Reincarnation Research Articles

Overlooked professionalism-Individual factors for success of peer support workers

The peer support worker is becoming increasingly more relevant also due to the new personnel regulations. Therefore, the question arises which individual conditions for success are available for the implementation of peer support workers. This study is a subproject of ImpPeer-Psy5 study financed by Innovation Funds, which investigates the nationwide requirements for the implementation of peer support workers in care financed by health insurance funds (German Social Act V, SGB V). Using a comparative thematic analysis, 57 problem-oriented interviews with peer support workers (PSW), employees and users as well as a focus group based on this were examined. This study was predominantly implemented by a researcher who already had experience in psychiatry and crises. From the perspective of the employees interviewed, sympathy and personality are the core factors for a successful implementation of peer support workers. In contrast, a professional coping with one's own crisis and recovery experience as well as diverse previous life and occupational experiences were prioritized by the PSWs. In order to effectively incorporate the impulse of peer support workers, a recognition of the professional identity of the PSWs is necessary. In particular, settings that separate the tasks between the professional groups in a less hierarchical manner and rely on building relationships, such as domestic treatment, are particularly suited for the implementation of PSWs.

Resilience to major life events: Advancing trajectory modeling and resilience factor identification by controlling for background stressor exposure.

Resilience has been defined as the maintenance or quick recovery of mental health during and after stressor exposure. One popular operationalization of this concept is to model prototypical trajectories of mental health in response to an adverse event, where trajectories of undisturbed low or rapidly recovering symptoms both comply with the resilience definition. However, mental health responses are likely also influenced by other stressors occurring before or during the observation time window. These "background" stressors may affect a person's assignment to a trajectory class. When using these classes as dependent variables to identify resilience-predictive factors, this may lead to false estimates. A new method to build exposure-controlled trajectories based on time courses of stressor reactivity (SR), rather than pure mental health scores, is demonstrated on a data set of 707 initially healthy participants living in Germany (67.33% female; Mage = 29.20, SD = 8.27). SR scores express individual deviations from the sample's normative mental health reaction to observed real-life stressors during the observation time window, thus accounting for individual differences in exposure to background stressors. The resulting trajectory models are plausible. In analyses additionally controlling for background stressors occurring before the observation time window (past life events), low SR trajectories are predicted by the well-documented resilience factor sense of coherence, suggesting construct validity. Further, they are associated with lower odds of developing categorical mental health conditions, suggesting predictive validity. Our study provides the first proof of principle for a refined method to identify predictors of resilience to major stressor events. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A Portrait of My Father

This work of life writing aims to piece together my late father, Muhammad Iftikhar Butt, who passed away on 20 of September 1996, in Lahore, Pakistan, when I was a teenager. A loss of a parent is a great tragedy and an emotional trauma, but this tragedy and trauma are deeper when the child has not mourned the loss but has erased it from its memory. By pondering father-daughter relationships in patriarchal cultures and gender dynamics in nuclear families, I re-member the forgotten bits of the past not only to mourn my father after more than two decades but also to commemorate the extraordinary phases of his fatherhood. Since my father has left behind no traces of his past life, the only way to bring him back to life is through my words – written words. With the help of shards and scraps of memory – some vivid, some fading – I seek to put the fragments of his life together to understand him long after his death due to my inability to understand him in his life. Indeed, I finally manage to re-collect him and see him as a person rather than a parent.

Differences in Pediatricians' Income by Sex Over Time.

Previous Pediatrician Life and Career Experience Study (PLACES) 2016 data revealed that female pediatricians reported earning ∼94% of what male pediatricians reported, after adjusting for factors that might impact income. Has this disparity persisted? Data from PLACES, a national longitudinal study, was used to examine pediatrician-reported income from 2017 to 2022. A regression analysis estimated the adjusted differences in female and male pediatricians' annual income for each survey year. Models included sex and other key personal and practice characteristics for which female and male pediatricians' careers might differ. A mixed effects regression for longitudinal analysis examined income across years for female and male pediatricians and if time-variant characteristics are associated with increased or decreased income. PLACES participation ranged from 83.6% in 2017% to 75.5% in 2022 (analytic n = 1251 in 2017 and 1077 in 2022). The unadjusted mean annual income in 2022 was $237 168, $220 374 for female pediatricians and $284 286 for male pediatricians. Adjusting for key characteristics, female pediatrician income was ∼93% of male pediatrician income, a gap of ∼$ 11 000 annually. Income increased across years (coefficient = 0.03, P < .001). The year-sex interaction was not significant, indicating that the female-male disparity did not change over time. Three time-variant characteristics associated with increased income over time included increased portion of continuous full-time work, work hours, and time in administrative work. A national longitudinal study revealed that female pediatricians reported earning ∼93% of what their male colleagues reported, with a consistent gap from 2017 to 2022.

Dis-continuity in Continuity-of-Care: a pathway for more equal access to mental health care services?

Abstract Background Access to healthcare is core to achieving universal health coverage. Reaching and obtaining appropriate health care services requires engagement by health care organizations and users. For people with mental illness, access emerges as a continuous process, reflecting oscillating health conditions. This challenges aspirations of continuity of care (COC), but we know little about the experiences of users. Methods We carried out observations of interactions between professionals and users (n = 18) and semi-structured interviews with users, professionals, and managers (n = 33) in the specialised mental health services in Central Denmark Region and FACT-inspired teams in three municipalities. We also conducted 3 focus groups with regional and municipal professionals from these teams. Data was analysed through a qualitative thematic analysis. Results From the perspective of users, COC builds on the acknowledgment of their entire life situation. For users, this is about making connections between their past, present and future lives. Past experience affect their present abilities to follow treatment and influence future hopes and expectations. The acknowledgment of these connections often translates into spaces of discontinuity in continuity, where users need occasional breaks from treatment but worry about being excluded from treatment. Crucially, the organization of the FACT-inspired teams allows for flexibility in the intensity of visits and treatment. The norms of professionals also support users’ perspectives on COC, as the norms focus on building trust in the relations between users and professionals. Conclusions One important step to achieve more equal access is to integrate the social world of users. This requires organizational and professional approaches that allow for user needs for dis-continuity in COC. Key messages • For mental health service users, continuity-of-care includes breaks from treatment (discontinuity). • More equal health access requires adapting continuity-of-care to needs as perceived by users.

Existential Buddhism: embracing life's uncertainties and finding meaning within

This study explores the profound questions surrounding the pursuit of Nirvana in Buddhism, examining whether it arises from the cycle of rebirth, present suffering, or future pain as depicted in early Buddhist scriptures. It also investigates the potential convergence of Buddhism with existentialism, a philosophy emphasizing individual experience, freedom, responsibility, and life’s inherent uncertainties. The primary inquiry examines whether Buddhism can harmonize with existentialist perspectives, which emphasize individuality amidst life’s enigmas. This research comprehensively investigates the reasons driving individuals in mainstream Buddhism to seek Nirvana, delving into their quest for liberation, and emphasizes the existential essence of Buddhism. Finally, It explores the plausibility of an alternative form of Buddhism that incorporates existential philosophy. Using a literature analysis approach with a thematic focus, this study critically examines the writings of prominent Buddhist scholars, existential philosophers, and researchers on the intersection of Buddhism and existentialism. The analysis reveals that Buddhists aspire for Nirvana to escape the cycle of suffering and find solace and serenity. Moreover, the juxtaposition of Buddhism and existentialism offers a fresh perspective, highlighting individual autonomy and choice in confronting life’s complexities, and providing an early Buddhist account of existential nature. By deepening the understanding of how mindfulness and meditation connect to core Buddhist principles, this research fosters more authentic engagement with Buddhist practices, enriching personal well-being. This research has vital implications for understanding the pursuit of meaning and liberation from suffering amidst life’s chaos, challenging conventional perceptions of Buddhism, and elucidating potential alignments with existential thought, inviting further research.

Resonating Between Past and Present: Long-Term History for the Island of New Guinea

The archaeology of the island of New Guinea is ancient and surprising, yet it is highly fragmentary in space and time. Consequently, archaeology provides only local and fleeting glimpses of social life in the distant past. In this review, we consider several key themes, such as initial colonization at least 55,000 years ago, the emergence of agriculture by at least 7,000–6,400 years ago, and social diversification in the last few thousand years. We build our discussions around robust archaeological records that convey a coherent impression of what people were doing in the past. We also highlight the ways in which archaeology can be repurposed to address contemporary issues, including social and environmental problems, and flag how a distinctive New Guinean archaeology could be rooted in a vegecultural conception of social life and time.

​​Making Homes in a Nursing Facility in Athens​

This Photo Essay seeks to visualise the room-homes of the residents in one of the largest semi-public nursing homes in Athens, Greece. Unlike in other facilities, residents are given the opportunity to intervene in their individual rooms, to change and fill the space with objects from their past lives and the houses they lived in, such as furniture, curtains, carpets, computers, crockery, or flowerpots. They also bring and live through photographs of their previous lives. I focus on the room-homes people create in this nursing home, the worlds they build. I conceive this visual ethnography as an account of the process of ‘house-ing’ (Biehl and Neiburg 2021, 540), ‘charting how forms and figures of dwelling constitute the house as a sensorial archiving machine of sorts, shaping affective pasts and the stories and trajectories of tomorrow’ (2021, 544).

The Composition of Ian Stevenson’s Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation

Ian Stevenson was trained as a physician and, later, as a psychiatrist. He made significant contributions to biochemistry, psychosomatic medicine, and other areas before turning to parapsychology in mid-career. From the start of his involvement in parapsychology, Stevenson was interested in claims to remember previous lives. As his research with such claims progressed, he became convinced of reincarnation’s potential to shed light on unresolved problems in medicine. This paper describes the background and traces the development of Stevenson’s classic collection of case reports, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, whose first edition appeared in 1966. Stevenson expected his monograph to be recognized as making the important contribution he believed it did and thought that it would lead to public funding for further research on reincarnation. Sixty years on that has yet to happen, perhaps due to Stevenson’s emphasis on the proof-oriented aspects of the cases he reported, to the neglect of other issues that might have connected more easily with mainstream interests, and more directly countered criticisms of his research methodology.

Lexical-semantic analysis of toponyms of khojavand district

The onomastic system of the Azerbaijani language did not remain stable, it constantly changed, and onomastic units replaced one another over time or new ones were created. This event does not happen suddenly, but in connection with the social-political, economic, and historical events taking place in the country and the world, it happens over time and is based on certain regularities. The new onomastic unit created in our language is created according to the rules of the Azerbaijani language and reflects the characteristics of our language. By studying and researching the onomastic units that indicate the antiquity of the Azerbaijani language, it is possible to reveal a number of issues related to the past and language of the people, and to help solve important problems of language, history, ethnography, geography and other fields of science. Toponyms, which form a branch of onomastics, are formed in different forms. The linguistic analysis of toponyms gives us information about the past, history, language, culture, public and social life of the people. In this regard, the study of toponyms of Khojavand region and their historical-linguistic analysis is very important. Place names provide conditions for studying the geographical objects inhabited by people in the historical past, the areas where they are spread, and language features. In terms of studying the history of our language, toponyms are of great importance. In the creation of toponyms, various words - person, tribe, clan, animal, heavenly bodies, plant names, etc. plays an important role. There are the following groups of Azerbaijani toponyms: anthropotoponyms, ethnotoponyms, hydrotoponyms, zootoponyms, phytotoponyms. In addition, there are object names related to the relief structure of the earth: oikonyms, urbanonyms, choronyms, oronyms, dromonyms, social-political toponyms, memoir-memorial toponyms, cosmotoponyms, and descriptive toponyms.In the article, research was conducted on only a certain part of toponyms in Khojavand region.

NOthing goes toWAste (NOWA): A protocol to optimise sampling of ancient teeth

Advancements in archaeological sciences through innovative scientific techniques applied to ancient human remains have increasingly been transforming the study of the past. Destructive analyses of bioarchaeological or palaeontological specimens such as dental histology, isotopic or elemental analysis of dental mineralised tissues, 14C dating, proteomic analysis or ancient DNA are increasingly being applied to obtain ever more refined past life histories. In tandem with spatially-resolved analyses, mineralised dental tissues, especially enamel, have proven to be ideal archives. The main concern with any of these techniques is the need for some level of destructive sampling and thus damage to specimens. In compliance with the ALARA (As Low [damage] As Reasonably Achievable) principle, we present a standardised protocol (the NOWA protocol) for the optimisation, in terms of minimising the destructive approach, of tooth sampling for histology, biomolecular and biogeochemical analyses. The NOWA protocol enables the collection of multiple datasets through optimised sampling of a single dental specimen, ensuring the preservation of most of the tooth and, to a substantial degree, its morphology. Overall, this approach balances the significant scientific insights from such investigations against the inevitable conservation requirements of valuable archaeological and palaeontological specimens, thus maximising the feasibility of future analyses of individual specimens that need to be evaluated on a case-to-case basis.

The ‘glass route’ for improving the sustainability of photovoltaic technology

The ‘glass route’ for improving the sustainability of photovoltaic technology Building upon previous life cycle assessments of photovoltaic technologies, the sustainability of photovoltaic modules will be increased by improving the mechanical and optical properties of the glass and plastics (PET and EVA) used to manufacture the modules. The reduction of ion migration towards the active solar cell will extend the lifetime of the modules and facilitate its recyclability at the end of life. Bismuth oxide has been tested as a material to improve the properties of the glass cover.

Transformation of Adults as Transformational Learners

Thesis. The aim of this study is to investigate at the ground level how transformational learning within the framework of adult education (andragogy) occurs in the lives of adults who experience this process. The research was designed as a qualitative study based on phenomenological approach and carried out with eight adult participants from Izmir-Turkey, Bratislava-Slovakia, Cersak-Slovenia and Lecce-Italy. Concept. Transformational learning is a process that enables individuals to question their feelings, thoughts and frames of reference and to gain a new perspective as a result of these questions. The research examined the stages and conceptual framework of this process based on Mezirow's transformational learning theory. Semi-structured interviews with participants were aimed at understanding how this learning process was triggered and how it was experienced. Results and Conclusion. According to findings adults went through a transformation process in line with the theoretical information obtained in the literature, experienced a dilemma before the transformation, gained a new perspective by criticizing the sources of feelings, thoughts and references they had in their previous lives, benefited from the experiences of people who went through this process, developed critical thinking skills, mostly made a plan, acquired new knowledge and skills, new roles according to their experiences, and it is understood that they have adopted a new worldview. The obtained data will contribute to the development of adult learning programs, the contribution of adult learning institutions to educational activities, researchers who will conduct research on adult learning and the literature in more detailed examination of transformational learning in adult learning.

Spectral Background Calibration of Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) Spectrometer Onboard the Perseverance Rover Enables Identification of a Ubiquitous Martian Spectral Component.

The Perseverance rover landed at Jezero crater, Mars, on 18 February 2021, with a payload of scientific instruments to examine Mars' past habitability, look for signs of past life, and process samples for future return to Earth. The instrument payload includes the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) deep ultraviolet Raman and fluorescence imaging spectrometer designed to detect, characterize, and map the presence of organics and minerals on the Martian surface. Operation and engineering constraints sometimes result in the acquisition of spectra with features near the detection limit. It is therefore important to separate instrumental (background) spectral components and spectral components inherent to Martian surface materials. For SHERLOC, the instrumental background is assessed by collecting spectra in the stowed-arm configuration where the instrument is pointed at the Martian nighttime sky with no surface sample present in its optical path. These measurements reveal weak Raman and fluorescence background spectral signatures as well as charged-coupled device pixels prone to erroneous intensity spikes separate from cosmic rays. We quantitatively describe these features and provide a subtraction procedure to remove the spectral background from surface spectra. By identifying and accounting for the SHERLOC Raman background features within the median Raman spectra of Martian target scans, we find that the undefined silicate spectral feature interpreted to be either amorphous silicate or plagioclase feldspar is ubiquitously found in every Mars target Raman scan collected through Sol 751.

Reflections in a Golden Eye: Exploring the Photographic Art of Margaret Nolan and Shirley Eaton

This article offers a new perspective on the much-discussed phenomenon of the ‘Bond girl’ through an exploration of photographic artwork produced in later life by two notable Bond girls: the two ‘golden girls’ of Goldfinger (1964), Margaret Nolan, who appeared in the film’s credit sequence, and Shirley Eaton, who played the character who suffers skin suffocation by being painted gold. It is a remarkable coincidence that both women turned to photographic artwork as a way of reflecting back on their careers and on their youthful positioning as sex symbols, exemplified by their highly publicised appearances in Goldfinger. This article places their 1960s iconicity into dialogue with their retrospective, reflective artwork which is by turns critical, celebratory and ambivalent about their past lives as Bond girls. Nolan’s feminist-inflected photo-collages render her previous glamorous image uncanny through unsettling and subversive juxtapositions whereas Eaton’s digital remixing of old images alongside contemporary self-portraiture occupy the territory of star glamour more comfortably but extend it by showing the golden girl as older woman. Nolan and Eaton’s artwork provides valuable insights into the experiential dimensions of having been a Bond girl, with their creative response through art presenting certain complexities and nuances that written or spoken accounts might not access in quite the same way. In that respect, this article, alongside its specific insights into Bond girls, demonstrates the value for researchers in engaging with such material.

The mental health toll of the Russian-Ukraine war across 11 countries: Cross-sectional data on war-related stressors, PTSD and CPTSD symptoms

Exposure to war is a severe traumatic experience with disastrous mental health effects. This study examined the mental health among 5,560 residents in 11 countries worldwide at different geographic distances from the epicenter of the Russian-Ukrainian War (RUW). An online questionnaire assessed war-related variables (e.g., personal experiences with RUW, perceived concern and threat), previous life stress experiences, and mental health (i.e., resilience, anxiety, depression, perceived stress, ICD-11 PTSD, and CPTSD). Results showed regional differences. Ukrainians had the worst mental health indices, followed by participants in the bordering countries, and then by those in the distal ones. War-related variables were associated with worse mental health. The common predictors for PTSD and CPTSD were previous mental disorder, anxiety, and perceived stress, whereas unique predictors were also found (PTSD: female gender and impact of news on mental health; CPTSD: being single, overall impact of war on mental health, sum of lifetime traumatic experiences, resilience (inversely), and depression). Given the continuing uncertainty about the threat of war for many of the nations in this study, findings suggest the need for practitioners to support concerned populations.

The Psychological Crisis: Navigating the Tension Between Home and Homelessness in Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin's poetry often grapples with a conflict between affinity for and alienation from his homeland. Larkin's literary career thrived throughout the mid-20th century, a period marked by significant transformations in British thinking and society as a result of the Second World War. Larkin, the acknowledged Unofficial Poet Laureate of England, maintains strong connections to regional or national identities throughout his lifetime. Commonly, Larkin is referred to as a poet of Englishness. The protagonists in Larkin's works inherently embody the poet's own personality. The Larkin persona lacks a feeling of attachment to his childhood hometown of Coventry when he revisits it after ten years, as it does not evoke any nostalgia in him. The location of his birth and upbringing does not exert any influence on his recollection, resulting in a sense of alienation from his previous life. Larkin went between several geographical locations while serving as a librarian at various colleges or universities. Larkin expressed in his letter to Monica Jones that neither Hull nor any other place truly felt like home to him, following a fifteen-year residence there. Larkin declined to be constrained by his affiliation with his temporary residence. For Larkin, belonging to a place is not always a matter of choice, but rather an inevitable circumstance. The possession of a rented room, which might be described as a 'one hired box', induces a sense of belonging crisis in a Larkin speaker. The objective of this dissertation is to examine Larkin's conflicting emotions of belonging and non-belonging towards home in several of his poems.

Degree of acceptance of the disease and quality of life in women after mastectomy: a preliminary study

Background: The sudden change of life situation caused by a cancer diagnosis and mastectomy disturbs the psychosomatic balance and the functioning of a woman's previous life and leads to a reduced quality of life. Many women adapt to their new situation, but a very large group cannot adapt and cope with their illness.Aim of the study: Evaluation of disease acceptance and quality of life (QoL) in women after mastectomy.Material and methods: A total of 171 post-mastectomy women were studied. The study was conducted by means of a diagnostic survey using a questionnaire technique. The Acceptance of Illness Scale (AIS) and the Quality of Life Assessment Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF) were used.Results: The mean disease acceptability was 25.68 7.978. A group of 42.69% (72/171) had moderate disease acceptability, 32.75% (56/171) had high disease acceptability and 20.47% (35/171) had low disease acceptability. 4.09% (8/171) of the women had no acceptance of the disease. The mean value for the perception of QoL was 3.65 0.71. The best values were obtained for QoL in the psychological domain (14.1 3.1) and the worst in the physical domain (13.0; 2.7). Place of residence (p = 0.081) and education level (p = 0.196) did not significantly influence the acceptance of illness. Women living in village areas had a lower quality of life in the environmental domain (p = 0.036) than those living in the city. The absence of complications after mastectomy determined a higher level of QoL in the physical (p &lt; 0.001), psychological (p = 0.029) and environmental (p = 0.010) domains, as well as greater acceptance of the disease (p = 0.001). Disease acceptance was associated with an improvement in the quality of life of women who had undergone a mastectomy, across all domains. Conclusions: It is important to increase interventions to support the adjustment process of women after mastectomy, as acceptance of the disease improves the QoL of these women.

A new class of Lindley distribution: System reliability, simulation and applications

This paper presents a new probability distribution called the DUS Lindley distribution, created by applying the DUS transformation to the traditional Lindley distribution. The study provides an in-depth analysis of the distribution's statistical properties. These properties include a variety of statistical measures such as the probability density function, cumulative distribution function, failure rate, survival function, reverse hazard function, Mills ratio, mean residual life, mean past life, moments, conditional moments, characteristic function, order statistics, entropy measures, likelihood ratio test and Lorenz and Bonferroni curves. Parameter estimation is performed using several methods including weighted least squares, maximum likelihood estimation, Cramer-Von Mises estimation, least squares and Anderson-Darling estimation. The paper also explores the estimation of system reliability and evaluates the performance of maximum likelihood estimators through simulation studies across different sample sizes. Finally, the DUS Lindley distribution is applied to two real-world datasets, demonstrating a better fit than other well-known distributions.

The struggle of dealing with uncertainty: a qualitative, phenomenological study about how Dutch novice physical therapists experience their transition from student to professional

Objective To explain how Dutch novice physical therapists experience their transition from student to physical therapist in private practice. Methods A qualitative, phenomenological study was performed in The Netherlands to collect personal experiences from novice physical therapists who graduated <1 year ago. Data were collected with semi-structured interviews and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results The transition experience from student to novice physical therapist is a personal, complex, and context-dependent phenomenon. Sixteen novice physical therapists (of whom 10 were still working in private practice) said their transition was liberating, stressful, insecure, unexpected, chaotic, and challenging. The variety in experiences occurred from the fact that the impact of an experience varies from one individual to the other, depending on their previous (life) experiences, uncertainty tolerance, coping, and personal and professional environment. Four overarching themes emerged: (1) ‘Suddenly, I was on my own’, (2) ‘I was unprepared for the hassle and demands of clinical practice’, (3) ‘I couldn’t make the impact I expected’, and (4) ‘I had to find a new me’. Conclusions A novice physical therapist’s transition is a context-related phenomenon, unique for each individual and determined by individual experiences and coping strategies. Novice physical therapists described a feeling of ‘faking’: they had to pretend to know what they were doing [while treating a patient] while in reality, they felt like they did not. For some novice physical therapists, a primary reason to leave the profession.