Current Theories Research Articles

Learning to Read and Developmental Dyslexia in Hebrew

AbstractThe study of Hebrew, a non‐European language written in a non‐alphabetic (abjadic) script offers valuable insights into the science of reading beyond the well‐studied alphabetic scripts. Because reading development in Hebrew is shaped by the uniquely Semitic root‐and‐pattern morphology and the abjadic (predominantly consonantal) orthography, our review begins by providing some basic information about the Hebrew language and its writing system. We then outline the developmental phases through which the developing Hebrew reader progresses, as proposed in Share and Bar‐On's Triplex Model, and the central role of phonological and morphological awareness. Finally, we review the research literature on developmental dyslexia in Hebrew within the context of current theories on the underlying perceptual/neurobiological basis of dyslexia (e.g., temporal processing, magnocellular deficits, visual attention span etc.). Here, we draw attention to the problems of comorbidity and the need to go beyond the conventional “whole‐group” approach and address the issue of heterogeneity and subtypes.

Clozapine and Pneumonia: Synthesizing the Link by Reviewing Existing Reports—A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background and Objectives: Clozapine is a highly effective antipsychotic used for treating treatment-refractory psychotic and mood disorders. However, clozapine also has a serious risk of side effects leading to mortality, particularly its potentiated risk of leading to pneumonia. This review aims to overview the demographic and health-related risk factors leading to pneumonia to better inform risk assessment for clozapine users and to summarise current theories on the mechanisms for clozapine-associated pneumonia. This paper will highlight the need to prioritise pneumococcal vaccination in this population group. Materials and Method: We conducted a literary search of five online databases conforming to PRISMA. Our review includes all peer-reviewed papers with original data that discuss clozapine and pneumonia and excludes case reports. Baseline information of participants, pneumonia-related information and information regarding risk factors and mechanisms causing pneumonia were also extracted. Results: Clozapine was found to have an increased risk of pneumonia compared to other antipsychotic medications. Factors included comorbidities, higher clozapine dosages, and concurrent use of other antipsychotic medications. Key mechanisms for clozapine-associated pneumonia include clozapine-induced hyper sedation, sialorrhea and neutropoenia. Conclusions: While clozapine improves overall mortality for patients, our review confirms clozapine has the highest risk of pneumonia of all antipsychotics. The review also highlights the prevalent underuse of pneumococcal vaccines among clozapine users and the urgent need to increase uptake.

The Relevance of Source Credibility Theory on Purchase Intention in the Field the of Marketing: A Systematic Literature Review

Purpose: the purpose of this paper is to explore the current stage of knowledge on the theory of source credibility and analyse the usage of the source credibility theory to learn about customer purchase intention in the marketing field. This paper analyses to what extent and in what ways source credibility theory and the concept of source credibility are used to learn about customer purchase intention. Further, we know that the theory can further be extended or added to the current theory by adding the concept of receiver credibility and messenger credibility to know about credibility and its impact on purchase intention. Design/Methodology/Approach: A systematic literature review is used to identify helpful research articles from 3 major databases i.e. SCOPUS, APA Psyc Articles, and EBSCO. 20 journal articles are extracted after a careful review of 143 articles through the systematic review process of PRISMA. Findings: The conceptual model design defines purchase intention as the credibility of three sources, i.e., source credibility, message credibility, and receiver credibility. The source's credibility is further dependent on expertise, trustworthiness and attractiveness. In contrast, message credibility is majorly defined with the help of argument quality and completeness, and receiver credibility can be defined through the receiver's attitude, emotional attachment and social influence. Originality/value: the study will help understand source credibility theory and how source credibility helps influence customer purchase intentions. This will help marketers in product development or servicing design, enhancing customer purchase intention by triggering source credibility.

Neuropedagogical Guidelines for Translation Studies: Perceiving the Linguistic-Cultural Markers of the Other (Foreign) in Translation

This article highlights the need for a neuropedagogical approach to exploring the “self-other” category in current translation theories and practices, especially concerning sensitive linguo-cultural elements (e.g., non-equivalent vocabulary, cultural gaps, linguo-cultural semes, concepts and connotations). The relevance of the article stems from the growing accessibility of neuroscientific tools that can address translation and educational challenges characterized by high interlingual entropy, ambiguity, limited intercultural and linguistic awareness, and the issues of bilingualism within the context of post-cultural consciousness. Consequently, the article aims to identify the neuropsychological phenomenon of the “other” and its relation to translation, viewed as a discourse transformation along the self-other (foreign) continuum. The primary goal is to observe future translators’ spontaneous reactions to linguistic-cultural units with pronounced “other” semantics and provide neuropedagogical recommendations to manage the educational process and foster future translators’ deontological awareness of otherness. The research combines standard methods, such as analysis, comparison and generalization, with semantic analysis, cultural reflection and the recording of facial and emotional responses, interpreted by students and experts. Educational modelling has been the final method in a quasi-experimental study with 78 future translators. The main outcome of the article is a concise summary of typical, potentially destructive neuro-reactions, their impact on the translation process and practical educational insights and advice. The theoretical contribution of the article involves integrating neuropedagogical perspectives into the philosophical and methodical aspects of translation. The article proves that translators’ neuro-reactivity is a fundamental challenge in establishing professional ethics, particularly within the cultural and identity-related dimensions that comprise individual and collective consciousness.

Event Structure and Non-Culminating Readings in Turkic

Since the seminal work by David Dowty, much inspired by the earlier ideas of Generative Semantics, a number of proposals have been developed accounting for the internal constitution and interpretation of accomplishment event predicates like ‘open the door’ or ‘break the window’. Current theories of accomplishment event structure vary along a number of dimensions, including the subevental makeup of accomplishments and semantic relations connecting components of a complex eventuality description. The goal of this paper is twofold. First, I take into account evidence from non-culminating readings of accomplishment predicates in Turkic languages and argue that this evidence supports the following generalizations about the structure and interpretation of accomplishments: (i) the activity subevent is to be represented independently from the change of state; (ii) different accomplishment predicates constrain the relation between subevents in different ways; (iii) accomplishments differ as to the internal constitution of the activity subevent. Second, I will suggest that restrictions on non-culminating readings observed with different types of accomplishments support a specific view of how non-culminating accomplishments are derived. I will propose that at least in languages like Turkic, a necessary condition for non-culminating predicates is as follows: the activity component of a complex eventuality description has to have temporal parts that make no substantial contribution into bringing the culmination about. What I will say about Turkic does not presuppose that all non-culmination phenomena cross-linguistically warrant a uniform analysis. Even though the Turkic pattern shows strict semantic parallelism in other languages, it is not unlikely that there is more than one way in which non-culminating accomplishments can be derived. But whether a variety of other cases discussed in the literature reduce to the same pattern is a separate empirical question I am not trying to answer. The paper is organized as follows. In Section one, I introduce relevant material from three Turkic languages, Karachay–Balkar, Chuvash, and Tuba Altai, and observe that accomplishments in these languages fall into three types. Some yield the failed attempt interpretation, others the partial success interpretation, yet others do not license non-culminating readings at all. Section two argues for a decompositional analysis of the accomplishment event structure, whereby activity and change of state subevents are kept representationally distinct. Two types of relations between these components of the accomplishment structure are identified; the failed attempt and partial success readings are reduced to the properties of these relations. Section three approaches the problem of why non-culminating interpretations are available for some but not for all accomplishments. It reviews a recent theory suggesting that the (un)availability of non-culminating readings is accounted for by the unique temporal arrangement of contextually salient subevents of the activity component, either lexically or contextually entailed. The concluding subsection of Section three presents a number of problematic cases for this view. Section four outlines an alternative to the unique temporal arrangement. It argues that non-culminating accomplishments describe a proper non-final part e of the activity component of an event description such that the distance to the culmination between the initial and final bounds of e is insignificant in the current context. This approach makes more accurate predictions about the attested distribution of non-culminating interpretations and successfully avoids the complications associated with the unique temporal arrangement hypothesis. After making the notion of distance to the culmination more formally explicit, in the concluding section I address a few related issues concerning the eventuality type of non-culminating accomplishments and their interaction with aspectual operators.

Self-other distinction modulates the sense of self-agency during joint actions

In daily life interactions, we achieve goals with partners through tight temporal coordination or sequential joint efforts. Is our individual sense of control over shared outcomes (sense of self-agency) the same as the one experienced when we act alone? Do we explicitly and implicitly feel like we are fully in control of the motor act even if the goal is finally achieved by our partner? To address these questions, we measured explicit and implicit sense of self-agency in individual and (coordinated or sequential) interactive contexts. We studied 42 healthy adult participants during active/passive button presses aimed at turning on a light bulb. This goal could be achieved individually (Solo condition) or by interacting with a partner (Joint condition) synchronously (joint Coordination task) or sequentially (joint Sequential task). We collected trial-by-trial explicit judgments of self-agency. To quantify the intentional binding phenomenon, an index of implicit sense of agency, we also measured the perceived compression of the time interval between the active or passive movements and their outcomes. Explicit sense of agency: we observed decreased judgments of self-agency in Joint trials compared with the Solo ones in both the Coordination and Sequential tasks. Implicit sense of agency: in the Coordination task, we found a significant intentional binding effect only in Solo trials but not in Joint ones. For the Sequential task, however, a significant intentional binding was also present in the Joint condition. Our results indicate that the individual sense of agency is reduced during joint actions, yet this can be restored at an implicit level when the format of the motor interaction makes the individual contribution to goal achievement more obvious. We discuss these results considering current cognitive theories on motor awareness and interactions.

The emergence of nonlinear evolutionary trade-offs and the maintenance of genetic polymorphisms.

Evolutionary models of quantitative traits often assume trade-offs between beneficial and detrimental traits, requiring modellers to specify a function linking trait values. The choice of trade-off function can be consequential; functions that assume diminishing returns (accelerating costs) typically lead to single equilibrium genotypes, while decelerating costs often lead to genetic polymorphisms. Despite their importance, our current theory has little to say on which trade-off functions are the most biologically plausible. To address this gap, we explored how the genetic determination of quantitative traits can lead to different trade-off functions, using resistance to infectious diseases as an example trait. We developed a model where alleles at separate loci pleiotropically increase resistance while decreasing fecundity. We then used this model to generate genotype landscapes and investigate how epistasis effects the trade-off function. Regardless of the strength of epistasis, our model consistently led to accelerating costs. We then incorporated our genotype model into an eco-evolutionary model of disease resistance. Unlike other models with accelerating costs, our approach often led to genetic polymorphisms. Our results suggest that accelerating costs are a strong null model for evolutionary trade-offs and that the eco-evolutionary conditions required for polymorphism may be more nuanced than previously thought.

When Invariant Representation Learning Meets Label Shift: Insufficiency and Theoretical Insights.

As a crucial step toward real-world learning scenarios with changing environments, dataset shift theory and invariant representation learning algorithm have been extensively studied to relax the identical distribution assumption in classical learning setting. Among the different assumptions on the essential of shifting distributions, generalized label shift (GLS) is the latest developed one which shows great potential to deal with the complex factors within the shift. In this paper, we aim to explore the limitations of current dataset shift theory and algorithm, and further provide new insights by presenting a comprehensive understanding of GLS. From theoretical aspect, two informative generalization bounds are derived, and the GLS learner are proved to be sufficiently close to optimal target model from the Bayesian perspective. The main results show the insufficiency of invariant representation learning, and prove the sufficiency and necessity of GLS correction for generalization, which provide theoretical supports and innovations for exploring generalizable model under dataset shift. From methodological aspect, we provide a unified view of existing shift correction frameworks, and propose a kernel embedding-based correction algorithm (KECA) to minimize the generalization error and achieve successful knowledge transfer. Both theoretical results and extensive experiment evaluations demonstrate the sufficiency and necessity of GLS correction for addressing dataset shift and the superiority of proposed algorithm.

Burying beetles as a model organism to study sex differences in parental care

AbstractIn species where both sexes care for offspring, one parent—generally the female—typically provides more care than the other. While current theory offers broad predictions on the evolution of sex differences in parental care, it remains unclear whether ecological factors, such as short-term environmental variation and the intrinsic state of parents, also influence the size of existing asymmetries between parents. Here, I highlight how recent work on burying beetles (Nicrophorus sp.), a now well-established taxon to study biparental care, has contributed to research on sex differences in parenting. Although female burying beetles provide more care than males, the extent of this asymmetry is context-dependent as each sex constantly readjusts care depending on the surrounding environment and own state. Nevertheless, despite variation in the magnitude of the sex differences, there are still clear patterns of care specific to each species, highlighting the importance of the evolutionary history. Finally, the presence of sex differences presumably has consequences for the efficiency of parental care and can affect offspring performance. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the life-history and environmental conditions driving sex differences in parenting, we need more natural history research on the less commonly studied Nicrophorus species and more work examining behavioural responses to rapid environmental changes in all taxa. Addressing these gaps will contribute to our understanding of how sexual conflict over care is resolved and how biparental cooperation persists despite asymmetries between caring parents.

Influence of porosity distribution on buckling behavior of FG sandwich plates using a quasi-3D refined plate theory

This paper uses a quasi-3D refined shear deformation plate theory to investigate the buckling response of supported functionally graded (FG) porous sandwich (SW) plates. The material properties of FG sandwich porous plates (SWPPs) are defined by a modified mixing rule, supplemented by an additional term representing the porosity in the thickness of the FG layer. By incorporating indefinite integral variables, the number of unknowns and governing equations of the current theory is reduced, making it easier to use. Three common types of sandwich porous plates are considered in the analysis: an isotropic FG porous plate, an FG face plate with a homogeneous core, and a homogeneous face plate with an FG core. The current method considers both normal and shear deformations and satisfies the transverse shear stress-free boundary conditions at the top and bottom surfaces of the plate. The equilibrium equations are derived using the principle of virtual displacements. These equations are then solved using the Navier-type method. The influence of thickness strain and several parameters, including mechanical loads, porosity coefficients, layer thickness ratios, geometric parameters, and gradient indices, are studied. The numerical results of the present theory are similar to the predictions of quasi-3D theories with more unknowns, in addition to being more accurate than those obtained by higher-order shear deformation theories. The findings support the idea that the suggested theory offers an easy and effective method for predicting the buckling behavior of FG porous sandwich plates. The results show that, without taking into account transverse normal deformations, the plate is softer and the critical buckling load decreases. On the other hand, with transverse normal deformations, the plate is stiffer, which increases the critical buckling load.

Understanding the liminal situation of lone‐parent and blended families—A review and agenda for work–family research

AbstractThis review takes a transdisciplinary approach to work–family (WF) research, offering new perspectives on different family forms in the context of employment. It focuses on lone‐parents and blended families, highlighting how management research on the WF interface has been constrained by traditional definitions of ‘family’, assuming intact couple relationships. The review shows that the WF experiences of lone‐parents and blended families differ significantly from those of traditional or nuclear families. Our findings demonstrate that blended and lone‐parent families struggle with conventional WF policies based on traditional family forms. These families face four main challenges: (1) complex residential arrangements and relationships with co‐parents; (2) managing (limited) resources; (3) navigating stigma; and (4) narrow cultural scripts defining family roles. Utilizing cross‐domain identity transition theory, we question the traditional ideas at the core of current WF theory. We demonstrate that non‐traditional families occupy a ‘liminal’ WF space due to their more fluid parental, occupational and household identities compared to traditional families. We urge employers and policy makers to recognize and address the distinct WF challenges faced by lone‐parents and blended families. Employers should develop flexible working policies that accommodate complex residential arrangements and provide resources to support lone and blended family structures. Policy makers should consider revising family leave policies to be more inclusive of diverse family forms. Future research should further explore the diverse experiences of employed parents, including those from LGBTQIA+ communities, using our framework, which encourages researchers to think differently regarding existing WF theories through the consideration of our four themes.

Topological Classes of BTZ Black Holes

In a recent paper, black holes were viewed as topological thermodynamic defects using generalized off-shell free energy. The aforementioned work indicates that all black hole solutions in the pure Einstein–Maxwell gravity theory could be classified into three different topological classes for four and higher spacetime dimensions. In this paper, we investigate the topological number of BTZ black holes in distinct theories with different charges (Q) and rotational parameters (J). Using generalized free energy and Duan’s ϕ-mapping topological current theory, we found only two topological classes for BTZ spacetime. Particularly, for a BTZ black hole with rotation or in the Einstein–Power–Maxwell theory, there is only one zero point and the total topological number is 1. While for a BTZ black hole in new massive gravity, the global topological charge depends on the value of the specific parameter m, which provides a counter-example for the conjecture that the topological number is independent of the black hole’s parameters.

Stratification economics: historical origins and theoretical foundations

Abstract Stratification economics (SE) investigates how economies are organized around group inequalities, especially by race and gender but also by ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, etc. Its historical origins and theoretical foundations have both a structural strand that addresses how and a social behavioural strand. SE’s structural strand goes back to Ricardo and Marx regarding the relationship between growth and distribution, and then draws on recent economic theory of noncompeting groups and dual economy models of labour market segmentation. SE’s structural strand produces an inequality-based understanding of economics’ standard goods taxonomy. The social behavioural strand builds on Du Bois’s psychological wage concept, Veblen’s social ladders theory of emulation, Blumer’s theory of prejudice and stereotyping, and current social identity theory. SE’s social behavioural strand makes it possible to explain how discrimination selectively stigmatizes people’s social identities in order to reinforce existing intergroup inequalities.

Values and facts and fancies

Abstract An examination of the apparent gap – familiar in many branches of philosophy – between ‘the facts’ and ‘values’, focusing especially on Sam Gamgee’s perception of ‘Earendil’s Star’ and the real nature of ‘the planet Venus’: Is it possible to trust in the awe and admiration we may feel towards ‘the heavens’ in the light of current astronomical theory about the wider world? How can humane values, including love of beauty, survive in an inhumanly indifferent world? Can obvious fictions have more than allegorical significance? Must we rely on fictions to survive as humane creatures, or may those seeming fictions, and our initial emotional response, provide true guidance to the way things are, and how we might be?

Recent Research Advances and Challenges in Supply Chain Resilience Management

This paper explores recent research advances and challenges in supply chain resilience management, aiming to provide a comprehensive overview of current supply chain resilience theory and practice. Firstly, this paper defines the core concepts of supply chain resilience management and describes related theories, including supply chain risk management theory, dynamic capability theory and complexity theory. Next, the paper discusses in detail the latest research progress in supply chain resilience management, analysing it from strategic perspectives, technical support and digital development, enterprise case studies, and indicator systems. Supply chain vulnerability, complexity and uncertainty brought about by globalisation, challenges brought about by technological development and problems in business management are explored. In response to these challenges, the paper proposes future research directions, including dynamic capability enhancement, application of artificial intelligence and machine learning, integrated risk management, cross-industry comparative studies, and sustainable development. Ultimately, the paper summarises the key findings and proposes strategies to address them, such as risk assessment, information transparency, supplier optimisation, inventory management and technological innovation. Through these measures, companies can improve the resilience of their supply chains, ensure that they maintain stable operations in complex and uncertain environments, and achieve long-term competitive advantage.

Creating Benchmarks for Lithium Clusters and Using Them for Testing and Validation.

Metal clusters often have a variety of possible structures, and they are calculated by a wide range of methods; however, fully converged benchmarks on the energy differences of structures and spin states that could be used to test or validate these methods are rare or nonexistent. Small lithium clusters are good candidates for such benchmarks to test different methods against well-converged relative energetics for qualitatively different structures because they have a small number of electrons. The present study provides fully converged benchmarks for Li4 and Li5 clusters and uses them to test a diverse group of approximation methods. To create a dataset of well-converged single-point energies for Li4 and Li5, stationary structures were optimized by Kohn-Sham density functional theory (KS-DFT) and then single-point energy calculations at these structures were carried out by two quite different beyond-CCSD(T) methods. To test other methods single-point energy calculations at these structures were carried out by KS-DFT, Mo̷ller-Plesset (MP) theory, coupled cluster (CC) theory, five composite methods (Gaussian-4, the Wuhan-Minnesota (WM) composite method, and the W2X, W3X, and W3X-L composite methods of Radom and co-workers), multiconfiguration pair-density functional theory (MC-PDFT), complete active space second-order perturbation theory (CASPT2), and n-electron valence state second-order perturbation theory (NEVPT2). Our results show that rhomboid and trigonal bipyramid (TBP) geometries are the most stable structures for Li4 and Li5, respectively. Using the W3X-L method to obtain our best estimates, the mean unsigned deviations were calculated for other methods for several structures and spin states of both Li4 and Li5. Binding energies and M diagnostics were calculated for all structures. The data in this paper are valuable for assessing the reliability of current electronic structure theories and also developing new density functionals and machine learned models.

Revisiting thermodynamic topology of Hawking-Page and Davies type phase transitions

In this work, we propose a common vector field to study the thermodynamic topology of the Davies type and Hawking-Page phase transitions. Existing literature has shown that studying these two types of phase transitions typically requires defining two separate vector fields. In our approach, we adopt Duan's ϕ-mapping topological current theory to define a novel vector field, denoted as ϕ, whose critical points exactly correspond to the Davies point and the Hawking-Page phase transition point. More importantly, we can differentiate between these two points by their topological charge. While, the topological charge for the critical point corresponding to the Davies-type phase transition is found to be −1, the same for the Hawking-Page phase transition point, it is +1. Although our analysis is applicable to all black hole systems where both types of phase transitions are found, we illustrate it using three simple systems as examples: the Schwarzschild AdS black hole, the Reissner-Nordström AdS black hole in the grand canonical ensemble, and finally the Kerr AdS black holes in the grand canonical ensemble. It is well-known that these black holes exhibit both Davies and Hawking-Page phase transitions. With our proposed vector ϕ, the critical points obtained for these three systems exactly match the Davies-type and Hawking-Page phase transition points, and the associated topological charges are found to be −1 for the Davies point and +1 for the Hawking-Page phase transition point.

Peran Teknologi dalam Implementasi Kurikulum Merdeka

Curriculum is an essential component of the education system, as the two are closely interconnected. Analogously, the curriculum can be likened to the heart in the human body. When the heart functions well, the entire body system will operate optimally. Similarly, if the curriculum is effectively implemented and supported by well-functioning elements, the learning process will run smoothly, producing high-quality learners. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how educational technology contributes to the implementation of the Merdeka Curriculum. This qualitative research uses a literature study, also known as a Systematic Literature Review (SLR), aimed at comparing current theories with those discussed in previous research literature. The literature sources referenced come from research findings and studies published in scientific articles, accessed through electronic literature search engines such as Mendeley and Google Scholar. The results of this study show that educational technology plays a crucial role in supporting the Merdeka Curriculum, as well as having a positive impact on the implementation of the Merdeka Belajar concept in practice. The continuously evolving Merdeka Curriculum helps facilitate the integration of the latest information technology for students.

Ekman revisited: Surface currents to the left of the winds in the Northern Hemisphere.

Ekman's theory of wind-driven ocean currents on a rotating planet is central to our understanding of why surface currents are deflected to the right of the winds in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left of the winds in the Southern Hemisphere. The theory admits solutions for currents deflected in the opposite direction at periods shorter than the local inertial period, but Ekman did not mention these currents, and they have only rarely been observed. Here, we describe a prominent example of surface flow in the Bay of Bengal directed to the left of clockwise-rotating land breeze wind forcing using multiple years of data from a long-term deepwater surface moored buoy. We further refine Ekman's theory so as to better reconcile it with our own and previous measurements and then conclude by discussing the broad implications of this work for understanding wind-forced ocean circulation.

A Progressive Loss Decomposition Method for Low-Frequency Shielding of Soft Magnetic Materials.

Energy loss in shielding soft magnetic materials at low frequencies (1-100 Hz) can cause fluctuations in the material's magnetic field, and the resulting magnetic noise can interfere with the measurement accuracy and basic precision physics of biomagnetic signals. This places higher demands on the credibility and accuracy of loss separation predictions. The current statistical loss theory (STL) method tends to ignore the high impact of the excitation dependence of quasi-static loss in the low-frequency band on the prediction accuracy. STL simultaneously fits and predicts multiple unknown quantities, causing its results to occasionally fall into the value boundary, and the credibility is low in the low-frequency band and with less data. This paper proposes a progressive loss decomposition (PLD) method. Through multi-step progressive predictions, the hysteresis loss simulation coefficients are first determined. The experimental data of the test ring verifies the credibility of PLD's prediction of the two hysteresis coefficients, improving the inapplicability of the STL method. In addition, we use the proposed method to obtain the prediction results of the low-frequency characteristics of the loss of a variety of typical soft magnetic materials, providing a reference for analyzing the loss characteristics of materials.