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Background. It has been proposed that delusions of persecution are caused by the tendency to over-attribute malevolent intentions to other people's actions. One aspect of intention attribution is detecting contingencies between an agent's actions and intentions. Here, we used simplified stimuli to test the hypothesis that patients with persecutory delusions over-attribute contingency to agents' movements. Method. Short animations were presented to three groups of subjects: (1) schizophrenic patients; (2) patients with affective disorders; and (3) normal control subjects. Patients were divided on the basis of the presence or absence of delusions of persecution. Participants watched four types of film featuring two shapes. In half the films one shape's movement was contingent on the other shape. Contingency was either ‘intentional’: one shape moved when it ‘saw’ another shape; or ‘mechanical’: one shape was launched by the other shape. Subjects were asked to rate the strength of the relationship between the movement of the shapes. Results. Normal control subjects and patients without delusions of persecution rated the relationship between the movement of the shapes as stronger in both mechanical and intentional contingent conditions than in non-contingent conditions. In contrast, there was no significant difference between the ratings of patients with delusions of persecution for the conditions in which movement was animate. Patients with delusions of persecution perceived contingency when there was none in the animate non-contingent condition. Conclusions. The results suggest that delusions of persecution may be associated with the over-attribution of contingency to the actions of agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need of a neutron source for the qualification of materials to be used in future fusion power reactors have been recognized in the European (EU) fusion programme for many years. The construction and exploitation of this facility is presently considered to be in the critical path of DEMO. This issue prompted the EU to launch activities for the design and engineering of the IFMIF-DONES (International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility-DEMO Oriented Neutron Source) facility based on and taking profit of the results obtained in the IFMIF/EVEDA (Engineering Validation and Engineering Design Activities) project, presently conducted in the framework of the EU-Japan Bilateral Agreement on the Broader Approach to Fusion. These activities and R&D work for the IFMIF-DONES Plant are presently taking place in the framework of a work package of the EUROfusion Consortium, in direct collaboration with the Fusion for Energy Organization. The main objective of these activities is to consolidate the design and the underlying technology basis in order to be ready for IFMIF-DONES construction as early as possible. The paper presents the main engineering results for a generic site obtained during the first years of design work, as indicated in the recently released IFMIF-DONES Preliminary Engineering Design Report, making emphasis on the design evolution from previous phases and on the critical issues to be further developed in the near future. The proposed European site to host the facility (Granada, Spain) is briefly introduced as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]