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Brain Responses during provoked pain in Patients with Chronic Primary Pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis of fMRI studies
Get PDFChronic pain involves complex mechanisms that remain poorly understood. To address this, the International Association for the Study of Pain introduced the Chronic Primary Pain (CPP) framework in ICD-11 to reflect advances in pain research. In this pre-registered systematic review and meta-analysis, we examined the neural substrates of CPP compared to pain-free individuals during provoked pain. A literature search identified 48 whole-brain fMRI studies (N = 2,052) involving experimental pain stimulation in CPP patients (e.g., migraine, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome), with or without pain-free controls. A conjunction meta-analysis revealed robust activation in the dorsal anterior insula, mid-cingulate gyrus, and medial frontal gyrus during provoked pain across 39 within-subject experiments. Using cluster- and voxel-level corrections, we observed consistent activity in the mid-cingulate and medial frontal gyrus, with the dorsal anterior insula and mid-cingulate gyrus implicated in pain processing in CPP. PERSPECTIVE: This study indicates the need for a new generation of methodologically harmonised studies integrating within- and between-subject effects before the CPP framework can be translated into a clinical tool. Achieving this translation requires significant methodological consistency in neuroimaging research to precisely identify the CPP neural substrates and advance diagnosis
Repaying the trust: Social trust and the readability of Form 10-K reports
No full textPurpose: This study explores the relationship between social trust and financial reporting obfuscation, defined as a lack of annual report readability. We propose that social trust is an important informal institution that promotes ethical behavior and accountability, leading corporate managers to produce clearer, more accessible annual reports for stakeholders.
Design/Methodology/Approach: Using a sample of 44,799 firm-year observations from 1,076 publicly listed U.S. firms, we analyze the impact of regional social trust on the readability of financial reports. We further investigate how this relationship varies across different organizational and managerial characteristics, including stakeholder orientation, geographical dispersion, monitoring environments, managerial capabilities, and CEO experience.
Findings: Our results provide strong evidence that firms located in regions with higher social trust produce less obfuscated financial reports. This negative relationship is more pronounced in firms with higher stakeholder orientation, lower geographical dispersion, stronger monitoring environments, more capable managers, and CEOs with broader work experience (generalist CEOs).
Practical Implications: The findings suggest that social trust is a significant driver of financial report readability. This has important implications for external stakeholders, managers, and policymakers in understanding the role of informal institutions in corporate reporting practices.
Originality/Value: This study contributes to the accounting literature by identifying social trust as a key factor influencing the clarity of financial reports and by providing insights into the underlying mechanisms through which this relationship operates
The influence of digital information and technological advancement on firms’ ethical practices
Get PDFWhile technology has the potential to enhance ethical practices, its impact is complex and poorly understood. This paper examines corporate ethical standards in digital tech–oriented firms to explore this dynamic. Using data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys spanning 2006 through 2023, we find that technology and digitalization positively influence the adoption of environmental and social standards. However, digital tech–oriented firms exhibit lower governance standards. These results are shaped by country culture, the burden of business regulation, and the perception of the courts as obstacles to business activity. Our findings highlight the significance of broader societal influences and the quality of the business environment in determining how digital-oriented technological firms adopt ethical standards
Contributions of benthic microalgal biofilms to sediment organic carbon stocks across a salt marsh gradient
Get PDFBenthic microalgal (BMA) communities contribute significantly to food webs, nutrient cycling, and carbon flows in intertidal habitats. However, the contribution of BMA to saltmarsh carbon stocks (‘blue carbon’) is unclear. BMA and sediment total organic carbon (TOC) stocks were measured in an east coast American Atlantic saltmarsh, revealing key relationships between biofilm biomass, carbohydrate, and carbon content. BMA biomass (chlorophyll a) was highest in Sporobolus stands and mudflat habitats, with diatoms the dominant algal group, with cyanobacteria more important in upper saltmarsh sites. Habitat-specific differences in biofilm properties (biomass, carbohydrates, photopigments, near-infrared spectra) corresponded to differences in overall contributions to sediment TOC. Carbohydrates contributed between 8%-23% of sediment TOC, with the highest levels in Sporobolus and mudflat habitats. BMA biomass and colloidal carbohydrate were significantly correlated, except on lower shore sandflats. The greatest relative contribution of colloidal carbohydrate to %TOC was in upper marsh and tidal channel habitats (1%). Mudflats had the highest %TOC (up to 5% dry weight), but TOC stocks (2000 g C m-2 to a depth of 10 cm) were highest in Sporobolus habitats. A modelling approach, based on LIDAR and sediment measures, determined a BMA carbon contribution of 1.3%-8 % of sediment TOC, with the lowest values in Sporobolus and mudflat habitats. Upscaling from m2, incorporating habitat heterogeneity, gave median values of 14-16 tonnes TOC ha-1 for the North Inlet Estuary saltmarshes, of which BMA contributed 0.06-0.08 tonnes C ha-1. This approach could permit BMA contributions to blue carbon to be estimated across other saltmarshes
Movement and stasis in psychoanalytic psychotherapy: the creative couple and the analytic third
No full textThis study originates from my clinical experiences of working with patients in long term psychotherapy, who can, despite leading apparently settled lives in terms of career, education, and relationships, report feelings of dissatisfaction and unfulfillment as though living a ghostlike existence. Many such patients, though seemingly successful, struggle to make use of therapy, I am suggesting that conventional clinical approaches may be insufficient. This raises questions of whether something additional is required before therapeutic work can take effect. To address this, I have developed my own conceptual framework, “The Dynamic Matrix of Psychoanalytic Change,” the framework is built on Ogden's concept of the Analytic Third. This framework allows for an exploration of the phenomena of stasis and development in long term psychoanalytic work, particularly focusing on the interplay between psychic change and therapeutic impasse. The material comes from past patient notes of two long term patents for this study (RP1 and RP2), through which I demonstrate how moments of psychic movement and therapeutic deadlock correspond to different positions within the matrix. By applying Ogden’s Analytic Third, the research is situated in a relational field, emphasising that therapeutic stuckness often has roots in early relational failures. This underscores the significance of relational aetiology in understanding impasse. An important aspect of this study is in demonstrating the aspects of my conceptual framework that show that movement beyond impasse must arise not solely from the therapists interventions, but are co-created in the relational space within the therapeutic dyad. In this way transformation emerges through shared experience not unilateral effort. The research concludes by identifying the strengths and innovations of this framework while acknowledging methodological and theoretical limitations. It further considers the implications for clinical practise and future psychoanalytic research highlighting the importance of integrating relational concepts into the understanding of therapeutic progress and impasse
Manifoldness of services firms: Did R&D lead to better performance after the global financial crisis?
No full textWhile prior research on service innovation has primarily emphasized R&D drivers and the characteristics of novel service offerings, limited attention has been given to how R&D impacts firm performance across distinct service sub-sectors—particularly during and after periods of economic disruption such as the global financial crisis (GFC). Adopting a service systems framework, this study classifies service firms according to two dimensions: the degree of service intangibility and the extent of customer involvement. Leveraging an unbalanced panel dataset spanning 2003 to 2013, the analysis investigates how returns on R&D investments vary across different service industry categories and how these patterns shift in the aftermath of the GFC. Results indicate that R&D yields positive returns across both classification criteria, though the effect is more pronounced for firms delivering intangible services and those with intensive customer participation. Post-GFC, however, the advantage of R&D investment appears greater among firms offering more tangible services. Moreover, service providers characterized by high customer engagement continued to derive superior R&D benefits in the post-crisis era. These insights contribute to both theoretical advancement and managerial practice, while also suggesting several avenues for future inquiry
The Effects of Psyching-Up on Deadlift Performance in Competitive Strongmen, Strongwomen and Powerlifters
No full textThis study investigated the effect of the act of “psyching-up” on deadlift performance in experienced strength athletes and examined whether individual differences in anxiety sensitivity, reward sensitivity and trait aggression influence strategy selection. A total of 200 competitive strength athletes completed the BIS/BAS Likert scale and the Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire. Subjects then performed a deadlift under two conditions: a free-choice psyching-up intervention and a passive control. Barbell velocity was measured using a GymAware RS linear position transducer. Results showed that deadlift velocity was significantly greater during the psyching-up condition (M = 0.39 m/s, SD = 0.11) compared to the control (M = 0.34 m/s, SD = 0.10), representing an 18.58% increase in performance (p < .001). This improvement in bar speed corresponds to an estimated 4.3% increase in predicted one-repetition maximum. A one-way ANOVA found no significant differences in performance across the eight psyching-up strategies (p = .16). However, discriminant analysis revealed that higher reward sensitivity, greater trait aggression and lower anxiety sensitivity significantly predicted the selection of “arousal-enhancing” strategies (p = .002). These findings indicate that psyching-up can support deadlift performance in strength athletes and that personality traits may influence their choice of strategy. While no single strategy was found to be more effective than others, the data suggests that athletes tend to select strategies that reflect their individual personality traits. This study also presents a discriminant function that may help practitioners and coaches recommend appropriate psyching-up approaches based on an athlete’s personality profile, contributing to more effective and individualized psychological preparation in strength sports
Improving clustering quality evaluation in noisy Gaussian mixtures
Get PDFClustering is a well-established technique in machine learning and data analysis, widely used across various domains. Cluster validity indices, such as the Average Silhouette Width, Calinski-Harabasz, and Davies-Bouldin indices, play a crucial role in assessing clustering quality when external ground truth labels are unavailable. However, these measures can be affected by varying degrees of feature relevance, potentially leading to unreliable evaluations in high-dimensional or noisy data sets.
We introduce a theoretically grounded Feature Importance Rescaling (FIR) method that enhances the quality of clustering validation by adjusting feature contributions based on their dispersion. It attenuates noisy features, clarifies clustering compactness and separation, and thereby aligns clustering validation more closely with the ground truth. Through extensive experiments on synthetic data sets under different configurations and a case study on real-world data, we demonstrate that FIR consistently improves the correlation between the values of cluster validity indices and the ground truth, particularly in settings with noisy or irrelevant features.
The results show that FIR increases the robustness of clustering evaluation, reduces variability in performance across different data sets, and remains effective even when clusters exhibit significant overlap. These findings highlight the potential of FIR as a valuable enhancement to clustering validation, making it a practical tool for unsupervised learning tasks where labelled data is unavailable
The Dark Empath's Shadow: creative practice and collaborative screenwriting with AI
Get PDFThis thesis reflects on a two-year creative journey of collaborating with artificial intelligence (AI) on the development of a television pilot script. The study explores the opportunities and challenges of using AI as a creative partner, focusing on the essential role of human oversight and the development of creative guardrails. Through a series of smaller writing tasks, the paper details the process of training the AI, refining its outputs, and overcoming its limitations, such as a tendency towards generic, wholesome content and the occurrence of hallucinations. The research draws on existing scholarship, including Susan Cake's work on AI as a collaborative tool for script development, and evaluates the effectiveness of specific writing concepts including the Dan Harmon Story Circle when used with AI. The paper contrasts AI-generated feedback with the more nuanced and contextually rich insights provided by human academic mentors, highlighting the irreplaceable value of human experience and critical judgment in the creative process. The research further presents the findings of a participant study, which shows a mixed but overall positive reception to AI's utility for brainstorming and efficiency, while also noting its limitations in capturing a unique writer's voice. The thesis concludes that AI serves as a valuable but imperfect assistant, with its successful integration into creative writing depending entirely on the writer's ability to provide clear guidance, critically refine the output, and infuse the work with genuine human creativity. The paper ultimately reinforces the position that the writer, with their unique perspective and emotional depth, remains at the heart of every story