Background: People with a personality disorder (PD) suffer from enduring inflexible patterns in cognitions and emotions, leading to significant subjective distress, affecting both self and interpersonal functioning. In clinical practice, Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) is provided to clients with a PD, and although research continuously confirms the value of DMT for many populations, to date, there is very limited information available on DMT and PD. For this study, a systematic literature review on DMT and PD was conducted to identify the content of the described DMT interventions and the main treatment themes to focus upon in DMT for PD. Methods: A systematic search was conducted across the following databases: EMBASE, MEDLINE, PubMed, WEB OF SCIENCE, PsycINFO/OVID, and SCOPUS following the PRISMA guidelines. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme for qualitative studies was used to rank the quality of the articles. The Oxford Center for Evidence-based Medicine standards were applied to determine the hierarchical level of best evidence. Quantitative content analysis was used to identify the intervention components: intended therapeutic goals, therapeutic activities leading to these goals, and suggested therapeutic effects following from these activities. A thematic synthesis approach was applied to analyze and formulate overarching themes. Results: Among 421 extracted articles, four expert opinions met the inclusion criteria. Six overarching themes were found for DMT interventions for PD: self-regulation, interpersonal relationships, integration of self, processing experiences, cognition, and expression and symbolization in movement/dance. No systematic descriptions of DMT interventions for PD were identified. A full series of intervention components could be synthesized for the themes of self-regulation, interpersonal relationships, and cognition. The use of body-oriented approaches and cognitive strategies was in favor of dance-informed approaches. Conclusions: Dance movement therapists working with PD clients focus in their interventions on body-related experiences, non-verbal interpersonal relationships, and to a lesser extent, cognitive functioning. A methodological line for all intervention components was synthesized for the themes of self-regulation, interpersonal relationships, and cognition, of importance for developing systematic intervention descriptions. Future research could focus on practitioners’ expertise in applying DMT interventions for PD to develop systematic intervention descriptions and explore the suitability of the identified themes for clinical application. Clients’ experiences could offer essential insights on how DMT interventions could address PD pathology and specific PD categories.
Background: Peer review is at the heart of the scientific process. With the advent of digitisation, journals started to offer electronic articles or publishing online only. A new philosophy regarding the peer review process found its way into academia: the open peer review. Open peer review as practiced by BioMed Central (BMC) is a type of peer review where the names of authors and reviewers are disclosed and reviewer comments are published alongside the article. A number of articles have been published to assess peer reviews using quantitative research. However, no studies exist that used qualitative methods to analyse the content of reviewers’ comments. Methods: A focused mapping review and synthesis (FMRS) was undertaken of manuscripts reporting qualitative research submitted to BMC open access journals from 1 January – 31 March 2018. Free-text reviewer comments were extracted from peer review reports using a 77-item classification system organised according to three key dimensions that represented common themes and sub-themes. A two stage analysis process was employed. First, frequency counts were undertaken that allowed revealing patterns across themes/sub-themes. Second, thematic analysis was conducted on selected themes of the narrative portion of reviewer reports. Results: A total of 107 manuscripts submitted to nine open-access journals were included in the FMRS. The frequency analysis revealed that among the 30 most frequently employed themes “writing criteria” (dimension II) is the top ranking theme, followed by comments in relation to the “methods” (dimension I). Besides that, some results suggest an underlying quantitative mindset of reviewers. Results are compared and contrasted in relation to established reporting guidelines for qualitative research to inform reviewers and authors of frequent feedback offered to enhance the quality of manuscripts. Conclusions: This FMRS has highlighted some important issues that hold lessons for authors, reviewers and editors. We suggest modifying the current reporting guidelines by including a further item called “Degree of data transformation” to prompt authors and reviewers to make a judgment about the appropriateness of the degree of data transformation in relation to the chosen analysis method. Besides, we suggest that completion of a reporting checklist on submission becomes a requirement.
MULTIFILE
The synthesis of total cellular proteins in Escherichia coli K12 was studied in batch culture following exposure of cells to low concentrations of monochlorophenol, pentachlorophenol and cadmium chloride. Changes in protein patterns were identified after pulse-chase labelling of proteins with [35S]methionine and subsequent two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE). We demonstrated that besides the induction of some stress proteins, also a transient decrease in the rate of synthesis of other proteins occurred. Two of these proteins were identified as OmpF and aspartate transcarbamoylase (ATCase). Their transient repression appeared to be a general response to stress elicited by different pollutants and may therefore be used as a general and sensitive early warning system for pollutant stress.
Designing cities that are socially sustainable has been a significant challenge until today. Lately, European Commission’s research agenda of Industy 5.0 has prioritised a sustainable, human-centric and resilient development over merely pursuing efficiency and productivity in societal transitions. The focus has been on searching for sustainable solutions to societal challenges, engaging part of the design industry. In architecture and urban design, whose common goal is to create a condition for human life, much effort was put into elevating the engineering process of physical space, making it more efficient. However, the natural process of social evolution has not been given priority in urban and architectural research on sustainable design. STEPS stems from the common interest of the project partners in accessible, diverse, and progressive public spaces, which is vital to socially sustainable urban development. The primary challenge lies in how to synthesise the standardised sustainable design techniques with unique social values of public space, propelling a transition from technical sustainability to social sustainability. Although a large number of social-oriented studies in urban design have been published in the academic domain, principles and guidelines that can be applied to practice are large missing. How can we generate operative principles guiding public space analysis and design to explore and achieve the social condition of sustainability, developing transferable ways of utilising research knowledge in design? STEPS will develop a design catalogue with operative principles guiding public space analysis and design. This will help designers apply cross-domain knowledge of social sustainability in practice.
In this proposal, a consortium of knowledge institutes (wo, hbo) and industry aims to carry out the chemical re/upcycling of polyamides and polyurethanes by means of an ammonolysis, a depolymerisation reaction using ammonia (NH3). The products obtained are then purified from impurities and by-products, and in the case of polyurethanes, the amines obtained are reused for resynthesis of the polymer. In the depolymerisation of polyamides, the purified amides are converted to the corresponding amines by (in situ) hydrogenation or a Hofmann rearrangement, thereby forming new sources of amine. Alternatively, the amides are hydrolysed toward the corresponding carboxylic acids and reused in the repolymerisation towards polyamides. The above cycles are particularly suitable for end-of-life plastic streams from sorting installations that are not suitable for mechanical/chemical recycling. Any loss of material is compensated for by synthesis of amines from (mixtures of) end-of-life plastics and biomass (organic waste streams) and from end-of-life polyesters (ammonolysis). The ammonia required for depolymerisation can be synthesised from green hydrogen (Haber-Bosch process).By closing carbon cycles (high carbon efficiency) and supplementing the amines needed for the chain from biomass and end-of-life plastics, a significant CO2 saving is achieved as well as reduction in material input and waste. The research will focus on a number of specific industrially relevant cases/chains and will result in economically, ecologically (including safety) and socially acceptable routes for recycling polyamides and polyurethanes. Commercialisation of the results obtained are foreseen by the companies involved (a.o. Teijin and Covestro). Furthermore, as our project will result in a wide variety of new and drop-in (di)amines from sustainable sources, it will increase the attractiveness to use these sustainable monomers for currently prepared and new polyamides and polyurethanes. Also other market applications (pharma, fine chemicals, coatings, electronics, etc.) are foreseen for the sustainable amines synthesized within our proposition.
Carboxylated cellulose is an important product on the market, and one of the most well-known examples is carboxymethylcellulose (CMC). However, CMC is prepared by modification of cellulose with the extremely hazardous compound monochloracetic acid. In this project, we want to make a carboxylated cellulose that is a functional equivalent for CMC using a greener process with renewable raw materials derived from levulinic acid. Processes to achieve cellulose with a low and a high carboxylation degree will be designed.
