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Evaluation report: The use of Internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy (iCBT) in secondary care mental health services
No full textDigital access to a range of services has become common place for us all over the last decade. The use of Internet-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (iCBT) in secondary care mental health services offers an exciting opportunity to enhance individuals experience of care and for services to work more efficiently. This paper sets out to explore if iCBT is an acceptable and effective means of delivering psychologically informed wellbeing interventions to individuals treated in secondary care mental health teams in Lincolnshire. The factors that have supported or inhibited the implementation of iCBT in these services will be discussed in a linked but separate service evaluation portfolio.The frequent use of the iCBT system by coaches and the high level of patient satisfaction clearly indicates that there is support for the use of iCBT in secondary care. Patient satisfaction with iCBT indicates that while both Pure Self Help (PSH) and supported modes of delivery are effective, supported delivery enhances participant satisfaction, particularly in engagement and perceived helpfulness. High levels of satisfaction were recorded with modules being interesting, relevant, helpful and helping them make progress. Uptake was notably higher in rural and seasonal areas (e.g., Gainsborough, Grantham, Spalding, Skegness), where digital solutions help overcome transport and access barriers, making iCBT particularly valuable in underserved areas.The collection of outcome data is relatively new in secondary care teams and digital collection of measures has rarely been tested. Despite concerns regarding patients’ acceptance of this and issues in setting the timing of questionnaires overall the evaluation has shown that collection of measures is possible digitally in these settings. Positive trends were observed in the Recovering Quality of Life (ReQol-10) and Goals Based Outcomes (GBO) for iCBT packages as a whole with recommendations for further research into the new secondary care specific programs. Both the Recovery Program and First Steps in Trauma Recovery show promise but larger samples and more robust data analysis such as Randomised Controlled Trials (RCT) are required to fully validate them.</p
Prevalence and psychological risk factors: a structural equation model of voyeurism engagement in men
No full textVoyeurism has been, and continues to be, a growing problem worldwide, particularly with the rise of technology. Yet, unlike many other sexual offences, the characteristics and risk factors associated with voyeurism remain underexplored. Using a sample of UK men (N = 492), Study 1 examined sexual arousal, proclivity, and engagement in voyeurism in the general population. Results indicated that 32.30% reported engaging in voyeurism, supporting the suitability of the sample for further investigation. Study 2 sampled UK men (N = 513) and categorised participants into three groups: (1) no desire or engagement, (2) desire without engagement, and (3) engagement in voyeurism. Groups differed across several psychological measures. A structural equation model demonstrated that sexual interest in voyeurism strongly predicted engagement, with sexual compulsivity and socio-relational factors (loneliness, self-efficacy in romantic relationships, and resilient coping) also playing important roles. Findings are discussed in relation to the aetiology of sexual offending and implications for practice.</p
FreqDINO: Frequency-Guided Adaptation for Generalized Boundary-Aware Ultrasound Image Segmentation
No full textUltrasound image segmentation is pivotal for clinical diagnosis, yet challenged by speckle noise and imaging artifacts. Recently, DINOv3 has shown remarkable promise in medical image segmentation with its powerful representation capabilities. However, DINOv3, pre-trained on natural images, lacks sensitivity to ultrasound-specific boundary degradation. To address this limitation, we propose FreqDINO, a frequency-guided segmentation framework that enhances boundary perception and structural consistency. Specifically, we devise a Multi-scale Frequency Extraction and Alignment (MFEA) strategy to separate low-frequency structures and multi-scale high-frequency boundary details, and align them via learnable attention. We also introduce a Frequency-Guided Boundary Refinement (FGBR) module that extracts boundary prototypes from high-frequency components and refines spatial features. Furthermore, we design a Multi-task Boundary-Guided Decoder (MBGD) to ensure spatial coherence between boundary and semantic predictions. Extensive experiments demonstrate that FreqDINO surpasses state-of-the-art methods with superior achieves remarkable generalization capability. The code is at https://github.com/MingLang-FD/FreqDINO.</p
TM-UNet: Token-Memory Enhanced Sequential Modeling for Efficient Medical Image Segmentation
No full textMedical image segmentation is essential for clinical diagnosis and treatment planning. Although transformer-based methods have achieved remarkable results, their high computational cost hinders clinical deployment. To address this issue, we propose TM-UNet, a novel lightweight framework that integrates token sequence modeling with an efficient memory mechanism for efficient medical segmentation. Specifically, we introduce a multi-scale token-memory (MSTM) block that transforms 2D spatial features into token sequences through strategic spatial scanning, leveraging matrix memory cells to selectively retain and propagate discriminative contextual information across tokens. This novel token-memory mechanism acts as a dynamic knowledge store that captures long-range dependencies with linear complexity, enabling efficient global reasoning without redundant computation. Our MSTM block further incorporates exponential gating to identify token effectiveness and multi-scale contextual extraction via parallel pooling operations, enabling hierarchical representation learning without computational overhead. Extensive experiments demonstrate that TM-UNet outperforms state-of-the-art methods across diverse medical segmentation tasks with substantially reduced computation cost. The code is available at https://github.com/xq141839/TM-UNet.</p
Jantze Holmes – Paintings
No full textA catalogue of recent paintings by the artist, Jantze Holmes.Jantze Holmes is a Lincoln based artist working in print and paint. Her work explores connections between landscape, memory and belonging, shaped by an enduring interest in the natural world. Through layered imagery and process-led making, she creates pieces that invite quiet reflection on place, history and personal narrative.</p
Speech and motor laterality reassessed: a functional transcranial Doppler follow-up to the online verbal visual half-field task
No full textReliable measures of language laterality are essential for understanding relationships between speech and other lateralized functions. In a previous study (Grant et al., 2023. Testing the relationship between lateralization on sequence-based motor tasks and language laterality using an online battery. Laterality, 28(1), 1–31), an online verbal visual half-field (vVHF) task assessed speech production laterality but showed limited reliability and validity. The present study conducted novel analyses linking this measure with functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound (fTCD) data collected from the same sample as part of a separate project (Parker et al., 2022. Inconsistent language lateralisation: Testing the dissociable language laterality hypothesis using behaviour and lateralised cerebral blood flow. Cortex, 154, 105–134). In total, 187 participants completed both the online battery and an in-person fTCD sentence-generation task. Results confirmed robust left lateralization for speech production across handedness groups. However, laterality indices from the vVHF task did not correlate with the fTCD measure, reinforcing concerns about the validity of the online paradigm. Replicating previous findings, no significant association was observed between categorical measures of speech and motor laterality. Exploratory analyses revealed a significant positive correlation between motor laterality indices and fTCD speech laterality.</p
Forgiveness of Self and Situations and Rumination as Mental Health Correlates in Dental School Students
No full textIntroduction: It is widely acknowledged that dental training is stressful, with students being vulnerable to burnout, anxiety, and depression.Objective: This study examined the associations between psychosocial risk factors (maladaptive perfectionism and rumination) and resilience factors (forgiveness of self, others, and situations, and compassion for self and others) with burnout, depression, and anxiety.Method: In 2023, an electronic questionnaire was distributed to all dental students at a US dental school. Validated self-report measures were used to assess three domains: (a) mental health outcomes (burnout, depression, and anxiety), (b) risk factors (perfectionism and rumination), and (c) protective factors (compassion; self-compassion; and forgiveness of self, others, and situations). Socio-demographic measures were also collected. Seventy dental students participated, representing a 12% response rate, approximately evenly distributed across all four training years.Results: Bivariate analyses showed that perfectionistic discrepancies and rumination were associated with greater burnout, depression, and anxiety. Self-forgiveness and forgiveness of situations were associated with lower burnout, depression, and anxiety. In the final step of multiple regression models, where all variables were entered into the equation, self-forgiveness emerged as a significant predictor of lower burnout and depression. Forgiveness of situations significantly predicted lower anxiety, while rumination remained as a predictor of higher anxiety.Conclusions: These findings represent an initial examination of risk and resilience factors considered jointly in relation to burnout, depression, and anxiety. Notably, the study highlights the potential of relatively under-researched constructs—forgiveness of self, others, and situations—in shaping mental health outcomes among dental students during training.</p
No evidence for lateralized bias or preference in the sleeping positions of domestic cats
No full textLateralization has been observed across the animal kingdom. In mammals, this is often associated with complex or precise motor tasks, such as paw and hand use. A recent study reported that cats prefer a leftward (clockwise) sleeping position, suggestive of lateralization. However, limitations in the design and execution of that work raise questions about this finding. The aim of the present study was to further investigate this effect and establish if there is a lateralized preference in the sleeping position of domestic cats. Three activities were performed (1) assessment of YouTube videos of unique cats’ sleeping positions; (2) assessment of images from Reddit of unique cats’ sleeping positions and (3) assessment of images from Instagram to quantify the leftwards: rightwards preference of specific cats. Compared to a 50:50ratio, no significant difference was found in lying position from videos (χ2 =0.074, p = 0.786), images of unique cats (χ² = 0.522, p = 0.470) or from cats with multiple images (t = 0.836, p = 0.407). Given the full range of evidence available, it cannot be concluded that there is any population bias, preference or lateralization in the sleeping position of domestic cats. Results to the contrary can be explained by methodological issues.</p
Energy Efficiency and Norm Compliance Drivers Amongst Industry Decision-makers: Evidence of Intersectionality and the Role of Morality
No full textPurpose: This article explores industry decision-makers’ motivation for energy efficiency (EE) actions. Our research question is: why do industry decision-makers feel obligated to comply with norms or engage in EE actions? More specifically, what types of norm compliance drivers are they responding to?Methodology: We use a two-country (United Kingdom and Canada) survey of managers and executives in three key sectors – building and construction, hospitality, and utilities to explore the presence of norm compliance driver typologies that motivate EE actions.Findings: Drawing on existing theoretical frameworks, we define four types of norm compliance drivers related to industry action: custom, third-party, moral, and social. Our results show evidence of all four, with moral as the most common norm compliance driver. Our findings also point to intersectionality: the presence of more than one type of norm compliance driver in reasoning for action.Originality: The emphasis on the underlying drivers of norm obligations as a motivation for decision-makers within industry related to EE action makes this article novel. Doing so from the perspective of industry actors is also original.Practical implications: Many of the responses related to moral norm compliance drivers are tied to larger environmental issues, such as climate change, which contributes to understanding how to trigger industry action on large global issues.Social implications: The finding that moral drivers are a significant proportion of the underlying force behind norm compliance, coupled with the understanding that many of these statements point to larger sustainability goals, suggests policymakers need to take a closer look at how they motivate industry.</p
Dialogue Across Courts: The CJEU, the ECtHR, and the Rights of Migrant Women
No full textThis article argues that the similarities between the case law of the European regional courts in respect of family migration are significant. Many of the judgments concerning the right of a migrant spouse of an EU citizen to reside in the EU demonstrate that national migration laws are still influenced by the male bread winner ideal. Building upon the work of intersectional feminist scholars, this article argues that the judgments reveal gendered vulnerabilities on the account of intersecting identities, including class, race and ethnic origin. While both courts are aware of intersectional discrimination, they rarely apply this concept in their judgments. This article concludes that the ongoing dialogue between the two regional courts is ever important as it is likely to have a lasting impact on how gender-related vulnerabilities are viewed in Europe in the future.</p