Subsequent Occasions Research Articles

The importance of change communication and state motivation when adapting to changes.

Employees often work in dynamic environments requiring adaptive performance (e.g., emergencies, clients from other cultures). To optimize change management, employee training, and personnel selection in organizations, researchers have focused on trait-like predictors of adaption to change, such as personality traits or cognitive ability. The study (N = 300) shifts the focus to more proximal performance predictors - change communication and task-related state motivation. Adaptive performance was modeled using latent growth models. Providing two change-related hints, one at the beginning of the task and another directly after the change, mitigated performance impairment observed directly after the change. Moreover, this advantage largely persisted throughout the later stages of the task. In contrast, a single hint at the beginning of the task did not substantially facilitate adaption. Finally, task-related state motivation was linked to better performance on the subsequent measurement occasion. Organizations might minimize change-induced losses by deploying adequate change communication and maintaining employee motivation.

Estimation of the Population Size of Street- and Venue-Based Female Sex Workers and Sexually Exploited Minors in Rwanda in 2022: 3-Source Capture-Recapture.

HIV surveillance among key populations is a priority in all epidemic settings. Female sex workers (FSWs) globally as well as in Rwanda are disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic; hence, the Rwanda HIV and AIDS National Strategic Plan (2018-2024) has adopted regular surveillance of population size estimation (PSE) of FSWs every 2-3 years. We aimed at estimating, for the fourth time, the population size of street- and venue-based FSWs and sexually exploited minors aged ≥15 years in Rwanda. In August 2022, the 3-source capture-recapture method was used to estimate the population size of FSWs and sexually exploited minors in Rwanda. The field work took 3 weeks to complete, with each capture occasion lasting for a week. The sample size for each capture was calculated using shinyrecap with inputs drawn from previously conducted estimation exercises. In each capture round, a stratified multistage sampling process was used, with administrative provinces as strata and FSW hotspots as the primary sampling unit. Different unique objects were distributed to FSWs in each capture round; acceptance of the unique object was marked as successful capture. Sampled FSWs for the subsequent capture occasions were asked if they had received the previously distributed unique object in order to determine recaptures. Statistical analysis was performed in R (version 4.0.5), and Bayesian Model Averaging was performed to produce the final PSE with a 95% credibility set (CS). We sampled 1766, 1848, and 1865 FSWs and sexually exploited minors in each capture round. There were 169 recaptures strictly between captures 1 and 2, 210 recaptures exclusively between captures 2 and 3, and 65 recaptures between captures 1 and 3 only. In all 3 captures, 61 FSWs were captured. The median PSE of street- and venue-based FSWs and sexually exploited minors in Rwanda was 37,647 (95% CS 31,873-43,354), corresponding to 1.1% (95% CI 0.9%-1.3%) of the total adult females in the general population. Relative to the adult females in the general population, the western and northern provinces ranked first and second with a higher concentration of FSWs, respectively. The cities of Kigali and eastern province ranked third and fourth, respectively. The southern province was identified as having a low concentration of FSWs. We provide, for the first time, both the national and provincial level population size estimate of street- and venue-based FSWs in Rwanda. Compared with the previous 2 rounds of FSW PSEs at the national level, we observed differences in the street- and venue-based FSW population size in Rwanda. Our study might not have considered FSWs who do not want anyone to know they are FSWs due to several reasons, leading to a possible underestimation of the true PSE.

What’s in a Refusal? Methodological and Ethical Notes from an Ethnography of Mental Health Care in Rural Ghana

Drawing on fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2013 and 2022 on experiences of madness and practices of mental health care in rural southwestern Ghana, in this paper I propose to take as a point of departure, a specific episode in which the relatives of Fadhila—a girl I had first met at the psychiatric unit, where she was diagnosed as “psychotic”—refused to give consent to record an interview with me. The refusal was motivated by the strict instructions that Fadhila and her family were given by the traditional healer who was taking care of her: among many other things, the girl was not allowed to come close to any electronic device and her family felt it was unsafe to record an interview at their house. The refusal had to do with Fadhila being a “patient” as much as it had to do with another refusal: that of drugs and psychiatrisation. Indeed, the refusal had to do with spirits, the spirits that occasionally possessed Fadhila and were trying to make her a healer, according to her, her family members, and the traditional specialists they had visited. The refusal, however, may also have been a polite, indirect way to “withdraw consent”—to use the jargon of informed consent forms and ethics review committees. Though Fadhila and her family kept inviting me to their place, welcomed me warmly in subsequent occasions, and conversed with me about many things including the girl’s “condition,” that episode pushed me to reconsider the limits of formal consent and the need to constantly question it and re-establish it—a complex dynamic that sometimes the bureaucracy of “ethical clearance” processes in academia may contribute, paradoxically, to erase. Analysing this ethnographic episode in light of the powerful concept of ethnographic refusal introduced by Audra Simpson, I propose a reflection on the ethical and methodological implications of considering people as “sources” in ethnographies of madness and mental health.

Putting the child in the driver's seat: Insights into language development from children's interactions in preschool classrooms.

Children's own language production has a role in structuring the language of their conversation partners and influences their own development. Children's active participation in their own language development is most apparent in the rich body of work investigating language in natural environments. The advent of automated measures of vocalizations and movement have made such in situ research increasingly feasible. In this chapter, we review recent research on children's language development in context with a particular focus on research employing automated methods in preschool classrooms for children between ages 2 and 5 years. These automated methods indicate that the speech directed to preschool children from specific peers predicts the child's speech to those peers on a subsequent observation occasion. Similar patterns are seen in the influence of peer and teacher phonemic diversity on the phonemic diversity of children's speech to those partners. In both cases, children's own speech to partners was the best predictor of their language abilities, suggesting their active role in their own development. Finally, new research suggests the potential of machine learning to predict children's speech in group contexts, and to transcribe classroom speech to better understand the content of children's conversations and how they change with development.

Model-Informed Precision Dosing to Reduce Vincristine-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy in Pediatric Patients: A Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Modeling and Simulation Analysis.

Vincristine-induced peripheral neuropathy (VIPN) is a common adverse effect of vincristine, a drug often used in pediatric oncology. Previous studies demonstrated large inter- and intrapatient variability in vincristine pharmacokinetics (PK). Model-informed precision dosing (MIPD) can be applied to calculate patient exposure and individualize dosing using therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) measurements. This study set out to investigate the PK/pharmacodynamic (PKPD) relationship of VIPN and determine the utility of MIPD to support clinical decisions regarding dose selection and individualization. Data from 35 pediatric patients were utilized to quantify the relationship between vincristine dose, exposure and the development of VIPN. Measurements of vincristine exposure and VIPN (Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events [CTCAE]) were available at baseline and for each subsequent dosing occasions (1-5). A PK and PKPD analysis was performed to assess the inter- and intraindividual variability in vincristine exposure and VIPN over time. In silico trials were performed to portray the utility of vincristine MIPD in pediatric subpopulations with a certain age, weight and cytochrome P450 (CYP)3A5 genotype distribution. A two-compartmental model with linear PK provided a good description of the vincristine exposure data. Clearance and distribution parameters were related to bodyweight through allometric scaling. A proportional odds model with Markovian elements described the incidence of Grades 0, 1 and ≥2 VIPN overdosing occasions. Vincristine area under the curve (AUC) was the most significant exposure metric related to the development of VIPN, where an AUC of 50 ng⋅h/mL was estimated to be related to an average VIPN probability of 40% over five dosing occasions. The incidence of Grade ≥2 VIPN reduced from 62.1 to 53.9% for MIPD-based dosing compared with body surface area (BSA)-based dosing in patients. Dose decreases occurred in 81.4% of patients with MIPD (vs. 86.4% for standard dosing) and dose increments were performed in 33.4% of patients (no dose increments allowed for standard dosing). The PK and PKPD analysis supports the use of MIPD to guide clinical dose decisions and reduce the incidence of VIPN. The current work can be used to support decisions with respect to dose selection and dose individualization in children receiving vincristine.

Moderate physical activity is associated with lower depression, anxiety and stress in health-care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic

ObjectiveHealth-care workers are in high risk for COVID-19 and may experience associated mental health disturbances. Although physical activity (PA) has positive effects on mental disturbances, it has not been fully investigated in health-team during COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, we analyzed depression, anxiety and stress in health-care workers, and their relationship with PA before and during a COVID-19 peak. MethodsRetrospective cohort study. PA (IPAQ short-form) evaluated and associated with depression, anxiety and stress (DAAS-21) at the beginning of COVID-19 first wave in Mexico (April 2020) in 1146 workers of a tertiary-care hospital, and in a subsequent occasion at the first wave peak (July–August/2020) in 311 workers (from the first ones). Data collected from routine surveillance. ResultsDepression increased 9%, anxiety 15%, and stress 10% at the pandemic peak. Subjects with higher frequency of baseline moderate PA showed lower severity of depression, anxiety and stress at the peak (p < 0.05). At the pandemic peak, female sex (OR = 2.42, 95%CI 1.14–5.13), diabetes (OR = 21.9, 95%CI 2.09–221) and baseline depression (OR = 8.86, 95%CI 4.30–18.2) predicted depression; baseline anxiety (OR = 5.52, 95%CI 3.01–10.1), working in COVID-19 area (OR = 4.14, 95%CI 1.99–8.64), and baseline moderate PA (OR = 0.35, 95%CI 0.16–0.73) predicted anxiety; and baseline stress (OR = 8.64, 95%CI 4.11–18.2), and moderate PA (OR = 0.35, 95%CI 0.15–0.82) predicted stress. ConclusionDepression, stress, and particularly anxiety, increased in health-care workers from the beginning to the COVID-19 pandemic peak, and were predicted by the presence of the corresponding baseline mental alterations, and in the case of anxiety and stress, by the lower frequency of moderate PA.

It’s a new day – is it? Testing accumulation and sensitisation effects of workload on fatigue in daily diary studies

ABSTRACT Studies investigating the stressor–strain relation using daily diary designs have been interested in within-person deviations that predict well-being outcomes on the same day. These models typically have not accounted for the possibility of short-term accumulation (i.e. previous stressor experiences having a lasting effect and affecting strain on subsequent occasions) and sensitisation (i.e. previous stressor experiences amplifying subsequent reactions to stressors) effects of stressors such as workload across days. In this study, we test immediate, accumulation, and sensitisation effects of workload on fatigue within and across days using four diary studies (mean observations = 1,406; mean N = 166). In all four studies, we observed that workload had positive concurrent effects on fatigue. In addition, we found that workload had positive effects on fatigue within one day. However, there was insufficient support for short-term accumulation or sensitisation effects, implying that higher levels of workload on previous days did not directly affect or amplify the effect of workload on fatigue on that day. We discuss implications for recovery theories and potential future avenues to refine the theoretical propositions that describe intra-individual stress and recovery processes across days.

Persistence and generalization of adaptive changes in auditory localization behavior following unilateral conductive hearing loss.

Sound localization relies on the neural processing of binaural and monaural spatial cues generated by the physical properties of the head and body. Hearing loss in one ear compromises binaural computations, impairing the ability to localize sounds in the horizontal plane. With appropriate training, adult individuals can adapt to this binaural imbalance and largely recover their localization accuracy. However, it remains unclear how long this learning is retained or whether it generalizes to other stimuli. We trained ferrets to localize broadband noise bursts in quiet conditions and measured their initial head orienting responses and approach-to-target behavior. To evaluate the persistence of auditory spatial learning, we tested the sound localization performance of the animals over repeated periods of monaural earplugging that were interleaved with short or long periods of normal binaural hearing. To explore learning generalization to other stimulus types, we measured the localization accuracy before and after adaptation using different bandwidth stimuli presented against constant or amplitude-modulated background noise. Retention of learning resulted in a smaller initial deficit when the same ear was occluded on subsequent occasions. Each time, the animals' performance recovered with training to near pre-plug levels of localization accuracy. By contrast, switching the earplug to the contralateral ear resulted in less adaptation, indicating that the capacity to learn a new strategy for localizing sound is more limited if the animals have previously adapted to conductive hearing loss in the opposite ear. Moreover, the degree of adaptation to the training stimulus for individual animals was significantly correlated with the extent to which learning extended to untrained octave band target sounds presented in silence and to broadband targets presented in background noise, suggesting that adaptation and generalization go hand in hand. Together, these findings provide further evidence for plasticity in the weighting of monaural and binaural cues during adaptation to unilateral conductive hearing loss, and show that the training-dependent recovery in spatial hearing can generalize to more naturalistic listening conditions, so long as the target sounds provide sufficient spatial information.

The United States Army Air Force Bombing Campaign Against the Leuna Synthetic Fuel Plant in 1944-45 and the German Response

The Leuna chemical plant in Eastern Germany was initially developed during the First World War to produce artificial nitrogen for use in explosives. The world’s first production of synthetic fuel from brown coal commenced at Leuna in 1927. From 1933 the Nazi government began to prepare for war and heavily expanded the Leuna complex to ensure that Germany had sufficient resources of fuel, nitrogen and rubber to support short campaigns. The synthetic fuel production technology developed in Leuna was also transferred to thirteen other sites in Greater Germany. Commencing on 12 May 1944 the USAAF, and later the RAF, undertook a sustained bombing campaign against Leuna and the other synthetic fuel plants. However, due to the critical importance of Leuna to the war effort, the German state devoted significant resources to the defence of the plant, and to its repair and the maintenance of production. The USAAF and RAF attacked Leuna on 21 subsequent occasions until production finally ceased in March 1945. This sustained bombing ultimately overcame the Leuna workforce’s ability to repair the utilities but did not seriously damage the core production equipment. This paper uses German, American and British archival sources to explore in detail the nature and impact of the air campaign against Leuna and to examine and explain the ways in which the Germans sought, with some success, to keep the plant operational. In addressing the bombing campaign from an alternative perspective, primarily from the ground looking up, the paper offers new insight into a topic most commonly viewed from the perspective of the Allied forces.

Assessing the Effect of Plant-Based Mince on Fullness and Post-Prandial Satiety in Healthy Male Subjects.

This study aimed to assess the effect of substituting plant-based mince for beef mince in a standard pasta meal on the amount consumed and on objective and subjective measures of post-prandial satiety. Healthy, adult males (n = 24) consumed a pasta lunch meal containing either plant-based or beef mince at separate visits, and the amount consumed measured at each visit. Perceptions of hunger, fullness and satisfaction were recorded and blood samples collected before and for 3 h after eating, when a buffet meal was provided. Participants consumed 586 kJ less of the pasta meal prepared with plant-based mince compared to beef mince (p < 0.05). Energy intake at the buffet meal and measures of fullness, satiety and satisfaction after the pasta meal were not different between plant and beef mince (p > 0.05). Post-prandial Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 (GLP-1), but not insulin or leptin concentrations, were lower after the plant-based pasta meal (p < 0.05). Our results suggest that the pasta meal containing plant-based mince was more satiating than an equivalent meal prepared with beef mince, and that this was not associated with greater energy intake at a subsequent meal occasion. Further studies that evaluate the longer-term effects of replacing meat with plant-based mince on energy intakes and explore the mechanisms underlying the lower consumption of the plant-based mince meal would be valuable.

Quantitative evaluation of Zindagii Shoista (Living with Dignity) intervention to prevent violence against women in Tajikistan

ABSTRACT Background Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a major problem in Tajikistan, driven by conservative gender norms, the culturally ascribed position of young women, and poverty. Objective We evaluated Zindagii Shoista (Living with Dignity), an intervention developed with the aim of reducing VAWG through a combination of gender norm change, communication skills, and income-generating activities (IGA) over a period of 30 months. Methods The evaluation used a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative data collection. Eighty families from four villages were enrolled in the intervention and surveyed at baseline and on three subsequent occasions. From these families, 134 women and 102 men were interviewed at baseline, 153 women and 89 men 8 months later, 153 women and 93 men 15 months later, and 143 women and 82 men, 30 months after the baseline. Generalised random effects regression models were used to assess the trend in proportions or mean score over time. Results Over the 30 months, the proportion of women and men earning in the past month rose from 17.9% to 56.6% and 44.1% to 72%, respectively. Women and men’s gender attitudes became significantly less patriarchal, and they reported less harmful gender norms in the community. Women and men reported less male controlling behaviour and greater woman involvement in decision-making. Women’s reports of experience of emotional, physical, and sexual IPV significantly reduced. Depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts reduced significantly for men and women, and self-rated health improved. Conclusions The quantitative findings are confirmed by the findings of the qualitative research and monitoring data. They demonstrate that Zindagii Shoista is a very promising intervention for strengthening gender relations, reducing IPV, and improving mental health and socio-economic circumstances for younger married women and their families in Tajikistan.

Open field behavior in the house cricket (Acheta domesticus): effect of illumination, sex differences and individual consistency

Edible insects are worldwide promoted as an alternative protein, trace mineral and lipid source in animal feed and human food. The house cricket (Acheta domesticus) is already being reared at an industrial scale, yet current mass-rearing practices and facility design may still leave room for improvement. Behavioral tests have been suggested as an important assessment tool at the whole-organism level that can be used to find optimal housing conditions (e.g. density, diet, temperature). Here, we adapt the widely used open field test to the house cricket. We tested 16 male and 16 female house crickets four times under two different light intensities. Videos were analysed with Ethovision™ tracking software and variables distance moved, velocity, and duration and frequency in zone were extracted. Results showed that house crickets, like vertebrate model species, spent most time close to the walls of the arena, and crossed the center zone with high velocity. Brighter illumination was associated with increased velocity, in particular in the center zone during the first test occasion, suggesting avoidance of this zone. Male crickets had higher locomotory activity than females. Consistency repeatabilities and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were moderate to high, and the correlation between subsequent occasions became stronger over the four occasions at day 1, 2, 3 and 7. The first test occasion differed from subsequent occasions, therefore repeated testing may be necessary when analysing experimental manipulations of small effect size. Overall, the results are promising for use of the open field test as a precise phenotyping tool.

To Steal or Not to Steal: Self-Discrepancies as a Way to Promote Pro-social Behavior: The Moderating Role of Self-Interest.

Previous research showed that acting immorally on one occasion can determine a greater availability for pro-social behavior on a subsequent occasion. Nevertheless, moderating factors for this effect, such as financial interest remained largely unexplored. The present field experiment (N = 587) was organized in an urban setting, in a post-communist society (Romania), in a context of public anonymity and examined passersby’s pro-social behavior on two consecutive occasions. The procedure involved a confederate “losing” a banknote of different values (1, 10, 50, 100, or 500 RON), which invited passersby’s pro-social behavior to return it (or not). Participants who decided to steal the banknote were approached by a second confederate and asked politely to return the banknote. Our research was articulated mainly as a quantitative approach by measuring participants’ pro-social behavior toward the person who lost the banknote, their subsequent pro-social behavior toward the confederate who exposed their behavior and the number of words they produced during a post-experimental interview in which they could justify their behavior. At the same time, we also performed a qualitative approach, through which we explored the themes evoked in their justifications and their relation with their previous behavior. Results indicate a moderating effect of economic interest on pro-social behavior toward the confederate who lost the banknote, as well as on their subsequent pro-social behavior toward the second confederate. Participants who stole the banknote also used significantly more words to justify their behavior, and this tendency could be observed especially in the case for higher values of the banknote. Results are critically discussed in a context dominated by an inherited pattern of distrust and social cynicism.

Validation and generalizability of machine learning prediction models on attrition in longitudinal studies

Attrition in longitudinal studies is a major threat to the representativeness of the data and the generalizability of the findings. Typical approaches to address systematic nonresponse are either expensive and unsatisfactory (e.g., oversampling) or rely on the unrealistic assumption of data missing at random (e.g., multiple imputation). Thus, models that effectively predict who most likely drops out in subsequent occasions might offer the opportunity to take countermeasures (e.g., incentives). With the current study, we introduce a longitudinal model validation approach and examine whether attrition in two nationally representative longitudinal panel studies can be predicted accurately. We compare the performance of a basic logistic regression model with a more flexible, data-driven machine learning algorithm—gradient boosting machines. Our results show almost no difference in accuracies for both modeling approaches, which contradicts claims of similar studies on survey attrition. Prediction models could not be generalized across surveys and were less accurate when tested at a later survey wave. We discuss the implications of these findings for survey retention, the use of complex machine learning algorithms, and give some recommendations to deal with study attrition.

Oral and intravenous glucose administration elicit opposing microvascular blood flow responses in skeletal muscle of healthy people: role of incretins

Insulin infusion increases skeletal muscle microvascular blood flow (MBF) in healthy people but is impaired during insulin resistance. However, we have shown that eliciting insulin secretion via oral glucose loading in healthy people impairs muscle MBF, whilst others have demonstrated intravenous glucose infusion stimulates MBF. We aimed to show that the route of glucose administration (oral versus intravenous) influences muscle MBF, and explore potential gut‐derived hormones that may explain these divergent responses. Ten healthy individuals underwent a 120 min oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT; 75 g glucose) and on a subsequent occasion an intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT, bypassing the gut) matched for similar blood glucose excursions. Femoral artery and thigh muscle microvascular (contrast‐enhanced ultrasound) haemodynamics were measured at baseline and during the OGTT/IVGTT. Plasma insulin, C‐peptide, glucagon, non‐esterified fatty acids and a range of gut‐derived hormones and incretins (gastric inhibitory polypeptide (GIP) and glucagon‐like peptide‐1(GLP‐1)) were measured at baseline and throughout the OGTT/IVGTT. The IVGTT increased whereas the OGTT impaired MBF (1.3‐fold versus 0.5‐fold from baseline, respectively, P = 0.0006). The impairment in MBF during the OGTT occurred despite producing 2.8‐fold higher plasma insulin concentrations (P = 0.0001). The change in MBF from baseline (ΔMBF) negatively correlated with ΔGIP concentrations (r = −0.665, P < 0.0001). The natural log ratio of incretins GLP‐1:GIP was positively associated with ΔMBF (r = 0.658, P < 0.0001), suggesting they have opposing actions on the microvasculature. Postprandial hyperglycaemia per se does not acutely determine opposing microvascular responses between OGTT and IVGTT. Incretins may play a role in modulating skeletal muscle MBF in humans.Key points Insulin or mixed nutrient meals stimulate skeletal muscle microvascular blood flow (MBF) to aid in the delivery of nutrients; however, this vascular effect is lost during insulin resistance.Food/drinks containing large glucose loads impair MBF in healthy people; however, this impairment is not observed when glucose is infused intravenously (bypassing the gut).We investigated skeletal muscle MBF responses to a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test and intravenous glucose infusion and aimed to identify potential gut hormones responsible for glucose‐mediated changes in MBF.Despite similar blood glucose concentrations, orally ingested glucose impaired, whereas intravenously infused glucose augmented, skeletal muscle MBF. The incretin gastric inhibitory polypeptide was negatively associated with MBF, suggestive of an incretin‐mediated MBF response to oral glucose ingestion.This work provides new insight into why diets high in glucose may be detrimental to vascular health and provides new avenues for novel treatment strategies targeting microvascular dysfunction.

Cortisol trajectories measured prospectively across thirty years of female development following exposure to childhood sexual abuse: Moderation by epigenetic age acceleration at midlife

Lasting changes in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis are a potential indication of the biological embedding of early life adversity, yet, prospective and repeatedly collected data are needed to confirm this relation. Likewise, integrating information from multiple biological systems, such as the HPA axis and the epigenome, has the potential to identify individuals with enhanced embedding of early life adversity. The current study reports results from the Female Growth and Development Study, a 30-year prospective cohort study of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Females exposed to substantiated CSA and a demographically-similar comparison condition were enrolled and resting state cortisol concentrations were sampled on seven subsequent occasions across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Differences in participants’ cortisol trajectories were examined in relation to prior CSA exposure and DNA methylation-derived epigenetic age acceleration at midlife. Bilinear spline growth models revealed a trajectory where cortisol secretion increased until approximately age twenty and then declined into mid-life, consistent with normative trends. However, cortisol concentrations peaked at a lower level and transitioned to the decline phase at an earlier age for females in the CSA condition with increased epigenetic age acceleration. Robustness tests across three independent measures of epigenetic age acceleration demonstrated similar results for lower peak cortisol levels and earlier ages at transition. Results suggest that CSA is associated with significant changes in HPA-axis activity over extended periods of time with these changes most pronounced in females with accelerated epigenetic aging in mid-life. Implications for biological embedding models of early life adversity and adulthood health are discussed.

It Is My Turn Now: How and Why ‘Single’ Women Complain about Non-Reciprocal Gift-Giving

This article employs the prism of gift-exchange to analyse the marginalised status of singles within social relations. We trace an emerging critique voiced by single women, who challenge the unilateral etiquette of gifting marital and family-making celebrations. While dominant social norms normalise gift-giving at weddings and subsequent family-related occasions, there are no commensurable opportunities for singles to receive back their accumulative investments in the life events of others. Drawing on various online sources, we explore the discursive articulations through which single women highlight the unfairness that underpins their position as constant givers. We show how single women manage the social risks that such public complaints entail, and how they claim to be worthy receivers themselves. This article offers singlehood as a valuable case study for engaging with broader questions concerning reciprocity – specifically, what happens when reciprocal gifting is not an established norm within ostensibly reciprocal social relations.

Personality change in the Nottingham Study of Neurotic Disorder: 30-Year cohort study.

Background:Persistence is said to be a feature of personality disorder, but there are few long-term prospective studies of the condition. A total of 200 patients with anxiety and depressive disorders involved in a randomised controlled trial initiated in 1983 had full personality status assessed at baseline. We repeated assessment of personality status on three subsequent occasions over 30 years.Methods:Personality status was recorded using methods derived from the Personality Assessment Schedule, which has algorithms for allocating Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the 11th International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) categories. The category and severity of personality diagnosis were recorded at baseline in the randomised patients with DSM-III anxiety and depressive diagnoses. The same methods of assessing personality status was repeated at 2, 12 and 30 years after baseline.Results:Using the ICD-11 system, 47% of patients, mainly those with no personality disturbance at baseline, retained their personality status; of the others 16.8% improved and 20.4% worsened to more severe disorder. In DSM-III diagnosed patients, those diagnosed as Cluster A and Cluster C increased in frequency (from 14% to 40%, p < 0.001, and 21.5% to 36%, p < 0.001, respectively) over follow-up, while those with Cluster B showed little change in frequency (22% to 18%, p = 0.197).Conclusion:In this population of patients with common mental disorders, personality status showed many changes over time, inconsistent with the view that personality disorder is a persistent or stable condition. The increase in diagnoses within the Cluster A and C groups suggests personality disorder generally increases in frequency as people age.

Complaint behaviour in multichannel retailing: a cross-stage approach

PurposeThis paper analyses how the purchase channel and customer complaint goals affect the sequential choice of post–purchase complaint channels when customers experience a service failure followed by a service recovery failure (double deviation).Design/methodology/approachAn online survey involving a scenario manipulation was conducted with 577 apparel shoppers. The study employs multi-group latent class analysis to estimate latent customer segments within both online and offline groups of shoppers and compare latent classes between the two groups.FindingsThe results show that the purchase channel has a lock-in effect on the complaint channel, which is stronger for offline buyers. Moreover, there is evidence of channel synergy effects in the case of having to complain twice: shoppers who complain in store in the first attempt turn to online channels in the second complaint attempt, and vice versa. Complaint goals shape the choice of complaint channels and define different shopper segments.Originality/valueThe present study is the first to adopt a cross-stage approach that analyses the dependencies between the purchase channel and the complaint channel used on two subsequent occasions: the first complaint after a service failure and the second following a service recovery failure.

Mechanisms of context conditioning in the developing rat

The article reviews our studies of contextual fear conditioning (CFC) in rats during a period of development---Postnatal Day (PND) 17-33---that represents the late-infant, juvenile, and early-adolescent stages. These studies seek to acquire ‘systems level’ knowledge of brain and memory development and apply it to a rodent model of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). This rodent model focuses on alcohol exposure from PND4-9, a period of brain development equivalent to the human third trimester, when neocortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum are especially vulnerable to adverse effects of alcohol. Our research emphasizes a variant of CFC, termed the Context Preexposure Facilitation Effect (CPFE, Fanselow, 1990), in which context representations incidentally learned on one occasion are retrieved and associated with immediate shock on a subsequent occasion. These representations can be encoded at the earliest developmental stage but seem not to be retained or retrieved until the juvenile period. This is associated with developmental differences in context-elicited expression, in prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala, of immediate early genes (IEGs) that are implicated in long-term memory. Loss-of-function studies establish a functional role for these regions as soon as the CPFE emerges during ontogeny. In our rodent model of FASD, the CPFE is much more sensitive to alcohol dose than other commonly used cognitive tasks. This impairment can be reversed by acute administration during behavioral testing of drugs that enhance cholinergic function. This effect is associated with normalized IEG expression in prefrontal cortex during incidental context learning. In summary, our findings suggest that long-term memory of incidentally-learned context representations depends on prefrontal-hippocampal circuitry that is important both for the normative development of context conditioning and for its disruption by developmental alcohol exposure.