The McGill Diverse Face Database: 92 Complex Mental States Across Socially Perceived Racial Categories

Theory of Mind (ToM)—the ability to infer others’ mental states—is fundamental to social cognition. Social categorization, the grouping of individuals into in-group or out-group categories, shapes these inferences. These processes co-occur during facial perception, with recent research suggesting both shared neurocognitive mechanisms and modulation of ToM by social category cues. However, existing tools for studying the impact of racial diversity on social cognition are limited: some databases prioritize racial representation but restrict stimuli to the six basic emotions, while others broaden mental state diversity but lack diversity in social appearance.Here we introduce the McGill Diverse Face Database, a validated set of 1,286 images of 14 actors from socially perceived racial categories portraying 92 complex mental states. Validation included three experiments: (1) a four-alternative forced-choice task assessing recognition accuracy, (2) a “point-and-click” task rating valence and arousal in a two-dimensional affective space, and (3) a trait-rating task evaluating perceived actor characteristics. Participants accurately identified mental states across categories (77 % of stimuli). Mean valence–arousal ratings revealed a non-linear one-dimensional manifold structure that correlated with behavioral measures. An interactive online visualization allows users to explore this “Theory of Mind manifold” (https://hctor99.github.io/TheoryofMindManifold/). By integrating social-category diversity with complex emotional expression, this database provides a new resource for studying how socially perceived group membership shapes the perception and inference of mental states

Paternalistic Approaches to care in Intensive Care and its Potential Effects on Securing Consent for Organ Donation

Background: Organ Donation saved the lives of 1510 transplant recipients in the United Kingdom (UK) last year (NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), 2024. Although over 28 million people in the UK have registered a decision to ‘opt-In’ on the Organ Donor Register (ODR) (NHSBT, 2024), and a soft opt-out system has been adopted across all parts of the UK, securing next of kin agreement remains essential to proceed with organ donation (Rees et. al., 2024).Research Aims: Data from the UK’s Potential Donor Audit continues to highlight instances of limited engagement with organ donation services teams (O’Neill et al, 2024; NHSBT, 2024). This qualitative phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of Specialist Requestors (SRs), focusing on paternalistic approaches to care within ICU and their potential influences on the organ donation referral process.Methods: This study focused on SR experiences, with all 55 SRs from across the UK invited to participate, 15 accepted the invitation. Purposive sampling ensured representation from nine of the twelve regional organ donation services. Data was collected through Focus Groups (FG). Recordings and transcripts were then thematically analysed to identify emerging themes.Findings: From the data collected from all 15 participants, six themes were identified as potential obstacles to SR engagement in securing organ donation consent – paternalistic approaches to care; control/power struggles; person bias; trust and communication; ethical considerations and additional workload.Conclusion: This study highlights how SR’s who, as the cohort of specialist nurses are deployed to ICUs at the point of potential donor referral, are exposed directly to barriers from within ICU that hinder the progression of organ donation exploration. This position give SRs valuable insight into ICU culture, which fundamentally challenges consent. Wider challenges of patient autonomy and critical care culture was also uncovered

Embodied Multisensory Gastronomic Experience and Sustainable Destination Appeal: A Grounded Theory Approach

The shift toward experience-oriented travel has positioned food as a central driver forattracting visitors to sustainable destinations, directly supporting United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)11 (resilient cities) and SDG 12 (responsible consumption).While prior research has predominantly emphasised marketing outcomes, the role of bodily experiences in shaping gastronomic tourism has received less attention. This studyexplores how sensory elements (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch) and non-sensoryelements (including cultural meaning and service quality) jointly influence food-relatedtravel experiences. Twenty-five self-identified food travellers were interviewed in a UnitedNations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) City of Gastronomy,and their narratives were analysed using a three-stage grounded theory approach in NVivo12. The resulting model identifies four interrelated dimensions: (1) embodied experience,grounded in culinary memories and shared cultural narratives; (2) sensory stimulation arising from food and its surroundings; (3) situated embodiment, shaped by location, timing,and social interaction; and (4) environmental perception, encompassing food presentation,facility quality, cleanliness, and pricing fairness. These dimensions interact to enhanceoverall experience quality. By integrating an embodied perspective with a sustainabilityfocus, this study advances tourism experience research and offers practical guidance fordesigning multisensory dining environments, fostering environmentally responsible visitorbehaviour, and ensuring a balanced relationship between price and perceived value

Factors associated with link workers considering leaving their role: a cross-sectional survey

Background: Social prescribing (SP) link workers (LWs) listen to patients’ concerns and difficulties, and connect them to relevant community assets (groups, organisations, or charities) that can help with their non-medical issues (for example, loneliness, debt, housing). LW retention is key to sustaining SP within primary care. Aim: To examine occupational self-efficacy, job discrepancy, and other factors as potential predictors of LWs’ intentions to leave or remain in their posts. Design & setting: Cross-sectional survey involving LWs from the United Kingdom. Method: An online questionnaire was distributed via SP-related organisations. Questions were on the following: (a) intention to leave the role; (b) demographics; and (c) role experience, including occupational self-efficacy and discrepancy between expectations and reality of the job. Questions were mainly closed, although some allowed LWs to provide a written response. Logistic regression models were fitted to identify predictors, and content analysis used to categorise open-ended responses. Results: In total, 342 questionnaire responses were included in the analysis. Higher job discrepancy was associated with past (odds ratio [OR] per 30 unit increase = 6.86; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.91 to 12.0; P\u3c0.001) and future (OR = 4.86; 95% CI = 2.70 to 8.72; P\u3c0.001) intentions to leave, while lower occupational self-efficacy was associated only with past intentions to leave (OR per 10 unit decrease = 1.91; 95% CI = 1.24 to 2.93; P = 0.003). Conclusion: Findings highlight factors influencing LW retention, offering a foundation for targeted interventions, which could include clearer communication about the role during recruitment, and adjusting job descriptions and support when required

Pair creation, backreaction, and resummation in strong fields

We revisit particle creation in strong fields, and backreaction on those fields, from an amplitudes perspective. We describe the strong field by an initial coherent state of photons which we explicitly evolve in time, thus going beyond the background-field approximation, and then consider observables which quantify the effects of backreaction. We present expressions for the waveform, vacuum persistence probability, and number of produced photons at next-to-leading order, all of which are impacted by backreaction, along with the number and statistics of produced pairs. We find that converting between in-out (amplitude) and in-in (expectation value) expressions requires explicit resummation of an infinite number of disconnected loop diagrams

Advancing generative AI for music with photonics

This paper presents PhotoSing, a system that learns to generate polyphonic tunes by extracting sequencing rules from given examples. We developed a method to encode given pieces of music in terms of unique musical events, referred to as UMEs, and stochastic rules for sequencing them. Those rules are subsequently converted into representations to be processed by a photonic computer to generate new compositions. This research builds upon a previous system, QuSing, which generated monophonic tunes with superconducting quantum computing. The paper discusses the pitfalls of the previous system, the research and the solutions developed to improve them. It details the system with demonstrative musical examples and analyses

Young Children\u27s Understanding of Helping as Increasing Another Agent\u27s Utility

Instrumental helping is one of the paradigmatic prosocial behaviors featured in developmental research on sociomoral reasoning, but not much is known about how children recognize instances of helping behaviors or understand the term \u27help\u27. Here, we examined whether young children represent helping as a second-order goal and take it to mean increasing the utility of another agent. In Study 1, we tested whether 12-month-old infants would expect an agent who previously helped to perform an action that reduced the Helpee\u27s action cost. We found that while infants expected agents to act individually efficiently (Experiment 1C), they did not expect the agent to choose the action that maximally reduced the Helpee\u27s cost compared to an action that reduced the cost less (Experiment 1A) or not at all (Experiment 1B). In Study 2, we examined whether three-year-old preschoolers (1) maximize a Helpee\u27s cost reduction when prompted to help in a first-person task, and (2) identify in a third-party context which of two agents, performing superficially similar behaviors with varying effects on the Helpee\u27s action options, actually helped. Contrary to our predictions, preschoolers did not help in a way that maximally reduced the Helpee\u27s cost in (1). In (2), however, they indicated that the agent who reduced the Helpee\u27s action cost was the one who helped. Taken together, these results support the proposal that, at least by preschool age, children possess a second-order utility-based concept of helping, but that they may not exhibit efficiency when choosing their own helping actions

Exploring the challenges experienced by patients and families using palliative and end-of-life care services: A qualitative focus group study

ObjectivesIn the UK, access to dignified and compassionate palliative care is increasingly being reported as inadequate. This is a particular issue in South-West England, where there is an ageing population, historical lack of research, and particular challenges due to its rural and coastal location. The aim of this study was to provide a holistic view of patient and family experiences of care toward the end-of-life in this location and to collaboratively identify the challenges they face.MethodsSix qualitative focus groups were held with people who were toward the end of their life, family/carers, and people who were bereaved. Participants were recruited via hospice networks. Most focus groups were face-to-face, and all were facilitated by two researchers.ResultsA range of challenges were identified at different stages of the patient and family carer journey near the end-of-life. These included issues related to the delivery of care, such as communication challenges, a lack of out of hours care, and also a lack of personalized care. Patients and families also experienced everyday challenges due to the impact of living with a life-shortening condition and altered family dynamics as family members became carers. There were also some traumatic experiences of death and a sense of abandonment when care could not be accessed.Significance of resultsThis study provides a core first step in developing partnership working with members of the public, which can be built upon to develop future research agendas. This work has identified areas for improvement, so that ultimately, end-of-life experience for the individual, their carers, and families can be improved

“Flies don\u27t make honey : An exploration of preschoolers’ feelings and actions towards nature

The burgeoning climate crisis resulting from anthropogenically enhanced global warming has made protection, restoration and affection for the environment an increasingly urgent matter. The irresponsible use of resources and pollution has caused, and will continue to cause, disastrous impacts on habitats and ecosystems globally; we urgently need to better care for the natural environment. Children’s perceptions towards nature are formed during early experiences. There is a research gap for age-appropriate methods to understand children’s perspectives whilst conceptualising them as the experts in their own lives and meaningfully enhancing their involvement in research. The aim of this thesis is to explore the feelings and actions of preschool children towards nature and to increase understanding about how children can be more involved in the research process.Throughout this study, I worked with an interpretivist research paradigm in two preschools in the South West of England with 19 children aged three to four; one school was in a deprived urban area and the other in a more affluent rural location. To gain a holistic view of the preschoolers’ feelings and actions towards nature, I drew from the Mosaic approach, using a variety of participatory methods such as naturalistic (narrative) observation, children’s drawings, child-led tours and photographs taken by children, teacher interviews and parent surveys.Whilst iterating between data generation and analysis, I created a metaphoric and highly replicable child-friendly methodological framework that is used to shape my contribution to knowledge consisting of a bear, a bird and a worm. The bear offers preschool children’s unique perspectives of care for nature, emphasising their recognition that “flies don’t make honey”. The bird explored opportunities and limitations of the methods offered to children, highlighting that different verbal and non-verbal approaches aided with forming a richer mosaic. The worm demonstrated ways of how to enhance children’s involvement in the research process where the spatiotemporal proximity to the topics being discussed had to be close and familiar to them. Children learn best about nature when they can relate to familiar elements, such as those found in their gardens at home or preschool. It is important to give them time to reflect on their experiences, learn related vocabulary, and discuss the significance of different aspects of nature. Practical activities and executing agency in their free play are crucial for deepening their appreciation of, and connections to, nature. Children should be recognised as active members of society whose views must be considered, especially on environmental issues affecting their future. It is our responsibility to listen to them, find innovative solutions, and work together to combat climate change, ensuring we leave them a liveable planet

Bridging Classrooms and Communities: The Transformative Impact of Community-Based Dental Education on the Learning Experiences of Undergraduate Students

Aims: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of community-based dental education (CBDE) on the learning experiences of undergraduate dental students and recent dental graduates from two diverse geographical regions. Methods: The study followed a cross-sectional design, conducted online using Google Forms, with ethical approval from Qatar University. A non-probability purposive sampling method was used to recruit dental students and recent graduates from three institutions in India and one in Qatar. A questionnaire based on 20 closed-ended items and two open-ended questions, developed by a team of dental academics, was used for data collection. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and thematic analysis for open-ended responses. Results: The study included 148 participants, with 116 female (78.37%) and 32 male (21.62%) students, mostly from India (75%) and the rest from Qatar (25%). ANOVA revealed significant differences based on age, country and stage of education (p \u3c 0.001). Dental interns had the highest mean score (1.12 ± 0.8), while Year 2 students had the lowest (0.75 ± 1.08). Female participants had a slightly higher mean score (1.05 ± 0.77) than male participants (0.92 ± 0.98), although this difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.127). Key challenges included inadequate support and cultural barriers in India, and conflicts with religious obligations and didactic workload in Qatar. Recommendations focused on enhancing field activities, logistical support and mentorship programmes. Conclusions: The study shows that dental students value CBDE for developing essential skills for community engagement. However, challenges differ across socio-cultural contexts, highlighting the need for more localised and supportive frameworks to improve CBDE experiences. The variation in student perceptions by age, education stage and country suggests that CBDE strategies should be flexible and adaptable to address the diverse learning needs of students