The article is an attempt to make sense of the different interdisciplinary perspectives associated with people’s attachment to places with a view to construct a holistic template for understanding people-place relationships and experiences. The author took note of the theoretical contributions of Jorgensen & Stedman, Scannell & Gifford, and Seamon to construct an integrative framework for understanding emotional links to places and people’s perception and experience of places. This was done with the intention of illuminating the meaning of place and (...) the different “places” people get attached to. The paper concludes by incorporating different place frameworks with the intention of establishing a holistic model for understanding the various attributes and perceptions of people-place relationships and experiences. (shrink)

BackgroundChildhood adversity is linked to adverse health in adulthood. One posited mechanistic pathway is through physiological responses to acute stress. Childhood adversity has been previously related to both exaggerated and blunted physiological responses to acute stress, however, less is known about the psychological mechanisms which may contribute to patterns of physiological reactivity linked to childhood adversity.ObjectiveIn the current work, we investigated the role of challenge and threat stress appraisals in explaining relationships between childhood adversity and cortisol reactivity in response to (...) an acute stressor.MethodsUndergraduate students completed an online survey that included general demographic information and the Risky Families Questionnaire 24 h before a scheduled lab visit. In the lab, a research assistant collected a baseline salivary cortisol sample. Following the baseline period, participants were read instructions for the Trier Social Stress Test, a validated psychological lab stressor. Next, they completed a challenge vs. threat task appraisal questionnaire and completed the speech and math portion of the TSST. Twenty minutes following the start of the TSST, a second salivary sample was collected to measure changes in salivary cortisol following the TSST.ResultsLinear regression analyses adjusted for age, sex, childhood socioeconomic status, and baseline cortisol levels, showed childhood adversity associated with changes in cortisol levels [B = –0.29 t = –2.35, p = 0.02, R2=0.07]. Linear regression analyses controlling for age, sex, and childhood SES showed childhood adversity associated with both challenge [B = –0.52 t = –5.04, p < 0.001, R2=0.24] and threat [B = 0.55 t = 5.40, p < 0.001, R2=0.27] appraisals. Significant indirect effects of childhood trauma on cortisol reactivity were observed through challenge appraisals [B = –0.01 ], and threat appraisals [B = –0.01 ].ConclusionChildhood adversity may contribute to blunted cortisol reactivity, a pattern of response which is linked to obesity, addiction, and other behavior-related diseases. Our findings suggest that this relationship is in part a product of stress appraisals. (shrink)

The problem for many troubled youths seeking help within a Christian context is that their need for meaningful connections and spiritual growth is attached to relationships with their significant others. When needs of attachment are not adequately met due to the effect of an insecure attachment working model in a relationship with God, the teen may end up leaving the faith community seeking a new caregiver or regress into spiritual struggles, depression, anxiety, self-doubt and other negative emotions. This paper responds (...) to the issues associated with youth attachment behaviour towards God using a caregiving theology that draws on the 'power of two' through incarnational creativity and pneumatological ecclesiology. This proposed theology first supplements the work of the pastoral counsellor to create a transformative container through which young people, already within a redemptive Christian community, can grow spiritually and deepen their relationship with God. Secondly, pastoral juxtaposition targeting the spiritual needs of hurting youths serves to create a magnet space within the church community that models incarnational love, pastoral care and support for young people by entering their world order to reframe their personal stories of grief, abandonment and insecurity through creative means. Finally, we theologise that pastoral juxtaposition also integrates the power of the Holy Spirit, as the ultimate caregiver in times of conflict, into each youth's unique journey of faith and healing. Implications of this pastoral theology are discussed and applied to everyday life. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to analyze how the concept of African Christian diaspora religion and/or spirituality, as a missionary-based model, is currently being used and defined within African transnational research and diaspora religion. I conducted a review using a citation search strategy to retrieve peer-reviewed articles that explore the extent to which the seminal paper of Steven Vertovec on “Diaspora Religion” has informed the conceptualization and analysis of the concept of African Christian diaspora religion and/or spirituality. The search (...) generated empirical articles which met the inclusion criteria and were included for concept analysis. This concept analysis identified five emerging attributes of ACDRS as a network of support, a transnational dynamic, a platform for civic engagement and activism, the basis for developing place bonds and diaspora identity, and as an experiential religion. These defining attributes position ACDRS as a multidimensional concept encompassing noninstitutionalized religious expressions and activities, albeit with limited empirical data. I also discussed some study limitations and conceptual issues related to the attributes, antecedents, consequences, and cases of ACDRS. (shrink)

George S. Counts was a_ _major figure in American education for almost fifty years. Republication of this early work draws special attention to Counts’s role as a social and political activist. Three particular themes make the book noteworthy because of their importance in Counts’s plan for change as well as for their continuing contem­porary importance: _ _Counts’s crit­icism of child-centered progressives; _ _the role Counts assigns to teachers in achieving educational and social re­form; and Counts’s idea for the re­form of (...) the American economy. (shrink)

We articulate a holistic understanding of hope, going beyond the common conceptualization of hope in terms of positive affect and cognition by considering what hope means for the underprivileged. In the recognition that hope is always situated in a particular place, we explore the perspective of the privileged and the underprivileged, clarifying how spatial contexts shape their goals for the future and their agency toward attaining these goals. Where some people experience precarity due to their disability, race, gender, sexuality, and (...) social class, others enjoy enhanced agency due to their privilege. In our analysis, this loss of agency does not mean the underprivileged are hopeless; instead, it suggests that hope can incorporate negative affect and cognition. In our view, a spatial understanding acknowledges the power of hope in discouraging situations, and it points to practical measures through which hope can be cultivated by marginalized communities. (shrink)

Arthur E. Lean’s irreverent and con­troversial essays represent the distillation of many ideas about education—ideas developed during most of a lifetime spent in and about schools. In the second edition of this popular work, to which he has added eight new essays, he presents his latest observations on current ele­ments and programs in education—such as the grading system, academic rank, the teaching process, assessment of edu­cational progress—concluding that many of them are not only unnecessary but actually harmful to the very (...) process which they are supposed to serve. Covering a broad spectrum of current issues in its criticism of American edu­cation at all levels, _And Merely Teach _is a book to be read by veteran educator, beginning teacher, and lay citizen alike. Though critical of the teaching profes­sion, Arthur Lean also offers constructive suggestions in the form of practical solu­tions that are urgently needed to save our ailing educational system. (shrink)

The expression of attachment to the divine in certain places among different groups has been documented by anthropologists and sociologists for decades. However, the psychological processes by which this happens are not yet fully understood. This article focuses on the concept of ‘place spirituality’ as a psychological mechanism, which allows the religious believer or non-believer to achieve an organised attachment strategy, involving the interplay of place and spiritual attachment. First, place spirituality is considered as an experience that satisfies the attachment (...) relationship criteria in that geographic places and divine entities can be perceived as ‘objects’ of attachment. Second, it is proposed that the maturational aspects of the attachment repertoire in adults make the place spirituality experience possible since adults’ cognitive abilities are much wider than those of children and can include relationships to geographical spaces and invisible divine entities. Finally, the theme of place spirituality is explored to further position the concept as a relational paradigm for understanding the relationship between place experiences and spiritual attachment. (shrink)

This rejoinder acknowledges the empirical gaps and theoretical/theological disharmony highlighted in the three selected commentaries on Place Spirituality, but we defend our central argument about the developmental pathways of PS. First, we provide an overview of recent studies on PS, highlighting what has been done so far in the field. Second, we draw from the commentaries to advance the understanding of PS in relation to three world religions: Islam, Christianity and Hinduism. Third, we evaluate the normative aspects of PS as (...) a transactional versus transitional phenomenon. Finally, we defend the two contested developmental pathways to PS, involving the compensation and correspondence working models of attachment, while complementing these models using the motivational systems framework. We maintain that these models are relevant for understanding the relationship between religious attachment and place attachment among religious and non-religious people. Recommendations for further studies are made in relation to the broader implications of PS. (shrink)

This article discusses the relationship between stress, physical health, and well-being in cultural context, offers examples of laws, policies, and programs to promote mental health and well-being, and examines how collective impact supports mental health and well-being.

Although embalming is traditionally considered an Egyptian custom, ancient sources suggest that in imperial Rome the practice was not employed by Egyptians or Egyptianized Romans alone. The mos Romanorum in funerary ritual encompassed both cremation and inhumation, yet embalming appears in Rome as early as the first century AD and evidence points to its limited use during the first three centuries AD. Within the social structure of Rome's dead these preserved corpses certainly occupied a distinct place. Yet who were they (...) and why were they embalmed? It is argued here that various factors allowed for the occasional use of embalming by Romans: an apparent shift in attitudes towards Egypt, the manipulation of death ritual for social distinction, and the flexibility of the traditional Roman funeral, which was able to incorporate deviations in methods of body disposal. Although embalming has been largely ignored as a significant aspect of Roman funerary history, its patrons come from the classes of highest status, including even the imperial household. This fact alone makes it worthwhile to examine this small corpus of evidence. For example, the emperor Nero embalmed his wife Poppaea; such a deviation from standard disposal methods reflects imperial fashion, but also requires us to re-evaluate Nero's reign and, especially, the societal constructs of Neronian Rome. This study attempts to contextualize embalming within Roman society and offer some likely causes and effects of its use. (shrink)

The Standards' ecumenical implications are critically assessed in view of the risks which their cross-denominational or cross-faith cooperation implications on the one hand, and, on the other hand, their secular commitments to mutual learning, non-proselytizing, professionalism, and efficiency assessment might carry for chaplains' properly spiritual orientation. The problem posed by the ambiguity of language is raised as a warning that concepts like human dignity have a profoundly different meaning in secular and Christian contexts. Invoking such concepts can be seriously misleading.

BackgroundChildhood abuse increases risk for high levels of distress in response to future stressors. Interpersonal social support is protective for health, particularly during stress, and may be particularly beneficial for individuals who experienced childhood abuse.ObjectiveInvestigate whether childhood abuse predicts levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and test whether the perceived availability of social companionship preceding the pandemic moderates this relationship.MethodsDuring Phase 1, adults (N= 120; AgeM[SD] = 19.4 [0.94]) completed a retrospective measure of childhood (...) adversity along with a measure of perceived availability of opportunities for social engagement immediately preceding the pandemic. Two weeks after the COVID-19 pandemic declaration, participants completed the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) with respect to the pandemic. Hierarchical linear regression analyses examined the interaction between childhood abuse and the perceived availability of social companionship preceding the pandemic as a predictor of PTSD symptoms.ResultsAdjusting for covariates, the interaction between childhood abuse and perceived availability of others to engage with before the onset of the pandemic was a significant predictor of IES-hyperarousal (β = −0.19,t= −2.06,p= 0.04, ΔR2= 0.032, CI: [−0.31 to −0.01]).ConclusionLevels of perceived opportunities for social companionship before the pandemic associates with levels of hyperarousal related to the pandemic, particularly for individuals who experienced high levels of childhood abuse. More research is needed to understand how to mitigate the higher levels of distress related to the pandemic for these individuals in order to reduce risk for future psychiatric disorders. (shrink)

Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), (...) as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

Suppose that it is possible to integrate real functions over a weak base theory related to polynomial time computability. Does it follow that we can count? The answer seems to be: obviously yes! We try to convince the reader that the severe restrictions on induction in feasible theories preclude a straightforward answer. Nevertheless, a more sophisticated reflection does indeed show that the answer is affirmative.

According to the Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe, human life is filled with so much suffering that procreation is morally impermissible. In the first part of this paper I present Zapffe’s pessimism-based argument for anti-natalism, and contrast it with the arguments for anti-natalism proposed by Arthur Schopenhauer and David Benatar. In the second part I explore what Zapffe’s pessimism can teach us about biomedical enhancement. I make the case that pessimism counts in favor of pursuing biomedical enhancements. The reason is (...) that the worse we take the baseline human condition to be, the stronger are our reasons to try to alter humanity, and the weaker are our reasons to fear technology-driven extinction. The prospect of enhancement, I further argue, gives pessimists a reason to reject anti-natalism. (shrink)

I present a high-level account of the semantical distinction between count nouns and non-count nouns. The basic idea is that count nouns are semantically either singular or plural and non-count nouns are neither.

The purpose of crowd counting is to estimate the number of pedestrians in crowd images. Crowd counting or density estimation is an extremely challenging task in computer vision, due to large scale variations and dense scene. Current methods solve these issues by compounding multi-scale Convolutional Neural Network with different receptive fields. In this paper, a novel end-to-end architecture based on Multi-Scale Adversarial Convolutional Neural Network (MSA-CNN) is proposed to generate crowd density and estimate the amount of crowd. Firstly, (...) a multi-scale network is used to extract the globally relevant features in the crowd image, and then fractionally-strided convolutional layers are designed for up-sampling the output to recover the loss of crucial details caused by the earlier max pooling layers. An adversarial loss is directly employed to shrink the estimated value into the realistic subspace to reduce the blurring effect of density estimation. Joint training is performed in an end-to-end fashion using a combination of Adversarial loss and Euclidean loss. The two losses are integrated via a joint training scheme to improve density estimation performance.We conduct some extensive experiments on available datasets to show the significant improvements and supremacy of the proposed approach over the available state-of-the-art approaches. (shrink)

Counting on the weather Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-4 DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9503-3 Authors Ruth Morgan, History Discipline, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

This paper makes two central claims. The first is that there is an intimate and non-trivial relation between the mass/count distinction on the one hand and the measure/individuation distinction on the other: a defining property of mass nouns is that they denote sets of entities which can be measured, while count nouns denote sets of entities which can be counted. Crucially, this is a difference in grammatical perspective and not in ontological status. The second claim is that the mass/count distinction (...) between two types of nominals has its direct correlate at the level of classifier phrases: classifier phrases like two bottles of wine are ambiguous between a counting, or individuating, reading and a measure reading. On the counting reading, this phrase has count semantics, on the measure reading it has mass semantics. (shrink)

This article examines the relation between counting, counts and accountability. It does so by comparing the responses of the British government to deaths associated with Covid-19 in 2020 to its responses to deaths associated with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Similarities and dissimilarities between the cases regarding what counted as data, what data were taken to count, what data counted for, and how data were counted provide the basis for considering how the bounds of democratic accountability are constituted. Based (...) on these two cases, the article sets out the metaphors of leaks and cascades as ways of characterising the data practices whereby counts, counting and accountability get configured. By situating deaths associated with Covid-19 against previous experience with deaths from war, the article also proposes how claims to truth and ignorance might figure in any future official inquiry into the handling of the pandemic. (shrink)

Counting casualties in conflict zones faces both practical and ethical concerns. Drawing on procedures from risk analysis, we propose a general approach. It represents each death by standard features, having either essential value, for capturing the social and cultural meaning of individual casualties, or instrumental value, for relating patterns of casualties to possible causes and effects. We illustrate the approach with the choices involved in attempts to record casualties in Iraq and the Israel-Palestine conflict, and with natural disasters, as (...) exemplified by Hurricane Katrina. We advocate institutionalizing the approach, so that recording casualties increases understanding, rather than suspicion. (shrink)

The second application of the assumption that singular reference is ‘ultimately’ exhaustive also represents non-count reference as singular — as reference to individual ‘quantities’ or ‘parcels’ of stuff. Unsurprisingly, the idea is sometimes explicitly advanced on the model of plural reference as singular. However, any such view must attempt to circumvent the difficulties posed by Russell’s analysis of the conditions, whereby descriptions count as semantically singular. It is argued that such an attempt cannot succeed.

This paper considers the changes in the meaning of "behavior" in the hands of the cognitive psychologists as well as in the definition of the academic field itself. American psychology at mid-century constrained the "acceptable" subject matter in many ways, particularly through the editors of important journals. Gradually it became possible to write about "mental processes." This served as an important sign that what counted as "behavior" was changing, or that psychology was no longer defined as the science of behavior. (...) Evidence that the field was changing was also signaled by definitions of the discipline appearing in introductory texts. In this case psychology as "the study of behavior" gave way to psychology as "the study of behavior and _________." Additional current evidence is that investigators whom we honor and recognize as leaders in the field are studying and writing about topics that would have been rejected out of hand by most psychologists at mid-century. (shrink)

Parameterized complexity has, so far, been largely confined to consideration of computational problems as decision or search problems. However, it is becoming evident that the parameterized point of view can lead to new insight into counting problems. The goal of this article is to introduce a formal framework in which one may consider parameterized counting problems.

We develop approximate counting of sets definable by Boolean circuits in bounded arithmetic using the dual weak pigeonhole principle (dWPHP(PV)), as a generalization of results from [15]. We discuss applications to formalization of randomized complexity classes (such as BPP, APP, MA, AM) in PV₁ + dWPHP(PV).

John Searle’s argument that social-scientific laws are impossible depends on a special open-ended feature of social kinds. We demonstrate that under a noncontentious understanding of bridging principles the so-called "counts-as" relation, found in the expression "X counts as Y in (context) C," provides a bridging principle for social kinds. If we are correct, not only are social-scientific laws possible, but the "counts as" relation might provide a more perspicuous formulation for candidate bridge principles.

This article argues that common intuitions regarding (a) the specialness of ‘use-novel’ data for confirmation and (b) that this specialness implies the ‘no-double-counting rule’, which says that data used in ‘constructing’ (calibrating) a model cannot also play a role in confirming the model’s predictions, are too crude. The intuitions in question are pertinent in all the sciences, but we appeal to a climate science case study to illustrate what is at stake. Our strategy is to analyse the intuitive claims (...) in light of prominent accounts of confirmation of model predictions. We show that on the Bayesian account of confirmation, and also on the standard classical hypothesis-testing account, claims (a) and (b) are not generally true; but for some select cases, it is possible to distinguish data used for calibration from use-novel data, where only the latter confirm. The more specialized classical model-selection methods, on the other hand, uphold a nuanced version of claim (a), but this comes apart from (b), which must be rejected in favour of a more refined account of the relationship between calibration and confirmation. Thus, depending on the framework of confirmation, either the scope or the simplicity of the intuitive position must be revised. (shrink)

Genetic information affects patients’ families differently than other types of medical information. Family members might have a compelling interest in patients’ genetic information, but who counts as family? In this article, I assess current definitions of family and propose a pluralistic account of family, which comprises definitions of family based on biomedical, legal, and functional aspects. Respectful of various forms of family, a pluralistic account includes those with interests in genetic information. Finally, I apply it in the hypothetical case of (...) a sperm donor with a hereditary condition. (shrink)

This paper argues that it is part of the concept of the positive integers that they are for the sake of numbering things (what Benacerraf calls transitive counting). Numbers are necessarily associated with standard, conventionally established counting sets constituted by the Peano axioms; they cannot be specified independently of a paradigm counting stock, any more than lengths can be part of a system of assessment without appeal to some standard object. Scepticism deriving from Kripke and Salmon is (...) countered by acknowledgement that the paradigms themselves are among the means by which the terms of the system get applied and adjudicated. (shrink)

We consider scenarios with distributed decision processes, e.g., coupled majorities and personal union in parliament chambers, supranational decisions and supervisory boards. When computing the adoption rate for reaching a decision in these scenarios, multiple linear inequality restrictions in combinatorial countings are present. These rates cannot be computed in closed form. We introduce a general method for incorporating multiple inequality conditions in multiple majority decisions, which significantly reduces the number of involved summations and removes restrictions on the summation indices. Exact solutions (...) are provided through integral representations which can be evaluated numerically, and unrestricted, contracted sums over discrete events. Further, we provide methods to reduce the number of necessary summations by splitting or recurring the original problem to easier sub-problems. For five dedicated scenarios, full results are given which indeed require a single unrestricted summation only. (shrink)

Frege, famously, held that there is a close connection between our concept of cardinal number and the notion of one-one correspondence, a connection enshrined in Hume's Principle. Husserl, and later Parsons, objected that there is no such close connection, that our most primitive conception of cardinality arises from our grasp of the practice of counting. Some empirical work on children's development of a concept of number has sometimes been thought to point in the same direction. I argue, however, that (...) Frege was close to right, that our concept of cardinal number is closely connected with a notion like that of one-one correspondence, a more primitive notion we might call just as many. (shrink)

Young children initially learn to ‘count’ without understanding either what counting means, or what numerical quantities the individual number words pick out. Over a period of many months, children assign progressively more sophisticated meanings to the number words, linking them to discrete objects, to quantification, to numerosity, and so on. Eventually, children come to understand the logic of counting. Along with this knowledge comes an implicit understanding of the successor function, as well as of the principle of equinumerosity, (...) or exact equality between sets. Thus, when children arrive at a mature understanding of counting, they have a way of mentally representing exact, large numbers. (shrink)

Somatic cell count is a diagnostic test of milk for mastitis in cows. Its specificity and sensitivity are less than 1.0, making test results uncertain. I discuss epistemological problems of the test such as underdetermination, undercalibration and underdiscrimination, in the solution of which biomedical and economic factors may play a role. Diagnostics of the SCC should be considered as an epistemological network, functioning in a network in which farmers, veterinarians, epidemiologists and milk industry shift their position following biomedical, technological and (...) economic changes, which is described as an actor-network to understand how human and non-human agents in mastitis may be associated. (shrink)