5,220 research outputs found

    The effect of brief exposure to virtual nature on mental wellbeing in adolescents.

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    This is the final version. Available from Nature Research via the DOI in this record. Adolescence is a time of multiple transitions and a vulnerability period for mental health difficulties. There are many barriers to the treatment of mental health conditions which is one reason for developing alternatives to help improve efficacy in treatment and prevention. One approach is to use nature-based interventions (NBIs) to improve mental wellbeing. In this experimental proof-of-principle intervention study, we randomly allocated a sample of adolescents to brief exposure (6 min) to either a virtual woodland nature video or a busy train journey and tested the effect on mental wellbeing. Results showed beneficial effects in the nature condition on several self-reported outcomes including stress, relaxation, affect, mood, attention, nature connection and nature spirituality. The intervention was mainly acceptable and feasible to do suggesting that overall brief virtual nature interventions may have utility in a range of mental health contexts for adolescents including as self-help universal or targeted prevention strategies, adjunct to psychological therapy and as preparation for more intensive NBIs. Additionally, brief virtual nature interventions support accessibility for those who may be limited on time, unable to access real-life nature or who may be more biophobic

    Study of use and perception of Internet information by young people with a field-dependent/field-independent cognitive style for decision making for sustainable development

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    The purpose of our study was to learn the peculiarities of students’ information perception and behavior in the Internet with dependent and non-dependent cognitive styles. The sample consists of 120 students. We used the techniques: “Gottschaldt’s figures”, “Strategies of information behavior”, the technique of unfinished sentences that determined the attitude of respondents to the Internet. The Mann-Whitney difference criterion was applied. As a result, we identified field-independent students, for whom the Internet serves the purposes of communication, carries a positive charge and increases the circle of communication. Such students are characterized by a rejection of rudeness, of disrespect in information content and the value of protection, privacy. Field-dependent respondents note the accessibility, quick obtaining information and they have a pronounced search and peeping type of behavior in the Internet. For the field-dependent respondents, Internet information is used for entertainment, shopping. They note the overload of Internet content with Internet-content advertising, the drawn out communication and the fact that information is rather unreliable. Self-dependent respondents are more likely to show motivating informational behavior. Conclusions based on the results of the study are concentrated around the possibilities of using style characteristics in improving the effectiveness of student learning

    Using a bespoke, triad narrative analysis approach with Gen Z students: telling the story of their values

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    This paper presents an innovative narrative data analysis approach, used in a narrative research project exploring student values. The work of three different authors was drawn upon to create a novel, rigorous and synergistic analysis tool. A novel approach to data analysis, using the stories told by one Generation Z (Gen Z) student and the personal values elicited, which are drawn from Schwartz’s theory of universals in basic human values is presented. This leads to a restorying of the data, from which the reader finds meaning. The participant was interviewed at the beginning of their first year as undergraduate and is presented as an example from the larger study of seven Gen Z students. How this approach is effective is examined, demonstrating that combining theory and the narrative analysis approach enabled the values of self-direction, security, benevolence and power to be exposed within the resulting restorying. This is a new and innovative approach to narrative analysis that can be applied in a wide range of contexts internationally and utilised in future studies

    The New People v. Collins: How Can Probabilistic Evidence be Properly Admitted?

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    The California Supreme Court’s decision in People v. Collins is a staple in Evidence casebooks. An innovative assistant district attorney in the trial court had presented a mathematician who applied probabilities to questions about the perpetrators’ characteristics. The state supreme court disapproved the injection of an equation featuring what mathematicians call the “product rule.” The opinion contains thank-goodness-we-escaped-that-disaster reasoning and condemnation of this use of mathematics with probabilities. But the court’s analysis probably would be different if the case were decided today, as the “new” People v. Collins. Therefore, this Article considers what the author calls the new People v. Collins: that is, the Collins analysis as it would be presented now, as the Collins of the present day. The Article concludes that the California court’s reasoning was wrong as viewed from today, even if the result is defensible. Its opinion relied on a one-sided characterization of the ADA’s evidence and argument. The court’s conclusions would have been better presented if they had included balancing in the manner of Evidence Rule 403, of the value of probabilistic reasoning against its tendency to mislead as weighed by the court. And the court declined to consider the principle that no one piece of evidence is required to prove the entire case, by its indicating that the mathematics could not by itself prove guilt

    Characterizing Attribution and Fluency Tradeoffs for Retrieval-Augmented Large Language Models

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    Despite recent progress, it has been difficult to prevent semantic hallucinations in generative Large Language Models. One common solution to this is augmenting LLMs with a retrieval system and making sure that the generated output is attributable to the retrieved information. Given this new added constraint, it is plausible to expect that the overall quality of the output will be affected, for example, in terms of fluency. Can scaling language models help? Here we examine the relationship between fluency and attribution in LLMs prompted with retrieved evidence in knowledge-heavy dialog settings. Our experiments were implemented with a set of auto-metrics that are aligned with human preferences. They were used to evaluate a large set of generations, produced under varying parameters of LLMs and supplied context. We show that larger models tend to do much better in both fluency and attribution, and that (naively) using top-k retrieval versus top-1 retrieval improves attribution but hurts fluency. We next propose a recipe that could allow smaller models to both close the gap with larger models and preserve the benefits of top-k retrieval while avoiding its drawbacks

    A Query-Response Causal Analysis of Reaction Events in Biochemical Reaction Networks

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    The stochastic kinetics of BRN are described by a chemical master equation (CME) and the underlying laws of mass action. The CME must be usually solved numerically by generating enough traces of random reaction events. The resulting event-time series can be evaluated statistically to identify, for example, the reaction clusters, rare reaction events, and the periods of increased or steady-state activity. The aim of this paper is to newly exploit the empirical statistics of the reaction events in order to obtain causally and anti-causally related sub-sequences of reactions. This allows discovering some of the causal dynamics of the reaction networks as well as uncovering their more deterministic behaviors. In particular, it is proposed that the reaction sub-sequences that are conditionally nearly certain or nearly uncertain can be considered as being causally related or unrelated, respectively. Moreover, since time-ordering of reactions is locally irrelevant, the reaction sub-sequences can be transformed into the reaction event sets or multi-sets. The appropriately defined distance metrics can be then used to define equivalences between the reaction sub-sequences. The proposed framework for identifying causally associated reaction sub-sequences has been implemented as a computationally efficient query-response mechanism. The framework was evaluated assuming five selected models of genetic reaction networks in seven defined numerical experiments. The models were simulated in BioNetGen using NFsim, which had to be modified to allow recording of the traces of reaction events. The generated event time-series were analyzed by Python and Matlab scripts. The whole process of data generation, analysis and visualization has been nearly fully automated using shell scripts.Comment: 7 figures and supplementary file include

    Social presence as a training resource: comparing VR and traditional training simulations

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    From immersive simulations to interactive tutorials, Virtual Reality (VR) is transforming the way we learn and practise new skills. Especially for social skills training, a growing number of simulations have been designed in which trainees learn to master difficult communicative situations. One of the factors to which the effectiveness of VR as a learning technology is attributed to is the users’ feeling of social presence during the simulated interaction. This paper presents the evaluation of (1) a role play training, (2) a learning app and (3) a VR training application in a workshop series. Social presence was perceived as equally convincing and engaging for the prototypical VR scene as for the traditional form of role play, although the course of the interaction in VR was highly determined compared to the interaction dynamics of a human role play. In our interpretation, this confirms social presence as a valuable resource for training social interaction, which spans across various learning settings and methods in increasingly blended or hybrid learning and working contexts

    Death of the nine-night Jamaican heritage and identity crisis in response to changing death rituals

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    The research investigated whether changes to death rituals constituted a crisis in heritage and national identity in Jamaica and the Jamaican UK diaspora based on concerns being expressed in both locations. It establishes the nature, extent and causes of the changes, with particular reference to Jamaica’s post-slavery and post-colonial history, and discusses the consequences of the changes in Jamaica, within the UK diaspora, and the wider implications for heritage in diasporas. The study employed an interpretative philosophy and mixed method data collection including semi-structured interviews, oral history, and ethnographic observations of death ritual events in both locations. Using the concept of crisis as ‘events and processes that carry severe threat, uncertainty, an unknown outcome, and urgency’ (Farazmand, 2014 p3) and the understanding that ‘crisis is a crisis because the individual knows no response to deal with a situation’ (Carkhuff and Berenson, 1977 p165), the study finds that certain sectors of the Jamaican population in both locations experience the changes to the death rituals as crises of heritage and national identity. The discussion of the findings is framed within the concepts of crisis of change, living in liminality, and the creativity of ambivalence as ways of understanding the multiple crises within which the changes to the death rituals are being experienced. By interpreting the data through the lens of ambivalence the research proposes that it is an explanation for Jamaica’s prominence on the world stage despite its diminutive physical size and demographics. The study makes significant contributions to a broad spectrum of social and political theories including ritual, and in particular the concept of liminality as both a process within ritual, and as an analytical tool of local and global crisis. It contributes to religious studies, specifically in the areas of death and bereavement studies. It also contributes to theories of heritage, identity, national identity, and diaspora, including the use of relational dialectic theory to demonstrate the extended familial concept of diaspora and the homeland
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