Berberine is a drug with an intense bitter taste. The high aqueous solubility of its chloride salt, which is commonly used in commercial drug products of berberine, worsens the challenge of taste masking. We have approached this drug delivery challenge by forming salts with the sweeteners acesulfame and saccharine, through the anion exchange reaction. In addition to the intrinsic sweetness of the two counterions, both salts also exhibit reduced aqueous solubility, which further alleviates the problem of bitter taste of the drug by limiting dissolution of berberine. Moreover, both salts exhibit good tableting performance. They are also non-hygroscopic and stable against high humidity and temperature. The stability against humidity variations makes the two sweet salts more amenable for tablet development over the chloride salt, which undergoes complex hydration/ dehydration phase changes when relative humidity varies. Collectively, the two novel solid phases of berberine are sweet and exhibit superior properties for developing pharmaceutically elegant drug products.

Youth suicide rates in Cuba are very high compared with most other countries, despite considerable improvement in recent years. The purpose of our study was to determine whether hopelessness and shame distinguish adolescent suicide attempters from non-attempters, over and above the effects of depression and suicidal ideation. Participants were 844 Cuban adolescents from the province of Holguin in Eastern Cuba. The attempter groups included 38 participants being treated for suicide attempts in a day hospital and 82 participants in the community who self-reported a previous suicide attempt. The other participants were non-attempter controls. All participants were asked to complete measures of depression, hopelessness, shame and suicidal ideation. As expected, attempters scored higher than non-attempters on the control variables of depression and suicidal ideation. In addition, attempters self-reported greater shame, especially behavioral and characterological shame, than non-attempters. Contrary to our hypothesis, there was no significant difference in hopelessness between attempters and non-attempters. The results are inconsistent with the considerable narrative lore about hopelessness as a reason for suicide in Cuba and other socialist countries. However, some collective socialization practices may lead to shame.

Colleges and universities are increasingly concerned about respect for diversity and tolerance of individual differences on their campuses. Nevertheless, no comprehensive measure of peer victimization has been developed and validated for use with college student populations. The Peer Victimization in College Survey (PVIC) is the first such measure. Study 1 (N ϭ 733) reports how PVIC items were empirically derived to ensure construct coverage. Study 2 (N ϭ 100) reports how intuitive PVIC subscales were established to distinguish between subtypes of college peer victimization. Study 3 (N ϭ 520) provides evidence of convergent, discriminant, and construct validity for the PVIC, including its relations to risk factors and to outcomes such as depressive symptoms, anxiety, stress, and college sense of belonging. Study 4 (N ϭ 633) validates several PVIC scaling methods and provides evidence of incremental validity of the measure over current (unvalidated) measures. The PVIC can assess subtypes of peer victimization on college campuses, evaluate the effectiveness of campus intervention efforts, and test hypotheses about the causes and effects of peer victimization. Public Significance StatementThis study introduces the first validated measure of peer-on-peer victimization among college students, the Peer Victimization in College (PVIC) Survey. Derived from college students' own personal experiences, the study identifies 10 broad types of peer victimization that occur on college campuses. The PVIC can be used both by researchers who study bullying and by college officials who want to understand peer victimization or the effectiveness of interventions on their campuses.

An increasing number of studies are applying multilevel modeling (MLM) to daily diary assessments of emotional and cognitive reactivity (ER and CR). Despite their generation of promising results, these methods have yet to be validated. The current study, consisting of 449 participants from over 90 different colleges and universities, had 2 goals: (a) to assess the convergent validity of these methods in relation to more conventional measures, and (b) to assess the construct validity of these methods in relation to depressive symptoms. Results support the extraction of within-versus between-person aspects of both constructs from daily diary data. Evidence of convergent validity derives from the association of MLM-based estimates of ER and CR with established self-report questionnaire methods. Evidence of construct validity derives from the relation of these estimates to symptoms of depression. The value of distinguishing within-from between-person aspects of ER and CR is discussed. Public Significance StatementThis study explicates and validates a multilevel modeling method for the assessment and analysis of emotion and cognitive reactivity data derived from daily diaries. Evidence of convergent, discriminant, and construct validity supports the use of these methods.

Previous theory and research show that, compared with nondepressed people, depressed individuals are more likely to have (a) negative thoughts when they are sad, and (b) qualitatively different emotional reactions to stressful situations. In the current article, a novel methodology for assessing these characteristics is introduced in order to facilitate such research in college students.