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BackgroundMethodological limitations affect a significant number of oncology and haematology trials, raising concerns about the applicability of their results. For example, a suboptimal control arm or limited access to best care upon progression may skew the trial results toward a benefit in the experimental arm. Beyond the fact that such limitations do not prevent drugs reaching the market, other assessment tools, such as those developed by professional societies-ESMO-MCBS and ASCO Value Framework-do not integrate these important shortcomings.MethodsWe propose creating a novel framework with the scope of assessing registration cancer clinical trials in haematology and oncology (randomized or single arm)-that is trials leading to a marketing authorization. The main steps of the methods are (1) assembling a scientific board; (2) defining the scope, goal and methods through pre-specified, pre-registered and protocolized methodology; (3) preregistration of the protocol; (4) conducting a scoping review of limitations and biases affecting oncology trials and assessing existing scores or methods; (5) developing a list of features to be included and assessed within the framework; (6) assessing each feature through a questionnaire sent to highly cited haematologists and oncologists involved in clinical trials; and (7) finalizing the first version of framework.ResultsNot applicable.ConclusionsOur proposal emerged in response to the lack of consideration for key limitations in current trial assessments. The goal is to create a framework specifically designed to assess single trials leading to marketing authorization in the field of oncology and haematogy.

Helping acts, however well intended and beneficial, sometimes involve immoral means or immoral helpers. Here, we explore whether help recipients consider moral evaluations in their appraisals of gratitude, a possibility that has been neglected by existing accounts of gratitude. Participants felt less grateful and more uneasy when offered immoral help (Study 1, N = 150), and when offered morally neutral help by an immoral helper (Study 2, N = 172). In response to immoral help or helpers, participants were less likely to accept the help and less willing to strengthen their relationship with the helper even when they accepted it. Study 3 (N = 276) showed that recipients who felt grateful when offered immoral help were perceived as less likable, less moral, and less suitable as close relationship partners than those who felt uneasy by observers. Our results demonstrate that gratitude is morally sensitive and suggest this might be socially adaptive.

This article examines how audience-sensitive art exhibition labels engage visitors of different age groups – children and adults – from an appraisal perspective. The potential of evaluative language and emotionally charged expressions in enhancing visitor engagement is increasingly recognized by museum professionals, while it has received limited in-depth exploration in the research literature. A corpus of 56 audience-sensitive labels from an exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia was compiled for a comparative analysis of how they negotiate affect, judgement, and appreciation meanings. The findings reveal that both sets of labels frequently employ positive and inscribed appreciations to evaluate the qualities of the artworks. However, there are notable differentiations regarding the realizations of attitude types, subtypes, polarity, mode, appraisers, and the appraised triggers/targets. This article contributes to our understanding about the use of evaluative language in art exhibition labels for children and adults, offering insights into audience-sensitive label writing practice in the art museum context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students are expected to interpret the complexities and nuances of literary texts yet might struggle with interpreting texts in ways that are valued in literary studies. Examining students' language choices can support instructors and students with developing concrete, explicit understandings of the ways language creates meanings in discourse. This study draws on the Appraisal framework within Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to analyze essays from two introductory writing about literature courses. Findings illustrate that more proficient writers interpret possible significances using Appreciation and Engagement resources and construe subtle shades of significance using Graduation resources. This linguistic analysis illustrates the ways abstract qualities of literary interpretation including nuance can be seen in students' specific language choices. By exposing the fine-grained elements of meaning in students' writing, this study creates pathways toward stimulating students' and instructors' metalinguistic awareness of how specific language choices create disciplinarily-valued qualities of writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green human resource management (GHRM) seeks to reorient human resource strategy and practices to an organization's environmental sustainability goals. A small body of research has so far shown that GHRM is positively related to organizational sustainability, yet the results are somewhat variable. This calls into question regarding the boundary conditions of this relationship. In this study, the moderating role of top management team (TMT) support has been examined as senior managers have a key role to play in ensuring that GHRM is valued, widely recognized, and implemented as intended. Based on the existing literature, a model has been developed and then tested with partial least square structural equation modeling, with feedback from 372 human resource managers across several organizations. The results show a positive relationship between GHRM and sustainability, and the results also show that the TMT support strengthens this relationship. Importantly, the study reveals a positive and significant relationship between sustainability and organizational performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an appraisal analysis of a representative sample of 32 posts, and associated comments, on a Chinese political web forum, which is a first attempt to critically apply the appraisal framework to this context. One of the key findings is that the Chinese contributors to this forum judged the behaviour of others by relying to a great extent on assumed references and cultural knowledge. This ‘insider’ knowledge, in particular the perceived social status of the target group, is realised using different kinds of appraisal resources, mostly of the invoked type, with some of these resources different to those commonly used by native English speakers in similar contexts. The use of such resources enabled contributors to express negative judgement of people they perceived to be in the elite, as well as towards other nation-states. In this paper, we identify status-sensitive linguistic resources that invoke attitudes in this context, and thus propose to split the appraisal category of judgement: social sanction: propriety into ethics-based propriety and social-hierarchy-based propriety. We discuss how these resources are deployed by the contributors to position others in ways that depend on both knowledge of cultural context and the online communicative context in which these interactions take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical Lexicographical Discourse Studies (CLDS) view the dictionary as a discourse and emphasize an ideological, ethico-political dimension to the lexicographical process. Combining CLDS with Systemic Functional Linguistics, this paper looks into how anthropocentrism is manifested linguistically in Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (Seventh Edition), the most influential authoritative general-purpose Chinese dictionary, by examining the transitivity and appraisal patterns in the definition texts concerning animals and plants. The analysis shows that animals and plants are seldom assigned agency in their own right and that the animals and plants are evaluated either positively or negatively according to whether they are useful to the human beings while their intrinsic value is ignored. In particular, animals are highlighted for their agricultural and medicinal use and plants for their medicinal and ornamental value. However, compared with its previous editions, the dictionary has shown an enhanced awareness of environmental protection by deleting the encyclopaedic information that describes the use of some rare animals' meat, bones and fur. It is argued that, although modern general-purpose dictionaries are increasingly corpus-based and descriptive, their role in shaping social values and stances cannot be disregarded. Dictionary makers need to balance what words mean with what they can be said to mean or be allowed to mean (Moon, 2014). The study contributes to unmasking and denaturalizing the hidden ideology in colony texts such as the dictionary, enhances a critical use of dictionaries and helps develop the theory of critical lexicography and emerging ecolexicography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Locally Employed Doctors (LEDs) are defined as any doctor below consultant grade, appointed within a UK National Health Service (NHS) Trust, who are not working within a national training scheme. They are a cohort significantly increasing in numbers. International Medical Graduates (IMGs) are overseas-qualified doctors who contribute to more than 30% of the workforce-related deficit in the number of UK-qualified doctors required to meet NHS requirements. These doctors can face difficulties when they start to work in the UK, such as inexperience of the UK medicolegal and ethical standards. The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) recently produced new guidance stating the basic principle that all doctors should be considered as being in training. LEDs are junior doctors with educational needs, yet they do not receive the same opportunities as their training-grade equivalents. Moving forward, we would advocate a UK-wide process which will help the NHS develop a strong and cohesive workforce, whether they are locally or nationally employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emails are an essential medium of communication. Their management is an organizational, security, legal and financial issue for all organizations. The interdepartmental digital archiving Vitam Programme, which develops a digital archives management system on behalf of the French government, could not help but wonder about the acquisition, preservation and access to the documents and data contained in email archives. In 2013, it carried out a proof of concept on email archiving, at a time when few archive services in France had embarked on the acquisition of this type of document. Ten years later, the French landscape in terms of digital recordkeeping has changed significantly. In practice, some archives have put in place strategies for archiving email, and tools have been made available to assist in their effort. This article looks at the transition from theory to practice of a more operational acquisition of this type of archive in a French context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many agree that the more we feel that we can handle a given situation, the less afraid we are. But why? Is the situation no longer dangerous or is fear a response to more than danger? Here I analyze situations in which one reacts in cold blood to danger and argue that the formal object of fear is not the dangerous, but the unsafe. The unsafe indicates not only how the world is, but also how it can be handled. Safety, and its negative counterpart, are characterized by their duality, both evaluative (is the snake dangerous?) and agentive (is it under control?). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to compare how lecturers, also being different English as a lingua franca (ELF) users use various vague expressions in academic lectures in a Chinese English‐medium instruction (EMI) university. The study adopts the framework of appraisal grounded in systemic functional linguistic theory to classify all vague expressions according to intensity, amount, and categorisation. It is found that vagueness in relation to amount with no gradable features was used most frequently in the 12 academic lectures of the study, followed by those related to no‐scaled categorisation and upscaled intensity. The use of vague expressions is further examined from an academic ELF perspective. We discover that native‐speaker lecturers may use more vague expressions concerning amount whereas ELF lecturers may prefer those concerning intensity. Finally, we suggest some pedagogical implications of using vagueness in ELF communication for delivering academic lectures in the EMI university context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When recalling autobiographical events, people not only retrieve event details but also the feelings they experienced. The current study examined whether people are able to consistently recall the intensity of past feelings associated with two consequential and negatively valenced events, i.e. the 9/11 attack (N = 769) and the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 726). By comparing experienced and recalled intensities of negative feelings, we discovered that people systematically recall a higher intensity of negative feelings than initially reported – overestimating the intensity of past negative emotional experiences. The COVID-19 dataset also revealed that individuals who experienced greater improvement in emotional well-being displayed smaller biases in recalling their feelings. Across both datasets, the intensity of remembered feelings was correlated with initial feelings and current feelings, but the impact of the current feelings was stronger in the COVID-19 dataset than in the 9/11 dataset. Our results demonstrate that when recalling negative autobiographical events, people tend to overestimate the intensity of prior negative emotional experiences with their degree of bias influenced by current feelings and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher evaluation and teachers' professional learning are too often confined to separate areas of research and professional practice. Rather than approach evaluation and enquiry as distinct or irreconcilable, this paper applies the ideas of Stenhouse to explore new possibilities for the reappropriation of mandated appraisal in ways that support teachers' professional growth. Illustrative case studies of laboratory schools in the United States and England are used to examine the interaction of local and lateral forms of professional accountability with external and hierarchical regulatory frameworks. The article reports the design and enactment of change in two schools (a US kindergarten through twelfth grade school and a UK high school) connected through the International Association of Laboratory Schools (IALS) that purposively redesigned appraisal over a three‐year period to build capacity for collaborative curriculum enquiry. Attention is afforded to the space for manoeuvre between advisory and mandatory guidance, and the challenges to relational trust and collective responsibility posed by performance‐based accountability systems. The findings provide new insights into how teacher‐led collaborative enquiry (curricular co‐design) can address the unintended consequences of test‐based accountability and rubrics‐based observation as principal drivers of educational improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines evaluations of entities associated with countries in English language textbooks for junior high school students in Japan. Drawing on an APPRAISAL analysis and interviews, the study explores how evaluations of national entities are realized in the textbooks. Eighteen textbooks were analyzed, and three interviews were conducted, one with a textbook writer and two with textbook editors. The findings reveal that the English language textbooks evaluated entities associated with Japan in a positive light much more frequently than those related to other countries. This was realized by the writer and editors’ intention that the textbooks be used to teach aspects of Japanese culture and to nurture learners’ diverse perspectives toward countries and their cultures.

The purpose of the present study was to assess whether the recognition of tennis players' affective state associated with their nonverbal behavior would be influenced by (a) the importance of the situation, (b) the point outcome, and (c) the tennis expertise of the observer. Two hundred sixty-nine participants (Mage = 30.51 years; 116 female; 79 tennis club members) watched video excerpts showing the nonverbal behavior of amateur tennis players during competitive matches immediately after the end of a rally and were asked to estimate whether the player had just won or lost the point. Results indicate that the recognition rates were higher for situations closer to the end of a game, closer to the end of a set, and with a tighter score during a game. Moreover, recognition rates were higher for lost than for won points, while the tennis expertise of participants had no influence on the recognition rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Our attention is constantly drawn by messages that propose to us what should (not) be done in a specific place. According to the Evaluative Model of Normative Appeals (EMNA), we perceive them through a process (normative appraisal) that is structured in three dimensions, and assesses the degree to which the proposal (a) comes from an institution that ensures compliance, (b) avoids physical or psychological damage, and (c) affords the performance of the main intended action. We review the theoretical underpinnings related to these three dimensions, create a scale to measure them (Normative Appraisal Scale, NAS), and validate it in two studies. Specifically, 2376 citizens in eight countries completed the NAS regarding the norms of paying taxes and not drinking on the street (Study 1), and 1544 subway users completed it regarding two transport norms (Study 2). The analyses supported the three‐dimensional structure of the NAS. Furthermore, the NAS increased the prediction when included along with other predictors: sociological variables; social axioms and values (Study 1); and descriptive norm, injunctive norm, personal control, and formal sanction (Study 2). We suggest that the NAS is useful to assess the actual perception of specific normative appeals and anticipate their effectiveness in influencing peoples’ decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stance-taking in academic writing is now a well-established topic of interest in English language research, with explorations across a range of theoretical frameworks including metadiscourse and systemic functional linguistics (SFL). This includes studies investigating second language (L2) stance-taking, particularly those comparing stance features deployed by L1 and L2 English writers. However, studies investigating stance-taking using the APPRAISAL framework for evaluative discursive language across L1 and L2 production are relatively rare. Incorporating the APPRAISAL framework into research on stance-taking enhances our comprehension of evaluative language in academic writing, especially when it comes to cross-linguistic contexts. It also provides useful advantages for language assessment and instruction. In this learner corpus-assisted discourse study, APPRAISAL was used to determine how L1 English speakers and L2 English learners from L1 Vietnamese backgrounds expressed attitudes through their written texts. We also investigate the relationship between use of APPRAISAL resources and expert raters’ perceptions of written stance via a stance rubric. Findings show L2 English students are more explicit in argumentative writing than L1 English writers, despite fewer APPRAISAL choices in L2 texts. Besides, while high-rated texts were associated with more judgemental evaluation and invocation, more personal feelings were expressed in low-rated texts. These findings have implications for the instruction of L2 writers in conveying attitudinal meanings in text, as well as for raters tasked with assessing L2 academic essays for stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study explored how native speakers (NSs) and non-native speakers (NNSs) of English exploit evaluative meaning-making resources of English when sharing their judgements and opinions on English movie descriptions. To this end, 10 native speakers of Australian English and 10 Iranian non-native speakers took part in on-line informal interviews, based on an approach known as snowball sampling. The study employed a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis. The results revealed significant differences in the use of evaluative language between the two groups, with NNSs focusing more on Affect, Judgment and Appreciation respectively, while NSs prioritized Appreciation, followed by Affect and Judgment. The findings are discussed by reference to cultural and linguistic differences in the use of evaluative resources. Moreover, NSs relied more on invoked evaluation whereas NNSs showed a preference for inscribed evaluation. However, both groups utilized a higher frequency of positive descriptions in during their descriptions of English movies. These findings can provide valuable insights for language teaching and research, highlighting the significance of incorporating evaluative language resources into language instruction. The study further brought attention to the interconnectedness of diverse evaluative resources such as reference to emotions and judgements with complex linguistic and cultural domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

L'objectif de cet article est d'analyser l'utilisation des adjectifs évaluatifs dans le cadre des recherches quantitatives et qualitatives fondées sur le corpus du discours juridictionnel français. Dans cette analyse, nous adopterons l'approche Appraisal (Martin & White 2005) qui s'intéresse aux marques linguistiques laissant entrevoir la présence subjective du sujet parlant dans le texte. Notre corpus comprend 100 arrêts de la Cour de cassation de 2018 à 2022 inclus. Nous utiliserons la plateforme AnaText pour l'analyse quantitative et ChatGPT pour l'analyse qualitative. Cette recherche nous permettra d'identifier les adjectifs évaluatifs les plus souvent utilisés par les juges et d'indiquer les cibles et la polarité de l'argumentation judiciaire. This article aims to analyse the use of evaluative adjectives in quantitative and qualitative research based on the corpus of French jurisdictional discourse. In this analysis, we adopt the Appraisal approach (Martin & White 2005), which focuses on linguistic marks that reveal the subjective presence of the speaker in the text. Our corpus comprises 100 judgments of the Court of Cassation from 2018 to 2022 inclusive. We use the AnaText platform for quantitative analysis and ChatGPT for qualitative analysis. This research allows us to identify the evaluative adjectives most often used by judges and to indicate the targets and polarity of judicial argumentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article combines linguistic analysis and data mining methods to explore variations in speakers' evaluative meaning-making in conflict talks. It focuses on conflict style construction through evaluative language, specifically how disputants advance attitudes. The corpus consists of 230 minutes of family mediation talks involving 12 divorcing spouses. The research draws from the Appraisal framework to analyse evaluative meaning-making at a discourse semantics level, capturing both explicit and implicit attitudes, as well as the scaling and dialogic framing of attitudes. Data exploration uses clustering algorithms via RStudio to identify variations in disputants' discursive behaviour. The findings uncover three conflict styles based on disputants' preference for attitude advancement formulations, with varying degrees of assertiveness and forcefulness. This study's contributions include a holistic treatment of evaluative meaning-making, the marriage of digital tools to nuanced linguistic annotation, and a novel interpretation for conflict style. The findings offer fresh insights into disputants' discursive self-presentation in confrontational exchanges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines the initial psychometric evidence for the emotionally focused therapy skills rubric (EFTSR). The EFTSR is designed to assess clinician's emotionally focused therapy (EFT) skill proficiency, identify how EFT skills are used within the basic movements of EFT, and evaluate a clinician's ability to use the EFT attachment injury resolution model. The EFTSR content validity was confirmed with two overall content validity indexes of.86 and.87. There was substantial item-level internal consistency reliability, with α scores ranging from.70 to.99 for both videos. Item-total correlations were higher than.20 for most items demonstrating substantial interrater reliability. Thus, results indicate initial support for using the EFTSR as theoretically based instrument designed to assess counselors' ability to execute the skills of the EFT model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communal coping theorists have advanced our understanding of stress management in relationships. We add to that work by exploring the content of messages that people exchange when they talk about how they coped with stress. We collected data from 39 online forums and analyzed 446 posts in which people described how they coped with sexual health stress. Results indicated the presence of five types of coping (individual coping, parallelism, communal coping, refused communal coping, reluctant communal coping), distinguished by posters' descriptions of emotions, communication, and relationships in each category. Our findings indicate the need to consider valence in the study of communal coping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The pituitary gland is an important endocrine organ in the body. Certain diseases can cause damage to the pituitary gland, such as pituitary adenoma and abnormal hormone secretion. Pituitary stem cells, due to their self-renewal and multi-directional differentiation potential, are expected to become a new therapeutic approach for repairing damaged pituitary glands. OBJECTIVE: To isolate and culture pituitary stem cells using the suspension cell ball culture method and identify their proliferation and differentiation ability. METHODS: Pituitary stem cells were isolated and cultured from the pituitary gland of newborn New Zealand white rabbits using the suspension cell ball culture method, and their morphological characteristics were observed. Immunofluorescence cytochemistry was used to detect the expression of pituitary stem cell markers SOX2 and Nestin. EdU labeling method was utilized to detect the proliferative ability of pituitary stem cells. After adherent and induced differentiation, the hormone levels in the culture medium were detected by ELISA. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Pituitary stem cell spheres could be successfully isolated by the suspension cell ball culture method, with strong proliferative ability. Positive expression of stem cell-specific markers SOX2 and Nestin was found in the cultured cells. After induction and differentiation, adrenocorticotropic hormone, thyroid hormone, growth hormone, luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, and prolactin levels significantly increased in the medium (P < 0.001), with strong differentiation ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected nearly every facet of life, constituting a "new normal" and prompting an ongoing collective psychological crisis. People's ways of coping with the pandemic and corresponding wellbeing are of particular research interest; however, these constructs have largely been examined using deductive quantitative approaches, deficit-based lenses, and mononational samples. Methods: The current mixed-methods study used inductive-sequential (QUAL, QUAN) approaches to explore positive coping strategies (approach coping style and COVID-related connection appraisal) and well-being (loneliness, distress, and happiness) across individuals from the United States, Japan, and Mexico. Qualitative data were gathered from N = 141 U.S., Japanese, and Mexican adults to examine how people perceived connection during the pandemic. Results: Qualitative analyses illuminated common themes in which people appraised the pandemic as an opportunity for connection and strengthened interpersonal relationships. Quantitative measures, including a newly-developed questionnaire on COVID-related connection appraisal, were then administered to a separate sample of N = 302 adults in the U.S, Japan, and Mexico to assess associations among approach coping style, COVID-related connection appraisal, and well-being outcomes (loneliness, distress, happiness). Quantitative analyses found significant associations among approach coping style, COVID-related connection appraisal, and all well-being outcomes. Of note, these associations did not differ by country. COVID-related connection appraisal mediated the relationship between approach coping style and two well-being outcomes (loneliness and happiness). Discussion: Findings point to approach coping style and connection appraisal as pathways for resilience and growth in the face of global suffering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suffering and misfortunes of other people are often portrayed in the media. Recipients react to these portrayals with different emotions. This article elucidates and clarifies schadenfreude (pleasure at the misfortune of others) and sympathy (feeling concern or sorrow over another person's distress) in media experiences. A thorough literature review provides in-depth insights into the formation of affective dispositions and schadenfreude from various psychological perspectives. This conceptual analysis leads to the "Model of Individual and Social Appraisals of Misfortunes of Others" (MISAM) which first reveals the determining intrapersonal factors within the emotional experience of schadenfreude and sympathy. Second, it discloses the social component vital for understanding the construction and regulation of these emotions. The model combines individual and social appraisal processes and identifies the factors involved in the elicitation and regulation of schadenfreude and sympathy in the media reception of misfortunes. With the aim of integrating different perspectives, we incorporated Affective Disposition Theory and recent work from social psychology and used an appraisal framework. The MISAM opens the path for further investigation of schadenfreude and sympathy in media reception, beyond entertainment experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research suggests that individuals higher in narcissism and self-esteem might pay more attention to social stimuli related to status than others. However, there is limited research testing whether personality traits influence appraisals of stimuli. Our research investigated whether the personality traits of narcissism and self-esteem affect how individuals appraise social stimuli. Participants included 164 undergraduate psychology students who completed personality questionnaires and a word categorization task, called The Extrinsic Affective Simon Task. The task assesses fast and automatic appraisals of words of different status (high or low-status) and affective meanings (positive or negative) to see whether there is a relationship between personality traits and early appraisals of social stimuli related to status. Using a pair of mixed model ANOVA's, we found that individuals high in narcissism and high in selfesteem did not have significantly stronger appraisals for status-words. This research helps understand how people higher in narcissism and self-esteem respond to different status-relevant feedback in their social environments, and whether they have different appraisal processes than individuals lower in these traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to examine the responses of early childhood education and care (ECEC) teachers to childrenʼs externalizing problems related to the teachersʼ cognition, ECEC methods, and years of childcare experience of teachers. Data from questionnaire-based responses from 628 ECEC teachers were analyzed. The appraisal of responsibility was positively associated with a variety of responses, including inappropriate ones. Meanwhile, inferences about the ECEC environment were negatively associated with inappropriate responses and positively associated with a range of other responses. Teacher-directed tendency in ECEC methods displayed a direct positive association with inappropriate responses, though it also demonstrated a positive association with diverse responses. However, child-centered tendencies were positively associated with a variety of responses, excluding inappropriate ones. Compared with ECEC methods, the association between years of childcare experience and the cognition of and response to externalizing problems was relatively low. These findings indicate that ECEC teachers respond to externalizing problems in various ways, including a few inappropriate responses. Furthermore, the responses varied according to cognition and methods of the teachers. [Research Impact] This study identifies multiple factors influencing ECEC teachersʼ responses to childrenʼs externalizing problems. The findings highlight the importance of inferring the causal factors of ECEC-related externalizing behaviors and reducing teacher-directed tendencies to prevent inappropriate responses. Addressing these issues is crucial, and the findings are expected to serve as reference for the development of support systems for ECEC teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: People who were disabled from working reported substantially worse depression in recent research [1] despite adjustment for demographic covariates, cognitive-appraisal processes, and COVID-specific stressors, thus motivating the present work. Objective: This study sought to "drill down" to understand employment-group differences (employed, retired, unemployed, disabled) in cognitive factors, and how these factors played into paths to depression during COVID early in the pandemic and depression trajectories over 15.5 months of follow-up. Methods: This longitudinal cohort study (n = 771) included chronically ill and general-population samples in the United States, characterized into the same depression-trajectory groups as the earlier study [1]. The Quality-of-Life Appraisal Profilev2 Short-Form assessed cognitive-appraisal processes. COVID-specific scales assessed hardship, worry, and social support. Chi-square, Analysis of Variance, classification and regression tree, and random effects modeling investigated factors associated with reported depression over time specifically by employment group, rather than in the whole sample which was the focus of the earlier study. Results: Disabled participants were disproportionately represented in the stably depressed trajectory group, reporting more hardship and worry, and lower social support than employed and retired participants (p < 0.0001). They were more likely to focus on health goals, problem goals, and emphasizing the negative (p < 0.001). They had different paths and cut-points to depression than employed/unemployed/retired participants. Even mild endorsement of emphasizing the negative and recent changes predicted higher depression. COVID-specific stressors and cognitive-appraisal processes were less implicated in depression among disabled participants compared to others. Conclusions: Disabled participants were at greater risk of stable depression during the COVID pandemic. Small increases in emphasizing the negative were a path to worse depression, and disabled participants' depression may be less reactive to external circumstances or ways of thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to explore how facilitators of group dynamic and structured leadership courses cope with difficult situations during the course, and to relate their coping strategies to general individual characteristics and situation-specific appraisals. The study group consisted of facilitators of two of the most widespread leadership courses in Sweden: 110 facilitators of the course Understanding Group and Leader (UGL) and 111 facilitators of Developmental leadership (DL). A web-based questionnaire included descriptions of two difficult interpersonal course situations and questions on personality, general leadership style as well as situation-specific appraisal and coping. Three coping strategies were identified (factor analyses): Focus on course structure, Focus on psychological safety and Focus on own reflection. These factors were positively correlated. Weak associations were observed between the coping strategies and personality and general leadership style. Situation-specific appraisals covaried more strongly with the coping strategies. The findings suggest that reflection based on these coping strategies can lead to increased self-awareness and self-confidence on part of the facilitator. The findings may also help leadership course facilitators to cope more effectively, which in turn creates trust in the group that they are leading. The study contributes to the understanding of a limited research area; how leadership course facilitators cope with difficult course situations. The results provide guidance on how to cope more effectively. Practical implications include aspects to focus on in the training of leadership course facilitators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the assumption that appraisal entails selection of records to be archives in line with the concept of values in archives and what each society values, this article investigates the situation of appraisal in the Thai public sector, where records are not always readily transferred from government agencies to the National Archives of Thailand. The research attempts to identify gaps and seeks to conceive a suitable appraisal system through documentary research (e.g., legislation, manuals, policies and related literature), interviews, and public hearings. The data collected for this research, which was conducted along with dissemination of knowledge on archival appraisal as advocacy for archival appraisal in Thailand, suggest that there is a need to combine records and archives values with existing values in society to make public organization executives and policy makers drive archives into the public agenda. More importantly, it is necessary to build communities and networks that support archival appraisal among information professionals and records creators and across related areas of expertise, such as digital curators and IT specialists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of autonomous vehicles (AVs) has the potential to drastically change society, planning, design, and development strategies. This study uses the PRISMA protocol to carry out a systematic literature review, focusing on the backcasting method as an analytic tool. By examining. 21 studies published between 2003 and 2024, this paper highlights the phases of backcasting: visioning, policy packaging, and appraisal, and identifies critical factors necessary for the successful integration of AVs. Visioning for future driverless cities includes high-quality urban areas, active mobility, and innovative developments. Policies and Packaging suggested a focus on restricting vehicular access, transit-oriented development, and encouraging public transportation. Appraisal reveals skepticism about the positive impacts of AVs, urging policies that limit access to urban areas and promote sustainable modes of transportation. The main contribution of this study lies in its comprehensive application of backcasting to AV implementation, offering a structured approach to envisioning future urban scenarios, formulating supportive policies, and evaluating their impact. This analysis provides a solid foundation for future research, urging us to explore the intersection between AVs, citizen participation, and environmental sustainability to achieve more efficient and sustainable cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assemble a property-level panel of appraiser-reported attributes associated with 4.6 million loan applications from 2013 to 2017 to test whether attributes were consistently reported. Appraisers have an incentive to misreport property attributes to justify higher appraised values to ensure that associated mortgage loans are approved. We focus on property transactions with multiple sets of attributes reported by the same appraiser within four quarters and find evidence consistent with an intent to inflate valuations through attribute misreporting. We find that strategic misreporting of attributes is prevalent across markets, and that highly leveraged borrowers whose appraisals had inconsistently reported attributes were 9.8 percent more likely to become seriously delinquent in their loan payments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Museums are multimodal environments where semiotic resources including objects, space, sound, light, movement, language and the body converge. Our case study of a Taiwanese ceramics exhibition draws on the concept of 'affective affordances', meaning the socially and contextually informed ways that semiotic resources invite felt and embodied responses. We use this concept to investigate the ways in which texts and space co-construct affective meanings. We discuss texts and space as physical entities within the affective exhibition, each possessing intrinsic properties which can potentially stimulate certain embodied responses from visitors. Specifically, the case study addresses two questions: (1) how written texts within an exhibition interact with space to afford affective meaning potential; and (2) how museum visitors as active participants respond to space and text as affective stimuli. The study adopts a novel composite theoretical framework that combines spatial discourse analysis using the Binding framework, linguistic analysis using the Appraisal framework, and walking interviews. Our analysis provides rich empirical evidence of how space and written texts interact to create a felt sense of place for visitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks into how aggression against Meghan Markle is deployed in a sample of X replies that address her directly through the lens of Appraisal Theory coupled with impoliteness. A sample of tweets containing the seed word "Meghan Markle" was retrieved with Export Comments (December 2022–April 2023). Replies were run through the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count-22 to assess the tone and prevalence of emotions in the corpus. Results indicated high values for negative emotions, interpersonal conflict, and moralization words. Then, a random sample was manually codified to identify the use frequencies for the Attitude system's affect, judgment, and appreciation categories when employed to convey hostility against the public figure. Tweets were overwhelmingly negative and explicitly conveyed through the negative judgment of Meghan Markle's previous sexual and professional life. The veracity of her words and actions was also a source of aggression while tapping into the widely accepted stereotype that depicts women as liars or as incompetent and lacking determination, while some tweets also touched upon her mental instability. Findings reveal that aggressive tweets on X rely on appraisal resources and impolite-related language to promote and perpetuate culturally bound and traditional beliefs about women that ultimately reflect an underlying patriarchal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an intercultural modern art form, web-based ink and wash cartoons are significant tools to communicate cultural identities in the Chinese context because of their entertaining form, thought-provoking content, and profound cultural connotation. Against this background, the present study investigates the multimodal appraisal systems of 96 web-based ink and wash cartoons, focusing on attitudinal meanings and explicating how the attitudinal resources contribute to the communication of Chinese cultural identities. The analysis of 96 web-based ink and wash cartoons shows that the cultural identities of the Chinese dream, Confucianism, collectivism, and optimism are communicated through the interplay between visual and verbal semiotic resources. The analytical results reveal a series of generic features of the web-based ink and wash cartoons that contribute to the promotion of cultural identities, including the popular theme, minimalist style, positive attitude prosody, and the use of culture-specific metaphor and ideation. These features underpin the strategies for promoting Chinese cultural identities and the shift in national branding policy. The study hopes to provide clues for government, social institutions, and individuals to promote cultural identities effectively through social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public budgets are limited and priorities must be made between competing projects. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is the standard tool to assess projects and prioritise between them, as is done, e.g., in national transport plans. Universal design (UD) is typically a legal requirement in new investments and their benefits and contribution in CBA have usually not received much attention. Therefore, there is a risk that benefits are underestimated in projects that include UD elements and that these projects are subsequently ranked lower than what they ought to according to CBA performance. In this paper, we develop a user-friendly methodology for CBA of UD projects in public transport and walk/cycle infrastructure which aligns with national handbooks and guidelines for project appraisal. It contains five core elements: 1. User benefit. User benefit stems from valuation studies and are summarized and discounted over an assessment period, which in Norway is 40 years. This includes annual real price adjustments and the use of a discount rate according to guidelines. 2. Non-user effects. The degree to which UD projects affect other travellers, this (dis)benefit is accounted for. 3. Costs. Budget costs include investment and possible reinvestment at the end of economic life and annual operation and maintenance costs. These are summarized and discounted over the analysis period. Residual value after 40 years is subtracted. 4. Demand. Increases in walking and cycling have health benefits. Moreover, demand diverted from motorized transport and car to public transport, walking and cycling will affect external costs of road congestion, emissions, and accidents. 5. Shadow prices. According to Norwegian practice, the use of public funds has an inefficiency cost. Therefore, we add a shadow price on money from the public purse. With worked examples, we demonstrate that UD projects in transport are indeed available for CBA appraisal. What is more, they compete surprisingly well with alternative uses of public budgets. In fact, UD projects outperform most other transport projects in Norway when considering their cost-benefit performance. Money spent on UD gives more welfare back to society than most other uses within the transport sector. This means that UD need not only be a legal requirement in new installations. UD can also compete with, and be prioritized over, other transport investments and projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Professional classical musicians operate within a highly demanding environment, which includes organizational, social, and emotional demands. When not effectively coped with, these demands may cause stress and negatively impact well-being. This qualitative study explored the perceived stress and well-being experiences of professional classical musicians through a transactional theory of stress. The study employed a double hermeneutic interpretation of the lived experiences of the perceived demands faced, stress appraisals made, resources used, and the influence on well-being. Methods: Six professional classical musicians were purposefully selected for participation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and participants reflected on two events: one they perceived as a positive experience and one that was negative. Transcripts were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis and Group Experiential Themes emerged. Results: Three Group Experiential Themes were identified: (a) Performance Demands; (b) Organizational Demands; and, (c) Relationship Demands. Participants predominantly appraised demands as a threat. A small number of demands were appraised as a challenge or benefit, and the fewest demands were appraised as causing harm or loss. Participants' appraisals were informed by underlying properties of stress appraisal such as self and other comparison, and preparation. Participants often relied on personal resources as opposed to available workplace resources. They perceived well-being to relate to stress appraisals with participants experiencing acute and long-term outcomes. Discussion: This study offers insight into the lived experience of the occupational stress process within professional classical musicians. The findings demonstrate that organizational interventions targeted at continuing professional development and social support are appropriate to help musicians cope more effectively with demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The convergence of researchers in the fields of flourishing, moral psychology, and social-emotional studies has reached a stage where developing a theory that connects emotional regulation and flourishing is meaningful. This theoretical investigation aims to uncover insights from the research of Magda B. Arnold, renowned for her theory of emotions, and lesser-known for her notion of the self-ideal, regarding the relationship between emotional regulation and flourishing. Our initial hypothesis posits that Arnold's concept of self-ideal provides a framework for understanding how to foster emotional regulation in individuals by directing it toward constructive life objectives. To achieve this, we explore the current state of emotional regulation and flourishing and the relationship between these concepts; we consider the interconnectedness of emotion and self-ideal within Arnold's theory and analyze its potential to serve as a foundation for building a theory relating flourishing and emotional regulation. We find in Arnold's theory substantial ideas about the relationship between emotional regulation, flourishing, and self-ideal, as well as emerging empirical research relating to these themes. We conclude that Arnold's research can serve as a catalyst for developing psychological intervention models that enhance emotional regulation and promote a flourishing life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing virtues requires attending to the affective and cognitive components of virtue. The former component implies cultivating apt emotional responses to specific situations. The cognitive part requires the (meta) virtue of phronesis. In dealing with "Phronesis in educating emotions," this article attends to the nature of emotions and phronesis as its role in cultivating good action habits and virtuous emotional habits. It understands emotion regulation as one of the functions of phronesis. In the broader sense, phronesis includes elements other than deliberation, such as dialectics and rhetoric, which can be helpful to induce a certain suspicion or to persuade somewhat since our affectivity is susceptible to persuasion (i.e. Aristotle's political dominion of emotions). As a topic in the intersection of moral psychology and moral philosophy, we get valuable insights into a psychologist's work, Magda Arnold's (1903–2002) emotion theory. Her understanding of emotion elicitation elucidates the relation between phronesis and emotions. The article focuses on one of the central elements of emotion elicitation, the appraisal. This piece can make the education of emotions for virtue development more understandable. At first glance, our initial appraisal may be hasty and inaccurate, leading to emotional reactions. However, with careful reflection, we can correct and improve upon our initial appraisal and subsequent emotions. If our initial assessment was flawed, this second, more thoughtful evaluation can be enhanced through phronesis. Due to the appraisal's spontaneity, cultivating educated emotions requires values' teaching, learning, and thus, appraising good things. With the development of virtues, intuitive estimates become adequate, so emotional responses are more attuned to diverse situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case is designed to provide students with real property appraisal experience, specifically in the determination of the impact on valuation due to a change in the flood zone maps by the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) in Lee County, FL. It is designed in a modular format, so that instructors may assign individual valuation assignments requiring alternative appraisal techniques both before and after changes in federal land regulations that alter the indicated market value of existing commercial properties.

The study aims to compare the occurrence and use of attitude, more precisely, of its subcategories, as well as of their status and realisation in the selected English and Slovene football match reports published by online print media. Attitude constitutes one of the three primary categories within the evaluative discourse-semantic system known as appraisal (Martin and White, 2005). It encompasses language that conveys feelings, judgement of behaviour, and evaluation of things. To explore and compare attitude, the appraisal model developed by Martin and White (2005) was applied as an analytical tool, along with quantitative and qualitative research methods. The analysis reveals that both sets of reports employ all three attitudinal subcategories, express attitude both explicitly and implicitly, and use both positive and negative status. However, there are similarities and differences in the distribution of subcategories, and their status and realisation between both reports. Furthermore, findings indicate that both sets of reports frequently utilize distinct lexis to convey attitude, alongside the shared lexis.

Children’s books communicate responsibilities and obligations such as good manners or how to overcome personal challenges. Through these stories, children learn how their society expects them to look and behave. Using a sample of bilingual picture books from the Nal’ibali reading campaign in South Africa, this research investigates the naturalised meanings projected to young readers by English stories and their Afrikaans translations. The visual symmetry of the English and Afrikaans versions of the story on a page may lead readers to think that these are direct translations or that the children are accessing similar meanings. The research questions ask whether the English readers are exposed to the same norms as the Afrikaans readers. Using a systemic functional linguistic framework to code evaluations of the books’ characters, we foreground the differences in interpersonal meaning between the English and Afrikaans translations and why these are ideologically significant. Findings show that the Afrikaans translations prioritise a young girl’s looks above her creativity, but they also construe a dedicated father who spends time with his child. Despite the small corpus, these preliminary findings indicate a need for a wider study of translation in children’s books to investigate the congruency of their translations.

AbstractThis paper aims to assess the level of awareness of safety precautions in the use of extension cords in Ho Municipality in Ghana. The relevance of this study is to provide an understanding of the awareness level of safety measures likely to lead to a significant reduction in incidents of domestic fire outbreaks when using an extension cord. A cross-sectional research was carried out in the Ho Municipality between February and April 2022. Six hundred and one (601) individuals were chosen from houses using a random selection method. A standardised questionnaire was used to gather data, and then entered and analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) V.16. Descriptive statistics, Binary logistic regression analysis with a 0.05 p-value and the adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI), Relative Importance Index (RII), and the Sample T-test were used to examine the significance of connections. Among the participants, there is a low level of awareness of extension cord ratings and standard labels from autonomous testing facilities. The participants’ knowledge of awareness was significantly related to gender; [0.722 (95% (CI): 1.476 – 2.869), p = 0.001 < (0.05)]. Again, most participants overload the extension cord during usage and practice poor safety measures that could result in a fire outbreak. The study suggests that users should purchase extension cords that have been endorsed by an autonomous testing laboratory and fully be educated on the safety procedures that will aid in safeguarding lives and property by both government and non-governmental agencies.

In the context of natural disasters, the leader’s attitude undoubtedly has a significant impact on the victims. The use of language in responding to such disasters is one manifestation of the leader’s attitude, which is also inseparable from interpersonal functions. The discourse employed by leaders must be carefully crafted to prevent the emergence of negative stigmas among the public and to build effective leadership. Therefore, this qualitative descriptive research aims to investigate how leaders respond to natural disasters in North Sumatra, Indonesia. The leader’s discourse is utilized as research data, extracted from five selected speeches by Edy Rahmayadi retrieved from mass media official YouTube. This data is then analyzed using appraisal analysis. The results indicate that Edy’s discourse contains sources of positive, negative, and neutral attitudes. He presents resources of positive, negative, and unbiased attitudes as a leader. Additionally, he tends to involve various contextual domains that influence why his lexical choices are perceived as positive, negative, or even neutral, such as social relationships (tenor), religious factors, and humanitarian considerations. The result reveals the nuanced role of language in shaping public response and leadership effectiveness. Understanding how leaders’ linguistic choices—shaped by their personal and cultural backgrounds—can influence both immediate reactions and long-term perceptions. This research underscores the broader significance of effective communication in crisis management, relevant to international contexts where leadership and language intersect in disaster response.

BackgroundFollowing graduation, Israeli medical cadets complete a 12-months training period in hospitals, having profound influence on their future career. Burnout, sense of personal and professional uncertainty and disorientation are already notable in this group. The aim of the current study was to assess the potential impact of empowerment, psychological and career counseling on the level of satisfaction and burnout of medicine cadets during their internship year in a tertiary medical center.MethodsIn a tertiary hospital's education authority, we offer constructed, personalized psychological and counseling services with continuous process of appraisal. During an 18-month period we followed their monthly feedback relating to satisfaction, learning experience and level of socialization. The study was designed as comparative research assessing cadets' satisfaction before, and after intervention as a surrogate marker for their burnout.ResultsComparison of measured parameters showed statistically significant improvement, with interns stationed in the surgical departments (n = 86) showing the highest degree of improvement: the extent of acquiring new knowledge and competencies (1 to 5 Likert) went from 2.2 ± 1.0 to 3.3 ± 1.42; p < 0.005; experience from the absorption process into the department (LQR from 2.6 ± 1.2 to 3.5 ± 1.56; p < 0.05), degree of motivation to recommend peers to apply for residency (LQR from 2.3 ± 1.0 to 3.1 ± 1.6; p = 0.05) and the experience of being accepted to the department by the staff nurses (LQR from 2.7 ± 1.3 to 3.5 ± 1.1; p < 0.05).ConclusionsA combined, ongoing process of appraisal, empowerment, psychological and career counseling seems promising in the relenting effort to improve cadets' satisfaction and hopefully withhold the burnout process of young physicians.

SUMMARY: In an article in this issue of BJPsych Advances a courageous psychiatrist describes judicial criticism of his expert testimony in a case before the UK's Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber). This commentary reflects on the value of criticism and feedback on expert witness work, contrasting the psychiatrist's positive response to the judge's words with the reaction of an expert witness in clinical negligence case, who rejected criticism of his evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guided by transactional stress theory, this study aimed to explore elite U.K. soccer coaches' perceived stressors, the situational properties, appraisals, and coping during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also aimed to explore any variation in stress experiences across football league standards A total of 13 professional first-team male U.K. association football coaches between 38 and 59 years of age (M = 43.00, SD = 6.94) participated in telephone (n = 5) or online (n = 8) semistructured interviews. Informed by the philosophical position of critical realism, Braun et al.'s six-phase approach to thematic analysis was used to generate competitive, organizational, and personal stressor themes. Deductive thematic analysis generated themes reflective of all situational properties of stressors identified by Lazarus and Folkman and an array of appraisal and coping strategies. Future research and recommendations for supporting coach performance and well-being post-COVID-19 pandemic are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]