Mind Project Research Articles

MHQ: constructing an aggregate metric of population mental wellbeing

BackgroundAccording to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health is ‘a state of wellbeing in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community’. Any population metric of mental health and wellbeing should therefore not only reflect the presence or absence of mental challenges but also a person’s broad mental capacity and functioning across a range of cognitive, social, emotional and physical dimensions. However, while existing metrics of mental health typically emphasize ill health, existing metrics of wellbeing typically focus on happiness or life satisfaction, indirectly infer wellbeing from a selection of social and economic factors, or do not reflect a read out of the full spectrum of mental functioning that impacts people’s everyday life and that spans the continuum from distress and the inability to function, through to the ability to function to one’s full potential.MethodsWe present the Mental Health Quotient, or MHQ, a population metric of mental wellbeing that comprehensively captures mental functioning, and examine how it relates to functional productivity. We describe the 47-item assessment and the life impact rating scale on which the MHQ metric is based, as well as the rationale behind each step of the nonlinear algorithm used to construct the MHQ metric.ResultsWe demonstrate a linear relationship between the MHQ metric and productive life function where movement on the scale from any point or in any direction relates to an equivalent shift in productive ability at the population level, a relationship that is not borne out using simple sum scores. We further show that this relationship is the same across all age groups. Finally, we demonstrate the potential for the types of insights arising from the MHQ metric, offering examples from the Global Mind Project, an initiative that aims to track and understand our evolving mental wellbeing, and since 2020 has collected responses from over 1 million individuals across 140 + countries.ConclusionThe MHQ is a metric of mental wellbeing that aligns with the WHO definition and is amenable to large scale population monitoring.

Hierarchy of demographic and social determinants of mental health: analysis of cross-sectional survey data from the Global Mind Project

ObjectivesTo understand the extent to which various demographic and social determinants predict mental health status and their relative hierarchy of predictive power in order to prioritise and develop population-based preventative...

Leveraging big data for causal understanding in mental health: a research framework.

Over the past 30 years there have been numerous large-scale and longitudinal psychiatric research efforts to improve our understanding and treatment of mental health conditions. However, despite the huge effort by the research community and considerable funding, we still lack a causal understanding of most mental health disorders. Consequently, the majority of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment still operates at the level of symptomatic experience, rather than measuring or addressing root causes. This results in a trial-and-error approach that is a poor fit to underlying causality with poor clinical outcomes. Here we discuss how a research framework that originates from exploration of causal factors, rather than symptom groupings, applied to large scale multi-dimensional data can help address some of the current challenges facing mental health research and, in turn, clinical outcomes. Firstly, we describe some of the challenges and complexities underpinning the search for causal drivers of mental health conditions, focusing on current approaches to the assessment and diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, the many-to-many mappings between symptoms and causes, the search for biomarkers of heterogeneous symptom groups, and the multiple, dynamically interacting variables that influence our psychology. Secondly, we put forward a causal-orientated framework in the context of two large-scale datasets arising from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States, and the Global Mind Project which is the largest database in the world of mental health profiles along with life context information from 1.4 million people across the globe. Finally, we describe how analytical and machine learning approaches such as clustering and causal inference can be used on datasets such as these to help elucidate a more causal understanding of mental health conditions to enable diagnostic approaches and preventative solutions that tackle mental health challenges at their root cause.

Associations between physical activity and subcategories of mental health: A propensity score analysis among a global sample of 341,956 adults

BackgroundEvidence indicates that physical activity (PA) can be a clinically useful and low-cost option for preventing and managing many mental health problems. Further investigation into which specific aspects of mental health are most influenced by PA can help to elucidate the differential effects that PA may confer. PurposeThis study used cross-sectional data from the Global Mind Project to investigate the association of PA on overall mental well-being and various subcategories of mental health across different adult age groups. MethodsParticipants completed the 47-item Mental Health Quotient (MHQ) and reported how frequently they engaged in daily bouts of PA for 30 min or more. Weighted propensity score models were used to estimate the Average Treatment effect on the Control (ATC) of PA engagement on overall mental well-being as well as six subcategories of mental health. ResultsAn estimated ATC of 17.41 was found for overall MHQ, corresponding to a standardized mean difference (SMD) of 0.25. Among the mental health subcategories, PA engagement was estimated to have the largest ATC for Mind-Body Connection (ATC = 18.90; SMD = 0.30), followed by Adaptability and Resilience (ATC = 17.09; SMD = 0.26), Core Cognition (ATC = 16.00; SMD = 0.24), Drive and Motivation (ATC = 15.43; SMD = 0.24), Mood and Outlook (ATC = 14.81; SMD = 0.21), and Social Self (ATC = 12.53; SMD = 0.17). ConclusionOur findings support the existing literature demonstrating an association of PA engagement on overall mental well-being, and builds on this work by revealing consistent effects that exist across various mental health subcategories and the adult lifespan.

PONYS and SPAM: when physics crosses boundaries, “best activity award” of 2024

The Young Minds (YM) project of the European Physical Society (EPS) has always empowered and supported three main types of activities: scientific outreach, professional development and networking. And it is to further encourage our YM sections on the organization of such activities and to recognize their good work that the YM action committee annually organizes the “best-activity award”, where sections participate with a poster presenting their major activity of the last year.

In Berlin we met again, The YM Leadership Meeting glamoring the EPS forum of 2024!

The Young Minds project of the European Physical Society is committed to its foundation as a global connecting hub for physicists and early career scientists from every country in Europe and its surroundings. Therefore, and as every year, the Young Minds project hosts the annual leadership meeting where representatives from every student-run chapter (section) are invited to join us for two outstanding days of scientific research skills and career development in addition to priceless networking opportunities.

Historical Wisdom: Data Analysis and Reimagining in Anti-Oppressive Research Methodologies

Using anti-oppressive methodologies, the Chihuum Piiuywmk Inach/Gathering of Good Minds (CPI/GoGM) project reimagined inclusive pathways for data analysis in health equity Community Engaged Research (CER). Transformations in CER methodologies that decenter colonial and institutional systems of oppression and center Indigenous epistemologies are on the rise. There is, however, a paucity of guidance on data analysis in CER. The CPI/GoGM’s historical trauma project is a grounded demonstration of inclusion and building relational research spaces that support Indigenous epistemologies. Community inclusion in data analysis is an intervention and next step for equity in CER and a call for epistemic justice. 

How to write a research proposal? A guide for medical professionals and students

If you already have a research project in mind, the research planning phase must be completed with the formulation of a well-structured research proposal that must be submitted to an ethics committee for approval before your project can start. Generally, a research proposal contains the following elements: Title, abstract, introduction, objectives, methodology, timeline and milestones, ethical considerations, budget, appendices, and references. Whether you are a medical student or a researcher, knowing how to write a research proposal is an important skill to start any research project. This guide will give you the skills to write a successful research proposal.

Am I the only mind that exists?

ABSTRACT This article offers an argument against solipsism, the view that there is only one mind that exists, my own, and that the world is a projection of my mind. In the initial sections of the article, we offer a reductio ad absurdum argument against solipsism. For context and clarification, we draw from a number of Asian and Western philosophers, including notably from the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna. In subsequent sections, we proceed to address some of the objections to our argument against solipsism. We then conclude by clarifying the implications of our position for our everyday use of the concept of the mind.

Return on investment from service transformation for young people experiencing mental health problems: Approach to economic evaluations in ACCESS Open Minds (Esprits ouverts), a multi-site pan-Canadian youth mental health project.

Mental health problems are common globally, and typically have their onset in adolescence and early adulthood-making youth (aged 11-25) an optimal target for prevention and early intervention efforts. While increasing numbers of youth mental health (YMH) initiatives are now underway, thus far few have been subject to economic evaluations. Here we describe an approach to determining the return on investment of YMH service transformation via the pan-Canadian ACCESS Open Minds (AOM) project, for which a key focus is on improving access to mental health care and reducing unmet need in community settings. As a complex intervention package, it is hoped that the AOM transformation will: (i) enable early intervention through accessible, community-based services; (ii) shift care away toward these primary/community settings and away from acute hospital and emergency services; and (iii) offset at least some of the increased costs of primary care/community-based mental health services with reductions in the volume of more resource-intensive acute, emergency, hospital or specialist services utilized. Co-designed with three diverse sites that represent different Canadian contexts, a return on investment analysis will (separately at each site) compare the costs generated by the intervention, including volumes and expenditures associated with the AOM service transformation and any contemporaneous changes in acute, emergency, hospital or service utilization (vs. historical or parallel comparators). Available data from health system partners are being mobilized to assess these hypotheses. Across urban, semi-urban and Indigenous sites, the additional costs of the AOM transformation and its implementation in community settings are expected to be at least partially offset by a reduction in the need for acute, emergency, hospital or specialist care. Complex interventions such as AOM aim to shift care "upstream": away from acute, emergency, hospital and specialist services and toward community-based programming which is more easily accessible, often more appropriate for early-stage presentations, and more resource-efficient. Carrying out economic evaluations of such interventions is challenging given the constraints of available data and health system organization. Nonetheless, such analyses can advance knowledge, strengthen stakeholder engagement, and further implementation of this public health priority.

Creating electronic resources for African languages through digitisation: a technical report

The need for electronic resources for (under-resourced) African languages is an often stated one. These resources are needed for language research in general, and more specifically for the development of Human Language Technology (HLT) applications such as machine translation, speech recognition, electronic dictionaries, spelling and grammar checkers, and optical character recognition. These technologies rely on large quantities of high-quality electronic data. Digitisation is one of the strategies that can be used to collect such data. For the purpose of this paper, digitisation is understood as the conversion of analogue text, audio and video data into digital form, as well as the provision of born digital data that is currently not available in a format that enables downstream processing. There is a general perception that the African languages are under-resourced with regard to sufficient digitisation tools to function effectively in the modern digital world. Our paper is presented as a technical report, detailing the tools, procedures, best practices and standards that are utilised by the UP digitisation node to digitise text, audio and audio-visual material for the African languages. The digitisation effort is part of the South African Digital Languages Resources (SADiLaR) project (https://www.sadilar.org/index.php/en/), funded by the Department of Science and Innovation. Our report is based on a best practices document, developed through the course of our digitisation project and forms part of the deliverables as per contractual agreement between the UP digitisation node and the SADiLaR Hub. The workflow as explained in this document was designed with this specific project in mind; software and hardware utilised were also selected based on the constraints with regard to capacity and available technical skills in mind. We motivate our choice of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software by referring to an earlier experiment in which we evaluated three commercially available OCR programmes. We did not attempt a full-scale evaluation of all available OCR software, but rather focused on selecting one that renders high quality outputs. We also reflect on one of the challenges specific to our project, i.e. copyright clearance. This is particularly relevant with regard to published material. In the absence of newspapers for specifically the African Languages (isiZulu being a notable exception), the biggest portion of textual material available for digitisation consists of printed material such as textbooks, novels, dramas, short stories and other literary genres. The digitisation process is driven by the availability of material for the different languages. Furthermore, obtaining copyright clearance from publishers is a prerequisite for digitisation and especially for the release of any digitised text data for further use and/or processing. Having information on a relatively small-scale digitisation workflow and best practices readily available will enable other interested parties to participate in the digitisation effort, thus contributing to the collection of electronic data for the African languages.

A pragmatic context assessment tool (pCAT): using a Think Aloud method to develop an assessment of contextual barriers to change

BackgroundThe Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) is a determinant framework that can be used to guide context assessment prior to implementing change. Though a few quantitative measurement instruments have been developed based on the CFIR, most assessments using the CFIR have relied on qualitative methods. One challenge to measurement is to translate conceptual constructs which are often described using highly abstract, technical language into lay language that is clear, concise, and meaningful. The purpose of this paper is to document methods to develop a freely available pragmatic context assessment tool (pCAT). The pCAT is based on the CFIR and designed for frontline quality improvement teams as an abbreviated assessment of local facilitators and barriers in a clinical setting.MethodsTwenty-seven interviews using the Think Aloud method (asking participants to verbalize thoughts as they respond to assessment questions) were conducted with frontline employees to improve a pilot version of the pCAT. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim; the CFIR guided coding and analyses.ResultsParticipants identified several areas where language in the pCAT needed to be modified, clarified, or allow more nuance to increase usefulness for frontline employees. Participants found it easier to respond to questions when they had a recent, specific project in mind. Potential barriers and facilitators tend to be unique to each specific improvement. Participants also identified missing concepts or that were conflated, leading to refinements that made the pCAT more understandable, accurate, and useful.ConclusionsThe pCAT is designed to be practical, using everyday language familiar to frontline employees. The pCAT is short (14 items), freely available, does not require research expertise or experience. It is designed to draw on the knowledge of individuals most familiar with their own clinical context. The pCAT has been available online for approximately two years and has generated a relatively high level of interest indicating potential usefulness of the tool.

“In Honorable Remembrance to All Generations”: Commemoration and the Making of Mormon Battalion Memory, 1921–2021

“In Honorable Remembrance to All Generations”: Commemoration and the Making of Mormon Battalion Memory, 1921–2021

The chemical inventory of the inner regions of planet-forming disks - the JWST/MINDS program.

The understanding of planet formation has changed recently, embracing the new idea of pebble accretion. This means that the influx of pebbles from the outer regions of planet-forming disks to their inner zones could determine the composition of planets and their atmospheres. The solid and molecular components delivered to the planet-forming region can be best characterized by mid-infrared spectroscopy. With Spitzer low-resolution (R = 100, 600) spectroscopy, this approach was limited to the detection of abundant molecules, such as H2O, C2H2, HCN and CO2. This contribution will present the first results of the MINDS (MIRI mid-INfrared Disk Survey, PI:Th Henning) project. Due do the sensitivity and spectral resolution provided by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), we now have a unique tool to obtain the full inventory of chemistry in the inner disks of solar-type stars and brown dwarfs, including also less-abundant hydrocarbons and isotopologues. The Integral Field Unit (IFU) capabilities will enable at the same time spatial studies of the continuum and line emission in extended sources such as debris disks, the flying saucer and also the search for mid-IR signatures of forming planets in systems such as PDS 70. These JWST observations are complementary to ALMA and NOEMA observations of outer-disk chemistry; together these datasets will provide an integral view of the processes occurring during the planet-formation phase.

A Thermal Sublimation Generator of 131mXe

Stable and unstable isotopes of the heavy noble gas xenon find use in various medical applications. However, apart from 133Xe, used for Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, radioactive isotopes of xenon are currently complicated to obtain in small quantities. With the GAMMA-MRI project in mind, we investigated a thermal sublimation generator of the long-lived excited state (isomer) 131mXe. This production method utilized the decay of 131I, obtained commercially from a hospital supplier in the form of Na131I powder. Heat treatments of the Na131I powder and cryogenic trapping of released 131mXe allowed us to collect up to 88% of the produced xenon. Our method provides an isomeric mixture of 131mXe and 131Xe. With improvements in scalability and chemical purification, this method could be a cost-effective source of 131mXe for small-scale experiments.

Design and Methods of a Prospective Smartphone App-Based Study for Digital Phenotyping of Mood and Anxiety Symptoms Mixed With Centralized and Decentralized Research Form: The Search Your Mind (S.Y.M., ) Project.

In this study, the Search Your Mind (S.Y.M., 心) project aimed to collect prospective digital phenotypic data centered on mood and anxiety symptoms across psychiatric disorders through a smartphone application (app) platform while using both centralized and decentralized research designs: the centralized research design is a hybrid of a general prospective observational study and a digital platform-based study, and it includes face-to-face research such as informed written consent, clinical evaluation, and blood sampling. It also includes digital phenotypic assessment through an application-based platform using wearable devices. Meanwhile, the decentralized research design is a non-face-to-face study in which anonymous participants agree to electronic informed consent forms on the app. It also exclusively uses an application-based platform to acquire individualized digital phenotypic data. We expect to collect clinical, biological, and digital phenotypic data centered on mood and anxiety symptoms, and we propose a possible model of centralized and decentralized research design.

Zen Terror in Prewar Japan: Portrait of an Assassin by Brian Daizen Victoria

Reviewed by: Zen Terror in Prewar Japan: Portrait of an Assassin by Brian Daizen Victoria Melissa Anne-Marie Curley (bio) Brian Daizen Victoria. Zen Terror in Prewar Japan: Portrait of an Assassin. By Lexington Books, 2019. xxii, 352 pages. $34.00, cloth; $32.00, E-book. With Zen Terror in Prewar Japan: Portrait of an Assassin, Brian Victoria brings to a close his trilogy examining the ways that Japanese Zen Buddhist thought served, over the course of the twentieth century, to variously [End Page 157] motivate, enable, legitimate, and excuse state violence. The publisher's description for Zen Terror tells us that this third book "explodes the myth of Zen Buddhism as a peaceful religion." This perhaps does not do justice to the profound impact of the earlier books in the series, Zen at War (Weatherhill, 1997) and Zen War Stories (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), on both Zen institutions and Buddhist studies. As Victoria notes in the preface to Zen Terror, his Zen at War was cited by Rinzai Zen and Sanbō-kyōdan leaders as "one of the catalysts" spurring those institutions to issue "formal apologies for their sect's wartime complicity" (p. xvi); his work has likewise been required reading for students of Japanese religion for the last two decades. Alongside those readers who will come to Zen Terror with a naive understanding of Zen Buddhism as a peaceful religion then, there will be others whose sense of that history, informed directly or indirectly by Victoria's influential earlier work, is already more complex. These latter readers may also have grappled with some of the other studies of Buddhism and violence that have appeared in the years since Zen at War was first published, including, for example, work by Juliane Schober, Jacob Dalton, the many scholars represented in Vladimir Tikhonov and Torkel Brekke's edited volume Buddhism and Violence: Militarism and Buddhism in Modern Asia, and of course the field-defining contributions of Michael K. Jerryson.1 Zen Terror does not, however, engage these more recent examinations of Buddhism and violence. This observation is intended not as a criticism but as an indication of the kind of book Victoria set out to write: not an academic volume but a book that might find a large popular audience, and in doing so be able to effectively continue the trilogy's work of moral suasion, prompting Zen Buddhists first "to honestly admit" that "elements/teachings that have been used to justify, even encourage, the use of violence" exist within the tradition and then to "address" them (p. 235). This process of self-critique and self-correction is absolutely required, Victoria writes, if we are ever to "save the blood-soaked boat called 'religion'" (p. 232). With such a project in mind, Victoria seeks in Zen Terror to "take readers inside the mind, inside the very 'skin,' of one terrorist leader" (p. 8): Inoue Nisshō (1887–1967), the head of a group dubbed the Blood Oath Corps (Ketsumeidan), [End Page 158] which in 1932 carried out a plot resulting in the assassinations of banker and politician Inoue Junnosuke (1869–1932) and business magnate Takuma Dan (1858–1932). This is not, Victoria writes, "an objective history" (p. 8); readers interested in such a thing are directed to "the many academic books and articles describing this period and the role Inoue and his terrorist band played in it" (p. 7) (although Victoria also calls into question "the degree of objectivity or simple accuracy" of such works, insofar as they identify Inoue as influenced primarily by Nichiren Buddhism rather than by Zen). In reviewing Zen Terror in this journal then, I am conscious that I am reading it at cross-purposes, focused on what Victoria's academic readers might discover in a text that is not primarily intended for them. The core of the book is a "life-history" of Inoue (p. 5), unfolding in ten chapters which take us from Inoue's "troubled youth" through his time as a mercenary, spy, and army interpreter in China, his experiments with religious practice upon his return to Japan, the Ketsumeidan Incident and its aftermath—which saw Inoue first imprisoned and then installed as an advisor to Prince...

Assessing the generalisability of a multicentre qualitative dementia research: the experience and challenges faced by the MinD project in Europe.

Background: Generalisation of findings is an important aspect of research and essential for evidence-based practice. While generalisation is common in quantitative research, there is a lack of generalisability in qualitative research. This paper presents the experience and challenges faced by the Designing for People with Dementia (MinD) project in meeting the requirements to strengthen the generalisation of findings on the lived experience of people living with dementia and their engagement to co-create designs to empower their everyday living. Methods: Polit and Beck (2010)'s strategies to generalise qualitative findings were applied: (1) replication in sampling; (2) replication of studies; (3) meta-synthesis of findings; (4) reflexivity and conceptualization; (5) immersion with the data; and (6) thick description. Results: While it is possible to increase the generabilisabilty of qualitative evidence through the replication of the sampling to attain a large, heterogeneous sample in different and multiple contexts and environments; implementation of sound and robust research; conducting in-depth analysis and interpretation collaboratively for emergent themes; and meeting the thick description requirement, there are challenges that the project team faced in implementing some of the Polit and Beck's strategies because of the condition, namely dementia, that our participants are having. Other challenges faced were: the language and cultural diversity in the team; diverse work and organisational procedures; and the inter-disciplinary differences relating to the methods of enquiry, approaches and techniques to conduct research. These challenges will need to be identified and addressed at the start of the project with a strong leadership to ensure a seamless journey to complete the project successfully. Trust between the researchers and participants, and time to build this trust are critical to recruitment and participation in the study; these factors are of utmost important in research involving participants with condition such as dementia.

Assessing the generalisability of a multicentre qualitative dementia research: the experience and challenges faced by the MinD project in Europe

Background: Generalisation of findings is an important aspect of research and essential for evidence-based practice. While generalisation is common in quantitative research, there is a lack of generalisability in qualitative research. This paper presents the experience and challenges faced by the Designing for People with Dementia (MinD) project in meeting the requirements to strengthen the generalisation of findings on the lived experience of people living with dementia and their engagement to co-create designs to empower their everyday living. Methods: Polit and Beck (2010)’s strategies to generalise qualitative findings were applied: (1) replication in sampling; (2) replication of studies; (3) meta-synthesis of findings; (4) reflexivity and conceptualization; (5) immersion with the data; and (6) thick description.Results: While it is possible to increase the generabilisabilty of qualitative evidence through the replication of the sampling to attain a large, heterogeneous sample in different and multiple contexts and environments; implementation of sound and robust research; conducting in-depth analysis and interpretation collaboratively for emergent themes; and meeting the thick description requirement, there are challenges that the project team faced in implementing some of the Polit and Beck’s strategies because of the condition, namely dementia, that our participants are having. Other challenges faced were: the language and culturaldiversity in the team; diverse work and organisational procedures; and the inter-disciplinary differences relating to the methods of enquiry, approaches and techniques to conduct research. These challenges will need to be identified and addressed at the start of the project with a strong leadership to ensure a seamless journey to complete the project successfully.Trust between the researchers and participants, and time to build this trust are critical to recruitment and participation in the study; these factors are of utmost important in research involving participants with condition such as dementia.

The Sedimentary Geochemistry and Paleoenvironments Project.

The Sedimentary Geochemistry and Paleoenvironments Project.