In this book, Tom Cochrane develops a new control theory of the emotions and related affective states. Grounded in the basic principle of negative feedback control, his original account outlines a ...new fundamental kind of mental content called 'valent representation'. Upon this foundation, Cochrane constructs new models for emotions, pains and pleasures, moods, expressive behaviours, evaluative reasoning, personality traits and long-term character commitments. These various states are presented as increasingly sophisticated layers of regulative control, which together underpin the architecture of the mind as a whole. Clearly structured and containing numerous diagrams and examples to illustrate the discussion, this study draws on the latest research from fields including philosophy, psychology and neuroscience, and will appeal to readers interested in the philosophy and cognitive science of emotion.
Haytons Stream, a low laying stormwater and groundwater-fed stream located in Christchurch, New Zealand, contains some of the highest levels of ammoniacal nitrogen and oxidised nitrogen in the ...country. To improve its water quality, the watercourse was reconditioned by adding retention ponds and riverbank riparian plants. The objective of this study was to assess the spatial and temporal changes in nitrogen species and concentration along the restored Haytons Stream to gain insight into the drivers of nitrogen compound transformation in urban streams. Water samples were collected from eight sampling stations along the stream in baseflow and stormflow conditions during dry and wet seasons. Results show that under baseflow, inorganic nitrogen was mostly present while under stormflow it was mainly in organic form. Overall, nitrogen concentrations increased from the upper to middle stream sections, decreasing downstream where the watercourse had been restored. The restoration of the stream was found to reduce all forms of nitrogen, except particulate organic nitrogen (PON, i.e. algae). The pond at the outlet of Haytons Stream contribute to converting dissolved inorganic nitrogen to predominantly PON, which should be removed through separation mechanisms in order to prevent PON from entering the Heathcote/Opawaho River at the Hayton's Stream discharge.
Informal carers suffer from worse health outcomes than non-carers due to their caregiving role. Yet, in a society carers health is as important as that of their care recipients. This study ...investigated the self-assessed mental and general health outcomes of informal carers in Australia. It evaluated the influence of carers' personal social capital- a logically linked sequence of their social behaviour such as community participation, social support and trust in others- on their health outcomes. The study estimated the magnitude of small area level variation at Statistical Area Level 1 (SA1) along with individual level variation in carers' health outcomes.
The study used a multilevel mixed effects cross-sectional design using data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia survey, wave 14. It included Australians aged 15 years and older that were surveyed in the year 2014. The sample consisted of 12,767 individuals and 5004 SA1s. The outcome measures included- mental health, general health and physical functioning, domains of the Short Form 36 Questionnaire, a widely used multi-dimensional measure of health-related quality of life.
Informal carers suffered from poor mental (Beta = - 0.587, p = 0.003) and general health (Beta = - 0.670, p = 0.001) outcomes compared to non-carers in Australia. These health outcomes exhibited significant variation acrossSA1s in Australia, with 12-13% variation in general and mental health. However, within small local areas, differences at the individual level, accounted for most of the variation in outcomes. Moreover, levels of community participation, personal social connection and trust, as perceived by individuals in the communities, had a positive influence on both mental and general health of carers and non-carers, and were more beneficial for carers compared to non-carers.
It seems that the positive influence of social capital for carers helps them in coping with the negative impact of their caregiving duty on health outcomes. Findings suggested that some targeted community support programs for carers to build on their personal social cohesion and trust in their community could help in improving their poor health profiles. Moreover, improved informal carers' health may help the health system in better managing their resources.
This paper examines the causal basis of our ability to attribute emotions to music, developing and synthesizing the existing arousal, resemblance and persona theories of musical expressivity to do ...so. The principal claim is that music hijacks the simulation mechanism of the brain, a mechanism which has evolved to detect one's own and other people's emotions.
If we were to connect two individuals’ brains together, how would this affect the individuals’ conscious experiences? In particular, it is possible for two people to
share
any of their conscious ...experiences; to simultaneously enjoy some token experiences while remaining distinct subjects? The case of the Hogan twins—craniopagus conjoined twins whose brains are connected at the thalamus—seems to show that this can happen. I argue that while practical empirical methods cannot tell us directly whether or not the twins share conscious experiences, considerations about the locality of content processing in the brain entails that they most likely do so.
Children of migrants in Australia are disproportionally affected by overweight/obesity. Their parents, however, are likely to put little effort into lifestyle changes if unable to recognise their ...children's suboptimal bodyweight. We examined the potential impact of migrant parents' bodyweight perception on their children's bodyweight over time and whether the region-of-birth of parents and acculturation to the host nation's way of life moderated the relationship, as very little is known about these in the Australian context. We analysed a sample of 2046 children of migrant parents drawn from 8 waves of population-based cohort data, the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, capturing their lived experience from ages 2 to 17. After controlling for child, parent, family, and neighbourhood factors influencing children's bodyweight, multilevel models showed higher children's bodyweight in subsequent waves if their parents perceived children's bodyweight as lower than their actual bodyweight (i.e., underestimation). However, the rate of increase in children's bodyweight attenuated over time. The effect of migrant parents' underestimation on children's subsequent bodyweight differed by region-of-birth, with higher children's bodyweight in successive waves if their parents were from the Americas, compared to migrant parents from North/West Europe. Parents' acculturation, however, did not have a discernible effect. Although migrant parents' bodyweight perception of their children's bodyweight status influenced children's bodyweight in subsequent waves, this factor was not enough to explain the extent of disparities in children's bodyweight observed in the Australian migrant population. Further research is needed to assess the effects of other types of perception (such as perceptions of healthy weight and physical exercise) on bodyweight disparities in children of migrants.
•Higher children's weight if migrant parents underestimate child's weight.•Rate of increase in children's weight attenuates over time.•Higher child's weight if parents from the Americas underestimate child's weight.•No significant effect of migrant parents' overestimation on child's weight.
Abstract
This paper develops a mechanistic account of basic mental agency by identifying similarities between two of its major exemplars: endogenous attention and imagination. Five key similarities ...are identified: (i) that both capacities are driven by currently prioritised goals that are either person-level or apt to become person-level. (ii) that both deliver their outputs to the working memory (iii) that both range across all and only conceptual contents; (iv) that both proceed under the guidance of norms and/or habits; and (v) that both directly activate rather than inhibit content. These five features are consolidated by proposing that basic mental agency is essentially the power to call for conceptual content and hold it within our working memories.
Producing and disseminating knowledge is core university business and a collaborative, global activity engaging multiple stakeholders including universities, researchers, governments, Indigenous ...communities, commercial bodies and the public. While ownership of university inventions attracts scholarly and policy attention, effective management of copyright in research outputs is also necessary to maximise the benefits of publicly funded research, but often neglected. This article explains current dynamics in academic publishing and research ownership. It seeks to explain the complex interface of copyright law, university policies, academic customary practices, Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBA), research funder mandates and policies, the guidelines and policies that pertain to Indigenous research, and publishing contracts. The article concludes with proposals for copyright management to maximise opportunities for greater public benefit from Australian research.
I believe the first thing to say about value is that it is something that we do. We value things. There is no value out there independent of valuing beings. This is the most metaphysically ...parsimonious way to understand what is going on.Nevertheless, it is perfectly compatible with this view, and most fitting the character of our valuing activities, that we are focused on things or events and not merely our experiences of those things or events. I value my children, not (necessarily) my experience of my children. I value the symphony, not (necessarily) my experience of the symphony.1 Moreover, we can talk about how the qualities of objects or events afford or sustain our valuing activities. Different qualities are suited to sustain different sorts of valuing activities.Thus, when it comes to analyzing a value, one part will involve understanding the psychology of the valuing activity, and the other part will involve identifying those qualities that suit the activity. These two parts should complement each other.
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