A theoretical framework of romantic creativity: Dyadic creativity in romantic relationships and plausible links with wellbeing

Everyday creative behaviours seem to be associated with high levels of wellbeing. Yet, the effects of creativity on wellbeing remain largely unknown, notably at a dyadic level, and particularly in the context of romantic relationships. Previous research has studied the effects of creativity on romantic relationships but has been limited by the two main epistemological assumptions that we present in this article. Consequently, very little is known about the effect of a form of creativity that may occur at a dyadic level in a romantic relationship, and that may have implications in the science of human flourishing. In other words, the research field lacks a theoretical framework for studying the effect of creativity in romantic relationships on wellbeing. The present theoretical framework aims to fill this gap by proposing a dyadic dimension of creativity embedded within wellbeing: romantic creativity. Romantic creativity is conceptualised as an observable, quantifiable, yet non-product-hierarchic phenomenon. It is defined as a dyadic process which favours new and meaningful directions in a romantic relationship through dynamics of discovery and self-expansion in one or both members of the dyad. This article describes the epistemological foundations of this theoretical framework and draws on existing research on self-expansion and the neuroscience of wellbeing to hypothesise the processes that might account for the effect of romantic creativity on human flourishing. We also identify two possible ontological perspectives for research on romantic creativity. The present article proposes that romantic creativity might help dyads to flourish through the processes implied in homeodynamics and dyadic self-expansion

Creativity research overlooks the study of resilience among young children: a bibliometric network review

Creativity researchers are increasingly interested in understanding when, how, and for whom creativity can be beneficial. Previous reviews have demonstrated that creativity research largely ignores the study of its impact on factors that promote health, and well-being among populations of adults. It is unclear, in fact, whether this gap in research also extends to creativity research among young children. This paper addresses this issue. Early childhood is a crucial stage for the cognitive development of young children who remain highly sensitive to stress, and adversity. It is therefore essential to identify and promote factors that are beneficial to early childhood resilience, thereby contributing to documenting more of the effects of creative activities on positive outcomes. This paper presents a review with a bibliometric analysis of 1000 randomly selected articles from the Web of Science, without bias towards any specific peer-reviewed journal. The analysis of 454 included articles shows that approximately 80% of the included studies focus on creativity as an outcome (replicating previous findings with a larger sample), with only 3.78% investigating creative activities as predictors among young children. In this small percentage, most of the studies addressed creative activities in young children related to resilience outcomes

Dyadic parent-child creative activities and early childhood resilience : audio-recordings and home activities as methodological propositions

This commentary invites creativity researchers to address an area that, to date, has received little attention: the effects of dyadic creative activities on early childhood resilience. There is, indeed, a growing body of work on how creative behaviour can contribute to resilience in older children, adolescents, and adults. There is less research on this topic for populations of children aged 3 to 6 years. Yet, young children are particularly dependent upon the bonds they form with their caregivers, notably their parents. The quality of the ties they maintain with them can promote, or on the contrary hinder, their resilience. After presenting the need to foster resilience among young children through dyadic creative activities, the commentary proposes audio recording as a method of investigating this phenomenon. It presents perspectives on the analysis of momentary processes. It concludes with perspectives creative activities at home that researchers can propose to parents and children to address their effects on young children’s resilienc

Isolation and Characterization of EstC, a New Cold-Active Esterase from Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2)

The genome sequence of Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) contains more than 50 genes coding for putative lipolytic enzymes. Many studies have shown the capacity of this actinomycete to store important reserves of intracellular triacylglycerols in nutrient depletion situations. In the present study, we used genome mining of S. coelicolor to identify genes coding for putative, non-secreted esterases/lipases. Two genes were cloned and successfully overexpressed in E. coli as His-tagged fusion proteins. One of the recombinant enzymes, EstC, showed interesting cold-active esterase activity with a strong potential for the production of valuable esters. The purified enzyme displayed optimal activity at 35°C and was cold-active with retention of 25% relative activity at 10°C. Its optimal pH was 8.5–9 but the enzyme kept more than 75% of its maximal activity between pH 7.5 and 10. EstC also showed remarkable tolerance over a wide range of pH values, retaining almost full residual activity between pH 6–11. The enzyme was active toward short-chain p-nitrophenyl esters (C2–C12), displaying optimal activity with the valerate (C5) ester (kcat/Km = 737±77 s−1 mM−1). The enzyme was also very active toward short chain triglycerides such as triacetin (C2:0) and tributyrin (C4:0), in addition to showing good primary alcohol and organic solvent tolerance, suggesting it could function as an interesting candidate for organic synthesis of short-chain esters such as flavors

Evidence of a causal and modifiable relationship between kidney function and circulating trimethylamine N-oxide

The host-microbiota co-metabolite trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) is linked to increased cardiovascular risk but how its circulating levels are regulated remains unclear. We applied "explainable" machine learning, univariate, multivariate and mediation analyses of fasting plasma TMAO concentration and a multitude of phenotypes in 1,741 adult Europeans of the MetaCardis study. Here we show that next to age, kidney function is the primary variable predicting circulating TMAO, with microbiota composition and diet playing minor, albeit significant, roles. Mediation analysis suggests a causal relationship between TMAO and kidney function that we corroborate in preclinical models where TMAO exposure increases kidney scarring. Consistent with our findings, patients receiving glucose-lowering drugs with reno-protective properties have significantly lower circulating TMAO when compared to propensity-score matched control individuals. Our analyses uncover a bidirectional relationship between kidney function and TMAO that can potentially be modified by reno-protective anti-diabetic drugs and suggest a clinically actionable intervention for decreasing TMAO-associated excess cardiovascular risk

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

Relationship of edge localized mode burst times with divertor flux loop signal phase in JET

A phase relationship is identified between sequential edge localized modes (ELMs) occurrence times in a set of H-mode tokamak plasmas to the voltage measured in full flux azimuthal loops in the divertor region. We focus on plasmas in the Joint European Torus where a steady H-mode is sustained over several seconds, during which ELMs are observed in the Be II emission at the divertor. The ELMs analysed arise from intrinsic ELMing, in that there is no deliberate intent to control the ELMing process by external means. We use ELM timings derived from the Be II signal to perform direct time domain analysis of the full flux loop VLD2 and VLD3 signals, which provide a high cadence global measurement proportional to the voltage induced by changes in poloidal magnetic flux. Specifically, we examine how the time interval between pairs of successive ELMs is linked to the time-evolving phase of the full flux loop signals. Each ELM produces a clear early pulse in the full flux loop signals, whose peak time is used to condition our analysis. The arrival time of the following ELM, relative to this pulse, is found to fall into one of two categories: (i) prompt ELMs, which are directly paced by the initial response seen in the flux loop signals; and (ii) all other ELMs, which occur after the initial response of the full flux loop signals has decayed in amplitude. The times at which ELMs in category (ii) occur, relative to the first ELM of the pair, are clustered at times when the instantaneous phase of the full flux loop signal is close to its value at the time of the first ELM

High Artistic Achievements and Low Emotion Dysregulation: The Moderating and Mediating Role of Self-compassion

International audienceRelatively little research has addressed the positive outcomes of everyday creative achievements. Based on the Honing Theory of Creativity, the present research aimed to analyze the relation between artistic achievements and low emotion dysregulation. The second aim was to examine the mediating and moderating role of self-compassion in this relation, as a factor which has previously been associated both with creativity and low emotion dysregulation. A cross-sectional research was conducted among 168 participants, who were recruited in academic and non-academic settings. The participants mostly presented everyday levels of creative achievements. They completed questionnaires about their creative achievements in the arts, along with their difficulties in emotion regulation and their levels of self-compassion. The results showed that artistic achievements were negatively associated with emotion dysregulation, and positively associated with self-compassion. Mediation analyses showed that the significant relation between high artistic achievements and low emotion dysregulation was mediated by self-compassion. Moderation analyses indicated that individuals with the lowest-to-moderate levels of self-compassion reported the highest associations between high artistic achievements and low emotion dysregulation. No significant moderation effect was found for individuals with high levels of self-compassion. Overall, this research found positive associations between artistic creativity and indices of positive psychological functioning