ABSTRACTDifficulties with inhibiting fear have been associated with the emergence of anxiety problems and poor response to cognitive–behavioural treatment. Fear inhibition problems measured using experimental paradigms involving aversive stimuli may be inappropriate for vulnerable samples and may not capture fear inhibition problems evident in everyday life. We present the Fear Inhibition Questionnaire, a self-report measure of fear inhibition abilities. We assess the FIQ’s factor structure across two cultures and how well it correlates with fear inhibition indices derived experimentally. Adolescent participants (...) from Hong Kong and England completed the FIQ, with the English participants also completing a conditioning and extinction task to assess fear inhibition problems. Across both cultures, the FIQ showed a single factor structure and low FIQ scores, or worse fear inhibition problems, were associated with self-reports of heightened anxiety. Correlation of FIQ scores with experimental indices, whi... (shrink)

While most historians have treated the sea as a surface or a void, the history of science is well positioned to draw the ocean itself into history. The contributors to this Focus section build on the modest existing tradition of history of oceanography and extend that tradition to demonstrate both the insights to be gained by studying oceans historically and the critical role that the history of science should play in future environmental history of the ocean.

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

Educational reformers all around the globe are continuously searching for ways to make schools more effective and efficient. In Germany, this movement has led to reforms that reduced overall school time of high track secondary schools from 9 to 8 years, which was compensated for by increasing average instruction time per week in lower secondary school. Based on prior research, we assumed that this reform might increase gender disparities in STEM-related outcomes, stress, and health because it required students to learn (...) similar content in less amount of time. Therefore, we investigated how the school time reform affected gender disparities at the end of upper secondary school between 2011 and 2013. Specifically, we considered representative data of the last two cohorts who completed lower secondary school before the reform and the first two cohorts after the reform from the National Educational Panel Study. Potential differences in gender disparities were investigated for upper secondary school outcomes of subject-specific standardized test performance, self-concept, and interest in mathematics, biology and physics, as well as outcomes of school-related stress and health. Overall, we found substantial disparities between girls and boys, which seemed to change little after the reform. Exceptions were the statistically significant gender × reform interactions for one stress dimension and two health dimensions which increased for both boys and girls, but more strongly for girls. (shrink)

The ectoplasmic specialization (ES) is a testis‐specific, actin‐based hybrid anchoring and tight junction. It is confined to the interface between Sertoli cells at the blood–testis barrier, known as the basal ES, as well as between Sertoli cells and developing spermatids designated the apical ES. The ES shares features of adherens junctions, tight junctions and focal contacts. By adopting the best features of each junction type, this hybrid nature of ES facilitates the extensive junction‐restructuring events in the seminiferous epithelium during spermatogenesis. (...) For instance, the α6β1‐integrin–laminin 333 complex, which is usually limited to the cell–matrix interface in other epithelia to facilitate cell movement, is a putative apical ES constituent. Furthermore, JAM‐C and CAR, two tight junction integral membrane proteins, are also components of apical ES involving in spermatid orientation. We discuss herein the mechanisms that maintain the cross‐talk between ES and blood–testis barrier to facilitate cell movement and orientation in the seminiferous epithelium. BioEssays 29: 36–48, 2007. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Previous studies of Zika virus (ZIKV) pathogenesis have focused primarily on virus‐driven pathology and neurotoxicity, as well as host‐related changes in cell proliferation, autophagy, immunity, and uterine function. It is now hypothesized that ZIKV pathogenesis arises instead as an (unintended) consequence of host innate immunity, specifically, as the side effect of an otherwise well‐functioning machine. The hypothesis presented here suggests a new way of thinking about the role of host immune mechanisms in disease pathogenesis, focusing on dysregulation of post‐transcriptional RNA (...) editing as a candidate driver of a broad range of observed neurodevelopmental defects and neurodegenerative clinical symptoms in both infants and adults linked with ZIKV infections. The authors collect and synthesize existing evidence of ZIKV‐mediated changes in the expression of adenosine deaminases acting on RNA (ADARs), known links between abnormal RNA editing and pathogenesis, as well as ideas for future research directions, including potential treatment strategies. (shrink)

In this study, we investigated endorsement of two types of prescriptive views of aging, namely active aging and altruistic disengagement. The study comprised a large international sample of middle-aged and older adults, covering the age range from 40 to 90 years. Participants rated their personal endorsement of prescriptive views of active aging and altruistic disengagement targeting older adults in general. Findings showed that endorsement was higher for prescriptions for active aging than for prescriptions for altruistic disengagement. Age groups in the (...) sample differed regarding their endorsement of both prescriptive views of active aging and altruistic disengagement with older adults showing higher endorsement than middle-aged adults did. Prescriptive views of active aging and altruistic disengagement related positively to each other and to the superordinate social belief that older adults should not become a burden, which attests to their functional similarity. In contrast, prescriptive views of active aging and altruistic disengagement were associated with psychological adjustment in opposite ways, with endorsement of active aging being related to better adjustment outcomes such as life satisfaction and subjective health. Our findings highlight the internalization of prescriptive views of aging in older people and their implications for their development and well-being. (shrink)

Ethical climate (EC) has been broadly described as how well institutions respond to ethical issues. Developing a tool to study and evaluate EC that aims to achieve sustained improvements requires a contemporary framework with identified relevant drivers. An extensive literature review was performed, reviewing existing EC definitions, tools and areas where EC has been studied; ethical challenges and relevance of EC in contemporary paediatric intensive care (PIC); and relevant ethical theories. We surmised that existing EC definitions and tools designed to (...) measure it fail to capture nuances of the PIC environment, and sought to address existing gaps by developing an EC framework for PIC founded on ethical theory. In this article, we propose a Paediatric Intensive Care Ethical Climate (PICEC) conceptual framework and four measurable domains to be captured by an assessment tool. We define PICEC as the collective felt experience of interdisciplinary team members arising from those factors that enable or constrain their ability to navigate ethical aspects of their work. PICEC both results from and is influenced by how well ethical issues are understood, identified, explored, reflected on, responded to and addressed in the workplace. PICEC encompasses four, core inter-related domains representing drivers of EC including: (1) organisational culture and leadership; (2) interdisciplinary team relationships and dynamics; (3) integrated child and family-centred care; and (4) ethics literacy. Future directions involve developing a PICEC measurement tool, with implications for benchmarking as well as guidance for, and evaluation of, targeted interventions to foster a healthy EC. (shrink)

Various studies have shown a decrease in well-being and an increase in mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, only a few studies have explored fear, depression, and well-being cross-culturally during this time. Accordingly, we present the results of a cross-cultural study that compares these mental health scores for German and South African students, compares the correlations among them, and identifies COVID-19 fear, well-being, and depression predictors. German and South African societies differ from each other socio-culturally, politically, and economically. (...) Their university systems also differ to a large extent. University students in both countries completed the Fear of COVID-19 Scale, the World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index, and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. Welch’s t-test, correlation, and multiple regression analyses were performed. German students were found to have statistically lower levels of COVID-19 fear and depression, but lower levels of general well-being than South African students. In both samples, fear of COVID-19 was negatively correlated with well-being and positively associated with female gender and depression. Additionally, female gender, depression, and lower well-being were identified as predictors of COVID-19 fear in both samples. The findings indicate that the fear of COVID-19 is associated with and varies according to gender, depression, and well-being across cultures, and that the difference in the intensity of fear between German and South African students may be partly explained by cultural and contextual differences. These findings can create a deeper understanding of the pandemic’s impact on student communities and may be used by mental health practitioners and researchers to develop and apply culture-specific interventions. (shrink)

Negative acknowledgement is an impression management technique that uses the admission of an unfavourable quality to mitigate a negative response. Although the technique has been clearly demonstrated, the underlying process is not well understood. The current research identifies a key mediator and moderator while also demonstrating that the effect extends beyond the specific acknowledged domain to the overall evaluation of a target object. The results of study 1 indicate that negative acknowledgement works through mitigating negatively valenced cognitive responses. People who (...) are presented with a negative acknowledgement are less likely to counterargue when forming an evaluation. The results of study 2 reveal that individual differences in need for structure impact the effectiveness of the technique. People who are high in need for structure are more susceptible to the effect presumably because of their desire for easy-to-use information that aids the formation and maintenance of simple knowledge structures. (shrink)

After introducing the new field of cultural evolution, we review a growing body of empirical evidence suggesting that culture shapes what people attend to, perceive and remember as well as how they think, feel and reason. Focusing on perception, spatial navigation, mentalizing, thinking styles, reasoning (epistemic norms) and language, we discuss not only important variation in these domains, but emphasize that most researchers (including philosophers) and research participants are psychologically peculiar within a global and historical context. This rising tide of (...) evidence recommends caution in relying on one’s intuitions or even in generalizing from reliable psychological findings to the species, Homo sapiens. Our evolutionary approach suggests that humans have evolved a suite of reliably developing cognitive abilities that adapt our minds, information-processing abilities and emotions ontogenetically to the diverse culturally-constructed worlds we confront. (shrink)

The precarious rights of senior citizens, especially those who are highly educated and who are expected to counsel and guide the younger generations, has stimulated the creation internationally of advocacy associations and opinion leader groups. The strength of these groups, however, varies from country to country. In some countries, they are supported and are the focus of intense interest; in others, they are practically ignored. For this is reason we believe that the creation of a network of all these associations (...) is essential. The proposed network would act as a support for the already-existing policies of the United Nations’ High Commission for Human Rights, of independent experts, and of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People. All three have long ago recommended the creation of a recognized instrument for uniting presently scattered efforts. The proposed network, therefore, will seek to promote the international exchange of relevant expertise, and it will reinforce the commitments and actions that single countries are currently taking to meet these objectives. For example, informative public events can be organised to promote particular support initiatives and to provide an opportunity for new members of the network to be presented. The network will promote health for senior citizens, disease prevention, senior mobility, safe free time for seniors, alimentary education, protection against new risks and dangers, as well as equity in the services necessary for seniors to adopt new information and communication technologies. In the case of retired academic members, the network will promote equality with respect to continuing use of digital technologies (particularly email), continuing access to research libraries, and the guaranteed ability for seniors to fund their own research programs and to deliver free seminars. (shrink)

Almost all biomedical research to date has relied upon mean measurements from cell populations, however it is well established that what it is observed at this macroscopic level can be the result of many interactions of several different single cells. Thus, the observable macroscopic ‘average’ cannot outright be used as representative of the ‘average cell’. Rather, it is the resulting emerging behaviour of the actions and interactions of many different cells. Single‐cell RNA sequencing (scRNA‐Seq) enables the comparison of the transcriptomes (...) of individual cells. This provides high‐resolution maps of the dynamic cellular programmes allowing us to answer fundamental biological questions on their function and evolution. It also allows to address medical questions such as the role of rare cell populations contributing to disease progression and therapeutic resistance. Furthermore, it provides an understanding of context‐specific dependencies, namely the behaviour and function that a cell has in a specific context, which can be crucial to understand some complex diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Here, we provide an overview of scRNA‐Seq, including a comparative review of emerging technologies and computational pipelines. We discuss the current and emerging applications and focus on tumour heterogeneity a clear example of how scRNA‐Seq can provide new understanding of a complex disease. Additionally, we review the limitations and highlight the need of powerful computational pipelines and reproducible protocols for the broader acceptance of this technique in basic and clinical research. (shrink)

The relevance of the research problem lies in the necessity of an axiological approach to the formation of the personality in education and the task of strengthening the ideal image of the function. The aim of this article is studying and understanding the culture of personality formation mechanisms in relation to future specialists. The leading method of research was the theoretical analysis of philosophical and cultural approaches to the cultural formation of the personality and to the content of human culture. (...) Content analysis was based on the philosophical and cultural concepts of V. S. Bibler, M. Buber, J. G. Herder, I. Kant, L. N. Kogan, D. S. Likhachev, A. Schweitzer, M. Scheler, and others. The experiment method was the experimental realization of formation stages of the future specialist as a person of culture, which allowed revealing the positive role of cultural mechanisms in this process. The result is the stages of human culture formation as well as mechanisms for their implementation. The article may be useful for specialists of the educational sphere, social philosophers, and culturologists. (shrink)

Based on over twenty years of empirical and intellectual work about knowledge production in the field of educational administration, I examine the origins and development of the canon, methodologies and knowledge workers in England. I focus on the field as being primarily concerned with professional activity and how and why this was established from the 1960s, and the way knowledge workers have variously positioned themselves over time and in context. Using a case study of knowledge production at the time of (...) the New Labour governments (1997—2010) I show how the emphasis on activity has left the field vulnerable to colonisation by markets and private interests, but how policy studies continues not only to reveal this but also to provide a model for how engagement with the social sciences can be productive. (shrink)

Uncertainty is pervasive in ecology where the difficulties of dealing with sources of uncertainty are exacerbated by variation in the system itself. Attempts at classifying uncertainty in ecology have, for the most part, focused exclusively on epistemic uncertainty. In this paper we classify uncertainty into two main categories: epistemic uncertainty (uncertainty in determinate facts) and linguistic uncertainty (uncertainty in language). We provide a classification of sources of uncertainty under the two main categories and demonstrate how each impacts on applications in (...) ecology and conservation biology. In particular, we demonstrate the importance of recognizing the effect of linguistic uncertainty, in addition to epistemic uncertainty, in ecological applications. The significance to ecology and conservation biology of developing a clear understanding of the various types of uncertainty, how they arise and how they might best be dealt with is highlighted. Finally, we discuss the various general strategies for dealing with each type of uncertainty and offer suggestions for treating compounding uncertainty from a range of sources. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship is increasingly considered to be integral to development; however, social and cultural norms impact on the extent to which women in developing countries engage with, and accrue the benefits of, entrepreneurial activity. Using data collected from 49 members of a rural social enterprise in North India, we examine the relationships between social entrepreneurship, empowerment and social change. Innovative business processes that facilitated women’s economic activity and at the same time complied with local social and cultural norms that constrain their (...) agency contributed to changing the social order itself. We frame emancipatory social entrepreneurship as processes that empower women and contribute to changing the social order in which women are embedded. (shrink)

The US Supreme Court’s abortion decisions over the past forty years have helped to shape cultural beliefs and practices concerning heterosexual relationships, marriage, and parenting. This is true both in the practical and in the legal senses. Practically speaking, definitively separating sex from childbearing, as only abortion can do (given how often contraception fails), inevitably changes the meaning of sex, and therefore of heterosexual relationships. Legally speaking, the Court’s influence was mediated significantly by its decision to locate the right of (...) abortion in an area of constitutional law—substantive due process—which claims to contain only those rights that are indispensable to our national understanding of freedom, both at the level of the individual and respecting our overarching democratic order. In particular, over the course of forty years of abortion opinions, the Court’s reflections on a claimed link between abortion and freedom have led it to conclusions broadly reflected in modern American beliefs and practices insofar as sex, marriage, and parenting are concerned. These include, inter alia, a suspicion of motherhood on the grounds of its risks and harms, the dispensable roles and violent characters of men, the great importance of adults’ wishes, and the importance of sexual expression for individual identity, divorced from consequences for partners or children. (shrink)

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_New Public Management and the Reform of Education_ addresses complex and dynamic changes to public services by focusing on new public management as a major shaper and influencer of educational reforms within, between and across European nation states and policy actors. The contributions to the book are diverse and illustrate the impact of NPM locally but also the interplay between local and European policy spheres. The book offers: A critical overview of NPM through an analysis of debates, projects and policy (...) actors A detailed examination of NPM within 10 nation states in Europe A robust engagement with the national and European features of NPM as a policy strategy The book actively contributes to debates and analysis within critical policy studies about the impact and resilience of NPM, and how through a study of educational reforms in a range of political systems with different traditions and purposes a more nuanced and complex picture of NPM can be built. As such the book not only speaks to educational researchers and professionals within Europe but also to policymakers, and can inform wider education and policy communities internationally. (shrink)

Surveys and routine clinical procedures applied in research protocols are typically considered only minimally risky to participants. The apparent benign nature of "minimal risk" tasks increases the chance that investigators and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) will overlook the probability that clinical tools will identify signs, symptoms, or definitive test results that are clinically-relevant to subjects' welfare. "Minimal risk" procedures may also pose a particular hazard to participants in clinical research by increasing the therapeutic misconception because the tasks mimic clinical care (...) and are often conducted in clinical settings. Investigators should anticipate which measures could yield clinically-important findings and should describe explicit plans for data monitoring, disclosure, and follow-up. Protocols that include reliable and valid clinical measures should prompt a more detailed risk assessment by the IRB, even when the tasks meet the regulatory criteria for minimal physical, psychological, or emotional risk. (shrink)

Mental models influence how individuals think and act in relation to their external environment and have been identified as leverage points to address sustainability challenges. Given the importance of mental models, a new tool to assess mental models has been developed: the Mental Model Mapping Tool. M-Tool was designed to have a standardized format and to be user-friendly for low literacy populations, using pictograms and audio instructions. In this paper, we evaluate M-Tool’s application in two studies with Tanzanian fishers. In (...) Study 1, we investigated M-tool’s convergent validity compared to standard interviewing methods. Study 2 investigated M-Tool’s construct validity by relating mental model complexity to participants’ education level, a relationship that has been well established. The findings show that mental models produced with M-Tool are more complex than mental models obtained through interviewing techniques; model composition is similar across the two methods; and participants with higher levels of education tend to produce more complex mental models with M-Tool than participants with lower levels of education, in line with previous research. These findings suggest that M-Tool can successfully capture mental models among diverse participants. This tool offers researchers and practitioners an instrument to map and compare perceptions of challenges across groups. (shrink)

Human beings have a tendency to transform geographical spaces into dwelling places which assume significance in terms of their social, cultural and personal identities. The authors describe the ways in which this occurs, how it is disrupted by a natural disaster - an Australian bushfire - and how the reciprocal relationship between place and person can contribute to personal and communal healing. The discussion draws on a doctoral thesis conducted by the principal author, and is illuminated by excerpts from narratives (...) provided by those who experienced the bushfire. The discussion is informed by insights from phenomenological geography and ecological philosophy. (shrink)

I construct a genealogy of the principle of distinction; the injunction to distinguish between combatants and civilians at all times during war. I outline the influence of a series of discourses--gender, innocence, and civilization --on these two categories. I focus on the emergence of the distinction in the seventeenth-century text "On the Law of War and Peace", authored by Hugo Grotius, and trace it through the twentieth-century treaties of the laws of war--the 1949 Geneva Protocols and the 1977 Protocols Additional. (...) I draw out how the practices of and referents for our current wars partially descend from and are governed by the binary logics of Christianity, barbarism, innocence, guilt, and sex difference articulated in Grotius's text. These binaries are implicated in our contemporary distinction of "combatant" and " civilian," troubling any facile notion of what "humanitarian" law is or what "humanitarian" law does, and posing distinct challenges to theorizations of the laws said to regulate war. (shrink)

The tobacco industry first began to promote the idea that a minority of smokers are 'genetically predisposed' to lung cancer in the 1950s. We used tobacco industry documents available as a result of litigation to investigate the role of the tobacco industry in funding the 'scientific bandwagon' described by Fujimura, in which genetics has come to dominate the cancer research agenda. From 1990-1995 inclusive, 52% of the project funding allocated by British American Tobacco's Scientific Research Group went to genetic research, (...) mainly based in universities and at one cancer charity. The largest project involved a pharmacogenetic research unit, based in a UK medical school, which was established with the help of tobacco industry PR consultants in 1988. The unit received half its project funding from the industry in 1992. Its main aim was to identify a minority of smokers who are supposedly 'genetically susceptible' to lung cancer, so that smoking cessation measures could be targeted at them. This aim was adopted and promoted by influential scientists at the US National Institutes of Health and the UK Medical Research Council in the late 1980s, in the run up to the Human Genome Project.BAT's research funds were also used to counter claims by others to have identified a unique 'genetic fingerprint' for tobacco smoke in lung cancer cells. We conclude that the tobacco industry has played a significant role in shaping research agendas, in particular, by promoting the idea that individual genome screening would be of benefit to public health. (shrink)