Attractin Participates in Schizophrenia by Affecting Testosterone Levels

Attractin (ATRN) is a widely expressed glycoprotein that is involved in energy homeostasis, neurodevelopment, and immune response. It is encoded by a gene spanning 180 kb on chromosome 20p13, a region previously implicated in schizophrenia by linkage studies. To address a possible role of ATRN in disorders of the central nervous system, we created an atrn knockout zebrafish line and performed behavioral tests. Adult atrn–/– zebrafish exhibited more pronounced attack behavior relative to wild-type control zebrafish in a tracking analysis. Biochemical analysis revealed elevated testosterone levels in atrn–/– zebrafish. At the gene expression level, we noted an upregulation of cyp51 and hsd17b7, key proteins in testosterone synthesis in the brains of both adult and larvae of atrn–/– zebrafish. In order to further elucidate the relationship between testosterone and behavioral syndromes, we then compared testosterone levels of 9,008 psychiatric patients and 247 healthy controls from the same catchment area. Of all subjects examined, male subjects with schizophrenia exhibited lower testosterone levels compared with controls. In contrast, female subjects with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder featured higher testosterone levels than did same sex controls. Purposeful sampling of extreme groups showed reduced ATRN expression in a subset of these subjects. Finally, we identified 14 subjects with ATRN mutations. All of whom displayed abnormal testosterone levels. In summary, the interplay of ATRN and testosterone may help to explain sexual dimorphisms in selected behavioral phenotypes.

Influence of Population Density on CO2 Emissions Eliminating the Influence of Climate

More than 50% of the world’s population lives in cities. Its buildings consume more than a third of the energy and generate 40% of the emissions. This makes cities in general and their buildings in particular priority points of attention for policymakers and utilities. This paper uses population density as a variable to know its influence on energy consumption and emissions produced in buildings. Furthermore, to show its effect more clearly, the influence of the climate was eliminated. The usual energy consumption in buildings is thermal and electrical. The study was carried out at the city level, both per inhabitant and per household. The area actually occupied by the city was considered. The proposed method was applied to the case of Spanish cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants. The results show that the higher the population density, the higher the energy consumption per inhabitant and household in buildings. The consumption of thermal energy is elastic, while that of electrical energy is inelastic, varying more than 100% between extreme groups. Regarding CO2 emissions, the higher the population density, the higher the emissions. Emissions of electrical origin barely vary by 2% and are greater than those of thermal origin. In addition, the proportion of emissions of electrical origin, with respect to the total, decreases with increasing population density from 74% to 55%. This research aims to help policymakers and utilities to take the appropriate measures that favor the use of renewable energies and reduce CO2 emissions.

Trends of Radicalization.D3.2 Country Report June 2021. Conducted under the Horizon 2020 project ‘De-Radicalisation in Europe and Beyond: Detect, Resolve, Re-integrate’ (959198).

The aim of this report is to delineate trends of radicalization in Poland by evaluating specific ‘hotspots.’ The main source of data are the court files of twelve subjects, which are supplemented with academic literature, as well as offenders’ perspectives available in the legal documentation and their (social) media. The study provides rich qualitative evidence about how personal characteristics of the offenders, their direct environment, as well as systemic and structural factors that might have contributed to the offence. The proposed micro, meso and macro factors for the specific hotspots in this report are evidenced with court files, examples of subjects’ narratives and supported with findings of well-established criminological research traditions of the past fifty years, while the evidence for facilitating factors is derived from the court files and jurisprudence. The report then situates three purposively sampled participants of the hotspots on the injustice-grievance-alienation-polarization (I-GAP) spectrum. This study reinforces pre-existing research about what contributes and motivates offenders and adds to the understanding of the relationship between radicalization and crime. The absence of criminal records among the subjects indicate that radicalization is not necessarily connected with criminal lifestyle. It also suggests how in the Polish context the type of radical group might impact upon offending patterns, as well as how the normative beliefs about gender acting might be conductive to crime. Moreover, it demonstrates, consistently with the criminological research, that individuals who belong to extreme groups do not always share common traits or trajectories. It indicates that for some hotspot participants just the experience of being subjected to criminal proceedings or secret service supervision has a deterrent effect, while for others rehabilitation and deradicalization might be necessary. Finally, the absence of agreement among scholars and judges regarding hate speech and appropriate criminal justice responses continues to present difficulties.

The Supreme Court, Ideology, and the Decision to Cite or Borrow from Amicus Curiae Briefs

Scholars have sought to understand the dual characterization of Supreme Court justices as both legal and political actors. One way to further uncover this complexity is to assess how the justices engage with the interest groups that file amicus curiae or “friend-of-the-Court” briefs. Scholars have revealed that the justices often “borrow language” from these briefs in their opinions. However, much less often, they cite the amici. These two uses are distinct in that one is revealed to the reader while the other is not. So which interest groups do the justices decide to cite and which do they borrow language from? I find the justices borrow more language from ideologically similar interests, but that ideology plays a less central role in the decision to cite. Specifically, I find that the justices are less likely to cite briefs filed by ideologically overt interests, but this only extends to the most ideologically “extreme” groups. Further, the justices are not more likely to cite briefs filed by interests that are ideologically similar to their own preferences. These findings provide insight into how the justices balance policy and legitimacy goals.

Testing Creativity and Personality to Explore Creative Potentials in the Science Classroom

Integrating creativity into science classes may pave the way to tapping complex scientific phenomena. Although not yet conclusively defined nor assessed using standardized measures, creativity is understood to support cognitive learning in formal and informal settings. However, the successful integration of creativity in educational modules depends on many factors. As our knowledge of how to identify these factors is still limited, teachers may have difficulties effectively monitoring and fostering creativity. Consequently, a valid means to measure creativity would help teachers to identify creativity and its influencing factors within the limited scope of science lessons. In the present study, we collected data from 538 Bavarian secondary school students (M ± SD = 16.96 ± 2.99; 65.4%, female) focussing on personality and creativity measures. Comparable to previous studies, two subscales for creativity were applied: act, comprising conscious and adaptable cognitive processes, and flow, describing a creative mental state of full immersion. Since personality is understood to be linked to creativity, we used the Big Five scale with its shortened item battery to assess personality. We found that personal characteristics such as conscientiousness and flow, openness and agreeableness, and extraversion and neuroticism were significantly correlated. Anticipated gender and age differences were only evident when extreme groups were compared: age influenced act in younger male students and flow in older female students. Drawing on the literature and our results, we suggest pedagogical approaches to provide opportunities for creativity in science classrooms.

Development and validation of a patient-centered, meningioma-specific quality-of-life questionnaire

OBJECTIVE Meningiomas can have significant impact on health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Patient-centered, disease-specific instruments for assessing HRQOL in these patients are lacking. To this end, the authors sought to develop and validate a meningioma-specific HRQOL questionnaire through a standardized, patient-centered questionnaire development methodology. METHODS The development of the questionnaire involved three main phases: item generation, item reduction, and validation. Item generation consisted of semistructured interviews with patients (n = 30), informal caregivers (n = 12), and healthcare providers (n = 8) to create a preliminary list of items. Item reduction with 60 patients was guided by the clinical impact method, multiple correspondence analysis, and hierarchical cluster analysis. The validation phase involved 162 patients and collected evidence on extreme-groups validity; concurrent validity with the SF-36, FACT-Br, and EQ-5D; and test-retest reliability. The questionnaire takes on average 11 minutes to complete. RESULTS The meningioma-specific quality-of-life questionnaire (MQOL) consists of 70 items representing 9 domains. Cronbach’s alpha for each domain ranged from 0.61 to 0.91. Concurrent validity testing demonstrated construct validity, while extreme-groups testing (p = 1.45E-11) confirmed the MQOL’s ability to distinguish between different groups of patients. CONCLUSIONS The MQOL is a validated, reliable, and feasible questionnaire designed specifically for evaluating QOL in meningioma patients. This disease-specific questionnaire will be fundamentally helpful in better understanding and capturing HRQOL in the meningioma patient population and can be used in both clinical and research settings.

The Lure of Extremism

This chapter looks at the phenomenon of violent extremism or “terrorism”—so called depending on the context. It notes that fundamentalism (including violent fundamentalism) is a form of extreme belief—with the group aspects often more important than the actual beliefs. The chapter shows just how strongly our choices for membership of extreme groups are facilitated by our genetic, neurological, and hormonal predispositions to situations of tension and to danger, particularly when added to perceptions of group inequities and exclusion. It appears that membership of such groups is more often about a sense of solidarity and collectiveness than about truth, and strategies aimed at changing “beliefs” can have only a limited force. Thus, the actual as well as the expressed reasons for joining such groups need to be taken into account in designing strategies to change such memberships.

Emotional Intelligence as Related to Gender, Stream and Social Intelligence

This study aims to assess the social intelligence of prospective teachers in relation to gender, stream, and emotional intelligence. Initial sample of the study consisted of 400 prospective teachers on which Rogan Emotional Intelligence Test (REIT) developed and standardized by Zainuddin (2005) and Social Intelligence Scale developed and standardized by Chadha and Ganeshan (2009) were administered. The sampled teachers were categorized into two extreme groups on the basis of emotional intelligence scores. Finally, the sample consisted of 136 prospective teachers i.e. 68 of each gender as well as 68 of each stream of teacher education. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was applied for data analysis. Significant differences were found in their social intelligence on the basis of their emotional intelligence. However, no significant differences were observed in the social intelligence of prospective teachers on the basis of their gender and stream.

Development and Validation of a New Scoring Tool to Evaluate the Clinical Evolution of Adult Patients with Nonsegmental Vitiligo

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Vitiligo has an unpredictable course and a variable response to treatment. Furthermore, the improvement of some vitiligo lesions cannot be considered a guarantee of a similar response to the other lesions. Instruments for patient-reported outcome measures (PROM) can be an alternative to measure complex constructions such as clinical evolution. <b><i>Objective:</i></b> The aim of this study was to validate a PROM that allows to measure the clinical evolution of patients with nonsegmental vitiligo in a simple but standardized way that serves to gather information for a better understanding of the disease. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> The instrument was created through expert consensus and patient participation. For the validation study, a prospective cohort design was performed. The body surface area affected was measured with the Vitiligo Extension Score (VES), the extension, the stage, and the spread by the evaluation of the Vitiligo European Task Force assessment (VETFa). Reliability was determined with test-retest, construct validity through hypothesis testing, discriminative capacity with extreme groups, and response capacity by comparing initial and final measurements. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Eighteen semi-structured interviews and 7 cognitive interviews were conducted, and 4 dermatologists were consulted. The instrument Clinical Evolution-Vitiligo (CV-6) was answered by 119 patients with a minimum of primary schooling. A wide range was observed in the affected body surface; incident and prevalent cases were included. The average time to answer the CV-6 was 3.08 ± 0.58 min. In the test-retest (<i>n</i> = 53), an intraclass correlation coefficient was obtained: 0.896 (95% CI 0.82–0.94; <i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001). In extreme groups, the mean score was 2 (2–3) and 5 (4–6); <i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001. The initial CV-6 score was different from the final one and the change was verified with VES and VETFa (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.05, <i>n</i> = 92). <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> The CV-6 instrument allows patient collaboration, it is simple and brief, and it makes it easier for the doctor to focus attention on injuries that present changes at the time of medical consultation.