In Vitro Rearing Changes Social Task Performance and Physiology in Honeybees

In vitro rearing of honeybee larvae is an established method that enables exact control and monitoring of developmental factors and allows controlled application of pesticides or pathogens. However, only a few studies have investigated how the rearing method itself affects the behavior of the resulting adult honeybees. We raised honeybees in vitro according to a standardized protocol: marking the emerging honeybees individually and inserting them into established colonies. Subsequently, we investigated the behavioral performance of nurse bees and foragers and quantified the physiological factors underlying the social organization. Adult honeybees raised in vitro differed from naturally reared honeybees in their probability of performing social tasks. Further, in vitro-reared bees foraged for a shorter duration in their life and performed fewer foraging trips. Nursing behavior appeared to be unaffected by rearing condition. Weight was also unaffected by rearing condition. Interestingly, juvenile hormone titers, which normally increase strongly around the time when a honeybee becomes a forager, were significantly lower in three- and four-week-old in vitro bees. The effects of the rearing environment on individual sucrose responsiveness and lipid levels were rather minor. These data suggest that larval rearing conditions can affect the task performance and physiology of adult bees despite equal weight, pointing to an important role of the colony environment for these factors. Our observations of behavior and metabolic pathways offer important novel insight into how the rearing environment affects adult honeybees.

Development model of rock relief on thick horizontal and gently sloping rock strata exposed to rain

Due to various factors influencing diverse rocks, karst phenomena take unique shapes that are most often reflected in the rock relief. Through a series of different developmental factors, new factors first gradually transform the traces of old formations and over time, if they are distinct enough, they can replace them with completely new ones. In places old forms are reflected in the formation of a new rock relief only indirectly. The rock relief of karst phenomena, in this case karren, also develops under the influence of a single factor. Developmentally, rock forms, due to dissection of the surface and lasting of development, often in several layers merge into one another. A development model enables us to discover the overall development of the formation of the selected part of the rocky karst surface. The individual rock forms which have merged into the rock relief represent just one stage of development. Good knowledge of the overall development enables us to discern the development so far and predict future development. A number of development models can be discerned. One of the basic models reveals the manner of the rain-induced formation and development of horizontal and gently sloping carbonate rock strata into karren and stone forests, especially after the disintegration of the upper (thinner) rock strata and the denudation and shaping of the bottom strata. It reveals many characteristics of rock formation, from the sheet flow to the formation of rain flutes, their merging into rain channels and the development of funnel-like notches; that is, developmental transition of rock forms and rock relief in the overall development from the flat surface to its dissection into peaks.

Models of crisis intervention in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

On the basis of the analysis of foreign theories the basic and extended theory of crisis is described. The crisis is perceived by man as unbearable difficulties that deplete the resources of endurance and disrupt the mechanisms of overcoming difficulties. The basic theory of crisis postulates emergency psychological assistance to help a person in crisis in terms of awareness and treatment of affective, behavioral and cognitive disorders. The extended theory of crisis emphasizes the occurrence of pathological symptoms in each person with the right combination of developmental factors, social, psychological, and situational factors. The following models of crisis intervention are given: he model of balance / imbalance; the cognitive model; the model of psychosocial transformation; the model of ecological development. There are revealed crisis intervention models, which combine the following tasks: focusing on stabilizing the symptoms of distress, alleviating symptoms, restoring the adaptive stage of functioning and facilitating access to further support for the victim. Keywords:crisis intervention, crisis interventions, crisis theory, short-term crisis therapy, crisis intervention models

Ontogenetic Origins of Infant Pointing

Human pointing is foundational to language acquisition and sociality. The current chapter explores the ontogenetic origins of the human pointing gesture in infancy. First, the authors define infant pointing in terms of function, cognition, motivation, and morphology. Then, the authors review current evidence for predictors of infant pointing on child and caregiver levels, because any predictors provide insights into the basic developmental factors. From this review, the authors introduce and discuss a number of pertinent accounts on the emergence of pointing: social shaping accounts (pointing-from- reaching; pointing-from-non-communicative pointing) and social cognition accounts (pointing-from-imitation; pointing-from-gaze-following). The authors end by presenting a synthesis, which holds that child-level cognitive factors, specifically directedness andsocial motivation, interact with caregiver-level social factors, specifically responsiveness and assisting actions relevant to infants’ directed activity. The interaction of these factors creates social goals and formats that scale up to pointing acts expressing triadic relations between infant, caregiver, and entities at a distance in the context of joint activity and experience.

Developmental Regularities and the Issue of Adopting Homosexual Orientation by Adolescents - a Review of Research and Opinions

The article responds to practical dillemas of parents, psychologists or educators who come across teenagers declaring their homosexual orientation. In this overview, the authors discuss primary developmental factors and they point out the dynamic specific of adolescence, comprising also a psychosexual growth. Current research review shows that sexual orientation has a developmental and often fluent character, mostly in a heterosexual direction, and that a research on homosexuality leads to the conclusion, that it's etiology is multifactoral, with predominance of environmental over the genetic factors. For these reasons, early declarations of homosexual orientation uttered by teenagers rather should not be supported. At the end, a reader can find pieces of practical advice for psychologists, educators and parents.

Cortical morphology and illness insight in patients with schizophrenia

Insight into illness in schizophrenia (SZ) patients has a major impact on treatment adherence and outcome. Previous studies have linked distinct deviations of brain structure to illness insight, specifically in frontoparietal and subcortical regions. Some of these abnormalities are thought to reflect aberrant cortical development. In this study, we used cross-sectional data to examine associations between illness insight and two cortical surface markers that are known to follow distinct neurodevelopmental trajectories, i.e. cortical gyrification (CG) and thickness (CT). CG and CT was investigated in SZ patients (n = 82) and healthy controls (HC, n = 48) using 3 T structural magnetic resonance imaging. Illness insight in SZ patients was measured using the OSSTI scale, an instrument that provides information on two distinct dimensions of illness insight, i.e. treatment adherence (OSSTI-A) and identification of disease-related symptoms (OSSTI-I). CT and CG were computed using the Computational Anatomy Toolbox (CAT12). Whole-brain and regions-of-interest (ROI)-based analyses were performed. SZ patients showed higher CG in anterior cingulate, superior frontal and temporal gyrus and reduced CG in insular and superior frontal cortex when compared to HC. SZ patients showed decreased CT in pre- and paracentral, occipital, cingulate, frontoparietal and temporal regions. Illness insight in SZ patients was significantly associated with both CG and CT in the left inferior parietal lobule (OSSTI-A) and the right precentral gyrus (CG/OSSTI-A, CT/OSSTI-I). The data support a multi-parametric neuronal model with both pre- and postnatal brain developmental factors having an impact on illness insight in patients with SZ.

The Moroccan State between Centralization and Regionalism

This study interrogates the role played by advanced regionalism in reinforcing the centralization of the Moroccan state and reproducing its great reform dilemma: its desire to modernize (to some extent) while retaining a unitary centralized structure via the adoption of a vertical power structure vis-à-vis the regions. This parallels the failure to democratize and to develop a new social contract, keeping state resources firmly in the hands of the central state without meaningful participation by the regions. This strategy is implemented via the centralization of territorial control and the monopolization of resources, creating a regional division based on geographic, economic and developmental factors. It disregards the regions' cultural, historical and economic homogeneity, which might serve as the basis for a reconsideration of the state's unitary character, and feeds off the control of public space at a time when rural protest has been creating new social mobilization dynamics. The study also considers the effect of the geopolitics of the desert on the adoption of regionalism and the restructuring of the Moroccan state via control of the requirements of representation, mobilization and mediation in the desert. The legitimation of self-rule and the integration of desert elites into the state's central structure has underlined the risks elated to the reformation of the state through a strategy of local government re-formation in the desert that ultimately reinforces the state's legitimacy and centralized character without affecting the vertical organization of power.

Comparison of empathy with patients between first-year and last-year medical students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Purpose This study was conducted to assess the developmental factors of empathy among medical students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). Methods To assess the empathy levels, 42 first-year and an equal number of last-year medical students were randomly selected. They answered a questionnaire including the medical student version of the Jefferson Scale, demographic, and some related variables. Statistical analyses were performed using the Chi-square test, T-test, univariate, and multivariate regressions. Result The study population consisted of 51 (60.7 %) men and 33 (39.3 %) women with a mean (SD) age of 22.24 (4.10) years. The Jefferson score was 110.19 ± 13.61 and 103.52 ± 20.00 in first- and last-year medical students, respectively. Moreover, medical students who completely passed at least one of the considered empathy courses of the TUMS curriculum had higher empathy scores compared to their counterparts (109.83 ± 15.54 vs. 103.68 ± 19.02). There was no significant association between empathy and gender, self-experience of illness, marital status, family history of chronic disease, and parents’ education (all P-values > 0.05). After adjusting for the effects of confounders, the empathy scores were significantly associated with the academic year level (p = 0.04), level of interest in medicine (p = 0.001), and passing the empathy courses (p = 0.04). Conclusions The data provided from a top Iranian medical school indicated that the academic year level, level of interest in medicine, and passing the empathy courses were significantly associated with the empathy level. Further studies are recommended.