sample sizes, unstandardized Stroop methodology, restricted gender, and a general lack of consideration of individual differences variables. Recommendations for future research are provided

Cognitive and cognitive-behavioral therapies

In this chapter we will provide a brief review of some of the major historical forces that lead to the development of the cognitive behavioral therapies. We will then define what are the common characteristics among this increasingly diverse set of interventions, and in doing so also attempt to differentiate the cognitive-behavioral therapies from related approaches to psychotherapy. We will then turn our primary focus to a description of the major models within the cognitive-behavioral paradigm, and to discussing their current empirical status. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of current issues related to the cognitive-behavioral therapies, and with predictions and suggestions for the future development of the approach

Whole genome sequencing of experimental hybrids supports meiosis-like sexual recombination in Leishmania

Hybrid genotypes have been repeatedly described among natural isolates of Leishmania, and the recovery of experimental hybrids from sand flies co-infected with different strains or species of Leishmania has formally demonstrated that members of the genus possess the machinery for genetic exchange. As neither gamete stages nor cell fusion events have been directly observed during parasite development in the vector, we have relied on a classical genetic analysis to determine if Leishmania has a true sexual cycle. Here, we used whole genome sequencing to follow the chromosomal inheritance patterns of experimental hybrids generated within and between different strains of L. major and L. infantum. We also generated and sequenced the first experimental hybrids in L. tropica. We found that in each case the parental somy and allele contributions matched the inheritance patterns expected under meiosis 97–99% of the time. The hybrids were equivalent to F1 progeny, heterozygous throughout most of the genome for the markers that were homozygous and different between the parents. Rare, non-Mendelian patterns of chromosomal inheritance were observed, including a gain or loss of somy, and loss of heterozygosity, that likely arose during meiosis or during mitotic divisions of the progeny clones in the fly or culture. While the interspecies hybrids appeared to be sterile, the intraspecies hybrids were able to produce backcross and outcross progeny. Analysis of 5 backcross and outcross progeny clones generated from an L. major F1 hybrid, as well as 17 progeny clones generated from backcrosses involving a natural hybrid of L. tropica, revealed genome wide patterns of recombination, demonstrating that classical crossing over occurs at meiosis, and allowed us to construct the first physical and genetic maps in Leishmania. Altogether, the findings provide strong evidence for meiosis-like sexual recombination in Leishmania, presenting clear opportunities for forward genetic analysis and positional cloning of important genes.</div

Obtaining statistics of cascading line outages spreading in an electric transmission network from standard utility data

We show how to use standard transmission line outage historical data to obtain the network topology in such a way that cascades of line outages can be easily located on the network. Then we obtain statistics quantifying how cascading outages typically spread on the network. Processing real outage data is fundamental for understanding cascading and for evaluating the validity of the many different models and simulations that have been proposed for cascading in power networks.This work was supported in part by NSF grant CPS-1135825. Paper no. TPWRS-01019-2015. We gratefully thank Bonneville Power Administration for making publicly available the outage data that made this paper possible. The analysis and any conclusions are strictly those of the authors and not of Bonneville Power Administratio

Methanosarcina play an important role in anaerobic co-digestion of the seaweed Ulva lactuca: metagenomics structure and predicted metabolism of functional microbial communities.

Macro-algae represent an ideal resource of third generation biofuels, but their use necessitates a refinement of commonly used anaerobic digestion processes. In a previous study, contrasting mixes of dairy slurry and the macro-alga Ulva lactuca were anaerobically digested in mesophilic continuously stirred tank reactors for 40 weeks. Higher proportions of U. lactuca in the feedstock led to inhibited digestion and rapid accumulation of volatile fatty acids, requiring a reduced organic loading rate. In this study, 16S pyrosequencing was employed to characterise the microbial communities of both the weakest (R1) and strongest (R6) performing reactors from the previous work as they developed over a 39 and 27-week period respectively. Comparing the reactor communities revealed clear differences in taxonomy, predicted metabolic orientation and mechanisms of inhibition, while constrained canonical analysis (CCA) showed ammonia and biogas yield to be the strongest factors differentiating the two reactor communities. Significant biomarker taxa and predicted metabolic activities were identified for viable and failing anaerobic digestion of U. lactuca. Acetoclastic methanogens were inhibited early in R1 operation, followed by a gradual decline of hydrogenotrophic methanogens. Near-total loss of methanogens led to an accumulation of acetic acid that reduced performance of R1, while a slow decline in biogas yield in R6 could be attributed to inhibition of acetogenic rather than methanogenic activity. The improved performance of R6 is likely to have been as a result of the large Methanosarcina population, which enabled rapid removal of acetic acid, providing favourable conditions for substrate degradation

Letters To The Editor.

No abstract available

3-Acetyl­benzoic acid

In the crystal structure of the title compound, C9H8O3, essentially planar mol­ecules [the carboxyl group makes a dihedral angle of 4.53 (7)° with the plane of the ring, while the acid group forms a dihedral angle of 3.45 (8)° to the ring] aggregate by centrosymmetric hydrogen-bond pairing of ordered carboxyl groups. This yields dimers which have two orientations in a unit cell, creating a herringbone pattern. In addition, two close C—H⋯O inter­molecular contacts exist: one is between a methyl H atom and the ketone of a symmetry-related mol­ecule and the other involves a benzene H atom and the carboxyl group O atom of another mol­ecule. The crystal studied was a non-merohedral twin with twin law [100, 00, 0] and a domain ratio of 0.8104(14): 0.1896(14)

Next generation organofluorine containing blockbuster drugs

Funding: the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21761132021), the Hungarian Research Foundation (NKFIH No. K 119282), and Ministry of Human Capacities, Hungary grant 20391-3/2018/FEKUSTRAT. The Qinlan Project of Jiangsu Province, and IKERBASQUE, the Basque Foundation for Science are also acknowledged.The role of organo-fluorine compounds in modern health, food and energy related industries is widely-appreciated. The unique properties that fluorine imparts to organic molecules, stemming from its high electronegativity and stability when bound to carbon, finds it increasing being used in the development of new bioactivities. Around 25% of the current blockbuster drugs contain fluorine and this number is increasing to well above 30% for recent FDA approvals. In this Review we highlight a selection of the most successful organo-fluorine drugs, that have achieved blockbuster status, namely, sitagliptin (diabetes), sofosbuvir (hepatitis C), emtricitabine (HIV), glecaprevir/pibrentasvir (hepatitis C), elvitegravir (HIV), dolutegravir (HIV), bictegravir (HIV), efavirenz (HIV), enzalutamide (prostate cancer), aubagio (immunomodulatory) and paliperidone palmitate (schizophrenia). For each compound we discuss their discovery, their relevant disease state and how they are made, emphasizing the source of fluorine-containing moieties, and where known, their mode of action.PostprintPeer reviewe

Marine Metagenomics: New Tools for the Study and Exploitation of Marine Microbial Metabolism

The marine environment is extremely diverse, with huge variations in pressure and temperature. Nevertheless, life, especially microbial life, thrives throughout the marine biosphere and microbes have adapted to all the divergent environments present. Large scale DNA sequence based approaches have recently been used to investigate the marine environment and these studies have revealed that the oceans harbor unprecedented microbial diversity. Novel gene families with representatives only within such metagenomic datasets represent a large proportion of the ocean metagenome. The presence of so many new gene families from these uncultured and highly diverse microbial populations represents a challenge for the understanding of and exploitation of the biology and biochemistry of the ocean environment. The application of new metagenomic and single cell genomics tools offers new ways to explore the complete metabolic diversity of the marine biome