The elasticity of demand is about occupancy, not prices: building European demand curves based on occupancy elasticity

The peak congestion of the European grid may create significant impacts on system costs because of the need for higher marginal cost generation, higher cost system balancing and increasing grid reinforcement investment. The use of time of use rates, incentives, real time pricing and other programmes, usually defined as Demand Side Management (DSM), could bring about significant reductions in prices, limit carbon emissions from dirty power plants, and improve the integration of renewable sources of energy. Unlike previous studies on elasticity of residential electricity demand under flat tariffs, the aim of this study is not to investigate the known relatively inelastic relationship between demand and prices. Rather, the aim is to assess how occupancy levels vary in different European countries. This reflects the reality of demand loads, which are predominantly determined by the timing of human activities (e.g. travelling to work, taking children to school) rather than prices. To this end, two types of occupancy elasticity are estimated: baseline occupancy elasticity and peak occupancy elasticity. These represent the intrinsic elasticity associated with human activities of single residential end-users in 15 European countries. This study makes use of occupancy time-series data from the Harmonised European Time Use Survey database to build European occupancy curves; identify peak occupancy periods; draw time use demand curves for video and TV watching activity; and estimate national occupancy elasticity levels of single-occupant households. Findings on occupancy elasticities provide an indication of possible DSM strategies based on occupancy levels and not prices.

Global trajectory optimisation: can we prune the solution space when considering deep space manoeuvres?

This document contains a report on the work done under the ESA/Ariadna study 06/4101 on the global optimization of space trajectories with multiple gravity assist (GA) and deep space manoeuvres (DSM). The study was performed by a joint team of scientists from the University of Reading and the University of Glasgow.

Corynebacterium uterequi sp. nov., a non-lipophilic bacterium isolated from urogenital samples from horses

Three strains of a Gram-positive, catalase-positive, fermentative, non-lipophilic, previously unknown bacterium were isolated from urogenital samples taken from mares in Scotland (M401624/00/1) and Sweden (VM 2074 and VM 2298T). All were deposited with the CCUG with tentative identifications as Corynebacterium spp. The strains were characterized using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. Biochemically, the strains were very similar to each other, but phylogenetically distinct from Corynebacterium species with validly published names (≤95% sequence similarity). rpoB gene sequence data confirmed the strains belonged to the same species (>99% sequence similarity) and were distinct from species with validly published names (>13% sequence divergence). On the basis of phenotypic and sequence data, the strains represent a novel species within the genus Corynebacterium, for which the name Corynebacterium uterequi is proposed. The type strain is VM 2298T (=CCUG 61235T = DSM 45634T), isolated from equine uterus.

The treatment of child anxiety disorders via guided parent-delivered cognitive-behavioural therapy: a randomised controlled trial

Background Promising evidence has emerged of clinical gains using guided self-help cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for child anxiety and by involving parents in treatment; however, the efficacy of guided parent-delivered CBT has not been systematically evaluated in UK primary and secondary settings. Aims To evaluate the efficacy of low-intensity guided parent-delivered CBT treatments for children with anxiety disorders. Method A total of 194 children presenting with a current anxiety disorder, whose primary carer did not meet criteria for a current anxiety disorder, were randomly allocated to full guided parent-delivered CBT (four face-to-face and four telephone sessions) or brief guided parent-delivered CBT (two face-to-face and two telephone sessions), or a wait-list control group (trial registration: ISRCTN92977593). Presence and severity of child primary anxiety disorder (Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV, child/parent versions), improvement in child presentation of anxiety (Clinical Global Impression-Improvement scale), and change in child anxiety symptoms (Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale, child/parent version and Child Anxiety Impact scale, parent version) were assessed at post-treatment and for those in the two active treatment groups, 6 months post-treatment. Results Full guided parent-delivered CBT produced superior diagnostic outcomes compared with wait-list at post-treatment, whereas brief guided parent-delivered CBT did not: at post-treatment, 25 (50%) of those in the full guided CBT group had recovered from their primary diagnosis, compared with 16 (25%) of those on the wait-list (relative risk (RR) 1.85, 95% CI 1.14-2.99); and in the brief guided CBT group, 18 participants (39%) had recovered from their primary diagnosis post-treatment (RR = 1.56, 95% CI 0.89-2.74). Level of therapist training and experience was unrelated to child outcome. Conclusions Full guided parent-delivered CBT is an effective and inexpensive first-line

The structure of paranoia in the general population

Background: Psychotic phenomena appear to form a continuum with normal experience and beliefs, and may build on common emotional interpersonal concerns. Aims: We tested predictions that paranoid ideation is exponentially distributed and hierarchically arranged in the general population, and that persecutory ideas build on more common cognitions of mistrust, interpersonal sensitivity and ideas of reference. Method: Items were chosen from the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Disorders (SCID-II) questionnaire and the Psychosis Screening Questionnaire in the second British National Survey of Psychiatric Morbidity (n = 8580), to test a putative hierarchy of paranoid development using confirmatory factor analysis, latent class analysis and factor mixture modelling analysis. Results: Different types of paranoid ideation ranged in frequency from less than 2% to nearly 30%. Total scores on these items followed an almost perfect exponential distribution (r = 0.99). Our four a priori first-order factors were corroborated (interpersonal sensitivity; mistrust; ideas of reference; ideas of persecution). These mapped onto four classes of individual respondents: a rare, severe, persecutory class with high endorsement of all item factors, including persecutory ideation; a quasi-normal class with infrequent endorsement of interpersonal sensitivity, mistrust and ideas of reference, and no ideas of persecution; and two intermediate classes, characterised respectively by relatively high endorsement of items relating to mistrust and to ideas of reference. Conclusions: The paranoia continuum has implications for the aetiology, mechanisms and treatment of psychotic disorders, while confirming the lack of a clear distinction from normal experiences and processes.

Psychopathology in Williams Syndrome: the effect of individual differences across the life span

The present research aimed to comprehensively explore psychopathology in Williams syndrome (WS) across the lifespan and evaluate the relationship between psychopathology and age category (child or adult), gender and cognitive ability. The parents of 50 participants with WS, aged 6-50 years, were interviewed using the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children (K-SADS-PL). The prevalence of a wide range of Axis I DSM-IV disorders was assessed. In addition to high rates of anxiety and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (38% and 20% respectively), 14% of our sample met criteria for a depressive disorder and 42% of participants were not experiencing any significant psychopathological difficulties. There was some evidence for different patterns of psychopathology between children and adults with WS and between males and females. These relationships were largely in keeping with those found in the typically developing population, thus supporting the validity of applying theory and treatment approaches for psychopathology in the typically developing population to WS.

Assessment and management of anxiety disorders in children and adolescents

Anxiety disorders in childhood and adolescence are extremely common and are often associated with lifelong psychiatric disturbance. Consistent with DSM-5 and the extant literature, this review concerns the assessment and treatment of specific phobias, separation anxiety disorder, generalised anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder and agoraphobia. Evidence-based psychological treatments (cognitive behaviour therapy; CBT) for these disorders have been developed and investigated, and in recent years promising low-intensity versions of CBT interventions have been proposed that offer a means to increase access to evidence-based treatments. There is some evidence of effectiveness of pharmacological treatments for anxiety disorders in children and young people, however, routine prescription is not recommended due to concerns about potential harm.

Computationally efficient rule-based classification for continuous streaming data

Advances in hardware and software technologies allow to capture streaming data. The area of Data Stream Mining (DSM) is concerned with the analysis of these vast amounts of data as it is generated in real-time. Data stream classification is one of the most important DSM techniques allowing to classify previously unseen data instances. Different to traditional classifiers for static data, data stream classifiers need to adapt to concept changes (concept drift) in the stream in real-time in order to reflect the most recent concept in the data as accurately as possible. A recent addition to the data stream classifier toolbox is eRules which induces and updates a set of expressive rules that can easily be interpreted by humans. However, like most rule-based data stream classifiers, eRules exhibits a poor computational performance when confronted with continuous attributes. In this work, we propose an approach to deal with continuous data effectively and accurately in rule-based classifiers by using the Gaussian distribution as heuristic for building rule terms on continuous attributes. We show on the example of eRules that incorporating our method for continuous attributes indeed speeds up the real-time rule induction process while maintaining a similar level of accuracy compared with the original eRules classifier. We termed this new version of eRules with our approach G-eRules.

Towards a parallel computationally efficient approach to scaling up data stream classification

Advances in hardware technologies allow to capture and process data in real-time and the resulting high throughput data streams require novel data mining approaches. The research area of Data Stream Mining (DSM) is developing data mining algorithms that allow us to analyse these continuous streams of data in real-time. The creation and real-time adaption of classification models from data streams is one of the most challenging DSM tasks. Current classifiers for streaming data address this problem by using incremental learning algorithms. However, even so these algorithms are fast, they are challenged by high velocity data streams, where data instances are incoming at a fast rate. This is problematic if the applications desire that there is no or only a very little delay between changes in the patterns of the stream and absorption of these patterns by the classifier. Problems of scalability to Big Data of traditional data mining algorithms for static (non streaming) datasets have been addressed through the development of parallel classifiers. However, there is very little work on the parallelisation of data stream classification techniques. In this paper we investigate K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN) as the basis for a real-time adaptive and parallel methodology for scalable data stream classification tasks.

A randomised controlled trial of positive memory training for the treatment of depression within schizophrenia

Abstract Background: Depression is highly prevalent within individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, and is associated with an increased risk of suicide. There are no current evidence based treatments for low mood within this group. The specific targeting of co-morbid conditions within complex mental health problems lends itself to the development of short-term structured interventions which are relatively easy to disseminate within health services. A brief cognitive intervention based on a competitive memory theory of depression, is being evaluated in terms of its effectiveness in reducing depression within this group. Methods/Design: This is a single blind, intention-to-treat, multi-site, randomized controlled trial comparing Positive Memory Training plus Treatment as Usual with Treatment as Usual alone. Participants will be recruited from two NHS Trusts in Southern England. In order to be eligible, participants must have a DSM-V diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizo-affective disorder and exhibit at least a mild level of depression. Following baseline assessment eligible participants will be randomly allocated to either the Positive Memory Training plus Treatment as Usual group or the Treatment as Usual group. Outcome will be assessed at the end of treatment (3-months) and at 6-month and 9-month post randomization by assessors blind to group allocation. The primary outcome will be levels of depression and secondary outcomes will be severity of psychotic symptoms and cost-effectiveness. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with all participants who are allocated to the treatment group so as to explore the acceptability of the intervention. Discussion: Cognitive behaviour therapy is recommended for individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. However, the number of sessions and length of training required to deliver this intervention has caused a limit in availability. The current trial will evaluate a short-term structured protocol which targets a co-morbid condition often considered of primary importance by service users. If successful the intervention will be an important addition to current initiatives aimed at increasing access to psychological therapies for people diagnosed with severe mental health problems. Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials. ISRCTN99485756. Registered 13 March 2014.

Obsessive–compulsive disorder in young people

Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is one of the most debilitating psychiatric conditions in young people. In DSM-5 it is no longer characterised as an anxiety disorder, but instead is part of a group of ‘obsessive–compulsive and related disorders’. In the past 10 years, cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) has become well established as the first-choice treatment. This article explains some of the elements of CBT and describes new directions in research which might improve interventions.

The accuracy of HADS and GHQ-12 in detecting psychiatric morbidity in breast cancer patients

Objective: Psychological problems should be identified in breast cancer patients proactively if doctors and nurses are to help them cope with the challenges imposed by their illness. Screening is one possible way to identify emotional problems proactively. Self-report questionnaires can be useful alternatives to carrying out psychiatric interviews during screening, because interviewing a large number of patients can be impractical due to limited resources. Two such measures are the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12). Method: The present study aimed to compare the performance of the GHQ-12, and the HADS Unitary Scale and its subscales to that of the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (SADS) in identifying patients with affective disorders, including DSM major depression and generalized anxiety disorder. The sample consisted of 296 female breast cancer patients who underwent surgery for breast cancer a year previously. Results: A small number of patients (11%) were identified as having DSM major depression or generalized anxiety disorder based on SADS score. The findings indicate that the optimal thresholds in detecting generalized anxiety disorder and DSM major depression with the HADS anxiety and depression subscales were ≥ 8 and ≥ 7, with 93.3% and 77.3% sensitivity, respectively, and 77.9% and 87.1% specificity, respectively. They also had a 21% and 36% positive predictive value, respectively. Using the HADS Unitary Scale the optimal threshold for detecting affective disorders was ≥ 12, with 88.9% sensitivity, 80.7% specificity, and a 35% positive predictive value. In detecting affective disorders, the optimal threshold on the GHQ-12 was ≥ 2, with 77.8% sensitivity and 70.2% specificity. This scale also had a 24% positive predictive value. In detecting generalized anxiety disorder and DSM major depression, the optimal thresholds on the GHQ-12 were ≥ 2 and ≥ 4 with 73.3% and 77.3% sensitivity, respectively, and 67.5% and 82% specificity, respectively. The scale also had 12% and 29% positive predictive values, respectively. Conclusion: The HADS Unitary Scale and its subscales were effective in identifying affective disorders. They can be used as screening measures in breast cancer patients. The GHQ-12 was less accurate in detecting affective disorders than the HADS, but it can also be used as a screening instrument to detect affective disorders, generalized anxiety disorder, and DSM major depression.

Formulation of fermentation media from flour-rich waste streams for microbial lipid production by Lipomyces starkeyi

Flour-rich waste (FRW) and by-product streams generated by bakery, confectionery and wheat milling plants could be employed as the sole raw materials for generic fermentation media production, suitable for microbial oil synthesis. Wheat milling by-products were used in solid state fermentations (SSF) of Aspergillus awamori for the production of crude enzymes, mainly glucoamylase and protease. Enzyme-rich SSF solids were subsequently employed for hydrolysis of FRW streams into nutrient-rich fermentation media. Batch hydrolytic experiments using FRW concentrations up to 205 g/L resulted in higher than 90%(w/w) starch to glucose conversion yields and 40% (w/w) total Kjeldahl nitrogen to free amino nitro-gen conversion yields. Starch to glucose conversion yields of 98.2, 86.1 and 73.4% (w/w) were achieved when initial FRW concentrations of 235, 300 and 350 g/L were employed in fed-batch hydrolytic experiments, respectively. Crude hydrolysates were used as fermentation media in shake flask cultures with the oleaginous yeast Lipomyces starkeyi DSM 70296 reaching a total dry weight of 30.5 g/L with a microbial oil content of 40.4% (w/w), higher than that achieved in synthetic media. Fed-batch bioreactor cultures led to a total dry weight of 109.8 g/L with a microbial oil content of 57.8% (w/w) and productivity of 0.4 g/L/h.

Rhodosporidium toruloides cultivated in NaCl-enriched glucose-based media: adaptation dynamics and lipid production

In the present report and for the first time in the international literature, the impact of the addition of NaCl upon growth and lipid production on the oleaginous yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides was studied. Moreover, equally for first time, lipid production by R. toruloides was performed under non-aseptic conditions. Therefore, the potentiality of R. toruloides DSM 4444 to produce lipid in media containing several initial concentrations of NaCl with glucose employed as carbon source was studied. Preliminary batch-flask trials with increasing amounts of NaCl revealed the tolerance of the strain against NaCl content up to 6.0% (w/v). However, 4.0% (w/v) of NaCl stimulated lipid accumulation for this strain, by enhancing lipid production up to 71.3% (w/w) per dry cell weight. The same amount of NaCl was employed in pasteurized batch-flask cultures in order to investigate the role of the salt as bacterial inhibiting agent. The combination of NaCl and high glucose concentrations was found to satisfactorily suppress bacterial contamination of R. toruloides cultures under these conditions. Batch-bioreactor trials of the yeast in the same media with high glucose content (up to 150 g/L) resulted in satisfactory substrate assimilation, with almost linear kinetic profile for lipid production, regardless of the initial glucose concentration imposed. Finally, fed-batch bioreactor cultures led to the production of 37.2 g/L of biomass, accompanied by 64.5% (w/w) of lipid yield. Lipid yield per unit of glucose consumed received the very satisfactory value of 0.21 g/g, a value amongst the highest ones in the literature. The yeast lipid produced contained mainly oleic acid and to lesser extent palmitic and stearic acids, thus constituting a perfect starting material for “second generation” biodiesel