Skinner’s view on hallucinations. Validity and revision

This work outlines the vision that B.F. Skinner held on hallucinations as psychological phenomena, and defends its validity and relevance nowadays. Our thesis starts with the Skinner’s conception on the behaviors of perceiving, imagining and dreaming. It is highlighted that, in Skinner’s point of view, the differences between perception on one hand and imagination or dreaming in the other, focus on what kind of variables control the behavior in question. Thus, the perceptive behavior would be controlled primarily by stimulus surrounding the person, while the imagination or dreaming would be by variables that are “under the skin” of the subject and, therefore, are private and directly inaccessible to the verbal community. On this basis, Skinner comes to an understanding of hallucinations as perceptual behaviors that occur in the absence of a perceived stimulus, similar to the behavior of imagining or dreaming, but, when hallucinating, the person, for various reasons, does not recognize his / her behaviour as controlled mainly by private stimulation. Finally we made some critical remarks regardingthe lack in Skinner’s psychology of a radical theory on the human person

Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso aplicada a la esquizofrenia. Estado actual y direcciones futuras

El presenta trabajo ofrece una visión crítica y reconstructiva de la Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso (ACT) aplicada a la esquizofrenia. Dado que la terapia partía de concepciones psicopatológicas transdiagnósticas, no fue difícil expandir el tratamiento al ámbito de los síntomas psicóticos, existiendo razones conceptuales, clínicas y experimentales que avalaron esta extensión. Se analiza y explica el procedimiento estándar de la terapia, ilustrándolo, cuando es posible, con viñetas con diálogos. Se resumen cada una de las fases y se adapta a las peculiaridades de la población a la que está dirigida este trabajo. Igualmente se hace una revisión de los resultados de la terapia, resaltando las dificultades encontradas y, en general, la pérdida de resultados sólidos en comparación con otras intervenciones menos sofisticadas. La parte final del artículo presenta varias propuestas de futuro, tendentes a mejorar la terapia, que pasarían, en primer lugar, por reformular el propio concepto de esquizofrenia como un desorden del “yo” y, por otro lado, por adaptar ACT a la cultura española partiendo de las concepciones ratio-vitalistas de José Ortega y GassetThis paper provides a critical and reconstructive vision of Acceptation and Commitment Therapy (ACT) applied to psychotic symptoms. Taking into account that the therapy was based on transdiagnostical conceptions, it was not difficult to expand the scope of the treatment to psychotic symptoms; with experimental, conceptual, and clinical reasons that supported this extension. The article analyzes and explains the standard procedure of ACT, illustrating, when possible, with vignettes. Each of the phases of the Therapy are summarized and adapted to the peculiarities of psychotic patients. Also a review of the results of the therapy is exposed, highlighting the difficulties found for its application and, in general, the loss of solid results compared with other less sophisticated interventions. The final part of the paper presents several proposals for the future, aimed at improving the therapy. The first one could be to reformulate the concept of schizophrenia as a disorder of the “self”. The second proposal for the future could be adapt ACT to the Spanish culture, with José Ortega y Gasset as a reference for this tas

From ELF to compressibility in solids

International audienceUnderstanding the electronic nature of materials’ compressibility has always been a major issue behind tabulation and rationalization of bulk moduli. This is especially because this understanding is one of the main approaches to the design and proposal of new materials with a desired (e.g., ultralow) compressibility. It is well recognized that the softest part of the solid will be the one responsible for its compression at the first place. In chemical terms, this means that the valence will suffer the main consequences of pressurization. It is desirable to understand this response to pressure in terms of the valence properties (charge, volume, etc.). One of the possible approaches is to consider models of electronic separability, such as the bond charge model (BCM), which provides insight into the cohesion of covalent crystals in analogy with the classical ionic model. However, this model relies on empirical parametrization of bond and lone pair properties. In this contribution, we have coupled electron localization function (ELF) ab initio data with the bond charge model developed by Parr in order to analyze solid state compressibility from first principles and moreover, to derive general trends and shed light upon superhard behavior

Aproximación al abordaje clínico de los síntomas psicóticos desde la Aceptación

El presente trabajo ofrece una revisión de las aplicaciones de la Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso (ACT) en sintomatología psicótica. En primer lugar, se presenta brevemente la Terapia, sus objetivos, el procedimiento canónico de aplicación y las técnicas más habituales. Posteriormente se analizan las adaptaciones que sería conveniente tener en cuenta al aplicar ACT a sintomatología psicótica, repasando los resultados habidos hasta la fecha. Así, se exponen los dos ensayos clínicos aleatorizados de ACT con pacientes diagnosticados de esquizofrenia, que suponen el mayor aval empírico de la Terapia. Igualmente se presentan tres estudios de caso relativos, por este orden, a alucinaciones auditivas, delirios y síntomas psicóticos negativos. Por último, se revisan las afinidades de ACT con otros enfoques basados en la aceptación de síntomas psicóticos y se propone un mayor énfasis en las variables sociales por parte de AC

Ensemble-based genetic algorithm explainer with automized image segmentation: A case study on melanoma detection dataset

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) makes AI understandable to the human user particularly when the model is complex and opaque. Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME) has an image explainer package that is used to explain deep learning models. The image explainer of LIME needs some parameters to be manually tuned by the expert in advance, including the number of top features to be seen and the number of superpixels in the segmented input image. This parameter tuning is a time-consuming task. Hence, with the aim of developing an image explainer that automizes image segmentation, this paper proposes Ensemblebased Genetic Algorithm Explainer (EGAE) for melanoma cancer detection that automatically detects and presents the informative sections of the image to the user. EGAE has three phases. First, the sparsity of chromosomes in GAs is determined heuristically. Then, multiple GAs are executed consecutively. However, the difference between these GAs are in different number of superpixels in the input image that result in different chromosome lengths. Finally, the results of GAs are ensembled using consensus and majority votings. This paper also introduces how Euclidean distance can be used to calculate the distance between the actual explanation (delineated by experts) and the calculated explanation (computed by the explainer) for accuracy measurement. Experimental results on a melanoma dataset show that EGAE automatically detects informative lesions, and it also improves the accuracy of explanation in comparison with LIME efficiently. The python codes for EGAE, the ground truths delineated by clinicians, and the melanoma detection dataset are available at https://github.com/KhaosResearch/EGAEThis work has been partially funded by grant PID2020-112540RBC41 (funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/, Spain), AETHERUMA, Spain (A smart data holistic approach for context-aware data analytics: semantics and context exploitation). Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga/CBUA. Additionally, we thank Dr. Miguel Ángel Berciano Guerrero from Unidad de Oncología Intercentros, Hospitales Univesitarios Regional Virgen de la Victoria de Málaga, and Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas (IBIMA), Málaga, Spain, for his support in images selection and general medical orientation in the particular case of Melanoma

La dirección escolar. Análisis desde el nuevo enfoque de la reforma de la ley de educación

Las organizaciones escolares están formadas por un conjunto de elementos que conforman un sistema cerrado sujeto a variables externas que modifican sus intenciones y fines. La misión fundamental que debe de tener toda institución escolar es la de construir una sociedad cada vez más capacitada para poder satisfacer las demandas de una sociedad dinámica y plural donde deben de converger todas las iniciativas y singularidades humanas. Para ello, el sistema necesita de una organización fuertemente cohesionada y dirigida. Los perfiles de dirección escolar, aunque con patrones similares al de otras organizaciones humanas, se distinguen por el componente humano que conforma el sistema. El aprendizaje del alumnado se produce mediante una fuerte interacción entre todos los elementos, por un lado, en sentido bidireccional alumno-profesor y por otro mediante el aprendizaje cooperativo-colaborativo donde se configuran verdaderas comunidades de aprendizaje. El liderazgo de la dirección y la autonomía de los centros son dos pilares básicos para alcanzar los fines del sistema. En el presente trabajo se analizan los tipos de modelos de dirección escolar desde diferentes enfoques, variables políticas que influyen en el desempeño y desarrollo de las competencias directivas, desarrollo histórico a partir del modelo democrático y por último la potencialidad de la dirección escolar para la mejora de los centros educativos.School organizations are made up of a set of elements that make up a closed system subject to external variables that modify their intentions and purposes. The fundamental mission that every school institution must have is to build a society that is increasingly capable of meeting the demands of a dynamic and plural society where all initiatives and human singularities must converge. For this, the system needs a strongly cohesive and directed organization. School management profiles, although with patterns similar to those of other human organizations, are distinguished by the human component that makes up the system. Student learning occurs through a strong interaction between all the elements, on the one hand, in a bidirectional student-teacher sense and, on the other, through cooperative-collaborative learning where true learning communities are configured. The leadership of the management and the autonomy of the centers are two basic pillars to achieve the goals of the system. In the present work, the types of school management models are analyzed from different approaches, political variables that influence the performance and development of managerial skills, historical development from the democratic model and finally the potential of school management for improvement. of educational centers.Educació

GENECI: A novel evolutionary machine learning consensus-based approach for the inference of gene regulatory networks

Gene regulatory networks define the interactions between DNA products and other substances in cells. Increasing knowledge of these networks improves the level of detail with which the processes that trigger different diseases are described and fosters the development of new therapeutic targets. These networks are usually represented by graphs, and the primary sources for their correct construction are usually time series from differential expression data. The inference of networks from this data type has been approached differently in the literature. Mostly, computational learning techniques have been implemented, which have finally shown some specialization in specific datasets. For this reason, the need arises to create new and more robust strategies for reaching a consensus based on previous results to gain a particular capacity for generalization. This paper presents GENECI (GEne NEtwork Consensus Inference), an evolutionary machine learning approach that acts as an organizer for constructing ensembles to process the results of the main inference techniques reported in the literature and to optimize the consensus network derived from them, according to their confidence levels and topological characteristics. After its design, the proposal was confronted with datasets collected from academic benchmarks (DREAM challenges and IRMA network) to quantify its accuracy. Subsequently, it was applied to a real-world biological network of melanoma patients whose results could be contrasted with medical research collected in the literature. Finally, it has been proved that its ability to optimize the consensus of several networks leads to outstanding robustness and accuracy, gaining a certain generalization capacity after facing the inference of multiple datasetsThis work has been partially funded by grant (funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/) PID2020-112540RB-C41, AETHER-UMA, Spain (A smart data holistic approach for context-aware data analytics: semantics and context exploitation) and Andalusian PAIDI program, Spain with grant P18-RT-2799. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga, Spain/CBUA. Adrián SeguraOrtiz is supported by Grant FPU21/03837 (Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Spain

Reappraising personal values in cancer: Meaning-in-life adaptation, meaningfulness, and quality of life

Objective This study explores the reappraisal of personal values among people with cancer post-diagnosis and its connections to meaningfulness, encompassing personal meaning and sense of meaning, and various dimensions of quality of life. Methods A total of 144 patients with diverse cancer types and a control group comprising 158 healthy adults with similar demographic characteristics completed the Valued Living Questionnaire-Perceived Change, the Personal Meaning Profile-Brief, the Portrait Values Questionnaire, and the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-Being. Results Cancer patients displayed a substantial values reappraisal compared to healthy adults. They reported an increased significance of social areas and self-transcendental values, including close relationships (family, partner, and friends), spirituality, citizenship, and universalism, as well as an increased importance of self-care and self in general. Conversely, cancer patients assigned less importance to work and self-enhancement values such as stimulation, power, and achievement. Cluster analysis revealed that patients who reappraised their values exhibited higher meaningfulness and better indicators of quality of life, including spiritual and physical well-being, compared to patients who did not modify their value system. Conclusions These findings underscore the importance of assessing and promoting meaning-in-life adaptability among people with cancer, with potential applications in meaning-centered therapies and interventions aimed at enhancing psychological flexibility.Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte FPU014/023

Molecular barcoding confirms the presence of exotic Asian seaweeds (Pachymeniopsis gargiuli and Grateloupia turuturu) in the Cantabrian Sea, Bay of Biscay

Background The introduction of exotic species can have serious consequences for marine ecosystems. On the shores of the Cantabrian Sea (North of Spain) there are no routine examinations of seaweeds that combine molecular and morphological methods for early detection of exotic species making it difficult to assess in the early stages their establishment and expansion processes as a result of anthropogenic activities (e.g., shipping and/or aquaculture). Methods In this work we used both morphological identification and molecular barcoding (COI-5P and rbcL genes) of red algae collected in Asturias, Bay of Biscay (Gijón and Candás harbours) and from the University of Oviedo’s herbarium samples. Results The results confirmed the presence of exotic Asian seaweeds Pachymeniopsis gargiuli and Grateloupia turuturu Yamada on Cantabrian Sea shores. Several individuals of these species were fertile and developing cystocarps when collected, underlining the risk of possible expansion or continued establishment. This study constitutes the first report of the Asian P. gargiuli in this area of the Bay of Biscay. Conclusions Here the presence of the exotic species of the Halymeniales P. gargiuli is confirmed. We hypothesize that this species may have been established some time ago as a cryptic introduction with G. turuturu in Galician shores. The detection of these species on the shores of the Cantabrian Sea is relevant since introductions of Pachymeniopsis species could have been overlooked on other European coasts, probably mixed with G. turuturu and P. lanceolata. Our results confirm one new alien seaweed species that has been detected using molecular methods (COI-5P region and rbcL genes barcoding) on North Atlantic shores: the Asian native P. gargiuli. This demonstrates that routine screening for early detection of exotic algae in the Cantabrian Sea can be used for risk assessment. Genetic barcoding should be done using both rbcL gene and COI-5P regions since, although COI-databases are still poorer in sequences and this inhibits successful outcomes in Grateloupia-related species identifications, it is nonetheless a useful marker for species-level identifications in seaweeds