An examination of dose in mindfulness-based programs and Mindfulness practice through a dose-response meta-regression and randomised controlled experiments

Mindfulness research has grown exponentially in recent years including research with various doses related to mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) and mindfulness practice. This PhD thesis aimed to further understanding of the effectiveness of different doses related to MBPs and practices through a comprehensive review and experimental studies. A large-scale dose-response meta-regression including 203 randomised controlled trials (both, compared to inactive and active controls) was completed with 15 dose variables related to MBPs and practice. The outcomes were depression, anxiety, stress, and mindfulness at post-program and follow-up. The meta-regression showed significant dose-response relationships between doses related to actual program use, face-to-face contact, and program intensity and the mindfulness outcome. No robust significant dose-response relationships were found for psychological distress outcomes. Actual amount of mindfulness practice was frequently not consistently and reliably recorded in the studies included in the dose-response review. Additionally, the review did not support causal conclusions. Therefore, a randomised controlled experiment examined the relative effectiveness of longer (20-minute) and shorter (5-minute) mindfulness practices in a general population sample of novice practitioners. Although both doses were found effective at reducing psychological distress and increasing mindfulness compared to control, results showed that shorter practices had a significantly greater positive effect on mindfulness and stress than longer practices. Additionally, the effectiveness of a single-dose mindfulness practice was assessed. An online-delivered randomised experiment, with a general population sample, examined the effects of a mindfulness induction on state hope and gratitude. This induction had significant positive effects on both outcomes, and state mindfulness statistically mediated the improvements in state hope and gratitude. Overall, thesis findings have contributed to the field of mindfulness research by showing that higher and lower MBP and mindfulness practice doses are helpful, but that for novices, lower mindfulness practice doses may be more effective, especially in self-help MBPs without an experienced teacher present

Trauma recovery core capabilities for the children’s workforce in the United Kingdom: A Q-methodology study

There are competency frameworks and trainings relating to the development of a trauma informed workforce. These have generally been developed outside of the UK and often involve lists of 20 to 40 competencies, which can become overwhelming and often impractical to implement. The aim of this research was to develop UK expert consensus on the key elements of what would make a worker/practitioner who engages with traumatized children trauma informed and recovery focused. The use of the Delphi and Q-methodology allowed consensus across UK experts and practitioners to be developed. The Q-sort clusters responses across participants to develop a small set of overarching themes. This process led to three key components being identified (1) Recovery through new ways of coping with stress; (2) The role of the family system in the recovery process and (3) Understanding the longer-term development impact of trauma on the young person and the potential impact on the practitioner. These three components were linked to the types of roles the experts held within the trauma recovery field. It is hoped that these overarching components will guide workforce development activities including training, curriculum development, and professional standards for those who engage with traumatized young people

Conceptualising what we mean by ‘wellbeing’ in the dementias

The term ‘wellbeing’ has experienced a relatively rapid introduction into the lexicon and policy of healthcare in the UK and other countries. Wellbeing research now occurs across different disciplines and clinical populations. Less well understood, however, is how wellbeing is conceptualised, measured and recognised in the dementias and during art activities and how this understanding might impact research and future practice. This paper will firstly, review prevailing wellbeing conceptualisations in order to understand their relevance to dementia and secondly, discuss novel psychological and physiological approaches used to measure and observe wellbeing in art and heritage activities in this population

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Beam quality improvement of high-power semiconductor lasers using laterally inhomogeneous waveguides

This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in Appl. Phys. Lett. 113, 221107 (2018) and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5054645.High-brightness vertical broad-area edge-emitting (HiBBEE) semiconductor lasers in the 1060 nm wavelength range with excellent beam quality in both lateral and vertical directions are presented. An approach to modify the thresholds of the transverse lateral modes of ridge-waveguide (RW) lasers is investigated. It has been experimentally shown that inhomogeneities in both sides of the ridges increase optical losses of the higher-order lateral modes as compared to the fundamental mode. The resulting enhancement in the contrast of the optical losses favors the emission of the fundamental mode and improves the beam quality. Reference RW HiBBEE lasers with a 15 μm wide conventional ridge and a 2.0 mm long cavity provide laterally multi-lateral mode emission which is typical for RW lasers with such wide and homogeneous ridges. On the other hand, RW HiBBEE lasers with triangular-shaped corrugations in both sides of 15 μm wide ridges provide single-lateral mode emission across a wide current range and improve the lateral M2 factor by more than a factor of 2 in the investigated current range. The corrugated RW HiBBEE lasers provide an almost 2 times higher brightness than the reference RW lasers

Two-loop conformal generators for leading-twist operators in QCD

QCD evolution equations in minimal subtraction schemes have a hidden symmetry: One can construct three operators that commute with the evolution kernel and form an $SL(2)$ algebra, i.e. they satisfy (exactly) the $SL(2)$ commutation relations. In this paper we find explicit expressions for these operators to two-loop accuracy going over to QCD in non-integer $d=4-2\epsilon$ space-time dimensions at the intermediate stage. In this way conformal symmetry of QCD is restored on quantum level at the specially chosen (critical) value of the coupling, and at the same time the theory is regularized allowing one to use the standard renormalization procedure for the relevant Feynman diagrams. Quantum corrections to conformal generators in $d=4-2\epsilon$ effectively correspond to the conformal symmetry breaking in the physical theory in four dimensions and the $SL(2)$ commutation relations lead to nontrivial constraints on the renormalization group equations for composite operators. This approach is valid to all orders in perturbation theory and the result includes automatically all terms that can be identified as due to a nonvanishing QCD $\beta$-function (in the physical theory in four dimensions). Our result can be used to derive three-loop evolution equations for flavor-nonsinglet quark-antiquark operators including mixing with the operators containing total derivatives. These equations govern, e.g., the scale dependence of generalized hadron parton distributions and light-cone meson distribution amplitudes.Comment: 36 page

Effects of length of mindfulness practice on mindfulness, depression, anxiety and stress: a randomized controlled experiment

Objectives: Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) vary in length of mindfulness practices included. It might be expected that longer practice leads to greater benefits in terms of increased mindfulness and decreased psychological distress. However, the evidence for such dose-response effects is mixed and generally does not support such strong causal conclusions given its correlational nature. Therefore, the current study sought to clarify which length of mindfulness practice led to greater benefits using an experimental design. Methods: Participants (N = 71; 71.8% female), who were healthy adults with limited prior mindfulness practice experience, were randomized to either (i) four longer (20-minute) mindfulness practices, (ii) four shorter (5-minute) mindfulness practices or (iii) an audiobook control group. All sessions were held in-person over a two-week period, each group listened to the same total length of material each session, and participants refrained from formal mindfulness practice outside of sessions. Results: Both longer and shorter practice significantly improved trait mindfulness, depression, anxiety, and stress compared to controls. Unexpectedly, shorter practice had a significantly greater effect on trait mindfulness (d = 2.17; p < .001) and stress (d = -1.18; p < .01) than longer practice, with a trend in the same direction for depression and anxiety. Mediation analysis findings were mixed. Conclusions: Even a relatively small amount of mindfulness practice can be beneficial and shorter practices may initially be more helpful for novice practitioners in MBPs with minimal teacher contact. Further research is needed to examine such dose-response effects when teacher involvement is greater and over the longer term

Subjective wellbeing in people living with dementia: exploring processes of multiple object handling sessions in a museum setting.

Background: Dementia care guidance highlights the importance of supporting people living with dementia to access engaging and meaningful activities to promote their quality of life. There is a growing evidence base for the efficacy of heritage settings and arts-based interventions to provide social prescribing opportunities to help support wellbeing in this population. This study extended previous research and explored the potential processes underlying this effect in multiple small group object handling sessions in a museum setting. Methods: A mixed-methods design was used comprising a measure of subjective wellbeing and thematic analysis to explore in-the-moment session content across multiple sessions. Four people with dementia participated in three, one-hour group object handling sessions led by two facilitators. Results: Pre-post wellbeing scores showed increases after each session though this was largely not significant. Qualitative findings provided more compelling results, however, and identified four key themes: facilitating, interest in exploring objects, active participation, and group collaboration; interpretations were made around the dynamic interaction of themes and subthemes over the course of three sessions. Conclusions: This is the first study we are aware of that has taken an in-depth look at multiple museum-based group object handling sessions for people living with dementia. Findings offer ways to optimise object handling sessions for people with dementia by providing in-depth information about the processes involved across multiple object handling sessions facilitated by museum/heritage professionals in a museum setting. This has useful implications for community-based activities as part of dementia care planning and public health programming. The study contributes to a deeper understanding and elucidates the processes that enhance wellbeing for this population who participate in such sessions. It also helps to develop further theoretical understanding about why these types of activities are helpful in community-based dementia care. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed

Spectral asymptotics on stationary space-times

We review our recent relativistic generalization of the Gutzwiller–Duistermaat–Guillemin trace formula and Weyl law on globally hyperbolic stationary space-times with compact Cauchy hypersurfaces. We also discuss anticipated generalizations to non-compact Cauchy hypersurface cases

Arts-based interventions for people living with dementia: Measuring ‘in the moment’ wellbeing with the Canterbury Wellbeing Scales

Background: There is growing acknowledgement for the need to move beyond exclusive biomedical understandings of dementia and also focus on how to improve the lives and wellbeing of people living with dementia. A mounting body of research advocates for the benefits of arts-based interventions for this population. The purpose of this study was to explore the links between multiple components of arts-based interventions and subjective wellbeing in order to help assess if these activities might contribute to meaningful community-based dementia care initiatives. Methods: Using previously collected data across different intervention sites, a within- and between- participants design was used that assessed wellbeing through the Canterbury Wellbeing Scales (CWS) in people with mild-to-moderate dementias (N = 201) who participated in various community arts-based interventions (ABI). Data were analysed using non-parametric statistical analyses and bootstrapped moderation models. Results: Increases in subjective wellbeing were associated with all forms of ABI. Co-creative sessions significantly strengthened the relationship between number of sessions attended and overall wellbeing as well as optimism. No significant moderating effect was observed between number of sessions attended and carer presence. Conclusions: In the largest study of its kind to date to assess wellbeing using arts activities in a community-based dementia sample, findings support the use and acceptability of the CWS as a measurement tool for people with early-to-middle stages of dementia and suggest that the CWS can reliably measure wellbeing in this population. In addition, the positive effect of arts-based interactions on specific aspects of wellbeing were found, which provide a better understanding of the conditions under which these effects can be prolonged and sustained. Further research is needed to better understand the environmental, social, and psychological mechanisms through which these improvements operate