The concept of love in a Spanish representative sample

The model of romantic love and the acceptance of related myths have been granted wide relevance in our context. It has also been suggested that the concept of love can play a role in the origin and maintenance of gender violence. As an initial step towards researching this relationship, the objective of this article is to study the prevailing concept of love in the Spanish population, as well as to analyze any differences that gender and age may introduce in this conception. A reduced version of the Love Attitudes Scale was administered to a representative sample of 1,351 people. Results show that both men and women widely accept the love styles Eros, Agape, Storge and Pragma, reject the Ludus style, and are indifferent to the Mania style. However, the order of preference for love styles is different for men and women and for different age groups. These results are analyzed and discussed.     

Active tuberculosis detection by pouched rats in 2014: More than 2,000 new patients found in two countries

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major problem in poor countries because sensitive diagnostic tools are unavailable. In 2014, our pouched rats evaluated sputum from 21,600 Tanzanians and 9,048 Mozambicans whose sputum had previously been evaluated by microscopy, the standard diagnostic for TB. Evaluation by the rats revealed 1,412 new patients with active TB in Tanzania and 645 new patients in Mozambique, increases of 39% and 53%, respectively, when compared to detections by microscopy alone. These results provide further support for the applied use of scent‐detecting rats.     

Resilience,religiosity and treatment adherence in hemodialysis patients: a prospective study

Resilience and religiosity have received attention as an important process in the experience and management of chronic comorbidities; however, there is no study evaluating resilience in hemodialysis patients and its association with other psychological dimensions or with treatment adherence. This observational prospective study assessed resilience (25 item Wagnild and Young Resilience Scale), religiosity under three dimensions (organizational, non-organizational and intrinsic) using DUREL scale, depressive symptoms (Patient Health Questionnaire-9) and health-related quality of life (Short Form-36 questionnaire). The main outcomes were medication adherence using the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 (MMAR-8) and the missing/shortened dialysis sessions in the following six months. Of 208 patients approached, 202 (97.1%) agreed to participate. One hundred twenty-three patients (60.9%) were males and mean age was 52.8 ± 14.8 years-old. The median time on hemodialysis was 36 months (IQR, 12, 84). 82 (40.6%) patients obtained a MMAS-8 score <6 and were considered as having ‘poor adherence’. Overall, the mean score of medication adherence was low (5.7 ± 2.1). About adherence to hemodialysis sessions, patients missed a total of 234 (1.6%) hemodialysis sessions. Forty-eight patients (23.7%) missed an average of at least three sessions in six months. Regarding adherence to medication, there was no association in the uni- or multivariate analysis between religiosity dimensions and MMAS-8 score. After adjustment, resilience was positively associated with MMAS-8 score (standardized β coefficient .239, p = .016). Organized and intrinsic religiosity were associated with adherence to dialysis sessions (standardized β coefficient .258, p = .004 and .231, p = .026, respectively). Interestingly, opposite to medication adherence, more resilient patients were associated with less adherence to hemodialysis sessions (standardized β coefficient ?.296, p = .001). Religiosity was associated with dialysis adherence but not with medication adherence. Resilience was associated with higher medication adherence but lower adherence to dialysis sessions.     

Virtual reality cue reactivity assessment in cigarette smokers.

Drug craving has purportedly been linked to relapse and to substance use. For over two decades, cue reactivity has been a viable method to assess craving and physiological reactions to drug stimuli. However, traditional cue reactivity has faced the following limitations: austere situations or stimuli, lack of complex cues, lack of standardization, and limited generalization outside of the lab setting. In order to improve cue methodologies, a virtual reality (VR) nicotine cue reactivity assessment system (VR-NCRAS) was developed and tested in a controlled experimental trial. Ten nicotine dependent smokers were exposed to VR smoking cues and VR neutral cues in a standardized, timed, computer controlled experiment. Subjective craving and physiological responses were recorded and compared across VR-NCRAS stimuli. Subjective cigarette craving increased significantly and corresponding physiological reactivity was observed in response to VR smoking cues. VR neutral cues did not result in subjective or physiological changes consistent with craving. Implications of these findings on substance abuse research and treatment are discussed.     

Cost of mental set reconfiguration between digits and their photisms in synaesthesia

In this study we present an experiment investigating the reconfiguration process elicited by the task switching paradigm in synaesthesia. We study the time course of the operations involved in the activation of photisms. In the experimental Group, four digit-color synaesthetes alternated between an odd-even task and a color task (to indicate the photism elicited by each digit). In both tasks, the target stimuli were numbers between 1 and 9 written in white. One of the control groups ran the same tasks but this time with colored numbers (Naive Control Group). The results of these studies showed the expected pattern for the control group in the case of regular shift: a significant task switch cost with an abrupt offset and a cost reduction in long RSI. However for the experimental group, we found switch cost asymmetry in the short RSI and non-significant cost in the long RSI. A second control group performed exactly the same tasks as the experimental group (with white numbers as targets and a second imaginary color task) -Trained Control Group-. We found no cost for this second control group. This means that the cost of mental set reconfiguration between numbers (inducers) and their photisms (concurrent sensations) occurs, that there is a specific cost asymmetry (from photisms to inducers) and that this cost cannot be explained by associative learning. The results are discussed in terms of exogenous and endogenous components of mental set reconfiguration.     

Enhanced response inhibition during intensive meditation training predicts improvements in self-reported adaptive socioemotional functioning

We examined the impact of training-induced improvements in self-regulation, operationalized in terms of response inhibition, on longitudinal changes in self-reported adaptive socioemotional functioning. Data were collected from participants undergoing 3 months of intensive meditation training in an isolated retreat setting (Retreat 1) and a wait-list control group that later underwent identical training (Retreat 2). A 32-min response inhibition task (RIT) was designed to assess sustained self-regulatory control. Adaptive functioning (AF) was operationalized as a single latent factor underlying self-report measures of anxious and avoidant attachment, mindfulness, ego resilience, empathy, the five major personality traits (extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience), difficulties in emotion regulation, depression, anxiety, and psychological well-being. Participants in Retreat 1 improved in RIT performance and AF over time whereas the controls did not. The control participants later also improved on both dimensions during their own retreat (Retreat 2). These improved levels of RIT performance and AF were sustained in follow-up assessments conducted approximately 5 months after the training. Longitudinal dynamic models with combined data from both retreats showed that improvement in RIT performance during training influenced the change in AF over time, which is consistent with a key claim in the Buddhist literature that enhanced capacity for self-regulation is an important precursor of changes in emotional well-being.     

ETAT: Expository Text Analysis Tool

Qualitative methods that analyze the coherence of expository texts not only are time consuming, but also present challenges in collecting data on coding reliability. We describe software that analyzes expository texts more rapidly and produces a notable level of objectivity ETAT (Expository Text Analysis Tool) analyzes the coherence of expository texts. ETAT adopts a symbolic representational system, known asconceptual graph structures. ETAT follows three steps: segmentation of a text into nodes, classification of the unidentified nodes, and linking the nodes with relational arcs. ETAT automatically constructs a graph in the form of nodes and their interrelationships, along with various attendant statistics and information about noninterrelated, isolated nodes. ETAT was developed in Java, so it is compatible with virtually all computer systems.