Precomputed Radiative Heat Transport for Efficient Thermal Simulation.

Architectural design and urban planning are complex design tasks. Predicting the thermal impact of design choices at interactive rates enhances the ability of designers to improve energy efficiency and avoid problematic heat islands while maintaining design quality. We show how to use and adapt methods from computer graphics to efficiently simulate heat transfer via thermal radiation, thereby improving user guidance in the early design phase of large-scale construction projects and helping to increase energy efficiency and outdoor comfort.

Diagnostic criteria to differentiate pathological procrastinators from common delayers: a re-analysis.

Detection and treatment of clinically relevant forms of procrastination would be greatly facilitated by diagnostic criteria as formulated for psychological disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5). In the present article, the steps for deriving and validating diagnostic criteria for pathological procrastination are described. In an online survey of a random sample of = 10,000 German university students, 990 answered 13 items derived from the attempts in the literature to define procrastination, the Aitken Procrastination Inventory (API) and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9).

Identification of co-located QTLs and genomic regions affecting grapevine cluster architecture.

Loose cluster architecture is an important aim in grapevine breeding since it has high impact on the phytosanitary status of grapes. This investigation analyzed the contributions of individual cluster sub-traits to the overall trait of cluster architecture. Six sub-traits showed large impact on cluster architecture as major determinants.

Joint versus separate inpatient rehabilitation treatment for patients with alcohol use disorder or drug use disorder: an observational study.

Background: In many national treatment systems, patients with alcohol use disorders (AUD) and those with drug use disorders (DUD) are treated separately, while other systems provide joint treatment for both kinds of substance use disorders (SUDs). Regarding long-term rehabilitation treatment of DUD and AUD patients, there is however a lack of empirical studies on the comparison between a separate versus joint treatment modality.

Methods: Data were gathered from 2 rehabilitation units located in small towns from the same German region.

Propofol sedation during gastrointestinal endoscopy arouses euphoria in a large subset of patients.

Background: Propofol is recommended for sedation in gastrointestinal endoscopy (GE), but preliminary data suggest addictive potentials.

Objective: The objective of this article is to evaluate the frequency of predominantly euphoric reaction after GE and patients' subsequent reminiscences.

Methods: Eighty-two patients undergoing elective GE under propofol sedation were enrolled in a prospective observational study.

High-Precision Phenotyping of Grape Bunch Architecture Using Fast 3D Sensor and Automation.

Wine growers prefer cultivars with looser bunch architecture because of the decreased risk for bunch rot. As a consequence, grapevine breeders have to select seedlings and new cultivars with regard to appropriate bunch traits. Bunch architecture is a mosaic of different single traits which makes phenotyping labor-intensive and time-consuming.

"This Treatment Can Really Help Me"-A Longitudinal Analysis of Treatment Readiness and Its Predictors in Patients Undergoing Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Treatment.

Background: There is evidence that patients entering alcohol or drug treatment have different levels of treatment readiness and change their motivation differently over time. Nonetheless, existing studies mainly use single measures of motivation and do not consider individual differences. This study addresses 2 questions: (i) How does treatment readiness change in patients with alcohol and drug use dependence over the course of an inpatient rehabilitation treatment?; and (ii) Can changes in treatment readiness be explained by sociodemographic and substance use-related characteristics?

Methods: Data from 177 alcohol-dependent patients and 152 drug-dependent patients were collected in 2 inpatient rehabilitation centers in Germany.

Cough Is Dangerous: Neural Correlates of Implicit Body Symptoms Associations.

The negative interpretation of body sensations (e.g., as sign of a severe illness) is a crucial cognitive process in pathological health anxiety (HA).

Deficient interference control during working memory updating in adults with ADHD: An event-related potential study.

Objective: Little is known about the underlying mechanisms of poor working memory (WM) performance of adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study investigates interference and load effects during WM updating by use of event-related potentials.

Method: Forty ADHD patients and 41 controls performed verbal n-back tasks under conditions of low and high WM load.

Clarifying the latent structure and correlates of somatic symptom distress: A bifactor model approach.

Distressing somatic symptoms are ubiquitous both in mental disorders and medical diseases. From a psychometric perspective, the structure of somatic symptom distress is unclear, and little is known about the strengths of associations to related constructs, such as health anxiety and somatosensory amplification. To clarify the structure of somatic symptom distress and to explore associations to health anxiety, somatosensory amplification, and functional somatic syndromes, data sets of 2 samples of college students from Germany (N = 1,520) and Switzerland (N = 3,053) were investigated with confirmatory factor analysis with robust estimation.

Metacognitions, worry and sleep in everyday life: Studying bidirectional pathways using Ecological Momentary Assessment in GAD patients.

Background: The metacognitive model of generalized anxiety disorder proposes that negative metacognitive beliefs are crucial in the maintenance of excessive worry. Furthermore, according to the cognitive model of insomnia, worry leads to problems falling or staying asleep and poor sleep quality. In order to test the assumed causal relationships, the present study examined the time-dependent course of negative metacognition and worry as well as worry and sleep quality, using Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA).

A diary-based modification of symptom attributions in pathological health anxiety: effects on symptom report and cognitive biases.

Objective: To examine whether a 2-week attribution modification training (AMT) changes symptom severity, emotional evaluation of health-threatening stimuli, and cognitive biases in pathological health anxiety.

Method: We randomized 85 patients with pathological health anxiety into an electronic diary-based AMT group (AMTG; n = 42) and a control group without AMT (CG; n = 43). Self-report symptom measures, emotional evaluation, attentional bias, and memory bias toward symptom and illness words were assessed with an emotional Stroop task, a recognition task, and an emotional rating task for valence and arousal.

Dimensional structure of bodily panic attack symptoms and their specific connections to panic cognitions, anxiety sensitivity and claustrophobic fears.

Background: Previous studies of the dimensional structure of panic attack symptoms have mostly identified a respiratory and a vestibular/mixed somatic dimension. Evidence for additional dimensions such as a cardiac dimension and the allocation of several of the panic attack symptom criteria is less consistent. Clarifying the dimensional structure of the panic attack symptoms should help to specify the relationship of potential risk factors like anxiety sensitivity and fear of suffocation to the experience of panic attacks and the development of panic disorder.

Placement matching of alcohol-dependent patients based on a standardized intake assessment: rationale and design of a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Despite considerable research on substance-abuse placement matching, evidence is still inconclusive. The aims of this exploratory trial are to evaluate (a) the effects of following matching guidelines on health-care costs and heavy drinking, and (b) factors affecting the implementation of matching guidelines in the treatment of alcohol-dependent patients.

Methods: A total of 286 alcohol-dependent patients entering one of four participating detoxification units and having no arrangements for further treatment will be recruited.

Childhood maltreatment is associated with depression but not with hypochondriasis in later life.

Objective: Previous studies demonstrated that a history of childhood trauma is linked to mental disorders in adulthood, particularly to depression. Adverse childhood experiences are also considered to contribute to the risk of hypochondriasis, but the results of previous studies have not been conclusive with respect to the strength and specificity of this association. Therefore, we compared the association of adverse childhood experiences with both hypochondriasis and depression.

Electrophysiological indices of error monitoring in juvenile and adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)--a meta-analytic appraisal.

Attempts to identify the central disturbed processes explaining the overt symptoms of juvenile and adult ADHD rely heavily on the concept of deficient error monitoring processes. A number of studies have investigated event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral performance in tasks traditionally used to probe the interference control and inhibition of motor responses. The inspection of the error negativity (Ne/ERN) and error positivity (Pe) components evoked in these tasks has produced conflicting results with respect to the nature and extent of an error monitoring deficit in ADHD.

Somatic symptom reporting has a dimensional latent structure: results from taxometric analyses.

Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) are one of the key features of somatoform disorders. Although MUS are currently treated as both categorical (in terms of the diagnosis of somatoform disorders) and dimensional (in terms of quantitative measures of somatization/somatic symptom reporting), little is known about the empirical latent structure of MUS. Using taxometric analyses, the latent structure of somatic symptom reporting was analyzed with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-15 in two student samples (N=782 and N=2,577) and a primary care sample (N=519).

Conceptual structure of the symptoms of adult ADHD according to the DSM-IV and retrospective Wender-Utah criteria.

Objective: Adult Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV) and retrospective childhood Wender-Utah ADHD criteria are implemented in self-report measures to assess adult ADHD and its required onset in childhood. Yet their dimensional structure and relationship to adult ADHD depressivity is still at debate.

Prediction of the outcome of inpatient opiate detoxification treatment: results from a multicenter study.

Background: Monocentric studies of inpatient opiate detoxification treatment show considerable variability regarding treatment success rates. This multicentric study investigates whether patient characteristics explain the different rates of regular discharge between treatment units.

Methods: 1,017 opiate-dependent patients from 12 detoxification units with similar treatment programs, funding, staffing and equipment were analyzed.

Eye movement assessment in individuals with social phobia: differential usefulness for varying presentation times?

Visual dot probe tasks are used to examine attentional biases towards threat faces in social phobia. Based on eye movement assessments, short presentation times of stimuli have been proposed to investigate initial attentional processes. However, it remains unclear if eye movements contribute to anxiety related biases as measured in dot probe tasks when presentation times below 200 ms are used.

Heart rate stress response dampening: the impact of alcohol, family history, and gender on at risk children and siblings.

Objective: In the following study we tested the stress response dampening (SRD) model which postulates that stress responses are more likely to be attenuated by alcohol in individuals at risk for alcohol dependence than in persons without that risk. In a laboratory experiment we examined a) if SRD effects exist for both sons and healthy daughters of alcohol dependent fathers, and b) if SRD effects exist for siblings of alcohol dependent males.

Methods: We recruited 104 subjects at risk and 51 matched control subjects.

Long-term cognitive and emotional consequences of mild traumatic brain injury.

Background: The objective of this study was to investigate long-term cognitive and emotional sequelae of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), as previous research has remained inconclusive with respect to their prevalence and extent.

Method: Thirty-three individuals who had sustained mTBI on average 6 years prior to the study and 33 healthy control subjects were matched according to age, gender and education. Structural brain damage at time of testing was excluded by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).