FLOW I VOKSENLIVET - Om engagementets forudsætning, væsen og perspektiv

Denne artikel beskriver og diskuterer den særligt nydelsesfulde og engagerede bevidsthedstilstand, der kaldes »flow« samt nogle af de vigtigste forudsætninger herfor. Med udgangspunkt i flow-tilstandens direkte og indirekte fænomenologiske konstituenter, som de aktuelt forstås i Positive-Psychology perspektivet, hvor der skelnes mellem tre former for lykke, benævnt som henholdsvist det rare liv, det engagerede liv og det meningsfulde liv, fokuseres på voksnes vilkår og muligheder for at opleve flow i voksenlivet såvel som betydningen heraf. Det konkluderes, at det moderne, komplekse samfund, på grundlag af øget materiel velstand, frihedsgrader og kulturel rigdom, for mange rummer flere muligheder for at opleve flow, end man tidligere havde, men at disse muligheder potentielt begrænses af nye risici, der kompromitterer såvel det rare, som det engagerede og det meningsfulde på måder, der også på forskellig vis overgår det tidligere kendte

Reduced complexity of activity patterns in patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: a case control study

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is an illness characterised by pervasive physical and mental fatigue without specific identified pathological changes. Many patients with CFS show reduced physical activity which, though quantifiable, has yielded little information to date. Nonlinear dynamic analysis of physiological data can be used to measure complexity in terms of dissimilarity within timescales and similarity across timescales. A reduction in these objective measures has been associated with disease and ageing. We aimed to test the hypothesis that activity patterns of patients with CFS would show reduced complexity compared to healthy controls. METHODS: We analysed continuous activity data over 12 days from 42 patients with CFS and 21 matched healthy controls. We estimated complexity in two ways, measuring dissimilarity within timescales by calculating entropy after a symbolic dynamic transformation of the data and similarity across timescales by calculating the fractal dimension using allometric aggregation. RESULTS: CFS cases showed reduced complexity compared to controls, as evidenced by reduced dissimilarity within timescales (mean (SD) Renyi(3) entropy 4.05 (0.21) vs. 4.30 (0.09), t = -6.6, p < 0.001) and reduced similarity across timescales (fractal dimension 1.19 (0.04) vs. 1.14 (0.04), t = 4.2, p < 0.001). This reduction in complexity persisted after adjustment for total activity. CONCLUSION: Patients with CFS show evidence of reduced complexity of activity patterns. Measures of complexity applied to activity have potential value as objective indicators for CFS

COP 21 can become a turning point towards sustainable energy systems : paper on behalf of the secretariat of the Club of Rome preparing for COP 21

Will climate change stay below the 2 degree target in the 21st century on the basis of the COP 21 results? Looking into challenges and opportunities, this paper answers: To stay below the global 2dt is neither a real choice for the world society nor for businesses and civil societies in specific countries. It is a global guideline, scientifically developed for global negotiations, which should be broken down to national interests and actors. Key questions concerning the energy sector from the perspective of national interests are how to create and sustain a momentum for the inevitable energy transition, how to encourage disruptive innovations, avoid lock in effects, enable rapid deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energies etc. Or in other words: how to get to a competitive, economically benign, inclusive, low carbon and risk minimising energy system. With this background the paper argues that "burden sharing" is a misleading perception of strong climate mitigation strategies. It is more realistic to talk about "benefit sharing", using the monetary benefits and co-benefits of climate mitigation (e.g. energy cost savings, revenues from CO2-tax or emission trading systems) to help vulnerable national and international actors to adapt to the unavoidable climate risks. It has to be demonstrated on country level that the technologies and policy mix of strong climate mitigation and risk-minimising actions are indeed "benefit sharing" strategies which should be chosen anyhow, even if there was no climate change. For China and Germany this paper includes basic findings supporting this view

Inequalities for some iterated linear operators and their applications in approximation theory

Some inequalities for the ”derivatives” of iterated linear operators will be presented, which will be applied for the investigation of degrees of approximation. Thus, with the application of the Laplacian we improve some classical results concerning the Jackson type estimate, the inverse theorem as well as the saturation phenomeno

The GoodWork Project: An Overview

The Good Project is a large scale effort to identify individuals and institutions that exemplify good work -- work that is excellent in quality, socially responsible, and meaningful to its practitioners -- and to determine how best to increase the incidence of good work in our society. This paper is a comprehensive description of the GoodWork Project

COP 21 can become a turning point towards sustainable energy systems: paper on behalf of the secretariat of the Club of Rome preparing for COP 21

Will climate change stay below the 2 degree target in the 21st century on the basis of the COP 21 results? Looking into challenges and opportunities, this paper answers: To stay below the global 2dt is neither a real choice for the world society nor for businesses and civil societies in specific countries. It is a global guideline, scientifically developed for global negotiations, which should be broken down to national interests and actors. Key questions concerning the energy sector from the perspective of national interests are how to create and sustain a momentum for the inevitable energy transition, how to encourage disruptive innovations, avoid lock in effects, enable rapid deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energies etc. Or in other words: how to get to a competitive, economically benign, inclusive, low carbon and risk minimising energy system. With this background the paper argues that "burden sharing" is a misleading perception of strong climate mitigation strategies. It is more realistic to talk about "benefit sharing", using the monetary benefits and co-benefits of climate mitigation (e.g. energy cost savings, revenues from CO2-tax or emission trading systems) to help vulnerable national and international actors to adapt to the unavoidable climate risks. It has to be demonstrated on country level that the technologies and policy mix of strong climate mitigation and risk-minimising actions are indeed "benefit sharing" strategies which should be chosen anyhow, even if there was no climate change. For China and Germany this paper includes basic findings supporting this view

Personalizing cognitive behavioral therapy for cancer-related fatigue using ecological momentary assessments followed by automated individual time series analyses:A case report series

Introduction: A common approach to personalizing psychological interventions is the allocation of treatment modules to individual patients based on cut-off scores on questionnaires, which are mostly based on group studies. However, this way, intraindividual variation and temporal dynamics are not taken into account. Automated individual time series analyses are a possible solution, since these can identify the factors influencing the targeted symptom in a specific individual, and associated modules can be allocated accordingly. The aim of this study was to illustrate how automated individual time series analyses can be applied to personalize cognitive behavioral therapy for cancer-related fatigue in cancer survivors and how this procedure differs from allocating modules based on questionnaires.Methods: This study was a case report series (n = 3). Patients completed ecological momentary assessments at the start of therapy, and after three treatment modules (approximately 14 weeks). Assessments were analyzed with AutoVAR, an R package that automates the process of finding optimal vector autoregressive models. The results informed the treatment plan.Results: Three cases were described. From the ecological momentary assessments and automated time series analyses three individual treatment plans were constructed, in which the most important predictor for cancer-related fatigue was treated first. For two patients, this led to the treatment ending after the follow-up ecological momentary assessments. One patient continued treatment until six months, the standard treatment time in regular treatment. All three treatment plans differed from the treatment plans informed by questionnaire scores.Discussion: This study is one of the first to apply time series analyses in systematically personalizing psychological treatment. An important strength of this approach is that it can be used for every modular cognitive behavioral intervention where each treatment module addresses specific maintaining factors. Whether or not personalized CBT is more efficacious than standard, non-personalized CBT remains to be determined in controlled studies comparing it to usual care.</p