Picture Of Nature Research Articles

Evolutionary theory and feminism

It is often argued that evolutionary theory and feminism remain in tension, since the evolutionary view of human nature is hard to reconcile with the feminist view. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate that this thesis is false. This goal is realized by reconstructing a certain anti-feminist evolutionary argument (whose descriptive conclusion is the “patriarchal” picture of male and female nature, and the normative conclusion is the claim that given the deep differences between men and women the feminist postulates cannot be achieved) and providing its critique. The argument is based on three premises: a theory of parental investment, the assumption of a relatively large (compared with other species) men’s parental investment in ancestral environments, and the uncertainty of paternity. Its (descriptive) conclusion is the claim that men are “by nature” much more polygamously disposed, much more desirous of power (over the opposite sex), and much more aggressive than women. The paper presents several objections to this argument. The first objection questions its internal coherence. The second one points at its counterintuitive (not supported by empirical facts) consequences. The third one criticizes one of the assumptions of the argument, i.e. the assumption about a relatively large (compared with other species) men’s parental investment in ancestral environments.

Who's Afraid of the Supersymmetric Dark? The Standard Model vs Low‐Energy Supergravity

AbstractUse of supergravity equations in astronomy and late‐universe cosmology is often criticized on three grounds: (i) phenomenological success usually depends on the supergravity form for the scalar potential applying at the relevant energies; () the low‐energy scalar potential is extremely sensitive to quantum effects involving very massive particles and so is rarely well‐approximated by classical calculations of its form; and () almost all Standard Model particles count as massive for these purposes and none of these are supersymmetric. Why should Standard Model loops preserve the low‐energy supergravity form even if supersymmetry is valid at energies well above the electroweak scale? We use recently developed tools for coupling supergravity to non‐supersymmetric matter to estimate the loop effects of heavy non‐supersymmetric particles on the low‐energy effective action, and provide evidence that the supergravity form is stable against integrating out such particles (and so argues against the above objection). This suggests an intrinsically supersymmetric picture of Nature where supersymmetry survives to low energies within the gravity sector but not the visible sector (for which supersymmetry is instead non‐linearly realized). We explore the couplings of both sectors in this picture and find that the presence of auxiliary fields in the gravity sector makes the visible sector share many features usually attributed to linearly realized supersymmetry although (unlike for the MSSM) a second Higgs doublet is not required for all Yukawa couplings to be non‐vanishing and changes the dimension of the operator generating the Higgs mass. We discuss the naturalness of this picture and some of the implications it might have when searching for dark‐sector physics.

EfficientNet embedded with spatial attention for recognition of multi-label fundus disease from color fundus photographs

Color fundus photographs enable the observation of numerous critical biomarkers and early-onset lesions associated with illnesses. Due to its non-invasive and cost-effective nature, this approach can be used for large-scale screening of fundus disorders. In recent years, most applications of data-driven deep learning approaches to fundus illnesses have been based on color fundus photographs. However, current screening methods for fundus illnesses are mainly focused on identifying particular diseases. The majority of published models for multi-disease recognition are ensembles of several binary classification networks, and an ensemble network consumes more resources than a single network. Additionally, many fundus illness recognition models make direct use of established networks for natural picture processing without performing structural optimization, which may reduce disease classification accuracy. To address these issues, we optimized the network structure to build a single multi-label fundus disease recognition model. Specifically, we began by selecting EfficientNet-B4 as a backbone network, then modified the output layer to create a multi-label recognition model. Based on this model, the spatial attention structure was extended to improve the network’s feature extraction capability. The focal loss was used to increase classification accuracy by mitigating the training effects of data imbalance. Our proposed model significantly improves recognition performance on a publicly available dataset compared to other baseline networks. When spatial attention and focal loss function are introduced into the backbone model, the baseline values of all relevant evaluation indicators are improved without significant increase in computational cost. Additionally, this article provides two error correction strategies for multi-label classification issues: mutual exclusion and super label space. When a more robust error correction strategy is employed with the model, F1 increases by 2.86% in comparison to the original performance of EfficientNet-B4.

Human and machine collaboration for painting game assets with deep learning

Modern games are among the most intricate pieces of software ever devised. However, artists have little to no means of porting their creative work from title to title as the aesthetics change and older models grow to look obsolete. Zooming into the topic of assisted game art generation, the literature is notably scarce, although advances towards automated asset generation are of paramount interest to the field. In this work, we investigate the use of deep learning algorithms to create pixel art sprites from line art sketches to produce artwork of sufficient quality to be used within a game product with little to no manual editing by human artists. Such a problem contrasts with well-known tasks studied in the literature, which are based on natural pictures, boast massive datasets, and are much more tolerant to noise. In addition, we conducted a case study of applying current technology to the drawing pipeline of an upcoming game title, attaining useful and positive results that may fast-track the game development, supporting the argument that current image generation state-of-the-art is ready to be used in some real-world tasks.

Indigenous Cosmetic Home Remedies by utilizing waste food, vegetables and organic products

In India now daily we are confronting a few healthy skin issues by the utilizing Industrial beauty care products. So we can utilize our Indian home cures that are staying as a waste food as well as our ordinary utilizing food things. To remain rich in reality as we know it where all can reside in success and prosperity, it is important to foster maintainable development at net no emanations to stop environmental change, killing the two dangers and infections, for example, the COVID-19 pandemic and disparities. Changing the overall utilization of the extraordinary amount of food misfortune and waste can assist with moving toward this path. At this reason, it appears to be valuable to change food squander into extravagance, separating and involving its substance in normal fixings and biopolymers to make new economical items and merchandise, including beauty care products and clinical gadgets. Large numbers of these fixings are not just bioactive atoms considered important to deliver these buyer items but on the other hand are helpful in decreasing the natural impression. The dynamic specialists might be gotten, for instance, from squander material like grapes, Tomatoes , Banana, Apple, Turmeric, Beat roots , Aloevera, splashed Rice water, olive pomace , petals of Roses, oranges, and so forth Which incorporate, among others regular polymers, phythosterols, nutrients, minerals and unsaturated fat . Among the polymers, chitin and lignin have shown specific interest on the grounds that biodegradable, nontoxic, skin-and harmless to the ecosystem fixings can be gotten for minimal price from food and ranger service squander, separately. Be that as it may, to use food squander in the most ideal manner, superior schooling of both industry and the buyer is viewed as essential, acquainting all with change the methods of creation and living.

Modernist Life Histories: Biological Theory and the Experimental Bildungsromanby Daniel Aureliano Newman

<i>Modernist Life Histories: Biological Theory and the Experimental Bildungsroman</i>by Daniel Aureliano Newman

Место пейзажа в повествовательной структуре произведений Ф. Крюкова

The purpose of the article is to analyze the main functions of the landscape in the works of F. Kryukov. Nature in his narrative system acts as an independent object of portrayal and a toolkit for description, as the place of the character’s residence and the contemplated landscape, as an integral picture and a set of contrasting elements. The emphasis is placed on the narrative role of the landscape in the development of the author’s point of view, the structuring of the artistic space, and plot formation. Through the landscape in the novels and short stories of Kryukov, preceding the prose of M. Sholokhov, the organic essence of the Don Cossacks’ way of life, their perception of the world, characters, life, the search for new opportunities for the development of living space, the specificity of the aesthetic reflection are depicted. Nature is perceived by Kryukov as part of the picture of the world. The emphasis is made on the correspondence of the psychological states of the characters and the states of nature, the role of images of the natural world in disclosing social problems and family plots is revealed, axiological dominants in the symbolic and philosophical content of landscapes are noted, their role in the depiction of vital and mortal meanings of life is determined. The article discusses Kryukov’s description of the grave topos as a continuation of the literary tradition. A statement about the priority of the organic state of the world in Kryukov’s worldview values is put forward. The landscape in the works of Kryukov is directly related to the characteristics of the idiostyle. Particular attention is paid to the principles of depicting nature. Constant images of the landscape (steppe, the Don, forest, sky) are named, their subjective perception by the heroes and the author is noted, which brings the mythopoetic aspect to the realistic depiction of the landscape. Conclusions are drawn on the preference of a panoramic landscape to a close-up while preserving the role of detail, the combination of vertical and horizontal coordinates in nature pictures, the significance of binary characteristics in depicting the integrity of nature, the frequency of perception of the landscape in perspective, the influence of nature pictures on the pace of narration, the semantics of color, the place of direct author’s comments.

Indigenous Cosmetic Home Remedies by utilizing waste food, vegetables and organic products

In India now daily we are confronting a few healthy skin issues by the utilizing Industrial beauty care products. So we can utilize our Indian home cures that are staying as a waste food as well as our ordinary utilizing food things. To remain rich in reality as we know it where all can reside in success and prosperity, it is important to foster maintainable development at net no emanations to stop environmental change, killing the two dangers and infections, for example, the COVID-19 pandemic and disparities. Changing the overall utilization of the extraordinary amount of food misfortune and waste can assist with moving toward this path. At this reason, it appears to be valuable to change food squander into extravagance, separating and involving its substance in normal fixings and biopolymers to make new economical items and merchandise, including beauty care products and clinical gadgets. Large numbers of these fixings are not just bioactive atoms considered important to deliver these buyer items but on the other hand are helpful in decreasing the natural impression. The dynamic specialists might be gotten, for instance, from squander material like grapes, Tomatoes , Banana, Apple, Turmeric, Beat roots , Aloevera, splashed Rice water , olive pomace , petals of Roses, oranges, and so forth Which incorporate, among others regular polymers, phythosterols, nutrients, minerals and unsaturated fat . Among the polymers, chitin and lignin have shown specific interest on the grounds that biodegradable, nontoxic, skin-and harmless to the ecosystem fixings can be gotten for minimal price from food and ranger service squander, separately. Be that as it may, to use food squander in the most ideal manner, superior schooling of both industry and the buyer is viewed as essential, acquainting all with change the methods of creation and living.

A comparison of interactive immersive virtual reality and still nature pictures as distraction-based analgesia in burn wound care

PurposeNon-pharmacologic adjuncts to opioid analgesics for burn wound debridement enhance safety and cost effectiveness in care. The current study explored the feasibility of using a custom portable water-friendly immersive VR hardware during burn debridement in adults, and tested whether interactive VR would reduce pain more effectively than nature stimuli viewed in the same VR goggles. MethodsForty-eight patients with severe burn injuries (44 adults and 4 children) had their burn injuries debrided and dressed in a wet wound care environment on Study Day 1, and 13 also participated in Study Day 2. InterventionThe study used a within-subject design to test two hypotheses (one hypothesis per study day) with the condition order randomized. On Study Day 1, each individual (n = 44 participants) spent 5 min of wound care in an interactive immersive VR environment designed for burn care, and 5 min looking at still nature photos and sounds of nature in the same VR goggles. On Study Day 2 (n = 12 adult participants and one adolescent from Day 1), each participant spent 5 min of burn wound care with no distraction and 5 min of wound care in VR, using a new water-friendly VR system. On both days, during a post-wound care assessment, participants rated and compared the pain they had experienced in each condition. Outcome measures on Study Days 1 and 2Worst pain during burn wound care was the primary dependent variable. Secondary measures were ratings of time spent thinking about pain during wound care, pain unpleasantness, and positive affect during wound care. ResultsOn Study Day 1, no significant differences in worst pain ratings during wound care were found between the computer-generated world (Mean = 71.06, SD = 26.86) vs. Nature pictures conditions (Mean = 68.19, SD = 29.26; t < 1, NS). On secondary measures, positive affect (fun) was higher, and realism was lower during computer-generated VR. No significant differences in pain unpleasantness or “presence in VR” between the two conditions were found, however. VR vs. No VR. (Study Day 2)Participants reported significantly less worst pain when distracted with adjunctive computer generated VR than during standard wound care without distraction (Mean = 54.23, SD = 26.13 vs 63.85, SD = 31.50, t(11) = 1.91, p < .05, SD = 17.38). In addition, on Study Day 2, “time spent thinking about pain during wound care” was significantly less during the VR condition, and positive affect was significantly greater during VR, compared to the No VR condition. ConclusionThe current study is innovative in that it is the first to show the feasibility of using a custom portable water-friendly immersive VR hardware during burn debridement in adults. However, contrary to predictions, interactive VR did not reduce pain more effectively than nature stimuli viewed in the same VR goggles.

Design Inspiration Naturalism on Apparels

Nature is the main visual apparel design sources of inspiration have a creative function. Clothing design is examined in terms of its early phases of development, how design inspiration is acquired, and how it affects clothing design's creativity and uniqueness, among other things. Naturalism's objectivity is shown by its interest in human nature and its factual portrayal in scientific ways with the goal of discovering the genuine meaning of human existence in nature. To begin, we'll go through the terms "naturalism" and "natural clothing" in brief. Nature-friendly and high value modem designs may be created by grafting natural pictures onto human bodies, according to the paper's notions. To find out whether universal design can be used in the apparel industry, this research looked at the possibilities. Key words: Naturalism, Theme selection, Inspiration, Nature Inspiration.

A novel improved SMA with quasi reflection operator: Performance analysis, application to the image segmentation problem of Covid-19 chest X-ray images

Slime mold algorithm (SMA) is a meta-heuristic optimization technique based on nature’s slime module oscillation modes. Like other meta-heuristic algorithms, SMA is prone to poor diversity, local optima, and imbalanced exploitation abilities. A new, quasi-reflected slime mold (QRSMA) method, which combines the SMA algorithm with a quasi-reflection-based learning mechanism (QRBL), is presented to increase SMA’s performance. The enhancement contains two parts: firstly, the QRBL mechanism was established to boost population variety early. Then, quasi-reflection-based jumping (QRBJ) was added to enhance convergence and avoid local optimum in each population update and to maintain the balance between exploitation and exploration. On the CEC20 benchmark functions of various kinds and dimensions, the performance of QRSMA was evaluated and checked that the proposed QRSMA’s more robust search capabilities compared to the classic SMA and different search methodologies in terms of statistical, convergence, and diversity measurement. The findings reveal that QRSMA can significantly increase the convergence speed and solution precision of the basic SMA and others by comparing it with basic SMA and other algorithms. Two further tests have also been conducted to assess QRSMA performance. The first is the division of 10 natural gray pictures. Next, the QRSMA was evaluated for a real-world application, such as COVID-19 X-ray images. The region of interest inside the picture containing the characteristics of COVID-19 must be extracted to increase the precision of the classification. Four X-ray images have thus been utilized to assess QRSMA’s performance. To evaluate the quality and performance of the QRSMA, comprehensive comparisons have also been carried out using different approaches. Overall test findings show that the QRSMA is an effective Multi-Level Thresholding (MLT) strategy superior to other current methods.

On The Gravitational Shielding, Gravitational Permeability and Hidden Matter

The possibility of gravitational shielding from more massive objects than the Moon-planet Earth and the giant planets of the Solar System is considered. Within the framework of the Lesage concept, the mutual spatial shielding of mass-forming elements-atomic nuclei in ordinary matter-was evaluated. It is concluded that the size of the Moon is insufficient for tangible gravitational shielding and partial mutual shielding is about 50% for planet Earth. It is determined that there is a critical thickness of ordinary matter at which complete mutual shielding of atomic nuclei is observed. The estimated critical thickness is about dc=1.3 X 108m, which is typical for the sizes of giant planets. It is concluded that due to the presence of gravitational shielding, not the entire mass of massive celestial bodies participates in the act of gravitational interaction, which leads to the conclusion that there is a hidden mass of massive objects and to low values in the calculation of the density of the giant planets of the Solar System. It has been established that the true mass and true density of giant planets exceed their known values by 5 times. The presence of gravitational shielding from the planet Earth leads to a revision of the physical picture of nature and the consequences of tidal forces. The idea of P. Dirac concerning the accounting of the sizes of microparticles-nucleons, expressed for the further development of the physical theory, is realized. The gravitational size of the atomic nucleus is calculated on the order of 10-18 m.

On the Primitive Image and Root Seeking Consciousness in Root Seeking Novels

The ideological trend of root seeking literature is an influential literary movement in the mid-1980s, but the literary circles have always had different views on root seeking literature. There is no unified concept about the theoretical concepts of root seeking, such as "root", "culture", "tradition" and "fracture", which makes the root seeking novels have "many semantic fields" and the tendency of various cultural interpretation, especially the differences on "traditional culture" are very obvious. Therefore, it is particularly important to clarify the relationship between root seeking novels and traditional culture, so as to deeply grasp the cultural meaning of root seeking novels. It is worth noting that the traditional expression of root seeking writers is based on the connection with the contemporary humanistic environment, and conceives the original natural picture of all things with the help of traditional culture, showing the worship and admiration of the original nature, the direction of freedom and independence, and the romantic concept of survival and primitive consciousness. Based on the "primitive image" proposed by Zhao Peilin in the origin of Xing, this paper analyzes and explains the spiritual and mysterious image codes in the representative works of root seeking novels White Deer Plain, tree king and northern river, and probes into the traditional cultural concepts and root seeking consciousness transmitted by the three primitive images of "deer", "tree" and "River".

Edu-Eco-Tourism Based on Local Wisdom on The Development of Sustainable Reservoir Functions

Sematok reservoir at the region of Nganjuk Indonesia, is the largest reservoir in Southeast Asia. The impact of the construction of the Semantok reservoir, apart from its main hydrological function as flood prevention and irrigation, is also expected to improve the economy and welfare of the local population. By choosing the research method for the development of the modified Borg and Gall model, through the FGD, the types of edu-ecotourism materials based on local wisdom were sought in Sambikerep Village, where the village was directly affected by the construction of the Semantok Reservoir. Based on the results of the study, it was found that interesting tourism materials that have the potential to be developed in the research area are 1. Local cultural title tours, namely in the form of serving the tradition of devotional work to build a "splice" house and traditional "alms of the earth" tourism followed by local arts titles 2. Nature Tourism "Seven-Story Waterfall/Grojogan Putri Ayu” and “Baung Cave”3. Culinary tourism in the form of traditional food “opak dowo”, “tape atos”, “gatot”, “tiwul” etc. 4. Shopping Tour for Natural Resources Products in the form of "agate" ornamental stones. 5. Traditional Toys/Sports Tour in the form of “paton or kekehan” 6. Selfie Tour (selfie) or Nature picture recording. Paying attention to the facts of tourism materials that attract tourists but have the potential to preserve the environment, tourism object materials that exploit natural resources, namely the presentation of "agate" ornamental stone products need to be managed carefully.

EVALUATION OF RESERVOIR PROPERTIES OF THE CENOMANIAN AQUIFER SYSTEM AT SITES OF PRODUCED WATER PUMPING AS EXEMPLIFIED BY THE WEST SALYM OILFIELD IN WEST SIBERIA

The paper deals with one of the highly relevant problems arising from disposal of produced waters in West-Siberian oilfields. Produced waters are those co-recovered with oil. The water-cut factor (for oil) is well-known to reach 90% in West Siberia. This has led to widespread events for disposal of produced waters. Improving the procedures for prediction calculations of admissible quantity and quality of disposed waters is a topical problem in petroleum hydrogeology in West Siberia. This study reports a leak-off coefficient estimation for the Cenomanian deposits (the target ones for disposal of produced waters in most of oilfields across the region) of the Mesozoic hydrogeological basin. The calculation procedure widely used at present for a homogeneous confined aquifer does not reflect the true natural picture, as the aquifer into which the produced water is pumped is multilayered and heterogeneous. Here we look into natural processes for the formation of the West-Siberian megabasin, which have resulted in heterogeneous reservoirs: uncompensated sediment accumulation and present vertical fluid migration channels. Here we show that the gross thickness of the aquifer should be employed in leak-off and hydrodynamic estimations, and adduce the leak-off coefficient estimations for five oil wells in the West Salym oilfield based on the procedure suggested herein (factoring in the multilayered nature of the Cenomanian deposits). The average leak-off coefficient of sand streaks was 0.298 m/day, which we believe to reflect the natural condition of the aquifer more adequately than the standard estimation procedure used for a homogeneous confined aquifer.

Image Matting using Neural Networks

Image matting, also refers to picture matting in the article, is the task of finding appealing targets in a picture or sequence of pictures i.e., video, and it has been used extensively in many photo and video editing applications. Image composition is the process of extracting an eye-catching subject from a photograph and blending it with a different background. a) Blue/Green screen (curtain) matting, where the backdrop is clear and readily distinct between the foreground (frontal area) and background (foundation) portions. This approach is now the most used type of image matting. b) Natural picture matting, in which these sorts of photos are taken naturally using cameras or cell phones during everyday activities. These are the present known techniques of picture matting. It is difficult to discern the distinction between the frontal area and the foundation at their boundaries. The current framework requires both the RGB and trimap images as inputs for natural picture matting. It is difficult to compute the trimap since additional framework is required to obtain this trimap. This study will introduce the Picture Matting Neural Net (PMNN) framework, which utilizes a single RGB image as an input and creates the alpha matte without any human involvement in between the framework and the user, to overcome the drawbacks of the prior frameworks. The created alpha matte is tested against the alpha matte from the PPM-100 data set, and the PSNR and SSIM measurement index are utilized to compare the two. The framework works well and can be fed with regular pictures taken with cameras or mobile phones without reducing the clarity of the image.

Virtual reality cognitive intervention for heart failure: CORE study protocol.

IntroductionHeart failure (HF) is a prevalent, serious chronic illness that affects 6.5 million adults in the United States. Among patients with HF, the prevalence of attention impairment is reported to range from 15% to 27%. Although attention is fundamental to human activities including HF self‐care, cognitive interventions for patients with HF that target improvement in attention are scarce. The COgnitive intervention to Restore attention using nature Environment (CORE) study aims to test the preliminary efficacy of the newly developed Nature‐VR, a virtual reality‐based cognitive intervention that is based on the restorative effects of nature. Nature‐VR development was guided by Attention Restoration Theory. The target outcomes are attention, HF self‐care, and health‐related quality of life (HRQoL). Our exploratory aims examine the associations between attention and several putative/established HF biomarkers (eg, oxygen saturation, brain‐derived neurotrophic factor, apolipoprotein E, dopamine receptor, and dopamine transporter genes) as well as the effect of Nature‐VR on cognitive performance in other domains (ie, global cognition, memory, visuospatial, executive function, and language), cardiac and neurological events, and mortality.MethodsThis single‐blinded, two‐group randomized‐controlled pilot study will enroll 74 participants with HF. The Nature‐VR intervention group will view three‐dimensional nature pictures using a virtual reality headset for 10 minutes per day, 5 days per week for 4 weeks (a total of 200 minutes). The active comparison group, Urban‐VR, will view three‐dimensional urban pictures using a virtual reality headset to match the Nature‐VR intervention in intervention dose and delivery mode, but not in content. After baseline interviews, four follow‐up interviews will be conducted to assess sustained effects of Nature‐VR at 4, 8, 26, and 52 weeks.DiscussionThe importance and novelty of this study consists of using a first‐of‐its kind, immersive virtual reality technology to target attention and in investigating the health outcomes of the Nature‐VR cognitive intervention among patients with HF.

Pediatric Graves' orbitopathy: a multicentre study.

Graves' orbitopathy (GO) is a rare condition in children often considered to be a less severe condition than at an older age. The aim of our study was to analyse if there are any factors that distinguish paediatric from adult GO in order to provide guidelines for assessing and managing paediatric GO. Study design is a multicentre retrospective observational case series; 115 paediatric patients diagnosed with GO who visited our university medical centres in the Netherlands and Iran between 2003 and 2019 were submitted for complete ophthalmological examinations, serological testing and/or orbital imaging. Main outcome measures focussed on the natural course and clinical picture as well as medical and surgical treatment in paediatric GO. Clinical findings included proptosis (n = 97; 84.3%), eyelid retraction (n = 77; 67%) and diplopia (n = 13; 11.3%). Ninety-two patients (80%) presented with mild disease, 21 (18.3%) with moderate-severe disease and two (1.7%) with severe GO. Five patients (4.3%) underwent intravenous glucocorticoids and 25 patients underwent orbital decompression surgery. Strabismus surgery due to primary involvement of extraocular muscles was performed in two patients (1.7%). Overall, rehabilitative surgical treatment was planned in 31 patients (26.9%) with inactive disease. Two patients experienced reactivation of the disease. Despite the fact that paediatric and adult GO are considered two separate entities, they might be the same disease with two different clinical phenotypes. Paediatric GO population presents with a comparable clinical picture regarding both soft tissue involvement and proptosis, which may require surgical intervention. Proptosis was present in the majority of paediatric GO patients. Orbital decompression was performed in 21.7% of patients.

Oxytocin enhances neural approach towards social and non-social stimuli of high personal relevance

Oxytocin (OT) plays a pivotal role in a variety of complex social behaviors by modulating approach-avoidance motivational tendencies, but recently, its social specificity has been challenged. Here, a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted with forty young adult men, investigating the effect of a single-dose of OT (24 IU) on behavioral and neural approach-avoidance. Frontal alpha asymmetry, indexing neurophysiological approach-avoidance, was obtained from electroencephalographic recordings while participants were presented with a series of pictures, individually rated in terms of personal relevance (i.e., high versus low positive/negative emotional evocativeness) and categorized as social or non-social. Additionally, participants could prolong (approach) or shorten (avoid) the viewing-time of each picture, providing a measure of behavioral approach-avoidance. Intranasal OT enhanced both behavioral and neural approach (increased viewing-time), particularly towards negatively valenced pictures of both social and non-social nature, thus challenging the notion that OT’s effects are specific to social stimuli. Neurally, OT specifically amplified approach-related motivational salience of stimuli that were self-rated to have high personal relevance, but irrespective of their social nature or rated affective valence (positive/negative). Together, these findings provide support to the General Approach-Avoidance Hypothesis of OT, suggesting a role of OT in amplifying the motivational salience of environmental stimuli with high (personal) relevance, but irrespective of their social/non-social nature.Clinical Trial Number: The study design was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04443647; 23/06/2020; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04443647).

SOCIAL PROTEST AND THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

The early eighteenth century witnessed the early development of the dominant literary form of modern times, the novel. The novel emerged as a form with structure and interplay between individuals and their relationships to society. As a new form, the novel tends to make some significant, critical, and social statements about the society. Hence, the novel is used to create a new environment that is related to life and people. Indeed, this is what makes the novel appeal to readers as a new genre. Novelists either try to deal with daily social problems that happen in the lives of people or pretend that they are telling real stories.&#x0D; It is not surprising to find that Daniel Defoe molds his Robinson Crusoe (1719)on a real story while Samuel Richardson in Pamela (1740) turns out to be didactic to meet the needs of the growing numbers of female readers. On his part, Henry Fielding tries to expose his society to the readers in his masterpiece The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749); from now on Tom Jones. Accordingly, the novel becomes popular at this time because it has something relevant to the mob; it deals with their social life, and they can identify themselves with its characters in the actual daily life. Through Tom Jones, Fielding presented “a true and realistic picture of human nature” (Kettle, 71). As long as its main concern is the existing society, novelists feel so involved that their criticism becomes direct, frank, and effective. My paper deals with these concerns as depicted in the novels mentioned above.