Search results for "flexibility"

Brain and behavioral alterations in subjects with social anxiety dominated by empathic embarrassment

2020

Significance People are increasingly affected by social anxiety that includes emotional hypersensitivity and inaccurate interpretation of social encounters, and varies markedly in its subjective manifestations. We searched for insights into the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms of Taijin-kyofusho (TKS), a specific subtype of social-anxiety disorder common in East Asia and dominated by empathic or other-oriented embarrassment. We found TKS to be characterized by enhanced affective and reduced cognitive empathy. Moreover, analysis of functional MRI data—collected while subjects viewed videos of badly singing people—revealed disruption of the cognitive–empathy network, possibly obstructing …

The Concept of Labour Market Flexicurity in the Eurozone

2013

This chapter discusses the evolution of the idea of a flexible labour market as a smooth shock absorber in case of asymmetric shocks. The concept of flexible labour markets became an institutionally well-established concept when the OECD constructed its index of labour market strictness. The OECD recognised, however, the weakness of its narrow approach and the European Commission put forward the more novel notion of flexicurity. Next, this chapter explains how the proposal of the concept of flexicurity aims at reaching a reasonable agreement between both the efficiency and the security principles by taking into consideration the interest of all the stakeholders in the labour market, includi…

2019

The ability to respond flexibly to changing environmental circumstances is a hallmark of goal-directed behavior, and compromised flexibility is associated with a wide range of psychiatric conditions in humans, such as addiction and stress-related disorders. To identify neural circuits and transmitter systems implicated in the provision of cognitive flexibility, suitable animal paradigms are needed. Ideally, such models should be easy to implement, allow for rapid task acquisition, provide multiple behavioral readouts, and permit combination with physiological and pharmacological testing and manipulation. Here, we describe a paradigm meeting these requirements and employ it to investigate th…

Synthesis of Densely Packaged, Ultrasmall Pt02Clusters within a Thioether-Functionalized MOF: Catalytic Activity in Industrial Reactions at Low Tempe…

2018

The gram-scale synthesis, stabilization, and characterization of well-defined ultrasmall subnanometric catalytic clusters on solids is a challenge. The chemical synthesis and X-ray snapshots of Pt02 clusters, homogenously distributed and densely packaged within the channels of a metal-organic framework, is presented. This hybrid material catalyzes efficiently, and even more importantly from an economic and environmental viewpoint, at low temperature (25 to 140 °C), energetically costly industrial reactions in the gas phase such as HCN production, CO2 methanation, and alkene hydrogenations. These results open the way for the design of precisely defined catalytically active ultrasmall metal c…

Implementation of slow magnetic relaxation in a SIM-MOF through a structural rearrangement

2018

<p>Here we report the structural flexibility of a Dy-based Single-Ion Magnet MOF in which its magnetic properties can be modified through a ligand substitution process involving an increase of the charge density of the coordination environment.</p>

Molecular dynamics of CH4/N2 mixtures on a flexible graphene layer: adsorption and selectivity case study

2019

We theoretically investigate graphene layers, proposing them as membranes of subnanometer size suitable for CH4/N2 separation and gas uptake. The observed potential energy surfaces, representing the intermolecular interactions within the CH4/N2 gaseous mixtures and between these and the graphene layers, have been formulated by adopting the so-called Improved Lennard-Jones (ILJ) potential, which is far more accurate than the traditional Lennard-Jones potential. Previously derived ILJ force fields are used to perform extensive molecular dynamics simulations on graphene's ability to separate and adsorb the CH4/N2 mixture. Furthermore, the intramolecular interactions within graphene were explic…

Patterns of Psychological Responses among the Public during the Early Phase of COVID-19: A Cross-Regional Analysis

2021

This study aimed to compare the mediation of psychological flexibility, prosociality and coping in the impacts of illness perceptions toward COVID-19 on mental health among seven regions. Convenience sampled online survey was conducted between April and June 2020 from 9130 citizens in 21 countries. Illness perceptions toward COVID-19, psychological flexibility, prosociality, coping and mental health, socio-demographics, lockdown-related variables and COVID-19 status were assessed. Results showed that psychological flexibility was the only significant mediator in the relationship between illness perceptions toward COVID-19 and mental health across all regions (all ps = 0.001–0.021). Seeking …

Default Mode Network Efficiency Is Correlated With Deficits in Inhibition in Adolescents With Inhalant Use Disorder

2020

It is well established that alterations in cognitive function and damage to brain structures are often found in adolescents who have substance use disorder (SUD). However, deficits in executive cognitive functioning in adolescents related to the vulnerability and consumption of such substances are not well known. In this study, we use graph theoretic analysis to compare the network efficiency in the resting state for three networks---default mode network (DMN), salience network (SN) and fronto-parietal network (FPN)---between inhalant-consuming adolescents and a control group (12 to 17 years old). We analysed whether the efficiency of these functional networks was related to working memory,…

Determinants of Vertical Coordination in Buyer-Seller Relations: Exploratory Findings from a Developing Economy

2011

This study aims at understanding determinants of vertical coordination for firms in developing economies by conducting exploratory study in Tanzania. The study is centred on business - to business buyer -seller relations. Primary data were collected from buying side of the relationship. The main supplier of each firm was identified and used for answering the questionnaire.Findings suggest contractual flexibility to have higher significant positive effect in determining vertical coordination. The interaction effect between buyer asset specificity and contractual flexibility was also significant, while asset specificity by itself was not found to be significant. These prelimenary findings sug…

Muscular MEMS—the engineering of liquid crystal elastomer actuators

2016

A new class of soft-matter actuator, the liquid crystal elastomer (LCE), shows promise for application in a wide variety of mechanical microsystems. Frequently referred to as an 'artificial muscle', this family of materials exhibits large actuation stroke and generates considerable force, in a compact form which may easily be combined with the structures and devices commonly used in microsystems and MEMS. We show here how standard microfabrication techniques may be used to integrate LCEs into mechanical microsystems and present an in-depth analysis of their mechanical and actuation properties. Using an example from micro-optics and optical MEMS, we demonstrate that their performance and fle…