Do individual differences in emotion regulation mediate the relationship between mental toughness and symptoms of depression?

Mental Toughness (MT) provides crucial psychological capacities for achievement in sports, education, and work settings. Previous research examined the role of MT in the domain of mental health and showed that MT is negatively associated with and predictive of fewer depressive symptoms in nonclinical populations. The present study aimed at (1) investigating to what extent mentally tough individuals use two emotion regulation strategies: cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression; (2) exploring whether individual differences in emotion regulation strategy use mediate the relationship between MT and depressive symptoms. Three hundred sixty-four participants (M = 24.31 years, SD = 9.16) provided self-reports of their levels of MT, depressive symptoms, and their habitual use of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. The results showed a statistically significant correlation between MT and two commonly used measures of depressive symptoms. A small statistically significant positive correlation between MT and the habitual use of cognitive reappraisal was also observed. The correlation between MT and the habitual use of expressive suppression was statistically significant, but the size of the effect was small. A statistical mediation model indicated that individual differences in the habitual use of expressive suppression mediate the relationship between MT and depressive symptoms. No such effect was found for the habitual use of cognitive reappraisal. Implications of these findings and possible avenues for future research are discussed

The Workplace as a Context for Cross-Cutting Political Discourse

Political dialogue among citizens offers numerous potential contributions to American politics, but attainment of these benefits hinges largely on the extent to which conversations cross lines of political difference. In what contexts are cross-cutting interactions most likely to thrive? Using data from five surveys, we find consistent evidence that the workplace is the social context best positioned to facilitate cross-cutting political discourse. Political discussion in the workplace involves a large number of discussants, and it involves greater exposure to people of dissimilar perspectives than does discussion in contexts such as the family, the neighborhood, or the voluntary association. We next consider whether workplace-based interactions are capable of producing beneficial effects. Despite the notoriously weak nature of work-based social ties, we find evidence that workplace-based exposure to differing political views increases people’s knowledge of rationales for political perspectives other than their own and also fosters political tolerance

Reconstructing Neogene surface uplift of the Alps: Integrating stable isotope paleoaltimetry and paleoclimate modelling

Paleoaltimetry - the reconstruction of the elevation of mountain ranges in the geological past - is key to understanding the geodynamic drivers of surface uplift. Simultaneously, surface uplift of Earth’s major mountain ranges redirected atmospheric flow and impacted climate globally. At a smaller scale, mountain building affects regional climate and biodiversity. Stable isotope paleoaltimetry is a powerful tool to quantify the past elevation of mountain ranges. It is based on the inverse relationship between the stable isotopic composition of meteoric waters and elevation, which is represented by the so-called isotopic lapse rate. However, variations in climatic parameters modify isotopic lapse rates and impact moisture transport over the continents and consequently affect paleoelevation reconstructions. Here, we show the results of a combined stable isotope paleoaltimetry and paleoclimate modeling approach in the European Alps. This approach allows for an improved and more realistic estimation of isotopic lapse rates, large-scale isotope-in-precipitation patterns over Europe and hence Alpine paleoaltimetry calculations. The European Alps are an ideal target for a combined paleoaltimetry - climate modeling approach, given that they are (a) one of the most-studied mountain ranges for which many geoscientific data are available, and (b) sufficiently small and oriented near-parallel to dominant atmospheric circulation patterns. The latter implies that no major global climatic changes are expected in response to Alpine surface uplift, as opposed to e.g. the Andes or the Tibet-Himalaya mountain ranges. Results from 4D-MB SPP phase 1 and 2 show that: (1) Changing the surface elevation of even a small orogen can complicate stable isotope paleoaltimetry by mixing the elevation and climate signal in a more complex way than commonly assumed. Climate models can help separate these signals and constrain surface uplift histories. (2) The Central Alps were already high during the Early and Middle Miocene, whereas the Eastern Alps were still at significantly lower elevations, thereby confirming that surface uplift propagated from west to east, as would be expected from oblique continent-continent collision. Together, the results highlight the importance and viability of this combined, interdisciplinary approach. Based on the results from 4D-MB SPP phase 1 and 2, we propose that future efforts to reconstruct surface uplift of mountain ranges follow this state-of-the-art approach, while keeping local limitations to proxy material availability and access to facilities in mind

Hindsight policy gradients

A reinforcement learning agent that needs to pursue different goals across episodes requires a goal-conditional policy. In addition to their potential to generalize desirable behavior to unseen goals, such policies may also enable higher-level planning based on subgoals. In sparse-reward environments, the capacity to exploit information about the degree to which an arbitrary goal has been achieved while another goal was intended appears crucial to enable sample efficient learning. However, reinforcement learning agents have only recently been endowed with such capacity for hindsight. In this paper, we demonstrate how hindsight can be introduced to policy gradient methods, generalizing this idea to a broad class of successful algorithms. Our experiments on a diverse selection of sparse-reward environments show that hindsight leads to a remarkable increase in sample efficiency.Comment: Accepted to ICLR 201

Reinforcement Learning in Sparse-Reward Environments with Hindsight Policy Gradients

A reinforcement learning agent that needs to pursue different goals across episodes requires a goal-conditional policy. In addition to their potential to generalize desirable behavior to unseen goals, such policies may also enable higher-level planning based on subgoals. In sparse-reward environments, the capacity to exploit information about the degree to which an arbitrary goal has been achieved while another goal was intended appears crucial to enabling sample efficient learning. However, reinforcement learning agents have only recently been endowed with such capacity for hindsight. In this letter, we demonstrate how hindsight can be introduced to policy gradient methods, generalizing this idea to a broad class of successful algorithms. Our experiments on a diverse selection of sparse-reward environments show that hindsight leads to a remarkable increase in sample efficiency

Uncovering the (un-)occupied electronic structure of a buried hybrid interface

The energy level alignment at organic/inorganic (o/i) semiconductor interfaces is crucial for any light-emitting or -harvesting functionality. Essential is the access to both occupied and unoccupied electronic states directly at the interface, which is often deeply buried underneath thick organic films and challenging to characterize. We use several complementary experimental techniques to determine the electronic structure of p-quinquephenyl pyridine (5P-Py) adsorbed on ZnO(10-10). The parent anchoring group, pyridine, significantly lowers the work function by up to 2.9 eV and causes an occupied in-gap state (IGS) directly below the Fermi level $E_\text{F}$. Adsorption of upright-standing 5P-Py also leads to a strong work function reduction of up to 2.1 eV and to a similar IGS. The latter is then used as an initial state for the transient population of three normally unoccupied molecular levels through optical excitation and, due to its localization right at the o/i interface, provides interfacial sensitivity, even for thick 5P-Py films. We observe two final states above the vacuum level and one bound state at around 2 eV above $E_\text{F}$, which we attribute to the 5P-Py LUMO. By the separate study of anchoring group and organic dye combined with the exploitation of the occupied IGS for selective interfacial photoexcitation this work provides a new pathway for characterizing the electronic structure at buried o/i interfaces

Toll-Like Receptor (TLR)-7 and -8 Modulatory Activities of Dimeric Imidazoquinolines

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are pattern recognition receptors that recognize specific molecular patterns present in molecules that are broadly shared by pathogens, but are structurally distinct from host molecules. The TLR7-agonistic imidazoquinolines are of interest as vaccine adjuvants given their ability to induce pronounced Th1-skewed humoral responses. Minor modifications on the imidazoquinoline scaffold result in TLR7-antagonistic compounds which may be of value in addressing innate immune activation-driven immune exhaustion observed in HIV. We describe the syntheses and evaluation of TLR7 and TLR8 modulatory activities of dimeric constructs of imidazoquinoline linked at the C2, C4, C8, and N1-aryl positions. Dimers linked at the C4, C8 and N1-aryl positions were agonistic at TLR7; only the N1-aryl dimer with a 12-carbon linker was dual TLR7/8 agonistic. Dimers linked at C2 position showed antagonistic activities at TLR7 and TLR8; the C2 dimer with a propylene spacer was maximally antagonistic at both TLR7 and TLR8

The Alps Paleoelevation and Paleoclimate Experiment: Reconstructing Eastward Propagation of Surface Uplift in the ALps (REAL)

Geological observations, geodynamic models, and seismic studies suggest Neogene eastward propagating surface uplift of the European Alps. Whereas 4DMB Phase I project APE focused on reconstructing surface uplift of the Central Alps, 4DMB Phase II project REAL aims at testing the predicted west-to-east surface uplift of the Alps by combining stable isotope paleoaltimetry and paleoclimate modeling. Stable isotope paleoaltimetry is based on the inverse relationship between elevation and the stable isotopic composition of meteoric water and provides a tool to reconstruct the elevation of mountain belts in the geological past. First, REAL explores applications of the δ-δ method (see Poster Phase I APE), which requires that various recorders of past rainfall are available in the rock record: soil carbonates from low-elevation (foreland) basins and hydrous minerals from high-elevation fault gouges/shear zones. Paleoelevation estimates are obtained by contrasting time-equivalent low- and high-elevation proxy data sets, provided that the isotopic composition of the fluids during mineral formation is estimated accurately. Whereas formation temperatures of fault gouge minerals (such as illite and syntectonic micas) can be readily estimated, we apply clumped isotope paleothermometry to provide robust estimates of meteoric water δ18O from the low-elevation foreland basin carbonate record. Second, meteoric water δ18O values are not only sensitive to local elevation, but also to the complex climatic changes resulting from different paleoenvironmental boundary conditions and regional topographic configuration. To isolate the contribution of each of these components δ-δ stable isotope paleoaltimetry is applied in combination with ECHAM5-wiso paleoclimate simulations for a number of topographic scenarios of diachronous surface uplift. This unique combination allows for the removal of climate change effects on the stable isotope data, and therefore improves the accuracy of paleoelevation reconstructions. Results from our ongoing Phase II project (spring 2021 - spring 2024): 1. Reveal that diachronous surface uplift would produce patterns of climate, δ18O in precipitation values, and isotopic lapse rates that are distinctly different from those of today and those produced by bulk surface uplift scenarios. Importantly, this signal would be detectable in stable isotope paleoaltimetry results (Boateng et al., in revision). 2. Present a Miocene (23–13 Ma) continental paleotemperature record from the northern Mediterranean region (Digne-Valensole basin, SE France), which indicates near-constant temperatures from 23.0-18.8 Ma, followed by a highly variable and warm climate during the Middle Miocene and rapid cooling after 14 Ma (Ballian et al., 2023). 3. Together with new and existing paleotemperature records, preliminary results of the δ-δ method show for the first time that (a) the Central Alps were already high during the Early Miocene and (b) the Eastern Alps were appreciably lower than the Central Alps during the Middle Miocene (Ballian et al., 2022)