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Cognitive skills, such as innovative problem-solving, are hypothesized to aid animals in urban environments. However, the significance of innovation in wild populations, and its expression across individuals and socio-ecological conditions, is poorly understood. To identify how and when innovation arises in urban-dwelling species, we used advanced technologies and new testing and analytical methods to evaluate innovative problem-solving abilities of wild raccoons (Procyon lotor). We deployed multi-compartment puzzle boxes with either one or multiple solution types and identified raccoons using radio frequency identification. Raccoons solved these novel extractive foraging tasks, and their success was influenced by age and exploratory diversity. Successful raccoons always discovered multiple different solution types, highlighting flexible problem-solving. Using a unique, comparative sequence analysis approach, we found that variation in raccoon solving techniques was greater between individuals than within individuals, and this self-similarity intensified during times of competition. Finally, the inclusion of an easier solution in the multi-solution trials enabled previously unsuccessful raccoons to bootstrap their learning and successfully open multiple difficult solutions. Our study suggests that innovative problem-solving is probably influenced by many factors and has provided novel field and analytical methods, as well as new insights on the socio-ecological dynamics of urban populations.

There are known individual differences in both the ability to learn the layout of novel environments and the flexibility of strategies for navigating known environments. However, it is unclear how navigational abilities are impacted by high-stress scenarios. Here we used immersive virtual reality (VR) to develop a novel behavioral paradigm to examine navigation under dynamically changing situations. We recruited 48 participants (24 female; ages 17-32) to navigate a virtual maze (7.5 m × 7.5 m). Participants learned the maze by moving along a fixed path past the mazes landmarks (paintings). Subsequently, participants experienced either a non-stress condition, or a high-stress condition tasking them with navigating the maze. In the high-stress condition, their initial path was blocked, the environment was darkened, threatening music was played, fog obstructed more distal views of the environment, and participants were given a time limit of 20 s with a countdown timer displayed at the top of their screen. On trials where the path was blocked, we found self-reported stress levels and distance traveled increased while trial completion rate decreased (as compared to non-stressed control trials). On unblocked stress trials, participants were less likely to take a shortcut and consequently navigated less efficiently compared to control trials. Participants with more trait spatial anxiety reported more stress and navigated less efficiently. Overall, our results suggest that navigational abilities change considerably under high-stress conditions.

Management and organization studies have long been interested in the social contexts and enduring consequences of individual and collective action. Yet, empirically observing both the situated nature of actions and their ultimate consequences remains challenging. In this paper, we describe microhistory as a complementary approach to grounded and longitudinal studies that reconciles situated action in time with its broader consequences over time. Microhistorical research involves the reflexive use of dual temporal frames: a microtemporal frame suited to an empirically grounded study of individuals in time and a macrotemporal frame accounting for processes of continuity and change in social structures over time. We describe the epistemology, method, and form inherent in theorizing with microhistory and consider its potential for management researchers. Microhistory's approach, we recognize, is well-suited to several phenomena that remain elusive to contemporaneous and longitudinal studies, such as exceptional normal actions, unintended consequences, nonlinear and emergent processes, contingent processes, and unobserved or inconceivable processes. Finally, we consider how microhistory's reflexive temporality offers management scholars opportunities to situate ourselves and our own theorizing in time and to account for evolving consequences over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Hypothesis Recovering from a first psychosis is a highly individual process and requires the person to make sense of their experiences. Clinicians, in turn, need to comprehend these first-person perspectives, creating a mutual sense-making dynamic. Antipsychotic medication is a substantial part of psychosis treatment. Providing insight in the lived experience of recovery with antipsychotics could improve the mutual understanding and help bridge the gap between the perspective of the clinician and that of the person recovering from psychosis. Study Design 14 persons in recovery from a first psychosis with the use of antipsychotics were interviewed. Their narratives were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Study Results Five overarching themes were found, representing important and meaningful experiences in recovering with antipsychotic medication. Theme 1: antipsychotics as external dampening (4 subthemes); Theme 2: shifting of realities ; Theme 3: pace of recovery ; Theme 4: antipsychotics' influence on identity ; and Theme 5: is it truly the antipsychotics? Conclusions Our findings show that recovery from psychosis with antipsychotics is an all-encompassing, multi-faceted, and ambivalent experience. The themes found in this research could inspire clinicians to discuss less obvious aspects of the experience of recovering with antipsychotics. Even more so, paying attention to the first-person perspective could lead to a more thorough understanding and benefit therapeutic relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study conducts a thorough analysis of Abi Al-Tayyib Al-Mutanabbi's poem 'My Heart Is a Flame' through the philosophical lens of German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche. It emphasizes Nietzsche's concept that superior humans are distinguished by their might. The research seeks to challenge the prevailing belief, supported by writers like Taha Husein, Blachere, and Abdulla Al-Ghuthami, that Al-Mutanabbi was a hypocritical, exploitative, and excessively arrogant poet who degraded others while asserting his individuality. The study explores two pivotal axes: the first focuses on Saif al - Dawla, emphasizing the elevation of the model and spaces of undermining; the second centers on Al-Mutanabbi, highlighting themes of superior ego and the fallacy of equity. In conclusion, the study presents the researcher's findings, offering justifications that underscore Al-Mutanabbi's egoism. By delving into Al-Mutanabbi's individuality, including poetic prowess, the pursuit of supremacy, engagement in war, courage, and boldness, the study contends that such characteristics fueled his distinct egoism. Furthermore, the research addresses Al-Mutanabbi's rejection of humiliation and arrogance, as elucidated through his disassociation from Saif al - Dawla, the Emir, and his court, following a dramatic ideological shift and an attempted assault on the poet's capabilities. This emancipation from flattery and avarice for Saif al - Dawla 's gifts is posited as a significant aspect of Al-Mutanabbi's resilience and selfhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Mediterranean Nursing & Midwifery is the property of Galenos Yayinevi Tic. LTD. STI and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background Postpartum care focuses on prevention of health problems by performing medical check-ups and through enhancing maternal empowerment, the parent–infant interaction and knowledge about mother's own health and that of her newborn. We aimed to investigate whether there was significant clustering within neighbourhoods regarding the uptake of postpartum care and to what extent neighbourhood-level differences are explained by individual socio-demographic factors, pregnancy-related factors and neighbourhood-level determinants (i.e. deprivation and urbanization). Methods A nationwide population-based observational study was carried out using linked routinely collected healthcare data from appropriate-for-gestational-age weight live-born term singleton deliveries (2015–18) in the Netherlands. We performed two-level multivariable logistic regression analyses, using three different models. Model 1 contained no explanatory variables and was used to assess clustering of postpartum care uptake within neighbourhoods. In model 2, individual-level determinants were added one by one and in model 3, neighbourhood-level determinants were added. Results About 520 818 births were included. Multilevel modelling showed that 11% of the total variance in postpartum care uptake could be attributed to the neighbourhood of residence. Individual characteristics explained 38% of the neighbourhood variance, of which income and migration background were the most important contributors. An additional 6% of the variation could be explained by neighbourhood-level determinants. Conclusion We found substantial neighbourhood differences in postpartum care uptake. These differences are influenced by a complex interplay between individual-level and neighbourhood-level determinants, highlighting the importance of addressing both individual and neighbourhood-level determinants to improve the uptake of postpartum care and therewith overall community health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the lifetime anthology of Robert Frost's poetry, one poem consistently stands out as the most beloved and recognizable of his works. To the average reader, for over a hundred years "The Road Not Taken" has engendered images of individuality and the need to avoid following the crowd; this despite clear evidence within the verse that contradicts that reading. Most Frost scholars would agree the poem is the most misunderstood poem in Frost's collection, and the academy has presented several intelligent and deeply introspective alternatives. However, none of these have garnered enough of a consensus to displace the initial misunderstanding. Through an interdisciplinary approach that makes use of the added epistemic approaches of historical research and the psychology of regret, this paper will uncover a hidden creation story for "The Road Not Taken", and through a fulsome review of the poem's origination, reveal a more basic axiom as to the purpose behind Frost's two roads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Objectives: Pain resilience (PR) may be associated with different coping skills, resulting in differences in pain outcomes. This study aimed to understand the role of PR in dictating the choice of coping methods. Methods: This study completed a preliminary validation of the Mandarin Chinese version of the Pain Resilience Scale (PRS-C) with online survey data (n = 46). Further, we conducted interviews with individuals with chronic low back pain (n = 24). Results: The PRS-C psychometric properties were assessed using a confirmatory factor analysis. The interviews explored pain history, treatment experiences, and coping strategies and were analyzed thematically. The validated PRS-C (10 items) demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties. The interview results showed that participants who scored lower were more likely to adopt disengagement rather than engagement coping strategies. Qualitative data revealed three themes explaining why and how participants in this collectivist social framework chose their coping methods. Conclusions: The findings suggest that while participants tried to understand their pain and treatment experiences, the cognitive appraisal construct in PR influenced some of the coping experiences. However, deeply influenced by Confucianism and Buddhism, participants also expressed factors beyond the scope of individual fortitudes, such as the relationship with a higher power that significantly influenced their coping behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complexity is inherent in most biological phenomena, yet there is little effort to teach biological complexity per se in the classroom. Levels of organization and hierarchical complexity are familiar features of living systems and taken for granted in most instructional materials including the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) of the United States. However, the evolution of the hierarchical organization of life is not being taught because there has been no instructional framework for doing so until now. We seek to address this gap in instruction by translating recent research on evolutionary transitions in individuality (ETI theory) into an integrative, instructional framework for teaching the hierarchy of life that aligns with the three dimensions of the NGSS. ETI theory presents an evolutionary framework for teaching hierarchical complexity using the social principles of cooperation and conflict. These principles are intuitive for students because they are analogous to many of the social situations in their lives. By making use of the ETI framework, instructors can explicitly teach the evolution of the hierarchical organization of life, the organizing framework for all of biology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To release medical images that can be freely used in downstream processes while maintaining their utility, it is necessary to remove personal features from the images while preserving the lesion structures. Unlike previous studies that focused on removing lesion structures while preserving the individuality of medical images, this study proposes and validates a new framework that maintains the lesion structures while diffusing individual characteristics. In this framework, we apply local differential privacy techniques to provide theoretical guarantees of privacy protection. Additionally, to enhance the utility of protected medical images, we perform denoising using a diffusion model on the noise-contaminated medical images. Numerous chest X-rays generated by the proposed method were evaluated by physicians, revealing a trade-off between the level of privacy protection and utility. In other words, it was confirmed that increasing the level of personal information protection tends to result in relatively lower utility. This study potentially enables the release of certain types of medical images that were previously difficult to share. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lacanian Beauty in his ethics is encapsulated as making decisions and "act[ing] in conformity with one's desires". This idea is thought while reading Munro's short stories to argue humans reconfigure their life through decision, transgression, act and love. Munro's characters are confined in the condition that contextualizes them through one limited interpretation, detaching them from their individuality. To get out of this condition they detach from the Other via acting on their Real desire. So the Real opens the space for the decision that postulates the possibility for transgression. Thus, it is claimed making decisions leads to transgression that necessitates act whereby love is experienced. This study through analyzing decision, transgression, act, love and their relation introduces neutrality as a novel idea about a stance in which Beauty in Lacanian ethics is founded. It demonstrates neutrality is a pure communication area not polluted by Symbolic Order, a singularity, a power stance, a varietal stance in which love is the law. In this neutral singularity, humans succeed in living a life in its full. Lacanian ethics and sociology are interconnected to demonstrate the new context of life human can live so as to bring forth new outlooks on ethics including Beauty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of haecceity property in things is one of the solutions provided to solve the problem of differentiation and the problem of individuality in things. The belief in the existence of such a property dates back to Dance Scotts. His thought is often considered to be influenced by Avicenna. In the present text, first, some preliminary material such as the difference of opinion on the equality of Haecceity and individual essence has been stated in order to clarify the point of view of these believers. Then, Avicenna's view on this issue is described and after that, Avicenna's influence on Scotts as the author of the term of Haecceity is discussed. In the end, Avicenna's thoughts were evaluated based on the opinions of contemporary believers. The general conclusion is that although Avicenna had a prominent role in creating the question of identification and individuality in the mind of the first believer, Scotts, to Haecceity in the history of philosophyit should be noted that in contemporary analytical philosophy, Avicenna's opinions are neither compatible with individual nature nor with haecceitism. As a result, not only Avicenna cannot be considered as a believer in haecceitism, but also it seems that he can be considered to believe in anti-haecceitism . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the legal status of nonhuman animals used in biomedical research. While acknowledging that, presently, nonhuman animals in research settings hold no personal legal rights, this article explores what a legal person is and proposes that it is possible for nonhuman animals to become legal persons and receive better protections under the federal Animal Welfare Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits states from depriving any person "equal protection of the laws," and the Constitution's Fifth Amendment has been interpreted as applying this prohibition to the federal government. This article considers whether constitutional equal protection should apply to some nonhuman animals in light of corporations having gained such protection and concludes that expanding equal protection personhood to nonhuman animals is improbable in the present legal landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Recherches en Langue et Littérature Françaises is the property of University of Tabriz and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Individual difference exploration of cognitive domains is predicated on being able to ascertain how well performance on tasks covary. Yet, establishing correlations among common inhibition tasks such as Stroop or flanker tasks has proven quite difficult. It remains unclear whether this difficulty occurs because there truly is a lack of correlation or whether analytic techniques to localize correlations perform poorly real-world contexts because of excessive measurement error from trial noise. In this paper, we explore how well correlations may localized in large data sets with many people, tasks, and replicate trials. Using hierarchical models to separate trial noise from true individual variability, we show that trial noise in 24 extant tasks is about 8 times greater than individual variability. This degree of trial noise results in massive attenuation in correlations and instability in Spearman corrections. We then develop hierarchical models that account for variation across trials, variation across individuals, and covariation across individuals and tasks. These hierarchical models also perform poorly in localizing correlations. The advantage of these models is not in estimation efficiency, but in providing a sense of uncertainty so that researchers are less likely to misinterpret variability in their data. We discuss possible improvements to study designs to help localize correlations.

This paper addresses the way in which the expansion zones of the metropolitan areas of Medellín and Rionegro are currently moving from the communal relations that marked their rural life to anonymous relations in which notions of neighborliness are gradually disappearing. Understanding the urban as a social condition and not only as a physical expression of the territory, but the urban is also no longer the opposite of the rural, nor is it synonymous with the city. The urban constitutes a phenomenon where anonymity and individuality are privileged in a space. This process takes place in a rural space where part of its heritage is the landscape and unneighborly relations. We assume the notion of the peri-urban limit as a space of undefinition that extends from the periphery of the Aburrá Valley to some of the rural hamlets of the Territorial Subsystem: Alto Grande - La Ramada, in the San Nicolas Valley; places where the communal is disappearing to give way to new urban dynamics. The article constitutes a theoretical contribution to the interpretation of the new realities observed in the peri-urban fringes of many contemporary metropolises, not only because of the debate it opens on the ways of understanding current urban-rural problems, but also because it suggests other perspectives for territorial planning based on the readings of the new social realities that are established there.

People use environmental knowledge to maintain a sense of direction in daily life. This knowledge is typically measured by having people point to unseen locations (judgments of relative direction) or navigate efficiently in the environment (shortcutting). Some people can estimate directions precisely, while others point randomly. Similarly, some people take shortcuts not experienced during learning, while others mainly follow learned paths. Notably, few studies have directly tested the correlation between pointing and shortcutting performance. We compared pointing and shortcutting in two experiments, one using desktop virtual reality (VR) (N = 57) and one using immersive VR (N = 48). Participants learned a new environment by following a fixed route and were then asked to point to unseen locations and navigate to targets by the shortest path. Participants performance was clustered into two groups using K-means clustering. One (lower ability) group pointed randomly and showed low internal consistency across trials in pointing, but were able to find efficient routes, and their pointing and efficiency scores were not correlated. The others (higher ability) pointed precisely, navigated by efficient routes, and their pointing and efficiency scores were correlated. These results suggest that with the same egocentric learning experience, the correlation between pointing and shortcutting depends on participants learning ability, and internal consistency and discriminating power of the measures. Inconsistency and limited discriminating power can lead to low correlations and mask factors driving human variation. Psychometric properties, largely under-reported in spatial cognition, can advance our understanding of individual differences and cognitive processes for complex spatial tasks.

People differ in their initial emotional responses to events, and we are beginning to understand these responses and their pervasive implications for psychological health. However, people also differ in how they think about and react to their initial emotions (i.e., emotion judgments). In turn, how people judge their emotions-as predominantly positive or negative-may have crucial implications for psychological health. Across five MTurk and undergraduate samples collected between 2017 and 2022 (total N = 1,647), we investigated the nature of habitual emotion judgments (Aim 1) and their associations with psychological health (Aim 2). In Aim 1, we found four distinct habitual emotion judgments that differ according to the valence of the judgment (positive or negative) and the valence of the emotion being judged (positive or negative). Individual differences in habitual emotion judgments were moderately stable across time and were associated with, but not redundant with, conceptually related constructs (e.g., affect valuation, emotion preferences, stress mindsets, meta-emotions) and broader traits (i.e., extraversion, neuroticism, trait emotions). In Aim 2, positive judgments of positive emotions were uniquely associated with better psychological health and negative judgments of negative emotions were uniquely associated with worse psychological health concurrently and prospectively, above and beyond the other types of emotion judgments, and above and beyond conceptually related constructs and broader traits. This research gives insight into how people judge their emotions, how these judgments relate to other emotion-related constructs, and their implications for psychological health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Research has demonstrated that learning two or more languages during development (i.e., becoming bilingual) shapes children's cognition in myriad ways. However, because such studies have largely been conducted using laboratory experiments, it is unclear how bilingualism may modulate more naturalistic cognitive skills such as arithmetic fluency. Moreover, how the relationship between speaking two (or more) languages and arithmetic varies with language fluency-specifically, the degree of bilingualism-has been understudied. Therefore, this study examined third- to fifth-grade monolingual (n = 70) and bilingual (n = 51) children's performance on an arithmetic fluency task. Monolinguals' and bilinguals' performance on the arithmetic fluency task did not differ. However, individual differences in the relation between children's arithmetic fluency and their language fluency were found, suggesting that bilingual children's skill in their nondominant language was associated with arithmetic fluency. These findings point to the importance of examining individual differences in language fluency among bilinguals to understand how bilingualism may shape cognitive skills.

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the basic concepts and terms used in the field of psychological diagnostics. The scientific approaches to the formation of terms and conceptual apparatus by which this branch of psychological science describes its subject of study are considered. It is emphasised that the development of science is determined primarily by the formation of terminology, that is, its language as a system of general and specific concepts that are reflected in certain terms and signs. It is stated that the language of psychodiagnostics is a complex, multilevel, integral system, the elements of which are categories, concepts, terms, symbols. It is shown that in the course of the development of psychology, the conceptual apparatus is continuously being improved, definitions are being clarified, and the terminological vocabulary is being enriched. The current state of development of psychodiagnostics, the formation of promising theories of assessment and measurement of individual characteristics have necessitated the clarification of its terminological apparatus, a significant number of concepts, definitions, which are often contradictory, through the use of various approaches and terminological elements. It is emphasised that the conceptual and terminological apparatus of psychodiagnostics should be developed on the basis of modern realities, abandoning outdated approaches to the definition of certain concepts, and that work towards clarifying and unifying terms requires special care and validity. With a view to improving the terminology, the author provides clarifications of some common definitions. Thus, it is proposed to distinguish between the concepts of “qualities” and “traits”, since “quality” corresponds to the Kettellian term “superficial” or “primary” trait and the Allportian term “secondary” or “secondary” disposition, and the concept of “trait” is more generalised, it summarises the existence of a significant number of qualities. It is proposed to understand individual (individual psychological) properties as generalised characteristics of temperament, character, abilities, orientation, i.e. stable mental phenomena which influence human activity, characterise a personality from the psychological and social aspects and are implemented in society. In addition, it is proposed to clearly distinguish between the concepts of “qualities”, “traits”, “features”, to introduce the terms “individual and personal properties and traits”, and to differentiate psychodiagnostic tools for the study of constitutional, individual and personal traits.

Evolutionary transitions in individuality are events in the history of life leading to the emergence of new levels of individuality. Recent studies have described an ecological scaffolding scenario of such transitions focused on the evolutionary consequences of an externally imposed renewing meta-population structure with limited dispersal. One difficulty for such a scenario has been explaining the stability of collective-level traits when scaffolding conditions no longer apply. Here, we show that the stability of scaffolded traits can rely on evolutionary hysteresis: even if the environment is reverted to an ancestral state, collectives do not return to ancestral phenotypes. We describe this phenomenon using a stochastic meta-population model and adaptive dynamics. Further, we show that ecological scaffolding may be limited to Goldilocks zones of the environment. We conjecture that Goldilocks zones—even if they might be rare—could act as initiators of evolutionary transitions and help to explain the near ubiquity of collective-level individuality. The stability of newly emerged collective-level traits during an evolutionary transition in individuality under the ecological-scaffolding scenario is not fully explained. Here, the authors use a stochastic meta-population model and adaptive dynamics to show that evolutionary hysteresis supports this stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identity as the definitive factor of one’s individuality has been extensively explored from the sociological, psychological, and political perspectives. Of particular importance is the prevailing realization of the pervasiveness of the concept of identity and its fluidity, especially concerning the transcendence of cultural binaries and spaces. According to T.S. Elliot, the discourse of aesthetics is defined by constitutive dialects and is doubly-encoded in the specific and concrete. Thus, aesthetics in literature provides a theory of senses in which production, presentation, and reception of identities, cultures, and other social phenomena can be understood and defined. Within Islamic contexts, therefore, the pursuance of a true identity definition becomes an intricate issue that necessitates the incorporation of both historical and contextual perspectives, as well as the pursuance of aesthetic expressions and experiences at the individual level. With these insights in mind, the current analysis utilized a comprehensive analytical framework that applies Eliot’s assumptions within the interactionist framework with the aim of mapping identity fluidities and ambiguities in Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Elif Shafak's The Forty Rules of Love. The findings indicate that Muslim cultural contexts bear apparent aesthetic experiences and ideological multiplicities at the individual level that cut across a variety of spiritual, political, social, and geographic domains. The fluidity and multiplicity of the resulting identities, thus, necessitates the application of suitable identity signifiers to ensure the rational and practical reportage of Muslim identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to analyse the philosophical content of selected aspects of the literary theory of Friedrich Schlegel -- one of the initiators and main founders of the Jena Romantic school. Schlegel is primarily known as a brilliant literary critic who popularised the notion of Romantic poetry. Romantic poetry, however, is not only a fundamental concept of the new school of literary studies, but also an important element of Schlegel's philosophy of man, describing the model of modern humanity. In this paper, I assume that Schlegel's literary theory is a mirror that generates a reflection of Romantic man. In this perspective, all the main features of Romantic literature -- self-consciousness, reflexivity, freedom, individuality, the striving for the infinite or organicism -- in fact turn out to be attributes of its creator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on narratives recorded from family members of residents in long-term care homes in Ontario, Canada, during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, in this paper, I present a two-pronged argument. First, following Taylor (2008) and Seaman (2018, 2020) I suggest that family caregiving for residents of longterm care homes helps to sustain residents’ personhood: the recognition of their identity as an ongoing participant in their social universe. The second part of my argument is that caregiving is a multifaceted and paradoxical endeavour. While caregiving can be a transformative and reciprocal practice of selfactualization (cf. Kleinman 2012; Kleinman and van der Geest 2009), at times it can also be troubled, ambivalent, and stressful (Cook and Trumble 2020). At its best, caregiving is a two-way street, enabling the maintenance of personhood for the care recipient, and validating the caregiver’s sense of ‘moral agency,’ or what medical anthropologist Neely Myers (2015, 13) defines as the capacity to be recognized in one’s local sphere as a good person who can make intimate connections to others. When caregiving goes awry, however, it leads to frustration, despair, and a sense of moral failure for the caregiver. For the care recipient, non-recognition and the loss of personhood can lead to social death and may also hasten physical decline. I conclude that for both professional and family caregivers of long-term care residents, systemic improvement of social and material support is needed to mitigate the challenges inherent in the recognition of personhood in caregiving relationships [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dystopia is a place where everything is disastrously wrong. Dystopian literature embodies recurring elements that construct a vivid and often unsettling description of oppressive societies. Dystopian literature explores fictitious societies or worlds characterised by oppressive governance and dehumanisation. Several works of dystopian literature centre around the concept of totalitarianism, offering readers an opportunity to critique this system and emphasise the significance of individuality and freedom that is suppressed under the rule of totalitarianism. This research paper delves into the convoluted realms of dystopian literature, focusing on the pervasive composition of the loss of identity and individuality in the face of oppressive regimes. Employing a qualitative research methodology, the study centres its analysis on Margaret Atwood's seminal work, The Handmaid's Tale, to unravel the profound impacts of authoritarian control on the characters' sense of self. The investigation extends by examining the plight of women in dystopian settings, illuminating the multifaceted practices in which they grapple with the erasure of their individual identities. Through a careful examination of the characters' experiences, the paper aims to shed light on the nuanced nature of gender-based oppression, presenting how women become symbolic of a broader societal scrabble against totalitarian rule. By investigating the inimical consequences of technological advancements, the study emphasises the erosion of personal freedoms and the subjugation of autonomy that often accompanies the omnipresence of advanced surveillance and control mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociality underpins major evolutionary transitions and significantly influences the structure and function of complex ecosystems. Social insects, seen as the pinnacle of sociality, have traits like obligate sterility that are considered 'master traits', used as single phenotypic measures of this complexity. However, evidence is mounting that completely aligning both phenotypic and evolutionary social complexity, and having obligate sterility central to both, is erroneous. We hypothesize that obligate and functional sterility are insufficient in explaining the diversity of phenotypic social complexity in social insects. To test this, we explore the relative importance of these sterility traits in an understudied but diverse taxon: the termites. We compile the largest termite social complexity dataset to date, using specimen and literature data. We find that although functional and obligate sterility explain a significant proportion of variance, neither trait is an adequate singular proxy for the phenotypic social complexity of termites. Further, we show both traits have only a weak association with the other social complexity traits within termites. These findings have ramifications for our general comprehension of the frameworks of phenotypic and evolutionary social complexity, and their relationship with sterility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since Varela and Maturana proposed the concept of autopoiesis as the minimal requirement for life, there has been a focus on cellular systems that erect topological boundaries to separate themselves from their surrounding environment. Here, we reconsider whether the existence of such a spatial boundary is strictly necessary for self-producing entities. This work presents a novel computational model of a minimal autopoietic system inspired by dendrites and molecular dynamic simulations in three-dimensional space. A series of simulation experiments where the metabolic pathways of a particular autocatalytic set are successively inhibited until autocatalytic entities that could be considered autopoietic are produced. These entities maintain their distinctness in an environment containing multiple identical instances of the entities without the existence of a topological boundary. This gives rise to the concept of a metabolic boundary which manifests as emergent self-selection criteria for the processes of self-production without any need for unique identifiers. However, the adoption of such a boundary comes at a cost, as these autopoietic entities are less suited to their simulated environment than their autocatalytic counterparts. Finally, this work showcases a generalized metabolism-centered approach to the study of autopoiesis that can be applied to both physical and abstract systems alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successfully adjusting to retirement, in terms of achieving psychological comfort with one's retirement life, represents a major challenge for older workers. Although current literature emphasizes that it may depend on the availability and fluctuation of specific resources, little is known about which types and how resources allow recent retirees to adjust to retirement. Drawing on the resource‐based dynamic model for retirement adjustment and conservation of resources theory, the current study aims to elaborate theory on resources' types, relative importance and combinations in caravans, and the processes through which they shape successful retirement adjustment. In a consensual qualitative research using abductive reasoning with recent retirees aged 66–69, we find four major resource types. We show that their importance varies (from the most important to the least: social interactions, life conditions, time management and individuality) and that they travel in caravans within a resource type. We further propose a model highlighting how these resources shape successful retirement adjustment through resources signal, conservation and acquisition processes. Overall, our findings offer theoretical and empirical contributions to the resource perspective on retirement adjustment and to conservation of resources theory's understanding of resources' categorization, processes and caravans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zhuangzi is often regarded as an authority in the realm of spiritual cultivation. This article explores Zhuangzi's theory of self-cultivation and identifies two distinct approaches: one focuses on the transformation of consciousness, known as the "Inner Chamber" practice, while the other centers on the transformation of materials, referred to as the "Craftsmanship" practice. Both methods can achieve a state of transformation where the boundaries between the self and the external world blur, leading to a sense of unity. Zhuangzi's state of unity transcends cognitive boundaries and erases the distinction between the self and the external world, creating a realm of spiritual emptiness. However, the concept of "nothingness" in this realm is a linguistic expression of consciousness, rather than a denial of existence. On the contrary, it elevates and preserves the essence of all things, including the innate essence of material substances, often referred to as the "primordial essence of things." The "primordial essence" is a paradoxical concept, simultaneously devoid of substance and possessing substance, while the "Inner Chamber" of the mind represents "knowledge in ignorance." When this state is realized, there exists an intrinsic coexistence between the self and all things, returning both to their original essence. In Zhuangzi's worldview, the other, or external entities, receive affirmation within the framework of existence, leading to harmony between the self and the material world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the core principles of providing care in general practice is giving more to those who need it most. We investigate some of the complexities of this ambition in the context of cancer care for patients defined as socially disadvantaged by their general practitioner (GP). We do this by exploring how care is sought, how it is offered, and what expectations patients and GPs carry with them when receiving and providing cancer care in the Danish welfare state. We carried out semi-structured interviews with eight GPs and seven socially disadvantaged cancer patients living with different types and stages of cancer. The interviews focused on needs and challenges in cancer follow-up in general practice and were thematically coded. Drawing on theoretical concepts of morality and Nordic individualism, we point to how one of the main challenges in cancer care and follow-up is to figure out how the doctor-patient relationship should be established, practiced, and maintained. Both GPs and patients stressed the importance of the relationship, but how it should be practiced amidst social norms about being a patient, a citizen and how care-seeking should unfold seems less clear. In conclusion we argue that giving more to those who need it the most is a difficult and ill-defined task that is shaped by the cultural, social, and political expectations of both GPs and patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study attempts to understand what happens to conventional values like obedience in a changing socio-cultural milieu. There are two possible courses. Either the society tends to move towards the values of autonomy, independence, and individuality from the conventional values of obedience and interdependence (Lerner in The passing of traditional society: modernizing the middle east, Press Identifier Glencoe, 1958 and Schramm in Mass media and national development. The role of information in developing countries, Stanford University, California, 1964), or old values are aptly modified by interacting with new values (Trommsdorff, in: Noack (Ed) Psychological responses to social change: Human development in changing environments, de Gruyter, Berlin, 1995). Indian studies demonstrate that co-existence is a preferred strategy of Indians to accommodate cultural changes (Mishra, In: Sharan and Suar (Eds) Psychology matters: development, health, and organization, Allied Publishers, New Delhi, 2007, Mishra, Sinha and Berry in Ecology, acculturation, and psychological adaptation: a study of Adivasis in Bihar, Sage Publication, New Delhi, 1996, Chaubey in Psychol Dev Soc 14:201–220, 2002, Mishra and Sinha in Soc Sci Int 28:159–175, 2012). Testing these ideas regarding obedience, a study was conducted in Varanasi, with 30 participants (15 boys, 15 girls) aged 18–19 years randomly selected for the sample. They were given a questionnaire with ten open-ended questions assessing obedience's meaning, significance, flexibility, and context. Thematic analysis showed that the value of obedience is very significant in the lives of young people. It serves four functions, viz., knowledge function, self-enhancement function, harmonising function, and other miscellaneous functions for them. However, signs of acculturation are also evident in increased demands for autonomy and independence. This makes obedience more flexible and context-bound than before. In an attempt to balance autonomy with relatedness, a guided autonomy model has emerged in India which helps Indian youth accommodate cultural change without getting uprooted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the relation between quantification and the mysterious question of identity? What order of quality is proper to the inexplicable fact that one is oneself? Starting with an examination of the ontological blind spots of counting, this essay investigates the priority of quality over quantity, in connection with the spiritual nature of life understood as the spontaneous and infinitely evolving question of itself. It argues, in face of the forces of quantophrenia and numerocracy, for the importance of recognizing the essentially serial and apophatic structure of identity, the existential sense that all entities are the living question of themselves. As such, no individual may be considered as merely a part of reality. Each is, no less, the totality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper investigates the intra-pair similarity of twins' first names in comparison to non-twin siblings. The dataset was composed of 2,387 pairs of Brazilian names of same-sex individuals as a function of sex, age (< 18 years vs > 18 years), and self-reported zygosity (MZ: Monozygotic vs DZ: Dizygotic). We assigned scores to each pair of names according to a classification system of 12 categories of intra-pair similarity (0 = absent; and 1 = present). The final score was the sum of the points obtained. ANOVA revealed that MZ twins (95% CI 2.28-2.50) had more similar names than DZ twins (95% CI 2.03-2.26), who, in turn, had more similar names than non-twins (95% CI 1.45-1.87). Females (95% CI 2.38-2.57) generally had more similar names than males (95% CI 1.63-1.83), and siblings over 18 years of age (95% CI 2.34-2.56) were given more similar names than siblings under 18 years of age (95% CI 1.85-2.03). Our results support and extend previous findings providing insight into parental expectations about individuality-relationality that may influence the negotiation of relationship and construction of identity. By naming their twin children, parents emphasize twinness through similar names, whereas they emphasize the individuality of their single-born children through different names. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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There is still much debate about the exact nature and frequency of developmental dyscalculia, and about how it should be defined. This article examines several key questions in turn: Is developmental dyscalculia a distinct disorder, or should it be seen as the lower end of a continuum—or possibly more than one continuum—of numerical ability? Do individuals with developmental dyscalculia show atypical brain structure or function? Does the study of acquired dyscalculia have anything to teach us about developmental dyscalculia? In studying dyscalculia, should we look less at arithmetical ability as a single entity, and more at separable components of arithmetical ability? How heterogeneous is developmental dyscalculia, and how important is it to study individual profiles? To what extent is developmental dyscalculia influenced by domain-specific versus domain-general abilities? The conclusion is that, though a significant amount has been discovered through existing research, and though this has some important implications for screening and diagnosis of dyscalculia, there is much more research that still needs to be conducted if we are to answer all of these questions fully. In particular, the study of developmental dyscalculia must be more integrated with the study of individual differences in mathematics in the population as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nietzsche’s criticism of the masses could have looked hackneyed at the end of the XIXth century, had it not the originality of moving onto psychological and biological levels what others previously elaborated only at a social scale: a "herd instinct" explaining both the lack of social cohesion and the loss of possible individual affirmation in democratic and egalitarian ages. As he sees the utilitarian promotion of happiness and empathy as part of the problem, he fiercely condemns John Stewart Mill’s philosophy – as he understands it. Our point is to throw into relief that Mill’s theory of individuality is but closer to Nietzsche’s views for regenerating life against the spreading of democratic "nihilism". Our cross-reading of Mill and Nietzsche therefore aims at offering a reassessment of their antagonism and at highlighting ways of overcoming "nihilism" via culture and cultivation of the "character" and the individual surpassing of oneself.

Characterizing the optimal fMRI paradigms for detecting behaviorally relevant functional connectivity (FC) patterns is a critical step to furthering our knowledge of the neural basis of behavior. Previous studies suggested that FC patterns derived from task fMRI paradigms, which we refer to as task-based FC, are better correlated with individual differences in behavior than resting-state FC, but the consistency and generalizability of this advantage across task conditions was not fully explored. Using data from resting-state fMRI and three fMRI tasks from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study ® (ABCD), we tested whether the observed improvement in behavioral prediction power of task-based FC can be attributed to changes in brain activity induced by the task design. We decomposed the task fMRI time course of each task into the task model fit (the fitted time course of the task condition regressors from the single-subject general linear model) and the task model residuals, calculated their respective FC, and compared the behavioral prediction performance of these FC estimates to resting-state FC and the original task-based FC. The FC of the task model fit was better than the FC of the task model residual and resting-state FC at predicting a measure of general cognitive ability or two measures of performance on the fMRI tasks. The superior behavioral prediction performance of the FC of the task model fit was content-specific insofar as it was only observed for fMRI tasks that probed similar cognitive constructs to the predicted behavior of interest. To our surprise, the task model parameters, the beta estimates of the task condition regressors, were equally if not more predictive of behavioral differences than all FC measures. These results showed that the observed improvement of behavioral prediction afforded by task-based FC was largely driven by the FC patterns associated with the task design. Together with previous studies, our findings highlighted the importance of task design in eliciting behaviorally meaningful brain activation and FC patterns.

ObjectivePeople differ in how they regulate their emotions, and how they do so is guided by their beliefs about emotion. We propose that social power-one's perceived influence over others-relates to one's beliefs about emotion and to emotion regulation. More powerful people are characterized as authentic and uninhibited, which should translate to the belief that one should not have to control one's emotions and, in turn, less suppression and more acceptance. More powerful people are also characterized as self-efficacious and confident, which should translate to the belief that one can control one's emotions and, in turn, more reappraisal and acceptance.MethodTwo preregistered studies using four samples (Ntotal  = 1286) tested these hypotheses using cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys as well as diaries.ResultsIn Study 1, power related to beliefs about emotion and emotion regulation in hypothesized ways. Study 2 also largely supported the hypotheses: The belief that one should not have to control one's emotions accounted for the links between power and suppression and acceptance, whereas the belief that one can control one's emotions accounted for the link between power and reappraisal.ConclusionPower and emotion regulation are interconnected, in part because of their links with beliefs about emotions.

Why do people shift their strategies for solving problems? Past work has focused on the roles of contextual and individual factors in explaining whether people adopt new strategies when they are exposed to them. In this study, we examined a factor not considered in prior work: people's evaluations of the strategies themselves. We presented undergraduate participants from a moderately selective university (N = 252; 64.8% women, 65.6% White, 67.6% who had taken calculus) with two strategies for solving algebraic word problems and asked them to rate these strategies and their own strategy on a variety of dimensions. Participants' ratings loaded onto two factors, which we label quality and difficulty. Participants' initial evaluations of the quality of the strategies were associated with whether they used the strategies at posttest, and this effect held even when controlling for individual and contextual factors. However, people's evaluations of the difficulty of the strategies were not consistently associated with their later adoption of those strategies. We also examined individual and contextual predictors of strategy ratings and strategy adoption. Participants' need for cognition and their spatial visualization ability were associated with their strategy evaluations, and the framing of the story problems was associated with their strategy adoption. The findings highlight that strategy adoption depends on multiple interacting factors, and that to understand strategy change, it is critical to examine how people evaluate strategies.

The aesthetic artistic expression of Islamic arts represents a vital form in the decorative arts. Islamic arts realize the beauty of things. From this concept, Islamic civilization provided its artists and children with the need for serenity and beauty of the inner spirit and the development of their external visual enjoyment, The research problem includes the need to change the view of the consumer and the owners of ready-made garments printing factories, and the development of the visual culture of the print designer, the consumer, and the factory owners of ready-made garments by making use of the basics of aesthetic artistic expression in Islamic decorative arts, Employing the aesthetics of Islamic arts in the work of contemporary print designs that carry new formal values and achieve excellence and individuality, and study the basic concepts that emphasize the promotion of creativity and link the innovative aspect to the applied aspect in the field of textile printing for ready-made clothes, Design plays an important role in the development of the aesthetic aspect in the life of the individual and the design of the printed uniform is the first source of consumer attraction, The research aims to study the essential characteristics and features that raised the manifestations of Islamic aesthetic art and to reach how to take advantage of the concepts that link the innovative aspect and practical application to obtain print designs for ready-made clothes that carry distinction and individuality and show the extent of benefit from the aesthetic thought of Islamic arts in terms of its decorative vocabulary, Reviving the innovative aspect of the contemporary designer artist to create innovative contemporary print designs that change the external visual enjoyment of the consumer and owners of printing factories and ready-made clothes. The research depends on the descriptive analytical approach with applied study, From the results of the research the researcher proved that the Islamic decorative artworks were distinguished by their individuality, which resulted in the purity and beauty of the inner spirit and the visual enjoyment of the outer, Which helped the researcher to achieve the goal of the research and to know the textile printing designer how to revive his innovative side in obtaining new, contemporary creations for the printing of ready-made garments that help develop the visual culture of producers, factory owners and consumers, And there is a statistically significant relationship between benefiting from the aesthetics of the aesthetic expression of Islamic decorative arts and making innovative print design applications for ready-made garments of an Egyptian character with a distinct individuality and occasion.

Mapping the eco-evolutionary factors shaping the development of animals' behavioural phenotypes remains a great challenge. Recent advances in 'big behavioural data' research-the high-resolution tracking of individuals and the harnessing of that data with powerful analytical tools-have vastly improved our ability to measure and model developing behavioural phenotypes. Applied to the study of behavioural ontogeny, the unfolding of whole behavioural repertoires can be mapped in unprecedented detail with relative ease. This overcomes long-standing experimental bottlenecks and heralds a surge of studies that more finely define and explore behavioural-experiential trajectories across development. In this review, we first provide a brief guide to state-of-the-art approaches that allow the collection and analysis of high-resolution behavioural data across development. We then outline how such approaches can be used to address key issues regarding the ecological and evolutionary factors shaping behavioural development: developmental feedbacks between behaviour and underlying states, early life effects and behavioural transitions, and information integration across development.

Accurately measuring resilience to preclinical Alzheimers disease (AD) pathology is essential to understanding an important source of variability in cognitive aging. In a cohort of cognitively normal older adults (n = 123, age 76.75 ± 6.15 yr), we built a multifactorial measure of resilience which moderated the effect of AD pathology on longitudinal cognitive change. Linear residuals-based measures of resilience, along with other proxy measures (education and vocabulary), were entered into a hierarchical partial least-squares path model defining a putative consolidated resilience latent factor (model goodness of fit = 0.77). In a set of validation analyses using linear mixed models predicting longitudinal cognitive change, there was a significant three-way interaction among consolidated resilience, tau and time on episodic memory change (P = 0.001) such that higher resilience blunted the effect of tau pathology on episodic memory decline. Interactions between consolidated resilience and amyloid pathology on non-memory cognition decline suggested that resilience moderates pathology-specific effects on different cognitive domains.

In this review, we synthesize evidence to highlight cognitive appraisal as an important developmental antecedent of individual differences in emotion differentiation and adept emotion regulation. Emotion differentiation is the degree to which emotions are experienced in a nuanced or "granular" way-as specific and separable phenomena. More extensive differentiation is related to positive wellbeing and has emerged as a correlate of emotion regulation skill among adults. We argue that the cognitive appraisal processes that underlie these facets of emotional development are instantiated early in the first year of life and tuned by environmental input and experience. Powerful socializing input in the form of caregivers' contingent and selective responding to infants' emotional signals carves and calibrates the infant's appraisal thresholds for what in their world ought to be noticed, deemed as important or personally meaningful, and responded to (whether and how). These appraisal thresholds are thus unique to the individual child despite the ubiquity of the appraisal process in emotional responding. This appraisal infrastructure, while plastic and continually informed by experience across the lifespan, likely tunes subsequent emotion differentiation, with implications for children's emotion regulatory choices and skills. We end with recommendations for future research in this area, including the urgent need for developmental emotion science to investigate the diverse sociocultural contexts in which children's cognitive appraisals, differentiation of emotions, and regulatory responses are being built across childhood.

Cognitive control refers to the ability to maintain goal-relevant information in the face of distraction, making it a core construct for understanding human thought and behavior. There is great theoretical and practical value in building theories that can be used to explain or to predict variations in cognitive control as a function of experimental manipulations or individual differences. A critical step toward building such theories is determining which latent constructs are shared between laboratory tasks that are designed to measure cognitive control. In the current work, we examine this question in a novel way by formally linking computational models of two canonical cognitive control tasks, the Eriksen flanker and task-switching task. Specifically, we examine whether model parameters that capture cognitive control processes in one task can be swapped across models to make predictions about individual differences in performance on another task. We apply our modeling and analysis to a large scale data set from an online cognitive training platform, which optimizes our ability to detect individual differences in the data. Our results suggest that the flanker and task-switching tasks probe common control processes. This finding supports the view that higher level cognitive control processes as opposed to solely strategies in speed and accuracy tradeoffs, or perceptual processing and motor response speed are shared across the two tasks. We discuss how our computational modeling substitution approach addresses limitations of prior efforts to relate performance across different cognitive control tasks, and how our findings inform current theories of cognitive control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

RATIONALE & OBJECTIVE: Lower estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) is associated with heart failure (HF) risk. However, eGFR based on cystatin C (eGFRcys) and creatinine (eGFRcr) may differ substantially within an individual. The clinical implications of these differences for risk of HF among persons with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are unknown. STUDY DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING & PARTICIPANTS: 4,512 adults with CKD and without prevalent HF who enrolled in the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) Study. EXPOSURE: Difference in GFR estimates (eGFRdiff; ie, eGFRcys minus eGFRcr). OUTCOME: Incident HF hospitalization. ANALYTICAL APPROACH: Fine-Gray proportional subhazards regression was used to investigate the associations of baseline, time-updated, and slope of eGFRdiff with incident HF. RESULTS: Of 4,512 participants, one-third had eGFRcys and eGFRcr values that differed by over 15 mL/min/1.73 m2. In multivariable-adjusted models, each 15 mL/min/1.73 m2 lower baseline eGFRdiff was associated with higher risk of incident HF hospitalization (hazard ratio [HR], 1.20 [95% CI, 1.07-1.34]). In time-updated analyses, those with eGFRdiff less than -15 mL/min/1.73 m2 had higher risk of incident HF hospitalization (HR, 1.99 [95% CI, 1.39-2.86]), and those with eGFRdiff ≥15 mL/min/1.73 m2 had lower risk of incident HF hospitalization (HR, 0.67 [95% CI, 0.49-0.91]) compared with participants with similar eGFRcys and eGFRcr. Participants with faster declines in eGFRcys relative to eGFRcr had higher risk of incident HF (HR, 1.49 [95% CI, 1.19-1.85]) compared with those in whom eGFRcys and eGFRcr declined in parallel. LIMITATIONS: Entry into the CRIC Study was determined by eGFRcr, which constrained the range of baseline eGFRcr-but not eGFRcys-values. CONCLUSIONS: Among persons with CKD who have large differences between eGFRcys and eGFRcr, risk for incident HF is more strongly associated with eGFRcys. Diverging slopes between eGFRcys and eGFRcr over time are also independently associated with risk of incident HF.