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How do people recover from persecutory delusions? An interpretative phenomenological analysis
Get PDFBackground:ย Patient perspectives on recovery from psychosis have been studied. However, there are few studies on recovery from particular psychotic experiences. Persecutory delusions are common, often distressing, and can disrupt day-to-day life and relationships. We explored how patients report recovering from persecutory delusions.
Methods:ย Semi-structured interviews were completed with 15 patients who had recovered from persecutory delusions. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used.
Results:ย Three superordinate themes were identified. The first was โFoundational background features set the context for recoveryโ. A range of features, including support and respect from others, routine, calm environments, and medication, provided the basis for recovery. The second superordinate theme was โActivity as a route for positivity and re-engagement with the worldโ. Engagement in activity was important to re-orient attention away from paranoid fears, and to improve mood. The third superordinate theme was โThe effortful discovery of safetyโ. Generating, considering, and testing alternative explanations was a key route to learning safety.
Discussion:ย Recovery from persecutory delusions can take many routes, which vary between individuals. Supporting individuals to reengage with activity and generate acceptable and sufficiently-evidenced alternatives to paranoid fears are potentially valuable treatment targets in the processes of recovery from paranoia
Direct observation of entrained oxides and thermodynamic modelling of aluminium alloy melts
No full textThis work aimed to provide a solid foundation to aluminium alloy melt oxidation research through a combined theoretical-experimental approach. The experimental component demonstrated the importance of this research area by directly imaging entrained oxides, including bifilms, in aluminium alloy melts for the first time. Many see these structures as the fundamental casting defect, but a lack of direct observation has caused a divide in the scientific community. By directly imaging these defects in Ca-added Al-Mg melts using synchrotron X-ray tomography, their existence in melts has been proven and a unique observation method has been established, allowing entrained oxide hypotheses to be tested directly.
The understanding of entrained oxides being bifilms encapsulating debris and gaseous atmospheres (which were observed) was found to be incomplete: the observed entrained oxide population was mostly extensive, porous oxide networks encapsulating bifilms and other debris. Porous oxide networks grew hydrogen bubbles (only in calcium-added samples), and these oxide networks were found to facilitate melt oxidation; calcium suppressed oxidation by forming a fine layer of MgO on the inner surfaces of the porous oxides.
The theoretical component established a thermodynamic framework of aluminium alloy melt oxidation. โOxide stability diagramsโ were used to predict the most thermodynamically stable oxides in contact with an aluminium melt by evaluating the thermodynamics of oxidation of the melt. Non-ideal models were also implemented to allow system-specific mixing data to be incorporated: twenty-four Al-X binary systems and twelve Al-Mg-X systems were evaluated with ideal mixing, Bragg-Williams mixing, and (for binaries only) the modified quasichemical model. These diagrams were found to be a valuable tool in not only understanding oxidation products but also explaining why microalloying Al-Mg melts with Group II elements suppresses melt oxidation. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of this theoretical approach and open avenues for future modelling of aluminium alloy oxidation
Nestling birds learn socially to eavesdrop on heterospecific alarm calls through acoustic association
Get PDFAnimals often eavesdrop on signals intended for others to gather information about their environment. While adult animals have been shown to learn to recognize unfamiliar heterospecific alarm calls through both social and asocial learning, it remains unclear whether and how young animals learn to recognize unfamiliar alarm calls. We show experimentally that nestling Daurian redstarts, Phoenicurus auroreus, can socially learn to recognize unfamiliar heterospecific alarm signals by associating them with conspecific alarm calls. We trained nestlings by presenting two unfamiliar sounds, one together with conspecific alarm calls (training) and one without (control). Before training, nestlings showed similarly little response to both novel sounds. After training, however, nestlings showed clear anti-predator responses to the training sound, but not to the control sound. These results show that nestling birds can socially learn to associate novel sounds with known alarm calls, even without visual confirmation of danger
Looking Back to 1991 Economic Forecasting: Introducing Cointegration
Get PDFOriginally written in 1991 to advance the formal analysis of macroeconomic forecasting models and methods following the development of cointegration, alternative forecasting devices, conditional and unconditional forecasts, and data accuracy are considered. Macroโeconometric model forecasts, forecast errors, and forecast variances are described. Forecast comparisons using mean square errors are criticised, as is pooling disparate forecasts, which violates forecast encompassing. The nonโstationarity of economic data is discussed in terms of unit roots, stochastic trends, cointegration, technical progress, and regime shifts. Sources of forecast error are delineated, concluding with evaluating its recommendations
Cryogenic sample preparation: comparative analysis of Ga+ and Xe+ FIB milling for TEM and APT examination of zirconium
Get PDFSpecimen preparation is a key step in the characterisation of materials systems. For highresolution characterisation techniques such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atom probe tomography (APT), it is necessary to have a sample preparation method that creates the nano-scale samples required for analysis but does not significantly modify the initial microstructure.
The preparation of hexagonal close-packed materials by focussed ion beam milling (FIB) and electropolishing has previously been shown to be complicated by hydride formation. The formation of hydrides can be reduced by the application of cryogenic temperatures during the final stages of Ga+ ion FIB milling, which are often conducted at low accelerating voltages in order to minimise irradiation-induced damage.
Xe+ ion plasma FIBs are now commonly used in the preparation of samples due to their higher milling rates. However, the severity of the hydride formation in hexagonal close-packed materials during Xe+ ion milling is unclear. In this paper, we compare Xe+ and Ga+ FIB milling to prepare Zr samples at ambient and cryogenic temperatures. By studying TEM and APT samples, we are able to compare the levels of hydride formation after FIB preparation caused by the different preparation techniques. APT is used to estimate the levels of hydrogen in the samples. These results represent an important contribution to researchers who use FIB preparation to create TEM and APT specimens from hexagonal close-packed metals such as zirconium
Better outcomes for everyone - clean longform dataset
No full textData from Better Outcomes for Everyone (BOFE) clinical trial. Anonymized and cleaned to only include patients with complete records
Turning the page: archaeological archives and entangled knowledge
No full textThroughout the nineteenth, and for much of the twentieth century, archives were considered to be containers of knowledge, holding material that was deemed to be objective and unbiased. In more recent years, however, as scholars have begun to engage more with archival material, this perception has changed, and archives have increasingly been recognized as sites of contention, holding curated historical documents โ a re-evaluation that, in turn, has led to a new understanding of the role and significance of both archives and archiving practices, as well as to renewed interest in their contents.
Taking renewed scholarly interest in archives as its starting point, this volume highlights the importance of archival material both as a source of study, and as a way of unleashing hitherto โlostโ knowledge. The chapters gathered here present previously unpublished material for the first time, as well as offer new insights into archival and curatorial practices. Through this approach, the authors not only reveal unknown aspects and histories of both past and ongoing excavations, but also shed light on the creation processes of an archive, an element that is typically lost by the time the material is designated as an archive by those who study it. The result is a volume that can shape best archival practices and approaches for the future
Selfโregulation and the learning of Chinese characters by foreign language learners
Get PDFSome learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) face difficulties learning Chinese characters (hanzi), particularly if they are from alphabetic language backgrounds such as English. Many CFL students need to develop the ability to selfโregulate their learning to cope with the learning of hundreds of characters in the beginner and intermediate stages of learning. This mixedโmethods study explored these strategic actions through a multiโdimensional lens of selfโregulation. Eight CFL university students at an Irish university were interviewed six times each throughout the course of an academic year to track their selfโregulation as their learning of Chinese characters developed. In addition, 108 students across universities in Ireland were surveyed on their selfโregulation. Learners with higher hanzi knowledge demonstrated stronger selfโregulation, particularly in terms of meeting the commitments of their studies. Metacognitive control was problematic for all learners. Emotion control was more problematic at the earlier levels of hanzi knowledge
The existence of subspace designs
Get PDFWe prove the existence of subspace designs with any given parameters, provided that the dimension of the underlying space is sufficiently large in terms of the other parameters of the design and satisfies the obvious necessary divisibility conditions. This settles an open problem from the 1970s. Moreover, we also obtain an approximate formula for the number of such designs