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The next attended session after no-show sessions in Short-Term Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: a qualitative analysis of audio recordings
Full text linkBackground: Three types of dropouts have been identified in research using the IMPACT study dataset, which is a clinical trial in which the effectiveness of different types of therapy for adolescents with depression is compared. One type of dropout is referred to as a ‘dissatisfied’ dropout who stopped therapy because he/she did not find it helpful. However, little is known about the in-therapy process of this group. Hence, the aim of this study is to explore the dissatisfied dropout’s in-therapy process through the entry point of a reunion session, which was the first session attended after missing sessions. Method: Five reunion sessions, one for each of five adolescents with depression, were drawn from the IMPACT study. The transcript of audio recordings was analysed using thematic analysis. Results: Four main themes were identified: Absence and reunion, Sense of helplessness, Turning to peers, and Signs of withdrawal. The theme of a sense of helplessness was presented in three of the five patients. Signs of withdrawal was the most common theme presented in four of the five patients. A specific type of withdrawal, ‘Passive withdrawal’, was identified in one patient, which was characterised as feelings of resignation and passivity. Conclusions: Dissatisfied dropouts’ affect and relationship perspectives in the reunion sessions were explored. The implication of future research of psychotherapy with adolescents is reflected in this dissertation, which indicates that more research on dropouts and dissatisfied dropouts is needed to reduce obstacles for adolescents to attend therapy
From Economic to Emotional Geography: Understanding the Importance of the Mezzo-Level in Community Development
No full textUK Local Authorities play a crucial role in leading community development initiatives, despite facing numerous challenges in responding to the macro/micro level model of community development. These challenges include the competitive and uncertain nature of macro-level funding mechanisms, focused on neo-liberal defined economic geographies. They also include working with limited resources, and a lack of understanding of hyper-local issues. It is possible for Local Authorities to engage with a range of partners across the voluntary sector, or commission programmes through the private sector, to address these micro-level challenges. However, we argue that there are two important factors missing from these kinds of engagement.
Firstly, we advocate for a more nuanced mapping of community development outcomes, such as health and social well-being, onto local empowerment—the ability to enact positive change at a hyper-local level. This mode of micro-level empowerment shares similarities with recent problematic Levelling Up policies, which hinge on quantitative metrics of Pride in Place (Bennett, 2022). However, we advance a qualitative exploration of the emotional geographies that underpin local engagement with community initiatives.
Secondly, to effectively cultivate such local empowerment, we propose incorporating what we term the mezzo level into existing micro/macro models of community development. This elusive yet crucial level exists between Local Authorities and communities (micro level), encompassing entities such as parish/town councils, cultural/heritage/environmental organisations, and charities.
Finally, drawing on a pilot study in Essex, this paper aims to unpack the potential of the mezzo level in eliciting initial emotional insights regarding locally empowered community development
Multi-Subarray FD-RIS Enhanced Multi-user Wireless Networks: With Joint Distance-Angle Beamforming
Full text linkThe concept of the frequency diverse reconfigurable intelligent surface (FD-RIS) technology has been introduced, which can enable simultaneous implementation of distance-angle beamforming in far-field communication scenarios. In order to improve the managing ability on undesired harmonic signals and the diversity of frequency offsets, this paper presents a novel multi-subarray FD-RIS framework. In this framework, the RIS is evenly divided into multiple subarrays, each employing a distinct time-modulation frequency to enable the diversity of frequency offsets. Additionally, to suppress the undesired harmonic signals, a new time-modulation technique is employed to periodically adjust the phase-shift of each element. In this case, the signal processing model is first analytically derived. Then, we integrate it into a multi-user communication scenario and formulate an optimization problem that aims to maximize the weighted sum rate of all users. This is achieved by jointly optimizing the active beamforming, time delays, and modulation frequencies. Subsequently, a novel iterative algorithm is proposed to effectively solve this problem with low computing complexity. To evaluate the beamforming capability of the proposed multi- subarray FD-RIS, three communication scenarios with varying spatial correlations among users are considered. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed multi-subarray FD-RIS can significantly enhance and sustain the performance of communicatio
'“A minimum of domination”—the overt normative orientation of Foucault’s work',
Full text linkAnswering the charge of ‘crypto-normativity’ that has long overshadowed Michel Foucault’s work, I argue that this work is animated by an overt normative orientation to keep domination to a minimum. This orientation operates both at the level of content and form. It tends to be overlooked or dismissed because critics have certain blinders on about what it is to do philosophy and social critique—or so I suggest. I clarify the important distinction Foucault draws in a late interview between power and domination. As part of this, I unearth a hitherto overlooked further distinction between states and effects of domination. And I show that Foucault’s way of writing—aiming to produce transformative experiences in himself and readers—reflects his endeavours to avoid obscuring and fixing power relations; and that this means to take critical reflection even further, encompassing not just external power relations but how intellectuals frame their role in speaking truth to power. It is particularly in relation to effects of domination—our accepting given power relations as if they were inevitable and fixed—that theorising can contribute to our practices of freedom. On the proposed reading, it is on this that Foucault’s work aptly focuses
Learning an Autonomous Dynamic System to Encode Complex Periodic Human Motion Skills
Full text linkAutonomous dynamic systems (ADS)-based encoding of human motion skills has been widely demonstrated to exhibit high transfer efficiency in goal-directed tasks; however, significant gaps remain in the study of skill transfer for periodic motions, particularly complex periodic motions. In this letter, we propose a novel method for directly learning complex periodic movements using Lyapunov functions (LF), which is fundamentally different from all existing methods that learn periodic movements through limit cycle mapping. First, we introduce a polar coordinate transformation to decouple trajectory and angle modulation, enabling the radially increasing Lyapunov energy function to acquire non-radial expansion capabilities. Then, based on this, we learn a data-driven Lyapunov energy function by solving a dual objective optimization problem that combines geometric alignment and orbit parallelism constraints, aligning one of its horizontal surfaces with a periodic human demonstration trajectory. Finally, ADS is learned by sequentially solving LF-related constrained optimization problems. By designing appropriate constraint functions, we can ensure that the trajectories generated by ADS converge to an LF-level surface whose shape resembles that of periodic human demonstration trajectories. Both simulations and real robot experiments validate the effectiveness of the proposed method
The devouring Kronos: the impact of father-son relationships on the son’s relationship with food and the body in the Jungian consulting room
No full textThis study is informed by twenty-five years of clinical experience in the fields of eating disorders and addiction, drawing upon observations from both private practice and supervision of rehabilitation facilities. It responds to emerging evidence indicating that rates of eating disorders in males are rising more rapidly than in females, with no significant difference in the clinical severity of symptoms between sexes. Despite these trends, treatment approaches specifically tailored for men remain under-explored, particularly within the field of Analytical Psychology. To address this deficit, this research shifts the traditional analytical focus from the mother to the father-son relationship to better understand the development of eating disorders in men. The study introduces a new conceptual framework, the "Male Eating Disorder Matrix," which operationalizes four primary clinical positions: Shame, Identification and blueprint for development, Father figure, and Power struggle. Additionally, the research presents new theoretical concepts, such as "Body Number 2" and the "Kronos Complex," to further articulate these dynamics. The validity of the Male Eating Disorder Matrix was tested through the analysis of past clinical notes from three research patients: white heterosexual males between the ages of 30 and 50 suffering from bulimia or overeating. The findings reveal that unconscious dynamics regarding the father-son relationship are prevalent in the clinical setting. The study concludes that the father plays a distinct and significant role in the son's relationship with food and his body, suggesting that these paternal dynamics are essential to effective treatment
How home exams and peers affect college grades in unprecedented times
Full text linkLeveraging administrative data from the University of Iceland, which cover more than 60% of the undergraduate population in the country, we examine how home exams and peer networks shape grades around the COVID-19 crisis. Using difference-in-difference models with a rich set of fixed effects, we find that home exams taken during university closures raised grades by about 0.5 points (≈ 7%) relative to invigilated in-person exams outside the pandemic period. Access to a larger share of high-school peers leads to an average grade increase of up to two-fifths of a point, and exposure to higher-quality peers yielded additional, but smaller gains. Interactions between peer-network measures and the COVID/home-exam indicators are near zero, providing no evidence that peer networks amplified home-exam gains during the pandemic
The Consequences of Violence for Women’s Candidacy in Legislative Elections: Insights from a Global Analysis
Full text linkExplaining persistent gender asymmetry in women’s descriptive representation necessitates identifying the barriers to women’s opportunities and willingness to contest elections. I extend recent scholarship examining the gendered consequences of political violence for women’s political participation and descriptive representation. I specifically argue that political violence observed in the months preceding an election introduces distortions into the candidate selection process, thereby reducing women’s share of the pool of candidates competing for seats in the legislature. I empirically evaluate this hypothesis by combining a new cross-national dataset on women’s candidacy rates in 555 multiparty national legislative elections held in 136 countries between 1990 and 2022 with temporally fine-grained violent events data. Even after accounting for multiple confounding factors and addressing unobserved heterogeneity, the results demonstrate a robust negative association between political violence occurring during the candidate selection process and the rate at which women contest national legislative elections. Additional exploratory analyses suggest that these effects are driven principally by violent events occurring within the context of civil conflicts
Firm Liquidity and the Origins of Aggregate Fluctuations in a Network Economy
Full text linkThis paper investigates how microeconomic origins of liquidity shocks at the firm level influence aggregate output and financial stability in a network economy with inter-sectoral linkages. We use firm-level balance sheet data to construct two liquidity measures: the quick ratio, capturing firms’ internal short-term liquidity, and a network-based measure, capturing inter-sectoral network structure of liquidity flows derived from receivables and payables. Using sector-level aggregates, we apply a Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) model to examine the dynamic responses of GDP, the repo rates, the quick ratio, and the network measure to liquidity shocks. We further decompose forecast error variance to assess the relative contribution of each shock to business-cycle fluctuations. The main results indicate that the network effect is the dominant driver of businesscycle fluctuations, followed by the quick ratio, with both outweighing the remaining endogenous variables. The findings are relevant for macroprudential oversight, highlighting the importance of monitoring firms’ liquidity imbalances and network structure for financial stability and economic resilience
Doppler-Resilient LEO Satellite OFDM Transmission with Affine Frequency Domain Pilot
Full text linkOrthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication system suffers from severe Doppler shifts, while the Dopplerresilient affine frequency-division multiplexing (AFDM) transmission suffers from significantly high processing complexity in data detection. In this paper, we explore the channel estimation gain of affine frequency (AF) domain pilot to enhance the OFDM transmission under high mobility. Specifically, we propose a novel AF domain pilot embedding scheme for satellite-ground downlink OFDM systems for capturing the channel characteristics. By exploiting the autoregressive (AR) property of adjacent channels, a long short-term memory (LSTM) based predictor is designed to replace conventional interpolation operation in OFDM channel estimation. Simulation results show that the proposed transmission scheme significantly outperforms conventional OFDM scheme in terms of bit error rate (BER) under high Doppler scenarios, thus paving a new way for the design of next generation non-terrestrial network (NTN) communication systems