Situational Characteristics Research Articles

Deepening the decisional processes under value-based conditions in patients affected by Parkinson’s disease: A comparative study

Patients affected by Parkinson’s disease (PD) display a tendency toward making risky choices in value-based conditions. Possible causes may encompass the pathophysiologic characteristics of PD that affect neural structures pivotal for decision making (DM) and the dopaminergic medications that may bias choices. Nevertheless, excluding patients with concurrent impulse control disorders, results are few and mixed. Conversely, other factors, such as individual differences (e.g., emotional state, impulsivity, consideration for future consequences) and cognitive functioning, in particular executive functions (EFs), are involved, even though few studies investigated their possible role. The present study investigated (1) the differences in value-based DM between 33 patients with PD without impulse control disorders and 33 matched healthy controls, and (2) the relationships among decisional performances, EFs, and individual differences in a group of 42 patients with PD who regularly undertake dopaminergic medications. All participants underwent an individual assessment to investigate value-based DM, cognitive abilities, and individual differences associated with DM. Nonparametric analyses showed the presence of riskier decisions in patients compared with healthy controls, depending on the characteristics of the decisional situation. Moreover, parameters of the decisional tasks involving the number of risky choices were significantly related to the posology of dopaminergic medications, EFs, and individual differences. Findings were discussed, highlighting possible clinical implications.

Suicidal Crisis Negotiations: An Investigation of Situational Characteristics, Hooks and Triggers

Crisis negotiation teams have previously been described as “gatekeepers” to suicidal individuals, with research showing that these are amongst the most common calls negotiators attend to. Despite this, the situational features of these calls and the communicative dynamics that may lead to the safe resolution of suicidal crises, remain poorly understood. Using a mixed method approach, situational characteristics across four suicidal incident types were examined, and “hooks” and “triggers” that were common in each incident type were identified. The results revealed some consistencies across incident types regarding incident location, and the mental health and substance use histories of subjects. Inconsistencies were observed for communication method used, weapons involved, and resolution details. Numerous hooks and triggers were identified for each incident type. The findings increase our understanding of suicidal crises and have implications for negotiator training (e.g., the features of actual suicidal incidents can inform the content of scenario-based training).

Time-variant reliability analysis of corroded suspender of suspension bridge based on data-driven

The suspender of a suspension bridge is susceptible to corrosion due to environment, material, load, and other factors, which leads to the reduction of its bearing capacity with time, thus adversely affecting the safety and durability of the suspension bridge. Time-variant reliability analysis can consider the time-variant characteristics and uncertainties of each variable, and can better reveal the degradation of corrosion suspender resistance with time. However, due to the complex and highly nonlinear characteristics of the stress situation, the functional function of the suspender is often implicit, and the traditional time-variant reliability analysis method cannot be directly solved. To solve the problem of the implicit function of the suspender, An Adaptive Support Vector Regression with Extreme Response Surface (ASVR-ERS) method was proposed, and it was applied to the time-variant reliability analysis of corroded suspender of a suspension bridge. According to the corrosion characteristics of steel wire in suspenders, a hybrid constitutive model for calculating the ultimate bearing capacity of corroded suspenders was proposed. Furthermore, the time-variant reliability and residual life of corroded suspenders of a self-anchored suspension bridge were systematically studied. The results show that: Compared with the existing methods, the ASVR-ERS method can use fewer training samples to achieve higher computational accuracy. When calculating the ultimate bearing capacity of a corrosion suspender, the phenomenon of ductility degradation caused by steel wire corrosion in the suspender cannot be ignored, and the mixed constitutive model of the ultimate bearing capacity of a corrosion suspender is more reasonable. When the service time of the bridge is the same, the reliability of the suspender in the middle span of the main span is the smallest, and the reliability of the suspender in the full bridge gradually decreases from the bridge tower position to the middle span direction and the side span direction. The decrease rate of suspender reliability is the fastest at the beginning of corrosion and gradually slows down with the deepening of the corrosion degree. When the sheath has the minimum damage and the maximum circumferential damage and reaches life, the suspender section loss rate is between 10 % and 15 %. Compared with improving the safety factor of the suspender, delaying the breakage time of the sheath can improve the life expectancy of the suspender more obviously.

The effect of jet disturbance on flame propagation characteristics of multi-component natural gas/hydrogen mixed fuel

Gas explosions mostly occur in turbulent environments in practical situations. Meanwhile, the current research on the explosion characteristics of hydrogen-doped natural gas is mostly methane/hydrogen mixed fuel, ignoring the influence of other components of natural gas on the explosion characteristics of the actual situation. Therefore, the effects of different jet intensities (Pjet), hydrogen-doping ratios (XH2) and equivalence ratios (φ) on the explosion characteristics of multi-component natural gas/hydrogen mixed fuel are experimentally investigated in cylindrical tanks of 30 L. Additionally, it extensively explored the dual influence of jet disturbance and gas inerting effect on the flame propagation characteristics of multi-component natural gas/hydrogen mixed fuel. With the increase of Pjet, both Pmax and (dp/dt)max initially increase and then decrease, while τ continuously decreases. When Pjet = 0.4 MPa, the promotion effect on Pmax and (dp/dt)max is most significant. The lifting of XH2 leads to a gradual increase in Pmax and decreasing τ. (dp/dt)max exhibits a trend of initially increasing and then decreasing with the elevation of XH2, reaching its maximum at XH2 = 40%. The introduction of jet flow significantly reduces the promotion or inhibition effect on explosions of high hydrogen blending ratio mixtures. Furthermore, the introduction of jet flow is more effective in promoting the explosive performance of multi-component natural gas/hydrogen mixed fuel with high equivalence ratios and low hydrogen doping ratios under rich fuel conditions. This study can provide a key reference for the explosion hazard assessment during the practical application of natural gas/hydrogen mixed fuel.

Combination of acupuncture therapy and kinesiotherapy: an example of pain rehabilitation

The effect mechanism and the characteristics of clinical application of the combination of acupuncture therapy and kinesiotherapy are explored for pain rehabilitation. Analgesia of acupuncture therapy and kinesiotherapy is characterized by multiple targets and dimensions. The paper summarizes the effect mechanisms of these two therapies and their synergistic action and investigates the current situation and clinical characteristics of their combination in treatment of musculoskeletal pain, visceral pain and postoperative pain so that the references can be provided for the selection of pain rehabilitation programs.

Nurturing Football Talent: A Conceptual Framework for Talent Development Environment

ABSTRACT The environment is believed to play a crucial role in developing sport talents. Over the past two decades, a great deal of research has been carried out on sport talent development environment (TDE). However, few theoretical frameworks are dedicated to helping understand the TDE in a particular sport. Seeking a better understanding of the TDE in football, also known as “soccer” in North America, this study proposes a novel environmental framework that takes particular account of the situational characteristics of football, using a conceptual framework analysis. The framework is organized hierarchically with two main factors: sport and non-sport domains. The sport factor is further divided into four sub-factors: football coach, interaction with teammates, football training, and football competition. Academic and family support are identified as two sub-factors of the non-sport factor. This two-domain and six-factor TDE framework can help improve the understanding of the application of the TDE factors in the football context and thus optimize the football talent development practice.

Exploring influences of supervision on psychotherapists’ professional development: correlates across career-level cohorts

ABSTRACT This exploratory study aims to extend and strengthen the empirical base for supervision as a facilitator of professional growth, as outlined in an established conceptual model, by exploring its correlates among psychotherapists across their entire professional career. Ratings of the impact of supervision by 6267 psychotherapists of different professions, theoretical orientations, and career levels in many countries who were currently in supervision were correlated, separately for each of five career cohorts, with aspects of their treatment experience, work situation, and personal characteristics. Large percentages of psychotherapists at all career levels, including senior psychotherapists, engaged in supervision and rated its impact on their development positively. Growth-facilitating supervision was associated broadly but moderately in all career cohorts mainly with interpersonal aspects of therapists’ treatment experience, with supportive work settings, and with caring and expressive personal characteristics. Some differential findings among cohorts also reflected potential developmentally based functions of supervision. The implications of results were considered both for supervisory practice, training and for future supervision research.

Network structure, dynamic evolution and block characteristics of sovereign debt risk: The global evidence

Global sovereign debt risks are escalating with the tightening of global liquidity. We apply the LASSO-VAR spillover model, network approach and block model to analyze the overall situation and time-varying characteristics of sovereign risk volatility spillover effects among 50 countries. The results show that there is a discernible cyclical pattern in the spillover effect of global sovereign risk volatility, with the spillover intensity progressively rising in each cycle, and more countries have emerged as "net risk exporters" recently. Countries and regions exhibit diverse risk spillover traits, and assume varying roles in the transmission of sovereign debt risks. The originator of a sovereign risk shock isn't necessarily its primary disseminator, underscoring the need to account for systemic significance and risk infectivity. The interlinkages among sovereign debt risk spillover blocks vary over time, given that the composition and attributes of these blocks change. Our findings provide implications for related regulators and investors.

Joint pyramidal perceptual attention and hierarchical consistency constraint for gaze estimation

Eye gaze provides valuable cues about human intent, making gaze estimation a hot topic. Extracting multi-scale information has recently proven effective for gaze estimation in complex scenarios. However, existing methods for estimating gaze based on multi-scale features tend to focus only on information from single-level feature maps. Furthermore, information across different scales may also lack relevance. To address these issues, we propose a novel joint pyramidal perceptual attention and hierarchical consistency constraint (PaCo) for gaze estimation. The proposed PaCo consists of two main components: pyramidal perceptual attention module (PPAM) and hierarchical consistency constraint (HCC). Specifically, PPAM first extracts multi-scale spatial features using a pyramid structure, and then aggregates information from coarse granularity to fine granularity. In this way, PPAM enables the model to simultaneously focus on both the eye region and facial region at multiple scales. Then, HCC makes constrains consistency on low-level and high-level features, aiming to enhance the gaze semantic consistency between different feature levels. With the combination of PPAM and HCC, PaCo can learn more discriminative features in complex situations. Extensive experimental results show that PaCo achieves significant performance improvements on challenging datasets such as Gaze360, MPIIFaceGaze, and RT-GENE,reducing errors to 10.27°, 3.23°, 6.46°, respectively.

Emotion socialization in early childhood education and care – How preschool teachers support children's emotion regulation

Children’s emotional experiences during early childhood education and care (ECEC) are important for children’s emotional development and the socialization of this development by teachers. One central goal of emotion socialization is that it should help children acquire reflective regulation of their emotions, resulting in socially acceptable and age-appropriate experience and behavior. The current study is based on emotionally challenging situations of children in ECEC and aims at investigating, first, associations of teachers’ emotion coaching and co-regulation with children’s self-regulation, and, second, how teachers’ emotion coaching and co-regulation are linked with characteristics of the specific emotion episode and the involved child. Based on extensive video observations in the preschool setting (N = 19 groups), this study analyzed episodes with teacher interventions (N = 48 teachers) following a negative emotion expression by one or two children (N = 213 children aged 2–6 years old). Multilevel results show, first, that teachers’ initial emotion coaching and co-regulation through meta-cognitive prompts were associated with children’s independent self-regulation. Second, teachers’ emotion coaching and co-regulation were systematically associated with characteristics of the emotion episode, especially emotion quality and intensity. The findings support the assumption that emotion coaching and co-regulation are especially valuable tools to support self-regulation. However, emotion coaching and the different co-regulation levels and strategies do not turn out to be universal strategies that are used indiscriminately, but teachers use them depending on individual child and situational characteristics.

Uncertain random variables and laws of large numbers under U-C chance space

Uncertainty theory was founded by Baoding Liu for modeling belief degrees about human uncertainty. And chance theory was pioneered by Yuhan Liu based on probability theory and uncertainty theory. In many cases, imprecise risk situation in subjective or objective setting and human uncertainty simultaneously appear in a complex system. To measure uncertain random events in this system, this paper combines uncertainty space with convex non-additive probability space into a new kind of two-dimensional chance space called U-C chance space. Moreover, a new framework for uncertain random variables combining uncertainty theory with convex non-additive probability theory is provided. For applications of this new framework, it can be applied to characterize some kinds of phenomena which possess the characteristics of both imprecise risk situations and belief degrees about human uncertainty in situations of great events, such as financial crisis, major natural disaster, etc. The main contribution of this paper is to derive the types of Kolmogorov and Marcinkiewicz-Zygmund LLNs for uncertain random variables satisfying some conditions under U-C chance space, where the convex non-additive probability is totally monotone. Furthermore, several examples are stated and explained.

The role of gained trust: effects on intrinsic motivation, person-job fit and turnover intentions among real estate brokers

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze if gained trust is intrinsically motivating and whether it is correlated to subjective person-job fit and occupational turnover intentions among Swedish real estate brokers.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical data was gathered via a survey targeting all real estate brokers in Sweden and analyzed using structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results indicated that brokers are motivated by gained trust from their sellers and that gained trust is a vital part of person-job fit among brokers. In addition, the results show that higher levels of person-job fit reduce the occupational turnover intentions among brokers.Research limitations/implicationsBeing a real estate broker in Sweden might differ from being a broker in many other otherwise comparable countries. Another limitation is the lack of measurements of job satisfaction and/or intrinsic motivation connected to other job characteristics besides customer relations and gained trust. The high mean values of person-job fit, and intrinsic motivation connected to gained trust from customers are contributing to a more nuanced description of brokerage.Practical implicationsThis study gives insights about intrinsic motivation and its connection to person-job fit. Awareness of what drives brokes can be used by both workers and managers to reduce occupational turnover.Originality/valueThis study is interesting from a person-job fit theory advancement perspective since the focus is given to the connection between specific situational work characteristics and person-job fit.

What drives the high-risk spillover of benchmark oil prices into China's LNG market?

The Russo-Ukrainian conflict and its reverberations on energy markets have heightened concerns regarding energy security. Against the backdrop of fluctuations in international oil prices, oil-gas linkage pricing severely jeopardizes the security of the Chinese gas market. Clarifying the mechanism of high-risk spillover of international oil prices to Chinese LNG is essential for the safe operation of gas. We examine the dynamic spillover effects of Brent, WTI, Dubai crude oil, and Chinese LNG prices using the dynamic connectedness based on TVP-VAR. We innovatively establish the BART-QCA framework to screen the conditions and identify pathways that exacerbate the high-risk spillover of international oil prices to Chinese LNG. The study finds that: (1) Chinese LNG prices are net recipients from the three primary crude oil prices. (2) four pathways exacerbate the high-risk spillover, confirming the situational characteristics of high-risk spillover. (3) The increase in global economic policy uncertainty and China's high external dependence on gas are essential conditions for the high-risk spillover. (4) three pathways mitigate the high-risk spillover. A clear global economic policy situation, reasonable control of public opinion, and the weakening of the US dollar help alleviate high-risk spillover. Accordingly, new policies should achieve scenario-based governance through cross-market and multi-sectoral synergies.

Concealed firearm carrying laws and defensive firearm use in public locations of US metropolitan areas, 1986–2004

ObjectivesThere has been extensive debate in the USA as to how laws regulating the carrying of concealed firearms affect crime and public safety. This study examines whether US state laws...

Work Family Conflict In Honorary Teachers: A Study Of Causes, Impacts And Coping Strategies

This research aims to identify the causes of work-family conflict experienced by working women. Additionally, it aims to identify the impacts experienced by the working women themselves, their families, and their institutions. Furthermore, the research aims to identify coping strategies used by honorary teachers to deal with work-family conflict. The research utilizes a qualitative descriptive approach with a phenomenological study approach. The results of the research indicate that sources of work-related issues include long working hours, time constraints, internal office conflicts, and demanding workloads. On the other hand, family-related conflicts stem from household situation characteristics such as heavy household chores, absence of domestic help, and the husband's irregular job or income. The impacts experienced by honorary teachers include psychological pressure and health issues. The impact on the family includes feelings of neglect. There are several coping strategies used by honorary teachers to overcome work-family conflict, which are a combination of emotion-focused coping and problem-focused coping strategies

FORMATION OF INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS IN THECONDITIONS OF UKRAINE'S INTEGRATION INTO THE EUROPEAN HIGHEREDUCATION COMMUNITY

The article summarizes the results of scientific work and highlights the experience and approaches to the formation of interpersonal communication skills in the context of Ukraine’s integration into the European higher education community. It is stated that the European integration progress of Ukraine is accompanied by positive changes in the socio-economic development of society and the introduction of innovative changes in the field of higher education, which are aimed at successful political, legal, economic, and educational integration into the European space. It is noted that since 2005, Ukraine has been participating in the Bologna process, i.e. an international initiative aimed at reforming and unifying higher education in the countries of the European area of higher education. It is found that the alignment of the national system of higher education with European and world standards involves the transition to the system of competence education. The classification of integrated characteristics of the quality of training of education seekers and the results of their training, i.e. competencies, is given. It is pointed out that one of the key positions among “soft” skills is occupied by communicative competence, which requires the formation of interpersonal communication skills. The categories of theories of interpersonal communication are defined and characterized. A model of effective interpersonal communication is proposed, which provides for the achievement of individual group and organizational results thanks to a properly adjusted process of filtering perception and cognitive selection, as well as taking into account the situational characteristics of communication. A taxonomy of interpersonal communication skills is given. It is noted that training students of higher education in effective interpersonal communication skills requires teachers with relevant knowledge, as well as guidance and instruction in learning to develop and improve these skills. It is substantiated that for the successful formation of interpersonal communication skills in higher education students of Ukraine, it is necessary to study the experience and implement the practices of the European educational space. Prospective directions for further scientific research on the formation of interpersonal communication skills among students of higher education are outlined.

Analysis of Mixed Traffic Flow Characteristics Based on Fleet Composition

In urban road networks, the integration of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) significantly influences traffic flow patterns, with the Fleet Composition—representing the positioning of these vehicles within convoys—being crucial in dictating the symmetry of information exchange amongst them. First, the vehicle composition of the mixed traffic flow is analyzed, and the mathematical analytical expressions of the random distribution characteristics of different types of vehicles are constructed. Second, we analyze the vehicle according to human characteristics in different situations. Then, consider the following characteristics and reaction times of manual drivers, establish a mixed traffic flow following model, and validate the established following. Finally, the basic graph model considering Fleet Composition is derived, and the effects of reaction time, Fleet Composition, driver following characteristics, and other parameters on road capacity under different penetration rates of CAV are analyzed by a Python and SUMO joint simulation. Finally, the characteristics of mixed traffic flow at intersections were analyzed.

The core tendencies underlying prosocial behavior: Testinga person-situation framework.

According to a recently proposed theoretical framework, different personality traits should explain pro-social behavior in different situations. We empirically tested the key proposition of this framework that each of four "coretendencies" (i.e., the shared variance of related traits) specifically predicts pro-social behavior in the presence of a different situational affordance. We used a large-scale dataset (N = 2479) including measures of various personality traits and six incentivized economic games assessing pro-social behavior in different social situations. Using bifactor modeling, we extracted four latent core tendencies and tested their predictive validity for pro-social behavior. We found mixed support for the theoretically derived, preregistered hypotheses. The core tendency of beliefs about others' pro-sociality predicted pro-social behavior in both games involving dependence under uncertainty, as expected. Unconditional concern for others' welfare predicted pro-social behavior in only one of two games providing a possibility for exploitation. For conditional concern for others' welfare and self-regulation, in turn, evidence relating them to pro-social behavior in the presence of a possibility for reciprocity and temporal conflict was relatively weak. Different features of social situations may activate different personality traits to influence pro-social behavior, but more research is needed to fully understand these person-situation interactions.

Integration of the DIAMONDS and CAPTION situation taxonomies based on the South Korean culture.

In this study, we developed an integrated situational taxonomy by merging the second-generation situational taxonomies of the DIAMONDS and CAPTION models. The study participants included 363 adults aged 25-39 years, residing in South Korea, with at least a college degree, and currently employed. To integrate the factors of both models, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis and further examined the hierarchical structure of these factors using bass-ackwards analysis. Our analysis revealed that the integrated situational taxonomy comprises seven domains with a confirmed hierarchical structure. Building on these findings, we further conducted a comparative analysis of the results with prior situational taxonomy research. It was found that the factors constituting integrated domains derived from previous studies that employed correlation analysis or factor analysis differed from those of our study. However, the taxonomy of the three domains in the third level (negativity, positivity, and tasks) aligned with that of previous relevant research, suggesting that these domains are universally applicable to situational taxonomy. Hence, although the taxonomy of the three domains does not encapsulate specific situational characteristics, like the seven domains, if one seeks a culturally universal, statistically clear, and concise structure of situational taxonomy, the three-domain one is a promising alternative to the seven domains. Moreover, this study is the first situational taxonomic research outside the United States and European cultural spheres that confirms that an integrated situational taxonomy is similarly applicable in East Asian cultures.

FEATURES OF THE IRON ORE MARKET OF UKRAINE DURING THE FULL-SCALE INVASION OF RUSSIA INTO UKRAINE

Objective. The objective of the article is to study the main features of the situation of the iron ore market of Ukraine during the full-scale invasion of russia into Ukraine. Methods. The following methods were used to analyze the main features of the market situation of ore mining products of Ukraine during the full-scale invasion: the dialectical method of learning processes and phenomena (for researching the market situation of ore mining products); methods of analysis and comparison (to study directions of changes in the market situation of ore mining products in the conditions of a full-scale invasion); graphic (to display the dynamics of the market situation of ore extraction products); index (to assess the rates of growth of the investigated indicators); method of multifactorial multiplicative forecasting (for forecasting sales volume of ore mining products). Results. In the conditions of a full-scale Russian invasion, there is a low market situation for iron ore in Ukraine. The main reasons for the negative changes in the iron ore market include: the destruction of industrial capacities, which affected the overall production volume of the mining industry, and the blockade of sea ports, which caused the problem of exporting Ukrainian iron ores to worsen during a full-scale invasion. An analysis of the main features of the situation of the Ukrainian iron ore market during the full-scale invasion showed a significant drop in the volume of iron ore exports and imports, with imports falling at a faster rate. The performed forecasting of the volumes of sold products of ore extraction shows an expected decline in the market situation during the next two years, however, in the future, provided that the full-scale invasion is completed and post-war recovery begins, positive changes in the market situation of ore extraction products can be expected.