1,296 research outputs found
Anthropedia’s Biopsychosocial Approach to Health and Well-Being Coaching
No full textThe level of stress in modern times is increasing the rates of lifestyle and stress-related illness in all populations, including health care professionals who have the double burden on their personal problems and those of their patients to manage (C.R. Cloninger, 2004; Cloninger et al., 2010). Today there is great need for complementary approaches to assist mental health care professionals in addressing the health and well-being of an increasingly stressed population. This talk will explore Anthropedia’s biopsychosocial model of health and well-being coaching and its application in public health endeavors. Specifically, we will discuss studies we’ve conducted in the US and Sweden that demonstrate the impact of our coaching on character development, resilience, and well-being in training and program participants. Health care professionals participating in our trainings have been shown to show significant increases in character development as measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory, as well as general increases in subjective well-being as measured by various scales. We’ll also describe research conducted in conjunction with the Blekinge Center of Competence at Region Blekinge in Sweden. These studies examined a number of programs funded by the European Social Fund, FINSAM, and Region Blekinge to serve long-term unemployed individuals, nurses, and youth with Anthropedia’s well-being coaching methodology. Similar to participants in Anthropedia’s training programs, program participants show significant increases in subjective well-being and character development including self-acceptance, empathy, moral reasoning, and self-transcendence. We will discuss implications for public health practices worldwide
Psychometric characteristic of the Italian version of the Temperament and Character Inventory--revised, personality, psychopathology, and attachment styles
No full textIn this article, we described the psychometric characteristics of the revised version of the Cloninger's personality Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI-R), Italian translation. Two independent samples, which were composed of 355 and 385 nonclinical mother-language Italian subjects, respectively, completed the TCI-R. A further sample of psychiatric outpatients was compared with community samples. We analyzed the internal consistency of each dimension, the test-retest reliability and the factorial structure of the questionnaire. Furthermore, we explored the potential association between personality, psychopathologic indicators (evaluated by the Symptom Checklist-90), behavior dyscontrol measures, and adaptive and maladaptive interpersonal styles. As a whole, the internal consistency of the TCI-R scales was adequate, although some differences in Cronbach alpha values were observed between the 2 samples in some TCI-R subfacets. The factorial structure was consistent with the original hypothesis of Cloninger and test-retest showed a good stability of the scores over the time. Normal data for the Italian population were also calculated. Furthermore, the character dimensions of self-directedness and cooperativeness were related with some psychopathologic domains in our sample and negatively with impulsiveness, anger, and hostility. Novelty seeking was associated with impulsiveness, whereas harm avoidance was associated with anger and hostility. On the contrary, persistence and reward dependence were inversely correlated with such traits. Harm avoidance, reward dependence, self-directedness, and cooperativeness were strongly related with measures of attachment. Finally, significant differences were observed in both temperament and character traits between community subjects and psychiatric outpatients. In the present study, the validity of the Italian translation of the TCI-R is therefore supported. Personality features are also confirmed as risk factors for specific psychopathologic domains, impulsivity, anger, and hostility. Furthermore, we found attachment styles of nonclinical subjects correlated with personality features
A meta-analysis of temperament and character dimensions in patients with mood disorders: Comparison to healthy controls and unaffected siblings
No full textCloninger's psychobiological model of personality has been extensively applied to subjects affected by mood disorders (MOOD). However, most studies are widely heterogeneous in terms of sample size, methods of assessment, and selection of participants.
We conducted a systematic review of literature and a random effects meta-analysis of studies comparing at least two of the following groups: (a) adults with a primary MOOD diagnosis (Bipolar Disorder (BP) or major depressive disorder (MDD)), (b) their unaffected siblings (SIB) or (c) healthy subjects (HS), and reporting quantitative results from the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) or the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI).
Subgroup, sensitivity and meta-regression analyses were also conducted.
High Harm Avoidance and low Self-Directedness were consistently associated with MOOD and SIB samples. BP was characterized by higher scores in Novelty Seeking and Self-Transcendence than HS, SIB and MDD. Age seemed to have a negative effect on Novelty Seeking and a positive effect on Harm Avoidance, Cooperativeness and Self-Transcendence. An euthymic mood state was associated with reduced Harm Avoidance, but increased Reward Dependence, Self-Directedness and Cooperativeness.
imitations: The quality of the included studies varied and was relatively low. Moreover, publication bias and heterogeneity in the distribution of effect sizes may also have limited our results.
High Harm Avoidance and Low Self-Directedness may be trait markers for MOOD in general, while high Novelty Seeking and high Self-Transcendence may be specific to BP. Future studies are needed to disentangle the state-trait effect of each personality dimension
Temperament and character in mood disorders: influence of DRD4, SERTPR, TPH and MAO-A polymorphisms
No full textGene variants exert a complex range of effects on human normal and abnormal behavior. We previously reported the effect of gene variants in serotoninergic and dopaminergic pathways, in a range of clinical features in mood disorders, such as symptomathology, periodicity, social adjustment and treatment response. In this paper we hypothesized that the same gene variants could influence temperamental traits in mood disorders patients. We focused on genes of the serotoninergic and dopaminergic systems (dopamine receptor D4 gene, DRD4; serotonin transporter gene, promoter region SERTPR; tryptophan hydroxylase gene, TPH; monoamine oxidase A gene, MAO-A). Two hundred and seven euthymic subjects, affected by major depressive disorder (n=73) and bipolar disorder (n=134) were assessed by the Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) and typed using PCR-based analyses. Possible stratification factors such as demographic, clinical and other temperamental factors were also taken into account. We observed that homozygosity for the short SERTPR allele was associated with low novelty-seeking scores (p=0.006) and genotypes containing the DRD4 long allele were marginally associated with low harm avoidance (p=0.05). Finally, the long MAO-A allele was associated with decreased persistence scores among females (p=0.006). Our observation of a pattern of influence on temperamental dimension exerted by serotonergic and dopaminergic genes suggests that the contribution of these polymorphisms to the clinical presentation of mood disorders could be mediated by an influence on personality difference
La politica della legalità : il ruolo del giurista nell'età contemporanea
No full textAs the author of this book shows as he tests his theses, impartiality and justice require specific and scrupulous forms of civil engagement which render obsolete the traditional call for neutrality. At the same time, citizens must be made to understand how formal features of law that usually evoke their hostility actually guarantee their rights. The legal professional must learn to be a "relativist", obliged - through his choices - to establish priorities among distinct and often irreconcilable value domains
Cercando di dimenticare Savigny
No full textIl presente scritto è un contributo alla discussione del libro di Aurelio Gentili, Il
diritto come discorso del 2013. Del predetto volume si approvano senza riserve
a) la critica alla concezione del vecchio positivismo, secondo il quale il giurista
non farebbe altro che esplorare un misterioso oggetto denominato “realtà
giuridica”, e b) l’interesse per le tecniche argomentative quali strumenti di
controllo interno dei discorsi. Sul piano propositivo, l’autore della recensione
ammette che la conoscenza dei significati normativi letterali, quando la si
ritiene rilevante, comporta a livello collettivo (ma assai meno al livello dei
singoli) un giudizio partecipante. Tali significati, del resto, lungi dall’essere
entità fisse, sono sempre in movimento. Ciò stabilito e con questi limiti,
occorre ammettere che non c’è solo un ordo ordinans imposto dai giuristi sui
confusi materiali estratti dalle fonti, ma si può scorgere, e si deve ritrovare,
anche un ordo ordinatus, frutto tanto dell’attività legislativa quanto delle precedenti interpretazioni, che il singolo interprete non può far a meno di
riconoscere. Insomma: tra i due ordini, fra le attività dei giuristi e i prodotti di
tali attività, si stabilisce un rapporto dialettico.This article is a contribution to the discussion regarding Aurelio Gentili’s 2013
book Il diritto come discorso. From the said volume, the author fully approves:
a) the criticism of the old positivism’s conception that a lawyer does nothing
but explore the misterious object that is “legal reality”, and b) the interest in
argumentative techniques as instruments for internal control of discourses. The
author of this article proposes admitting that the knowledge of literal normative
meanings, when believed to be relevant, requires at the level of the collective
(much less so at the individual level) a judgment, which demonstrates
participation. These meanings are, moreover, far from being fixed entities,
always changing. Within these limits, it should be admitted that there is not
only an ordo ordinans, made by the jurists, using the confused materials
extracted from the sources, but that we may also observe, and must rediscover,
an ordo ordinatus, which results from both legislative activity and previous
interpretations – that an individual interpreter cannot but recognize. In short, a
dialectic relationship between the two orders, between the activity of lawyers
and the products of these activities, is thus established
Exact two-dimensionalization of low-magnetic-Reynolds-number flows subject to a strong magnetic field
No full textWe investigate the behavior of flows, including turbulent flows, driven by a horizontal body-force and subject to a vertical magnetic field, with the following question in mind: for very strong applied magnetic field, is the flow mostly two-dimensional, with remaining weak three-dimensional fluctuations, or does it become exactly 2D, with no dependence along the vertical? We restrict attention to low-magnetic-Reynolds number (Rm) flow. Because liquid metals have low magnetic Prandtl number, such low- flows can have a kinetic Reynolds number as large as one million and therefore be strongly turbulent. We first focus on the quasi-static approximation, i.e. the asymptotic limit of vanishing magnetic Reynolds number Rm << 1: we prove that the flow becomes exactly 2D asymptotically in time, regardless of the initial condition and provided the interaction parameter N is larger than a threshold value. We call this property absolute two-dimensionalization: the attractor of the system is necessarily a (possibly turbulent) 2D flow. We then consider the full-magnetohydrodynamic equations and we prove that, for low enough Rm and large enough N, the flow becomes exactly two-dimensional in the long-time limit provided the initial vertically-dependent perturbations are infinitesimal. We call this phenomenon linear two-dimensionalization: the (possibly turbulent) 2D flow is an attractor of the dynamics, but it is not necessarily the only attractor of the system. Some 3D attractors may also exist and be attained for strong enough initial 3D perturbations. These results shed some light on the existence of a dissipative anomaly for magnetohydrodynamic flows subject to a strong external magnetic field
Letter from Lee C.R. Baker, Reference Assistant to Michi Weglyn, September 25, 1974
No full textThis letter refers to a thesis written by Warren Page Rucker in 1970 entitled, "United States--Peruvian Policy Toward Peruvian-Japanese Persons During World War II." Baker explains that Weglyn can purchase a copy of the thesis if she so desires.Collection of notes, articles, correspondence, photographs, and term papers collected by Yukio Mochizuki, a student at CSU Dominguez Hills, while researching Japanese American incarceration and Japanese Peruvian internment during World War II
Flow instabilities and reversals in non-uniformly thermocapillary driven melt pool
No full textWith transient LES and DNS simulations, we investigate flow in melt pools driven by thermocapillary forces. The developing pool is at first axisymmetric as are the boundary conditions, but flow instabilities arise that lead to 3D oscillatory flow patterns. At higher laser powers a sign-change in the surface tension temperature coefficient occurs, resulting in a flow reversal in the pool and thus two counter-rotating vortices, which exhibit similar though more complex flow instabilities
Born to Cooperate? Altruism as exaptation, and the evolution of human sociality
No full textIn recent papers (e.g. Wilson D, 2007; Wilson E, 2007) it has been confirmed that the two standard solutions for the apparent paradox of the evolution of altruism and pro-social behaviours – Kin Selection, which leaves unsolved the question of population structure, and Group Selection – can indeed be consistent with one other. The result is a possible explanation of the ambiguity between deeply entrenched attitudes to cooperation inside social groups, and organized hostility among them (Bowles, 2008). Nevertheless, these models seem to undervalue the potential effects of “multilevel” evolution, and both notions remain strongly engaged with gene-centred interpretations of evolutionary dynamics – which lose their explanatory power when applied to group-living species that show unconditioned forms of altruism and pro-social feeling, especially when cultural evolution enters the process. In order to avoid “cultural discontinuity” hypotheses at the other extreme, I emphasize the importance of “functional cooptation”, or “exaptation” (Gould, Vrba, 1982; Gould, 2002) in arriving at a more satisfying explanation of the origins of free or reciprocal unselfishness, in group-living animals and in culture-bearing species
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