University freshmen's excessive smartphone use and psychological safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although excessive smartphone use has been confirmed as being associated with specific representations of mental health (e. g., anxiety, depression, wellbeing, etc.) throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the relationship between excessive smartphone use and cognitive representations of mental health (i.e., psychological safety) is not yet fully understood. This study aimed to identify the association between excessive smartphone use and psychological safety among university freshmen during the COVID-19 pandemic; in addition, we examined the mediation effects of hardiness and interpersonal distress in this relationship. In this study, 1,224 university freshmen were selected at random from several universities in Guizhou Province of China. The Psychological Safety Scale was used to evaluate the mental health of university freshmen; the Mobile Phone Dependence Scale was used to evaluate excessive smartphone use; the Hardiness Questionnaire was used to evaluate hardiness; and the Interpersonal Relation Synthetic Diagnose Test was used to evaluate interpersonal distress. The findings showed that: (1) the greater the degree of excessive smartphone use, the more serious respondents' interpersonal distress and the lower their hardiness; (2) excessive smartphone use was not only directly related to the psychological safety of university freshmen but also indirectly related to their psychological safety through the independent mediation of hardiness and interpersonal distress, as well as through the chain mediation of hardiness and interpersonal distress. In general, excessive smartphone use in university freshmen could lead to a decline in their psychological safety. Also, hardiness and interpersonal distress play a complex role in this relationship. During the COVID-19 pandemic, interventions on the mental health of college freshmen should not only provide guidance on how to use their smartphone responsibly but also to provide them with support and guidance for the enhancement of their hardiness and improvement of their interpersonal relationships.

Urban blue-green space landscape ecological health assessment based on the integration of pattern, process, function and sustainability.

Landscape ecological health (LEH) assessment of blue-green space is vital for the management and restoration of the urban environment. At present, existing LEH assessment research has mainly focused on the single measurement of landscape pattern or external ecological service function, ignoring the effect mechanism. Moreover, there is a lack of targeted assessment of urban blue-green space LEH. In this study, we constructed an urban blue-green space LEH assessment framework based on the integration of pattern, process, function and sustainability, and conducted an empirical analysis in Harbin, a megacity in Northeastern China. The results showed that the spatial changes in the four assessment units of landscape ecological pattern, process, function and sustainability were not coordinated in the study area. From 2011 to 2020, the overall condition of blue-green space LEH in the study area improved but still at an unhealthy level, and the spatial difference increased. Grassland, water and wetland suffered from the widespread degradation of LEH in the study area, and the LEH level improvement type had the largest area proportion, and the stabilization type had the smallest. Moreover, based on the spatial autocorrelation analysis, we clarified the LEH spatial correlation characteristics of the study area and proposed targeted optimization suggestions. Our assessment framework will extend the LEH assessment scope and methodology, and the research results can provide significant references for urban blue-green space protection and management.

Multiple Roles of Grit in the Relationship Between Interpersonal Stress and Psychological Security of College Freshmen.

Grit, as an important positive psychological quality, has rarely been studied for its role involved in the mechanism between stress and psychological security. This article explores the moderating and mediating role of grit in the relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological security of freshmen through two studies. In study 1, freshmen from several Chinese universities (N = 1,224) were recruited to complete a battery of questionnaire, including assessments about interpersonal stress, grit, and psychological security. The moderating effect analysis showed that grit moderated the relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological security. Specifically, grit buffered the negative effects of interpersonal stress on freshmen's psychological security, but this effect was obvious only when the level of interpersonal stress was relatively low, and decreased when the level of interpersonal stress was high. In study 2, college freshmen from another university apart from above ones (N = 604) were recruited, and we verified the results of study 1 and further explored the mediating role of grit in the relationship between interpersonal stress and security. The moderating effect analysis of study 2 also verified that of study 1. The mediating effect analysis showed that interpersonal stress not only negatively predicted psychological security, but also affected psychological security through the mediation of grit. In general, grit played a mediating and moderating role in the relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological security. This study provides first-hand evidence to explain the multiple roles of grit in the relationship between interpersonal stress and psychological security.

Understanding mental distress in Arcahaie, Haiti: Heterogeneous uses of idioms of distress in communicating psychological suffering.

Research on mental health in specific communities requires careful attention to cultural context and language. Studies on global mental health have increasingly analyzed idioms of distress, or culturally situated ways of conceptualizing, experiencing, and expressing distress. This study examines how idioms of distress are used and understood in Arcahaie, Haiti. The goal was to enrich current understanding of mental health conceptualization and communication by exploring the heterogeneity of common idioms of distress. Interviews with community members (N = 47) explored meanings and perceived causations of 13 idioms of distress. Major themes included pervasiveness of poverty, ruminative thinking, effects of Vodou and Christian belief systems, embodied distress, and the behavior of "crazy" people (moun fou). The findings suggest some specific pathways for potential community engagement projects, including training lay-leaders in cognitive behavioral therapy using existing socioreligious infrastructure and expanding access to social engagement activities. This research contributes to a small but growing body of literature on mental illness in Haiti and to methods for studying idioms of distress.

Ecological Network Optimization in Urban Central District Based on Complex Network Theory: A Case Study with the Urban Central District of Harbin.

Habitat destruction and declining ecosystem service levels caused by urban expansion have led to increased ecological risks in cities, and ecological network optimization has become the main way to resolve this contradiction. Here, we used landscape patterns, meteorological and hydrological data as data sources, applied the complex network theory, landscape ecology, and spatial analysis technology, a quantitative analysis of the current state of landscape pattern characteristics in the central district of Harbin was conducted. The minimum cumulative resistance was used to extract the ecological network of the study area. Optimized the ecological network by edge-adding of the complex network theory, compared the optimizing effects of different edge-adding strategies by using robustness analysis, and put forward an effective way to optimize the ecological network of the study area. The results demonstrate that: The ecological patches of Daowai, Xiangfang, Nangang, and other old districts in the study area are small in size, fewer in number, strongly fragmented, with a single external morphology, and high internal porosity. While the ecological patches in the new districts of Songbei, Hulan, and Acheng have a relatively good foundation. And ecological network connectivity in the study area is generally poor, the ecological corridors are relatively sparse and scattered, the connections between various ecological sources of the corridors are not close. Comparing different edge-adding strategies of complex network theory, the low-degree-first strategy has the most outstanding performance in the robustness test. The low-degree-first strategy was used to optimize the ecological network of the study area, 43 ecological corridors are added. After the optimization, the large and the small ecological corridors are evenly distributed to form a complete network, the optimized ecological network will be significantly more connected, resilient, and resistant to interference, the ecological flow transmission will be more efficient.

Early fear memory defects are associated with altered synaptic plasticity and molecular architecture in the TgCRND8 Alzheimer's disease mouse model.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a complex and slowly progressing dementing disorder that results in neuronal and synaptic loss, deposition in brain of aberrantly folded proteins, and impairment of spatial and episodic memory. Most studies of mouse models of AD have employed analyses of cognitive status and assessment of amyloid burden, gliosis, and molecular pathology during disease progression. Here we sought to understand the behavioral, cellular, ultrastructural, and molecular changes that occur at a pathological stage equivalent to the early stages of human AD. We studied the TgCRND8 mouse, a model of aggressive AD amyloidosis, at an early stage of plaque pathology (3 months of age) in comparison to their wildtype littermates and assessed changes in cognition, neuron and spine structure, and expression of synaptic glutamate receptor proteins. We found that, at this age, TgCRND8 mice display substantial plaque deposition in the neocortex and hippocampus and impairment on cued and contextual memory tasks. Of particular interest, we also observed a significant decrease in the number of neurons in the hippocampus. Furthermore, analysis of CA1 neurons revealed significant changes in apical and basal dendritic spine types, as well as altered expression of GluN1 and GluA2 receptors. This change in molecular architecture within the hippocampus may reflect a rising representation of inherently less stable thin spine populations, which can cause cognitive decline. These changes, taken together with toxic insults from amyloid-ß protein, may underlie the observed neuronal loss.