Processes Contributing to the Maintenance of Flying Phobia: A Narrative Review

Flying phobia is a highly prevalent anxiety disorder, which causes sufferers significant distress and life interference. The processes which maintain flying phobia remain poorly understood. A systematic search of the literature was performed to identify what research has been conducted into the processes which may be involved in the fear of flying and whether processes which are believed to maintain other anxiety disorder diagnoses have been investigated in flying phobia. The results of the literature review are presented and related to existing cognitive behavioural theory and research. The results indicate that little research has been conducted into a number of areas considered important in the wider cognitive behavioural literature on anxiety disorders: namely attention, mental imagery, memory, worry and safety-seeking behaviours. The review proposes a hypothetical model, derived from cognitive behavioural theory, for the processes which may be involved in maintaining flying phobia, and considers a number of areas for future research

An Empirical Investigation of System Changes to Frame Links between Design Decisions and Ilities

Maintaining system performance in the presence of uncertainties in design and operating environments is both challenging and increasingly essential as system lifetimes grow longer. In response to perturbations brought on by these uncertainties, such as disturbances, context shifts, and shifting stakeholder needs, systems can continue to deliver value by being either robust or changeable. These lifecycle properties, sometimes called “ilities”, have been proposed as means to achieve system value sustainment in spite of changes in contexts or needs. Intentionally designing for these lifecycle properties is an active area of research, and no consensus has formed regarding how these and other “ilities” might trade off. This paper describes ongoing research that investigates empirical examples of system changes in order to characterize these changes and to develop a categorization scheme for framing and clarifying design approaches for proactively creating ilities in a system. Example categories from the data for system changes include: the perturbation trigger for the change, the type of agent executing the system change, and the valid lifecycle phase for execution. In providing a structured means to identify system change characteristics, this paper informs future research by framing possible relationships between ilities and design choices that enable them.Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Systems Engineering Advancement Research Initiativ

Spiritual Emergence(y), Psychosis, and Personality: Investigating the Role of Schizotypy

Spiritual emergency (SEY) refers to a process of spiritual emergence (SE) or awakening that becomes traumatic for an individual, leading to a state of psychological crisis. There is evidence that SE(Y) is associated with both psychotic symptomatology and personality traits. This study examined the relationship between SE(Y), psychotic symptoms, and schizotypy, a construct that addresses psychotic-like personality traits in the general population. A total of 250 participants completed an anonymous online questionnaire. Results showed that SE(Y) was positively correlated with positive symptoms of psychosis and schizotypy, but demonstrated only very weak to no correlations with negative symptoms of psychosis and schizotypy. The results also showed that disorganized schizotypy mediated the relationship between positive schizotypy and crisis; and positive schizotypy mediated the relationship between disorganized schizotypy and crisis. The clinical implications of these results include the identification of measurable clinical and personality markers that may help: (1) differentiate between SE(Y) and cases of clinical psychosis that have a poor prognosis, and (2) identify individuals who are at risk of experiencing the potentially debilitating effects of SE(Y)

Construction of bosonic string theory on infinitely curved Anti-de Sitter space

Free scalar field theory in the sector with a large number of particles can be interpreted as bosonic string theory on anti-de Sitter space of vanishing radius. Different ways of writing the field theory Hamiltonian translate to different ways of reparametrizing the world-sheet sigma coordinate. Adding a mass term in the field theory corresponds to cutting off the warped AdS direction, with cut-off inversely proportional to the mass. The string theory has neither tachyon, nor critical dimension.Comment: 18 pages, latex, using revte

The impact of affect labelling on responses to aversive flying-cues

Individuals with flying phobia experience increases in subjective anxiety in response to flying-related cues. However, the cognitive processes that contribute to cue-reactive anxiety in individuals with flying-related anxiety remain poorly understood. Preliminary research suggests that changes in visual imagery and volitional control may contribute to this cue-reactive anxiety. Engaging in affect labelling during exposure therapy has been shown to reduce cue-reactive anxiety in individuals with fears relating to a variety of stimuli but has not been investigated in the fear of flying. The present study recruited 110 participants with a range of flying-related anxiety scores to complete an online cue-reactivity experiment. The study sought to evaluate whether an aversive flying cue triggered changes in imagery, volitional control and anxiety, and whether changes in imagery and volitional control predicted level of cue-reactive anxiety. Participants were randomly allocated to an affect labelling or non-affect labelling condition to additionally assess whether engaging in labelling one's emotion following exposure to an aversive flying cue would attenuate cue-reactive changes in anxiety relative to a group who did not. Significant cue-reactive changes in anxiety, and volitional control were observed from neutral to aversive flying cue were observed. After accounting for the effects of flying anxiety severity, only volitional control significantly improved the prediction of cue-reactive anxiety. Participants in the affect labelling condition reported significantly smaller increases in anxiety than the non-affect labelling group following exposure to the aversive flight cue. This is the first study to indicate affect labelling may help to regulate aspects of cue-reactive anxiety in response to aversive flying stimuli