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Background Clostridium difficile mediates intestinal inflammation by releasing toxin A (TxA), a potent enterotoxin. Cathelicidins ( Camp as gene name, LL-37 peptide in humans and mCRAMP peptide in mice) are antibacterial peptides that also posses anti-inflammatory properties. Objectives To determine the role of cathelicidins in models of Clostridium difficile infection and TxA-mediated ileal inflammation and cultured human primary monocytes. Design Wild-type (WT) and mCRAMP-deficient ( Camp −/− ) mice were treated with an antibiotic mixture and infected orally with C difficile . Some mice were intracolonically given mCRAMP daily for 3 days. Ileal loops were also prepared in WT mice and treated with either saline or TxA and incubated for 4 h, while some TxA-treated loops were injected with mCRAMP. Results Intracolonic mCRAMP administration to C difficile -infected WT mice showed significantly reduced colonic histology damage, apoptosis, tissue myeloperoxidase (MPO) and tumour necrosis factor (TNF)α levels. Ileal mCRAMP treatment also significantly reduced histology damage, tissue apoptosis, MPO and TNFα levels in TxA-exposed ileal loops. WT and Camp −/− mice exhibited similar intestinal responses in both models, implying that C difficile /TxA-induced endogenous cathelicidin may be insufficient to modulate C difficile /TxA-mediated intestinal inflammation. Both LL-37 and mCRAMP also significantly reduced TxA-induced TNFα secretion via inhibition of NF-κB phosphorylation. Endogenous cathelicidin failed to control C difficile and/or toxin A-mediated inflammation and even intestinal cathelicidin expression was increased in humans and mice. Conclusion Exogenous cathelicidin modulates C difficile colitis by inhibiting TxA-associated intestinal inflammation. Cathelicidin administration may be a new anti-inflammatory treatment for C difficile toxin-associated disease.

Past research suggests that individuals with discrepant low self-esteem (low explicit and high implicit self-esteem) may hold themselves against higher standards and judge themselves more critically when they fall short of those standards (Zeigler-Hill & Terry, 2007). We postulated that for discrepant low self-esteem individuals, self-awareness would activate their stringent standards and the fact that they have failed to meet those standards, thereby increasing negative affect. In this study, 144 participants completed implicit and explicit self-esteem measures, and half were then made to be self-aware by completing a task with a mirror in front of them for 3 minutes. We found that self-awareness increased negative affect among discrepant low self-esteem participants.

Researchers have developed scales to measure religious coping among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. However, there is no quantitative measure of religious coping for Buddhists. The present study describes the development and initial validation of a scale of Buddhist coping (BCOPE). Eight hundred sixty participants in the United States completed the BCOPE along with demographic information and scales of adjustment to stress. Construct validity of the BCOPE is demonstrated through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, which reveals 14 types of Buddhist coping. BCOPE subscales exhibited criterion validity through significant correlations with outcome measures. The BCOPE has incremental validity, predicting adjustment over and above demographic and global religious measures. The research and practical implications of the BCOPE are discussed.

This article proposes a needs-based perspective toward understanding cultural differences in the self-identification of strengths and weaknesses. The authors argue that individuals have basic psychological needs for relatedness and autonomy; and that, because collectivistic and individualistic cultures tend to prioritize one need over the other, identities incorporate an awareness of the unmet need. The study's 210 Eastern (Chinese and Japanese) and 194 Western (Canadian and American) participants reported on five of their positive and negative attributes. The findings confirm the study hypotheses that Westerners are more likely than Easterners to report attributes associated with separation from others as weaknesses and relatedness attributes as strengths; and that Easterners are more likely than Westerners to report attributes associated with a lack of autonomy as weaknesses.

We examined the extent to which individuals from East Asia and North America exhibit self-enhancing and self-critical tendencies when appraising their personal strengths and weaknesses, to test whether a self-critical motivation may replace a self-enhancing motivation among Easterners. Four hundred four university students from Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, and the United States were surveyed concerning their beliefs about ten self-nominated positive and negative attributes. Questions included how long they have possessed each attribute, its importance and salience, and the desire to improve the attribute. The pattern of findings suggests that both self-enhancing and self-critical tendencies coexist within individuals across both cultural contexts, although Easterners were less self-enhancing and more self-critical than Westerners.

Models of nonconscious goal pursuit propose that goals can be activated and pursued without conscious awareness and intent. Until recently, these models have been relatively silent about whether or not nonconscious goal pursuit has consequences and what these consequences might be. We propose that nonconscious goal pursuit is part of a rich self-regulatory system in which goal progress (or a lack thereof) can influence self-enhancement and produce different consequences than conscious goal pursuit. We attribute the effect of nonconscious goal pursuit on self-enhancement to “mystery moods” (Chartrand & Bargh, 2002). Three experiments support these propositions. Self-enhancement was exacerbated following nonconscious goal failure compared to both conscious goal failure (Experiments 1-2) and no goal failure (Experiments 1-3). Evidence that negative “mystery moods” were the mechanism through which nonconscious goal failure affected self-enhancement was obtained by reducing mood mysteriousness, which attenuate...

Researchers in the United States have examined spiritual coping in Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Muslims, but rarely Buddhists. Using qualitative methodology, the present study represents an initial investigation into Buddhist forms of coping. Twenty-four Buddhists from across the United States were interviewed by phone, examining how their spirituality is used to cope with stress. Thematic analyses revealed six forms of Buddhist coping—right understanding, meditation, mindfulness, spiritual struggles, morality, and finding support in one's sangha. Implications of the study are discussed, including possibilities for future research on Buddhist coping.

Michelle Cheng,1,* Samantha Ho,1,* Jun Hwan Yoo,1,2,* Deanna Hoang-Yen Tran,1,* Kyriaki Bakirtzi,1 Bowei Su,1 Diana Hoang-Ngoc Tran,1 Yuzu Kubota,1 Ryan Ichikawa,1 Hon Wai Koon1 1Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, Division of Digestive Diseases, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA; 2Digestive Disease Center, CHA University Bundang Medical Center, Seongnam, Republic of Korea *These authors share co-first authorship Background: Cathelicidin (LL-37 in humans and mCRAMP in mice) represents a family of endogenous antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory peptides. Cancer-associated fibroblasts can promote the proliferation of colon cancer cells and growth of colon cancer tumors. Methods: We examined the role of cathelicidin in the development of colon cancer, using subcutaneous human HT-29 colon-cancer-cell-derived tumor model in nude mice and azoxymethane- and dextran sulfate-mediated colon cancer model in C57BL/6 mice. We also determined the indirect antitumoral mechanism of cathelicidin via the inhibition of epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) of colon cancer cells and fibroblast-supported colon cancer cell proliferation. Results: Intravenous administration of cathelicidin expressing adeno-associated virus significantly reduced the size of tumors, tumor-derived collagen expression, and tumor-derived fibroblast expression in HT-29-derived subcutaneous tumors in nude mice. Enema administration of the mouse cathelicidin peptide significantly reduced the size and number of colonic tumors in azoxymethane- and dextran sulfate-treated mice without inducing apoptosis in tumors and the adjacent normal colonic tissues. Cathelicidin inhibited the collagen expression and vimentin-positive fibroblast expression in colonic tumors. Cathelicidin did not directly affect HT-29 cell viability, but did significantly reduce tumor growth factor-ß1-induced EMT of colon cancer cells. Media conditioned by the human colonic CCD-18Co fibroblasts promoted human colon cancer HT-29 cell proliferation. Cathelicidin pretreatment inhibited colon cancer cell proliferation mediated by media conditioned by human colonic CCD-18Co fibroblasts. Cathelicidin disrupted tubulin distribution in colonic fibroblasts. Disruption of tubulin in fibroblasts reduced fibroblast-supported colon cancer cell proliferation. Conclusion: Cathelicidin effectively inhibits colon cancer development by interfering with EMT and fibroblast-supported colon cancer cell proliferation. Keywords: colon cancer, epithelial–mesenchymal transition, fibroblasts

Our repertoire of social behavior may include the ability to grasp and take on the goals of others automatically-that is, without conscious intent. Two experiments tested and confirmed the hypothesis that priming social groups causes individuals to pursue the goals stereotypical for members of those groups. Study 1 found that participants provided more feedback to help another person optimizing a computer task after subliminal priming of social groups associated with a helping goal. Importantly, these goal priming effects were qualified by goal strength: participants helped more when the concept of helping more strongly preexisted as a goal or desired state in the participant's mind. Study 2 established that participants worked harder on an unrelated task instrumental in attaining the goal to make money after priming social groups related to this goal. Implications for stereotype activation and automatic goal pursuit are discussed.

Misattributions people make about their own affective reactions can be used to measure attitudes implicitly. Combining the logic of projective tests with advances in priming research, the affect misattribution procedure (AMP) was sensitive to normatively favorable and unfavorable evaluations (Experiments 1-4), and the misattribution effect was strong at both fast and slow presentation rates (Experiments 3 and 4). Providing further evidence of validity, the AMP was strongly related to individual differences in self-reported political attitudes and voting intentions (Experiment 5). In the socially sensitive domain of racial attitudes, the AMP showed in-group bias for Black and White participants. AMP performance correlated with explicit racial attitudes, a relationship that was moderated by motivations to control prejudice (Experiment 6). Across studies, the task was unaffected by direct warnings to avoid bias. Advantages of the AMP include large effect sizes, high reliability, ease of use, and resistance to correction attempts.

The "chameleon effect" refers to the tendency to adopt the postures, gestures, and mannerisms of interaction partners (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999). This type of mimicry occurs outside of conscious awareness, and without any intent to mimic or imitate. Empirical evidence suggests a bi-directional relationship between nonconscious mimicry on the one hand, and liking, rapport, and affiliation on the other. That is, nonconscious mimicry creates affiliation, and affiliation can be ex- pressed through nonconscious mimicry. We argue that mimicry played an impor- tant role in human evolution. Initially, mimicry may have had survival value by helping humans communicate. We propose that the purpose of mimicry has now evolved to serve a social function. Nonconscious behavioral mimicry increases af- filiation, which serves to foster relationships with others. We review current re- search in light of this proposed framework and suggest future areas of research.

To understand the role of a gene in the development of colitis, we compared the responses of wild-type mice and gene-of-interest deficient knockout mice to colitis. If the gene-of-interest is expressed in both bone marrow derived cells and non-bone marrow derived cells of the host; however, it is possible to differentiate the role of a gene of interest in bone marrow derived cells and non- bone marrow derived cells by bone marrow transplantation technique. To change the bone marrow derived cell genotype of mice, the original bone marrow of recipient mice were destroyed by irradiation and then replaced by new donor bone marrow of different genotype. When wild-type mice donor bone marrow was transplanted to knockout mice, we could generate knockout mice with wild-type gene expression in bone marrow derived cells. Alternatively, when knockout mice donor bone marrow was transplanted to wild-type recipient mice, wild-type mice without gene-of-interest expressing from bone marrow derived cells were produced. However, bone marrow transplantation may not be 100% complete. Therefore, we utilized cluster of differentiation (CD) molecules (CD45.1 and CD45.2) as markers of donor and recipient cells to track the proportion of donor bone marrow derived cells in recipient mice and success of bone marrow transplantation. Wild-type mice with CD45.1 genotype and knockout mice with CD45.2 genotype were used. After irradiation of recipient mice, the donor bone marrow cells of different genotypes were infused into the recipient mice. When the new bone marrow regenerated to take over its immunity, the mice were challenged by chemical agent (dextran sodium sulfate, DSS 5%) to induce colitis. Here we also showed the method to induce colitis in mice and evaluate the role of the gene of interest expressed from bone-marrow derived cells. If the gene-of-interest from the bone derived cells plays an important role in the development of the disease (such as colitis), the phenotype of the recipient mice with bone marrow transplantation can be significantly altered. At the end of colitis experiments, the bone marrow derived cells in blood and bone marrow were labeled with antibodies against CD45.1 and CD45.2 and their quantitative ratio of existence could be used to evaluate the success of bone marrow transplantation by flow cytometry. Successful bone marrow transplantation should show a vast majority of donor genotype (in term of CD molecule marker) over recipient genotype in both the bone marrow and blood of recipient mice.

Self-reported or explicit self-esteem frequently conflicts with indirectly assessed, implicit self-esteem. The present research investigated whether meditation may reduce such inner conflicts by promoting congruence between implicit and explicit self-esteem. Relative to control conditions, meditation led to greater congruence between explicit self-esteem, assessed via self-report, and implicit self-esteem, indicated by name-letter preference (Studies 1 and 2). Low implicit self-esteem was further associated with a slow-down of explicit self-evaluation (Study 2), an effect that mediated the greater congruence between implicit and explicit self-esteem in the meditation condition. These results suggest that meditation encourages people to rely more on intuitive feelings of self-worth.

Drosophila melanogaster larvae have a remarkable capacity for regenerative growth: Damage to their imaginal discs, the larval precursors of adult structures, elicits a robust proliferative response from the surviving tissue [1–4]. However, as in other organisms, developmental progression and differentiation can restrict regenerative capacity of Drosophila tissues. Experiments in Drosophila and other holometabolous insects have demonstrated that either damage to imaginal tissues [5, 6] or transplantation of a damaged imaginal disc [7, 8] delays the onset of metamorphosis, a time when the imaginal discs undergo morphogenesis and differentiation into their adult structures. Therefore, in Drosophila there appears to be a mechanism that senses tissue damage and extends the larval phase to coordinate tissue regeneration with the overall developmental program of the organism. However, how such a pathway functions remains unknown. Here we demonstrate that a developmental checkpoint extends larval growth after imaginal disc damage by inhibiting the transcription of the gene encoding PTTH, a neuropeptide that promotes the release of the steroid hormone ecdysone. Using a genetic screen, we identify a previously unsuspected role for retinoid biosynthesis in regulating PTTH expression and delaying development in response to tissue damage. Retinoid signaling plays an important, but poorly defined role in several vertebrate regeneration models [9–11]. Our findings demonstrate that retinoid biosynthesis in Drosophila is important for the maintenance of a permissive condition for regenerative growth.

In high precision Penning trap mass spectrometry the cyclotron frequency of a polarizable ion is perturbed due to the Stark interaction with the motional electric field. For polar diatomic molecular ions, which have adjacent rotational levels of opposite parity, these shifts can be particularly large---especially for the lowest rotational levels, which are those occupied by ions stored for many hours in cryogenic Penning traps. In order to provide corrections to precision atomic mass measurements, we consider the calculation of orientation polarizabilities of $\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{O}}^{+}$ and the positive ions of the first and second row diatomic hydrides, $\mathrm{Li}{\mathrm{H}}^{+}$ to $\mathrm{Ar}{\mathrm{H}}^{+}$. Dipole moments for these ions have been calculated using the restricted coupled cluster method with perturbative triples and large basis sets. Using these dipoles and an effective Hamiltonian, we have obtained rotational-state dependent polarizabilities of the open-shell diatomic ions $\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{O}}^{+}$, $\mathrm{N}{\mathrm{H}}^{+}$, $\mathrm{O}{\mathrm{H}}^{+}$, $\mathrm{F}{\mathrm{H}}^{+}$, $\mathrm{P}{\mathrm{H}}^{+}$, $\mathrm{S}{\mathrm{H}}^{+}$, and $\mathrm{Cl}{\mathrm{H}}^{+}$. Results are given for those rotational levels that are significantly populated at $4.2\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}$, for magnetic fields up to $10\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{T}$. For the remaining first and second row hydride cations, polarizabilities at the magnetic fields of interest can be obtained from a simple formula valid for closed-shell molecules. Conversely, in cases where the polarizability shifts can be measured, our results enable experimental determination of dipole moments.

Introduction: Faecal Calprotectin (FC) is a cytosolic protein belonging to the S-100 family of calcium binding proteins found in neutrophils. It is excreted in the intestinal lumen in inflammatory conditions of the gut and can be used to distinguish irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) from other inflammatory bowel conditions such as colitis, diverticulosis, etc. Pointof-contact qualitative FC tests are now available and can be used in primary care to aid decision making for referrals to gastroenterologists for young patients presenting with chronic diarrhoea. Aims: To assess the feasibility and cost effectiveness of a primary care Pathway using a point-of-contact FC Test (Caldetect®) to aid decision making for referrals to gastroenterology in young patients presenting to their primary physicians with chronic diarrhoea. Methods: Primary Care data indicated that approximately 253 referrals are made annually to gastroenterologists from Primary Care to assess patients ,60years presenting with diarrhoea, costing approx. £119,000 for investigations and consultations. Using a Caldetect® (Preventis, GmbH) point of contact FC test, it was estimated that a saving of £89,000 could be achieved. A pathway for investigating chronic diarrhoea using Caldetect® was designed and implemented in the community (population 150,000) between September 2011-March 2012. (this will be presented). FC results were categorised using manufacturer cut-offs of ,15ug/ g, 15-60ug/g and .60ug/g. Patients with FC results of 15-60 and .60 were deemed to have an inflammatory process and referred to Gastroenterology Clinics. Cost analysis was carried out using the 2010-11 tariffs for the NHS. Results: 142 Caldetect® tests were carried out in Primary Care during this pilot phase. Of these, a negative result ( ,15ug/g) was present in 89, with 36 tests being .60ug/g. 3 tests were at the intermediate level and 14 tests could not be accurately reported. Negative results were managed in primary care as IBS. A monthly cost savings of £6100 was calculated taking consultation and endoscopy tariffs into account. Conclusion: This pilot study demonstrates the feasibility and cost effectiveness of a Pathway for decision making and a point-of-care faecal calprotectin test in rationalising referrals to Gastroenterologists for chronic diarrhoea.