The Priority of the Now

This article motivates and develops a new theory of time: priority presentism. Priority presentism is the view according to which (i) only present entities exist fundamentally and (ii) past and future entities exist, but they are grounded in the present. The articulation of priority presentism is an exercise in applied grounding: it draws on concepts from the recent literature on ontological dependence and applies those concepts in a new way, to the philosophy of time. The result, as I will argue, is an attractive position that can do much of the same work in satisfying our intuitions about time as presentism, but without the ontological cost.     

Cardiac autonomic reactivity and recovery in predicting carotid atherosclerosis: the cardiovascular risk in young Finns study.

The present study examined the association of cardiac autonomic task-induced reactivity and recovery to preclinical atherosclerosis. Thirty-three men and 33 women aged 24-39 years participated in the ongoing epidemiological Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study. The authors measured heart rate (HR), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and preejection period (PEP) during the mental arithmetic and speech tasks in 1999. Carotid atherosclerosis was assessed by measuring the thickness of the common carotid artery intima-media complex (IMT) with ultrasound in 2001. Higher HR, RSA, and PEP reactivity were associated with lower IMT values even after adjusting for cardiovascular risk factors (lipid levels, obesity, and blood pressure). In addition, better HR recovery after the mental arithmetic task was associated with lower IMT values, and this association persisted after all adjustments. Thus, higher task-induced cardiac autonomic reactivity and better HR recovery were related to less preclinical atherosclerosis. The authors concluded that cardiac pattern of reactivity and quick recovery may be associated with better cardiovascular health, and therefore all reactivity occurring in challenging situations should not automatically be considered as potentially pathological.     

Integrated Treatment Programmes for Mothers with Substance Use Problems: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Interventions to Prevent Out-of-home Child Placements

Approximately half of mothers receiving substance use treatment are involved with childcare proceedings. This review aims to determine whether integrated treatment programmes for mothers with substance use problems are effective in preventing out-of-home placement (temporally/permanent) and influencing other maternal factors such as patterns of substance use, treatment completion and parenting behaviours. Six trials were identified—two randomised controlled trials and four non-randomised controlled studies. The pooled sample of participants was 1717. The results showed that mothers who participated in integrated treatment programmes were significantly less likely to have the children removed from their care (Odds Ratio (OR)?=?0.40, 95% CI?=?0.27, 0.61), more likely to complete substance use treatment (OR?=?3.01, 95% CI?=?1.79, 5.06), and more likely to reduce their alcohol consumption (Standardised Mean Difference (SMD)?=??0.40, 95% Cl?=??0.78, ?0.01) and drug use (SMD?=??0.30, 95% CI?=??0.53, ?0.07). However, non-significant reductions were observed for parent–child conflict (SMD?=??0.35, 95% CI?=??0.72, 0.03) and child abuse risk (SMD?=??0.03, 95% CI?=??0.36, 0.31). While the findings from this review suggest that mothers involved in integrated treatment programmes could potentially be less likely to experience out-of-home child placements and more likely to improve substance use treatment outcomes, little evidence exists for the effectiveness of these interventions. Further research, particularly high-quality RCTs, is required to demonstrate and persuade health and public policy on the far-reaching value of the integrated approaches.

     

How Academic Community and an Ethic of Care Can Shape Adjunct Work Environments: A Case Study of a Community College

This article presents a qualitative case study that explores how faculty and administrators at one community college conceptualized and experienced academic community within their institution and how that conceptualization helped shape the part-time faculty work environment. Using a combined framework of academic community and care ethics, this study utilizes data from 55 interviews with full-time and part-time faculty and administrative leaders from a large community college. Findings from this study indicate that defining membership, a sense of belonging, and shared mission and goals are key components to their understanding of academic community. From these three components, the study found that when participants included adjunct faculty as members of their academic community, they also reported a sense of responsibility or obligation to supporting them.

     

Perceived discrimination is associated with poorer health and well‐being outcomes among Pacific peoples in New Zealand

Our study investigated the association between perceived discrimination and outcomes related to health and well‐being for Pacific adults in New Zealand. We examined personal and group discrimination from the 2013 wave of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (n = 429 women and 196 men). Personal discrimination was associated with poorer health and well‐being outcomes (higher psychological distress and lower self‐esteem, subjective evaluation of health, satisfaction with life and personal well‐being). Group discrimination, in contrast, was associated with poorer well‐being but not health outcomes (lower subjective evaluation of health and personal well‐being). These findings corroborate previous research and highlight the corrosive effect of discrimination towards health and well‐being among Pacific communities in New Zealand.     

An agenda for psychological distance apart from construal level

Mental life is not confined to physical reality. Instead, anchored in the here and now, people can conjure worlds set in other locations, in other times, from other people's perspectives, and with otherworldly odds. These routes away from immediacy represent different dimensions of psychological distance—space, time, social distance, and probability—in that they all provide a means by which targets of consideration can feel psychologically distant. Though largely developed under the theoretical banner of construal level theory, psychological distance benefits from consideration in its own, independent right. This review proposes that prominent characteristics of it inform an agenda for translational insights across the four dimensions of psychological distance.