Despite the ubiquity of guided self-help (GSH) interventions in Primary Care psychological services, there have been no previous studies of the relationship between the competence of qualified practitioners and treatment outcomes. This study compared competence-outcome associations in two types of GSH. Competence and clinical outcome measures were drawn from a clinical trial comparing the efficacy of two types of GSH for anxiety disorders, based on cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT-GSH) or cognitive analytic therapy (CAT-GSH). These interventions were delivered over the telephone by qualified and supervised practitioners. Audio-recordings of GSH sessions (n=94) were rated using a validated competence measure. Clinical outcomes were anxiety, depression and functioning. Secondary outcomes were attendance and need for further intervention after GSH. Competence ratings were highly reliable. No significant associations were found between competence and clinical outcomes, treatment engagement or need for further intervention. In this clinical trial, GSH competence ratings were not associated with clinical outcomes. Directions for future competence-outcome research are provided for GSH interventions.

Key learning aims

1. (1) Become familiar with the current empirical literature on therapist competence and associations with clinical outcome.

2. (2) Raise awareness of a recently developed alternative form of guided self-help based on the theory and principles of cognitive analytic therapy.

3. (3) Enhance understanding of the relationship between practitioner competence and clinical outcome in guided self-help for anxiety disorders.

Uterus transplants (UTx) provide women without a uterus the possibility of experiencing gestational motherhood. This paper delineates the complex bioethical landscape surrounding UTx, focusing on the critical aspects of informed consent, risk–benefit analysis, justice considerations, and the distinct challenges encountered by both donors and recipients. While not discussing UTx directly, John Harris’ seminal work, The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics (1985) in its advocacy for reproductive freedom and informed consent provides an informative starting point for the discussion.

As an example, UTx is analyzed within the socio-political context of Mexico. The impact of the Mexican healthcare and legal systems on UTx procedures is discussed and the regulatory measures necessary to ensure that UTx is conducted ethically and equitably are outlined.

Psychotic disorders have sex-specific differences in their onset, symptoms and course. The early intervention in psychosis model represented the first step toward personalised psychosis care, recognising stage-specific care needs. Incorporating knowledge about sex-specific differences in care programmes should be the next evolution of personalised psychosis care.

In this paper, we propose a performative account of hinge epistemology to make the case for a feminist hinge epistemology. We characterize it as follows: 1) there are hinges that enable and govern our ordinary epistemic practices, functioning as rules; 2) these hinges are enacted and actualized in the specific actions of agents that participate in such practices; 3) this makes room for the transformation and emergence of hinges; 4) against this background, we argue in favor of the possibility of feminist hinges. This novel account opens the way for hinge epistemology to be useful for feminist goals in epistemology, which we believe is the ultimate criterion for hinge epistemology to be legitimately feminist.

The grasslands of Central Anatolia in Türkiye, including the steppes and forest-steppes, are often mischaracterized as degraded ecosystems due to long-standing human activities, particularly agriculture and domestic grazing. However, palaeoecological evidence and recent research suggest that these grasslands are ancient, biodiversity-rich systems that have persisted through various climatic changes and disturbance regimes. This manuscript challenges the conventional view that Central Anatolian grasslands are secondary and degraded, arguing instead that they represent old-growth ecosystems that coexisted with forests as alternative biome states throughout history. We emphasize the need to re-evaluate current land management practices, particularly afforestation efforts, which may undermine the resilience of these ecosystems to climate change. By recognizing the ecological value of these old-growth grasslands and adopting a comprehensive conservation strategy, the conservation and restoration of these vital ecosystems can be improved, ensuring their resilience and biodiversity in the face of future environmental challenges.

Precise pose estimation is crucial to various robots. In this paper, we present a localization method using correlative scan matching (CSM) technique for indoor mobile robots equipped with 2D-LiDAR to provide precise and fast pose estimation based on the common occupancy map. A pose tracking module and a global localization module are included in our method. On the one hand, the pose tracking module corrects accumulated odometry errors by CSM in the classical Bayesian filtering framework. A low-pass filter associating the predictive pose from odometer with the corrected pose by CSM is applied to improve precision and smoothness of the pose tracking module. On the other hand, our localization method can autonomously detect localization failures with several designed trigger criteria. Once a localization failure occurs, the global localization module can recover correct robot pose quickly by leveraging branch-and-bound method that can minimize the volume of CSM-evaluated candidates. Our localization method has been validated extensively in simulated, public dataset-based, and real environments. The experimental results reveal that the proposed method achieves high-precision, real-time pose estimation, and quick pose retrieve and outperforms other compared methods.

Prominent models of the bilingual lexicon do not allow for language – wide inhibition or any effect of general cognitive control on the activation of words within the lexicon. We report evidence that global language inhibitory control and cognitive general control mechanisms affect lexical retrieval during comprehension. Spanish–English bilinguals read language-pure or sentences with mid-sentence switches while their eye movements were recorded. A switch cost was observed in aspects of the eye-tracking record reflecting early spread of lexical activation, as well as later measures. The switch cost was larger for L2-to-L1 switches and was not attenuated when switched words were cognates (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, switch costs were reduced when the sentences contained a language color cue. These findings are inconsistent with the predictions of the Bilingual Interactive Activation Plus (BIA+) but support the architecture of its predecessor, the BIA. They refute the assumption that early lexical activation is impervious to nonlinguistic cues.

This study investigates how second language (L2) learners engage in prediction based on their processing goals. While prediction is a prominent feature of human sentence comprehension in first–language speakers, it remains less understood when and how L2 learners engage in predictive processing. By conducting a visual–world eye–tracking experiment involving Chinese–speaking L2 learners of Korean, we tested the hypothesis that L2 learners determine whether to engage in prediction by evaluating the costs and benefits of anticipatory processing. The experiment specifically focused on the impact of a top–down comprehension goal for L2 learners’ predictive use of an honorific form in Korean by providing them with different types of task instruction. Our results indicated that all groups engaged in predictive processing in early and entire predictive regions. However, in the late predictive region, L2 learners presented with a prediction–oriented task, but not those with a simple comprehension task, actively generated expectations about the honorific status of an upcoming referent. These findings lend support to the utility account of L2 prediction, suggesting that L2 learners’ engagement in prediction depends on their current goals and strategies for processing efficiency.

An understanding of the growth and demise of ice sheets over North America is essential to inform future climate models. One poorly studied subject is the glacial dynamics during interstadial Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 (57–29 ka). To better constrain the southern margin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during this time period, we re-examined a stratigraphic sequence in southeast Manitoba, Canada, and provide robust evidence for advance and retreat of ice. Around 46.6 ± 5.1 ka (1σ error), fluvial sands were deposited under similar precipitation and significantly cooler summer temperatures than present-day. Ice then advanced south over the area, before retreating once again and a return to boreal forest and grassland conditions. The area was then covered by proglacial Lake Vita, dammed by ice to the north. Geochronology constraints indicate Lake Vita existed from ca. 44.3 ± 3.6 to 30.4 ± 2.3 ka (1σ error), although gaps in the optical and finite radiocarbon ages suggest either a lack of data or plausible temporary ice-margin advances during this time period. Ice covering most of Manitoba during MIS 3 is in line with global δ18O records, and glacially influenced sediment deposition in the Mississippi River basin.

The current research aims to predict L1 Papiamento and L2 Dutch reading comprehension development in 180 children in the upper primary grades (4–6) in a post-colonial Caribbean context from initial language of decoding instruction, cognitive and linguistic child characteristics, and linguistic transfer. Overall, children showed better reading comprehension proficiency in L1 as compared to L2 Dutch. Over the grades, strong autoregression effects in reading comprehension development in both languages were evidenced. Language of decoding instruction was found to predict L2 reading comprehension, but not L1 reading comprehension. The development of L2 reading comprehension showed better outcomes in the case of initial decoding instruction in L2. Word decoding, reading vocabulary, and grammar in respectively L1 and L2 were related to L1 and L2 reading comprehension in Grade 4, while L2 reading comprehension was additionally related to L2 basic oral vocabulary. Moreover, only reading vocabulary was related to L1 and L2 reading comprehension development across the grades. Finally, evidence of cross-linguistic interdependencies in the development of reading comprehension in L1 and L2 was found.

Building on the sensitization hypothesis, the present work aimed to examine how parent-adolescent conflict might be associated with heightened emotional reactivity to peer conflicts, which in turn shape the development of adolescent internalizing psychopathology. Participants were 108 Taiwanese adolescents between the ages of 18 and 19 (Mage = 18.53, SDage = 0.39; 64% female) who completed baseline assessments, 14-day daily surveys, and 6-month follow-up assessments. Emotional reactivity was measured by calculating the daily association between peer conflict and positive and negative emotions. Results indicated that greater baseline parent-adolescent conflict was associated with higher negative emotional reactivity to peer conflicts, which then predicted increased depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms 6 months later. Moreover, greater positive emotional reactivity to peer conflicts (i.e., more declines in positive emotions in response to peer conflicts) predicted increased depressive symptoms. Thus, the findings of the current study support and extend the sensitization hypothesis and suggest that parent-adolescent conflict may contribute to family-of-origin sensitization in non-familial, interpersonal contexts. The results have key implications for understanding adolescent developmental psychopathology associated with family conflicts and emotional reactivity.

This is a foundation for algebraic geometry, developed internal to the Zariski topos, building on the work of Kock and Blechschmidt (Kock (2006) [I.12], Blechschmidt (2017)). The Zariski topos consists of sheaves on the site opposite to the category of finitely presented algebras over a fixed ring, with the Zariski topology, that is, generating covers are given by localization maps for finitely many elements $f_1,\dots, f_n$ that generate the ideal $(1)=A\subseteq A$. We use homotopy-type theory together with three axioms as the internal language of a (higher) Zariski topos. One of our main contributions is the use of higher types – in the homotopical sense – to define and reason about cohomology. Actually computing cohomology groups seems to need a principle along the lines of our “Zariski local choice” axiom, which we justify as well as the other axioms using a cubical model of homotopy-type theory.

This editorial highlights increasing prevalence and treatment rates of apparently disparate disorders. We ask whether cross-disorder factors including greater mental health literacy, social media and a shift to psychiatric explanations for distress contribute to these trends. We highlight a consequence: the changing doctor–patient relationship and its impacts.