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Background Recent network models propose that mutual interaction between symptoms has an important bearing on the onset of schizophrenic disorder. In particular, cross-sectional studies suggest that affective symptoms may influence the emergence of psychotic symptoms. However, longitudinal analysis offers a more compelling test for causation: the European Schizophrenia Cohort (EuroSC) provides data suitable for this purpose. We predicted that the persistence of psychotic symptoms would be driven by the continuing presence of affective disturbance. Methods EuroSC included 1208 patients randomly sampled from outpatient services in France, Germany and the UK. Initial measures of psychotic and affective symptoms were repeated four times at 6-month intervals, thereby furnishing five time-points. To examine interactions between symptoms both within and between time-slices, we adopted a novel technique for modelling longitudinal data in psychiatry. This was a form of Bayesian network analysis that involved learning dynamic directed acyclic graphs (DAGs). Results Our DAG analysis suggests that the main drivers of symptoms in this long-term sample were delusions and paranoid thinking. These led to affective disturbance, not vice versa as we initially predicted. The enduring relationship between symptoms was unaffected by whether patients were receiving first- or second-generation antipsychotic medication. Conclusions In this cohort of people with chronic schizophrenia treated with medication, symptoms were essentially stable over long periods. However, affective symptoms appeared driven by the persistence of delusions and persecutory thinking, a finding not previously reported. Although our findings as ever remain hostage to unmeasured confounders, these enduring psychotic symptoms might nevertheless be appropriate candidates for directly targeted psychological interventions.

Contains fulltext : 245109.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access), Sex differences are repeatedly observed in spatial cognition tasks. However, the role of environmental factors such as gaming experience remains unclear. In this exploratory study, navigation and object-relocation were combined in a naturalistic virtual reality-based spatial task. The sample consisted of n = 53 Dutch children aged 9-11 years. Overall, girls (n = 24) and boys (n = 29) performed equally accurately, although there was an increase in accuracy with age for boys (np2 = 0.09). Boys navigated faster than girls (np2 = 0.29), and this difference increased with age (np2 = 0.07). More gaming experience in boys versus girls (Cohen's d = 0.88) did not explain any result observed. We encourage future confirmatory studies to use the paradigm presented here to investigate the current results in a larger sample. These findings could be beneficial for optimizing spatial cognition training interventions.

Item does not contain fulltext, Purpose: The purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth account of how individuelas with a mild intellectual disabilitiy or borderline intellectual functioning (MID-BIF; IQ 50–85) perceive their group climate in a secure forensic setting. Giving voice to these service users may provide relevant insights for secure forensic settings. Design/methodology/approach: The interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to explore what individuals with MID-BIF experience with regard to their group climate. Findings: In the interviews about the four domains of group climate (i.e. repression, support, growth and atmosphere), five overarching dimensions appeared, namely, autonomy, uniformity, recognition, competence and dignity. Depending on the person and the (treatment) context in which he/she resides, these five dimensions relate to all four factors of the group climate instrument. Originality/value: From the perspective of individuals with MID-BIF, this study contributes by providing a framework to "fine-tune" group climate on five dimensions. Training socio-therapists to be sensitive to interpret ambiguous signals on these dimensions can contribute to optimizing group climate in secure forensic settings.

In this work, the analysis of the mass transfer phenomena in catalytic open-cell foams is carried out through the combination of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and experiments, using the CO oxidation on Pt(1%)/γ-Al2O3/foam as a model reaction. The influence of the local hydrodynamic effects on the diffusion-reaction phenomena occurring at the gas-solid interface of the open-cell solid foams are investigated by Direct Numerical Simulations assuming an infinitely fast reaction. A correlation for the Sherwood number as function of Reynolds -for low Re- is proposed. To validate this experimentally, aluminum foams coated with Pt(1%)/γ-Al2O3 are tested at different reaction conditions for the CO oxidation. The obtained reaction rates and apparent activation energy show the presence of external mass transfer limitations. An analysis of the diffusion-reaction phenomena taking place in the wash-coated layer is presented in terms of dimensionless numbers. A practical criterion is developed in terms of the Thiele modulus (ϕw) and the Biot number (Bim) for the identification of the reaction regimes: kinetic control (ϕw2/Bim<0.1), internal and/or external mass transfer limitations (0.1<ϕw2/Bim<10), and full mass transfer control (ϕw2/Bim>10).

In this work, we perform simulations of particle laden flow in a wide and long narrow channel in a Newtonian fluid. Simulations are performed for mono-sized and equal density spheres with varying Archimedes and Reynolds number. In the simulations, different phases of particle transport - rolling, saltation and suspension are observed. During simulations the average bed height is monitored and its steady state value is used for proposing a correlation between solids volume fraction (ϕ), shear Reynolds number (Res) and Archimedes number (Ar). This correlation is used to predict the critical shear Reynolds number for particle lift-off and a condition at which particles would occupy the whole channel at a given Archimedes number. The value of this critical Reynolds number is compared with the critical Reynolds number for single particle lift-off., Complex Fluid Processing

This Thesis investigates the interaction between national legal frameworks and EU Regulation 1073/2009 covering the market for long-distance buses. The territorial scope is Netherlands, Belgium and Germany who all have a different regulatory framework. It unravels the patchwork and offers solutions for the Member States and the EU to make enhance functioning of the market.

A parallel and scalable stochastic Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method applied to large-scale dense bubbly flows is reported in this paper. The DSMC method is applied to speed up the bubble-bubble collision handling relative to the Discrete Bubble Model proposed by Darmana et al. (2006) [1]. The DSMC algorithm has been modified and extended to account for bubble-bubble interactions arising due to uncorrelated and correlated bubble velocities. The algorithm is fully coupled with an in-house CFD code and parallelized using the MPI framework. The model is verified and validated on multiple cores with different test cases, ranging from impinging particle streams to laboratory-scale bubble columns. The parallel performance is shown using two different large scale systems: with an uniform and a non-uniform distribution of bubbles. The hydrodynamics of a pilot-scale bubble column is analyzed and the effect of the column scale is reported via the comparison of bubble columns at three different scales., Complex Fluid Processing

In biomass processing fluidized beds are used to process granular materials where particles typically possess elongated shapes. However, for simplicity, in computer simulations particles are often considered spherical, even though elongated particles experience more complex particle–particle interactions as well as different hydrodynamic forces. The exact effect of these more complex interactions in dense fluidized suspensions is still not well understood. In this study we use the magnetic particle tracking technique to compare the fluidization behavior of spherical particles to that of elongated particles. We found a considerable difference between fluidization behavior of spherical versus elongated particles in the time-averaged particle velocity field as well as in the time-averaged particle rotational velocity profile. Moreover, we studied the effect of fluid velocity and the particle's aspect ratio on the particle's preferred orientation in different parts of the bed, which provides new insight in the fluidization behavior of elongated particles., Complex Fluid Processing

A fundamental continuum-based numerical model was developed to simulate a non-isothermal non-adiabatic reactor which does not employ any empirical closures. The model was able to capture unique features of an exothermic catalytic reactor such as parametric sensitivity, hot-spot formations and multiplicity of steady states. Furthermore, the model inherently accounts for the various aspects of classical phenomenological models such as axial and radial dispersion of heat and mass and the intrinsic coupling of heat and mass transport between the fluid phase and the solid phase. The numerical procedure was validated with existing literature data before moving on to the simulation of a bed consisting of 340 spherical particles packed using the Discrete Element Method. Five simulations were performed by varying the rate of reaction and keeping all other parameters constant to capture the ignition/extinction phenomena exhibited by exothermic packed bed reactors.