Background: In the present study, we aimed to better investigate attention system profile of Parkinson's disease-Mild Cognitive Impairment patients and to determine if specific attentional deficits are associated with 123I-FP-CIT SPECT.Methods: A total of 44 de novo drug-naïve PD patients [ with normal cognition and 17 with MCI ], 23 MCI patients and 23 individuals with subjective cognitive impairment were recruited at the Clinical Neurology Unit of Santa Chiara hospital. They were assessed by a wide neuropsychological battery, including Visual Search (...) Test measuring selective attention. Performances among groups were compared by non-parametric tests. Further, Spearman's rank correlations were performed to explore the association between neuropsychological variables and 123I-FP-CIT SPECT data in PD subgroup.Results: PD-MCI patients performed worse on VST than patients with PD-NC, patients with MCI and individuals with SCI. The performance of PD-MCI patients on VST significantly correlated with caudate nucleus 123I-FP-CIT SPECT uptake, whereas a negative correlation between such test and 123I-FP-CIT SPECT uptake in the left putamen was found in PD-NC patients.Conclusions: We suggest that selective attention deficit might be a trigger of cognitive decay in de novo PD-MCI patients. The VST should be routinely used to detect attentional deficits in hospital clinical practice, in the light of its closely association with dopamine depletion of basal ganglia in mildly impaired PD patients. (shrink)

Batteries are a fundamental storage component due to its various applications in mobility, renewable energies and consumer electronics among others. Regardless of the battery typology, one key variable from a user’s perspective is the remaining energy in the battery. It is usually presented as the percentage of remaining energy compared to the total energy that can be stored and is labeled State Of Charge (SOC). This work addresses the development of a hybrid model based on a Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) (...) power cell, due to its broad implementation. The proposed model calculates the SOC, by means of voltage and electric current as inputs and the latter as the output. Therefore, four models based on k-Means, Agglomerative Clustering, Gaussian Mixture and Spectral Clustering techniques have been tested in order to obtain an optimal solution. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective (...) autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. (shrink)

Nella pratica scientifica ci sono molte questioni di tipo concettuale che possono trarre vantaggio da uno specifico sguardo filosofico. Per esempio, qual è la differenza tra scienza e pseudoscienza? Le teorie scientifiche sono in grado di fornire una descrizione vera del mondo? In cosa consiste la spiegazione scientifica? In che misura l’impresa scientifica è influenzata da valori etici, politici, economici o religiosi? Prediligendo un approccio tematico, il volume introduce alla comprensione dei principali problemi teorici della filosofia della scienza attraverso l’analisi (...) di venti parole o concetti chiave, così da permettere la lettura dei singoli capitoli in modo indipendente, pur in una fitta rete di importanti rimandi. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

El objetivo del estudio fue sistematizar y analizar la revisión teórica que fundamenta la experiencia pedagógica y el método socializado de los estudiantes de educación superior. El enfoque del estudio fue cualitativo, tipo de investigación revisión de literatura, diseño narrativo, considerando criterios de similitud en las diversas teorías revisadas en artículos de alto impacto, además, de utilizar las estrategias de diagrama de árbol y la estrategia de investigación activa (DIA). Se concluye que existe incipiente uso del método socializado; carencia de (...) autorreflexión; poco análisis reflexivo en la experiencia pedagógica del estudiante de la formación inicial docente (FID). (shrink)

Inhaltsverzeichnis/Table of Contents Themenschwerpunkt/Special Topic: Bolzano & Kant Gastherausgeber/Guest Editor: Sandra Lapointe Sandra Lapointe: Introduction Sandra Lapointe: Is Logic Formal? Bolzano, Kant and the Kantian Logicians Nicholas F. Stang: A Kantian Reply to Bolzano¿s Critique of Kant¿s Analytic-Synthetic Distinction Clinton Tolley: Bolzano and Kant on the Place of Subjectivity in a Wissenschaftslehre Timothy Rosenkoetter: Kant and Bolzano on the Singularity of Intuitions Waldemar Rohloff: From Ordinary Language to Definition in Kant and Bolzano Weitere Artikel/Further Articles Christian Damböck: Wilhelm Diltheys empirische (...) Philosophie und der rezente Methodenstreit in der analytischen Philosophie Bernd Prien: Socially Constituted Actions and Objects Daniel Enrique Kalpokas: Two Dogmas of Coherentism Jon Cogburn & Jeff W. Roland: Strong, therefore Sensitive. Misgivings about DeRose¿s Contextualism Andre Abath: Brewer¿s Switching Argument Essay-Wettbewerb/Essay Competition Amadeus Magrabi: The Value of Feelings for Decision-Making Stefan Reining: Do Pain-Accompanying Emotions Mislead Us?¿Considerations in the Light of Reactive Dissociation Phenomena Peter Königs: Patriotism. A Case Study in the Philosophy of Emotions Besprechungsaufsatz/Review Essay Christopher Gauker: What Do Your Senses Say? On Burge¿s Theory of Perception Diskussion/Discussion Georg Brun: Adequate Formalization and De Morgan¿s Argument Buchnotizen/Critical Notes. (shrink)

This book addresses the interrelation between theological thinking and the complex and diverse realms of human ideals. What are the ideals appropriate to our moment in human history, and how do these ideals derive from or relate to theological reflection in our time? In Theological Reflection and the Pursuit of Ideals internationally renowned scholars from a range of disciplines engage with these crucial questions with the intention of articulating a new and historically appropriate vision of theological reflection and the pursuit (...) of ideals for our global times. (shrink)

This paper presents an approach to the belief system based on a computational framework in three levels: first, the logic level with the definition of binary local rules, second, the arithmetic level with the definition of recursive functions and finally the behavioural level with the definition of a recursive construction pattern. Social communication is achieved when different beliefs are expressed, modified, propagated and shared through social nets. This approach is useful to mimic the belief system because the defined functions provide (...) different ways to process the same incoming information as well as a means to propagate it. Our model also provides a means to cross different beliefs so, any incoming information can be processed many times by the same or different functions as it occurs is social nets. (shrink)

Recent studies reported the development of psychological distress symptoms in patients who recovered from COVID-19. However, evidence is still scarce and new data are needed to define the exact risk and protective factors that can explain the variability in symptoms manifestation. In this study, we enrolled 257 patients who recovered from COVID-19 and we evaluated the levels of psychological distress through the Symptoms Checklist-90-R scale. Data concerning illness-related variables were collected from medical records, while the presence of subjective cognitive difficulties, (...) both before and after the illness, as well as the level of the cognitive reserve, were assessed over a clinical interview. Results revealed that being female and reporting the presence of subjective cognitive difficulties after COVID-19 were associated with higher levels of psychological distress. At the same time, being admitted to the hospital and having a high CR were protective factors. Adding new information to this emerging research field, our results highlight the importance of a complete psychological and cognitive assessment in patients with COVID-19. (shrink)

Concerns about business ethics have led many business schools to integrate ethics into the curriculum, with mixed results (May, Luth, & Schwoerer 2014, Wang & Calvano 2015, Waples, Antes, Murphy, Connelly & Mumford 2009). This paper seeks to improve our understanding of business students’ ethics by looking into their identity, a cognitive lens by which students see themselves and interpret their environment (Triandis 1989) and that can be relatively malleable to priming and socializing processes (Vignoles, Schwartz, & Luyckx 2011, Ybarra (...) & Trafimow 1998). Results show that undergraduate students with higher individual and lower collective identities report lower intentions to behave ethically. Moreover, our results show that a business education has the power to influence students’ ethical intentions by altering their individual and collective identities. Our results suggest that business schools should consider the effects of their curriculum and pedagogies on the development of individual and collective identities to educate more ethical business students. (shrink)

Finding avenues for collaboration and engagement between the arts and the sciences (natural and social) was a central theme of investigation for the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Public Engagement programme at BrisSynBio, a BBSRC/EPSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre that is now part of the Bristol BioDesign Institute at University of Bristol (UK). The reflections and experiments that appear in this dossier are a sample of these investigations and are contributed by Maria Fannin, Katy Connor and David Roden. (...) Darian Meacham coordinated and introduces the dossier. (shrink)

This paper presents an approach to the belief system based on a computational framework in three levels: first, the logic level with the definition of binary local rules, second, the arithmetic level with the definition of recursive functions and finally the behavioural level with the definition of a recursive construction pattern. Social communication is achieved when different beliefs are expressed, modified, propagated and shared through social nets. This approach is useful to mimic the belief system because the defined functions provide (...) different ways to process the same incoming information as well as a means to propagate it. Our model also provides a means to cross different beliefs so, any incoming information can be processed many times by the same or different functions as it occurs is social nets. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta dos objetivos principales, ambos relacionados con los planteamientos de la corriente transhumanista. El primero consiste en realizar una aproximación al aspecto tecnológico del transhumanismo, en concreto a su estado actual en cuanto a los avances en el ámbito de la ingeniería cibernética. Tras una introducción al concepto de transhumanismo, se expondrán algunos proyectos actuales que buscan desde la reparación de daños hasta el mejoramiento humano. Como ejemplo de la implementación de la tecnología con el objetivo de amplificar (...) los sentidos, se presenta el concepto de cíborg. El segundo objetivo se centrará en presentar las cuestiones de carácter bioético que los avances en ingeniería cibernética plantean y que irán surgiendo a lo largo del artículo con el fin de ver cómo estos avances realmente pueden ponerse al servicio de la naturaleza humana y de su desarrollo integral. (shrink)

A crucial aspect of Gilead and colleagues’ ontology is the dichotomy between tangible and intangible representations, but the latter remains rather ill-defined. We propose a fundamental role for interoceptive experience and the statistical distribution of entities in language, especially for intangible representations, that we believe Gilead and colleagues’ ontology needs to incorporate.

Frauds and misconduct have been common in the history of science. Recent events connected to the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted how the risks and consequences of this are no longer acceptable. Two papers, addressing the treatment of COVID-19, have been published in two of the most prestigious medical journals; the authors declared to have analysed electronic health records from a private corporation, which apparently collected data of tens of thousands of patients, coming from hundreds of hospitals. Both papers have been (...) retracted a few weeks later. When such events happen, the confidence of the population in scientific research is likely to be weakened. This paper highlights how the current system endangers the reliability of scientific research, and the very foundations of the trust system on which modern healthcare is based. Having shed light on the dangers of a system without appropriate monitoring, the proposed analysis suggests to strengthen the existing journal policies and improve the research process using new technologies supporting control activities by public authorities. Among these solutions, we mention the promising aspects of the blockchain technology which seems a promising solution to avoid the repetition of the mistakes linked to the recent and past history of research. (shrink)

This paper presents an overview of my work in philosophy from my first book on Friedrich Schiller and the political sublime to my most recent project on listening to traumatic forms of violence. Starting with a reflection on the autobiographical character of philosophy, I propose to take up the question of an aesthetic dimension of philosophical critique, where aesthetics is understood as an always already embodied perspective on the world, on truth, and on philosophical activity, as well as an always (...) already political realm, where the distribution of sense pre-determines our approach and articulation of experience. Departing from aesthetics understood and deployed as critique, the paper moves on to ask about the specific frameworks of sense or grammars that determine in advance the conditions of audibility in the realms of memory-building and history-making—particularly in those contexts where historical, political, and institutional forms of violence produce silencing and erasure. Putting in dialogue the latter with decolonial studies, I (re)interpret “traumatic violence” as a colonizing form of violence, understanding that one of its central aspects is that it is not only an assault on life but on the conditions of production of sense that make life legible as such. In this context, my project on grammars of listening seeks to carefully unpack these complex intersections while also explaining why I believe that a radical form of listening is an essential subversive/imaginative strategy against traumatic/colonial violence. (shrink)

Using a design-based research approach, we studied ways to advance opportunities for children and families to engage in engineering design practices in an informal educational setting. 213 families with 5–11-year-old children were observed as they visited a tinkering exhibit at a children’s museum during one of three iterations of a program posing an engineering design challenge. Children’s narrative reflections about their experience were recorded immediately after tinkering. Across iterations of the program, changes to the exhibit design and facilitation provided by (...) museum staff corresponded to increased families’ engagement in key engineering practices. In the latter two cycles of the program, families engaged in the most testing, and in turn, redesigning. Further, in the latter cycles, the more children engaged in testing and retesting during tinkering, the more their narratives contained engineering-related content. The results advance understanding and the evidence base for educational practices that can promote engineering learning opportunities for children. (shrink)

The state of computing science and, particularly, software engineering and knowledge engineering is generally considered immature. The best starting point for achieving a mature engineering discipline is a solid scientific theory, and the primary reason behind the immaturity in these fields is precisely that computing science still has no such agreed upon underlying theory. As theories in other fields of science do, this paper formally establishes the fundamental elements and postulates making up a first attempt at a theory in this (...) field, considering the features and peculiarities of computing science. The fundamental elements of this approach are informons and holons, and it is a general and comprehensive theory of software engineering and knowledge engineering that related disciplines (e.g., information systems) can particularise and/or extend to take benefit from it (Lakatos’ concepts of core theory and protective belt theories). (shrink)

IntroductionThe prefrontal cortex plays a crucial role in cognition, particularly in executive functions. Cortical reactivity measured with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation combined with Electroencephalography is altered in pathological conditions, and it may also be a marker of cognitive status in middle-aged adults. In this study, we investigated the associations between cognitive measures and TMS evoked EEG reactivity and explored whether the effects of this relationship were related to neurofilament light chain levels, a marker of neuroaxonal damage.MethodsFifty two healthy middle-aged adults from (...) the Barcelona Brain Health Initiative cohort underwent TMS-EEG, a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment, and a blood test for NfL levels. Global and Local Mean-Field Power, two measures of cortical reactivity, were quantified after left prefrontal cortex stimulation, and cognition was set as the outcome of the regression analysis. The left inferior parietal lobe was used as a control stimulation condition.ResultsLocal reactivity was significantly associated with working memory and reasoning only after L-PFC stimulation. No associations were found between NfL and cognition. These specific associations were independent of the status of neuroaxonal damage indexed by the NfL biomarker and remained after adjusting for age, biological sex, and education.ConclusionOur results demonstrate that TMS evoked EEG reactivity at the L-PFC, but not the L-IPL, is related to the cognitive status of middle-aged individuals and independent of NfL levels, and may become a valuable biomarker of frontal lobe-associated cognitive function. (shrink)

Our goal in this paper is to articulate a precise concept of at least a certain kind of disease-mongering, showing how pharmaceutical marketing can commercially exploit certain diseases when their best definition is given through the success of a treatment in a clinical trial. We distinguish two types of disease-mongering according to the way they exploit the definition of the trial population for marketing purposes. We argue that behind these two forms of disease-mongering there are two well-known problems in the (...) statistical methodology of clinical trials (the reference class problem and the distinction between statistical and clinical significance). Overcoming them is far from simple. (shrink)

Integrated approaches in the ethical decision-making (EDM) and practically wise decision-making literature are emerging as alternative perspectives to management theories that conceptualize decision-making in a rationalist and value-free manner. However, more dialogue between both perspectives and qualitative research that applies them is required. In addition, there is a need for empirical analysis on business engagement in the face of grand challenges in developing countries. This paper proposes an integrated practically wise EDM framework to study how Colombian councilors who, in 2013, (...) voted for or against the merger between the Colombian state-owned company UNE and the Swedish multinational Millicom interpret this decision and its public impact. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with a voluntary sample of 18 of 21 councilors. Supporters of the UNE-Millicom merger expressed open-mindedness, seeing the merger as a means to achieve justice. On the contrary, the merger’s opponents expressed circumspection, doubting that Millicom’s intentions really leaned toward justice. We conclude that practical wisdom—embodied by both supporters and detractors—fosters an understanding of EDM beyond what leaders should not do. It also includes a democratic and balanced deliberation on what leaders think they should do to promote the common good. (shrink)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societallevel analyses. At the individual- level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub- dimensions and two sets of values dimensions. At the societal- level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each (...) society, we report the Cronbach' s? statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency as well as report interrater agreement analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country span sp. (shrink)

Objective: Illness perceptions are important predictors of emotional and behavioral responses in many diseases. The current study aims to investigate the COVID-19-related IP throughout Europe. The specific goals are to understand the temporal development, identify predictors and examine the impacts of IP on perceived stress and preventive behaviors.Methods: This was a time-series-cross-section study of 7,032 participants from 16 European countries using multilevel modeling from April to June 2020. IP were measured with the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire. Temporal patterns were observed (...) considering the date of participation and the date recoded to account the epidemiological evolution of each country. The outcomes considered were perceived stress and COVID-19 preventive behaviors.Results: There were significant trends, over time, for several IP, suggesting a small decrease in negativity in the perception of COVID-19 in the community. Age, gender, and education level related to some, but not all, IP. Considering the self-regulation model, perceptions consistently predicted general stress and were less consistently related to preventive behaviors. Country showed no effect in the predictive model, suggesting that national differences may have little relevance for IP, in this context.Conclusion: The present study provides a comprehensive picture of COVID-19 IP in Europe in an early stage of the pandemic. The results shed light on the process of IP formation with implications for health-related outcomes and their evolution. (shrink)

We examine the role of the American Psychological Association (APA) in the weaponization of American psychology post-9/11. In 2004, psychologists’ involvement in the detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects generated controversy over psychological ethics in national security (PENS). Two signal events inflamed the controversy. The 2005 APA PENS Report legitimized clinical psychology consultation in support of military/intelligence operations with detained terrorist suspects. An independent review, the 2015 Hoffman Report, found APA collusion with the US Department of Defense in producing the (...) APA PENS Report and subsequent policies. Ongoing activities within APA to weaponize psychology sharpened the controversy. The authors—two psychologists and four former military/intelligence professionals—bring a military/intelligence operational perspective to detail two neglected areas of collateral damage. The first is the toll on psychology as a scientific enterprise. The second is covert influence on professional associations for incompatible security-sector objectives. We establish epistemic, historical, institutional, legal, and operational foundations for evaluation of these damages, as well as implications for APA and related professional associations in the ongoing Global War on Terror. (shrink)

O’Donohue et al. sought to derive, from classical ethical theories, the ethical obligation of psychologists to assist “enhanced interrogations and torture” in national defense scenarios under strict EIT criteria. They asked the American Psychological Association to adopt an ethics code obligating psychologists to assist such EIT and to uphold the reputation of EIT psychologists. We contest the authors’ ethical analyses as supports for psychologists’ forays into torture interrogation when the EIT criteria obtain. We also contend that the authors’ application of (...) these ethical analyses violates the Geneva Conventions, contravenes military doctrine and operations, and undermines psychology as a profession. We conclude that “good” public reputation is not owed to, or expected by, “good” intelligence professionals, and collaborating operational psychologists must share their providence. (shrink)

This paper aims to enhance security in IoT device networks through a visual tool that utilizes three projection techniques, including Beta Hebbian Learning (BHL), t-distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) and ISOMAP, in order to facilitate the identification of network attacks by human experts. This work research begins with the creation of a testing environment with IoT devices and web clients, simulating attacks over Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) for recording all relevant traffic information. The unsupervised algorithms chosen provide a set (...) of projections that enable human experts to visually identify most attacks in real-time, making it a powerful tool that can be implemented in IoT environments easily. (shrink)

Societally salient issues, like migration, stimulate user engagement with political parties on social media. This user engagement, in turn, is associated with political behavior, such as voting. Nonetheless, few studies so far have investigated the interaction between these factors. We examine how anti-immigration attitudes are associated with user engagement with political parties on social media. In this study, user engagement is understood as following political parties on social media. Through online data that were collected in October 2019 among adults (N= (...) 1,000) in Belgium, we investigate how attitudes and user engagement are associated with voting behavior. Results suggest that attitudes towards migration are associated with user engagement with both left and right-wing parties on social media. Moreover, these attitudes and user engagement – and the interaction between the two – are related to voting behavior: being against (being in favor of) migration and following right-wing (left-wing) parties on social media is associated with a higher likelihood of voting for a right-wing (left-wing) party. (shrink)

Studies investigating the COVID-19 pandemic from a psychological point of view have mostly focused on psychological distress. This study adopts the framework of existential positive psychology, a second wave of positive psychology that emphasizes the importance of effective coping with the negative aspects of living in order to achieve greater wellbeing. Trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) can be crucial in this context as it refers to emotion-related personality dispositions concerning the understanding and regulation of one’s emotions and those of others. (...) The present study investigated the relationship between trait EI and both wellbeing and psychological distress (i.e., depression, anxiety, and stress), while exploring the mediating role of meaning-centered coping (proactive transformative strategies based on meaning in life) and maladaptive coping (i.e., behavioral disengagement and self-blame) during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 326 Lebanese adults completed measures of trait EI, wellbeing, psychological distress, coping, and meaning-centered coping. Results showed a strong positive correlation between trait EI and meaning-centered coping. Trait EI also correlated positively with wellbeing and negatively with psychological distress. Structural equation modeling showed that meaning-centered coping partially mediated the relationship between trait EI and wellbeing. Maladaptive coping fully mediated the relationship between trait EI and psychological distress. Findings indicate that trait EI is positively related to dealing with a stressful situation such as the pandemic in positive ways at both the cognitive level, by reformulating the situation to see something valuable in it, and behavioral level, by being proactive about it. Trait EI was positively linked to seeing the situation as an opportunity for personal growth, finding personal meaning in this situation, maintaining an attitude of hope and courage, and acting more responsibly with one’s self and others during the current crisis. In turn, this coping formula was related to lower psychological distress and improved mental health. These results are consistent with the existential positive psychology framework and can inform implementation programs and policies aiming at raising awareness and promoting healthy and successful coping during the pandemic. (shrink)

Pleiotropically acting eukaryotic corepressors such as retinoblastoma and SIN3 have been found to physically interact with many widely expressed “housekeeping” genes. Evidence suggests that their roles at these loci are not to provide binary on/off switches, as is observed at many highly cell‐type specific genes, but rather to serve as governors, directly modulating expression within certain bounds, while not shutting down gene expression. This sort of regulation is challenging to study, as the differential expression levels can be small. We hypothesize (...) that depending on context, corepressors mediate “soft repression,” attenuating expression in a less dramatic but physiologically appropriate manner. Emerging data indicate that such regulation is a pervasive characteristic of most eukaryotic systems, and may reflect the mechanistic differences between repressor action at promoter and enhancer locations. Soft repression may represent an essential component of the cybernetic systems underlying metabolic adaptations, enabling modest but critical adjustments on a continual basis. (shrink)

This study examines whether character strengths predict resilience (operationalized as stable or higher mental health and subjective well-being despite an adverse event) over a period of approximately one month during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Spain. Using a longitudinal design, participants (N = 348 adults) completed online measures of sociodemographic data, information regarding their situation in relation to the COVID-19, character strengths, general mental health, life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect. All variables were measured at Time 1 and Time (...) 2, except for sociodemographic and most COVID-related information (Time 1 only). Time 1 data collection was conducted between March 21, 2020 and April 2, 2020, i.e., approximately the second week of lockdown in Spain. Time 2 data collection was conducted between April 24, 2020 and May 18, 2020, after the Spanish government announced ita intention to progressively release the lockdown. A principal component analysis of character strengths was conducted. Five character strength factors were extracted: fortitude, goodness, intellectual, interpersonal, and restraint. Factor structures at Times 1 and 2 were highly consistent. All character strength factors at Time 1 correlated positively with life satisfaction and positive affect, and negatively with negative affect and mental health at T2 (higher scores in the mental health measure indicate poorer mental health). Fortitude strengths showed the highest correlations. We conducted a series of regression analyses with strength factors at Time 1 as predictors, and mental health, life satisfaction, and positive and negative affect as dependent variables, controlling for their baseline levels. To test the directionality of the relationship between strengths and the dependent variables, all analyses were reversed. All character strength factors predicted an increase in mental health. They also predicted positive affect, with the exception of strengths of restraint. Fortitude, intellectual and interpersonal strengths predicted an increase in life satisfaction. Finally, fortitude strengths, interpersonal strengths, and strengths of restraint, predicted a decrease in negative affect. None of the reversed analyses yielded significant effects. Limitations, implications, and possible character strengths-based interventions aimed at promoting mental health in the COVID-19 pandemic are discussed. (shrink)

Clinical practices are considered one of the cornerstones in nurses' education. This study provides a framework to determine how factors in the academic environment, influence nursing student's satisfaction with their practices. A cross-sectional analytical study was conducted in a convenience sample of 574 nursing students at a private university in Valencia, during the 2016/2017 academic year, 79% were women. Two statistical methodologies were used for data analysis: hierarchical regression models and fuzzy sets qualitative comparative analysis. The HRM indicate that the (...) students' mean score influences all dimensions of satisfaction. Furthermore, in the fsQCA, the type of service and center, as well as the type of management, the preference in the choice of the practice center and the number of students per period per clinical educator influence satisfaction with clinical practices. These results could be used to understand how academic factors influence nursing students' satisfaction with their clinical practices and to create intervention programmes that improve it. This will help prepare students to be the future nursing workforce. (shrink)

This article explores how historical narratives affect the evaluation of political decisions regarding justice during peace negotiations. Specifically, this study evaluates how different narratives of the Colombian armed conflict relate to the preference for either restorative or retributive justice. Results revealed that a historically accurate narrative that included structural elements correlated with the preference for restorative justice, whereas a schematic narrative that focused on individual greed favoured the preference for retributive justice. These results are explained in terms of the characteristics (...) of expert historical narratives, which include structural elements, such as economic and institutional factors. The presence of these elements in the explanation of conflicts decreases the weight of individual decisions and, in this way, prevent ingroup attributional biases. (shrink)