People with Chronic Pain and Caregivers: Experiencing Loneliness and Coping with It

The present study examined the experience of loneliness and the ways of coping with its pain as utilized by people with chronic pain and caregivers. Specifically, a large sample (N = 827) recruited in two major pain clinics in Israel, completed the Loneliness and the Coping with loneliness questionnaires. Results indicated that patients had higher scores than caregivers in Emotional distress, Social inadequacy and alienation, Interpersonal isolation, and in Self-alienation. There was no significant difference between the groups in the Growth and discovery subscale. Comparing patients and caregivers on coping with loneliness, patients had higher scores than caregivers in Reflection and acceptance, and in Self-development and understanding. No significant difference between the groups was found in Social support, Distancing and denial, Religion and faith, and on Increased activity.     

Decomposition of Cohen's matrix R into simpler color invariants

Matrix R of linear-group tristimulus invariants, presented by Cohen and Friden (1976) and Cohen and Kappauf (1982), was decomposed into functions of simpler tristimulus volume ratios (also linear-group invariants). Such volume ratios were applied to the dual problems of color constancy and illuminant-invariant object-color recognition by an artificial trichromatic photosensor. The proof of the decomposition theorem relies on a lemma used in previous work elucidating the conditions for illuminant-invariance of clockwise/counterclockwise ordering of triads of object colors in chromaticity space.