Distinct Concepts Research Articles

Baseline and Rest: A Need for Conceptual Clarity When Measuring Parasympathetic Reactivity and Recovery

ABSTRACTParasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity has widespread research applications but poses measurement challenges due to its high sensitivity to environmental conditions and immediate demands. While standardised methods exist for measuring PNS reactivity and recovery in response to stressors, the selection of appropriate baseline and resting states is often overlooked. This commentary argues that a clearer conceptual distinction between baseline, a research construct for comparing values, and rest, a psychophysiological state of low arousal and cognitive engagement, is crucial for data interpretation. This includes a need for explicitly justifying baseline conditions in relation to research goals and validating rest conditions. By improving the clarity and rigour of baseline and rest, researchers can enhance the interpretability of PNS reactivity and recovery measures, supporting integration of research findings across studies.

A lesson for us all: the Hodgkin-Keynes long pore model of ion flux.

In this article we analyze the classic Hodgkin and Keynes 1955 paper describing investigations of the independence principle, with the expectation that there is much students and educators can learn from such exercises, most notably how the authors applied their diverse skill set to tackling the numerous obstacles that the study presented. The paper encompasses three of the physiology core concepts, cell membranes, flow down gradients, and scientific reasoning, which were recently assigned to the classes The Biological World, The Physical World, and Ways of Looking at the World, respectively. Thus, analysis of such a paper illuminates the relationships that exist between distinct concepts and encourages a holistic approach to understanding physiology. In-depth analysis of the paper allows us to follow the authors' thought processes from their realization that previous methods lacked the resolution to answer a fundamental question relating to ion movement across membranes to the application of a more sensitive technique and ultimately the development of a novel model describing ion flux. This paper was the culmination of work started in the mid-1930s, strongly supported the ionic theory of nervous conduction proposed by Hodgkin and Huxley, and predicted the presence of ion channels as narrow pores through which ions move sequentially four decades before these features were convincingly demonstrated.NEW & NOTEWORTHY We describe in detail Hodgkin and Keynes' investigation of the independence principle. It is our expectation that students and educators can benefit from following the thought processes applied by the authors as they navigated the complexities of experimental design and data analysis, culminating in development of a model whose elegant simplicity was convincing evidence of narrow membrane-bound pores, ion channels, that were the conduit for transmembrane ion movement.

Health and Well-Being: Distinct and Intertwined Concepts.

The concepts of health and well-being are deeply intertwined and interdependent. Situating both health and well-being within a unified framework is important to ensure their inclusion in the full spectrum of health research and to achieve the crucial task of building a body of basic, translational, and clinical studies to guide the implementation of whole-person health care. This commentary proposes such a framework where an individual's own assessment of their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being complements objective measures of their physical and psychological function and where social, environmental, economic, educational, and vocational well-being are located within positive determinants of health.

Distinguishing Between Lactation Failure and Breastfeeding Cessation: A Scoping Review.

Background: Interchangeable terminology and definitions of breastfeeding difficulties may inadvertently influence premature cessation of breastfeeding. Lactation failure is a distinct concept from breastfeeding cessation, and it is vital to differentiate between them, especially in educating health care professionals in communicating and supporting mothers perinatally. Purpose: Comprehensively review varying terminology and definitions, providing a more nuanced understanding of lactation failure versus breastfeeding cessation, and highlighting physiological and social, emotional, mental, and commercial factors that influence breastfeeding outcomes. Method: A scoping review of published literature from medical and scientific databases such as MEDLINE (via PubMed), Scopus, and Web of Science from 2000 to 2023. Results: N = 476 publications were collected during the identification phase; N = 49 from 28 countries around the world met the inclusion criteria and were used in the review. Only N = 13 studies ventured definitions for the terms used. Factors affecting breastfeeding were categorized as physiological leading to lactation failure and distinguished from social, mental, emotional, or commercial factors leading to breastfeeding cessation. Recommendations and Conclusions: Understanding the complexity of the factors underlying lactation failure and breastfeeding cessation can be improved by delineating the terminology and definitions variations used to communicate, provide awareness, education, design and delivery of interventions and support for initiation, and continuation of breastfeeding. Further in-depth research and analysis of the complex issues and factors influencing breastfeeding practices is required.

Conceptions Towards Early Academic Studies in Computer Science: Focusing on Students, Lecturers, and Parents

The goal of this study was to identify conceptions towards early academic studies in computer science. We focus on a program which offers high school students the unique opportunity to earn a B.Sc. degree in parallel to their studies, resulting in them holding a prestigious degree at an early age. Activity theory framed the design of this study. Fifteen voluntary participants representing three distinct research groups participated in this study: students, parents, and lecturers. The data were collected using a qualitative research paradigm through semi-structured interviews. The findings demonstrated that the research groups mostly held distinctive conceptions. Little similarity may be detected. We argue that high school students are more likely to succeed in early academic programs when they have a rigorous curriculum, an on-staff educational consultant, and lessons that are exclusively attended by other students in their peer group. These types of programs, in our opinion, are well positioned to develop exceptional and gifted individuals’ educational potential.

The crucial role of risk factors when dealing with hepatic Encephalopathy.

Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a common condition in patients with cirrhosis, representing the second most frequent cause of decompensation. Approximately 30-40% of patients with cirrhosis will experience overt HE during the clinical course of their illness. In most cases, it is possible to identify a precipitating or risk factor for HE. These are distinct concepts that play different roles in the development of this condition. While precipitating factors act acutely, risk factors are generally present over an extended period and contribute to the overall likelihood of developing HE. The two types of factors require different approaches, with risk factors being more susceptible to prevention. The aim of this review is to describe the most important risk factors (such as severity of liver disease, previous episode of HE, minimal/covert HE, spontaneous and iatrogenic shunt, malnutrition, chronic therapies, metabolic diseases) for the development of HE and how to prevent it.

Sustainability as an emerging mandate in higher education

ABSTRACT Universities worldwide have recently made commitments to advancing sustainability and sustainable development. However, much of the literature on higher education for sustainable development (HESD) is practice-oriented or prescriptive. This article seeks to explain how and why universities are framing their sustainability commitments. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with sustainability professionals at 33 universities in 19 countries, we find two overarching discursive rationales for university engagement with sustainability, which also shape their views on sustainability rankings and assessments: 1) sustainability as an internally oriented organising principle that shapes approaches to campus-based activities and 2) sustainability as part of an externally oriented stance, namely a broader international orientation linked to recognition and solving global problems. Drawing on sociological concepts of legitimacy and distinction, we argue that visible commitments to sustainability support universities’ claims to both moral and cognitive legitimacy, and global status, while also opening them up to criticism over authenticity and greenwashing.

Three aspects of Kantian Autonomy: Independence, Self-Determination and Citizenship

In the Groundwork, we find three distinct conceptions of freedom: (i) A negative conception of freedom, understood as a capacity for spontaneous action independent of alien causes; (ii) a positive conception of freedom, understood as the capacity of giving law to oneself; and (iii) a second positive conception, understood as the capacity to give laws that bind others as well as oneself. The dominant interpretation of Kant ignores this third conception of freedom and interprets the second conception as a capacity for self-determination or self-governance, which is seen as the most basic and important Kantian conception of autonomy. In this paper, we will focus mainly on explaining the distinction between the second and third conceptions of autonomy and will defend the claim that the third conception is morally the most basic. We will also explain briefly why Kant thinks that having the capacity for citizenship is necessary for having the capacity for self-governance.

Dressing vs. Fixing: On How to Extract and Interpret Gauge-Invariant Content

There is solid consensus among physicists and philosophers that, in gauge field theory, for a quantity to be physically meaningful or real, it must be gauge-invariant. Yet, every “elementary” field in the Standard Model of particle physics is actually gauge-variant. This has led a number of researchers to insist that new manifestly gauge-invariant approaches must be established. Indeed, in the foundational literature, dissatisfaction with standard methods for reducing gauge symmetries has been expressed: Spontaneous symmetry breaking is deemed conceptually dubious, while gauge fixing suffers the same limitations and is subject to the same criticisms as coordinate choices in General Relativity. An alternative gauge-invariant proposal was recently introduced in the literature, the so-called “dressing field method” (DFM). It is a mathematically subtle tool, and unfortunately prone to be confused with simple gauge transformations, hence with standard gauge fixings. As a matter of fact, in the physics literature the two are often conflated, and in the philosophy community some doubts have been raised about whether there is any substantial difference between them. Clarifying this issue is of special significance for anyone interested in both the foundational issues of gauge theories and their invariant formulation. It is thus our objective to establish as precisely as possible the technical and conceptual distinctions between the DFM and gauge fixing.

Are solidarity and identification as people of color distinct? Validating new measures across Asian, Black, Latino, and Multiracial Americans

Abstract Mounting U.S. research suggests many non-White individuals feel solidarity with, and identify as, people of color (PoC). Yet measurement limitations prevent scholars from testing whether these constructs are empirically different. We explain why these concepts diverge and evaluate our claims with an expanded battery of measures across U.S. Asian, Black, Latino, and Multiracial adults (N = 3402). Using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, we show these items capture related but distinct concepts among PoC (configural invariance). We then establish that these items uniformly measure each construct across PoC groups (metric invariance), with mean level differences validly reflecting actual heterogeneity between groups, rather than measurement artifacts (scalar invariance). Finally, consistent with our conceptualization, we show that solidarity among PoC mediates the association between PoC identification and support for policies that implicate various communities of color. We end with practical advice for using these items in surveys of racially diverse populations.

INTRODUCTION: Forms of cultural enclosure

This special issue, developed from papers originally presented at the “Cultural Enclosure and Literary Form” conference at the University of Oxford in September 2022, explores the phenomenon of “cultural enclosure”: the commodification of culture via tourism, ethnic marketing, cultural property patents, and other cultural industries. It does so by bringing together two distinct concepts of “enclosure”: the appropriation of the commons and the formal framing strategies that produce impressions of totality and internal coherence. Moreover, it does so with a focus on postcoloniality: that is, on how the narratives, artworks, and institutions under study are implicated in experiences of colonization and its aftermath. Given “culture's” supposed status as the “possessing possession” (Said 1991, 9) – as precisely inalienable from specific places and persons – how does culture enclosure take place and how is it imaginatively framed by its agents? What concepts of “culture” are being mobilized in cultural enclosure projects? Is it better to speak of the dispossession of culture or the alienating forced performance of culture – or both? How is cultural enclosure represented in literary texts and artworks, and how does it, in turn, shape their existence? The articles collected in this issue take up the challenge of analysing “enclosure” at multiple levels of analysis, examining how literary texts, artworks, and institutions deploy formal enclosing strategies to engage concepts of culture, and cultural enclosure, while also revealing how these engagements may contradict, for instance, the ideas of represented characters, or real-world publishers.

Sovereignism as a product of crises: a comparative analysis of German and Spanish parties and their use of sovereignist claims

ABSTRACT Sovereignism is frequently considered as an important phenomenon in political science but barely studied on its own. This paper understands sovereignism as a distinct concept and explores sovereignist claims comparing two different political systems. It addresses the yet-to-be-discovered link between crises and increase (or stagnancy/decrease) in the adoption of sovereignist claims by political parties. Following a framing approach, we examine the euro, migration and COVID-19 crises to capture how these crises were used by German and Spanish parties to shape sovereignist claims. The analysis confirms that these three crises facilitated discursive opportunities for an increased use of sovereignist claims. Although newly emerged radical parties are identified as the main discursive entrepreneurs, mainstream parties also accommodate the sovereignist discourse under certain conditions. This paper makes an important contribution to studies on sovereignism offering an analytical framework as well as fresh insights on the conditions for the adoption of sovereignism.

Abstract 4126463: The Relationship Between Hope and Hopelessness in Adults with an Acute Cardiac Event

Introduction: Hope has been positively associated with behavior change in individuals screened for cardiovascular risk, and negatively associated with fatal ischemic heart disease (IHD). Hopelessness is associated with increased risk of mortality or nonfatal myocardial infarction in patients with IHD, and negatively associated with physical activity outcomes. Hope and hopelessness are sometimes considered to be ends of a continuum, yet the relationship between hope and hopelessness is not commonly examined in IHD patients. Aim: To determine the relationship between the State-Trait Hopelessness Scale (STHS) and Snyder Adult State and Adult Trait Hope Scales in a sample of patients with IHD. Hypotheses: 1) There would be an inverse relationship between hopelessness and hope as measured by the scales and 2) discriminant validity of the instruments would be confirmed. Methods: A total of 156 participants were enrolled as part of a 3-group randomized controlled trial testing an intervention to promote physical activity and reduce hopelessness. Data were collected two weeks after hospital discharge. Correlations and partial correlations were computed for all combinations of scales. Principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted on hope and hopelessness scales. Results: A total of 106 participants (68%) had moderate or high trait hope, and 92 (59%) had moderate or high state. Moderate or severe hopelessness was reported by 93 participants (59.6%) for state hopelessness and 108 participants (69.2%) for trait. There were moderately strong negative correlations (r=-0.54 to -0.66, p=<0.001) between the total STHS and the Snyder Hope scales for both full and short versions of the STHS. Correlations were virtually unchanged when adjusted for age, sex, cardiac diagnosis, and marital status (r=-0.5 to -0.63, p<0.001) indicating that as hopelessness increases, hope decreases. PCA revealed 4 factors that explained 64.7% of the variance in scores while demonstrating conceptual distinctions between the STHS and Snyder Hope scales. Conclusions: As hypothesized, as hopelessness increased, hope decreased; however, we found a proportion of patients with hopelessness who still expressed hope for the future. Discriminant validity was supported by inverse correlations and factor analyses indicating conceptual distinctions between the two instruments. Interventions to reduce hopelessness for patients with IHD may be successful since hope and hopelessness are not mutually exclusive.

Three Modalities of the Italian Memory of Fascism: Cronache di poveri amanti, La casa in collina, Tempo di uccidere, and the Issue of Responsibility

This article examines the moral and political questions raised by Fascism through an analysis of three canonical postwar Italian novels: Vasco Pratolini’s Cronache di poveri amanti, Cesare Pavese’s La casa in collina, and Ennio Flaiano’s Tempo di uccidere. By exploring the specific memory of Fascism that these texts create, the article shows that their different approaches to the past depend on distinct conceptualizations of responsibility, which are defined as “antagonistic,” “multiperspectival-but-restricted,” and “perpetrator-centered.” Pratolini’s novel condemns the regime and portrays ordinary Italians as resistant to the fascist regime. Pavese’s work offers a more nuanced, multiperspectival approach, yet limits its ethical reflection to the Italian Civil War, leaving other crucial aspects of fascist history unaddressed. In contrast, Flaiano’s Tempo di uccidere foregrounds a memory centered on both individual guilt and collective responsibility for fascist and colonial crimes. The article argues that the modalities informing Pratolini’s and Pavese’s works are related to approaches to the fascist past that dominated Italian collective memory in the 1960s and early 2000s, while the mnemonic modality of Flaiano’s novel has been largely subordinate in Italian memory culture. Through this comparative literary analysis, the article challenges existing interpretations of these canonical works, and it underscores the role of postwar literature in shaping diverse memories of Fascism.

Unveiling the intersection of technology and pedagogy: a domain-specific exploration for developing religious moderation content with an exploratory and Rasch Perspective

ABSTRACT The primary aim of this study was to investigate the construct validity of a survey focussing on the use of technology and teaching techniques to promote religious moderation, employing exploratory factor analysis (EFA). A total of 116 educators, who teach character development courses, were recruited to participate in the study. The developed instrument is based on the Technology Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework and has been validated through expert and cognitive interviews with religious education lecturers. The study’s results demonstrate that participants were able to discern conceptual distinctions between TPACK domains. Four factors were identified: TPACK, Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Technological Knowledge (TK), and Pedagogical Knowledge (PK). TPACK encompasses both Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK) and Technological Content Knowledge (TCK), while PCK includes Content Knowledge (CK). Additionally, Rasch statistical analysis was employed to determine that the instrument measures a single latent variable, namely religiously moderated TPACK, with high reliability based on the fit of the scale to the Rasch model. The statistical data from the EFA and Rasch analyses suggest that this survey can serve as a valuable tool for researchers and educators interested in exploring TPACK within the context of religious moderation.

Toward a Conceptual Model of Academic Translation Competence

ABSTRACTDifferent cultures have distinct conceptions of knowledge and ways of defining, generating and communicating knowledge. Therefore, multilingualism in academia has been shown to be instrumental in preserving the various systems of knowledge, equality of opportunity in science and enhancing the international competitiveness of scholars whose native language is not the lingua franca. The actors of translation and the strategies they work with (domestication and foreignisation) play a unique role in this, as their decisions may foster or hinder linguistic and epistemic diversity. Despite its pronounced significance, however, relatively little is known about the stereotypical competences required for academic translation. As translation in science is not merely a philological issue, this conceptual study follows a consilient approach and integrates the outcomes of research from several disciplines and research perspectives to propose a theory‐based, multi‐componential model of academic translation competence as a macrocompetence. Based on the model, a conceptual definition of the construct of academic translation competence is provided to identify what exactly is to be observed and measured for its study and to generate preliminary hypotheses related to the construct. The study has implications not only for the theory, practice and training of academic translation but also for the disciplinary training of researchers.

Partial colexifications reveal directional tendencies in object naming

Abstract Expressions in which the word for a body part is also used for objects can be found in many languages. Some languages use body part terms to refer to object parts, while others have only a few idiosyncratic examples in their vocabulary. Studying the word forms referring to body and object concepts, i.e., colexifications, across languages, offers insights into cognitive principles facilitating such usage. Previous studies focused on full colexifications in which the same word form expresses two distinct concepts. Here, we utilize a new approach that allows us to analyze partial colexifications in which a concept is built out of the word forms for two separate concepts, like river mouth. Based on a large lexical database, we identified body and object concepts and analyzed 39 colexifications across 329 languages. The results show that word forms for body concepts are used slightly more frequently as a source for object names. However, the detailed examination of directional tendencies and colexifications of word forms between body and object concepts reveals linguistic variation. The study sheds light on meaning extensions between two concrete domains and showcases the synergies that arise through the combination of existing data and methods.

The Divine Game Versus the Demonic Game

In Difference and Repetition1 Deleuze sets out to critique the regime of representation and common sense by developing a new conception of difference and repetition in which difference and repetition become liberated from the coherence and continuity of a self or I.2 Difference in itself means that difference has become independent not only from representation, but also from an enduring or coherent self. Difference in itself and repetition in itself are the becoming different and the repetition of a fractured or dissolved self, which Deleuze relates to both a larval subject3 and to a simulacrum.4 In Difference and Repetition Deleuze defines both the concepts of larval subject and simulacrum through the multiplicities and differential relations of the realm of the virtual.5 However, they are not the same. A simulacrum defines a condition in which an entity has become transformed into pure appearance in which nothing appears. A simulacrum is no longer an entity, but only the illusion of an entity.6 This is distinct from the larval subject because the larval subject is an embryonic entity, an entity in the process of formation.7 Through an analysis of the conceptual relation and distinction between larval subject and simulacrum in the first part of the essay, I will reinterpret Deleuze as a philosopher of indifference and the impossibility of repetition, which is a critique on the common idea that Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition is a philosophy of pure difference and pure repetition. Also, I will argue that Deleuze did not just develop a transcendental empiricism (a metaphysics of process), but a philosophy of the universal in itself (which is the collapse of metaphysics). The universal in itself emerges when experience collapses and when the self-determination of entities has become impossible.

News dissemination: a semantic approach to barrier classification

AbstractThe dissemination of information worldwide is significantly facilitated by the news media, with many events having global relevance across various regions. However, certain news events receive limited coverage restricted to specific geographic areas, due to the barriers that hinder the spread of information. These barriers can be attributed to political, geographical, economic, cultural, or linguistic factors. In this research, we propose an approach for classifying these barriers by extracting semantic information from news articles using Wikipedia-concepts. Our methodology involves the collection of news articles, each annotated to indicate the specific barrier types, leveraging metadata from news publishers. Subsequently, we employ Wikipedia-concepts, in conjunction with the content of the news articles, as features to determine the barriers to news dissemination. Our approach is then compared with traditional text classification techniques, deep learning methods, and transformer-based models. We have performed experiments on news articles from ten categories of topics including health, sports, business, etc. The findings indicate that 1) Utilizing semantic knowledge yields distinct concepts across the ten categories, thereby enhancing the effectiveness and speed of the classification model. 2) The proposed approach, incorporating Wikipedia-concepts-based semantic knowledge, leads to improved performance in barrier classification when compared to using solely the body text of news articles. Specifically, there is an increase in the average F1-scores for four out of five barriers, with the economic barrier rising from 0.65 to 0.68, the linguistic barrier from 0.71 to 0.72, the political barrier from 0.68 to 0.70, and the geographical barrier from 0.63 to 0.68.

“China” and the Emergence of Religious Toleration in Enlightenment Philosophers, Part I: The Early Jesuit Mission and Bayle's Conception of “Reciprocal Toleration”

“China” and the Emergence of Religious Toleration in Enlightenment Philosophers, Part I: The Early Jesuit Mission and Bayle's Conception of “Reciprocal Toleration”