In this review, we discuss a novel on‐site remodeling function that is mediated by the H2A‐ubiquitin binding protein ZRF1. ZRF1 facilitates the remodeling of multiprotein complexes at chromatin and lies at the heart of signaling processes that occur at DNA damage sites and during transcriptional activation. In nucleotide excision repair ZRF1 remodels E3 ubiquitin ligase complexes at the damage site. During embryonic stem cell differentiation, it contributes to retinoic acid‐mediated gene activation by altering the subunit composition of the Mediator complex. (...) We postulate that ZRF1 operates in conjunction with cellular remodeling machines and suggest that on‐site remodeling might be a hallmark of many chromatin‐associated signaling pathways. We discuss yet unexplored functions of ZRF1‐mediated remodeling in replication and double strand break repair. In conclusion, we postulate that on‐site remodeling of multiprotein complexes is essential for the timing of chromatin signaling processes. (shrink)

Worldwide, children face adverse childhood experiences, being exposed to risks ranging from, exposure to political violence and forced migration over the deleterious effects of climate change, to unsafe cultural practices. As a consequence, children that seek refuge or migrate to European countries are extremely vulnerable, often struggling with integration in school, peer community, and their broader social circle. This multifaceted struggle can derive from external factors, such as the adaptation process and contact with other children, or internal factors such as (...) the fears and trauma that every child carries within them since they departed from their homeland. To bounce, grow, connect, and create in both adversity and opportunity, children need to build resilience, i.e., the capacity of an individual to maintain stable psychological functioning throughout the course of adversity. On the one hand, building resilience requires developing a set of individual skills, such as self-control, emotion regulation, self-esteem, and agency. On the other hand, building resilience involves developing social skills, connection, and close relationships. In this theoretical contribution, we review and map existing research to argue that activities based on the combination of music and movement has a strong potential to intensively build resilience. First, we connect the concepts of resilience and eudaimonia, based on the protective factors and key components of resilience. Then we discuss how music and movement, separately, may contribute to building resilience. Next, drawing on the basic mechanisms of musical sense-making, we argue that through combining music and movement, children engage in empowering musical sense-making processes that support building resilience, and in this way, support them to grow together and deeply experience eudaimonic values such as self-awareness, confidence and self-esteem, personal autonomy, connection, belonging, and bonding. Finally, we connect theory to practice. Based on the presented theoretical elaborations and on the authors’ experience as practitioners, we propose a set of guiding principles for the design of movement-based musical activities that foster the internal and external factors necessary to build resilience. (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)

The coronavirus disease pandemic fundamentally disrupted humans’ social life and behavior. Public health measures may have inadvertently impacted how people care for each other. This study investigated prosocial behavior, its association well-being, and predictors of prosocial behavior during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and sought to understand whether region-specific differences exist. Participants from eight regions clustering multiple countries around the world responded to a cross-sectional online-survey investigating the psychological consequences of the first upsurge of lockdowns in spring 2020. Prosocial behavior (...) was reported to occur frequently. Multiple regression analyses showed that prosocial behavior was associated with better well-being consistently across regions. With regard to predictors of prosocial behavior, high levels of perceived social support were most strongly associated with prosocial behavior, followed by high levels of perceived stress, positive affect and psychological flexibility. Sociodemographic and psychosocial predictors of prosocial behavior were similar across regions. (shrink)