Putting into Words the COVID-19 Lockdown Experience: Psychological Symptoms and the Referential Process

The coronavirus pandemic is a unique collective event which has affected the physical and psychological health of all individuals. Restrictions imposed by governments to counteract this situation have represented risk factors for developing psychopathological symptoms. This study aims to explore the relationship between psychological symptoms and the referential process (RP). Forty-eight healthy participants (25 males, mean age = 39.3; SD = 16.6) completed a demographic questionnaire and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) through an online platform and wrote about their experience 3 weeks after the imposition of the lockdown. Different linguistic measures of the RP were applied to the narratives. The logical functions expressed through written narratives (The Italian Reflection Dictionary score, IREF) showed significant positive correlations with the SCL-90-R General Score Index (GSI) and different SCL-90-R subscales (depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsiveness, interpersonal sensitivity, hostility, and paranoid ideation). On the contrary, the reorganization and reflection function related to emotional events (The Italian Weighted Reflection and Reorganization List score, IWRRL) showed significant negative correlations with the SCL-90-R’s GSI and different subscales (obsessive-compulsiveness, depression, anxiety). The results highlight the relationship between psychological symptoms and complex defense mechanisms based on the intellectualization of negative emotions and a positive strategy of reorganization based on emotional elaboration. These results suggest the importance of supporting collective elaborations of citizens in the context of the pandemic.

The Time-dependent Problem of the Line Radiation Reflection

We consider the classical time-dependent problem of diffuse reflection of the line-radiation from a semi-infinite absorbing and scattering atmosphere. By the example of the simplest 1D problem it is shown how its solution is constructed in the general case, when both the photon lifetime in the absorbed state and the time of its travel between two consecutive acts of scattering are taken into account. The numerical values of the coefficients in the expansion of the reflection function in the Neumann series are given. The obtained solution is applied to the problem, in which the scattering in both the spectral line and in the continuous spectrum is taken into account.

Reflectivity blurring in subsurface extended image gathers

We explain how a reverse time migration (RTM) subsurface extended-image gather (EIG) relates to the reflection function for a finite-contrast interface via a blurring function. For a plane interface between locally homogeneous media, the reflection function contains the plane-wave reflection coefficients, and so we determine how the EIG relates to amplitude versus angle. The EIG and reflection function are multidimensional; hence, the blurring function in their linear relationship is higher dimensional. We explain how it may be computed and show that it describes spatial blurring and blurring over angle of the plane-wave reflection coefficients. We determine explicitly how a slant stack of the EIG at one slowness depends on the plane-wave coefficients at nearby slownesses. This angle blurring stems from the spatial nonstationarity of the blurring function, so it should be the most significant where the illumination changes most rapidly in space. To evaluate the theory, we use finite-difference modeling in the Sigsbee 2a model to generate synthetic survey data, RTM EIGs, blurring functions, and modeled gathers for a deep reflector. Two example image points are chosen. One has good illumination, with blurring over the angle less than 5°. The other point is just under the salt body, with poorer illumination and angle blurring of almost 10°. The description and examples are for two dimensions, but the extension to three dimensions is conceptually straightforward, as is an interface that dips relative to the EIG datum level. The computational cost of blurring functions implies their targeted use for the foreseeable future, for example, in reservoir characterization. The extension to elasticity and more-complicated scatterers is also foreseeable, and we emphasize the separation of the overburden and survey-geometry blurring effects from target properties.

Simulation of Bidirectional Reflectance in Broken Clouds: From Individual Realization to Averaging over an Ensemble of Cloud Fields

In this paper, we describe the results of simulating the bidirectional reflectance in three-dimensional (3D) cloud fields. For the calculations of reflectance, we use original statistical algorithms that ensure the effects of atmospheric sphericity and molecular absorption in the solar spectral range are accounted for. Cloud fields are simulated on the basis of a Poisson model of broken clouds; clouds are approximated by truncated paraboloids of rotation. The cloud heterogeneity effect on the averaging of reflection functions over an ensemble of cloud fields is estimated using numerical averaging of the stochastic radiative transfer equation, using a randomization. The simulation is performed for a mono-directional receiver with wavelength channels 0.55 and 2.15 µm, different realizations with small and moderate cloud fractions, and a set of sun-view geometries. With the appearance of an isolated cloud in the sky, the reflection function is determined by cloud presence/absence on the line of sight (LS), shading of LS by clouds/non-obscuration directed “toward the Sun,” and illumination of LS by cloud-reflected radiation. Passage to cloud fields gives rise to such additional factors as mutual shading and multiple scattering between clouds, which are mainly determined by cloud elements located near LS and directed “toward the Sun”. Strong fluctuations of reflectance as a function of the relative azimuth angle between sun and view directions in a specific realization are smoothed out after averaging over an ensemble of cloud fields. In interpreting the results of retrieving the cloud characteristics according to measurements of reflected radiation, it should be kept in mind that for fixed illumination conditions, the mean bidirectional reflectance may differ several-fold from bidirectional reflectance in a specific 3D cloud structure.

Using videos in a smartphone app logbook to aid obstetricians and gynaecologists with reflection following critical events

IntroductionReflection is essential for continuous professional development. Many opportunities to reflect during training in obstetrics and gynaecology are not utilised. A Smartphone App (Healthcare Supervision Logbook), allows doctors training in obstetrics and gynaecology to view videos to aid reflection. The App incorporates a comprehensive logbook of practical skills. A self-facilitated reflective process, prompted by offering the viewing of a video when logging an event such as a shoulder dystocia, has been integrated into the logbook. The objective of this study was to evaluate how this function aids reflection.MethodsForty doctors training in obstetrics and gynaecology undertook a shoulder dystocia drill as part of a mock examination. After completing the drill, participants scored their performance on a proforma, before watching a video of simulated standard management for shoulder dystocia on a Smartphone. Participants then re-scored themselves before completing a survey. This assessed their agreement with three statements on a five-point Likert scale.Results50% of participants marked themselves lower after watching the video. 100% agreed or strongly agreed that watching the video helped them reflect on the shoulder dystocia drill. 80% agreed or strongly agreed that they would feel more prepared to deal with shoulder dystocia as a result of using the video to reflect. 93% agreed or strongly agreed that they would be willing to use a Smartphone App with videos to aid reflection following critical events. Student’s t test showed that viewing the standardised video clip on the App resulted in a significant down-marking (P<0.0005).ConclusionsMany emergency scenarios in obstetrics and gynaecology unfold quickly and are rapidly resolved, doctors-in-training need to use opportunities for self-directed reflection. Using the video self-reflection function integrated into Healthcare Supervision Logbook Smartphone App could help to prompt this process, which could be utilised in other specialities and disciplines.

THE ESSENCE OF CRIMINALISTIC TECHNICS

Complicated nature of describing reality «criminalistic technics» is based on the situation that this reality is situated in two dimensions - dimension of technical reality and dimension of humanitarian reality. There isn’t any universal, not-historic understanding of technics. Starting pointfor contemporary understanding of technics is work as a process between a human being and the nature during which a human being with his activity mediates, regulates and controls exchanging of substances between him and nature. The base for technics is making use of nature laws. After ascertaining nature laws, human being applies and uses them by means of technics. Technics - it’s, first of all, tools of labor, complex of things which a human being puts between himself and the item of work. Contemporary notion about technics is complex, id est, technics is presented in the form of technical system, the main functions of which are compensatory function or reflection function, or transforming function, or transmission function, or different combinations of these functions. Technical systems let to overcome natural shortages, limitations (bodily, sensetive or intellectual) ofa human being. Technics is created by people knowingly taking into account peculiarities of the field of activity where it’s intended to use this technics. Necessity to create technics for using in concrete field ofactivity is determined by the social necessity. The logical volume of the criminalistic technics notion is defined by social necessity to get when investigating criminal offence, objective information about circumstances linked with its commitment. The content of the criminalistic technics notion is defined by the content of «technical» realization of three special methods during criminalistic cognition: criminalistic identification, criminalistic diagnostics and criminalistic classification. Criminalistic technics (as a system of knowledge) is a branch of the special part of criminalistic theory describing and explaining regularities of emergence of materially fixed traces during investigation of criminal offences. It’s for finding and examining concrete technical means, knowledge and skills are already worked out and recommended.