Emulating Cued Recall of Abstract Concepts via Regulated Activation Networks

concepts play a vital role in decision-making or recall operations because the associations among them are essential for contextual processing. Abstract concepts are complex and difficult to represent (conceptually, formally, or computationally), leading to difficulties in their comprehension and recall. This contribution reports the computational simulation of the cued recall of abstract concepts by exploiting their learned associations. The cued recall operation is realized via a novel geometric back-propagation algorithm that emulates the recall of abstract concepts learned through regulated activation network (RAN) modeling. During recall operation, another algorithm uniquely regulates the activation of concepts (nodes) by injecting excitatory, neutral, and inhibitory signals to other concepts of the same level. A Toy-data problem is considered to illustrate the RAN modeling and recall procedure. The results display how regulation enables contextual awareness among abstract nodes during the recall process. The MNIST dataset is used to show how recall operations retrieve intuitive and non-intuitive blends of abstract nodes. We show that every recall process converges to an optimal image. With more cues, better images are recalled, and every intermediate image obtained during the recall iterations corresponds to the varying cognitive states of the recognition procedure.

What Is Good Advance Care Planning According to Hospitalized Palliative Patients and Their Families? An Explorative Study

Background: Advance care planning is not well implemented in Belgian hospital practice. In order to obtain successful implementation, implementation theory states that the adopters should be involved in the implementation process. This information can serve as a basis for creating better implementation strategies. Aim: For this study, we asked hospitalized palliative patients and their families what they experienced as good advance care planning. Methods: Twenty-nine interviews were taken from patients and families, following the Tape Assisted Recall procedure of Elliot. These interviews were analyzed using content analysis based on grounded theory. To improve reliability, 3 independent external auditors audited the analysis. Results: Results show that hospitalized palliative patients and families want to have advance care planning communication about treatment and care throughout their disease and about different aspects: social, psychological, physical, practical, and medical. They prefer to have these conversations with their supervising physician. They report 4 important goals of advance care planning communication: establishing a trustful relationship with the physician, in which they feel the involvement of the physician; giving and receiving relevant information for the decision process, making a personal decision about which treatment and care are preferred; and finding consensus between the preferred decision of the physician, the patient and the family concerning the treatment and care policy. Conclusion: This study can contribute to advance care planning implementation in hospital practice because it gives in insight into which elements in advance care planning patients and families experience as necessary and when advance care planning is necessary to them.

The right to recall: conceptual framework, examples and the Bulgarian debate

Since the French revolution of 1789 people all over the world constantly try to have more influence on those who govern. The contemporary form of democracy – the representative one, provides various forms of participation of the citizens. The parliaments, which are the representative bodies, are formed under nationwide elections. Thus people form the legis-lative body of the state. Nevertheless, many citizens believe that besides the elections they need instruments to control the members of the parliament (MPs) after they are elected.In this sense, there are opinions in support of the so called binding (imperative) mandate. Nowadays this mandate is replaced by the free (representational) mandate, but the right to recall is still discussed and even implemented in some countries. Thus, the main aim of the current study is to identify the essential characteristics of the right to recall. Alongside, I attempted at providing examples of actual regulation of the concept in some countries. Furthermore, I tried to investigate the most recent debate in Bulgaria, regarding the right to recall. Thus, the object of the study is the concept of the right to recall and its practical implementation. The focus is a set of characteristics, namely defini-tion, level of regulation, grounds for recall, procedure and how it differs from other very similar categories.

Drug recall procedure in United Kingdom and Australia: a regulatory overview

Recall occur as a consequence of the safety concerns over a manufacturing defect in a product that may harm its user. Due to their deficient quality, security or effectiveness, medicinal products are accused of being possibly dangerous to customers and may be subject to recall. A recall is defined as the process of recovering. A pharmaceutical product from the distribution chain due to product deficiencies, complaints of serious adverse reactions or corners that the product is or may be defective. The objective of study is to help identify the significance of the recall action and classification and focused on the prospective danger of the patient / consumer defect and, to understand the recall procedure in United Kingdom and Australia. The recall may either be conducted by the license holder or the manufacturer, or and the wholesale dealer. The evaluation should consist of checking the efficacy of the recall and investigating the justification for the recall as well as the remedial measures adopted to avoid the occurrence of the issue. The present work highlights the comparison of the recall procedure between United Kingdom and Australia.

‘We need a physician who is a human being too’: exploration of barriers and facilitators for hospitalised palliative patients and their families to discuss advance care planning

Background: Advance care planning (ACP) is not well implemented in hospital. Implementation theory stresses the importance of knowing what hospitalised palliative patients and their families experience as barriers or as facilitators in the uptake of ACP with their treating physician. Aims: This study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of what hospitalised palliative patients and their families experienced as barriers or facilitators for having ACP conversations. Methods: We used a tape-assisted recall procedure to conduct 29 videotaped interviews with hospitalised patients and their families. We used content analysis based on grounded theory principles. Results: Four major fields of tension were discovered: not knowing what to expect from the treating physician; not being sure the treating physician can be a trusted partner; daring to speak about ACP; and staying loyal to one's own wishes. Conclusions: Patients and families need physicians who are accessible and can be trusted ACP partners throughout the disease process.

The paradoxical influence of stress on the intensity of romantic feelings towards the partner

According to Brehm’s emotional intensity theory (EIT), the strength of feelings of romantic affect towards a romantic partner should vary as a cubic function of increasing levels of relationship stress (i.e., deterrence to feelings of romantic affect). The study tested this hypothesis in a true experiment with 80 young adults actually engaged in a romantic relationship, by systematically manipulating stress, through a recall procedure, across four distinct levels of intensity (control vs. low vs. moderate vs. high levels of manipulated stress). As predicted by emotional intensity theory, feelings of romantic affect were strong in the control condition, reduced in the low stress condition (low deterrence), maintained intense in the moderate stress condition (moderate deterrence), and reduced, again, in the high stress condition (high deterrence). Findings and both theoretical and practical implications for professionals and future research are discussed, with special emphasis on how to promote partners’ everyday adjustments to stress and emotional intensity regulation.

Significant therapy events with clients with intellectual disabilities

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore significant events in psychotherapy with clients with intellectual disabilities (IDs).Design/methodology/approachFour therapy dyads, each consisting of one client and one therapist, were recruited. Following the brief structured recall procedure (Elliott and Shapiro, 1988), semi-structured interviews focused on helpful events in psychotherapy, using video of particular sessions as a stimulus to help prompt recall of that session.FindingsUsing interpretative phenomenological analysis, five super-ordinate themes were identified: “The Uniqueness of the Therapeutic Relationship”; “Using adaptations to Express Emotions”; “Client Behaviour/Therapist Behaviour”; “Hope and Paternalism”; and “Meaning-Making”. The results provide additional evidence that significant therapy events occur for clients with IDs. Furthermore, the research enabled insights to be gained about the process of therapy for this client group and for exploration of therapeutic factors that may be involved in facilitating a significant therapy event.Research limitations/implicationsThis study highlights the need for therapists to work in such a way as to facilitate significant events in therapy. Whilst this study was a necessary first step, owing to the non-existence of research in this area, the sample size and qualitative design may limit any wider generalisation of the findings.Originality/valueSignificant events have not previously been explored in psychotherapy with clients with IDs. This research could therefore make an important contribution to our understanding of the process of psychotherapy for this client group.