Effect of retirement on loneliness: a longitudinal comparative analysis across Australia, China and the USA.

BACKGROUND: There is evidence that the transition to retirement can bring social challenges and may increase loneliness. Few studies have examined the impact of retirement on loneliness; most have been conducted in Western countries. It is important to examine the differences in loneliness postretirement across countries to identify patterns and risk factors that might influence the health and well-being of older adults. We aimed to examine the effect of retirement on loneliness among older adults in Australia, China and the USA. METHODS: Longitudinal analysis of data from population-based samples of Australian, Chinese and American adults over 50. Lagged and fully lagged adjusted models were applied. Social engagement was examined as an effect modifier and a sensitivity analysis was conducted among urban participants. RESULTS: Retirees had a higher predicted prevalence of loneliness than non-retirees in Australia (19.4% (95% CI 18.0% to 20.9%) vs 17.0% (95% CI 15.7% to 18.4%)) and in the USA (19.3% (95% CI 17.5% to 21.1%) vs 15.7% (95% CI 14.3% to 17.3%)). These differences were significant only in the USA. In China, loneliness was significantly lower in those who had retired (10.0% (95% CI 7.9% to 12.5%) vs 17.1% (95% CI 15.7% to 18.5%)). In Australia and the USA, voluntary retirees had the lowest loneliness and involuntary retirees had the highest. Social engagement did not modify the association between retirement and loneliness. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings imply that the effect of retirement should be considered within a cultural context to inform suitable and effective strategies to alleviate loneliness.

Moral hazard in fossil-energy-reliant markets delays early adoption of net-zero technologies.

We use an analytical real option approach to conceptualize and formalize the interaction between long-term climate policies, such as the IRA, and short-term policies intended to protect consumers from volatile fossil-energy prices. An example of the latter is the US releasing strategic oil reserves to lower gas prices. The framework we develop suggests that those short-term policies, which effectively counter incentives created by long-term climate policies, create a moral hazard in fossil-energy-reliant markets. This, in turn, causes early adopters of net-zero technologies to delay their investment. Ultimate adopters, however, do not change their investment decision. The result of this asymmetric reaction to policies is an intensified gradient of the adoption curve of technology, which potentially puts pressure on various supply chains, the financial system, and ultimately government finances. This work is conceptual and does not include an empirical case study since data are too limited in time.

A systematic review on the impact of financial insecurity on the physical and psychological well-being for people living with terminal illness.

BACKGROUND: People living with terminal illness are at higher risk of experiencing financial insecurity. The variance in definitions of financial insecurity, in addition to its impact on the well-being of this population has not yet been systematically analysed. AIM: To understand the definition, prevalence and impact of financial insecurity on the physical and psychological well-being of people living with terminal illness. DESIGN: A systematic review with a narrative synthesis (prospectively registered; CRD42023404516). DATA SOURCES: Medline, Embase, CINAHL, AMED, PsycINFO, ProQuest Central and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, from inception to May 2023. Included studies had to measure or describe the impact of financial insecurity on an aspect of participants' physical or mental well-being. Study quality was assessed using the Hawker tool. RESULTS: A total of 26 studies were included in the review. Financial insecurity was defined using many different definitions and terminology. Out of 4824 participants, 1126 (23%) reported experiencing high levels of financial insecurity. Nine studies reported 21 unique analyses across three domains of physical well-being. Out of those 21 analyses, 10 (48%) reported a negative result (an increase in financial insecurity was reported with a decrease in physical well-being). Twenty-one studies reported 51 unique analyses across nine domains of psychological well-being. Out of these analyses, 35 (69%) reported a negative result (an increase in financial insecurity was reported with a decrease in psychological well-being). CONCLUSIONS: People living with terminal illness require support with their financial situation to ensure their well-being is not negatively impacted by financial insecurity.

When concentrated disadvantage happens: Exploring the nexus of energy and internet insecurities among vulnerable households.

Digital divide and energy insecurity are pervasive issues among underserved communities, issues that become prounoued during the COVID-19 lockdowns. These disparities underscore the critical need to address them promptly to narrow socio-economic gaps. Our study, based on an online survey of 2,588 respondents in the United Kingdom, explores how concentrated socio-economic disadvantage exacerbates insecurities relating to energy and internet access. Our findings reveal that marginalized groups including low-income households, women, renters, ethnic minorities, and individuals with lower educational attainment are disproportionately affected. Our research extends beyond financial implications to explore the broader social and psychological effects such as trust in utility and internet providers. The study also demonstrates how heightened burdens from energy and internet costs adversely affect the quality of indoor environments, underscoring the interconnected nature of these challenges. Based on these insights, we advocate for policy interventions that adopt comprehensive social justice frameworks to tackle these intersecting inequalities effectively.

Actual cost of electricity: An economic index to overcome levelized cost of electricity limits.

The selection of renewable energy technologies is widely based on the economic index levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). However, the LCOE ignores the potential temporal mismatch between electricity generation and actual grid demand: this aspect is accounted for in the new index named actual cost of electricity (ACOE), here proposed. This index provides a more accurate economic assessment of renewable energy, minimizing the number of assumptions to be made and outlining the benefits of including a storage. The proposed index is tested across ten cases encompassing three renewable technologies: wind, photovoltaic, and concentrated solar power. The outcomes show that the actual renewable electricity generation of a plant can be reduced by 40%-50% when accounting for the actual electricity demand, resulting in an ACOE exceeding the LCOE by up to 100/150 $/MWh. In addition, the ACOE enables the identification of breakthrough conditions that make storage adoption economically feasible.

Enhancing musical pleasure through shared musical experience.

Music and social interactions represent two of the most important sources of pleasure in our lives, both engaging the mesolimbic dopaminergic system. However, there is limited understanding regarding whether and how sharing a musical activity in a social context influences and modifies individuals' rewarding experiences. Here, we aimed at (1) modulating the pleasure derived from music under different social scenarios and (2) further investigating its impact on reward-related prosocial behavior and memory. Across three online experiments, we simulated a socially shared music listening and found that participants' music reward was significantly modulated by the social context, with higher reported pleasure for greater levels of social sharing. Furthermore, the increased pleasure reported by the participants positively influenced prosocial behavior and memory outcomes, highlighting the facilitating role of socially boosted reward. These findings provide evidence about the rewarding nature of socially driven music experiences, with important potential implications in educational and clinical settings.

Prioritized neural processing of social threats during perceptual decision-making.

Emotional signals, notably those signaling threat, benefit from prioritized processing in the human brain. Yet, it remains unclear whether perceptual decisions about the emotional, threat-related aspects of stimuli involve specific or similar neural computations compared to decisions about their non-threatening/non-emotional components. We developed a novel behavioral paradigm in which participants performed two different detection tasks (emotion vs. color) on the same, two-dimensional visual stimuli. First, electroencephalographic (EEG) activity in a cluster of central electrodes reflected the amount of perceptual evidence around 100 ms following stimulus onset, when the decision concerned emotion, not color. Second, participants' choice could be predicted earlier for emotion (240 ms) than for color (380 ms) by the mu (10 Hz) rhythm, which reflects motor preparation. Taken together, these findings indicate that perceptual decisions about threat-signaling dimensions of facial displays are associated with prioritized neural coding in action-related brain regions, supporting the motivational value of socially relevant signals.

Reward-related regions play a role in natural story comprehension.

The reward system was shown to be involved in a wide array of processes. Nevertheless, the exploration of the involvement of the reward system during language processing has not yet been directly tested. We investigated the role of reward-processing regions while listening to a natural story. We utilized a published dataset in which half of the participants listened to a natural story and the others listened to a scrambled version of it to compare the functional MRI signals in the reward system between these conditions and discovered a distinct pattern between conditions. This suggests that the reward system is activated during the comprehension of natural stories. We also show evidence that the fMRI signals in reward-related areas might potentially correlate with the predictability level of processed sentences. Further research is needed to determine the nature of the involvement and the way the activity interacts with various aspects of the sentences.

Adaptation of the technology readiness levels for impact assessment in implementation sciences: The TRL-IS checklist.

Background: Intervention development is a critical process in implementation research. There are key stages involved in the process to design, pilot, demonstrate and release a technology or an intervention. The Technology Readiness Level (TRL) is a globally accepted instrument for assessing the maturity of research development. However, the original levels do not fit all, and some adjustments are required for its applicability in implementation sciences. Aims: This study aimed to gather the prior knowledge base on TRL in public and population health research; to develop a standard definition of readiness, and to adapt and validate the TRL to an implementation science context (TRL-IS). Materials and methods: A Mixed methods approach has been followed in this study. A scoping review using the PRISMA extension (PRISMA-ScR) informed a nominal expert panel for developing a standard definition of readiness and to modify the TRL following an ontoterminology approach. Then the maturity of six practical case study examples were rated by ten researchers using the modified TRL to estimate inter-rater reliability, and a group of experts provided final content and face validity and feasibility.This mixed methods study included 1) a scoping review to examine the current literature and develop a knowledge base, identify knowledge gaps and to clarify concepts; 2) the development of a standard definition of 'Readiness' and related terms; and 3) adaptation of the TRL to implementation science and development of a checklist to rate the maturity of applications.A standard definition of readiness and related terms was produced by the core team, and an international nominal group (n = 30) was conducted to discuss and validate the definition and terms, and the location of 'Readiness' in the initiation and early development phases of implementation.Following feedback from the nominal group, the development of the TRL-IS was finalised and a TRL-IS rating checklist was developed to rate the maturity of applications. The TRL-IS checklist was tested using six cases based on real world studies on implementation research.The inter-rater reliability of the TRL-IS was evaluated by ten raters and finally six raters evaluated the content and face validity, and feasibility, of the TRL-IS checklist using the System Usability Scale (SUS). Results: Few papers (n = 11) utilised the TRL to evaluate the readiness of readiness of health and social science implementation research. The main changes in the adaption of the TRL-IS included the removal of laboratory testing, limiting the use of "operational" environment and a clearer distinction between level 6 (pilot in a relevant environment) and 7 (demonstration in the real world prior to release). The adapted version was considered relevant by the expert panel. The TRL-IS checklist showed evidence of good inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.90 with 95 % confident interval = 0.74-0.98, p < .001) and provides a consistent metric. Conclusions: In spite of recommendations made by national and international research funding agencies, few health and social science implementation studies include the TRL as part of their evaluation protocol. The TRL-IS offers a high degree of conceptual clarity between scientific maturity phases or readiness levels, and good reliability among raters of varying experience. This study highlights that adoption of the TRL-IS framework in implementation sciences will bolster the scientific robustness and comparability of research maturity in this domain.

Visions for our future regional electricity system: Citizen preferences in four EU countries.

As climate targets tighten, all countries must transition toward a renewable electricity system, but conflicts about generation and infrastructure deployment impede transition progress. Although the triggers of opposition are well studied, what people want remains understudied. We survey citizen preferences for a renewable electricity future through a conjoint analysis among 4,103 individuals in Denmark, Portugal, Poland, and Germany. With our study we go beyond the Likert scale survey approach specifically seeking trade-offs and contextualized preferences for regional electricity system designs. We show the importance of identifying both the "least preferred" and "most preferred" solutions and highlighting the possibility of identifying very different systems with identical utility. Lastly, our research actively bridges the divide between social aspects and techno-economic modeling, promoting their integration. We show that the most preferred system design in all four countries is a predominantly regional one, based on rooftop solar, communally owned, and not relying on transmission expansion.

Where exactly do the social and behavioural sciences fit in One Health?

At its core, One Health promotes multidisciplinary cooperation amongst researchers and practitioners to improve the effectiveness and management of complex problems raised by the interplay of human, animal and environment interactions. Contemporary One Health literature has identified reducing disciplinary barriers as key to progress in the field, along with addressing the notable absence of social sciences from One Health frameworks, among other priorities. Efforts to position social scientists as experts on behaviour change and health decision-making has helped to articulate a concrete role for progressing One Health collaborations. Yet, there are other equally valuable functions the social scientist has in understanding complex systems, like One Health. We make explicit the multiple and diverse knowledge contributions the social sciences and humanities can make to progressing the One Health agenda. Articulating these more clearly invites a broader set of interdisciplinary perspectives to One Health discussions, allowing for stronger connections between sectors, actors, disciplines, and sub-systems. This perspective piece identifies a range of entry points for researchers and practitioners to better utilize the potential contributions social sciences and humanities scholars can make to One Health goals.

Emotions and cognition; a promising crossroad for brain tumor diagnosis and prevention.

Cognitive and behavioral neuroscience is essential for understanding brain tumors and their effects. Researchers have realized that an important step is to start looking for cognitive impairment at the time of diagnosis to see what deficits the brain tumor has left the patient with. Then cognitive assessment should be made after the tumor has been removed to see how it changes. The aim of this study was to assess the current research on tumor diagnosis and prevention through a filter of emotion and cognition; and then look at what future steps need to be taken. This review reports what research has already been done and what research still needs to be accomplished, including addressing the need for more data on cognitive impairment while the brain tumor is active, in the literature.

Inter-subject correlation of audience facial expressions predicts audience engagement during theatrical performances.

During performances, audiences experience various emotional states, and these are reflected in their ongoing facial expressions. We investigated if audience engagement could be determined by measuring the inter-subject correlation (ISC) of non-invasively recorded audience facial expressions. We filmed the faces of multiple audience members at theatrical performances and determined the intensity of their different facial expressions throughout the performances. Neutral, happy, anger, and disgust expression ISCs accounted for up to 24% of the performance dramaturge's predictions of audience engagement. Expression synchrony was greater between individuals in close proximity, suggesting effects of emotional contagion or cognitive similarities between neighboring individuals, whereas expression synchrony was greatest between individuals who were younger, female, and with greater levels of empathy, showing that individual characteristics impact shared audience experiences. Together, our results show that facial expression synchronization could be used as a real-time non-invasive indicator of engagement in audiences larger than achieved using previous approaches.

AI and climate resilience governance.

While artificial intelligence (AI) offers promising solutions to address climate change impacts, it also raises many application limitations and challenges. A risk governance perspective is used to analyze the role of AI in supporting decision-making for climate adaptation, spanning risk assessment, policy analysis, and implementation. This comprehensive review combines expert insights and systematic literature review. The study's findings indicate a large emphasis on applying AI to climate "risk assessments," particularly regarding hazard and exposure assessment, but a lack of innovative approaches and tools to evaluate resilience and vulnerability as well as prioritization and implementation process, all of which involve subjective, qualitative, and context-specific elements. Additionally, the study points out challenges such as difficulty of simulating complex long-term changes, and evolving policies and human behavior, reliance on data quality and computational resources, and the need for improved interpretability of results as areas requiring further development.

Planetary Energy Flow and Entropy Production Rate by Earth from 2002 to 2023.

In this work, satellite data from the Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments are analyzed to determine how the global absorbed sunlight and global entropy production rates have changed from 2002 to 2023. The data is used to test hypotheses derived from the Maximum Power Principle (MPP) and Maximum Entropy Production Principle (MEP) about the evolution of Earth's surface and atmosphere. The results indicate that both the rate of absorbed sunlight and global entropy production have increased over the last 20 years, which is consistent with the predictions of both hypotheses. Given the acceptance of the MPP or MEP, some peripheral extensions and nuances are discussed.

The social microbiome: The missing mechanism mediating the sociality-fitness nexus?

In many social mammals, early social life and social integration in adulthood largely predict individual health, lifespan, and reproductive success. So far, research has mainly focused on chronic stress as the physiological mediator between social environment and fitness. Here, we propose an alternative, non-exclusive mechanism relying on microbially mediated effects: social relationships with conspecifics in early life and adulthood might strongly contribute to diversifying host microbiomes and to the transmission of beneficial microbes. In turn, more diverse and valuable microbiomes would promote pathogen resistance and optimal health and translate into lifelong fitness benefits. This mechanism relies on recent findings showing that microbiomes are largely transmitted via social routes and play a pervasive role in host development, physiology and susceptibility to pathogens. We suggest that the social transmission of microbes could explain the sociality-fitness nexus to a similar or higher extent than chronic social stress and deserves empirical studies in social mammals.

Variables with a negative impact on the quality of life of gays and lesbians in Spain: evaluation of homophobic and lesbophobic indicators to guide youth education.

Background: Despite the evidence about the negative impact of homophobic and lesbophobic attitudes on the quality of life of these individuals, the World Health Organisation (WHO) continues to report a lack of research and understanding regarding the health of gays and lesbians and LGTB people in general. There is a growing commitment in public health to understand and improve the health and well-being of LGTB people, and it is very important that professionals in social, educational and health care settings are adequately trained and informed to solve the problems that persist in this population. The aim of this study was to identify homophobic and lesbophobic attitudes in a Spanish youth population, analyzing the relationship of these attitudes with sociodemographic, cultural, political and personal variables. Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out with 325 young people aged 18-30 years. The information was collected through the Modern Homophobia Scale of Raja & Stokes, in which sociodemographic and sociocultural variables were also gathered. The data were analyzed and correlations were estimated. Results: The males showed a more negative attitude toward homosexual people compared to the females. The participants with a higher education level presented more positive attitudes toward homosexual people. Younger people with a heterosexual orientation had more negative attitudes toward homosexual people compared to those with a homosexual orientation. The participants with a stronger right-wing political tendency presented a greater percentage of negative attitudes toward LGTB people. Conclusion: Variables such as education level, sexual orientation and political ideology may have a significant influence on the attitudes toward homosexual men and/or lesbian women. Different results were obtained as a function of sex, thus it is important to consider the gender perspective in future studies that tackle this topic.

Integration of cognitive tasks into artificial general intelligence test for large models.

During the evolution of large models, performance evaluation is necessary for assessing their capabilities. However, current model evaluations mainly rely on specific tasks and datasets, lacking a united framework for assessing the multidimensional intelligence of large models. In this perspective, we advocate for a comprehensive framework of cognitive science-inspired artificial general intelligence (AGI) tests, including crystallized, fluid, social, and embodied intelligence. The AGI tests consist of well-designed cognitive tests adopted from human intelligence tests, and then naturally encapsulates into an immersive virtual community. We propose increasing the complexity of AGI testing tasks commensurate with advancements in large models and emphasizing the necessity for the interpretation of test results to avoid false negatives and false positives. We believe that cognitive science-inspired AGI tests will effectively guide the targeted improvement of large models in specific dimensions of intelligence and accelerate the integration of large models into human society.

Simultaneous oscillatory encoding of "hot" and "cold" information during social interactions in the monkey medial prefrontal cortex.

Social interactions in primates require social cognition abilities such as anticipating the partner's future choices as well as pure cognitive skills involving processing task-relevant information. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has been implicated in these cognitive processes. Here, we investigated the neural oscillations underlying the complex social behaviors involving the interplay of social roles (Actor vs. Observer) and interaction types (whether working with a "Good" or "Bad" partner). We found opposite power modulations of the beta and gamma bands by social roles, indicating dedicated processing for task-related information. Concurrently, the interaction type was conveyed by lower frequencies, which are commonly associated with neural circuits linked to performance and reward monitoring. Thus, the mPFC exhibits parallel coding of both "cold" processes (purely cognitive) and "hot" processes (reward and social-related). This allocation of neural resources gives the mPFC a key neural node, flexibly integrating multiple sources of information during social interactions.

Vocation as tragedy: Love and knowledge in the lives of the Mills, the Webers, and the Russells.

Can love affect knowledge and knowledge affect love? John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor-Mill, Max and Marianne Weber, and Bertrand and Dora Russell had a definite vocation: they wanted to change the world. They questioned traditional gender arrangements through publications on equality, marriage, and education. They were liberal thinkers, advocating individual freedom and autonomy, vis à vis the constraints of state and society. Their partnership inspired their work, a living experiment conducted through their own unconventional relationship. Over time, their increasingly radical, avant-garde ideas on marriage complicated the ongoing negotiation over power and intimacy which typified their marriages. Building on the historiography of social science couples, and by means of an analysis of the micro-social dynamics of marriage as documented in the life writings of the Mills, the Webers, and the Russells, I analyse the connections between gender, intimacy, and creativity. These couples' experiences highlight the non-rational dimension of a most rational endeavour.