Individual Members Research Articles

The biobehavioral family model and the family relational assessment protocol: Map and GPS for family systems training.

The Biobehavioral Family Model (BBFM) was developed and evolved as a heuristic research model to support the investigation of pathways by which family relational function impacts individual family member wellbeing and disorder. Recently, the BBFM and its related assessment approach, the Family Relational Process Assessment Protocol (FRAP), have emerged as tools for clinical practice and training. The BBFM model will be presented, along with definitions of the dimensions constructed in the model, and research evidence in support of the model. To illustrate how the BBFM and FRAP are used in training, instructions for conducting the FRAP will be presented. Then, transcripts from two contrasting families participating in one of the interaction tasks will illustrate how, in training, the FRAP is interpreted through the BBFM lens to illuminate how these patterns of family relationship impact the identified patient. Finally, three applications of this training approach will exemplify the use of the BBFM and FRAP in the context of a Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship, a Family Medicine Fellowship, and a Family Therapy Training Program in Istanbul, Turkey. Limitations and future directions for the application of the BBFM in the exploration of multicultural aspects of family function for clinical and training purposes will be discussed.

A team‐centric metric framework for testing and evaluation of human‐machine teams

AbstractWe propose and present a parallelized metric framework for evaluating human‐machine teams that draws upon current knowledge of human‐systems interfacing and integration but is rooted in team‐centric concepts. Humans and machines working together as a team involves interactions that will only increase in complexity as machines become more intelligent, capable teammates. Assessing such teams will require explicit focus on not just the human‐machine interfacing but the full spectrum of interactions between and among agents. As opposed to focusing on isolated qualities, capabilities, and performance contributions of individual team members, the proposed framework emphasizes the collective team as the fundamental unit of analysis and the interactions of the team as the key evaluation targets, with individual human and machine metrics still vital but secondary. With teammate interaction as the organizing diagnostic concept, the resulting framework arrives at a parallel assessment of the humans and machines, analyzing their individual capabilities less with respect to purely human or machine qualities and more through the prism of contributions to the team as a whole. This treatment reflects the increased machine capabilities and will allow for continued relevance as machines develop to exercise more authority and responsibility. This framework allows for identification of features specific to human‐machine teaming that influence team performance and efficiency, and it provides a basis for operationalizing in specific scenarios. Potential applications of this research include test and evaluation of complex systems that rely on human‐system interaction, including—though not limited to—autonomous vehicles, command and control systems, and pilot control systems.

Quantification of hydraulic trait control on plant hydrodynamics and risk of hydraulic failure within a demographic structured vegetation model in a tropical forest (FATES–HYDRO V1.0)

Abstract. Vegetation plays a key role in the global carbon cycle and thus is an important component within Earth system models (ESMs) that project future climate. Many ESMs are adopting methods to resolve plant size and ecosystem disturbance history, using vegetation demographic models. These models make it feasible to conduct more realistic simulation of processes that control vegetation dynamics. Meanwhile, increasing understanding of the processes governing plant water use, and ecosystem responses to drought in particular, has led to the adoption of dynamic plant water transport (i.e., hydrodynamic) schemes within ESMs. However, the extent to which variations in plant hydraulic traits affect both plant water stress and the risk of mortality in trait-diverse tropical forests is understudied. In this study, we report on a sensitivity analysis of an existing hydrodynamic scheme (HYDRO) model that is updated and incorporated into the Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator (FATES) (FATES–HYDRO V1.0). The size- and canopy-structured representation within FATES is able to simulate how plant size and hydraulic traits affect vegetation dynamics and carbon–water fluxes. To better understand this new model system, and its functionality in tropical forest systems in particular, we conducted a global parameter sensitivity analysis at Barro Colorado Island, Panama. We assembled 942 observations of plant hydraulic traits on 306 tropical plant species for stomata, leaves, stems, and roots and determined the best-fit statistical distribution for each trait, which was used in model parameter sampling to assess the parametric sensitivity. We showed that, for simulated leaf water potential and loss of hydraulic conductivity across different plant organs, the four most important traits were associated with xylem conduit taper (buffers increasing hydraulic resistance with tree height), stomatal sensitivity to leaf water potential, maximum stem hydraulic conductivity, and the partitioning of total hydraulic resistance above vs. belowground. Our analysis of individual ensemble members revealed that trees at a high risk of hydraulic failure and potential tree mortality generally have a lower conduit taper, lower maximum xylem conductivity, lower stomatal sensitivity to leaf water potential, and lower resistance to xylem embolism for stem and transporting roots. We expect that our results will provide guidance on future modeling studies using plant hydrodynamic models to predict the forest responses to droughts and future field campaigns that aim to better parameterize plant hydrodynamic models.

Flaw sensitivity of stochastic elastic materials

A material-specific length, called the flaw sensitivity length or fractocohesive length, is determined by measuring the strength of samples that contain cracks of various lengths. When the crack length is small compared with the fractocohesive length, the strength is unaffected by the crack. When the crack length is large compared with the fractocohesive length, the strength reduces as the crack length increases. Here we study how the fractocohesive length is affected by the stochastics of the constituents of a material. We simulate a model system, a truss in which the constituents are linearly elastic members forming a geometrically periodic lattice. The stochastics are represented by the scatter of strength among the members. The fractocohesive length scales with the length of each individual member, but the prefactor increases with the degree of scatter in member strength. The fractocohesive length can be much larger than the constituents of a material when the constituents have pronounced statistical variation.

Human rights as a fundamental pillar for building cross-cultural resilience of the international community in the 21st century

We would like to contribute to an understanding of building Cross-cultural resilience by developing the concept of human rights from the perspective of Catholic social teaching in the 21st century, taking into account the ethics of society and the ethics of the individual members of that community. The bearer of these rights, every human being, was considered to have a single, identical common reason. This rational character initially coincided with the reason that governs all of nature and is manifested in its laws. Therefore, the norms of human rights, based on the rational character of nature, were also called universal, i.e., valid for all rational beings in the universe, because they coincided with cosmic laws.
 Our study aims to deepen the understanding of this important topic for the eventual general acceptance of human rights issues. This is important in light of the theory that human rights are non-negotiable and are no longer just a question of ethics and morality, but of security and peace among international communities, e.g., to help Cross-cultural resilience building. The method used in our research is comparative and inductive.
 The summary of our research should contribute to a better argumentation in promoting this agenda in major international institutions. This paper's theoretical and practical significance lies in clarifying the historical and current relationship between churches and civil societies on the issue of human dignity and human rights so that their understanding and recognition can positively impact the development of modern society's common good.

Aspirational family language policy

The current article applies interactional sociolinguistic discourse analysis to interviews with three parents of Ukrainian families living in New Zealand to further complexify what we know about Family Language Policy (FLP) and language transmission. More specifically, this article theorizes what we call “Aspirational FLP”—when the desired imagined language identities of family members will require families to adopt an FLP that goes above and beyond what might otherwise be considered practical. In the case of our participants, this involves Ukrainians living in the diaspora who discuss the homeland’s “changing your mother tongue” discourse (from Russian to Ukrainian) and what this means when it involves replacing one heritage language with another when both are minority languages in the hostland. Additionally, we consider the importance of both homeland and hostland sociopolitical contexts, as the interviews reflect dominant discourses from both. Finally, our interview data occurs twice with the same participants (2014 and again in 2021), therein allowing us to investigate the participants’ Aspirational FLPs diachronically, bringing further insight to the dynamism of FLP. Our findings show that participants’ Aspirational FLPs are connected to both homeland and hostland sociopolitical contexts, and as such are dynamic and shifting. Aspirational FLPs also shift differently as individual family members’ investments and imagined future identities also shift. Furthermore, the longitudinal nature of the data sheds light on how and why Aspirational FLPs become reality for some families while they remain aspirational for others. We conclude that both local contexts and wider world contexts are important to consider when investigating FLP, and diachronic research is highly valuable for uncovering factors that contribute to the complexity of FLP, both Aspirational and realized.

The Natural Emergence of Category Effects on Rugged Landscapes

Category theory finds that markets partition producers into categories and producers who do not fit one specific category—or who span multiple categories—perform worse than their single-category peers. The dominant thread of this work argues that this miscategorization penalty arises when cognitive limits of categorization cause individual members of the market’s audience to exclude or denigrate ill-fitting producers. I present a null model of markets in which a miscategorization penalty appears without being caused by a market audience: drawing on cognitive science and research on rugged landscapes, the model shows that producer herding behavior generates a spurious correlation between market outcomes and miscategorizations. The model further predicts the dynamics of categorical emergence and change over time. I establish these results in a simulation and discuss strategies by which this landscape model can be empirically distinguished or integrated with the standard account of an audience-driven penalty. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2020.13770 .

Social kind generics and the dichotomizing perspective

ABSTRACT Generics about social kinds (or GSKs) frequently propagate descriptions that carry normative force (e.g., “women are emotional”). Some philosophers of language attribute this to GSKs’ tendency to transmit essentialist beliefs about social kinds. According to these accounts, utterances of GSKs implicate that there is something in the nature of social kinds that causes them to possess the properties described, and that individual members of these social kinds therefore ought to exhibit (or be expected to exhibit) these properties. Here, I draw on empirical evidence to suggest an alternative account. According to my framework, an utterance of a GSK implicates a distinction between the social kind described and its salient conceptual opposite, producing what I call a dichotomizing perspective. For example, “women are emotional” suggests that men are not. Importantly, such distinctions frequently persist in the societal common ground as a function of social power, in part due to their alignment with hierarchical social structures between dichotomized social kinds. This enables such GSKs to perpetuate biased patterns of attention, expectation, and behavior even in the absence of essentialist belief.

Leader-member exchange and organizational citizenship behaviour: The moderator effects of subordinates’ horizontal collectivism orientation and team-member exchange

Past research has not clearly explained why the quality of leader-member exchange (LMX) is weakly related to organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in non-Western cultures. Hence, this study explores subordinates’ cultural value orientation and team member exchange (TMX) as boundary conditions of the effects of LMX on citizenship behaviour directed at individual organizational members (OCBI) and citizenship behaviour directed at the organization as a whole (OCBO). The research hypotheses were tested using a sample of 392 supervisor-subordinate dyads from organizations across different sectors in Ghana. The results support our theorizing that horizontal collectivism and TMX strengthen the relationship between LMX and OCBI such that the relationship is stronger for horizontal collectivists and under a high TMX context. However, the results did not support the hypothesized moderator effects of horizontal collectivism and TMX on the LMX-OCBO relationship. The theoretical contributions, managerial implications and avenues for further research are discussed.

Primary care networks as a means of supporting primary care: findings from qualitative case study-based evaluation in the English NHS

ObjectivesThis study aimed to evaluate primary care networks (PCNs) in the English National Health Service. We ask: How are PCNs constituted to meet their defined goals? What factors can be...

Understanding inpatient mortality and 30-day mortality at a comprehensive cancer center.

59 Background: Inpatient mortality quality metric for hospital settings. We sought to review instances of inpatient mortality as part of continuing quality improvement (QI) in our pursuit of the Triple Aim of Health care to improve individual and population health, while reducing unnecessary physical harm, psychological harm, and costs. Methods: An interdisciplinary institutional mortality review committee (MRC) was assembled to review all instances of inpatient mortality or 30-day hospital mortality (hospital mortalities). Individual team members reviewed pertinent clinical information, and appropriate instances were discussed during monthly meetings. The purpose is to review the details of the hospitalization and make determinations if any learning opportunities or process improvements were present. Study data were collected and managed using REDCap electronic data capture tools. Approval from the IRB was obtained to conduct this retrospective analysis. Results: Between January 2022 and April 2023, a total of 430 instances of hospital mortalities were identified and reviewed. Of the 421 patients for which data was available, 294 deaths were classified as “Anticipated” while 127 were classified as “Unanticipated”. Out of the 421 patients, 189 (44.9%) were classified as having an improvement opportunity. There was no association between anticipated vs unanticipated death and opportunity for improvement χ2,(1, n=421) =0, p=.998. However, we noted a significant inverse association with prior goals of care conversation and learning opportunity χ2,(3, n=421) =77.2, p<0.001. During the period of this initiative, we have noted an upward trend in the percentage of patients who had a GOC conversation from 83% to 96%. Improvement opportunities and hospital mortalities related to hospital acquired infections, direct surgical complications, and misdiagnosis were rare. Conclusions: Regarding hospital mortality, opportunities for improvement were largely centered around goals of care conversations and advanced care planning. There is a suggestion that MRC may have contributed to the increase in documented Goals of Care conversations. We believe that an MRC can contribute towards a cultural shift to promote Advanced Care Planning. Initiatives to improve goals of care conservations early in a patient’s disease course may have the potential to reduce inpatient mortality and reduce the physical, psychological, and financial toll of disease.

Communication and collaboration in a drug court team.

A multidisciplinary team is a hallmark feature of drug courts and other specialized treatment dockets. Comprised primarily of practitioners from the criminal legal system and mental health and addictions services treatment systems, team members exchange information and engage in shared decision-making. Though practitioners in these contexts have some guidance regarding organizational and structural elements needed to facilitate efficient and effective communication and collaboration, less is known about the role individual team members' actions and behaviors play in this process. Using data from a survey, process evaluation, and qualitative interviews administered to 19 members of a single drug court team in a Midwestern urban setting, this study describes several communication and collaboration practices of drug court team members and explores how they may contribute to the general effectiveness of the drug court. This study underscores the potential utility of operationalizing and measuring day-to-day, individual-level communication and collaboration practices in future studies of drug court process, in order to index drug court team dynamics that may contribute to its effectiveness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

An unexpected, pH-sensitive step of the enterovirus D68 lifecycle.

Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) contributes significantly to pathogen-induced respiratory illnesses and severe neurological disorders like acute flaccid myelitis. We lack EV-D68 preventive measures, and knowledge of its molecular and cellular biology is incomplete. Multiple studies have highlighted the role of membrane compartments and autophagy during picornavirus multiplication. Galitska et al. found that EV-D68 also exploits cellular autophagic compartments and relies on autophagic machinery as pro-viral factors (G. Galitska, A. Jassey, M. A. Wagner, N. Pollack, et al., mBio e02141-23, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.02141-23). Surprisingly, failure of the autophagic compartment to acidify early during EV-D68 infection causes a delay in RNA synthesis that has not been reported for other enteroviruses. This delay appears to reflect the inability of viral proteins 2B and 3A to engage membranes stably, leading to their degradation in the cytoplasm. Observations like this underscore the importance of studying individual members of the virus genus. It will be interesting to understand how this phenomenon connects to EV-D68 pathogenesis, if at all.

Compound negative binomial shared frailty model with random probability of susceptibility

The shared frailty models are now popular for modelling heterogeneity in survival analysis. It assumes that the same frailty is shared by all individual members within the families. Also, it is believed that all the individuals in the population are susceptible to the event of interest and will eventually experience the event. This may not always be the situation in reality. There may be a certain fraction of the population which is non-susceptible for an event and hence may not experience the event under study. Non-susceptibility is modelled by frailty models with compound frailty distribution. Further, susceptibility may be different for different families. This can be attained by randomizing the parameter of frailty distribution. This paper incorporates both the things, non-susceptibility and different susceptibility for different families by considering compound negative binomial distribution with random probability of susceptibility as frailty distribution. The inferential problem is solved in a Bayesian framework using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods. The proposed model is then applied to a real-life data set.

Involvement of the Calmodulin-like Protein Gene VaCML92 in Grapevine Abiotic Stress Response and Stilbene Production.

Calmodulin-like proteins (CMLs) are an important family of plant calcium sensor proteins that sense and decode changes in the intracellular calcium concentration in response to environmental and developmental stimuli. Nonetheless, the specific functions of individual CML family members remain largely unknown. This study aims to explore the role of the Vitis amurensis VaCML92 gene in the development of its high stress resistance and the production of stilbenes. The expression of VaCML92 was sharply induced in V. amurensis cuttings after cold stress. The VaCML92 gene was cloned and its role in the abiotic stress responses and stilbene production in grapevine was further investigated. The VaCML92-overexpressing callus cell cultures of V. amurensis and soil-grown plants of Arabidopsis thaliana exhibited enhanced tolerance to cold stress and, to a lesser extent, to the drought, while their tolerance to heat stress and high salinity was not affected. In addition, the overexpression of VaCML92 increased stilbene production in the V. amurensis cell cultures by 7.8-8.7-fold. Taken together, the data indicate that the VaCML92 gene is involved as a strong positive regulator in the rapid response to cold stress, the induction of cold stress resistance and in stilbene production in wild grapevine.

Chiral spiral cyclic twins. II. A two-parameter family of cyclic twins composed of discrete circle involute spirals.

A mathematical toy model of chiral spiral cyclic twins is presented, describing a family of deterministically generated aperiodic point sets. Its individual members depend solely on a chosen pair of integer parameters, a modulus m and a multiplier μ. By means of their specific parameterization they comprise local features of both periodic and aperiodic crystals. In particular, chiral spiral cyclic twins are composed of discrete variants of continuous curves known as circle involutes, each discrete spiral being generated from an integer inclination sequence. The geometry of circle involutes does not only provide for a constant orthogonal separation distance between adjacent spiral branches but also yields an approximate delineation of the intrinsically periodic twin domains as well as a single aperiodic core domain interconnecting them. Apart from its mathematical description and analysis, e.g. concerning its circle packing densities, the toy model is studied in association with the crystallography and crystal chemistry of α-uranium and CrB-type crystal structures.

Individual survival is dictated by group personality in a marsh ecosystem predator–prey interaction

Abstract Predator–prey interactions structure ecological communities, and personality can significantly mediate these interactions. Personality expression is often contingent on social context, suggesting that group personality may be key in determining the outcomes of predator encounters. Here, we test the influence of individual personality and group composition on survival of the marsh periwinkle, Littoraria irrorata, when exposed to its main predator, the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus, both integral players in mediating the productivity and health of salt marsh ecosystems. Snails were categorized as having bold or shy personality types, which were unrelated to shell length, though neither trait influenced survival when individual snails were exposed to a predator. However, when snails were partitioned into groups differing in personality composition, snails in groups with bold individuals had higher survival than those in groups with none. While group type did not influence the survival of bold snails, shy snails performed better in mixed groups: the presence of a few bold individuals emerged as especially effective in decreasing mortality of shy snails. The effect of personality on predator escape is thus conditional on group personality composition, indicating that social context can directly impact the survival and success of its individual members, with broad implications for community dynamics.

Community benefit agreements for solar energy: Examining values, preferences and perceived benefits in the United States using a discrete choice experiment

Large-scale solar energy developments bring significant environmental and community benefits, but they can also impose negative impacts, particularly on host communities. Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs) have emerged as a strategy to mitigate these adverse effects. This study examines community preferences regarding CBAs associated with large-scale solar farms. Our investigation focuses on two critical CBAs aspects: the choice between mandated or voluntary implementation and the preference for private or collective benefit distribution. Additionally, we explore how individual values shape community members' attitudes towards solar technology. Our findings reveal a clear preference within the surveyed community for privately distributing benefits over establishing a collective trust fund, and for voluntary implementation rather than government mandates. However, it is essential to recognize that the community is not monolithic and can be placed into three classes: a minority of solar-reluctant individuals (7.5 %), a significant solar-receptive group (24.2 %), and a substantial disengaged majority (68.3 %). Among these groups, the solar-receptive segment displays the most interest in private benefits; yet, they favor government-mandated agreements. Moreover, values play a significant role in shaping preferences within each group, with biospherism correlating with greater support for mandated, private benefits among respondents in the reluctant and receptive groups. Conversely, hedonistic values predict a greater inclination among the reluctant group to live further away from solar developments. Based on these findings, policies should prioritize voluntary, private benefit distribution while remaining adaptable to align with community preferences. Engaging community members in the decision-making can help tailor solutions that resonate with their values and preferences.

H5P and Canvas - The Best Pair Since Salt and Pepper?

The demand from lecturing staff that desire to improve the engagement levels of their students is continuously increasing. Learning Management System integrations such as H5P are a simple and effective way to improve student engagement and learning within modules. This paper explores the benefits of staff adopting the H5P integration in Canvas for developing engaging and interactive content in the context of higher education. It examines a pilot initiative developed by Munster Technological University’s Department of Technology Enhanced Learning that investigated the needs of individual staff members and how they could make small changes to their teaching content to help improve student engagement. The results of this pilot indicated that participating staff had improved knowledge surrounding the development of interactive content through the use of H5P following one-to-one sessions carried out as part of the initiative and revealed that staff intends to apply the H5P approach to their everyday teaching activities to encourage student motivation and engagement in modules. This paper discusses further plans for the use of H5P within the Learning Management System at Munster Technological University and how it will be facilitated by the Department of Technology Enhanced Learning.

Creation of WebQuests for Cultural Education and Refugee Integration in Germany: On the Example of Cologne

Purpose. This research aims to determine the methodology of creating and conducting web quests for people who have left their homes and settled in another country (especially emigrants and refugees). The study includes a clear definition of the sequence of creation and implementation of web quests for families who emigrated to Germany.
 Methodology. The research was conducted in the format of a single case study with a description of the creation of a specific web quest for a seed audience of emigrants and refugees. The methodology presented in the study included a description of the process, principles and means necessary for the organizer and other interested parties in case of reproduction of this web quest for a similar audience and in similar conditions.
 Results. The main results presented in the study include a clear algorithm for conducting the WebQuest “Family creative and educational quest in Cologne”, aimed at cultural adaptation and education in the field of history and iconic places of Cologne; «excursion program»; communication between different generations of families; a simple divergent task, proposed at each station of the WebQuest to creatively reinterpret the received excursion information; increasing the level of digital literacy.
 The article provides recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of WebQuest in the context of cultural adaptation of refugees and emigrants living in Germany.
 Conclusions. It was determined that creating and conducting WebQuests is a complex and time-consuming process, the goal of which is to maximize interactivity and involvement of participants. Therefore, the creators of such a digital product need to consider a number of features of the participants and digital tools used in the process. 
 The format of web quests allows people to involve their whole family with the process, which significantly increases their cohesion in a new place and enables integration and adaption with not solely individual family members, but the whole family, which expands the level of awareness of the culture and history of their new home.