Narrative and Bodily Identity in Eating Disorders: Toward an Integrated Theoretical-Clinical Approach

Eating disorders (EDs) can be viewed as “embodied acts” that help to cope with internal and external demands that are perceived as overwhelming. The maintenance of EDs affects the entire identity of the person; the lack of a defined; or valid sense of self is expressed in terms of both physical body and personal identity. According to attachment theory, primary relationships characterized by insecurity, traumatic experiences, poor mirroring, and emotional attunement lead to the development of dysfunctional regulatory strategies. Although the literature shows an association between attachment style or states of mind, trauma, behavioral strategies, and various EDs, the debate is still ongoing and the results are still conflicting. Therefore, we believe it is important to examine and treat EDs by understanding which narrative trajectory intercepts distress in relation to narrative and embodied self-concept. Drawing on clinical observation and a narrative review of the literature, we focus on the construction and organization of bodily and narrative identity. Because bodily representations are the primary tools for generating meaning, organizing experience, and shaping social identity from the earliest stages of life, we focus on the role that bodily interactions and sensorimotor and proprioceptive patterns have played in the development of EDs. We consider the role that lack of attunement, insecure attachment, and relational trauma play in mentalizing, affecting self-representation and emotion regulation strategies. The paper also considers a semantic mode of trauma in EDs that involves a top-down pathway through beliefs and narratives about oneself based on lack of amiability, on devaluation, and on humiliation memories. Finally, we would like to highlight the proposal of an integrated model with multiple access model to psychotherapy that takes into account the complexity of ED patients in whom aspects related to dysregulation, body image disintegration, and post-traumatic symptoms are associated with a suffering sense of self and a retraumatizing narrative.

Hashtag NZPol: New Zealand Women Twitter Users and Political Participation Construction

<p>This dissertation addresses the research question of “How do women Twitter users in New Zealand construct political participation?” On the issue of the potential of the online spaces as political spaces, historical research has tended to be technologically deterministic, and dichotomous. Further, contemporary quantitative research into the impact of online politics on offline political participation has identified a gap: that the qualitative particularities of political participation online have not been sufficiently researched to provide a more nuanced and complete understanding. In a New Zealand context, what little empirical research there has been on online politics has taken a top-down approach. With a focus on political parties, political figures, and campaigning, there has been almost no research into bottom-up citizen-focused online politics, nor political participation construction more widely in New Zealand. It is in these gaps that this research is positioned. Methodologically, 25 unstructured interviews were conducted using prompt-style questions, either in person or via video-call software, with women based in New Zealand who were active Twitter users. Selective snowball sampling was used as a recruitment strategy, providing a range of participants from different ethnic backgrounds, locations around New Zealand, and levels of political involvement. Interviews were transcribed and then thematically coded from themes based both from the literature and emergent from the interviews themselves. A theoretical framework of narrative analysis was used during this analysis to look for the understandings and social meanings that the participants were invoking in their constructions. The findings were grouped largely into four areas: 1) a propensity towards prioritising primary relationships in political behaviour rooted in experience, the everyday, the personal, and understandings of social location and relationality; 2) an issue-based approach to being political and how discussion, listening, reading, and engagement are foregrounded over traditional political forms, including forefronting an empathetic imperative; 3) specifically online political behaviour that prioritised impact (but indirect rather than direct), complicated simplistic ‘echo chamber’ conceptions of online groupings and different social media platforms, as well as how negativity and diversity was managed; and 4) understandings of what might be a particularly ‘New Zealand’ articulation of political participation that centred a lack of size, being conflict-averse, and a less party-political culture negotiating between global and local political narratives, concluding with an introduction of whakawhanaungatanga. Chapter 9 analyses the critical findings of this thesis: the centrality of primary relationships and relationality, indirect impact, how an issue-based approach to politics is negotiated, and the emphasis on personal experience and emotion. Further, it examines the priority of discursive forms of political participation over traditional forms, and the location of such in the everyday, both in topic and embedding. This is all analysed using Sociology of Space, looking to constructions of political space, place, and boundaries. The conclusion summarises these contributions, suggesting that New Zealand policy around online politics requires understanding of how New Zealanders conceptualise bottom-up political participation.</p>

Hashtag NZPol: New Zealand Women Twitter Users and Political Participation Construction

<p>This dissertation addresses the research question of “How do women Twitter users in New Zealand construct political participation?” On the issue of the potential of the online spaces as political spaces, historical research has tended to be technologically deterministic, and dichotomous. Further, contemporary quantitative research into the impact of online politics on offline political participation has identified a gap: that the qualitative particularities of political participation online have not been sufficiently researched to provide a more nuanced and complete understanding. In a New Zealand context, what little empirical research there has been on online politics has taken a top-down approach. With a focus on political parties, political figures, and campaigning, there has been almost no research into bottom-up citizen-focused online politics, nor political participation construction more widely in New Zealand. It is in these gaps that this research is positioned. Methodologically, 25 unstructured interviews were conducted using prompt-style questions, either in person or via video-call software, with women based in New Zealand who were active Twitter users. Selective snowball sampling was used as a recruitment strategy, providing a range of participants from different ethnic backgrounds, locations around New Zealand, and levels of political involvement. Interviews were transcribed and then thematically coded from themes based both from the literature and emergent from the interviews themselves. A theoretical framework of narrative analysis was used during this analysis to look for the understandings and social meanings that the participants were invoking in their constructions. The findings were grouped largely into four areas: 1) a propensity towards prioritising primary relationships in political behaviour rooted in experience, the everyday, the personal, and understandings of social location and relationality; 2) an issue-based approach to being political and how discussion, listening, reading, and engagement are foregrounded over traditional political forms, including forefronting an empathetic imperative; 3) specifically online political behaviour that prioritised impact (but indirect rather than direct), complicated simplistic ‘echo chamber’ conceptions of online groupings and different social media platforms, as well as how negativity and diversity was managed; and 4) understandings of what might be a particularly ‘New Zealand’ articulation of political participation that centred a lack of size, being conflict-averse, and a less party-political culture negotiating between global and local political narratives, concluding with an introduction of whakawhanaungatanga. Chapter 9 analyses the critical findings of this thesis: the centrality of primary relationships and relationality, indirect impact, how an issue-based approach to politics is negotiated, and the emphasis on personal experience and emotion. Further, it examines the priority of discursive forms of political participation over traditional forms, and the location of such in the everyday, both in topic and embedding. This is all analysed using Sociology of Space, looking to constructions of political space, place, and boundaries. The conclusion summarises these contributions, suggesting that New Zealand policy around online politics requires understanding of how New Zealanders conceptualise bottom-up political participation.</p>

A new hybridization filtering-based linear-nonlinear models for time series forecasting

In recent years, the idea of using a mathematical model to describe the behavior of physical phenomena has been very much considered. Specifically, a definitive model, based on physical laws, enables researchers to calculate the number of time dependencies precisely at any moment in time. However, in the real world, we often face time-dependent phenomena with many unknown or unavailable factors (Lindley, 2010; Roulston et al., 2003). In this case, when it is not possible to achieve a definite - model, the prediction methods are wide used, especially when the past observations of a variable and primary relationships between specific observations are available. Forecasting methods that are used in different fields of science can be categorized based on various aspects. For example, the prediction methods used in the field of wind energy can be divided into four categories of 1) ultra short term (several seconds to four hours), 2) short term (4 to 24 hours), 3) medium-term (1 to 7 days), and 4) long term (more than 7 days) (Zack, 2003; Soman et al., 2010). Also, the structure of forecasting methods can be divided into two types of 1) single methods and 2) hybrid methods. Each of these categories can also be subdivided into smaller subgroups.

A High Latitude Model for the E Layer Dominated Ionosphere

Under certain conditions, the ionization of the E layer can dominate over that of the F2 layer. This phenomenon is called the E layer dominated ionosphere (ELDI) and occurs mainly in the auroral regions. In the present work, we model the variation of the ELDI for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Our proposed Neustrelitz ELDI Event Model (NEEM) is an empirical, climatological model that describes ELDI characteristics by means of four submodels for selected model observables, considering the dependencies on appropriate model drivers. The observables include the occurrence probability of ELDI events and typical E layer parameters that are important to describe the propagation medium for High Frequency (HF) radio waves. The model drivers are the geomagnetic latitude, local time, day of year, solar activity and the convection electric field. During our investigation, we found clear trends for the model observables depending on the drivers, which can be well represented by parametric functions. In this regard, the submodel NEEM-N characterizes the peak electron density NmE of the E layer, while the submodels NEEM-H and NEEM-W describe the corresponding peak height hmE and the vertical width wvE of the E layer electron density profile, respectively. Furthermore, the submodel NEEM-P specifies the ELDI occurrence probability %ELDI. The dataset underlying our studies contains more than two million vertical electron density profiles covering a period of almost 13 years. These profiles were derived from ionospheric GPS radio occultation observations on board the six COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 satellites (Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate/Formosa Satellite Mission 3). We divided the dataset into a modeling dataset for determining the model coefficients and a test dataset for subsequent model validation. The normalized root mean square deviation (NRMS) between the original and the predicted model observables yields similar values across both datasets and both hemispheres. For NEEM-N, we obtain an NRMS varying between 36.1% and 47.1% and for NEEM-H, between 6.1% and 6.3%. In the case of NEEM-W, the NRMS varies between 38.5% and 41.1%, while it varies between 56.5% and 60.3% for NEEM-P. In summary, the proposed NEEM utilizes primary relationships with geophysical and solar wind observables, which are useful for describing ELDI occurrences and the associated changes of the E layer properties. In this manner, the NEEM paves the way for future prediction of the ELDI and of its characteristics in technical applications, especially from the fields of telecommunications and navigation.

Hercules, Caesar, and the Roman Emperors

This chapter schematizes the different ways that Roman emperors, their surrogates, and their detractors deployed Hercules as a way of framing, authorizing, or delegitimizing imperial rule. In looking at the evidence from Augustus to the Tetrarchs, it identifies three primary relationships that Roman emperors occupied or were seen to occupy relative to Hercules: like Augustus, they could be viewed as similar to Hercules; like Commodus, they could claim to be identical with Hercules; or, like the Tetrarchs, they could self-fashion as simply associated with Hercules. The best emperors therefore merely sought a connection with Hercules, while the worst longed to collapse the distinction between emperor and hero to become Hercules himself.

Hope, adaptability, and job-search intensity among individuals living with serious mental illness

BACKGROUND: Increased intensity in job-search behavior is associated with important employment outcomes like job attainment. There is evidence that work hope, and career adaptability are important antecedents of higher job-search intensity. However, there is no evidence that these relationships exist among individuals living with serious mental illness. OBJECTIVE: This study seeks to improve our understanding of factors that contribute to job-search intensity among individuals living with serious mental illness. METHODS: Eighty-five individuals living with serious mental illness completed surveys of demographics, work hope, career adaptability, and job-search intensity. Correlational and regression analysis was used to examine the primary relationships in this study. RESULTS: Education level, employment status, and use of vocational rehabilitation services were background factors related to job-search intensity. Controlling for background factors, regression analysis found that work hope positively predicted job-search intensity, and career adaptability negatively predicted job-search intensity. Our model explained 35%of the variance in job-search intensity. Additionally, individuals who were employed had significantly higher career adaptability than individuals who were unemployed. CONCLUSIONS: Work hope and career adaptability are related to important vocational outcomes among individuals living with serious mental illness.

Rival Bodies: Negotiating Gender and Embodiment in Women’s Bikini and Figure Competitions

Women’s bodybuilding has attracted attention from gender researchers. However, increasingly popular fitness shows that feature different competitive tracks—bikini and figure—have garnered very limited scholarly consideration. This study draws on interview data from twenty bikini and figure competitors as well as ethnographic research conducted at several prominent bodybuilding shows in Texas with fitness competition tracks. Our investigation provides a comparative analysis of women’s participation in bikini versus figure fitness competitions as an embodied gender practice. Participation in this relatively new sport underscores the interconnections between gender and variegated forms of embodiment that we call athletic, aesthetic, erotic, and everyday bodies. Pre-competition regimens pose challenges for women’s management of their bodies due to dietary deprivation, rigorous workouts, and the specter of track-specific judging criteria. Pre-competition strains are often evident in primary relationships as women’s bodies are prepared for aesthetic presentation in a way that, for bikini and especially figure competitors, can undermine physical functionality and social capabilities. Competitions themselves reveal relationships marked by a mix of camaraderie and hierarchy among competitors, with those in the figure track often viewed as more “serious” athletes but less conventionally “feminine” than their bikini counterparts. Post-competition, women often struggle to accept the return of their “normal” everyday body. This study reveals the agency of women and their bodies in the context of a fast-growing sport while considering the broader social implications of fitness competitions given their tracking of women’s bodies.

Diversity of Species and the Occurrence and Development of a Specialized Pest Population—A Review Article

The trophic interactions between plants and herbivorous insects are considered to be one of the primary relationships in the occurrence and development of specialized pest populations. Starting from the role of multicropping and the types of mixtures through the ecological benefits of intercropped plants, we explain the ecological conditions that contribute to the occurrence of pest populations. The dynamics of pest populations in crop occur in stages with the survival and development of pest in source of origin, invasion and distribution in crops, development and survival of the population, emigration to the another crop and (or) change of habitat. Possible effects of each stages are described based on the camouflage of visual effects, olfactory effects and reversal of feeding preferences. Fundamental theories of natural enemies and concentration of food resources have been explained to refer to the empirical data.