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Is it the place or the people in the places? Exploration of why young people in deprived coastal communities of England have worse mental health than their peers inland
Get PDFPrevious research has shown that English adolescents who lived in the most deprived coastal neighbourhoods had worse mental health up to 11 years later than if they had lived in equivalent inland neighbourhoods. We used the same twelve waves (2009–2022) of Understanding Society, to examine whether this association was explained by the places the study members lived (31 objectively measured built, social, economic and educational indicators linked via residential lower-super output areas) or their collective individual socio-demographics when they were adolescents (aged 10–15yrs). Coastal youth (n = 764) were exposed to worse average levels of sixteen environmental measures and better average levels for five environmental measures, than their peers inland (n = 4157). The concentration of area deprivation was also greater for coastal youth compared with their inland peers. When longitudinal models were fitted between environmental measures and SF-12 mental functioning scores (MCS) during adulthood (age 16+), only local crime and higher education participation were independently associated with MCS [Top 20 % vs Bottom 20 % (95 % Confidence interval): -1.20 (-2.38, -0.03) and Middle 20 % vs Worse 20 %: 1.07 (0.09, 2.05)] after adjustment for socio-demographics. As well, the amplified effect of area deprivation on MCS in coastal, compared to inland, areas was reduced the most by adjustment for individual socio-demographics [interaction term coastal*Top20 % deprived area: -5.1 (-8.1, -2.2) to -4.3 (-7.0, -1.6)], rather than the two environmental measures [further reduced to -3.9 (-6.7,-1.1)]. Results from this paper suggest policies to improve young adult’s mental health in England should target the socioeconomic circumstances of households in the most deprived coastal areas
Affect, connect, and grow: How self-transcendent emotions foster meaning in life.
No full textUnderstanding what makes life meaningful is vital for psychological well-being. Self-transcendent emotions-positive emotions that reduce self-salience and promote connectedness-may offer unique pathways to meaning in life. However, an integrative framework explaining how they do so is absent from the current literature. In this review article, we start by synthesizing existing theoretical perspectives and emerging empirical findings on three prototypical self-transcendent emotions—compassion, gratitude, and awe—and their relationship to meaning in life. Building on and extending this body of work, we develop the Affect-Connect-Grow model to illustrate the pathways through which self-transcendent emotions provide a sense of meaning in life. The model proposes that self-transcendent emotions do so by (a) eliciting positive affect, (b) promoting connection, and (c) stimulating psychological growth. Finally, we discuss the implications of the model and postulate important directions for future research
“My dreams now have colour”: An exploration of homeless young people’s experiences of the ‘Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope’ (PATH)
Get PDFHomeless young people (HYP) are among the most vulnerable and at-risk groups in society. Between 2023 and 2024, approximately 118,000 young individuals in the UK approached local authorities for support with homelessness or the risk of becoming homeless. Despite the scale and complexity of their needs, professionals, including Educational Psychologists (EPs), often report limited confidence and clarity in how best to support this population. Existing literature highlights an urgent need for practical, targeted interventions tailored specifically to HYP. This study explored the use of Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope (PATH), a visual, goal-oriented tool designed to promote motivation, aspirations, and agency. Although widely used in other contexts, its application with HYP has not previously been investigated. By centring the experiences of HYP who engaged with the PATH, this research addresses a critical gap in the evidence base. Four young people aged 16-19 participated in a PATH session followed by a semi-structured interview. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) revealed six group experiential themes: The Power of Imagery, “This PATH is Me”, Stepping into the Future, The Influence of Others, Bridging the Abstract with the Practical, and Parts Create the Whole. Framed through Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, the findings challenge deficit-based narratives that limit HYP’s potential, demonstrating the importance of supporting higher-order needs alongside basic ones. This novel study contributes to a more hopeful, solution-focused discourse around HYP. It calls on EPs and professionals to foster supportive, aspirational spaces where all young people, regardless of housing status, can feel safe, access education equitably, and reclaim futures too often denied. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed
Priority Random Access and User Barring Design for NOMA-ALOHA in Heterogeneous mMTC
Get PDFThis paper presents a priority random access (PRA) with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA)-ALOHA (PRANA) scheme to enable access priority control for machinetype devices (MTDs) with delay-sensitive and delay-tolerant requirements. To enhance the energy efficiency of random access, we also introduce a channel quality-based user barring algorithm (CQ-UBA) that can alleviate the user overload problem and reduce the average transmit power of MTDs. By extending CQ-UBA to the proposed PRA-NA scheme, simulation results demonstrate that the random access performance in terms of access delay and energy efficiency for delay-sensitive MTDs can be significantly improved compared to the conventional NOMA-ALOHA
Speech Imagery Brain-Computer Interfaces: A Systematic Literature Review
Get PDFSpeech Imagery (SI) refers to the mental experience of hearing speech and may be the core of verbal thinking for people who undergo internal monologues. It belongs to the set of possible mental imagery states that produce kinesthetic experiences whose sensations are similar to their non-imagery counterparts. SI underpins language processes and may have similar building blocks to overt speech without the final articulatory outcome. The kinesthetic experience of SI has been proposed to be a projection of the expected articulatory outcome in a top-down processing manner. As SI seems to be a core human cognitive task it has been proposed as a paradigm for Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI). One important aspect of BCI designs is usability, and SI may present an intuitive paradigm, which has brought the attention of researchers to attempt to decode SI from brain signals. In this paper we review the important aspects of SI-BCI decoding pipelines. Approach. We conducted this review according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Specifically, we filtered peer-reviewed reports via a search of Google Scholar and PubMed. We selected a total of 104 reports that attempted to decode Speech Imagery from neural activity. Main results. Our review reveals a growing interest in SI decoding in the last 20 years, and shows how different neuroimaging modalities have been employed to record SI in distinct ways to instruct participants to perform this task. We discuss the signal processing methods used along with feature extraction techniques and found a high preference for Deep Learning models. We have summarized and compared the decoding attempts by quantifying the efficacy of decoding by measuring Information Transfer Rates. Notably, fewer than 6% of studies reported real-time decoding, with the vast majority focused on offline analyses. This suggests existing challenges of this paradigm, as the variety of approaches and outcomes prevents a clear identification of the field’s current state- of-the-art. We offer a discussion of future research directions. Significance Speech Imagery is an attractive BCI paradigm. This review outlines the increasing interest in SI, the methodological trends, the efficacy of different approaches, and the current progress toward real-time decoding systems
Wet and dry cough classification using cough sound characteristics and machine learning: A systematic review
Get PDFBackground: Distinguishing between productive (wet) and non-productive (dry) cough types is important for evaluating respiratory health, assisting in differential diagnosis, and monitoring disease progression. However, assessing cough type through the perception of cough sounds in clinical settings poses challenges due to its subjectivity. Employing objective cough sound analysis holds promise for aiding diagnostic assessments and guiding the management of respiratory conditions. This systematic review aims to assess and summarize the predictive capabilities of machine learning algorithms in analyzing cough sounds to determine cough type. Method: A systematic search of the Scopus, Medline, and Embase databases conducted on March 8, 2025, yielded three studies that met the inclusion criteria. The quality assessment of these studies was conducted using the checklist for the assessment of medical artificial intelligence (ChAMAI). Results: The inter-rater agreement for annotating wet and dry coughs ranged from 0.22 to 0.81 across the three studies. Furthermore, these studies employed diverse inputs for their machine learning algorithms, including different cough sound features and time–frequency representations. The algorithms used ranged from conventional classifiers like logistic regression to neural networks. While the classification accuracy for identifying wet and dry coughs ranged from 78% to 87% across these studies, none of them assessed their algorithms through external validation. Conclusion: The high variability in inter-rater agreement highlights the subjectivity in manually interpreting cough sounds and underscores the need for objective cough sound analysis methods. The predictive ability of cough-type classification algorithms shows promise in the small number of studies analyzed in this systematic review. However, more studies are needed, particularly those validating their models on independent and external datasets
Invisible GOvernors? INGOs and the Identity of Social Work in Lebanon
No full textThis chapter explores how non-governmental actors have shaped the identity of social work in Lebanon by tracing its historical evolution and highlighting broader implications on the current structure and function of the Lebanese welfare state. Drawing on poststructuralist discourse theory, we argue that the articulation of two core logics - a logic of emergency in welfare policy and governance, and a logic of (g)localisation (via aid localisation policies) in the design and provision of services - have expanded the range and reach of INGOs. While originally conceived as humanitarian and development initiatives, these practices have fundamentally shaped and redefined the local welfare system and the organisation of social services. We show how the ‘welfare system problem’ in Lebanon has been framed by a certain understanding of welfare as humanitarian aid in a state of permanent emergency. This understanding, we argue, is informed by a dominant (g)localisation agenda, that generates very specific responses about ‘how welfare policy and services are designed’, ‘who holds power in deciding priorities’, ‘what services are available’ and ‘what expectations and predispositions about welfare services are promoted and generated’
Does preparation generate the cost of task switching? A recipe for a switch cost after cue-only trials
Get PDFA switch cost can be observed in cued task-switching on trials that follow a cue-only trial, which presents a task cue indicating a task to be performed but does not present a target stimulus to be responded to. This finding has provided important implications as to the source of the performance cost that emerges when switching tasks. However, cue-only trials differ from completed trials (for which the target occurs and is responded to) in several task parameters, and there are a few untested assumptions about a task-switch cost after cue-only trials, which restricted the conditions under which cue-only trials have been used. The present study first examined whether a switch cost emerged after cue-only trials when cue-only trials were matched with completed trials in as many task parameters as possible, and found that an expected switch cost following cue-only trials was absent in response time. In the subsequent six experiments, we explored critical task parameters to obtain a switch cost after cue-only trials. The present results indicate that the use of a short preparation interval was an important factor and that the switch cost was more short-lived and dissipated more quickly after cue-only trials than after completed trials. These outcomes are consistent with the proposal that there are at least two sources of a task-switch cost, one that originates from processing a task cue and another that originates from performing a cued task. Early processes of task preparation (e.g., cue or task identification) may be sufficient to produce the switch cost after cue-only trials, but response-related processes might generate a more persistent switch cost
The Vicissitudes of Psychoanalysis in Soviet Russia, 1930-1980
Get PDFThis book considers the changing fortunes of psychoanalysis in Soviet Russia from 1930 to 1980.
Approaching social history in a psychoanalytic key, Lizaveta van Munsteren argues that the growing split between official and informal languages of the time produced multiple strategies to keep alive the conversation around prohibited subjects. Through original archival research on figures such as Bluma Zeigarnik, Alexander Luria, Filipp Bassin and Dmitry Uznadze, van Munsteren offers a more nuanced understanding of Soviet studies of the unconscious and the role of language in the formation of the mind and in mental disturbances. This book makes a significant contribution to the historiography of psychoanalysis and to the study of the cultural influence of psychoanalysis and its interdisciplinary engagements.
The Vicissitudes of Psychoanalysis in Soviet Russia, 1930-1980 will appeal to historians of psychoanalysis and psychology in Soviet Russia, psychosocial researchers and anyone interested in the critical history of psychoanalysis
Commemorating Dieter Henrich: Subjectivity and Metaphysics
Get PDFAbstractThis article is a tribute to Dieter Henrich, the outstanding German philosopher, who died in December 2022. It begins by reviewing his life, academic career and general approach to philosophy. It then tracks the development of his theory of subjectivity, beginning with his classic article of the 1960s on ‘Fichte’s Original Insight’. Subsequent sections of the article consider critiques of Henrich’s position by prominent contemporaries and his response to them, his defence of the possibility of a metaphysics grounded in modern subjectivity, and his philosophy of religion.</jats:p