Sexual Offending: The Intrepid Professional-Adventurer and The Dejected Revenger-Victim.

The Criminal Narrative Experience (CNE) is a framework developed within Invest-igative Psychology, which combines the emotions and narrative roles experienced by the offender during the commission of their offense, to understand their personal experience of crime . Previous research proposes four distinct themes within CNE; The Elated Hero, The Calm Professional, The Distressed Revenger, and The Depressed Victim , however little attention has yet been paid to the potential differences in themes across various offense types. The current study explored the CNE model within a sample of sexual offenders. Results found evidence of two CNE themes; The Intrepid Professional-Adventurer and The Dejected Revenger-Victim, this has implications stretching further than theorical, and are particularly poignant for therapists and treatment managers, who may be providing intervention to groups of sexual offenders at any one time.

The Relationship between Dark Triad Personality Traits and Sexting Behaviors among Adolescents and Young Adults across 11 Countries.

BACKGROUND: Sexting is an increasingly common phenomenon among adolescents and young adults. Some studies have investigated the role of personality traits in different sexting behaviors within mainstream personality taxonomies like Big Five and HEXACO. However, very few studies have investigated the role of maladaptive personality factors in sexting. Therefore, the present study investigated the relationship between Dark Triad Personality Traits and experimental (i.e., sharing own sexts), risky (i.e., sexting under substance use and with strangers), and aggravated sexting (i.e., non-consensual sexting and sexting under pressure) across 11 countries. METHODS: An online survey was completed by 6093 participants (Mage = 20.35; SDage = 3.63) from 11 different countries which covered four continents (Europe, Asia, Africa, and America). Participants completed the Sexting Behaviors Questionnaire and the 12-item Dark Triad Dirty Dozen scale. RESULTS: Hierarchical regression analyses showed that sharing own sexts was positively predicted by Machiavellianism and Narcissism. Both risky and aggravated sexting were positively predicted by Machiavellianism and Psychopathy. CONCLUSIONS: The present study provided empirical evidence that different sexting behaviors were predicted by Dark Triad Personality Traits, showing a relevant role of Machiavellianism in all kinds of investigated sexting behaviors. Research, clinical, and education implications for prevention programs are discussed.

Applying the Criminal Narrative Experience Framework to Young Offenders.

The present study applied the Criminal Narrative Experience for the first time with young offenders ( N = 23). The analysis was based on young people serving a community sentence and attending a Youth Offending Team. Participants completed questionnaires relating to their roles and emotions during a typical offence and data were examined with Smallest Space Analysis (SSA) to identify if the themes were replicated. Three themes were identified: Calm Professional, Elated Hero, and a combined theme of Distressed Revenger and Depressed Victim. Correlation indicated links between Narrative Experience and static and dynamic risk factors. Findings suggest that the Calm Professional theme correlates with Neighbourhood risk factors, the Elated Hero with Attitudes to Offending, and the Distressed Revenger/Depressed Victim theme with Living Arrangements and Family and Personal Relationships. Potential reasons for identifying three rather than four themes with this sample are discussed. Implications of findings in preventing reoffending are highlighted.

A Content Analysis of Online Suicide Notes: Attempted Suicide Versus Attempt Resulting in Suicide.

Fifty suicide notes of those who died by suicide and 50 suicide notes of those who survived their suicide attempt were analyzed using Smallest Space Analysis. The core of all suicide notes was discovered to be constructed with the use of four variables: saying goodbye to their audience, feelings of loneliness, method used to attempt suicide, and negative self-image. Furthermore, three different suicide note themes of those who died and three suicide note themes from those who survived were also identified. The analysis revealed that suicide note writers who died by their attempt were more likely to combine a dislike of themselves and a concern for loved ones. The implications of the work in terms of suicide prevention are discussed.

Genome of Acanthamoeba castellanii highlights extensive lateral gene transfer and early evolution of tyrosine kinase signaling.

BACKGROUND: The Amoebozoa constitute one of the primary divisions of eukaryotes, encompassing taxa of both biomedical and evolutionary importance, yet its genomic diversity remains largely unsampled. Here we present an analysis of a whole genome assembly of Acanthamoeba castellanii (Ac) the first representative from a solitary free-living amoebozoan. RESULTS: Ac encodes 15,455 compact intron-rich genes, a significant number of which are predicted to have arisen through inter-kingdom lateral gene transfer (LGT). A majority of the LGT candidates have undergone a substantial degree of intronization and Ac appears to have incorporated them into established transcriptional programs. Ac manifests a complex signaling and cell communication repertoire, including a complete tyrosine kinase signaling toolkit and a comparable diversity of predicted extracellular receptors to that found in the facultatively multicellular dictyostelids. An important environmental host of a diverse range of bacteria and viruses, Ac utilizes a diverse repertoire of predicted pattern recognition receptors, many with predicted orthologous functions in the innate immune systems of higher organisms. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis highlights the important role of LGT in the biology of Ac and in the diversification of microbial eukaryotes. The early evolution of a key signaling facility implicated in the evolution of metazoan multicellularity strongly argues for its emergence early in the Unikont lineage. Overall, the availability of an Ac genome should aid in deciphering the biology of the Amoebozoa and facilitate functional genomic studies in this important model organism and environmental host.

Conserved and divergent roles of Bcr1 and CFEM proteins in Candida parapsilosis and Candida albicans.

Candida parapsilosis is a pathogenic fungus that is major cause of hospital-acquired infection, predominantly due to growth as biofilms on indwelling medical devices. It is related to Candida albicans, which remains the most common cause of candidiasis disease in humans. The transcription factor Bcr1 is an important regulator of biofilm formation in vitro in both C. parapsilosis and C. albicans. We show here that C. parapsilosis Bcr1 is required for in vivo biofilm development in a rat catheter model, like C. albicans. By comparing the transcription profiles of a bcr1 deletion in both species we found that regulation of expression of the CFEM family is conserved. In C. albicans, three of the five CFEM cell wall proteins (Rbt5, Pga7 and Csa1) are associated with both biofilm formation and acquisition of iron from heme, which is an important virulence characteristic. In C. parapsilosis, the CFEM family has undergone an expansion to 7 members. Expression of three genes (CFEM2, CFEM3, and CFEM6) is dependent on Bcr1, and is induced in low iron conditions. All three are involved in the acquisition of iron from heme. However, deletion of the three CFEM genes has no effect on biofilm formation in C. parapsilosis. Our data suggest that the role of the CFEM family in iron acquisition is conserved between C. albicans and C. parapsilosis, but their role in biofilm formation is not.

Regulation of the hypoxic response in Candida albicans.

The regulation of the response of Candida albicans to hypoxic (low-oxygen) conditions is poorly understood. We used microarray and other transcriptional analyses to investigate the role of the Upc2 and Bcr1 transcription factors in controlling expression of genes involved in cell wall metabolism, ergosterol synthesis, and glycolysis during adaptation to hypoxia. Hypoxic induction of the ergosterol pathway is mimicked by treatment with sterol-lowering drugs (ketoconazole) and requires UPC2. Expression of three members of the family CFEM (common in several fungal extracellular membranes) of cell wall genes (RBT5, PGA7, and PGA10) is also induced by hypoxia and ketoconazole and requires both UPC2 and BCR1. Expression of glycolytic genes is induced by hypoxia but not by treatment with sterol-lowering drugs, whereas expression of respiratory pathway genes is repressed. However, Upc2 does not play a major role in regulating expression of genes required for central carbon metabolism. Our results indicate that regulation of gene expression in response to hypoxia in C. albicans is complex and is signaled both via lowered sterol levels and other unstudied mechanisms. We also show that induction of filamentation under hypoxic conditions requires the Ras1- and Cdc35-dependent pathway.