Associations between Fluctuating Shame, Self-Esteem, and Sexual Desire: Comparing Frequent Porn Users and a General Population Sample

In the present study, we explore the proposed cyclic models for problematic hypersexuality (PH) that involve shame, self-esteem, and sexual desire. These cyclic models are characterized by temporal associations but have not been investigated previously with intensive longitudinal designs. In this study, we collected up to 70 measurements per participant within a period of seven consecutive days, which allowed us to investigate associations between fluctuations of shame, self-esteem, and sexual desire. Participants were divided in four subgroups: (1) women (n = 87); (2) men (n = 46) from a general population convenience sample; (3) men watching porn >2 times per week, showing non-problematic hypersexuality (NH; n = 10); and (4) men watching porn >2 times per week, experiencing PH (n = 11). Multilevel analyses, including cross-level interactions, were used to investigate between-group differences in intraindividual processes. Results showed that prior increases in shame forecasted higher current sexual desire for men with PH, but not for the other groups, suggesting that men with PH use sexual desire to downregulate dysphoric feelings of shame. Differences between groups in associations between self-esteem and sexual desire were also found. Based on our results, we propose the Split Pleasure/Shame model, which represents emotion dysregulation in PH, and juxtapose this with the pleasurable experience of sex by non-PH groups. Further intensive longitudinal research is necessary to test this model and, more generally, to investigate the fluctuating nature of sexual desire.

Ways of improving tariff regulation efficiency

The system of tariff regulation in the Russian Federation has been experiencing improvements since the beginning of the transition period and up until today. The issues of tariff regulation are given particular attention to both in the Russian Federation and abroad. At the time, tariffs do not form subsequent to certain economic waves, but are in most cases described by an annual regulation cycle and a quite limited range of regulation with regard to the long-term horizon. The authors have analyzed average consumer prices (tariffs) for particular services along with producer price indices by types of economic activities and average annual producer prices for main energy resources in Russia over the last 20 years based upon the official statistical data. The authors conclude that it is necessary to introduce new ways of improving tariff regulation efficiency. Among the priority ways are the following: formation of an investment-worthy tariff and justification of the supporting tariff for crucial social projects; digital tariff modeling and etc. All these changes require methodological justification and further development of the variable supporting tariff theory in order to test new cyclic models of regulation matching the cyclic economy of the country.

Modelling of Systems with Elements in Several States

In this paper, we consider systems with one resource, which can be in several states. The states differ significantly in their processes of mortality, reproduction and mutual influence. For instance, infected elements can have a higher mortality rate than healthy and recovered ones. For cyclic models, in which the initial state of the system coincides with the final state, balance relations are found. They represent a system with functional operators with shift and integrals with degenerate kernels. Modified Fredholm method, proposed in previous works to solve the integral equations of the second type with degenerate kernels and shifts, is applied. Equilibrium position of a system with a three-state resource is found.

Behavioural movement strategies in cyclic models

The spatial segregation of species is fundamental to ecosystem formation and stability. Behavioural strategies may determine where species are located and how their interactions change the local environment arrangement. In response to stimuli in the environment, individuals may move in a specific direction instead of walking randomly. This behaviour can be innate or learned from experience, and allow the individuals to conquer or the maintain territory, foraging or taking refuge. We study a generalisation of the spatial rock-paper-scissors model where individuals of one out of the species may perform directional movement tactics. Running a series of stochastic simulations, we investigate the effects of the behavioural tactics on the spatial pattern formation and the maintenance of the species diversity. We also explore a more realistic scenario, where not all individuals are conditioned to perform the behavioural strategy or have different levels of neighbourhood perception. Our outcomes show that self-preservation behaviour is more profitable in terms of territorial dominance, with the best result being achieved when all individuals are conditioned and have a long-range vicinity perception. On the other hand, invading is more advantageous if part of individuals is conditioned and if they have short-range neighbourhood perception. Finally, our findings reveal that the self-defence strategy is the least jeopardising to biodiversity which can help biologists to understand population dynamics in a setting where individuals may move strategically.

IMPACT OF VACCINATION ON THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS AND CROSS COUNTRY FORECASTING BY FOURIER SERIES

The aim: Is to build a forecast of the COVID-19 disease course, considering the vaccination of the population from particular countries. Materials and methods: Based on the analysis of statistical data, the article deals with the topical issue of the impact made by vaccination on the prevention of the COVID-19 pandemic. The time series, showing the dynamics of changes in the number of infected in Chile, Latvia, Japan, Israel, Australia, Finland, India, United States of America, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Venezuela, Poland, Ukraine, Brazil, Georgia for the period 07.08. 2020–09.09.2021, are analyzed. Trend-cyclic models of time series are obtained using fast Fourier transform. The predicted values of the COVID-19 incidence rate for different countries in the period from September 10, 2021 to February 2, 2022 were calculated using the constructed models. Results and conclusions: The results of the study show that vaccination of the population is one of the most effective methods to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposed method of modeling the dynamics of the incidence rate based on statistical data can be used to build further predictions of the incidence rate dynamics. The study of behavioral aspects of trust in vaccination is proposed to be conducted within the theory regarding the self-organization of complex systems.

Behavioural Strategies in Cyclic Models: The Effects of Directional Movement Tactics

We investigate behavioural strategies in stochastic simulations of systems with cyclic nonhierarchical dominance, as ageneralisation of the rock-paper-scissors game. We introduce directional movement tactics to one out of the species, whose individuals move according to an innate or a conditioned response to a stimulus; individuals of the other species move randomly. The directional movement tactics allow the individuals to conquer or maintain territory, either attacking or anticipating or Safeguarding themselves. We study the effects of the behavioural strategies for individuals with different levels of perception of the neighbourhood. Besides, we investigate the case where not all individuals are conditioned to perform the behavioural strategy or where individuals that do not use the tactic for every move. We found that self-preservation behaviour is more profitable in terms of population growth, where the best result is achieved for individuals with large perception radius that always move according to the movement tactic. Our findings show that the attack tactics is more gainful for short perception radius and if the individuals alternate the tactic with random movement. For anticipation, the best result is achieved for individuals with long-range perception using the tactics rarely. Finally, we calculated the coexistence probability and found that, in addition to providing a greater spatial density for the species, the Safeguarding tactic is the least jeopardising to biodiversity. Our results may be useful for experimental and theoretical biologists to understand systems of species whose individuals behave strategically, and how coexistence is maintained in an uneven scenario.

Why and How to Deal With Diurnal Cyclic Patterns in Ambulatory Assessment of Emotions

The use of ambulatory assessment (AA) based methods in emotion research has steadily increased over the past decades. Although having a number of benefits over other methods, the use and analysis of AA data may pose specific challenges. Among these, the issue of dealing with diurnal cycles in emotion data has received relative scant attention. This article therefore discusses why cyclic models may be considered for analyzing AA data on emotions, and describes how this approach can be applied to an empirical AA dataset. Results suggest that cyclic modeling may be a useful method for describing and accounting for (diurnal) cyclic patterns in AA data, but should be used with a number of considerations in mind.

“Conflict models” of transformation of civilizational political projects: an attempt of theoretical comprehension

The subject of this research is the conflict models of transformation of civilizational political projects: “cyclic models” of conflict transformations, “linear” models of conflicts transformations, “impulse models” of conflict transformations, “discrete models” of conflict transformations. Analysis is conducted on the factors and mechanisms of conflict transformations of civilizational political projects: “energy sources” of conflict transformations, impact of “sociocultural potential” of a civilizational political project upon the character and vector of its changes. The article also assesses the heuristic capabilities of civilizational-project methodology of studying transformations of civilizational political projects. Methodological framework is comprised of the civilizational theory coupled with the project approach. The author examines the causes of conflict transformations of civilizational political projects, as well as highlights typical models of conflict transformations. The modern scientific literature has multiple studies dedicated to the specificity of creation, implementation and maintenance of civilizational political projects. The internal mechanism of their creation and functionality are subjected to detailed expert examination. At the same time, systematic scientific research that touch upon the problematic of transformation of civilizational political projects are carried out fragmentarily. It particularly pertains to the works focused on the conflict aspects of transformations of political projects.

Cyclic models and recurrent neural networks

This chapter discusses models with cyclic dependencies. There are two principle architectures that are discussed. The first principle architecture of cyclic graphs comprises directed graphs similar to the Bayesian networks except that they include loops. Formally, such networks represent dynamical systems in the wider context and therefore represent some form of temporal modeling. The second type of models have connections between neurons that are bi-directional. These types of networks will be discussed in the context of stochastic units in the second half of this chapter.