Situational Characteristics Research Articles

Distinctions Without Differences?

Abstract: The interplay between persons and situations is central to psychology, and there has been a recent increase in research on psychological situation characteristics. One key issue in situation research concerns the distinction between consensual situation perceptions and subjective situation construal. We examined for the first time whether different instructions can be used to shift the degree to which situation characteristic ratings reflect consensual (i.e., shared) versus subjective perceptions. N = 631 participants were randomly assigned to one of three instructions: standard (unspecified), personal (how participants personally perceive a situation), and consensual (how participants think most other people perceive a situation). Each participant rated 31 of 62 standardized situation stimuli (pictures of everyday life situations) on the DIAMONDS situation characteristics. Using Bayesian multilevel models, we found that (1) instructions did not affect inter-rater agreement, although residual variation was somewhat higher in the personal instruction; (2) averages of ratings did not differ across instructions; and (3) Big Five traits had significant but small effects on situation characteristic ratings, which did not differ across instructions. Our findings highlight that situation characteristic ratings behave very similarly across instructions, and we discuss conceptual and practical implications.

Turning it on and off: a behavioural and situational comparison of non-fatal violence perpetrated by on- versus off-duty police officers

ABSTRACT Though research into police use of force continues to expand, analysis of off-duty police violence remains deficient and duty status comparisons of police violence are almost non-existent. Some argue that the broader policing context may ‘spill-over’ into off-duty settings, creating a consistency in police behaviour regardless of duty status. Others argue that off-duty police violence is vastly different from on-duty excessive force. The present study aimed to empirically compare extra-legal violence by police officers committed on- versus off-duty, to explore possible duty status differences in behaviours of the offending officers and the victims involved, as well as situational characteristics of the encounters. A sample of 119 cases (61 on-duty and 58 off-duty) of violence by Australian police officers that was determined to have violated law or policy was collected from open access sources (law reports and media articles) and content analysed. Chi-square analysis was used to select variables into three multivariate regression models to predict duty status from offender behaviour, victim behaviour, and individual/situational characteristics. A final regression model then included all resultant significant factors. The primary finding was the consistency across duty status in many aspects, particularly officer characteristics, despite some notable differences in context. The full model showed the factors most predictive of duty status to be offender verbal behaviour and handcuff use, and the situational characteristics of the number of offending officers present and whether the victim had been suspected of a crime. The behavioural consistency across duty status is discussed in terms of spill-over of police violence.

Individual and Situational Characteristics of the Occurrence of Cyber Sickness in the Context of Virtually Supported Military Training

Abstract Cyber sickness (CS) is considered a major challenge in the use of virtual reality (VR). This impacts the planned implementation of VR in the training of operational forces. The present work aimed to investigate the prevalence and onset of CS during virtually supported military training using head-mounted displays (HMDs) and explore related predictor variables. For this purpose, a quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted in which German soldiers (N = 100) were exposed to an immersive fifteen-minute VR scenario. We measured CS severity, age, heart rate (HR), and skin conductance (SC). Using newly developed categories to classify CS severity, the results showed a small prevalence (4%) of CS in the studied sample. Susceptibility to CS was the only predictor of the occurrence of CS symptoms. Accordingly, the present work provides evidence that CS may play a minor role in affecting virtually supported operational training. At the same time, the easily detectable susceptibility to CS promises rapid detection of vulnerable users. Implications and further research are discussed to detect, control, and mitigate CS.

AI or student writing? Analyzing the situational and linguistic characteristics of undergraduate student writing and AI-generated assignments

Since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, universities have faced the issue of whether there is still a place for written assignments in higher education. ChatGPT's capacity to mimic various written forms raises questions about the necessity of traditional assessments. Given this background, this study explores to what extent AI-generated assignments can replicate the situational and linguistic features of student-authored assignments. Using a corpus of undergraduate assignments from an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context, we compare student responses with ChatGPT's outputs. Employing a register approach, we analyze the situational and linguistic characteristics of texts across three different registers—essays, critiques, and personal narratives. Our methodology follows Biber and Conrad’s (2019) framework, encompassing situational analysis, linguistic analysis, and functional interpretation. The findings aim to inform writing instructors and EFL teachers about the strengths and limitations of AI tools, enhancing their ability to guide students in integrating these technologies into their writing processes.

Who is helping students? A qualitative analysis of task-shifting and on-campus mental health services in China's university settings

The mental health of university students is a major concern worldwide. Current literature has highlighted workforce shortage as one of the main barriers for delivering mental health care in China and elsewhere. A common strategy to tackle this shortage involves engaging non-specialist health workers and professionals from non-medical backgrounds in mental health promotion within university settings. Yet, there remains limited understanding of how this approach operates in practice and its effectiveness in delivering essential on-campus services to students. This study contributes to narrowing this knowledge gap through the engagement with interdisciplinary mental health service providers (n = 141) at six universities in Shandong, China. We used focus group interviews to explore how task-shift practices operate in the Chinese university context and analyze the main barriers in the practitioners’ delivery of mental health care practices. According to our analysis, (1) competing roles of non-health actors create a trust-privacy dilemma in the delivery of mental health service; (2) knowledge gap and workload issues become new barriers for effective mental health promotion; and (3) the lack of structured intersectoral collaboration creates barriers to establish effective mental health care networks to meet the needs of university students. These results highlight the importance of using a settings approach in designing and assessing mental health interventions based on task-shifting within the contexts of Chinese universities. The study also helps to map out the unique features of the workforce situation in the mental health support system of Chinese universities, offering researchers and practitioners insights on how to better localize their assessment and programming.

Characteristics of the current situation of drug use in elderly patients with chronic diseases in Chongqing: A cross-sectional survey.

Following improved accessibility to medical services, the phenomenon of polypharmacy in elderly patients with comorbidity has been increasing globally. Polypharmacy patients are prone to drug interactions, adverse drug reactions, and even the risk of death etc. Therefore, there is an urgent need to fully understand the current status and characteristics of drug use in elderly patients with chronic diseases, focusing on polypharmacy factors to ensure that medications for elderly patients are effective and safe. To collect and analyze the characteristics of the current drug use situation in elderly patients with chronic diseases in Chongqing and further explore the influencing factors for polypharmacy, providing references for formulating more effective and safe medication regimens for elderly patients. Most elderly patients affected with chronic diseases in Chongqing were willing to go to hospitals or pharmacies to buy medicines. However, they were not familiar with their disease conditions and drug-related adverse reactions and could not be regularly followed up or monitored. The number of diseases, medications, and adverse drug reactions increased with the increasing age of elderly patients. The problem of irrational use of drugs in elderly patients with chronic diseases was relatively prominent, especially the use of traditional Chinese medicines. The medication situation in elderly patients with chronic diseases was not optimistic, and the problem of polypharmacy was relatively prominent. Further large-scale studies are needed to provide a certain reference for improving the current status of drug use in elderly patients.

Less-LethalWeaponsand Civilian Injury in Police Use of Force Encounters: A Multi-agency Analysis.

Police use-of-force is a growing public health concern, with recent estimates suggesting that over 70,000 people are injured by police each year. To reduce the risk of injury to civilians, most police agencies authorize the use of various less-lethal weapons. However, to date, there is little consensus as to which types of less-lethal weapons are most effective at reducing injury risk. In this study, we test the differential effects of less-lethal weapons on civilian injury and injury severity using data on 2348 use-of-force incidents originating from 17 large urban and metropolitan law enforcement agencies from 2015 to 2019. Specifically, we assess the injury risks associated with conducted energy devices, chemical agents, impact weapons, and police canines, while controlling for a robust set of officer, civilian, and situational characteristics. Our results indicate that chemical agents reduce the risk of hospitalization or death significantly more than other weapon types, while police canines increase the risk of all injury outcomes significantly more than other weapon types. Adjusting for incident characteristics, chemical agents are predicted to cause hospitalization or death in 4% of cases, compared to 13% for conducted energy devices, 16% for impact weapons, and 37% for police canines. These findings suggest that civilian injury may be reduced through use-of-force policies that prioritize less severe modalities of force, though more research is needed on the contextual and long-term effects of these weapons.

Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of dengue fever in Fuzhou, China, in 2023

BackgroundThis study aimed to analyze the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of dengue fever (DF) in Fuzhou, the capital city of Fujian Province, southeast China.MethodsA retrospective analysis was performed on 251 cases of DF diagnosed at the fever clinic of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Fujian University of Chinese Medicine in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province. Epidemic characteristics, such as the number of cases, age distribution, sex distribution, seasonal distribution, and spatial distribution in each region, were analyzed. The patients’ clinical manifestations, signs, auxiliary examinations, and prognoses were analyzed.ResultsThe age distribution of DF cases was mainly concentrated in 30–39 years (20.72%) and 50–59 years (21.12%). There were no sex differences among the patients. Of these cases, 60.16% were concentrated on the lower floors, with retirees having the highest proportion. The seasonal peak of DF in Fuzhou area was from September to November. The SDE plot showed that the cases were mainly concentrated in Jin’an and Gulou districts. Etiological tests revealed serum NS1 antigen (97.61%), serum IgM antibody (15.14%), and serum IgG antibody (0.40%). There were no significant differences in clinical manifestations between the children’s and non-children’s groups. Laboratory tests have shown that the disease is prone to multi-system dysfunction, including the blood system, digestive system, urinary system and internal environment. ROC curve analysis showed that WBC, N, LY, PLT, and CRP levels had specific diagnostic values for DF.ConclusionsThe epidemiological situation and clinical characteristics of DF in Fuzhou City were analyzed to guide the formulation of reasonable prevention and treatment measures.

Downtoners and intensifiers in different registers

Abstract The article analyzes the frequency of downtoners and intensifiers in seven Estonian registers based on data from the Estonian Pragmatics Corpus. These particles are most common in instant messaging, followed by institutional interaction, everyday conversation, online comments, printed fiction, media, and academic prose. The analysis revealed that previously offered situational features that increase frequencies (orality, spontaneity, dialogicity, everydayness and involved production) correlate only with frequencies of downtoners in comments, fiction and media. The frequency of downtoners in instant messaging is significantly higher than in spoken dialogues, and the use of all particles in academic prose is significantly lower than expected. We propose hypotheses to explain those anomalies. Ten especially frequent particles were identified: six downtoners and four intensifiers. Those particles account for 15% of all downtoners/intensifiers and account for 76% of particle use, with their proportion varying across registers from 87% in everyday conversation to 43% in academic prose.

How European consumers value wine credence attributes: a cross-country comparison of France, Greece and Italy

Several attributes can be used to differentiate wine products to meet consumer interest and thus increase producer visibility, attractiveness and revenues. The perception towards the same attribute may depend on various factors that characterise the subjects, such as individual, behavioural and situational characteristics, like their country of origin. This study aims to identify which credence attributes and related levels motivate consumers the most to buying wine, by comparing the results obtained in three different European countries: France, Greece and Italy. A conjoint experiment based on linear assumption was administered using price, production method, geographical indication and wine origin as product attributes. The conjoint data were analysed in three steps: performing a model with the whole sample; performing three models using national data to compare results between the countries; performing a cluster analysis using the Ward method to associate consumer characteristics with product attributes. Results show that origin is the most valued attribute for choosing wine, followed by the production method. Cross-country evaluation reveals several significant differences among the attributes of the production method, geographical indication and origin. The cluster analysis identified three groups named: High price and national wine seekers; Certification seekers and Price-sensitive seekers. This paper provides several implications for both academicians and enterprises. Indeed, it is the first evaluation comparing the role given by consumers to biodynamic certification in a cross-country evaluation. Several indications are also provided for producers who can help differentiate better wine production by earning a higher income.

Investigating students’ arguments with real-life functional situations throughout a sequence of collaborative activities

Recent years have seen increasing interest in providing students with opportunities for developing important argumentation skills in the mathematics classroom. Social interactions with peers to critique alternative ideas, justify arguments, and build consensus, have been found to promote deep thinking and meaningful development of concepts. In this study we explored 9<sup>th</sup>-grade students’ interactions during a sequence of specifically designed argumentation tasks on real-life functional situations to investigate the appropriateness of their arguments. Data were collected from the students’ written task responses, student reflections, small-group observations, individual interviews with the group members, and teacher interviews. Analysis of the level of appropriateness of the students’ individual and group written responses in each activity focused on three aspects: identifying variables, forming relations between them, and noticing contextual features of the real-life situation. We found evidence of students grappling with selecting two suitable variables and with conceptualizing the nature of their relation. It also appeared that aspects of the students’ social interactions played a role in students ignoring correct arguments and accepting incorrect arguments. We discuss implications for small-group argumentation and suggest avenues for future research.

FORMATION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY AS A PEDAGOGICAL PROBLEM

The relevance of the study of the problem of national identity is determined by the permanent, multidirectional socio-cultural changes that accompany the formation and development of the information society at both the global and local levels. These changes are caused by the effects of globalization, the development of information and telecommunication technologies, the intensification of cultural exchange and the dominance of mass culture.The article considers the formation of national identity of schoolchildren in the world space of out-of-school institutions as a pedagogical problem. The author reveals the multicomponent nature of national identity, which is represented by the constituent elements of the phenomenon of national identity.The article considers general theoretical approaches to the study of national identity as a multidimensional process of personality formation, which can be revealed through various aspects. It is argued that the formation of national identity of schoolchildren is based on the values of national culture and its cultural and historical foundation.The author identifies and describes the actual characteristics of the modern socio-cultural situation of schoolchildren’s development that determine the formation of their identity, identifies the components of national identity and presents the content and identification markers that are associated with the components and are the result of pedagogical influence in the educational process of an out-of-school institution.The article analyzes the phenomenon of national identity of an individual, based on a wide range of concepts of domestic and foreign researchers in the field of national identity theories.The need to include this category in the toolkit of pedagogical science is actualized. The author’s conceptual idea of the formation of national identity in the educational space of out-of-school institutions is schematically presented, its main elements are characterized. The article outlines a number of trends in the transformation of national identity in the information society.

Factors associated with encounter-specific police procedural justice perceptions among Dutch detainees

ABSTRACT Previous research on police procedural justice shows that observed assessments of police behaviour, for example through systematic social observation, are not strongly correlated with citizen perceptions of the same police behaviour. There is a growing body of knowledge about how people form their perceptions of police behaviour and how personal and situational characteristics are associated with specific judgements about procedural justice. However, we know little about how this works for people who most frequently interact with the police and criminal justice system, such as offenders or arrestees. The present study uses data from the Prison Project to examine to what extent individual and situational characteristics relate to perceptions of encounter-specific police procedural justice among Dutch detainees. Male adults in pre-trial detention (N = 1380) were surveyed on how they perceived procedural justice during their arrest, which occurred approximately three weeks prior. In addition to individual characteristics (demographics, attitudes, psychosocial characteristics and criminal history), we measured characteristics that reflect the situation during arrest, such as location, police verbal abuse and unnecessary use of force. This allowed us to examine the relationship between situational factors and detainee perceptions, net of individual characteristics. Regression analyses show that next to pre-existing general attitudes towards the police, several situational characteristics (i.e. perceptions of use of force and verbal abuse, anger and outcome fairness) were strongly associated with encounter-specific procedural justice perceptions. Our results indicate that, beyond (pre-existing) individual characteristics, situational factors of the arrest play an important role in forming specific procedural justice perceptions of the police.

Aircraft human‐machine interaction assistant design: A novel multimodal data processing and application framework

AbstractDuring aircraft operations, pilots rely on human‐machine interaction platforms to access essential information services. However, the development of a highly usable aerial assistant necessitates the incorporation of two interaction modes: active‐command and passive‐response modes, along with three input modes: voice inputs, situation inputs, and plan inputs. This research focuses on the design of an aircraft human‐machine interaction assistant (AHMIA), which serves as a multimodal data processing and application framework for human‐to‐machine interaction in a fully voice‐controlled manner. For the voice mode, a finetuned FunASR model is employed, leveraging private aeronautical datasets to enable specific aeronautical speech recognition. For the situation mode, a hierarchical situation events extraction model is proposed, facilitating the utilization of high‐level situational features. For the plan mode, a multi‐formations double‐code network plan diagram with a timeline is utilized to effectively represent plan information. Notably, to bridge the gap between human language and machine language, a hierarchical knowledge engine named process‐event‐condition‐order‐skill (PECOS) is introduced. PECOS provides three distinct products: the PECOS model, the PECOS state chart, and the PECOS knowledge description. Simulation results within the air confrontation scenario demonstrate that AHMIA enables active‐command and passive‐response interactions with pilots, thereby enhancing the overall interaction modality.

Suspect, Officer, and Situational Dynamics Underlying Violent Resistance Against Police: A Critical Interpretative Synthesis

ABSTRACT Assaults against police officers pose a significant challenge to law enforcement safety, yet the factors driving such violence remain complex and underexplored. This critical interpretative synthesis (CIS) is the first literature review to examine violent resistance from an interpretative perspective. By reviewing 38 studies from 2000 to 2024, identified through various methods, we develop a theoretical framework to better understand and contextualize factors linked to assaults against officers. Results indicate that certain suspect, officer, and situational characteristics are linked to violent resistance, both independently and through their interactions. These interactions between predictors help explain inconsistencies across studies. Additionally, we note a lack of diversity in how risk and protective factors of violent resistance have been studied. We suggest areas for future research and offer recommendations to inform police practices and improve officer safety.

Machine Learning Models Informed by Connected Mixture Components for Short- and Medium-Term Time Series Forecasting

This paper presents a new approach in the field of probability-informed machine learning (ML). It implies improving the results of ML algorithms and neural networks (NNs) by using probability models as a source of additional features in situations where it is impossible to increase the training datasets for various reasons. We introduce connected mixture components as a source of additional information that can be extracted from a mathematical model. These components are formed using probability mixture models and a special algorithm for merging parameters in the sliding window mode. This approach has been proven effective when applied to real-world time series data for short- and medium-term forecasting. In all cases, the models informed by the connected mixture components showed better results than those that did not use them, although different informed models may be effective for various datasets. The fundamental novelty of the research lies both in a new mathematical approach to informing ML models and in the demonstrated increase in forecasting accuracy in various applications. For geophysical spatiotemporal data, the decrease in Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) was up to 27.7%, and the reduction in Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) was up to 45.7% compared with ML models without probability informing. The best metrics values were obtained by an informed ensemble architecture that fuses the results of a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network and a transformer. The Mean Squared Error (MSE) for the electricity transformer oil temperature from the ETDataset had improved by up to 10.0% compared with vanilla methods. The best MSE value was obtained by informed random forest. The introduced probability-informed approach allows us to outperform the results of both transformer NN architectures and classical statistical and machine learning methods.

О ПРИОРИТЕТНЫХ НАПРАВЛЕНИЯХ И ЗАДАЧАХ МОДЕЛЬНОГО ЗАКОНОТВОРЧЕСТВА В ОРГАНИЗАЦИИ ДОГОВОРА О КОЛЛЕКТИВНОЙ БЕЗОПАСНОСТИ НА 2025–2030 гг.

Based on the analysis of the forecast characteristics of the military-political situation in the field of ensuring national and collective security of the member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, proposals for the development of model acts of the Collective Security Treaty Organization for 2026–2030 are formulated. The results of the analysis allowed the author to substantiate practical recommendations for improving the quality of information, scientific, methodological and expert-analytical support for model lawmaking in the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

Implementation Strategies Used to Reduce UEs in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Unplanned extubation (UE) is the premature or unintended removal of an artificial airway and can cause worse patient outcomes. Study objectives were to describe implementation strategies used to reduce UE in the Hospital for Sick Children neonatal ICU (NICU) and their influence on UE rates, and contributing factors and patient characteristics of infants who had an UE, and compare them between the biological sexes. We hypothesized that the boys would experience more UEs and worse outcomes compared to the girls. The single-center retrospective cohort study included all infants who experienced UE (2007-2019). Outcomes consisted of implementation reduction strategies developed by using the plan-do-study-act quality-improvement methodology and UE characteristics, including patient (eg, sex, length of stay) and unplanned extubation situation characteristics (eg, events and/or procedures, repeats). Five plan-do-study-act cycles were implemented. Analyses included text summaries of all strategies, and quantitative descriptive and comparative statistics. UE per 100 ventilator days decreased from 3.46 to 0.14. Key success factors included setting achievable goals; ensuring that strategies were evaluated and amended; maintaining consistency over the long-term; incorporating strategies in the NICU; having institutional support and validation; and having good communication. There were 302 UE in 257 infants, 141 boys (55%), average ± SD gestational age of 31 ± 6 weeks, and 31 (12%) had 45 repeated UEs. The only significant difference between the biological sexes was that more boys (129 [92%]) versus girls (94 [83%]) received the Hospital for Sick Children NICU endotracheal tube taping protocol (P = .030). The incidence of UE occurred in a 2-peaked pattern, highest for those < 32 weeks and ≥ 32 weeks of gestational age. Infants < 32 weeks of gestational age and with repeated UE had longer durations of invasive mechanical ventilation and length of stay. For infants <32 versus => 32 weeks gestational age, the median (interquartile range) duration of mechanical ventilation was 38 (16-77) d versus 6 (3-13) d and hospital length of stay 61 (30-100) d versus 16 (10-41) d. For infants with repeated versus no repeated unplanned extubations, duration of mechanical ventilation was 69 (26-125) d versus 13 (4-52) d and hospital length of stay 90 (39-137) d versus 32 (12-75) d. Detailed well-planned UE reduction strategies significantly reduced the rate of UEs with key factors of success identified. UE characteristics and infant morbidity did not differ between the biological sexes. Infants < 32 weeks of gestational age and with repeated UE had a longer duration of mechanical ventilation and length of stay.

Spacetime symmetry breaking on nongeodesic leaves and a new form of matter

We examine the permanent damage caused by the historical breakdown of full diffeomorphism invariance induced by a foliation. We focus on the case where the foliation is allowed to be nongeodesic after the interactions with the foliation switch off. Gravity and other forms of matter recover full diffeomorphism invariance only at the expense of introducing a new matterlike component, carrying the nonvanishing Hamiltonian (and momentum, as it turns out) left over from the violating past interactions. This matter form must be stress-free in the preferred frame; this is the only way a matter action can mimic the evolution of the leftover Hamiltonian (and momentum) driven by the Dirac hypersurface deformation algebra. Hence, if the preferred frame is nongeodesic, the equivalent matter component must have energy and a momentum current in this frame, but still no spatial stresses: an unusual form of “matter.” It is equivalent to a fluid with anisotropic stress in some regimes, reducing to dust in others, or even displaying completely new features in extreme situations. Its stress energy tensor is conserved. We provide two examples based on accelerated frames: Rindler space-time and the canonical Schwarzchild frame. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

From trait affect to situated performance of change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior: the pathway through situational construal and emotion utilization

Prior studies indicate that fostering change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB-CH) among employees, wherein they actively contribute to the collective welfare of modern organizations, correlates positively with their positive affect. However, the precise mechanisms linking trait positive affect with OCB-CH remain unclear. This study used aggregated 5-day daily diary data from a sample of 236 full-time employees in Greece to examine positive affectivity differences in the characteristics of situational experiences and how these differences relate to employee OCB-CH via the use of emotions to facilitate performance. Employing multilevel structural equation modeling, the findings revealed a positive association between trait positive affectivity and the situation characteristics of duty, intellect, and positivity, from the DIAMONDS taxonomy. Furthermore, it was determined that perceptions of situational characteristics and emotional utilization sequentially mediated the relationship between positive affectivity and OCB-CH. This study enhances our understanding of how employee trait positive affectivity influences the manifestation of positive change in the form of OCB-CH within organizations.