Vehicle Systems Panel deliberations

The Vehicle Systems Panel addressed materials and structures technology issues related to launch and space vehicle systems not directly associated with the propulsion or entry systems. The Vehicle Systems Panel was comprised of two subpanels - Expendable Launch Vehicles & Cryotanks (ELVC) and Reusable Vehicles (RV). Tom Bales, LaRC, and Tom Modlin, JSC, chaired the expendable and reusable vehicles subpanels, respectively, and co-chaired the Vehicle Systems Panel. The following four papers are discussed in this section: (1) Net Section components for Weldalite Cryogenic Tanks, by Don Bolstad; (2) Build-up Structures for Cryogenic Tanks and Dry Bay Structural Applications, by Barry Lisagor; (3) Composite Materials Program, by Robert Van Siclen; (4) Shuttle Technology (and M&S Lessons Learned), by Stan Greenberg

An Investigation of Mood and Executive Functioning Effects of Brief Auditory and Visual Mindfulness Meditations in Patients with Schizophrenia

Brief meditations led by audio versus visual stimuli can lead to differential effects on mood and cognition in healthy people. We examine whether similar effects were evident amongst schizophrenia patients. Forty-three patients underwent either 30-min image- (e.g. a mountain stream; n = 15) or audio-led (e.g. running water; n = 15) meditations or waited 30 min without instructions (n = 13). Prior to and following the meditation/wait, participants completed a self-report measure of positive and negative affect and the Trail Making Test to measure attentional shifting abilities. Participants who underwent a visual-led meditation were significantly more positive than those who underwent an audio-led meditation or if they did not meditate. Irrespective of meditation modality, participants showed significant improvement in attentional shifting abilities. Brief meditative practice amongst patients with schizophrenia may have immediate effects on mood and cognition. Future research must explore these effects in larger mindfulness programmes and with longer follow-up assessments.</p

Profit Planning for Irrigated Farming.

4 p

The Effects of Efficacy Framing in News Information and Health Anxiety on Coronavirus-Disease-2019-Related Cognitive Outcomes and Interpretation Bias

Within the coronavirus-disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, disease-related information is omnipresent in the media, whereas information about how to manage the pandemic is less often covered. Under the context where threat is present, this study investigated whether and how the strength of efficacy framing (i.e., the perspective adopted by a communicating text that emphasizes one’s possibilities to cope with an external threat) of COVID-19-related news, as well as its interaction with trait health anxiety under the COVID-19 context, related to people’s COVID-19-related cognitive outcomes. One hundred and ninety-three participants reported demographics, trait health anxiety, and COVID-19-related behaviors (e.g., precautionary measures, information-seeking behaviors). They then either read high-efficacy (n = 112; e.g., cure rate) or low-efficacy (n = 81; e.g., mortality rate) information about COVID-19. Afterward, their tendency to interpret illness and COVID-19-related information more negatively, and other COVID-19-related cognitions (e.g., risk perception, behavioral change intentions) were assessed. High-efficacy framing resulted in lower-risk perception and marginally weaker COVID-19-related interpretation bias, compared with low-efficacy framing. There was some evidence of an interaction with health anxiety such that high-efficacy framing, compared with low-efficacy framing, was associated with greater intention to adopt protective behaviors, particularly for individuals with higher levels of health anxiety.</p

Safety culture and power: interactions between perceptions of safety culture, organisational hierarchy, and national culture

Practices that involve power dynamics are integral to maintaining organisational safety (e.g. speaking-up, challenging poor behaviour, admitting error, communicating on safety), and staff engagement in these is assumed to be shaped by perceptions of safety culture. These perceptions, in-turn, are associated with (1) positions within an organisational hierarchy (which makes power-related acts more or less threatening), and (2) societal values for power distance (e.g. challenging authority). With a sample of 13,573 of air traffic control staff (controllers, engineers, administrative, and management) from 21 national air traffic providers, we reconfirm the observation that managers perceive safety culture more positively than frontline staff (hypothesis 1), and that workers in countries with established values for hierarchy and power report safety culture as less positive than those from countries with low power distance (hypothesis 2). We then, for the first time, examine the interaction between these two factors, and establish that differences in safety culture perceptions between those higher in the hierarchy (management) and those lower in the hierarchy (air traffic controllers and administrative staff) are exacerbated by national contexts for large power distance (hypothesis 3). The study contributes to the literature by theorising the role of power in safety culture theory, and its influence upon safety culture perceptions. Moving forward, safety culture research and interventions may benefit from considering how power exists and manifests at the level of superior-subordinate dynamics

The sharing of autobiographical memories elicits social support.

We examine whether and how the autobiographical memories that we share can influence the social support that people offer us. Study 1 examined whether sharing specific (e.g., I was upset when reading my expartner’s email last Friday) versus nonspecific (e.g., I was upset) memories influences support giving. Studies 2 and 3 additionally examined the effects of episodic detail (i.e., who, what, where) and specificity on support. Participants offered more support to (hypothetical) profiles that shared specific, compared to nonspecific, memories, but these effects were less consistent than those for memory detail. Participants offered more support to profiles that shared memories that were high, compared to low, in detail. Findings were more consistent for the effects of memory detail on emotional support than instrumental support. These findings support the social function of autobiographical memory and suggest one pathway through which autobiographical memory may influence the help we receive.</p

Treatment of avoidance behavior as an adjunct to exposure therapy: Insights from modern learning theory

© 2017. Pathological avoidance of benign stimuli is a hallmark of anxiety and related disorders, and exposure-based treatments have often encouraged the removal of avoidance, or safety behaviors, due to their negative effects on extinction learning. Unfortunately, empirical evidence suggests that avoidance behaviors can persist following treatment, and the mere availability of avoidance behavior can be sufficient to renew fear following successful extinction learning. The present paper critically examines the function of avoidance behavior through the lens of modern learning theory, and speculates on novel behavioral and pharmacological strategies for targeting avoidance as an adjunct to current evidence-based treatments.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Mental health, substance abuse, prison victimization and suicide attempts amongst incarcerated women

Worldwide, incarcerated women are known to suffer adverse experiences that might increase the risk of suicide attempts during incarceration. The present investigation examines the prevalence of suicide attempts amongst incarcerated women in Spain and the factors associated with this. Between January and March of 2017 a total of 174 women, enrolled from two prisons in the southeast of Spain, completed anonymous self-report measures of demographic variables, penitentiary and sentence-related variables, mental distress (including depression, anxiety and stress), perceived social support, substance use (including alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, amphetamine, heroin and hallucinogens), prison victimization (property, verbal, physical and sexual victimization) and suicide attempts. Overall, 15.5 percent of women reported they had attempted suicide during their current incarceration. Compared with women who did not report suicide attempts, multivariate analysis showed that women reporting suicide attempts were more likely to report lower education levels, in-prison substance use, victimization and higher levels of mental distress. In order to prevent suicide amongst incarcerated women, victimization in all its forms, emotional distress and drug abuse in women with lower education levels, should be considered highly targetable variables.</p

Brief Training to Modify the Breadth of Attention Influences the Generalisation of Fear

Background: Generalisation of fear from dangerous to safe stimuli is an important process associated with anxiety disorders. However, factors that contribute towards fear (over)-generalisation remain poorly understood. The present investigation explored how attentional breadth (global/holistic and local/analytic) influences fear generalisation and, whether people trained to attend in a global vs. local manner show more or less generalisation. Methods: Participants (N = 39) were shown stimuli which comprised of large ‘global’ letters and smaller ‘local’ letters (e.g. an F comprised of As) and they either had to identify the global or local letter. Participants were then conditioned to fear a face by pairing it with an aversive scream (75% reinforcement schedule). Perceptually similar, but safe, faces, were then shown. Self-reported fear levels and skin conductance responses were measured. Results: Compared to participants in Global group, participants in Local group demonstrated greater fear for dangerous stimulus (CS +) as well as perceptually similar safe stimuli. Conclusions: Participants trained to attend to stimuli in a local/analytical manner showed higher magnitude of fear acquisition and generalisation than participants trained to attend in a global/holistic way. Breadth of attentional focus can influence overall fear levels and fear generalisation and this can be manipulated via attentional training

The Impact of Interpretation Biases on Psychological Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic:a Prospective Study

BACKGROUND: This study investigates the longitudinal role of interpretation biases in the development and maintenance of health anxiety during the pandemic. Individual differences in behavioural responses to the virus outbreak and decision-making were also examined. METHODS: Two hundred seventy-nine individuals from a pre-pandemic study of interpretation bias and health anxiety completed an online survey during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong. Participants’ health anxiety, interpretation biases, and COVID-specific behaviours (i.e. practice of social distancing, adherence to preventive measures, information seeking), and health decision-making were assessed. RESULTS: Pre-pandemic tendencies to interpret ambiguous physical sensations as signals for illness did not predict health anxiety during the pandemic, b = −0.020, SE = 0.024, t = −0.843, p = .400, 99% CI [−0.082, 0.042], but were associated with a preference for risky treatment option for COVID-19, b = 0.026, SE = 0.010, Wald = 2.614, p = .009, OR = 1.026, 99% CI [1.001, 1.054]. Interpretation biases and health anxiety symptoms during the pandemic were associated with each other and were both found to be significant predictors of practice of social distancing, adherence to preventive measures, and information seeking behaviour. CONCLUSIONS: This study adds to the growing evidence of the role of interpretation biases in health anxiety and the way that people respond to the ongoing pandemic. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12529-022-10079-5