1,635 research outputs found

    Technologies to remember or forget?:A perspective from reminiscence and life review

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    This paper addresses recent technological developments in altering or even erasing memories. From a critical perspective these technologies are seen as artificial as they disrupt identities and true happiness. This basically resonates with the value attributed to remembering in the field of reminiscence and life review. From a proponent perspective it is argued that technologies have always been used to filter our memories and thereby support the dynamics of identity development. This position is consistent with a more dynamic view of reminiscence and life review that also takes different attitudes towards remembering and forgetting into account. The last part of the paper combines both perspectives in an evaluation of the use of propranolol, a drug that might contribute to willful forgetting under specific conditions. This evaluation also raises new questions for the field of reminiscence and life review

    Early evolution of electron cyclotron driven current during suppression of tearing modes in a circular tokamak

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    When electron cyclotron (EC) driven current is first applied to the inside of a magnetic island, the current spreads throughout the island and after a short period achieves a steady level. Using a two equation fluid model for the EC current that allows us to examine this early evolution in detail, we analyze high-resolution simulations of a 2/1 classical tearing mode in a low-beta large aspect-ratio circular tokamak. These simulations use a nonlinear 3D reduced-MHD fluid model and the JOREK code. During the initial period where the EC driven current grows and spreads throughout the magnetic island, it is not a function of the magnetic flux. However, once it has reached a steady-state, it should be a flux function. We demonstrate numerically that if sufficiently resolved toroidally, the steady-state EC driven current becomes approximately a flux function. We discuss the physics of this early period of EC evolution and its impact on the size of the magnetic island.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

    SOLPS-ITER simulations of a vapour box design for the linear device Magnum-PSI

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    A vapour box (VB) is a physical device currently being considered to reduce the high heat and particle fluxes typically impacting the divertor in tokamaks. This system usually consists of a series of boxes that retains neutral particles to increase the amount of collision events with the impacting plasma. The neutral particles come from recycling and recombination of the plasma, gas puffing inside the box and by the evaporation of a liquid metal, typically Li or Sn. Currently, an VB is being constructed for testing in the linear plasma generator Magnum-PSI, operated at DIFFER. Its modular design will allow for open (not enclosing the target) and closed (enclosing the target) configurations, as well as evaporating a liquid metal to create a vapour cloud inside the box. The experiments carried out with this device will investigate its capabilities to reduce the plasma flux towards the target. This work presents a numerical study performed with SOLPS-ITER about the effectiveness of the current VB design in its open configuration to retain neutrals and its effect on the plasma beam properties. This is a first step before validation against experiments and studying closed configurations to ensure that the VB can successfully operate in a wide range of plasma parameters. Simulations show that the VB is capable of retaining neutrals and reducing fluxes to the target without requiring additional gas puffing in High and Low plasma flux scenarios. When lithium is evaporated from inside the box, the hydrogen plasma is completely extinguished and replaced by a low temperature Li plasma with lower flux. The fraction of Li and Li+ transported upstream the VB is three orders of magnitude below the amount evaporated form the central box, as most of the lithium is condensed in the side boxes and another small portion (two orders of magnitude below the amount evaporated) is deposited on the target. The VB design in its open configuration can mitigate incoming plasma peak heat flux by 0.6 M W m − 2 , which represents a fraction of 75 % and 81 % for the High and Low flux scenarios. This effect is expected to be higher when a closed configuration is employed, which could result in a significant reduction of heat fluxes on the divertor of tokamaks once that this design is extrapolated to the toroidal geometry, with just a minimal amount of Li and Li+ reaching the core.</p

    Wisdom and Well-being Across the Lifespan

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    Considered the pinnacle of psychosocial development, and the outcome of a long, well-lived life, wisdom ostensibly confers advantages to persons who possess it. Nevertheless, the relationship among wisdom, aging, and well-being is still not fully understood. This study investigated the relationship between wisdom and several measures of wellbeing across the lifespan. Participants included 186 male and 326 female Dutch adults ranging in age from 17 – 92 (M = 46.46, SD = 21.37) who completed measures of wisdom (Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale, Webster, 2010), personality (NEO-FFI, Costa & McCrae, 1992), mental health (Mental Health Continuum, Keyes et al., 2008) physical health (General Health Questionnaire, Goldberg, 1978), and a balanced time perspective (Balanced Time Perspective Scale, Webster, 2011). A series of 2 (wisdom) by 3 (age) ANOVA’s revealed main effects for both variables in support of hypotheses. Main study findings revealed that wisdom was unrelated to physical health but positively related to openness to experience, mental health, and a balanced time perspective. Overall, midlife adults scored higher on wisdom than either younger or older participants. Older adults scored lower on physical and mental health, openness, and the use of a balanced time perspective. The results are discussed from a lifespan perspective in which gains and losses contribute to conditions in which midlife adults show high levels of wisdom and well-being

    The sele sentence completion questionnaire: a new instrument for the assessment of personal meaning in research on aging

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    In this paper, the SELE-instrumenits presented. The SELE-instrument is a sentence completion test and an accompanying coding scheme, which is designed to study cognitions about self and life. The related theoretical construct is the personal meaning system, which encompasses different meaning domains, like "self", "activities" and "social relations", as well as evaluations and time perspectives. It is argued that especially in aging research. it is necessarv to use more oven instruments in studying self-and-life-cognitions. A short history of sentence completion instruments in psychology, is presented in order to better understand the specific contents of the SELE-instrument. The SELE provides sentence stems in the first form singular ("I") combination with verbal factors, which express different combinations of evaluation and time perspective, to which the respondents have to react in their own words. The SELE-instrumenits thus a semi-structured questionnaire, which can be used in large-scale research. The sentence completions are coded with an extensive coding scheme, which is hierarchially and dimensionally organized. Some figures on the coding reliability as well as on the validity and stability of the instrument are presented. The different uses to which the SELE-instrument as been put are described shortly.En este articulo se presenta el instrumento SELE. Este instrumento, que consta de un cuestionario de frases incompletas y un esquema de codificación de respuestas, está diseñado para el estudio de las cogniciones sobre el self y la vida. El constructo teórico al que se aproxima es el sistema de significado personal, sistema que comprende tanto diferentes dominios de significado (por ejemplo el "self", "actividades" o "relaciones sociales") como evaluaciones y perspectivas temporales. Se argumenta que, especialmente en la investigación en envejecimiento, es necesario utilizar instrurnentos de carácter más abierto para el estudio de cogniciones relacionadas con el self y la vida. Por otra parte, para entender mejor los contenidos específicos del SELE, se presenta una breve historia de los instrumentos de frases incompletas en Psicologia. El SELE proporciona estimulos en forma de frases incompletas a los que la persona tiene que contestar en sus propias palabras. Estos estímulos comienzan con un sujeto en primera persona del singular ("Yo") seguido por una forma verbal que expresa diferentes combinaciones de perspectiva temporal y evaluación. Debido a este formato, el SELE es un cuestionario semiestructurado que puede ser utilizado en investigaciones a gran escala. Las respuestas se categorizan mediante un exhaustivo sistema de codificación que está organizado tanto jerárquica como dimensionalmente. En el articulo se presentan algunos resultados en relación con la fiabilidad, la validez y la estabilidad del cuestionario, asi como también se describen brevemente los diferentes usos a los que ha estado dirigido el SELE

    Mental Illness and Mental Health: The Two Continua Model Across the Lifespan

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    Mental health has long been defined as the absence of psychopathologies, such as depression and anxiety. The absence of mental illness, however, is a minimal outcome from a psychological perspective on lifespan development. This article therefore focuses on mental illness as well as on three core components of positive mental health: feelings of happiness and satisfaction with life (emotional well-being), positive individual functioning in terms of self-realization (psychological well-being), and positive societal functioning in terms of being of social value (social well-being). The two continua model holds that mental illness and mental health are related but distinct dimensions. This model was studied on the basis of a cross-sectional representative internet survey of Dutch adults (N = 1,340; 18–87 years). Mental illness was measured with the Brief Symptom Inventory and mental health with the Mental Health Continuum Short Form. It was found that older adults, except for the oldest-old, scored lower on psychopathological symptoms and were less likely to be mentally ill than younger adults. Although there were fewer age differences for mental health, older adults experienced more emotional, similar social and slightly lower psychological well-being. In sum, today’s older adults have fewer mental illness problems, but they are not in a better positive mental health than today’s younger adults. These findings support the validity of the two continua model in adult development

    New insights into the generalized Rutherford equation for nonlinear neoclassical tearing mode growth from 2D reduced MHD simulations

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    Two dimensional reduced MHD simulations of neoclassical tearing mode growth and suppression by ECCD are performed. The perturbation of the bootstrap current density and the EC drive current density perturbation are assumed to be functions of the perturbed ux surfaces. In the case of ECCD, this implies that the applied power is ux surface averaged to obtain the EC driven current density distribution. The results are consistent with predictions from the generalized Rutherford equation using common expressions for and . These expressions are commonly perceived to describe only the effect on the tearing mode growth of the helical component of the respective current perturbation acting through the modi cation of Ohm’s law. Our results show that they describe in addition the effect of the poloidally averaged current density perturbation which acts through modi cation of the tearing mode stability index. Except for modulated ECCD, the largest contribution to the mode growth comes from this poloidally averaged current density perturbation
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