Precaution or Integrated Responsibility Approach to Nanovaccines in Fish Farming? A Critical Appraisal of the UNESCO Precautionary Principle

Nanoparticles have multifaceted advantages in drug administration as vaccine delivery and hence hold promises for improving protection of farmed fish against diseases caused by pathogens. However, there are concerns that the benefits associated with distribution of nanoparticles may also be accompanied with risks to the environment and health. The complexity of the natural and social systems involved implies that the information acquired in quantified risk assessments may be inadequate for evidence-based decisions. One controversial strategy for dealing with this kind of uncertainty is the precautionary principle. A few years ago, an UNESCO expert group suggested a new approach for implementation of the principle. Here we compare the UNESCO principle with earlier versions and explore the advantages and disadvantages by employing the UNESCO version to the use of PLGA nanoparticles for delivery of vaccines in aquaculture. Finally, we discuss whether a combined scientific and ethical analysis that involves the concept of responsibility will enable approaches that can provide a supplement to the precautionary principle as basis for decision-making in areas of scientific uncertainty, such as the application of nanoparticles in the vaccination of farmed fish.     

Achievement motives and emotional processes in children during problem-solving: Two experimental studies of their relation to performance in different achievement goal conditions

In two studies, the influence of key emotional and motivational factors on performance in different achievement goal-type situations is examined. In study 1, based on 314 sixth-graders, two types of goal situations were induced; performance and mastery. The goals were examined with respect to important antecedents (e.g., motive dispositions) and several consequences (e.g., performance, satisfaction, pleasant affect, worry, and emotionality). The results showed that the motive to achieve success (M _s) produced positive affects, satisfaction, and increased performance, whereas the motive to avoid failure (M _f) produced worries and performance reduction. In study 2, based on 331 sixth-graders, three types of goal situations were induced; performance–approach, performance–avoidance, and mastery goals. The findings revealed that the most important single factors positively related to performance were M _s and mastery–goal situation. In addition, high M _s pupils performed better under mastery condition than under performance condition. Finally, avoidance-goal situation accentuate the negative effects of high M _f on performance.     

Emotion processing facilitates working memory performance

The effect of emotional stimulus content on working memory performance has been investigated with conflicting results, as both emotion-dependent facilitation and impairments are reported in the literature. To clarify this issue, 52 adult participants performed a modified visual 2-back task with highly arousing positive stimuli (sexual scenes), highly arousing negative stimuli (violent death) and low-arousal neutral stimuli. Emotional stimulus processing was found to facilitate task performance relative to that of neutral stimuli, both in regards to response accuracy and reaction times. No emotion-dependent differences in false-alarm rates were found. These results indicate that emotional information can have a facilitating effect on working memory maintenance and processing of information.     

A self-help book is better than sleep hygiene advice for insomnia: a randomized controlled comparative study

The objective was to compare the effects of two types of written material for insomnia in a randomized trial with follow-up after three months. Insomniacs were recruited through newspaper advertisements to a web-based survey with validated questionnaires about sleep, anxiety, depression, and use of sleep medications. A self-help book focusing on cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia was compared to standard sleep hygiene advice; 77 and 78 participants were randomized to self-help book or sleep hygiene advice, respectively. The response rate was 81.9%. The self-help book gave significantly better scores on the sleep questionnaires compared to sleep hygiene advice. The proportion using sleep medications was reduced in the self-help book group, whereas it was increased in the sleep hygiene group. Compared to pre-treatment, the self-help book improved scores on the sleep (effect sizes 0.61-0.62) and depression (effect size 0.18) scales, whereas the sleep hygiene advice improved scores on some sleep scales (effect sizes 0.24-0.28), but worsened another (effect size -0.36). In addition, sleep hygiene advice increased the number of days per week where they took sleep medications (effect size -0.50). To conclude, in this randomized controlled trial, the self-help book improved sleep and reduced the proportion using sleep medications compared to sleep hygiene advice. The self-help book is an efficient low-threshold intervention, which is cheap and easily available for patients suffering from insomnia. Sleep hygiene advice also improved sleep at follow-up, but increased sleep medication use. Thus, caution is warranted when sleep hygiene advice are given as a single treatment.     

Improved effectiveness of cueing by self‐explanations when learning from a complex animation

A major problem in learning from instructional animations is that the complex perceptual and cognitive processing exceeds the learner's limited processing capacities. Although attention cueing might help learners in focusing on essential parts of an animation, previous studies have shown that it does not necessarily improve learning performance. This study investigated whether generating self‐explanations while studying a cued or an uncued animation might engage learners in cognitive activities necessary for learning. It was hypothesized that learning from a cued animation that reduces working memory load associated with searching for specific elements might be improved by generating self‐explanations, whereas self‐explaining with an uncued animation would have no positive effect on learning. The results confirmed the hypothesized interaction between cueing and self‐explaining. They suggest that self‐explanation enhances learning if visual cues are used to structure and highlight the essential parts of an animation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Executive function tests in early‐onset psychosis: which one to choose?

People with schizophrenia exhibit executive functioning deficits, an area well investigated in the adult onset schizophrenia (AOS) group, but far less so in early-onset schizophrenia (EOS). Since EOS in general seems to exhibit poorer cognitive functions and is clinically more compromised than AOS, choice of efficient and sensitive assessment measures is not necessarily the same within the two groups. The MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery was developed for adults when studying treatment effects and uses Mazes (Neuropsychological Assessment Battery [NAB]) to assess executive functioning. We tested 31 adolescents with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and 66 healthy controls in order to examine how Mazes compares to two other commonly used tests to measure executive functioning, D-KEFS Color Word Interference Test (Stroop) and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Significant discriminating power was found for all three measures. Patients performed 0.8-1.5 SD below controls with Stroop as the most sensitive measure, followed by Mazes and WCST. Mazes was selected by the MATRICS to assess treatment effects in AOS and is shown to be able. We find the instrument also able to separate adolescent patients from controls and thus, it appears a sensible choice in clinical settings. If a more elaborated neuropsychological evaluation of the executive functioning domain is needed, Stroop should be considered a complementary test.     

Memory in Early Onset Bipolar Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Similarities and Differences

Differentiating between early-onset bipolar disorder (BD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can be difficult. Memory problems are commonly reported in BD, and forgetfulness is among the diagnostic criteria for ADHD. We compared children and adolescents with BD (n?=?23), ADHD combined type (ADHD-C; n?=?26), BD?+?ADHD-C (n?=?15), and 68 healthy controls on memory tests (Digit span, Children's Verbal Learning Test-II). Further analyses were performed on subgroups of BD (BD-I, BD-II/BD-NOS, with and without previous psychotic symptoms). All clinical groups demonstrated some problems with free recall, but the BD subgroup with a history of psychotic symptoms had a more pervasive problem that also included recognition and semantic clustering. The ADHD-C groups demonstrated the lowest performance on working memory. These data suggest that children and adolescents with BD and previously psychotic symptoms may have inefficient encoding of verbal material, whereas memory problems in ADHD-C appear more characterized by impaired free recall.     

Therapeutic alliance in guided internet-delivered cognitive behavioural treatment of depression, generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder

Guided internet-delivered cognitive behaviour therapy (ICBT) has been found to be effective in several controlled trials, but the mechanisms of change are largely unknown. Therapeutic alliance is a factor that has been studied in many psychotherapy trials, but the role of therapeutic alliance in ICBT is less well known. The present study investigated early alliance ratings in three separate samples. Participants from one sample of depressed individuals (N = 49), one sample of individuals with generalized anxiety disorder (N = 35), and one sample with social anxiety disorder (N = 90) completed the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) modified for ICBT early in the treatment (weeks 3-4) when they took part in guided ICBT for their conditions. Results showed that alliance ratings were high in all three samples and that the WAI including the subscales of Task, Goal and Bond had high internal consistencies. Overall, correlations between the WAI and residualized change scores on the primary outcome measures were small and not statistically significant. We conclude that even if alliance ratings are in line with face-to-face studies, therapeutic alliance as measured by the WAI is probably less important in ICBT than in regular face-to-face psychotherapy.     

The prospective relationship between role stressors and new cases of self‐reported workplace bullying

In line with the “Work environment hypothesis,” role stressors have been proposed as important antecedents of bullying in the workplace. Only a few longitudinal studies on the relationship between role stressors and bullying exist, however, and earlier studies have largely been cross‐sectional. The aim of the present prospective study was to determine whether role stressors at baseline predict new cases of workplace bullying at follow‐up. A total of 2,835 Norwegian employees participated at both baseline and follow‐up, with an interval of two years between the measurements. The study supports the hypotheses that role ambiguity and role conflict, independently, contribute to subsequent new reports of workplace bullying. However, there was a weak reverse effect: reporting being bullied at work at baseline predicted reporting increased levels of role ambiguity and role conflict at follow‐up. Even though the results may indicate a circular relationship between the variables at hand, the weak reverse relationship seems to have little practical impact compared to the stronger relationship from role stressors to bullying. Hence, the results mainly support the hypotheses stating that role ambiguity and role conflict, independently, predict subsequent exposure to workplace bullying.     

Temporal Distance and Moral Concerns: Future Morally Questionable Behavior is Perceived as More Wrong and Evokes Stronger Prosocial Intentions

Prior research on temporal construal has shown that core values become more salient when people think about distant- as compared to near-future events. The present research shows that greater temporal distance of an event also results in greater moral concern. More specifically, it was found that people make harsher moral judgments of others' distant-future morally questionable behavior than near-future morally questionable behavior. Moreover, it was shown that people increasingly attribute distant vs. near future behavior to abstract dispositional relative to concrete situational causes, and that this attribution bias is partially responsible for the temporal distance effect on moral judgments.