2,196 research outputs found
‘Rich’ and ‘poor’ in mentalizing: do expert mentalizers exist?
Mentalization theory is concerned with the capacity to notice, and make sense of, thoughts and feelings in self and others. This development may be healthy or impaired and therefore, by extension, it may be theorized that expertise in mentalizing can exist. Furthermore, a continuum from impairment to expertise should exist within separate dimensions of mentalizing: of self and of others. This study hypothesized that three groups would be distinguishable on the basis of their mentalizing capacities. In a cross-sectional design, Psychological Therapists (‘expert’ mentalizers; n = 51), individuals with a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (‘poor’ mentalizers; n = 43) and members of the general population (‘non-clinical controls’; n = 35) completed a battery of self-report measures. These assessed the mentalizing of self and of others (using an extended version of the Reflective Function Questionnaire (RFQ18)), alexithymia and cognitive empathy. As hypothesized, Psychological Therapists’ scores were higher than controls on self-mentalizing and control group scores were higher than those with BPD. Cognitive empathy scores in the BPD group indicated markedly lower capacities than the other two groups. Contrary to predictions, no significant differences were found between groups on mentalizing others in RFQ18 scores. The Psychological Therapist and BPD profiles were characterized by differential impairment in self and others but in opposing directions. Results suggest that the RFQ18 can identify groups with expertise in mentalizing. Implications of these results for the effectiveness of psychological therapy and of Psychological Therapists are discussed
Injective split systems
A split system on a finite set , , is a set of
bipartitions or splits of which contains all splits of the form
, . To any such split system we can
associate the Buneman graph which is essentially a
median graph with leaf-set that displays the splits in . In
this paper, we consider properties of injective split systems, that is, split
systems with the property that for any 3-subsets
in , where denotes the median in
of the three elements in considered as leaves in
. In particular, we show that for any set there
always exists an injective split system on , and we also give a
characterization for when a split system is injective. We also consider how
complex the Buneman graph needs to become in order for
a split system on to be injective. We do this by introducing a
quantity for which we call the injective dimension for , as well as
two related quantities, called the injective 2-split and the rooted-injective
dimension. We derive some upper and lower bounds for all three of these
dimensions and also prove that some of these bounds are tight. An underlying
motivation for studying injective split systems is that they can be used to
obtain a natural generalization of symbolic tree maps. An important consequence
of our results is that any three-way symbolic map on can be represented
using Buneman graphs.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figure
Elastic cavitation, tube hollowing, and differential growth in plants and biological tissues
Elastic cavitation is a well-known physical process by which elastic materials under stress can open cavities. Usually, cavitation is induced by applied loads on the elastic body. However, growing materials may generate stresses in the absence of applied loads and could induce cavity opening. Here, we demonstrate the possibility of spontaneous growth-induced cavitation in elastic materials and consider the implications of this phenomenon to biological tissues and in particular to the problem of schizogenous aerenchyma formation
Development and validation of a self-report measure of mentalizing: The Reflective Functioning Questionnaire
Reflective functioning or mentalizing is the capacity to interpret both the self and others in terms of internal mental states such as feelings, wishes, goals, desires, and attitudes. This paper is part of a series of papers outlining the development and psychometric features of a new self-report measure, the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (RFQ), designed to provide an easy to administer self-report measure of mentalizing. We describe the development and initial validation of the RFQ in three studies. Study 1 focuses on the development of the RFQ, its factor structure and construct validity in a sample of patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Eating Disorder (ED) (n=108) and normal controls (n=295). Study 2 aims to replicate these findings in a fresh sample of 129 patients with personality disorder and 281 normal controls. Study 3 addresses the relationship between the RFQ, parental reflective functioning and infant attachment status as assessed with the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) in a sample of 136 community mothers and their infants. In both Study 1 and 2, confirmatory factor analyses yielded two factors assessing Certainty (RFQ_C) and Uncertainty (RFQ_U) about the mental states of self and others. These two factors were relatively distinct, invariant across clinical and non-clinical samples, had satisfactory internal consistency and test–retest stability, and were largely unrelated to demographic features. The scales discriminated between patients and controls, and were significantly and in theoretically predicted ways correlated with measures of empathy, mindfulness and perspective-taking, and with both self-reported and clinician-reported measures of borderline personality features and other indices of maladaptive personality functioning. Furthermore, the RFQ scales were associated with levels of parental reflective functioning, which in turn predicted infant attachment status in the SSP. Overall, this study lends preliminary support for the RFQ as a screening measure of reflective functioning. Further research is needed, however, to investigate in more detail the psychometric qualities of the RFQ
Invertebrate metrics based on few abundant taxa outperform functional and taxonomic composition as indicators of agricultural impacts in Atlantic rainforest streams
Metacommunity studies have demonstrated that local macroinvertebrate communities are structured not only by local environmental conditions but also by spatial processes. Effective bioassessment tools should account for spatial processes while doing so with the least amount of cost. In this study, we applied variance partition techniques based on redundancy analysis to assess the performance of three sets of benthic invertebrate metrics in detecting agricultural land-use effects in a SE Brazil rainforest watershed. Macroinvertebrate data were analyzed separately regarding their taxonomic, functional structure and bioindicator metrics developed for the study region. We stipulated that groups of metrics most sensitive to land-use effects should have the highest amount of variance explained by the joint effects of land use and environmental variation, independently of spatial structuring. Statistical analyses were repeated removing rare taxa in order to assess the effects of their inclusion in the responsiveness of each group of metrics. Traditional bioindicator metrics were more responsive to environmental variation associated with agriculture than taxa abundances and functional attributes. Furthermore, a few common taxa drove a high proportion of the variation observed in invertebrate communities, regardless of how invertebrate data were organized. Similar analytic approaches have the potential to be useful in curtailing sorting and identification efforts when developing macroinvertebrate-based biomonitoring protocols, especially in areas where information regarding the taxonomy of benthic communities is still poorly described
Magnetic field independence of the spin gap in YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-delta}
We report, for magnetic fields of 0, 8.8, and 14.8 Tesla, measurements of the
temperature dependent ^{63}Cu NMR spin lattice relaxation rate for near
optimally doped YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-delta}, near and above T_c. In sharp contrast
with previous work we find no magnetic field dependence. We discuss
experimental issues arising in measurements of this required precision, and
implications of the experiment regarding issues including the spin or pseudo
gap.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, as accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Folding and unfolding phylogenetic trees and networks
Phylogenetic networks are rooted, labelled directed acyclic graphs which are commonly used to represent reticulate evolution. There is a close relationship between phylogenetic networks and multi-labelled trees (MUL-trees). Indeed, any phylogenetic network can be "unfolded" to obtain a MUL-tree and, conversely, a MUL-tree can in certain circumstances be "folded" to obtain a phylogenetic network that exhibits . In this paper, we study properties of the operations and in more detail. In particular, we introduce the class of stable networks, phylogenetic networks for which is isomorphic to , characterise such networks, and show that they are related to the well-known class of tree-sibling networks.We also explore how the concept of displaying a tree in a network can be related to displaying the tree in the MUL-tree . To do this, we develop a phylogenetic analogue of graph fibrations. This allows us to view as the analogue of the universal cover of a digraph, and to establish a close connection between displaying trees in and reconcilingphylogenetic trees with networks
High Magnetic Field NMR Studies of LiVGeO, a quasi 1-D Spin System
We report Li pulsed NMR measurements in polycrystalline and single
crystal samples of the quasi one-dimensional S=1 antiferromagnet
LiVGeO, whose AF transition temperature is K.
The field () and temperature () ranges covered were 9-44.5 T and
1.7-300 K respectively. The measurements included NMR spectra, the spin-lattice
relaxation rate (), and the spin-phase relaxation rate (),
often as a function of the orientation of the field relative to the crystal
axes. The spectra indicate an AF magnetic structure consistent with that
obtained from neutron diffraction measurements, but with the moments aligned
parallel to the c-axis. The spectra also provide the -dependence of the AF
order parameter and show that the transition is either second order or weakly
first order. Both the spectra and the data show that has at
most a small effect on the alignment of the AF moment. There is no spin-flop
transition up to 44.5 T. These features indicate a very large magnetic
anisotropy energy in LiVGeO with orbital degrees of freedom playing an
important role. Below 8 K, varies substantially with the orientation
of in the plane perpendicular to the c-axis, suggesting a small energy
gap for magnetic fluctuations that is very anisotropic.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev.
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