Menstruation and suicide: an exploratory study

Previous research has reported mixed findings on the effect of the menstrual cycle on suicidal behavior. The contribution of menstruation to completed suicide is also controversial, though the studies are very limited and have not been carefully designed. To explore the relationship, 217 autopsies on completed suicides were performed, matched to a control group at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. The results show that 54.46% of people who died by suicide were menstruating (results excluded pregnancies), compared to 6.75% of the control group. Menstruation in those who completed suicide, compared to a control group, appeared to have an association with suicide. More research is warranted.     

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Bariatric Surgery Patients: Preliminary Evidence for Feasibility,Acceptability, and Effectiveness

Bariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for extreme obesity; however, 20% to 50% of patients begin to regain their weight within the first 1.5 to 2 years following surgery. Despite some psychosocial factors predicting postoperative weight loss and weight regain, psychosocial interventions are not routinely offered in bariatric surgery programs. In this paper, we describe a 6-session cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) intervention for preoperative and postoperative bariatric surgery patients with maladaptive eating behaviors or thought patterns, which can be delivered either in person or by telephone. In addition, we describe a small pilot study (n = 8) designed to examine the feasibility and acceptability of the CBT intervention, as well as its effectiveness in improving eating pathology and psychosocial functioning. Most pilot study participants reported improvements in binge eating severity, emotional eating, and depression from pre- to posttreatment, and all participants provided positive qualitative feedback regarding the intervention.     

The 9th annual INDUS-EM 2013 Emergency Medicine Summit, “Principles,Practices, and Patients,” a level one international meeting,Kerala University of Health Sciences and Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Institute,Thrissur, Kerala,India, October 23–27, 2013

INDUS-EM is India’s only level one conference imparting and exchanging quality knowledge in acute care. Specifically, in general and specialized emergency care and training in trauma, burns, cardiac, stroke, environmental and disaster medicine. It provides a series of exchanges regarding academic development and implementation of training tools related to developing future academic faculty and residents in Emergency Medicine in India. The INDUS-EM leadership and board of directors invited scholars from multiple institutions to participate in this advanced educational symposium that was held in Thrissur, Kerala in October 2013.     

Night Eating and Loss of Control over Eating in Bariatric Surgery Candidates

The goal was to examine the relationship between loss of control over eating (LOC_E) and other variables, including eating pathology, in bariatric candidates. Two hundred and twenty-six participants completed measures of depressive symptoms, eating pathology, health-related quality of life (HRQOL), and alcohol use. Participants were divided into those who did (n = 123) and did not (n = 103) report subjective LOC_E. Participants with LOC_E had significantly higher levels of night eating, depressive symptoms, and eating disorder psychopathology and lower mental HRQOL. There were no observed differences in alcohol use, dietary restraint, or physical HRQOL. This study highlights eating and mental health-related correlates of LOC_E, providing evidence that it is associated with increased psychological burden in bariatric candidates. This is one of the first studies to report the relationship between LOC_E and night eating in this group and future research could elaborate on these variables to determine their importance in long-term weight loss.     

Orientalism in Euro-American and Indian psychology: historical representations of "natives" in Colonial and postcolonial contexts

The author examines the historical role of Euro-American psychology in constructing Orientalist representations of the natives who were colonized by the European colonial powers. In particular, the author demonstrates how the power to represent the non-Western "Other" has always resided, and still continues to reside, primarily with psychologists working in Europe and America. It is argued that the theoretical frameworks that are used to represent non-Westerners in contemporary times continue to emerge from Euro-American psychology. Finally, the author discusses how non-Western psychologists internalized these Orientalist images and how such a move has led to a virtual abandonment of pursuing "native" forms of indigenous psychologies in Third World psychology departments.     

Visuospatial skills and their association with math performance in girls with fragile X or Turner syndrome.

The present study was designed to assess object identification ("what") and location ("where") skills among girls with fragile X or Turner syndrome and girls with neither disorder. Participants completed standardized subtests of visual perception and tasks of visuospatial "what" and "where" memory. Girls with fragile X had average performance on most object identification tasks, yet 53% failed to accurately recreate the gestalt of a design during the "where" memory task. Fewer than 7% of girls in the Turner or comparison group made this error. Girls with Turner syndrome had lower scores and longer response times on object perception tasks and had poorer recall of location for internal features of the design on the "where" memory task, relative to girls in the comparison or fragile X group. When limiting analyses to IQ-matched samples, correlations between math and visual perception tasks emerged, but only for girls with fragile X. These results reflect important differences between two cognitive phenotypes and have implications for the role of visuospatial processing in early math performance.     

Formation of self-assembled Cu-γ-Al 2 O 3 nanocomposite

We report here the formation of a novel 'self-assembled' three-dimensional nanocomposite consisting of uniformly sized, evenly spaced spherical Cu nanoparticles embedded within a polycrystalline n -Al 2 O 3 matrix. This was discovered serendipitously during the examination of an ion-beam-milled ZrO 2 specimen in a transmission electron microscope. This nanocomposite was deposited as a coating during ion-beam milling by the co-sputtering of Cu and Al from the ion-mill hardware in the presence of O. The mechanism by which this highly organized nanocomposite forms is discussed, together with broader implications of these types of metal-ceramic nanocomposite and the possibility of using sputter deposition as a generic method for making them.