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Although most adults cope well with marital separation and divorce, some report significant difficulties navigating this life transition. The end of marriage can severely disrupt one’s self-narrative and self-concept, resulting in loss of meaning and, consequently, significant emotional upheaval. To address these risk profiles, the present study developed an existential narrative therapy for adults struggling with marital separation by incorporating tragic and redemptive narratives into the therapeutic process. Nine out of eleven participants completed six 1-hour psychotherapy sessions over a three-month period either in-person or online via Zoom. The first four sessions occurred weekly and entailed learning about tragic and redemptive concepts and writing marital separation narratives with tragic and redemptive themes. The final two sessions occurred monthly and assisted with narrative implementation. In line with the NIH Stage Model (Stage I research), I conducted a feasibility and acceptability study of this intervention and outline a series of treatment implications learned over the 60 psychotherapy sessions. To assess feasibility, I measured recruitment rates, session and homework completion rates, and participant understanding of therapy content. To assess acceptability, I evaluated the degree to which participants found the intervention useful, satisfying, and recommendable to others. Secondary goals included obtaining descriptive evidence of treatment efficacy, measuring psychological constructs and linguistic markers of treatment, and eliciting feedback to improve the intervention. The intervention was feasible to administer, acceptable to participants, and provided preliminary evidence of treatment efficacy via several potential mechanisms of change. Future studies should aim to improve recruitment and screening methods, increase the structure and scalability of the intervention, and test the efficacy of the intervention and variations of it.

White individuals’ negative reactions to organizational diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives can impede the success and longevity of these policies and practices. The present research leveraged an integrated process model informed by contemporary Procedural Justice and Social Identity Theory frameworks to examine how White individuals’ perceptions of organizational DEI initiative fairness influence their psychological responses and outcomes through an identity-centric process. Across three studies of White United States workforce members, perceptions of DEI initiative procedural (un)fairness were found to influence outcomes with implications for DEI efforts and organizational functioning partly through the role of social identity judgments. Study 1 demonstrated that DEI initiatives viewed as less procedurally fair to White people were related to decreased perceptions of the organization’s respect for White members, weaker organizational identification, and more adverse DEI and organizational outcomes. Study 2 tested the utility of the full model, finding evidence in support of an identity-centric process through perceived organizational respect for White people and organizational identification. Specifically, favorable evaluations of workplace DEI initiatives’ procedural fairness for White people were associated with positive perceptions of the workplace’s respect for White members, which were then related to positive DEI- and organization-relevant outcomes directly and/or through enhanced organizational identification. Study 3 further supported the integrated process model and expanded its scope to additional outcomes. Collectively, this research suggests that organizations can foster greater support for DEI efforts and organizational functioning among White individuals by developing and implementing DEI initiatives that are perceived as fair for White organization members.

Prior research suggests that “mystical-type experiences” (MTEs) have the potential to induce significant and persisting worldview changes. MTEs are also implicated in positive outcomes in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. The four studies in the present work seek to test the hypothesis that MTEs change worldviews and help in psychotherapy because MTEs, with proper integration, induce intrinsic shifts in aspirations and goals. Intrinsic goals, compared to extrinsic, are better at managing existential concerns, fulfilling basic psychological needs, and reducing psychiatric risk. Studies 1 (n = 837) and 2 (n = 1,036) used correlational data to show that people who have had an MTE, versus not, during their lives had more intrinsic and growth-oriented worldviews. Study 3 (n = 26) collected pre/post data from participants who used psychedelics at a music festival, testing the hypothesis that psychedelic-induced MTEs plus integration can elicit an intrinsic shift in goal aspirations. The primary hypothesis in Study 3 could not be properly tested due to ceiling effects on the dependent variable and low statistical power due to attrition. However, at Time 1 (n = 99), veteran psychedelic users reported higher openness, flourishing, and lower death anxiety, compared to less experienced psychedelic users. Study 4 (n = 45) tests the intrinsic shift hypothesis by teaming up with three facilitators of Conscious Connected Breathwork, a practice known to elicit MTEs, and collecting pre/post data from their clients. The primary hypothesis, that MTEs plus integration would be positively associated with shifts in autonomy causality orientation, was not upheld. However, integration, not MTEs, predicted a significant increase in feelings of connectedness with others, but not with oneself or the world. Together, Studies 1-4 provide correlational data supporting the intrinsic shift hypothesis, but quasi-experimental data that does not. More rigorous methods, including control groups and

Transgender (trans) people endure various forms of discrimination and harassment that adversely affect their psychological well-being, and much of the psychological distress caused by these experiences may contribute to deeply-seated existential concerns. This research bridges empirical work from existential and humanistic psychological perspectives with research on trans people’s mental health to highlight important differences in coping with existential concerns between trans and cisgender people, as well as provides an initial investigation on the role of autonomy support for gender expression in helping trans people manage these concerns. Study 1 (n = 429) found that trans (vs. cisgender) participants reported higher death-related cognition, greater post-traumatic stress symptoms, lower meaning in life, and greater existential isolation. Moreover, among trans participants, autonomy frustration for gender expression predicted greater post-traumatic stress, and autonomy support for gender expression predicted both greater meaning in life and lower existential isolation. Study 2 (n = 675) replicated these results and also revealed that autonomy support and frustration for gender expression are unique predictors of these outcomes after controlling for both general perceived social support and felt autonomy for gender expression. Study 3 (n = 365) tested whether exposure to a real-world example of anti-trans measures (vs. neutral topic) would increase existential concerns for trans participants with low, but not high, autonomy support for gender expression. Although the interaction between exposure to anti-trans measures and autonomy support for gender expression was not significant, there was a main effect of autonomy support, such that autonomy support significantly predicted both greater meaning in life and lower existential isolation. These findings are discussed in the context of research on trans people’s mental health, and future directions aimed at understand

Over the past several decades, the way we socialize on a day-to-day basis has drastically changed, especially among adolescent and young adult populations. Social media platforms and online social interactions now dominate individuals’ daily time spent socializing with others, relative to in-person interactions (American Time Use Survey, 2019). Accordingly, the substance of these online interacts has a growing importance to individuals’ wellbeing (Tynes, et al., 2015). Unfortunately, sexism and objectification of women are rampant on social media platforms (Bell, et al., 2018; Davis, 2018; Drakett, et al., 2018; Fox, et al., 2015). Informed by theories of ambivalent sexism, objectification, and social identity, this dissertation investigated how encountering gender bias on social media platforms affects women in several domains of wellbeing. Study 1 created an open-access database of social media content and comments, which were used as stimuli in later studies. Study 2 launched an initial investigation of two important variables underlying the developing project hypotheses: that encountering gender bias online is associated with anticipating subsequent bias, which is linked to social identity threat. Studies 3 and 4 documented the causal impact of encountering sexist content on social media platforms. While the specific outcome variables vary slightly across studies, the predicted psychological process is similar: Encountering sexism on social media platforms leads to detrimental outcomes for women. The findings generally supported this prediction, showing that after encountering sexist content, women experience heightened depression, anxiety, anticipated bias, lower view of future possible selves, and a reduced desire to use the social media platform in the future.

When people make a difficult choice between two desirable alternatives, they experience inconsistency between the positive qualities of the unchosen alternative and the negative qualities of the chosen alternative. One way that people can reduce the inconsistency is to change their attitudes toward the alternatives. This means that they will begin to like their chosen alternative more and like their unchosen alternative less. Past research has focused on cases where people were asked to accept one of two desirable alternatives. The present research aimed to manipulate the framing of the decision, such that some participants were asked to accept one of two alternatives, and some were asked to reject one of two alternatives. Across 4 studies, we found that when people focus on rejecting an alternative, they show less dissonance reduction (spreading) than when they accept an alternative (Brehm, 1956). Specifically, whereas those accepting have been shown to significantly bolster their chosen alternative and significantly derogate their unchosen alternative, those rejecting have been shown to only significantly derogate their unchosen alternative. We have conducted a meta-analysis of these four studies that demonstrated that this general pattern holds up across all the studies. Study 5 found initial evidence that the lack of bolstering in the rejection condition could be due in part to a lack of recall of the pros about the chosen alternative. This may signify that those rejecting aren’t encoding the same number of pros as those choosing which may be pointing to a trivialization process at the time of the decision. Indeed, we find marginally less discomfort in the rejection condition compared to the accepting condition. Future research needs to be done to further elaborate on these findings.

Several times each year the teaching performance of academics at higher education institutions are evaluated through anonymous, online student evaluation of teaching (SET) surveys. Universities use SETs to inform decisions about staff promotion and tenure, but low student participation levels make the surveys impractical for this use. This scoping review aims to explore student motivations, perceptions and opinions of SET survey completion. Five EBSCO® databases were searched using key words. Thematic analysis of a meta-synthesis of qualitative findings derived from 21 papers identified five themes: (i) the value students’ place on SET, (ii) the knowledge that SET responses are acted upon to improve teaching, (iii) assurance of survey confidentiality and anonymity, (iv) incentives for completing SET, and (v) survey design and timing of survey release. Perceptions, knowledge and attitudes about the value of SET are essential factors in motivating students to engage and complete SETs, particularly if surveys are easy to interpret, time for completion is incentivised and responses are valued.

Composite pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma-ganglioglioma (PXA-GG) is an extremely rare central nervous system neoplasm with 2 distinct but intermingled components. Whether this tumor represents a "collision tumor" of separate neoplasms or a monoclonal neoplasm with divergent evolution is poorly understood. Clinicopathologic studies and capture-based next generation sequencing were performed on extracted DNA from all available PXA-GG at 2 medical centers. Five PXA-GG were diagnosed in 1 male and 4 female patients ranging from 13 to 25 years in age. Four arose within the cerebral hemispheres; 1 presented in the cerebellar vermis. DNA was sufficient for analysis in 4 PXA components and 3 GG components. Four paired PXA and GG components harbored BRAF p.V600E hotspot mutations. The 4 sequenced PXA components demonstrated CDKN2A homozygous deletion by sequencing with loss of p16 (protein product of CDKN2A) expression by immunohistochemistry, which was intact in all assessed GG components. The PXA components also demonstrated more frequent copy number alterations relative to paired GG components. In one PXA-GG, shared chromosomal copy number alterations were identified in both components. Our findings support divergent evolution of the PXA and GG components from a common BRAF p.V600E-mutant precursor lesion, with additional acquisition of CDKN2A homozygous deletion in the PXA component as is typically seen in conventional PXA.

Sleep problems are one of the most frequent triggers of primary headaches such as migraine and tension-type headache, second only to stress. Whilst the relationship between various sleep disorders, and poor sleep in general has been well established, to date there has been a paucity of research examining psychological mechanisms of sleep-related headaches. This thesis sought to examine the following research questions about sleep-related headaches, in the context of the discipline of Clinical Psychology: Study One (Chapter Two) – What is causing the problem? What are the psychological mechanisms underpinning sleep-related headaches? Study Two (Chapter Three) – What are the consequences of the problem? Do insomnia, headaches and co-morbid insomnia and headaches predict poor therapeutic response to psychotherapy? Study Three (Chapter Four) – What can we do about the problem? Do psychological sleep interventions help both sleep and headaches? Chapter Five – What does the future hold? Exploring the next directions in sleep and headache research. Study One demonstrated that both maladaptive sleep beliefs and sleep safety behaviours are associated with greater headache frequency, mediated by sleep quality. This study also provided preliminary empirical support for sleep-related triggers in the Trigger Avoidance Model of Headaches. It was found that greater efforts to avoid both inadequate and excessive sleep, and fatigue and tiredness were associated with greater headache frequency, mediated by increased trigger sensitivity. Study Two demonstrated that in adults attending the Griffith University Psychology Clinic, the presence of frequent insomnia or headache symptoms at the initial session was highly predictive of an inadequate response to psychotherapy (remaining clinically symptomatic at the final session of therapy). This effect was found to be even more pronounced in those with both insomnia and headaches. Study Three was a systematic review and meta-analysis, which, Thesis (Professional Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology (PhD ClinPsych), School of Applied Psychology, Griffith Health, Full Text

When considering ways to address issues of gender inequality, people typically think about the social and economic disadvantages faced by women compared to men. Remarkably fewer research efforts have been devoted to understanding why men remain underrepresented in female-dominated and communal roles. Informed by theories of precarious masculinity, this dissertation investigated how threats to masculinity contribute to the underrepresentation of men in communal roles in diverse contexts, including romantic relationships, the domestic sphere, and health promotion behaviors. Study 1 examined the impact of masculinity threats on men’s self-reported closeness, commitment, and interdependence with their romantic partners, as well as their cardiovascular reactivity to threats. Moving to the domestic sphere, Study 2A explored how threats to masculinity shape young men’s preferences for the division of domestic labor, and Study 2B examined how manhood threats impact the way fathers report the division of labor in their current families. Study 3 documented the impact of masculinity threats on men’s attitudes toward psychological help seeking behaviors, as well as their participation in health promotion behaviors. While the specific outcomes differ across studies, the predicted psychological process is similar: Experiencing a masculinity threat should lead men to engage in behaviors congruent with traditional masculinity. Ultimately, the findings did not support this prediction, but exploratory analyses highlight the importance of sexual orientation and individual differences in support for gender role ideologies in moderating the effect of masculinity threats.

PurposeA magnetic resonance (MR) biologic marker (biomarker) is a measurable quantitative characteristic that is an indicator of normal biological and pathogenetic processes or a response to therapeutic intervention derived from the MR imaging process. There is significant potential for MR biomarkers to facilitate personalized approaches to cancer care through more precise disease targeting by quantifying normal versus pathologic tissue function as well as toxicity to both radiation and chemotherapy. Both of which have the potential to increase the therapeutic ratio and provide earlier, more accurate monitoring of treatment response. The ongoing integration of MR into routine clinical radiation therapy (RT) planning and the development of MR guided radiation therapy systems is providing new opportunities for MR biomarkers to personalize and improve clinical outcomes. Their appropriate use, however, must be based on knowledge of the physical origin of the biomarker signal, the relationship to the underlying biological processes, and their strengths and limitations. The purpose of this report is to provide an educational resource describing MR biomarkers, the techniques used to quantify them, their strengths and weakness within the context of their application to radiation oncology so as to ensure their appropriate use and application within this field.

Existing quantitative imaging biomarkers (QIBs) are associated with known biological tissue characteristics and follow a well-understood path of technical, biological and clinical validation before incorporation into clinical trials. In radiomics, novel data-driven processes extract numerous visually imperceptible statistical features from the imaging data with no a priori assumptions on their correlation with biological processes. The selection of relevant features (radiomic signature) and incorporation into clinical trials therefore requires additional considerations to ensure meaningful imaging endpoints. Also, the number of radiomic features tested means that power calculations would result in sample sizes impossible to achieve within clinical trials. This article examines how the process of standardising and validating data-driven imaging biomarkers differs from those based on biological associations. Radiomic signatures are best developed initially on datasets that represent diversity of acquisition protocols as well as diversity of disease and of normal findings, rather than within clinical trials with standardised and optimised protocols as this would risk the selection of radiomic features being linked to the imaging process rather than the pathology. Normalisation through discretisation and feature harmonisation are essential pre-processing steps. Biological correlation may be performed after the technical and clinical validity of a radiomic signature is established, but is not mandatory. Feature selection may be part of discovery within a radiomics-specific trial or represent exploratory endpoints within an established trial; a previously validated radiomic signature may even be used as a primary/secondary endpoint, particularly if associations are demonstrated with specific biological processes and pathways being targeted within clinical trials. KEY POINTS: • Data-driven processes like radiomics risk false discoveries due to high-dimensionality of the da

A Correction to this paper has been published

Existing quantitative imaging biomarkers (QIBs) are associated with known biological tissue characteristics and follow a well-understood path of technical, biological and clinical validation before incorporation into clinical trials. In radiomics, novel data-driven processes extract numerous visually imperceptible statistical features from the imaging data with no a priori assumptions on their correlation with biological processes. The selection of relevant features (radiomic signature) and incorporation into clinical trials therefore requires additional considerations to ensure meaningful imaging endpoints. Also, the number of radiomic features tested means that power calculations would result in sample sizes impossible to achieve within clinical trials. This article examines how the process of standardising and validating data-driven imaging biomarkers differs from those based on biological associations. Radiomic signatures are best developed initially on datasets that represent diversity of acquisition protocols as well as diversity of disease and of normal findings, rather than within clinical trials with standardised and optimised protocols as this would risk the selection of radiomic features being linked to the imaging process rather than the pathology. Normalisation through discretisation and feature harmonisation are essential pre-processing steps. Biological correlation may be performed after the technical and clinical validity of a radiomic signature is established, but is not mandatory. Feature selection may be part of discovery within a radiomics-specific trial or represent exploratory endpoints within an established trial; a previously validated radiomic signature may even be used as a primary/secondary endpoint, particularly if associations are demonstrated with specific biological processes and pathways being targeted within clinical trials. KEY POINTS: • Data-driven processes like radiomics risk false discoveries due to high-dimensionality of the da

PurposeA magnetic resonance (MR) biologic marker (biomarker) is a measurable quantitative characteristic that is an indicator of normal biological and pathogenetic processes or a response to therapeutic intervention derived from the MR imaging process. There is significant potential for MR biomarkers to facilitate personalized approaches to cancer care through more precise disease targeting by quantifying normal versus pathologic tissue function as well as toxicity to both radiation and chemotherapy. Both of which have the potential to increase the therapeutic ratio and provide earlier, more accurate monitoring of treatment response. The ongoing integration of MR into routine clinical radiation therapy (RT) planning and the development of MR guided radiation therapy systems is providing new opportunities for MR biomarkers to personalize and improve clinical outcomes. Their appropriate use, however, must be based on knowledge of the physical origin of the biomarker signal, the relationship to the underlying biological processes, and their strengths and limitations. The purpose of this report is to provide an educational resource describing MR biomarkers, the techniques used to quantify them, their strengths and weakness within the context of their application to radiation oncology so as to ensure their appropriate use and application within this field.

A Correction to this paper has been published

Existing quantitative imaging biomarkers (QIBs) are associated with known biological tissue characteristics and follow a well-understood path of technical, biological and clinical validation before incorporation into clinical trials. In radiomics, novel data-driven processes extract numerous visually imperceptible statistical features from the imaging data with no a priori assumptions on their correlation with biological processes. The selection of relevant features (radiomic signature) and incorporation into clinical trials therefore requires additional considerations to ensure meaningful imaging endpoints. Also, the number of radiomic features tested means that power calculations would result in sample sizes impossible to achieve within clinical trials. This article examines how the process of standardising and validating data-driven imaging biomarkers differs from those based on biological associations. Radiomic signatures are best developed initially on datasets that represent diversity of acquisition protocols as well as diversity of disease and of normal findings, rather than within clinical trials with standardised and optimised protocols as this would risk the selection of radiomic features being linked to the imaging process rather than the pathology. Normalisation through discretisation and feature harmonisation are essential pre-processing steps. Biological correlation may be performed after the technical and clinical validity of a radiomic signature is established, but is not mandatory. Feature selection may be part of discovery within a radiomics-specific trial or represent exploratory endpoints within an established trial; a previously validated radiomic signature may even be used as a primary/secondary endpoint, particularly if associations are demonstrated with specific biological processes and pathways being targeted within clinical trials.

Existing quantitative imaging biomarkers (QIBs) are associated with known biological tissue characteristics and follow a well-understood path of technical, biological and clinical validation before incorporation into clinical trials. In radiomics, novel data-driven processes extract numerous visually imperceptible statistical features from the imaging data with no a priori assumptions on their correlation with biological processes. The selection of relevant features (radiomic signature) and incorporation into clinical trials therefore requires additional considerations to ensure meaningful imaging endpoints. Also, the number of radiomic features tested means that power calculations would result in sample sizes impossible to achieve within clinical trials. This article examines how the process of standardising and validating data-driven imaging biomarkers differs from those based on biological associations. Radiomic signatures are best developed initially on datasets that represent diversity of acquisition protocols as well as diversity of disease and of normal findings, rather than within clinical trials with standardised and optimised protocols as this would risk the selection of radiomic features being linked to the imaging process rather than the pathology. Normalisation through discretisation and feature harmonisation are essential pre-processing steps. Biological correlation may be performed after the technical and clinical validity of a radiomic signature is established, but is not mandatory. Feature selection may be part of discovery within a radiomics-specific trial or represent exploratory endpoints within an established trial; a previously validated radiomic signature may even be used as a primary/secondary endpoint, particularly if associations are demonstrated with specific biological processes and pathways being targeted within clinical trials.

A Correction to this paper has been published

Existing quantitative imaging biomarkers (QIBs) are associated with known biological tissue characteristics and follow a well-understood path of technical, biological and clinical validation before incorporation into clinical trials. In radiomics, novel data-driven processes extract numerous visually imperceptible statistical features from the imaging data with no a priori assumptions on their correlation with biological processes. The selection of relevant features (radiomic signature) and incorporation into clinical trials therefore requires additional considerations to ensure meaningful imaging endpoints. Also, the number of radiomic features tested means that power calculations would result in sample sizes impossible to achieve within clinical trials. This article examines how the process of standardising and validating data-driven imaging biomarkers differs from those based on biological associations. Radiomic signatures are best developed initially on datasets that represent diversity of acquisition protocols as well as diversity of disease and of normal findings, rather than within clinical trials with standardised and optimised protocols as this would risk the selection of radiomic features being linked to the imaging process rather than the pathology. Normalisation through discretisation and feature harmonisation are essential pre-processing steps. Biological correlation may be performed after the technical and clinical validity of a radiomic signature is established, but is not mandatory. Feature selection may be part of discovery within a radiomics-specific trial or represent exploratory endpoints within an established trial; a previously validated radiomic signature may even be used as a primary/secondary endpoint, particularly if associations are demonstrated with specific biological processes and pathways being targeted within clinical trials.

Abstract: Existing quantitative imaging biomarkers (QIBs) are associated with known biological tissue characteristics and follow a well-understood path of technical, biological and clinical validation before incorporation into clinical trials. In radiomics, novel data-driven processes extract numerous visually imperceptible statistical features from the imaging data with no a priori assumptions on their correlation with biological processes. The selection of relevant features (radiomic signature) and incorporation into clinical trials therefore requires additional considerations to ensure meaningful imaging endpoints. Also, the number of radiomic features tested means that power calculations would result in sample sizes impossible to achieve within clinical trials. This article examines how the process of standardising and validating data-driven imaging biomarkers differs from those based on biological associations. Radiomic signatures are best developed initially on datasets that represent diversity of acquisition protocols as well as diversity of disease and of normal findings, rather than within clinical trials with standardised and optimised protocols as this would risk the selection of radiomic features being linked to the imaging process rather than the pathology. Normalisation through discretisation and feature harmonisation are essential pre-processing steps. Biological correlation may be performed after the technical and clinical validity of a radiomic signature is established, but is not mandatory. Feature selection may be part of discovery within a radiomics-specific trial or represent exploratory endpoints within an established trial; a previously validated radiomic signature may even be used as a primary/secondary endpoint, particularly if associations are demonstrated with specific biological processes and pathways being targeted within clinical trials. Key Points: • Data-driven processes like radiomics risk false discoveries due to high-dimensional

Modern medicine has allowed individuals with metastatic cancer to live longer than ever before, sometimes extending a patient’s life by several years. However, these individuals are still living with an incurable disease, and therefore live with the awareness of their own upcoming death. In this context, double awareness is a term that refers to a patient’s ability to engage meaningfully in life while also acknowledging and preparing for their death. Understanding this phenomenon holds great potential for supporting individuals living with metastatic and incurable cancers. Double awareness has been conceptualized as a sign of psychological health and is already being studied as a target for change in interventions that seek to support individuals at the end of life. However, until now there has previously been no instrument to measure or quantify this construct. The present study aims to create the first measure of double awareness by conducting a three-phase, mixed-method approach involving (1) instrument development, (2) qualitative inquiry and (3) quantitative analysis and validation. The first two phases have been completed successfully and the third phase remains in progress. Preliminary analyses of the third phase include a sample of 46 patients with metastatic cancer. Data from this sample resulted in a twenty-item, tentative measure called the “Double Awareness Scale”. This instrument has two distinct subscales, which we call Life Engagement and Death Contemplation, each containing ten items. These subscales are not additive, but instead create a “profile” in which an individual can be high or low on either subscale. The Double Awareness Scale demonstrated internal consistency and preliminary evidence for discriminant and convergent validity in this sample. Scores on the Death Contemplation subscale predicted openness to hospice services, indicating that the scale has psychological and behavioral implications for end-of-life care.

A Correction to this paper has been published

Existing quantitative imaging biomarkers (QIBs) are associated with known biological tissue characteristics and follow a well-understood path of technical, biological and clinical validation before incorporation into clinical trials. In radiomics, novel data-driven processes extract numerous visually imperceptible statistical features from the imaging data with no a priori assumptions on their correlation with biological processes. The selection of relevant features (radiomic signature) and incorporation into clinical trials therefore requires additional considerations to ensure meaningful imaging endpoints. Also, the number of radiomic features tested means that power calculations would result in sample sizes impossible to achieve within clinical trials. This article examines how the process of standardising and validating data-driven imaging biomarkers differs from those based on biological associations. Radiomic signatures are best developed initially on datasets that represent diversity of acquisition protocols as well as diversity of disease and of normal findings, rather than within clinical trials with standardised and optimised protocols as this would risk the selection of radiomic features being linked to the imaging process rather than the pathology. Normalisation through discretisation and feature harmonisation are essential pre-processing steps. Biological correlation may be performed after the technical and clinical validity of a radiomic signature is established, but is not mandatory. Feature selection may be part of discovery within a radiomics-specific trial or represent exploratory endpoints within an established trial; a previously validated radiomic signature may even be used as a primary/secondary endpoint, particularly if associations are demonstrated with specific biological processes and pathways being targeted within clinical trials.

A Correction to this paper has been published

Existing quantitative imaging biomarkers (QIBs) are associated with known biological tissue characteristics and follow a well-understood path of technical, biological and clinical validation before incorporation into clinical trials. In radiomics, novel data-driven processes extract numerous visually imperceptible statistical features from the imaging data with no a priori assumptions on their correlation with biological processes. The selection of relevant features (radiomic signature) and incorporation into clinical trials therefore requires additional considerations to ensure meaningful imaging endpoints. Also, the number of radiomic features tested means that power calculations would result in sample sizes impossible to achieve within clinical trials. This article examines how the process of standardising and validating data-driven imaging biomarkers differs from those based on biological associations. Radiomic signatures are best developed initially on datasets that represent diversity of acquisition protocols as well as diversity of disease and of normal findings, rather than within clinical trials with standardised and optimised protocols as this would risk the selection of radiomic features being linked to the imaging process rather than the pathology. Normalisation through discretisation and feature harmonisation are essential pre-processing steps. Biological correlation may be performed after the technical and clinical validity of a radiomic signature is established, but is not mandatory. Feature selection may be part of discovery within a radiomics-specific trial or represent exploratory endpoints within an established trial; a previously validated radiomic signature may even be used as a primary/secondary endpoint, particularly if associations are demonstrated with specific biological processes and pathways being targeted within clinical trials.

Paragangliomas are neuroendocrine tumors of the autonomic nervous system that are variably clinically functional and have a potential for metastasis. Up to 40% occur in the setting of a hereditary syndrome, most commonly due to germline mutations in succinate dehydrogenase (SDHx) genes. Immunohistochemically, paragangliomas are characteristically GATA3-positive and cytokeratin-negative, with loss of SDHB expression in most hereditary cases. In contrast, the rare paragangliomas arising in the cauda equina (CEP) or filum terminale region have been shown to be hormonally silent, clinically indolent, and have variable keratin expression, suggesting these tumors may represent a separate pathologic entity. We retrospectively evaluated 17 CEPs from 11 male and 6 female patients with a median age of 38 years (range 21-82), none with a family history of neuroendocrine neoplasia. Six of the 17 tumors demonstrated prominent gangliocytic or ganglioneuromatous differentiation. By immunohistochemistry, none of the CEPs showed GATA3 positivity or loss of SDHB staining; all 17 CEPs were cytokeratin positive. Genome-wide DNA methylation profiling was performed on 12 of the tumors and compared with publicly available genome-wide DNA methylation data. Clustering analysis showed that CEPs form a distinct epigenetic group, separate from paragangliomas of extraspinal sites, pheochromocytomas, and other neuroendocrine neoplasms. Copy number analysis revealed diploid genomes in the vast majority of CEPs, whereas extraspinal paragangliomas were mostly aneuploid with recurrent trisomy 1q and monosomies of 1p, 3, and 11, none of which were present in the cohort of CEP. Together, these findings indicate that CEPs likely represent a distinct entity. Future genomic studies are needed to further elucidate the molecular pathogenesis of these tumors.

Listing people alphabetically on an electronic output device is a traditional technique, since alphabetical order is easily perceived by users and facilitates access to information. However, this apparently harmless technique, especially when the list is ordered by first name, needs to be used with caution by designers and programmers. We show, via empirical data analysis, that when an interface displays people's first name in alphabetical order in several pages/screens, each page/screen may have imbalances in respect to gender of its Top-k individuals.k represents the size of the list of names visualized first, which may be the number of names that fits in a screen page of a certain device.The research work was carried out with the analysis of actual datasets of names of five different countries. Each dataset has a person name and the frequency of adoption of the name in the country.Our analysis shows that, even though all countries have exhibit imbalance problems, the samples of individuals with Brazilian and Spanish first names are more prone to gender imbalance among their Top-k individuals. These results can be useful for designers and engineers to construct information systems that avoid gender bias induction.

Las barreras comunes al retorno en los casos de los refugiados rohinyá y de los desplazados internos sursudaneses suscitan serias dudas acerca de cuál sería la forma de garantizar su carácter voluntario y seguridad.

Level of evidence5 Technical Efficacy: Stage 5 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2019.

Las barreras comunes al retorno en los casos de los refugiados rohinyá y de los desplazados internos sursudaneses suscitan serias dudas acerca de cuál sería la forma de garantizar su carácter voluntario y seguridad.

Collecting is a pervasive form of consumer behavior throughout human history. When collecting, instead of adding new items to their collections randomly, consumers tend to systematically acquire objects and experiences, for instance by following an overarching theme geared towards the completion of the collection. It is unknown, however, why consumers are driven to such systematic acquisition behaviors. In the present dissertation, I aim to close this knowledge gap by providing converging evidence that the systematic acquisition of objects and experiences a coping mechanism for desire for control, a fundamental human motivation to manage events and outcomes in one’s life. This is because systematically acquiring objects and experiences helps consumers build a cognitive structure in their mind through conceptually organized items and, thus, attenuates their desire for control. This dissertation offers a comprehensive multi-method investigation into a crucial driver of collecting behavior by employing three different operationalizations of desire for control (i.e., self-report, neurophysiology, and experimental manipulation), three different operationalizations of collections (i.e., hypothetical, actual endowment, and collections that collectors already possess), and a wide variety of consumer collectibles (e.g., paperclips, stamps, coins, the experience of visiting U.S. national parks).

This dissertation argues that in addition to loneliness and social isolation, research examining facets of interpersonal isolation should also consider existential isolation (EI; Yalom, 1980). Interpersonal isolation refers to any between-person separation. Loneliness is the distressing feeling accompanied by the subjective evaluation that there is a discrepancy between one’s desired and one’s actual social relationships (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2014). Social isolation is the objective condition of having few contacts with family and community (Pressman et al., 2005). EI is the subjective feeling that others cannot understand one’s perspective. I argue social isolation constitutes an objective component of interpersonal isolation while loneliness and EI constitute subjective components. Across three studies I argue for the uniqueness of EI as a construct and compare its relative effects to loneliness (Studies 1-3) and social isolation (Study 2). In Study 1, I find EI and loneliness to both independently and interact to predict greater depression and suicide ideation. Study 2 utilizes a longitudinal design and compares the relative effects of each type of isolation on a variety of outcomes across a semester. While the initial hypotheses in Study 2 did not receive much empirical support, exploratory analyses revealed that changes in EI are particularly important predictors of measures of healthy behaviors and wellbeing over the course of a semester. Study 3 compared the relative behavioral effects of EI and loneliness after a rejection experience. Study 3 found no support for the hypotheses. Taken together, these studies support the utility of considering EI as a facet of interpersonal isolation and demonstrate that EI can have predictive power beyond more commonly studied forms of interpersonal isolation.

This research examined when, and for whom, American collective nostalgia can relieve feelings of collective guilt. In the Pilot Study, path analyses revealed that national glorification is associated with collective nostalgia, and collective nostalgia is associated with lower collective guilt. Our experimental studies test the role of these variables in determining responses to the elevated salience of past ingroup harm doing. Collective nostalgia was associated with lower collective guilt especially after reminders of America's harm doing in Study 1. In Study 2 we predicted and showed that reminders of American harm doing would evoke spontaneous collective nostalgia for participants high in national glorification. The remaining studies tested the hypothesis that collective nostalgia serves to buffer collective guilt. Collective guilt was lower after reminders of past harm doing for participants who engaged in collective nostalgia (Study 3), and this was especially pronounced for participants high in national glorification (Study 4).

Some acts of human cooperation are not easily explained by traditional models of kinship or reciprocity. Fitness interdependence may provide a unifying conceptual framework, in which cooperation arises from the mutual dependence for survival or reproduction, as occurs among mates, risk-pooling partnerships and brothers-in-arms.

This research examined when, and for whom, American collective nostalgia can relieve feelings of collective guilt. In the Pilot Study, path analyses revealed that national glorification is associated with collective nostalgia, and collective nostalgia is associated with lower collective guilt. Our experimental studies test the role of these variables in determining responses to the elevated salience of past ingroup harm doing. Collective nostalgia was associated with lower collective guilt especially after reminders of America's harm doing in Study 1. In Study 2 we predicted and showed that reminders of American harm doing would evoke spontaneous collective nostalgia for participants high in national glorification. The remaining studies tested the hypothesis that collective nostalgia serves to buffer collective guilt. Collective guilt was lower after reminders of past harm doing for participants who engaged in collective nostalgia (Study 3), and this was especially pronounced for participants high in national glorification (Study 4).

Some acts of human cooperation are not easily explained by traditional models of kinship or reciprocity. Fitness interdependence may provide a unifying conceptual framework, in which cooperation arises from the mutual dependence for survival or reproduction, as occurs among mates, risk-pooling partnerships and brothers-in-arms.

In a collaboration between Ceres Power and Lancaster University, funded by Innovate UK, an engineering FEA model is being developed to further understand the manufacturing processes, such as the densification of the ceria based electrolyte. In these models material properties, such as the Thermal Expansion Coefficient, Young’s Modulus, layer densification rates and creep are critical inputs. These properties, when interacting with the applied thermal processes, give rise to stresses within the layers which can result in permanent deformation and residual stresses at the end of the process steps at room temperature. A deep analytical understanding of these material-process interactions can be used to optimise sintering time, energy usage, residual part stresses or distortion in a rapid and low cost way through the use of validated CAE models. Results will be presented from the modelling techniques for an example metal supported SOFC to demonstrate the importance of the above mentioned properties. Sensitivity study results will also be presented to show the impact of variability of the manufacturing process.

In a collaboration between Ceres Power and Lancaster University, funded by Innovate UK, an engineering FEA model is being developed to further understand the manufacturing processes, such as the densification of the ceria based electrolyte. In these models material properties, such as the Thermal Expansion Coefficient, Young’s Modulus, layer densification rates and creep are critical inputs. These properties, when interacting with the applied thermal processes, give rise to stresses within the layers which can result in permanent deformation and residual stresses at the end of the process steps at room temperature. A deep analytical understanding of these material-process interactions can be used to optimise sintering time, energy usage, residual part stresses or distortion in a rapid and low cost way through the use of validated CAE models. Results will be presented from the modelling techniques for an example metal supported SOFC to demonstrate the importance of the above mentioned properties. Sensitivity study results will also be presented to show the impact of variability of the manufacturing process.

The Pathosystems Resource Integration Center (PATRIC) is the all-bacterial Bioinformatics Resource Center (BRC) (http://www.patricbrc.org). A joint effort by two of the original National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases-funded BRCs, PATRIC provides researchers with an online resource that stores and integrates a variety of data types [e.g. genomics, transcriptomics, protein-protein interactions (PPIs), three-dimensional protein structures and sequence typing data] and associated metadata. Datatypes are summarized for individual genomes and across taxonomic levels. All genomes in PATRIC, currently more than 10 000, are consistently annotated using RAST, the Rapid Annotations using Subsystems Technology. Summaries of different data types are also provided for individual genes, where comparisons of different annotations are available, and also include available transcriptomic data. PATRIC provides a variety of ways for researchers to find data of interest and a private workspace where they can store both genomic and gene associations, and their own private data. Both private and public data can be analyzed together using a suite of tools to perform comparative genomic or transcriptomic analysis. PATRIC also includes integrated information related to disease and PPIs. All the data and integrated analysis and visualization tools are freely available. This manuscript describes updates to the PATRIC since its initial report in the 2007 NAR Database Issue

Previous research shows that bodily experiences can unconsciously influence perception, judgment, and behavior. However, inconsistency among recent findings in the embodied cognition literature suggests a need for theoretical boundary conditions. While research appears to assume that embodied effects are necessarily implicit (Schnall, 2017), the extant literature has not directly manipulated the role that conscious awareness of bodily states plays in embodied cognition. Dual process theories of social cognition assert that information processing falls along a continuum, from processing that is relatively automatic, effortless, and experiential, to processing that is relatively deliberate, controlled, and rational. Importantly, information processed along the dimensions of this continuum can lead to different outcomes. Thus, if the body influences social cognition in a more implicit manner, experimentally manipulating conscious awareness of a bodily state may lend further insight into when embodiment is attenuated. Six studies tested this possibility in the case of the demonstrated effect of weight sensations on judgments of an abstract idea’s importance (e.g., Ackerman, Nocera, & Bargh, 2010; Jostmann, Lakens, Schubert, 2009). Studies 1 and 2 revealed a curvilinear relationship between increased clipboard weight and ratings of importance such that participants rated a topic as more important when holding a moderately heavy, compared to light, clipboard; however, the importance ratings decreased when the clipboard was very heavy. This curvilinear relationship was not caused by a negative evaluation of the topic or the activation of a different metaphor (burden). In Study 3, ratings of importance increased with a moderately heavy clipboard compared to a light clipboard, but this difference was eliminated by explicitly drawing perceiver's attention to the weight of the clipboard. Study 4 extended the model and showed that even a very heavy clipboard can act as an embod

According to Terror Management Theory (TMT; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) a key function of cultural worldviews is facilitating people's belief that they are different from animals and therefore more than physical creatures fated to obliteration upon death. We sought to investigate the relationship between peoples’ perceived similarity to animals (PSA) and their investment in their ingroup cultural-worldviews, creativity and personal achievement, as ways of managing their awareness of death. We focused on four central hypotheses: (1) high faith in cultural worldviews should reduce PSA; (2) people who view themselves less similar to animals (low-PSA) should be more invested in their cultural worldview, especially after death primes; (3) people who view themselves as more similar to animals (high-PSA), should invest more in personal achievement and creativity as a terror management strategy and (4) be more prone to experience anxiety, particularly after a threat to their creativity. Supporting Hypotheses 1 and 2 we found that: validation of cultural worldviews reduces PSA (Study 1); low-PSA individuals cared more about their ingroup identity and worldviews and perceived other cultures as more different (Studies 2a-2b); after death primes low-PSA individuals defended their groups' cultural worldview more (Studies 3-4), and liked people from other cultures less (Studies 5-6). Hypothesis 3 was partially supported: PSA was positively correlated to importance of creativity, openness and performance on a creativity task (Studies 7, 9 and 10), but it was not correlated with self-reported or projected need for achievement (Studies 7 and 8), or with creative story writing (Studies 8). Hypothesis 4 was also partially supported: PSA was positively related to trait-anxiety (Study 9), and to levels of death thought accessibility (Study 10), and high-PSA individuals experienced more anxiety after receiving negative feedback about their creativity (Study 10). The implicat

In this paper we describe a simulation platform that supports studies on the impact of crime on urban mobility. We present an example of how this can be achieved by seeking to understand the effect, on the transport system, if users of this system decide to choose optimal routes of time between origins and destinations that normally follow. Based on real data from a large Brazilian metropolis, we found that the percentage of users who follow this policy is small. Most prefer to follow less efficient routes by making bus exchanges at terminals. This can be understood as an indication that the users of the transport system privilege the security factor., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures

This research addresses the problem, can unsupervised learning generate a representation that improves on the commonly used term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF ) representation by capturing semantic relations? The analysis measures the quality of sentence classification using term TF-IDF representations, and finds a practical upper limit to precision and recall in a biomedical text classification task (F1-score of 0.85). Arguably, one could use ontologies to supplement TF-IDF, but ontologies are sparse in coverage and costly to create. This prompts a correlated question: can unsupervised learning capture semantic relations at least as well as existing ontologies, and thus supplement existing sparse ontologies? A shallow neural network implementing the Skip-Gram algorithm is used to generate semantic vectors using a corpus of approximately 2.4 billion words. The ability to capture meaning is assessed by comparing semantic vectors generated with MESH. Results indicate that semantic vectors trained by unsupervised methods capture comparable levels of semantic features in some cases, such as amino acid (92% of similarity represented in MESH), but perform substantially poorer in more expansive topics, such as pathogenic bacteria (37.8% similarity represented in MESH). Possible explanations for this difference in performance are proposed along with a method to combine manually curated ontologies with semantic vector spaces to produce a more comprehensive representation than either alone. Semantic vectors are also used as representations for paragraphs, which, when used for classification, achieve an F1-score of 0.92. The results of classification and analogical reasoning tasks are promising but a formal model of semantic vectors, subject to the constraints of known linguistic phenomenon, is needed. This research includes initial steps for developing a formal model of semantic vectors based on a combination of linear algebra and fuzzy set theory subject to th

Terror management theory research suggests that self-esteem acts as an anxiety buffer and high self-esteem can reduce implicit death thoughts and worldview defense. Self-compassion, it is argued, enhances wellbeing by making people feel safe and secure, while self-esteem makes people feel superior and sometimes unrealistically self-confident. Through a series of studies, this dissertation investigated buffering of death anxiety by self-compassion. Studies 1 and 2 investigated the role of trait (Study 1) and induced (Study 2) self-compassion in buffering existential anxiety by reducing implicit death thoughts. Studies 3 and 4 investigated the role of trait (Study 3) and induced (Study 4) self-compassion in buffering existential anxiety by reducing worldview defense. The series of studies did not support the proposed hypotheses, as they failed to replicate the expected mortality salience effects. Because of this, the effects of self-compassion on implicit death anxiety were also not evident. Possible reasons for failure to reject the null hypotheses are discussed and recommendation for future studies is given.

Contemporary higher education makes use of computers and the Internet more than ever before and the extent to which education is delivered via these media is only likely to increase in the future. While computer-mediated communication and education have been studied extensively, relatively little research has examined the potential impact of cultural background (e.g. social class) on students' experiences of different learning media. To address this gap, the current research uses a multi-sample (6 samples; n = 473), quasi-experimental approach to interrogate the relationship between student social class background and learning environment on various educational and individual outcomes. Examining a trichotomous (lower, middle, upper) conceptualization of social class across three distinct learning environments (face-to-face, computer-mediated, and fully-online) I find evidence of effects of student social class, learning environment and their interaction. In general, middle class students vary the least across conditions; lower class students tend to score lower on outcomes overall but with some notable exceptions for shared experience in face-to-face settings and comfort in online settings; and upper class students tend to experience a laboratory-based computer-mediated learning environment most positively. Implications for studying computer-mediated learning and social class are discussed, along with implications for real-world online education.