Generalized Legendre transformations and symmetries of the WDVV equations

The Witten-Dijkgraaf-Verlinde-Verlinde (or WDVV) equations, as one would expect from an integrable system, has many symmetries, both continuous and discrete. One class - the so-called Legendre transformations - were introduced by Dubrovin. They are a discrete set of symmetries between the stronger concept of a Frobenius manifold, and are generated by certain flat vector fields. In this paper this construction is generalized to the case where the vector field (called here the Legendre field) is non-flat but satisfies a certain set of defining equations. One application of this more general theory is to generate the induced symmetry between almost-dual Frobenius manifolds whose underlying Frobenius manifolds are related by a Legendre transformation. This also provides a map between rational and trigonometric solutions of the WDVV equations.Comment: 23 page

Mainstreaming and beyond: Policy capacity and climate change decision-making

Mainstreaming involves integrating climate adaptation measures into existing policies and programs. This article reviews the policy process and policy capacity of government organizations and suggests that both need to be incorporated into climate change adaptation assessments. A critical part of mainstreaming is evidence-based decision-making, which emphasizes that decision makers should have the best available information in order to make knowledgeable decisions. This requires policy work that involves a wide variety of statistical methods, applied research, and advanced modeling techniques to gauge broad public opinion and attitudes as well as more routine research techniques. A review of previous past quantitative studies conducted mainly in Canada identifies factors driving policy capacity within government departments responsible for formulating, choosing, implementing, and evaluating climate change adaptation policies and programs. Policy capacity has traditionally been objectively measured and includes indicators such as the number of policy staff, their education levels, resources available, roles and tasks, and ongoing training. More attention needs to be paid to the subjective perceptions of individuals who undertake policy work, in particular the attitudes towards the policy-making process. This paper concludes by proposing a policy capacity framework that includes individual, organizational, and sectoral policy capacity considerations

Engaging With Human Identity in Social-Ecological Systems: A Dialectical Approach

Vexing problems of global environmental change call for better conceptual and analytical approaches for understanding human behaviors, factors influencing these behaviors, and the causal pathways through which these shape social and environmental outcomes. While human identity meanings provide key analytic objects in the interrogation of these dynamics, identity-based research has been truncated by a historic overemphasis on social factors and a lack of critical engagement with the ecological context of these processes. Adapting Giddens’s concept of structuration, we draw on recent advances in social-ecological systems scholarship and human structural ecology to propose a new conceptual approach for understanding human identity processes and their relation to social-ecological structure. Resituating the human person within complex social-ecological systems, we suggest some causal pathways through which ecological (in addition to social) elements are active in the emergence of human identity and, conversely, the ways in which identity-based behaviors interact dialectically with social-ecological structure to produce outcomes significant along both social and ecological dimensions. Finally, we explore some implications of this reframing for the interrogation of society-nature dynamics and for empirical research engaging with social-ecological change and resilience

Acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents involved in assaults or motor vehicle accidents

Objective: The authors investigated acute stress disorder and later posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children and adolescents who had been involved in assaults or motor vehicle accidents. Method: They interviewed 93 patients 10-16 years old who were seen in an emergency department for having been assaulted or involved in a motor vehicle accident within 4 weeks after the assault or accident to assess acute stress disorder. At 6 months, they reinterviewed 64 (68.8%) of the patients to assess PTSD. Results: At initial interview, 18 (19.4%) of the 93 patients had acute stress disorder and 23 (24.7%) met all acute stress disorder criteria except dissociation. At 6 months, eight of the 64 patients (12.5%) had PTSD. Acute stress disorder and PTSD did not differ in prevalence between patients who had been assaulted and those who had been in accidents. Sensitivity and specificity statistics and regression modeling revealed that the diagnosis of acute stress disorder was a good predictor of later PTSD but that dissociation did not play a significant role. Conclusions: Acute stress disorder has merit as a predictor of later PTSD in children and adolescents, but dissociation has questionable utility

Diagnostic, demographic, memory quality, and cognitive variables associated with acute stress disorder in children and adolescents

To date, no studies have investigated factors associated with acute stress disorder (ASD) in children and adolescents. Relationships between ASD and a number of demographic, trauma, cognitive, and trauma memory variables were therefore investigated in a sample (N=93) of children and adolescents involved in assaults and motor vehicle accidents. Several cognitive variables and the quality of trauma memories, but not demographic or trauma variables, were correlated with ASD and also mediated the relationship between peritraumatic threat and ASD. Finally, nosological analyses comparing ASD with indexes of posttraumatic stress disorder in the month posttrauma revealed little support for the dissociation mandate that uniquely characterizes ASD. The results are discussed with respect to assessment and treatment for the acute traumatic stress responses of children and young people

Towards a cognitive-behavioral model of PTSD in children and adolescents

Abstract Post-traumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents has been studied only for the past 15 to 20 years and is the subject of a burgeoning corpus of research. Much research has focused on examining whether children and adolescents have the same responses to trauma as those experienced by adults. Many of the research tools used to investigate children's responses are taken from measures designed for use with adults, and these measures have proven to be useful. However, it has not been established that children's responses to traumatic events are related to the same underlying processes as adults' responses. The possible application of two recent cognitive models of PTSD in adults to understanding PTSD in children and adolescents is discussed in this article, within the context of what is already known about children's reaction to trauma and existing theoretical accounts of childhood PTSD. Particular attention is paid towards the nature of children's memories of traumatic events and how these memories relate to the re-experiencing symptoms of PTSD, and cognitive processes that may play a role in the maintenance of PTSD. It is proposed that the adoption of a more specific cognitive-behavioral framework in the study of this disorder may be beneficial and lead to better treatment outcomes

Natural Gas Landowner Coalitions in New York State: Emerging Benefits of Collective Natural Resource Management

Thousands of rural landowners in New York State have joined together to form grassroots organizations aimed at collectively bargaining with natural gas companies. The leverage afforded by acting collectively allows these landowner coalitions to potentially influence the economic, environmental, and community impacts of gas development across hundreds of thousands of acres. In-depth interviews with coalition leaders conducted for this article reveal the scope, motivations, and benefits of membership in these groups. Our work examines these elements using multiple frameworks for understanding collective natural resource management. The coalitions are primarily concerned with the advancement of private member benefits, while public benefits of the collective action are poised to accrue indirectly. Group leaders are also contemplating how to use their leverage to secure direct benefits for the wider community – actions that may give communities a modicum of local control over gas development

Development and validation of the child post-traumatic cognitions inventory (CPTCI)

Background: Negative trauma-related cognitions have been found to be a significant factor in the maintenance of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adults. Initial studies of such appraisals in trauma-exposed children and adolescents suggest that this is an important line of research in youth, yet empirically validated measures for use with younger populations are lacking. A measure of negative trauma-related cognitions for use with children and adolescents, the Child Post-Traumatic Cognitions Inventory (CPTCI), is presented. The measure was devised as an age-appropriate version of the adult Post-Traumatic Cognitions Inventory (Foa et al., 1999). Methods: The CPTCI was developed and validated within a large (n = 570) sample, comprising community and trauma-exposed samples of children and adolescents aged 6-18 years. Results: Principal components analysis suggested a two-component structure. These components were labelled 'permanent and disturbing change' and 'fragile person in a scary world', and were each found to possess good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, and discriminative validity. The reliability and validity of these sub-scales was present regardless of whether the measure was completed in the acute phase or several months after a trauma. Scores on these sub-scales did not vary with age. Conclusions: The CPTCI is a reliable and valid measure that is not specific to the type of trauma exposure, and shows considerable promise as a research and clinical tool. The structure of this measure suggests that appraisals concerning the more abstract consequences of a trauma, as well as physical threat and vulnerability, are pertinent factors in trauma-exposed children and adolescents, even prepubescent children

A drill by any other name: social representations, framing, and legacies of natural resource extraction in the fracking industry

How do people interpret ambiguous and uncertain events? This study explores this question in the context of unconventional oil and gas development, or “fracking”, with implications for natural resource extraction generally. Drawing on the theories of social representations and framing, we test the hypothesis that legacies of natural resource extraction—conceptualized here as collective schemata of interpretation—shape perceptions and actions toward new forms of energy development. Based on an analysis of survey data from the “Twin Tiers” regions of New York and Pennsylvania (n=590), we find that negatively perceived legacies of past resource dependence, net of other factors, lead to opposition and political behaviors related to unconventional oil and gas development. Our findings suggest that regional legacies of natural resource extraction act as a sense making tool, working to translate the ambiguous, novel phenomenon of unconventional oil and gas development into something understandable in light of past experiences