Vicious Circles Research Articles

GAS6 as a potential target to alleviate neuroinflammation during Japanese encephalitis in mouse models

Viral encephalitis is characterized by inflammation of the brain parenchyma caused by a variety of viruses, among which the Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus (JEV) is a typical representative arbovirus. Neuronal death, neuroinflammation, and breakdown of the blood brain barrier (BBB) constitute vicious circles of JE progression. Currently, there is no effective therapy to prevent this damage. Growth arrest specific gene 6 (GAS6) is a secreted growth factor that binds to the TYRO3, AXL, and MERTK (TAM) family of receptor tyrosine kinases and has been demonstrated to participate in neuroprotection and suppression of inflammation in many central nervous system (CNS) diseases which has great potential for JE intervention. In this study, we found that GAS6 expression in the brain was decreased and was reversely correlated with viral load and neuronal loss. Mice with GAS6/TAM signalling deficiency showed higher mortality and accelerated neuroinflammation during peripheral JEV infection, accompanied by BBB breakdown. GAS6 directly promoted the expression of tight junction proteins in bEnd.3 cells and strengthened BBB integrity, partly via AXL. Mice administered GAS6 were more resistant to JEV infection due to increased BBB integrity, as well as decreased viral load and neuroinflammation. Thus, targeted GAS6 delivery may represent a strategy for the prevention and treatment of JE especially in patients with impaired BBB.

Vicious Circle With Venous Hypertension, Irregular Flow, Pathological Venous Wall Remodeling, and Valve Destruction in Chronic Venous Disease: A Review.

Substantial advances occurred in phlebological practice in the last two decades. With the use of modern diagnostic equipment, the patients' venous hemodynamics can be examined in detail in everyday practice. Application of venous segments for arterial bypasses motivated studies on the effect of hemodynamic load on the venous wall. New animal models have been developed to study hemodynamic effects on the venous system. In vivo and in vitro studies revealed cellular phase transitions of venous endothelial, smooth muscle, and fibroblastic cells and changes in connective tissue composition, under hemodynamic load and at different locations of the chronically diseased venous system. This review is an attempt to integrate our knowledge from epidemiology, paleoanthropology and anthropology, clinical and experimental hemodynamic studies, histology, cell physiology, cell pathology, and molecular biology on the complex pathomechanism of this frequent disease. Our conclusion is that the disease is initiated by limited genetic adaptation of mankind not to bipedalism but to bipedalism in the unmoving standing or sitting position. In the course of the disease several pathologic vicious circles emerge, sustained venous hypertension inducing cellular phase transitions, chronic wall inflammation, apoptosis of cells, pathologic dilation, and valvular damage which, in turn, further aggravate the venous hypertension.

Practices of recognition and misrecognition in encounters between social workers and parents struggling with poverty

This study explores recognition and misrecognition practices in encounters between parents in poverty and social workers trying to help them. The goal of the analysis is to understand how such practices can lead the actors involved to feel either included and valued or misrecognized and excluded, and which factors influence these possibilities. The research was carried out by administering qualitative interviews to 40 parents struggling with poverty and 27 social workers in eight Italian regions. The analysis identified four forms of recognition and misrecognition: negative recognition, invisibility, conditional recognition and mutual recognition. The first three ‘ethnocentric’ forms exclude reciprocity by denying recognition or generating instrumental forms of recognition, negatively affecting the helping relationship. Practices of mutual recognition are instead made collectively in interactions in which professionals not only express care for the other but also assume and treat the person as an autonomous individual who can take up a critical stance towards recognition practices and norms in the helping relationship. Recognition practices also emerge as a powerful tool for social workers to fight the vicious circles of misrecognition of parents in poverty; however, these relations need to be nurtured and made possible, through meso- and macro-level interventions as well.

The Power and Roots of Aspirations

Abstract Aspirations have become a common theme in empirical economics studies but there is no unified understanding of the range of outcomes they influence, the factors that shape them, and how to measure them. We survey this growing literature. We argue that there is compelling evidence to consider aspirations as a useful lens to analyze human behavior and development outcomes, at the individual and aggregate levels, in poorer and richer countries. The empirical evidence aligns with the theory that high aspirations can lead individuals to achieve better educational, labor market, and other outcomes and can contribute to making countries more equal and prosperous. The empirical evidence also confirms that the mix of social and circumstantial factors shaping aspirations tends to hinder the aspirations of the disadvantaged—such as the poor, immigrants, and women—and can contribute to vicious circles of poverty, high inequality, low social mobility, and low growth. However, high aspirations should not be considered an end in themselves as they can backfire, with deleterious effects, if unmatched with opportunities. Further, we argue that definitional and measurement issues can affect the understanding of the topic and that studies should more explicitly describe their measures of aspirations to ensure that divergent underlying concepts are not mistaken.

Questions a patient with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis would like to be asked: Data from a qualitative study conducted by anthropologists

AbstractBackgroundA considerable number of patients with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis (AD) are undertreated and have inadequate control of their symptoms leading to a hight patient dissatisfaction during their care. The VECUDA study composed of VECU and DA for french word lived and atopic dermatitis was conducted by anthropologists in cooperation with dermatologists, aimed to better understand the complexity of the care pathway and the physician‐patient relationship by questioning patients with moderate to severe AD.ObjectivesThe aim was to identify patient's needs and to propose concrete ways of improving the doctor‐patient relationship by focusing on the narrative of their affects. Co‐designed easy‐to‐use tools were proposed by these patients.MethodsThe exploratory qualitative study involved 24 patients with moderate‐to‐severe AD. The study was conducted in two stages: a codesign phase with four patients, and a deepening phase with all patients (24), supported by a multidisciplinary scientific committee. During group interviews, conducted using creativity tools, patients' stories related to their experiences of the disease and its management were collected.ResultsBy studying the patients' affect stories, researchers were able to identify the needs of patients who might be 1. emotional (better consideration of their experiences); 2. informational (more information about their disease and treatments); 3. participatory (being involved in their care: therapeutic alliance). Mechanisms of therapeutic dissatisfaction and satisfaction were mapped into vicious and virtuous circles. Patients also offered concrete and easy‐to‐use tools. We are presenting here the grid of questions these patients would like to be asked during their doctor's appointment: the Doctor‐Facing Questions Grid that these patients would like to be asked during a consultation.ConclusionsBy facilitating the identification of patients' needs/expectations, these tools would help guide the clinician's discussion and management in a few questions. The VECUDA study confirms the value of considering patients' perspective as a lever for improving the doctor‐patient relationship.

Stress, interpersonal and inter-role conflicts, and psychological health conditions among nurses: vicious and virtuous circles within and beyond the wards.

The increasing costs of nurses' occupational-stress, conflicts, and violence within healthcare services have raised international interest. Yet, research/interventions should consider that perceived stress and conflicts- but also potential resources- within the wards can crossover the healthcare settings, impacting nurses' private lives and viceversa, potentially creating vicious circles exacerbating stress, conflicts/violence or, conversely, virtuous circles of psychological/relational wellbeing. Based on the Demands-Resources-and-Individual-Effects (DRIVE) Nurses Model, and responding to the need to go in-depth into this complex dynamic, this study aims to explore potential vicious circles featured by the negative effects of the interplay (main/mediating effects) between perceived stressors in nursing linked to interpersonal conflicts (Conflicts-with-Physicians, Peers, Supervisors, Patients/their families), work-family inter-role conflicts (Work-Family/Family-Work-Conflicts), and work-related stress (Effort-Reward-Imbalance) on nurses' psychological/relational health (Anxiety, Depression, Somatization, Interpersonal-Sensitivity, Hostility). The potential moderating role of work-resources (Job-Control, Social-Support, Job-Satisfaction) in breaking vicious circles/promoting virtuous circles was also explored. The STROBE Checklist was used to report this cross-sectional multi-centre study. Overall, 265 nurses completed self-report questionnaires. Main/mediating/moderating hypotheses were tested by using Correlational-Analyses and Hayes-PROCESS-tool. Data confirmed the hypothesized detrimental vicious circles (main/mediating effects), impairing nurses' psychological health conditions at individual level (Anxiety, Depression, Somatization), but also at relational level (Hostility and Interpersonal-Sensitivity). The moderating role of all work resources was fully supported. Findings could be used to implement interventions/practices to effectively prevent the maintenance/exacerbation of vicious circles and promote psychological/relational wellbeing in healthcare settings and beyond.

La figure du labyrinthe entre philosophie, art et littérature

The Figure of the Labyrinth between Philosophy, Art and Literature The aim of this article is to draw analogies between the Prisons by Piranesi and The Castle by Franz Kafka in the light of the figure of the labyrinth. In these specific cases, the architectonics (as a pseudo- arrangement of perspective planes) and the plot (as a factitious connection between action sequences) enclose the illusion of depth and the impression of duration in the vicious circles of the lines of rupture and of the missed events, respectively. The Piranesian atopic topic (from atopos, « out of place ») and the Kafkaesque apraxic practice (from apraktos, « inconclusive ») are both based on unsurpassable antinomies and, in this particular respect, seem to revive Zeno of Elea’s paradoxes of motion and Diodorus Cronus’ aporia of becoming, which Gottfried W. Leibniz considers to be two labyrinths.

Deprivation Spatial Concentration in a Developing Country: Evidence from Iran

This study is an attempt to locate deprived areas and explore the causes of spatially concentrated deprivation in Iran as a developing country. A systematic review was conducted of geographical and place‐based analyses that considered multiple deprivation, and deprived parts of the country were identified. Findings show the dominance of relative meaning of the concept in studies that overlap with rural areas and borders. There is good evidence that this part is entrapped in multideprivation as deprived and was identified not only in a single domain; moreover, a strong emphasis was placed on infrastructure, housing, communication, health, income, and employment, while in contrast to the literature, there was no strong emphasis on education. Deprivation was enhanced by increasing migration; it is not just migration of people, especially specialists, but also migration of investments that is important to mobilize deprived settings' potential for an endogenous development. This is essential, as results highlighted the failure of government planning policies to lift the deprived parts of the country out of deprivation; rather they enhance vicious circles of deprivation caused by persistence of the most deprived provinces at the bottom of the ranking list for several decades. Review shows deprivation as a result of inequality in Iran.

The Protestant Denominations in Bulgaria and the Communist Newspeak

With the method of critical discourse analysis, the author explores the language and ideologies of the communist State Security regarding the Protestant denominations in Bulgaria. The study is based on archival documents of the State Security, memoirs of Christian pastors and studies of the repression of Protestant churches. Parallels are drawn with the peculiarities of Orwell's totalitarian newspeak and Klemperer's Third Reich language. The main features of the communist newspeak are outlined - a fanati-cal and exalted language, a language – a spell that dehumanizes, pathologizes and represses the class Enemy, just as the Nazi language condemns and destroys the racial Enemy. In addition to cruel, the communist language shares shears also other features of totalitarian newspeak: a monochrome black and white language that demonizes the Enemy and favors Power, falsification of history, doublethinks numb critical thinking in vicious circles. These peculiarities determine the cunning of the State Security dis-course, which allows ignoring the Constitution and the laws in their apparent observance.

Erasing stigmas through storytelling: why interactive storytelling environments could reduce health-related stigmas

In this article we describe how designers can apply storytelling to reduce health-related stigmas. Stigma is a pervasive problem for people with illnesses, such as obesity, and it can persistently hinder coping, treatment, recovery, and prevention. Reducing health-related stigma is complex because it is multi-layered and self-perpetuating, leading to intertwined vicious circles. Interactive storytelling environments can break these vicious circles by delimiting the narrative freedom of stigma actors. We theoretically explain the potential of interactive storytelling environments to reduce stigma through the following seven functions: 1) expose participants to other perspectives, 2) provide a protective frame, 3) intervene in daily conversations, 4) persuade all stigma actors, 5) exchange alternative understandings, 6) elicit understanding and support for stigma victims, and 7) support stigma victims to cope with stigmatization. We elaborate on these functions through a demonstration of an interactive storytelling environment against weight stigma. In conclusion, this article is a call on designers for health and wellbeing, scientists, and practitioners from various disciplines to be sensitive to the pervasiveness of stigma and to collaboratively create destigmatizing storytelling environments.

Le défi de l’obésité dans les maladies psychiatriques: The challenge of obesity in psychiatric illness

Overweight and obesity are common in severe and chronic psychiatric disorders. Up to 50% of patients suffering from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are obese. The mortality rate is 4.5 times higher than in the general population, mainly due to metabolic and cardiovascular disorders. Numerous factors, interconnected by vicious circles of mutually reinforcing adverse physiological adaptations, contribute to this association. Close collaboration between mental health and somatic health specialists is essential for coordinated, individualized care. This will involve an integrative assessment to understand the factors behind the genesis of obesity, the consequences in terms of co-morbidity, and the possibilities of therapeutic options, including the ability to access treatment. Treatment paths should also include early detection of subjects at risk of weight gain, close monitoring of the metabolic effects of psychotropic drugs, hygienic-dietary measures and non-drug interventions. In addition, the role of bariatric surgery and obesity drugs requires more detailed investigations in these patients.© 2023 Société francophone nutrition clinique et métabolisme (SFNCM).Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Vicious Relational Circles and Chronic Couple Conflictuality: An Empirical Study

The study aims to empirically assess the control-mastery theory hypothesis that considers chronic couple conflictuality as the repetition of relational vicious circles—that is, interactions where both partners test their pathogenic beliefs and fail their reciprocal tests, confirming their reciprocal pathogenic beliefs. In addition, the study aims to verify if interpersonal guilt is more activated during couple conflicts. Our study involved 11 couples treated by four experienced therapists and nine trained, independent judges who, after reading verbatim transcripts of the couples’ psychotherapy sessions, used the Patient Scale of Couple Testing (PSCT), and the Patient Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale (PIGRS) to rate segments of couple sessions. The results were obtained by applying generalized estimating equations and confirm our hypotheses: we could observe a greater presence of testing activity and confirmation of pathogenic beliefs in segments classified as conflictual for both partners and a stronger presence of interpersonal guilt in conflictual versus nonconflictual interactions. These findings support the idea that conflict interactions can be seen as failed attempts by both partners to disconfirm their pathogenic beliefs.

Wisdom and the Other: Responsiveness in development between the egocentric and xenocentric style

This text networks contributions from three disciplines: phenomenological-philosophical perspectives on the Other, current discussions in wisdom research, and developmental models of social perspective-taking. The common theme is the concept of the “other,” which is ambivalent, because, on the one hand, it may produce othering that can be the entry point into vicious circles of xenophobia, hate, and annihilation, but the Other may be the source of responsiveness and wisdom, on the other hand. A deeper understanding of responsiveness in the self-other relation results from a reading of Waldenfels’ philosophy. This sharpens the perspective on wisdom emerging from the relation to the Other, for which the neologism “xenosophia” is suggested, which supports the view that wisdom as xenosophia and xenophobia are opposites. The implications of Waldenfels’ responsive phenomenology for wisdom research are exemplified for two key concepts, intellectual humility and perspective-taking. Finally, for a developmental perspective on responsiveness to the Other, a typological model is proposed with reference to models of social perspective-taking in the tradition of Piaget and Selman. The proposed typology includes four styles of responsiveness: the egocentric, conventional, negotiatory, and xenocentric style. Implications for research are discussed.

Two vicious circles associated with the aging of the immune system in the development of severe forms of COVID-19.

Background: The immune-inflammatory response is the basis of the pathophysiology of SARS-Cov-2 infection. In severe cases of COVID-19 uncontrolled systemic inflammatory response causes multiorgan dysfunction (MODS), as the most common immediate cause of death. Unfavorable outcome of the COVID-19 most often occurs in elderly patients. The aim of the study was to establish parameters with prognostic significance in severe cases of COVID-19 according to life years, laboratory markers of sepsis and MODS, as well as the number of peripheral CD4+ and CD8+T lymphocytes in 20 consecutively selected critically ill patients. Results: Eleven subjects were male, 9 female, mean age 73.45 ± 11.59, among which the oldest patient was 94 and the youngest 43years. All the patients met the sepsis and MODS criteria. Increased age and low CD4+ and CD8+T cell counts were identified as independent predictors of death. Only the two youngest patients (43 and 50years old) survived 28days, and they are the only ones with a CD4 lymphocyte count above 500 cells/mm3. Conclusion: Senescence of the immune system is mostly characterized by reduced regenerative capacity of adaptive immunity with diminished ability to respond to new antigens and a manifested proinflammatory phenotype. Additional reduction of protective capacity by further deterioration of T cell quantity and quality due to sepsis itself and mutual interaction of senescent T cells and vascular endothelial cells in the induction of cytokine storm represent two complementary vicious cycles in the development of sepsis-related multiorgan dysfunction.

Fuzzy set-based Bernoulli Random Noise Weighted Loss for unsupervised person re-identification

Clustering-based methods have achieved impressive performance on unsupervised person ReID task. However, most of these models suffer from noisy labels. In this paper, we propose a novel method to evaluate and suppress noisy labels. Since the feature network is barely trained and the clustering results are unreliable consequently, noisy samples can be hardly screened out with a hard threshold in the early stage of training. To address this issue, we construct a Noisy Label Fuzzy Set (NLFS) whose membership function can be used to evaluate the noise level of each sample. Furthermore, we propose a new loss function, referred to as Bernoulli Random Noise Weighted Loss (BRNWL), with which some samples with higher noise membership will be recognized as noisy samples in higher probability and assigned with corresponding weights to limit their contributions to the training. Through above improvements, randomness is introduced into the alternating update between the feature network and the clustering results, which can effectively prevent the model from trapping into local minima or vicious circles. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art performance on popular ReID datasets.

Ingold, hermeneutics, and hylomorphic animism

Tim Ingold draws a sharp line between animism and hylomorphism, that is, between his relational ontology and a rival genealogical ontology. He argues that genealogical hylomorphism collapses under a fallacy of circularity, while his relationism does not. Yet Ingold fails to distinguish between vicious or fallacious circles, on the one hand, and virtuous or hermeneutic circles, on the other. I demonstrate that hylomorphism and Ingold's relational animism are both virtuously circular. Hence, there is no difference between them on this count. A path thus opens for what I call hylomorphic animism. While Ingold's relational animism leads into obscurity, hylomorphic animism is able to explain the differences in power between material things.

The Role of Cooperatives in Mitigating the Effects of the Eco-Climate Crisis

In the context of this paper, the climate crisis will be treated first as a facet of the overall systemic biosphere crisis and second as a multiplier of existing crises, which are independent of each other, but which unfold in synergy, evolving together in interdependence. In such a context, the report refers, at the first level, to the characteristics and causes of the ecological and climate crisis. Then, the dominant logic that runs through the “green” deal currently promoted by the EU, will be explored to address this crisis. This logic only prolongs ineffective symptomatic “treatments”, while leading, in the long run, to the reproduction of the same vicious circles that nurtured the growing crisis. We propose as a solution a Copernican revolution in our mindsets, which will allow us to see in a different light the ways of dealing with the consequences of the ecological climate crisis. This will mark a “tipping point” — a paradigm shift in a post-growth direction where the institutions of the social and solidarity economy (SSE), being exemplary, are called upon to provide a transformative contribution. Among these institutions, the cooperatives, which are governed by SSE’s constituent principles, express a mild and “bottom-up” local and democratic economic activity, based on an economy of needs and not sizes. Through a multidisciplinary and multifaceted literature approach, this paper seeks to highlight the role of the SSE and, in particular, of cooperatives in mitigating the effects of the eco-climate crisis and in formulating feasible proposals and solutions.

Pain assessment 3 × 3: a clinical reasoning framework for healthcare professionals.

To give an overview of central aspects of pain medicine-specific clinical reasoning when assessing a pain patient. Clinical reasoning is the thinking and decision-making processes associated with clinical practice. Three core pain assessment areas that are crucial for clinical reasoning in the field of pain medicine are discussed, each of them consisting of three points. First, it is important to distinguish acute, chronic non-cancer, and cancer-related pain conditions. This classical and very simple trichotomy still has important implications treatment-wise, e.g., concerning the use of opioids. Second, the pain mechanism needs to be assessed. Is the pain nociceptive, neuropathic, or nociplastic? Simply put, nociceptive pain has to do with injury of non-neural tissue, neuropathic pain is caused by a disease or lesion of the somatosensory nervous system, and nociplastic pain is believed to be related to a sensitized nervous system (c.f. the concept of "central sensitization"). This also has implications concerning treatment. Some chronic pain conditions are nowadays viewed more as diseases rather than the pain being merely a symptom. In the new ICD-11 pain classification, this is conceptualized by the characterization of some chronic pains as "primary". Third, in addition to a conventional biomedical evaluation, psychosocial and behavioral aspects must also be assessed, the pain patient being viewed as an active agent and not merely as the passive recipient of an intervention. Hence, the importance of a dynamic bio-psycho-social perspective. The dynamic interplay of biological, psychological, and social aspects must be taken into account, putative behavioral "vicious circles" thereby being identified. Some core psycho-social concepts in pain medicine are mentioned. The clinical applicability and clinical reasoning power of the 3 × 3 framework is illustrated by three short (albeit fictional) case descriptions.

"It's all my fault": a qualitative study of how heterosexual couples experience living with vulvodynia.

Vulvodynia, a chronic genital pain disorder with a high lifetime prevalence among women, has a significant negative impact on both women and their partners. Although there is a growing body of literature on the experiences of women with vulvodynia, there has been little research on the condition's implications for partners and romantic relationships. The aim of this study is to explore how heterosexual couples experience living with vulvodynia. Eight Norwegian women diagnosed with vulvodynia by gynecologists were recruited with their partners (couples aged 19-32 years). Data was collected via individual semi-structured interviews and analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Three main themes were identified in the analysis: Mysterious disorder, Social exclusion and Sexual expectations. The results show that the couples struggle with understanding the pain, as well as navigating their social and sexual lives. We discuss these findings in light of a new theoretical model: the fear-avoidance-endurance model of vulvodynia. Heterosexual couples living with vulvodynia experience communication difficulties with partners, health professionals, and their social network. This sustains avoidance and endurance behavior, increasing pain and dysfunction over time and giving rise to feelings of powerlessness and loneliness. Social expectations regarding male and female sexuality also promote guilt and shame for both parties in couples affected by vulvodynia. Our results suggest that heterosexual couples living with vulvodynia, as well as health professionals treating them, should be helped to communicate more effectively in order to break vicious circles of maladaptive avoidance and endurance behavior.

From Vicious Circles to Virtuous Cycles: Vygotskian-Inspired Conclusions for Biomedicine and Deaf Education.

In this concluding article of an American Annals of the Deaf Special Issue, we draw on Vygotsky's Fundamentals of Defectology to argue that the essence of deaf pedagogy is not centered on constructing deaf students' hearing abilities but on a biosocial orientation that considers the whole multimodal child with unfettered access to natural signed languages. In alignment with this biosocial view, we recognize and resist the overarching influence of biomedical professionals and systems on deaf education. Such biomedical influence comes with convenient detachment from accountability in education systems while arguably causing at least significant, if not maximal, harm to the optimal developmental outcomes of deaf children. The article ties together the articles of the Annals Special Issue, along with additional Vygotskian perspectives, to bring forth the emergence and exploration of biosocial accountability in deaf education.