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Pay for Success (PFS), also known as Social Impact Bonds, is a new contracting mechanism to fund prevention programs, where investors provide capital to implement a social service -- for example, to reduce recidivism by former prisoners. If the service provider achieves agreed upon outcomes, the government pays the investor, usually with a rate of return, based on savings from decreased use of more costly remedial services, such as incarceration. Federal, state, and local agencies play an important role in improving (...) social outcomes for society's most vulnerable populations. A small number of state, local, and foreign governments are employing PFS to fund efforts designed to better serve these vulnerable populations. This book examines how selected PFS projects have been structured and what potential benefits these projects can provide; how selected PFS contracts have been structured to address potential project risks; and the potential roles for the federal government's involvement in PFS projects. This book also provides an overview of the first State-led Pay for Success and Social Impact "Bond" (SIB) project in the nation; examines some of the arguments for and against The Payment by Results (PbR) approach to delivery of public services; and looks at current and planned projects in rehabilitation, welfare to work, the NHS, children's social services and with rough sleepers and with vulnerable young people. (shrink)

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We investigate the emergence of iconicity, specifically a bouba-kiki effect in miniature artificial languages under different functional constraints: when the languages are reproduced and when they are used communicatively. We ran transmission chains of participant dyads who played an interactive communicative game and individual participants who played a matched learning game. An analysis of the languages over six generations in an iterated learning experiment revealed that in the Communication condition, but not in the Reproduction condition, words for spiky shapes tend (...) to be rated by naive judges as more spiky than the words for round shapes. This suggests that iconicity may not only be the outcome of innovations introduced by individuals, but, crucially, the result of interlocutor negotiation of new communicative conventions. We interpret our results as an illustration of cultural evolution by random mutation and selection. (shrink)

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Food choices are a key determinant of dietary intake, with brain regions, such as the mesolimbic and prefrontal cortex maturing at differentialrates into adulthood. More needs to be understood about developmental changes in healthy and unhealthy food perceptions and preference. We investigated how food perceptions and preference vary as a function of age and how food attributes impact age-related changes. One hundred thirty-nine participants completed computerized tasks to rate high-calorie and low-calorie food cues for taste, health, and liking, (...) followed by 100 binary food choices based on each participant’s ratings. Dietary self-control was considered successful when the healthier food was chosen. Self-control success ratio was the proportion of success trials over total number of choices. Beta-weights for health and taste were calculated as each attribute’s influence on food preference. Adiposity measurements included BMI z-score and waist-to-height ratio. High-calorie foods were rated more tasty and less healthy with increasing age. Older participants liked high-calorie foods more, and β-taste was associated with age. Significant age-by-WHtR interactions were observed for health and taste ratings of high-calorie foods, β-taste, and marginally for preference of high-calorie foods. Stratifying by WHtR, we found age-related increases in taste and preference ratings of high-calorie foods in the high WHtR group alone. In contrast, age-related decreases in health ratings of high-calorie foods were significant in the low WHtR group alone. Age and β-taste were significantly associated in the high WHtR group and only marginally significant with low WHtR. Although participants rated low-calorie foods as less tasty and less healthy with increasing age, there was no association between age and preference for low-calorie foods. Participants made faster food choices with increasing age regardless of WHtR, with a significant age-by-WHtR interaction on reaction time. There were no age-related effects in self-control success ratio and β-health. These results suggest that individual differences in age and central adiposity play an important role in preference for high-calorie foods, and a higher importance of food tastiness in food choice may contribute to greater preference for high-calorie foods with increasing age. (shrink)

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Tax law changes at a startling rate - not only does societal change bring with it demands for change in the tax system, but changes in the political climate will force change, as will many other competing pressures. With this pace of change, it is easy to focus on the practical and forget the core underpinnings of the tax system and their philosophical justifications. Taking a pause to remind ourselves of those principles and how they can operate in the modern (...) tax system is crucial to ensuring that the tax system does not diverge too far from what it should be or could be. It is essential to understand the answers to some of the seemingly basic questions that surround tax before we can even begin to think about what a tax system should look like. This collection brings together major themes and difficult questions in the philosophical foundations of tax law. The chapters consider practical issues such as justification, enforcement, design, and mechanics, and provide a full and coherent analysis of the basis for tax law. Philosophical Foundations of Tax Law allows the reader to consider how tax systems should move forward in the modern world, with a sound philosophical basis, to provide the practical tax system that the state requires and citizens deserve. (shrink)

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Syntactic satiation is the phenomenon where some sentences that initially seem ungrammatical appear more acceptable after repeated exposures (Snyder 2000). We investigated satiation by manipulating two factors known to affect syntactic priming, a phenomenon where recent exposure to a grammatical structure facilitates subsequent processing of that structure (Bock 1986). Specifically, we manipulated (i) Proximity of exposure (number of sentences between primes and targets) and (ii) Lexical repetition (type of phrase repeated across primes and targets). Experiment 1 investigated whether acceptability ratings (...) of Complex-NP Constraint (CNPC) and Subject islands improve as consequence of these variables. If so, priming and satiation may be linked. When primes were separated from targets by one sentence, CNPC islands’ acceptability was improved by a preceding island of the same type, but Subject islands’ acceptability was not. When prime-target pairs were separated by five sentences, we found no improvement for either island type. Experiment 2 asked whether improvements in Experiment 1 reflected online processing or offline end-of-sentence effects. We used a self-paced reading paradigm to diagnose online structure-building and processing facilitation (Ivanova 2012) during processing. We found priming for Subject islands when primes and targets were close together, but not when they were further apart. No effects were detected when CNPC islands were close together, but there was a localized effect when sentences were further apart. The disjunction between Experiments 1 and 2 suggests repetition of the structure in Subject islands facilitated online processing but did not ‘spill over’ to acceptability ratings. Meanwhile, results for CNPC islands suggest that acceptability rating improvements in Experiment 1 may be driven by factors distinct from online processing facilitation. Together, our experiments show that satiation may not be a one-size-fit-all phenomenon but, instead, appears to manifest itself differently for different types of structures. Priming is possible and may be linked to satiation in some purportedly “unbuildable” structures (e.g. Subject islands), but not for all types (e.g. CNPC islands). Despite this, it appears that while the types of mechanisms targeting different island types are distinct, they are nevertheless similarly sensitive to the proximity between individual exposures. (shrink)

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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Playing Attention":Contemporary Aesthetics and Performing Arts Audience EducationMonica Prendergast (bio)IntroductionThe spectator is an essential element of the kind of play we call aesthetic.1We all watch television. We all go to the movies. Some of us also attend live performances such as plays, concerts, operas, dance recitals, poetry or prose readings, and so on. What are the differences to be found among these experiences? The audience experience of television or (...) film is a shared one, although a more fragmented sharing in the case of television, as it is with live arts events. We are aware that we are not alone in viewing a show, that it is a collective event. But we also realize that our presence does not really matter (aside from boosting ratings or adding to box office profits) and that the performance will continue with or without us. We may exit or enter the room or auditorium at will and never offend the actors, because their presence is "mediatized" and we are not sharing the same time or space with them.2 Attending a live performance is otherwise; our presence is a key element of the event and definitely can and does make a significant difference both for ourselves and for the performers. Although the size and qualities of the event and audience may alter this assertion — a huge stadium rock concert is arguably a more mediatized live performance than a small folk club date — it still holds true that presence is one of the most important qualities of audience in live performance.If we can accept that audience presence is central to performance, then it follows that aesthetic education in the performing arts needs to pay some attention to this phenomenon. In a First World culture that is currently over-saturated with mediatized performance, the future health and vitality of live performance is endangered if educators neglect to address the challenges and processes involved in being an audience for the performing arts in arts education curricula. This essay explores how aesthetic/arts education may [End Page 36] assist young people to grow in awareness and understanding of the essential role that is played by audience in attending performance. In examining the work of four contemporary aesthetic philosophers — Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, Paul Thom, and James O. Young — I focus on the areas of spectatorship, attention, interpretation, and evaluation/criticism as important qualities of audience-in-performance. I will then offer a possible curriculum framework for audience education in the performing arts that is performative in form and nature; that is, creative, experiential, emergent, and open question-driven.Both classical and contemporary aesthetic philosophy tends to ignore the performing arts in general and audience-in-performance in particular.3 Plato derides performance as anti-reason and Aristotle salvages it by focusing on the audience's experience of catharsis in tragedy, but this fascinating debate gets lost over time as philosophers get caught up in questions around the definition and nature of art. Examinations of audience in aesthetics tend to assume an audience engaged in the more reflective, contemplative, and individual activity of viewing a work of visual art, reading a poem, or appreciating beauty in general. Discussions of performing arts deal with the text of a play or the score of a musical piece as the primary aesthetic object, with performances of these texts or scores considered somehow secondary, less-definable therefore less worthy of serious philosophic consideration.4 Although a number of aesthetic philosophers have taken up performance and audience issues in more recent years, especially regarding issues around "authentic" performance of music on original instruments, the experience of audience-in-performance remains understudied.5 Others, such as Nick Zangwill, try to negate the audience altogether as being a relatively insignificant part of an aesthetic event and argue that the central focus of aesthetics should be on the artist and the creation of artworks.6Fortunately, there have been a few voices in the field that do attend more closely to performing arts in general and audience in particular, or whose work can be effectively applied to this distinct type of aesthetic event. In the next section I will describe... (shrink)

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The mortality rate of patients affected with oral squamous cell carcinoma has been stable in recent decades due to several factors, especially diagnostic delay, which is often associated with a late stage diagnosis and poor prognosis. The aims of this paper were to: analyze diagnostic delay in OSCC and to discuss the various psychological factors of patients with OSCC, with particular attention to the patient’s fear of receiving news regarding their health; and the professional dynamics related to the decision-making processes (...) in cases of suspected OSCC. A preliminary review of literature focusing on OSCC diagnostic delay was performed. Seven articles were included with the diagnostic delay ranging from 45 days to approximately 6 months. Patients’ fears and, to a lesser degree, the concerns of dentists, were found to be still poorly investigated. On the basis of the authors’ professional experience, the development of oral lesions of unknown origin may generate different behaviors in the decision-making processes by patients and clinicians, and fear may play a key role in the distinct steps of this process. It is crucial to increase awareness and inform patients about the onset of OSCC, and contemporaneously encourage experimental studies on patients’ fear and professional behaviors with respect to communication regarding OSCC. (shrink)

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Recent literature have underlined the connections between children’s reading skills and capacity to create and use mental representations or mental images; furthermore data highlighted the involvement of visuospatial abilities both during math learning and during subsequent developmental phases in performing math tasks. The present research adopted a longitudinal design to assess whether the processes of mental imagery in preschoolers (ages 4–5 years) are predictive of mathematics skills, writing and reading, in the early years of primary school (ages 6–7 years). The (...) research lasted for two school years; in the first phase, the general group of participants consisted of 100 children, and although all participants agreed to be part of the research, in the second phase, there was a mortality rate of 30%. In order to measure school learning and mental imagery processes four batteries of tests were used. The mental imagery battery evaluated mental generation, inspection and transformation processes. Data underlined that the different aspects in which mental imagery processes are articulated are differently implied in some skills that constitute school learning. These findings emphasise the potential usefulness of a screening for mental imagery ability for schoolchildren to adopt effective measures to increase their mental imagery abilities. (shrink)

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The new developments in our social context, the recent pandemic outbreak, caused a series of changes in everyday practices. The student population represents a particular case, both their safety and future education were under duress during this period. However, their views over the situation have not been present in the scientific literature. The present qualitative research aimed to explore students' perceptions, attitudes, views, and representations on the Covid-19 pandemic. Three focus groups, each containing twelve participants, were organised to explore these (...) aspects and students’ particular experiences. Focus group sessions were audio-recorded and the transcripts were analysed. The results revealed four dimensions of the students' representations: change – as a constant of the present, prospective scenarios, the pulse of the moment, and surrounding risks. The limitations and the importance of the study are discussed. The consequences of these representations are particularly important due to the influence they can have on people’s practices during the crisis and the extent of measures’ acceptance. The results offer precious insights on why some communication strategies used by the authorities had a low compliance rate, what should be done differently, and what should be considered in order to promote adaptive health behaviors during the latter phases of the pandemic. (shrink)

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IntroductionRheumatologists are the primary healthcare professionals responsible for patients with rheumatic diseases and should acquire medical ethical competencies, such as the informed consent process (ICP). The objective clinical structured examination is a valuable tool for assessing clinical competencies. We report the performance of 90 rheumatologist trainees participating in a station designed to evaluate the ICP during the 2018 and 2019 national accreditations.MethodsThe station was validated and represented a medical encounter in which the rheumatologist informed a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus (...) with clinically active nephritis about renal biopsy. A trained patient–actor and an evaluator were instructed to assess ICP skills (with a focus on kidney biopsy benefits, how the biopsy is done and potential complications) in obtaining formal informed consent, delivering bad news and overall communication with patients. The evaluator used a tailored checklist and form.ResultsCandidate performance varied with ICP content and was superior for potential benefit information (achieved by 98.9% of the candidates) but significantly reduced for potential complications (37.8%) and biopsy description (42.2%). Only 17.8% of the candidates mentioned the legal perspective of ICP. Death (as a potential complication) was omitted by the majority of the candidates (93.3%); after the patient–actor challenged candidates, only 57.1% of them gave a clear and positive answer. Evaluators frequently rated candidate communications skills as superior (≥80%), but ≥1 negative aspect was identified in 69% of the candidates.ConclusionsEthical competencies are mandatory for professional rheumatologists. It seems necessary to include an ethics competency framework in the curriculum throughout the rheumatology residency. (shrink)

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Suicide is a public health problem which will require an integrated cross-sector approach to help reduce prevalencerates. One strategy is to include the legal system in a more integrated way with suicide prevention efforts. Caine explored a public health approach to suicide prevention, depicting risk factors across the socio-ecological model. The purpose of this paper is to examine laws that impact suicide prevention at the individual, relational, community, and societal levels. These levels are fluid, and some interventions will (...) fall between two, such as a community-level approach to training that enhances provider-patient relationships. At the individual level, we will review laws to improve screening requirements across systems. At the relational level, we note interventions with couples having conflict, such as protection orders and access to attorney consultations, which have been known to be injury prevention mechanisms. At the community level, we discuss legislation that recommends suicide prevention efforts for key individuals working as frontline providers in the medical and educational systems. At the societal level, we explore public awareness campaigns that target stigma reduction for those suffering from mental health burden and enhance linkage to care. The article closes with the discussion that laws are good, but their implementation is essential. (shrink)

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A prefrontal control system that is less mature than the limbic reward system in adolescence is thought to impede self-regulatory abilities, which could contribute to poor dietary choices and obesity. We, therefore, aimed to examine whether structural morphology of the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala are associated with dietary decisions and obesity in children and adolescents. Seventy-one individuals between the ages of 8–22 years participated in this study; each participant completed a computer-based food choice task and a T1- and T2-weighted (...) structural brain scans. Two indices of obesity were assessed, including age- and sex-specific body mass index and waist-to-height ratio. The behavioral task included rating 60 food stimuli for tastiness, healthiness, and liking. Based on each participant’s self-ratings, 100 binary food choices were then made utilizing a computer mouse. Dietary “self-control” was calculated as the proportion of trials where the individual chose the healthier food item over the total number of trials. Cortical thickness and amygdala subnuclei volumes were quantified using FreeSurfer 6.0 and CIT168 atlas, respectively. We found that WHtR was negatively associated with the thickness of bilateral superior frontal, left superior temporal, right insula, and right inferior temporal regions. We also found WHtR to be positively associated with the volume of the central nucleus region of the amygdala, after adjusting for the hemisphere, age, sex, and intracranial volumes. A similar data pattern was observed when BMIz was used. Moreover, we found that across all participants, thinner right superior frontal cortex and larger left CEN volumes predicted lower dietary self-control. These results suggest that differential development of the PFC and amygdala relate to obesity and dietary self-control. Further longitudinal studies are merited to determine causal relationships among altered PFC to amygdala neural circuitry, dietary self-control, and obesity. (shrink)

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California has focused on health equity in the state’s COVID-19 reopening plan. The Blueprint for a Safer Economy assigns each of California’s 58 counties into 1 of 4 tiers based on 2 metrics: test positivity rate and adjusted case rate. To advance to the next less-restrictive tier, counties must meet that tier’s test positivity and adjusted case rate thresholds. In addition, counties must have a plan for targeted investments within disadvantaged communities, and counties with more than 106 000 residents must (...) meet an equity metric. California's explicit incorporation of health equity into its reopening plan underscores the interrelated fate of its residents during the COVID-19 pandemic and creates incentives for action. This article evaluates the benefits and challenges of this novel health equity focus, and outlines recommendations for other US states to address disparities in their reopening plans. (shrink)

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The umbrella-term ‘executive functions’ includes various domain-general, goal-directed cognitive abilities responsible for behavioral self-regulation. The influential unity and diversity model of EF posits the existence of three correlated yet separable executive domains: inhibition, shifting and updating. These domains may be influenced by factors such as socioeconomic status and culture, possibly due to the way EF tasks are devised and to biased choice of stimuli, focusing on first-world testees. Here, we propose a FREE test battery that includes two open-access tasks for (...) each of the three abovementioned executive domains to allow latent variables to be obtained. The tasks were selected from those that have been shown to be representative of each domain, that are not copyrighted and do not require special hardware/software to be administered. These tasks were adapted for use in populations with varying SES/schooling levels by simplifying tasks/instructions and using easily recognized stimuli such as pictures. Items are answered verbally and tasks are self-paced to minimize interference from individual differences in psychomotor and perceptual speed, to better isolate executive from other cognitive abilities. We tested these tasks on 146 early adolescents of both sexes and varying SES, because this is the age group in which the executive domains of interest become distinguishable and in order to confirm that SES effects were minimized. Performance was determined by Rate Correct Scores, which consider speed-accuracy trade-offs. Scores were sensitive to the expected improvement in performance with age and rarely/inconsistently affected by sex and SES, as expected, with no floor or ceiling effects, or skewed distribution, thus suggesting their adequacy for diverse populations in these respects. Using structural equation modeling, evidence based on internal structure was obtained by replicating the three correlated-factor solution proposed by the authors of the model. We conclude that the FREE test battery, which is open access and described in detail, holds promise as a tool for research that can be adapted for a wide range of populations, as well as altered and/or complemented in coming studies. (shrink)

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In the United Kingdom, the debate about how best to meet the shortfall of organs for transplantation has persisted on and off for many years. It is often presumed that the answer is simply to alter the law to a system of presumed consent. Acting perhaps on that presumption in his annual report launched in July, the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, advocated a system of organ donation based on presumed consent, the so-called “opt-out” system.1 He is calling for (...) a change in the law in England and Wales whereby consent to organ donation is presumed, making a person’s organs automatically available for transplantation after death, unless they registered objections to this while alive. Subsequently, the British Medical Association lent its support to the introduction of such a system.2 The BMA contends that “the practice of presumed consent legislation has had a significant effect on the number of cadaveric donors per million population.”2It is often taken for granted that there must be a correlation between the enactment of legislation on presumed consent and an increase in organ donation and procurement. However, the correlation is not as straightforward as it might seem. It may be that other practical measures to encourage organ donation could be implemented without changing the Human Tissue Act 2004, an Act which has been in force for barely a year.An analysis by Abadie and Gay demonstrated that “presumed consent legislation has a positive and sizeable effect on organ donationrates”,3 but they themselves admitted that the correlation betweenrates of donation and presumed consent legislation is “not completely unequivocal”.3 It is true that among the most successful cases in procurementrates are countries with presumed consent legislation . However, since some of the …. (shrink)

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Background: Serious games have shown positive results in increasing motivation, adherence to treatment and strengthening the therapeutic alliance in multiple psychiatric disorders. In particular, patients with impulse control disorders and other disorders in which the patient suffers from inhibitory control deficits have been shown to benefit from serious games.Aim: The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics and to evaluate the usability of a new serious videogame, e-Estesia. This serious videogame was designed to improve emotion regulation in patients (...) with gambling disorder. Preliminary results from a pilot sample are also reported.Method: A pilot sample of 26 patients undergoing treatment for GD was recruited. Participants used e-Estesia on a tablet, which was connected to a thoracic band that sent heart rate and heart rate variability data to the videogame platform in order to provide biofeedback. The System Usability Scale was completed by patients to determine the usability of e-Estesia.Results and Discussion: e-Estesia performed comparatively well for all the explored groups. Around 84.6% of the patients endorsed that it was easy to use. Female patients with GD presented higher HRV during the use of the serious videogame compared to men. (shrink)

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This perspective paper aims at discussing theoretical principles that could explain how emotion regulation and physical diseases mutually influence each other in the context of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Furthermore, this paper discusses the clinical implications of the functional relationships between emotion regulation, BPD and medical conditions considering dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) as a well-validated therapeutic intervention, which encompasses these issues. The inflexible use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (e.g., suppression, experiential avoidance, and rumination) might directly increase the probability of (...) developing physical diseases through a physiological pathway, or indirectly through a behavioral pathway. Some metabolic and chronic medical conditions could significantly impact emotional functioning through biological alterations involved in emotion regulation. Several empirical studies have shown high co-occurrencerates between BPD and several chronic physical diseases, especially ones linked to emotion-based maladaptive behaviors. DBT addresses physical diseases reported by individuals with BPD reducing problematic behaviors functionally associated to emotion dysregulation and identifying physical health as a goal forBuilding a Life Worth Living. (shrink)

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Background: Mentalizing, the mental capacity to understand oneself and others in terms of mental states, has been found to be reduced in several mental disorders. Some studies have suggested that eating disorders may also be associated with impairments in mentalizing. The aim of this work is to investigate the possible presence of mentalizing subtypes in a sample of patients with EDs.Method: A sample of patients with eating disorders completed a battery of measures assessing mentalization and related variables, including the Reflective (...) Functioning Questionnaire, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Strategies, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Clinicians rated patients in relation to imbalances in different dimensions of mentalization to prementalizing modes and attachment style by using the Mentalization Imbalances Scale, the Modes of Mentalization Scale, and the Adult Attachment Questionnaire. A latent profile analysis was conducted to test the possible presence of different subgroups. MANOVA was used to test the possible differences between the four mentalizing profiles in relation to emotion dysregulation, empathy, and adequate and impairments in mentalizing.Results: The latent profile analysis suggested the presence of four different profiles in relation to impairments in the dimensions of mentalization: affective/self/automatic imbalances, external imbalance, cognitive/self/automatic imbalances, and cognitive/other/automatic imbalances. Patients belonging to profile 1 are characterized by the prevalence of affective mentalization that overwhelms the capacity to reflect on mental states with an imbalance on the self-dimension; profile 2 patients are excessively focused on the external cues of mentalization; profile 3 patients are characterized by an over-involvement on the cognitive and self-facets of mentalization, with an impairment in adopting the other mind perspective; and profile 4 patients have similar impairments compared to profile 3 patients but with an excessive focus on others and deficits in self-reflection. These profiles were heterogeneous in terms of EDs represented in each group and presented significant differences on various variables such as attachment style, emotion dysregulation, empathy, interpersonal reactivity, and reflective function. This study represents, so far, the first work that confirms the presence of different mentalizing patterns in ED patients.Conclusions: ED patients can be classified in relation to impairments in different dimensions of mentalization above and beyond ED diagnosis. (shrink)

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In the presidential election that brought George W. Bush to power, the moral character of the candidates was a significant factor with some voters. Among those who rated honesty as an important factor influencing their choice of candidate, 80% said they voted for Bush. These voters were disgusted with Bill Clinton, not only for his sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky but for lying about it. They wanted someone to bring sound ethical values to the White House and (...) believed that Bush was the man to do it. What have the last three years told us about Bush's ethics? (shrink)

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In Book 9 of his Confessions, Augustine recounts that his mother Monica told him how ‘a weakness for wine gradually got grip upon her’ as a little girl. After some time, so the story goes, God healed her from her bad habit. In this context, Augustine observes: ‘When father and mother and nurses are not there, you are present. You have created us, you call us, you use human authorities set over us to do something for the health of our (...) souls.’ Even though at first sight this passage does not seem to pose any problems, one wonders about the exact meaning of the last part: etiam per praepositos homines boni aliquid agis ad animarum salutem. First, it is to be noted that Henry Chadwick's translation cited here leaves etiam untranslated. Moreover, it is not certain at all that Augustine really wants to say that God heals human souls ‘even by those human beings who are set over us’. As the subsequent lines of this paragraph make clear, God freed Monica from her sin through her servant, who scoffingly called her young mistress ‘a little boozer’. This renders the phrase etiam per praepositos homines problematic, on the one hand, because the meaning of etiam is unclear and, on the other, because it is difficult to regard Monica's servant as one of the ‘human authorities’. Nothing in the text compels us to identify this servant with the old famula of Monica's parents who, according to the preceding paragraph, was ‘vehement with a holy severity in administering correction and soberly prudent in her teaching’. At any rate, the ancilla mentioned here is depicted not as an authoritative person but rather as someone who quarrels with her young domina, not in order to heal or educate her but merely to irritate her. (shrink)

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This article re-examines current definitions of populism, which portray it as either a powerful corrective to or the nemesis of liberal democracy. It does so by exploring a crucial but often neglected dimension of populism: its redemptive character. Populism is here understood to function according to the logic of resentment, which involves both socio-political indignation at injustice and envy or ressentiment. Populism promises redemption through regaining possession: of a lower status, a wounded identity, a diminished or lost control. Highly moralized (...) images of the past – historical or archetypal – are mobilized by populist leaders to castigate the present and accelerate the urgency of change in it. The argument is illustrated with Caesar’s Column, a futuristic novel written by the Minnesota populist leader Ignatius Donnelly. The complex and ambivalent structure of this dystopian novel – a textual source for the Populist Party manifesto in the 1890s, which stands in contrast with agrarian populism as everyday utopia – enables us to move beyond the polarized positions dominating the current debate. Reading Caesar’s Column ultimately shows that populism can be both a corrective and a danger to democracy, but not for the reasons usually stated in the literature. (shrink)

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This study aims to test the theoretical model of career adaptability of refugees to investigate the dynamics of successful resettlement. The theoretical model is grounded on career construction and social network theory. We employ quantitative and qualitative methodologies to test the model in a sample of Venezuelans living and working in Colombia. The quantitative results provide partial support for Campion’s model. However, we test an alternative model and find that career adaptability has a direct relationship with subjective resettlement. In addition, (...) cultural identification plays a buffering role on the harmful effects of discrimination on subjective resettlement. Qualitative results from eight in-depth interviews shed light on the process of refugee resettlement, thus revealing the role of social networks. Our study contributes to previous research on refugees by testing, adapting, and expanding a novel model of work resettlement and focusing on a group of refugees transitioning from one emerging country to another emerging country. (shrink)

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The psychological factors influencing a return to sport has gained increased research attention. In the current investigation, we explored professional basketball players’ perceptions of the psychological factors facilitating a return to performance equal to or exceeding previous performance standards. We also sought to describe athletes’ experiences – both positive and negative – of returning to sport following injury recovery. Ten Italian professional male basketball players (age range 22-36 years), were retrospectively interviewed in relation to three time-periods: (1) from the commencement (...) of rehabilitation to their first official competition, (2) the first official competition, and (3) the six-months following the initial competition. Hierarchical content analysis of the data revealed numerous themes across the three time periods. In regards to Period 1, participants indicated that social support, investment in rehabilitation and training programs, coping skills and motivation were fundamental in reaching pre-injury performance levels. During their first official game (i.e. Period 2), athletes reported that realistic performance expectations, focusing on the performance, positive emotions, motivation, arousal and social support facilitated their return to sport. Athletes however, also described a predominance of factors that hindered their return to pre- injury levels (i.e., low confidence in personal abilities, decrements in skill execution and dysfunctional physical sensations). Moreover, participants typically described a substandard level of performance during their first competition back following injury. In recounting experiences during the six months following their first official game, basketballers reported improvements in skill execution and highlighted the importance of coping skills, motivation and social support. The process of restoring self-confidence in one’s ability to successfully perform was perceived as crucial in enabling participants to move beyond a mere return to sport to a return to high performance ─ that is, to reach a level of proficiency equal to or exceeding previous performance standards. Findings support the relevance of cognitive, emotional and behavioral responses highlighted in the Integrated Model and suggest the importance of addressing psychological factors throughout the return-to-sport process. Finally, results from the present study hold a number of practical implications for athletes’ aiming to achieve a return to pre-injury levels. (shrink)

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The resting-state human electroencephalogram power spectrum is dominated by alpha and theta oscillations, and also includes non-oscillatory broadband activity inversely related to frequency. Gratton proposed that alpha and theta oscillations are both related to cognitive control function, though in a complementary manner. Alpha activity is hypothesized to facilitate the maintenance of representations, such as task sets in preparation for expected task conditions. In contrast, theta activity would facilitate changes in representations, such as the updating of task sets in response to (...) unpredicted task demands. Therefore, theta should be related to reactive control, while alpha may be more relevant to proactive control. Less is known about the possible relationship between 1/f activity and cognitive control, which was analyzed here in an exploratory fashion. To investigate these hypothesized relationships, we recorded eyes-open and eyes-closed resting-state EEG from younger and older adults and subsequently tested their performance on a cued flanker task, expected to elicit both proactive and reactive control processes. Results showed that alpha power and 1/f offset were smaller in older than younger adults, whereas theta power did not show age-related reductions. Resting alpha power and 1/f offset were associated with proactive control processes, whereas theta power was related to reactive control as measured by the cued flanker task. All associations were present over and above the effect of age, suggesting that these resting-state EEG correlates could be indicative of trait-like individual differences in cognitive control performance, which may be already evident in younger adults, and are still similarly present in healthy older adults. (shrink)

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Cognitive Science, Volume 45, Issue 11, November 2021.

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Academic productivity is realized through resources obtained from professional networks in which scientists are embedded. Using a national survey of academic faculty in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics fields across multiple institution types, we examine how the structure of professional networks affects scholarly productivity and how those effects may differ by race, ethnicity, and gender. We find that network size masks important differences in composition. Using negative binomial regression, we find that both the size and composition of professional networks affect (...) scientific productivity, but bigger is not always better. We find that instrumental networks increase scholarly productivity, while advice networks reduce it. There are important interactive effects that are masked by modeling only direct effects. We find that white men are especially advantaged by instrumental networks, and women are especially advantaged by advice networks. (shrink)

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In this article, we use the principlist approach to identify, analyse and attempt to solve the ethical problem raised by a pregnant woman's request for cesarean delivery in absence of medical indications.We use two different types of premises: factual (facts about cesarean delivery and specifically attitudes of obstetricians as derived from the EUROBS European study) and value premises (principles of beneficence and non-maleficence, respect for autonomy and justice).Beneficence/non-maleficence entails physicians' responsibility to minimise harms and maximise benefits. Avoiding its inherent risks (...) makes a prima facie case against cesarean section without medical indication. However, as vaginal delivery can have unintended consequences, there is a need to balance the somewhat dissimilar risks and benefits. The principle of autonomy poses a challenge in case of disagreement between the pregnant woman and the physician. Improved communication aimed to enable better informed choice may overcome some instances of disagreement. The principle of justice prohibits unfair discrimination, and broadly favours optimising resource utilisation.Available evidence supports vaginal birth in uncomplicated term pregnancies as the standard of care. The principlist approach offered a useful framework for ethical analysis of cesarean delivery on maternal request, identified the rights and duties of those involved, and helped reach a conclusion, although conflict at the individual level may remain challenging. (shrink)

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The increasing use of cluster randomised trials in low-resource settings raises unique ethical issues. TheOttawa Statement on the Ethical Design and Conduct of Cluster Randomised Trialsis the first international ethical guidance document specific to cluster trials, but it is unknown if it adequately addresses issues in low-resource settings. In this paper, we seek to identify any gaps in theOttawa Statementrelevant to cluster trials conducted in low-resource settings. Our method is (1) to analyse a prototypical cluster trial conducted in a low-resource (...) setting (PURE Malawi trial) with theOttawa Statement; (2) to identify ethical issues in the design or conduct of the trial not captured adequately and (3) to make recommendations for issues needing attention in forthcoming revisions to theOttawa Statement. Our analysis identified six ethical aspects of cluster randomised trials in low-resource settings that require further guidance. The forthcoming revision of theOttawa Statementshould provide additional guidance on these issues: (1) streamlining research ethics committee review for collaborating investigators who are affiliated with other institutions; (2) the classification of lay health workers who deliver study interventions as health providers or research participants; (3) the dilemma experienced by investigators when national standards seem to prohibit waivers of consent; (4) the timing of gatekeeper engagement, particularly when researchers face funding constraints; (5) providing ancillary care in health services or implementation trials when a routine care control arm is known to fall below national standards and (6) defining vulnerable participants needing protection in low-resource settings. (shrink)

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BackgroundThe ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines are widely endorsed but compliance is limited. We sought to determine whether journal-requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist improves full compliance with the guidelines.MethodsIn a randomised controlled trial, manuscripts reporting in vivo animal research submitted to PLOS ONE (March–June 2015) were randomly allocated to either requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist or current standard practice. Authors, academic editors, and peer reviewers were blinded to group allocation. Trained reviewers performed outcome adjudication (...) in duplicate by assessing manuscripts against an operationalised version of the ARRIVE guidelines that consists 108 items. Our primary outcome was the between-group differences in the proportion of manuscripts meeting all ARRIVE guideline checklist subitems.ResultsWe randomised 1689 manuscripts (control: n = 844, intervention: n = 845), of which 1269 were sent for peer review and 762 (control: n = 340; intervention: n = 332) accepted for publication. No manuscript in either group achieved full compliance with the ARRIVE checklist. Details of animal husbandry (ARRIVE subitem 9b) was the only subitem to show improvements in reporting, with the proportion of compliant manuscripts rising from 52.1 to 74.1% (X2 = 34.0, df = 1, p = 2.1 × 10−7) in the control and intervention groups, respectively.ConclusionsThese results suggest that altering the editorial process to include requests for a completed ARRIVE checklist is not enough to improve compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines. Other approaches, such as more stringent editorial policies or a targeted approach on key quality items, may promote improvements in reporting. (shrink)

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The text is part of the investigative concerns from the authors with regard to the dialogue between literature and science teaching. It starts from several theoretical approaches around the general didactics, university or superior didactics, science’s didactics and for last, literature’s didactics. This is largely due to our search which is focused in articulate the university didactics with science and literature’s didactics, meanwhile, we pretend to answer to the questions ¿How are the specific didactics of science and literature going to (...) contribute to the university didactics and how is the last one going to contribute to these specific didactics? ¿Is it the dialogue between science and literature possible? The paper has been made in middle education, in Educative Institution José Miguel de Restrepo y Puerta, from Copacabana and also in university education, in the academic unities of Dietetics and Nutrition School, Agricultural Sciences and Medicine, from the University of Antioquia. Finally, the partial results indicate: i) the necessity of general Didactics as a discipline focused on teaching and learning processes to ask itself for its internal problems and establish relations with specific didactics. (shrink)

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Randomized controlled trial trial designs exist on an explanatory-pragmatic spectrum, depending on the degree to which a study aims to address a question of efficacy or effectiveness. As conceptualized by Schwartz and Lellouch in 1967, an explanatory approach to trial design emphasizes hypothesis testing about the mechanisms of action of treatments under ideal conditions, whereas a pragmatic approach emphasizes testing effectiveness of two or more available treatments in real-world conditions. Interest in, and the number of, pragmatic trials has grown substantially (...) in recent years, with increased recognition by funders and stakeholders worldwide of the need for credible evidence to inform clinical decision-making. This increase has been accompanied by the onset of learning healthcare systems, as well as an increasing focus on patient-oriented research. However, pragmatic trials have ethical challenges that have not yet been identified or adequately characterized. The present study aims to explore the views of key stakeholders with respect to ethical issues raised by the design and conduct of pragmatic trials. It is embedded within a large, four-year project that seeks to develop guidance for the ethical design and conduct of pragmatic trials. As a first step, this study will address important gaps in the current empirical literature with respect to identifying a comprehensive range of ethical issues arising from the design and conduct of pragmatic trials. By opening up a broad range of topics for consideration within our parallel ethical analysis, we will extend the current debate, which has largely emphasized issues of consent, to the range of ethical considerations that may flow from specific design choices. Semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, across multiple jurisdictions, identified based on their known experience and/or expertise with pragmatic trials. We expect that the study outputs will be of interest to a wide range of knowledge users including trialists, ethicists, research ethics committees, journal editors, regulators, healthcare policymakers, research funders and patient groups. All publications will adhere to the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications. (shrink)

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Human language has the characteristic of being open and in some cases polysemic. The word “infinite” is used often in common speech and more frequently in literary language, but rarely with its precise meaning. In this way the concepts can be used in a vague way but an argument can still be structured so that the central idea is understood and is shared with to the partners. At the same time no precise definition is given to the concepts used and (...) each partner makes his own reading of the text based on previous experience and cultural background. In a language dictionary the first meaning of “infinite” agrees with the etymology: what has no end. We apply the word infinite most often and incorrectly as a synonym for “very large” or something that we do not perceive its completion. In this context, the infinite mentioned in dictionaries refers to the idea or notion of the “immeasurably large” although this is open to what the individual’s means by “immeasurably great.” Based on this linguistic imprecision, the authors present a non Cantorian theory of the potential and actual infinite. For this we have introduced a new concept: the homogon that is the whole set that does not fall within the definition of sets established by Cantor. (shrink)

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We show that, contrary to long-standing assumptions, syntactic traits, modeled here within the generative biolinguistic framework, provide insights into deep-time language history. To support this claim, we have encoded the diversity of nominal structures using 94 universally definable binary parameters, set in 69 languages spanning across up to 13 traditionally irreducible Eurasian families. We found a phylogenetic signal that distinguishes all such families and matches the family-internal tree topologies that are safely established through classical etymological methods and datasets. We have (...) retrieved “near-perfect” phylogenies, which are essentially immune to homoplastic disruption and only moderately influenced by horizontal convergence, two factors that instead severely affect more externalized linguistic features, like sound inventories. This result allows us to draw some preliminary inferences about plausible/implausible cross-family classifications; it also provides a new source of evidence for testing the representation of diversity in syntactic theories. (shrink)

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This is an essay based on a story with observations, about present and sparkling moments from everyday life coexisting with a mother living with dementia. The story is used to begin philosophical underpinnings reflecting on ‘how it could be otherwise’. Dementia deploys brutal existential experiences such as cognitive deterioration, decline in mental functioning and often hurtful social judgements. The person living with dementia goes through transformation and changes of self. Cognitive decline progressively disrupts the foundations upon which social connectedness is (...) built, often creating a profound sense of insecurity. The challenge for carers and healthcare professionals is therefore to find ways of clarifying a concept of agency. It will be worthwhile developing the ability of attuning into ‘what is there’ arising from every corner of the care situation. Understanding and practicing this can strengthen existence and the experience of connectedness and meaning, empowering the person with dementia. It is important to find ways, relational moves, in which carers and healthcare professionals can embed the creativity appearing in mundane everyday situations filled with surplus of meaning, sharing mental landscapes (and embodied relational understanding) with the person living with dementia – seizing and sharing aesthetic moments (verbal and nonverbal) being present together. We argue that carers and healthcare professionals may find this understanding of care useful. This implies looking into a phenomenological‐hermeneutic perspective developing competences as well as practical wisdom understanding and being aware of the creative and innovative possibilities (often preverbal and unnoticed small things) in everyday life of what we, inspired by psychoanalyst Daniel Stern, call sparkling moments of meeting, creating experience with the other that is personally undergone and lived through in the present. (shrink)

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Due to the recent gains in biomedical sciences, the fetus1 is more exposed and subjected to increasing possibilities of intervention, becoming a full-fledged patient, and entering more often into a...

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While several recent evaluation studies have shown the efficacy of parent training programs for children with neurodevelopmental disorders, manual-based training in German is still scarce. To address this gap, we developed a specific modularized training program for parents of children from preschool to pre-adolescent age with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The overarching purpose of the FETASS intervention is to enhance social communication behavior and quality of life of the child by coaching parents. As a proximal target, the FETASS training aims to (...) provide families with behavior management and communication strategies. The development of the training was influenced by published behavioral parent trainings and autism-specific interventions. The training comprises eight weekly sessions and targets families whose children have a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder without intellectual and language impairments. As a preliminary pilot study, the purpose was to evaluate the acceptability of the training. Furthermore, the study aimed at initially evaluating social communication behavior, quality of life of the child, parental stress level, and parenting after training in comparison to a treatment as usual group. Exploratively, long-term effects were investigated after 6 months of training as well. In total, 57 families participated. Questionnaires about social communication behavior and quality of life of the child, parental stress, and parenting were administered at three time points. Primary outcome measures were the social communication behavior of the child and the parent’s proxy report on quality of life of the child. Secondary outcome measures were changes in parental stress and parenting behavior. Acceptability of the training was very high and we had almost no dropouts during training. Results for the primary outcome measure of social communication behavior, overall quality of life of the child, and long-term effects on social communication behavior were not significant. While long-term findings for parent stress reduction and for the quality of life of the child are promising, further research has to be done in a future randomized controlled trial. (shrink)

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Abstractabstract:This article analyzes Claude McKay's last novel, Amiable with Big Teeth—recently discovered in 2017—as a piece of postcolonial utopianist writing. The novel participates in an important debate on the role of utopias and utopian writing as ideological mechanisms that perpetuate colonial structures such as the nation-state. Through a critique of the Popular Front project in the black community of 1930s Harlem, Amiable with Big Teeth vindicates local knowledges and the assessment of the specific conditions of the present—ever-changing and transformable—in the (...) development of strategies for resistance. As such, the spiritual role of Ethiopia for the community depicted, rather than constitute yet another national utopia, fulfills the same role as it did for the Jamaican Rastafarians: it is a mechanism for group self-assertion and the promotion of self-esteem that subaltern communities need in order to achieve full agency. (shrink)

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This _Handbook_ provides a comprehensive guide to the practice and principles of child and adolescent psychotherapy around the world. Contents include: * a brief introduction to the child psychotherapy profession, its history and development * a review of the theory underlying therapeutic practice * an overview of the varied settings in which child psychotherapists work * analysis of the growth of the profession internationally * an examination of areas of expertise around the world * a summary of current research Contributors (...) are experienced practitioners from within a diverse range of schools and approaches and so provide a well-rounded picture of child and adolescent psychotherapy today. _The Handbook of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy_ will be an essential resource for professional psychotherapists, students of psychotherapy, social workers and all professionals working with disturbed children. (shrink)

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