Graph-based social relation inference with multi-level conditional attention.

Social relation inference intrinsically requires high-level semantic understanding. In order to accurately infer relations of persons in images, one needs not only to understand scenes and objects in images, but also to adaptively attend to important clues. Unlike prior works of classifying social relations using attention on detected objects, we propose a MUlti-level Conditional Attention (MUCA) mechanism for social relation inference, which attends to scenes, objects and human interactions based on each person pair. Then, we develop a transformer-style network to achieve the MUCA mechanism. The novel network named as Graph-based Relation Inference Transformer (i.e., GRIT) consists of two modules, i.e., a Conditional Query Module (CQM) and a Relation Attention Module (RAM). Specifically, we design a graph-based CQM to generate informative relation queries for all person pairs, which fuses local features and global context for each person pair. Moreover, we fully take advantage of transformer-style networks in RAM for multi-level attentions in classifying social relations. To our best knowledge, GRIT is the first for inferring social relations with multi-level conditional attention. GRIT is end-to-end trainable and significantly outperforms existing methods on two benchmark datasets, e.g., with performance improvement of 7.8% on PIPA and 9.6% on PISC.

The discursive (re)construction of social relations in a crisis situation: A genre analytical approach to press conferences on COVID-19 in China.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has imposed a great threat both to people's health and to social relations. By following the theoretical constructions of critical genre analysis and critical discourse analysis and drawing on the 35 press conferences on the COVID-19 outbreak in China, this paper explores how the discourse of press conferences is used by the Chinese government as a means of crisis management to (re)construct social relations. The analysis of the data reveals a hybridity of social relations reproduced discursively between such social actors as government institutions, the general public, medical institutions or staff, and COVID-19 patients, and a distinct feature of interdiscursivity of the discourse of press conferences on COVID-19, with descriptive, instructional, strategic, and evaluative discourses being the most frequently employed. It is also found that political, professional, social, and cultural forces are interwoven with each other to contribute to the interdiscursivity of the discourse of press conferences and the hybridity of social relations constructed thereof.

Multi-Level Transformer-Based Social Relation Recognition.

Social relationships refer to the connections that exist between people and indicate how people interact in society. The effective recognition of social relationships is conducive to further understanding human behavioral patterns and thus can be vital for more complex social intelligent systems, such as interactive robots and health self-management systems. The existing works about social relation recognition (SRR) focus on extracting features on different scales but lack a comprehensive mechanism to orchestrate various features which show different degrees of importance. In this paper, we propose a new SRR framework, namely Multi-level Transformer-Based Social Relation Recognition (MT-SRR), for better orchestrating features on different scales. Specifically, a vision transformer (ViT) is firstly employed as a feature extraction module for its advantage in exploiting global features. An intra-relation transformer (Intra-TRM) is then introduced to dynamically fuse the extracted features to generate more rational social relation representations. Next, an inter-relation transformer (Inter-TRM) is adopted to further enhance the social relation representations by attentionally utilizing the logical constraints among relationships. In addition, a new margin related to inter-class similarity and a sample number are added to alleviate the challenges of a data imbalance. Extensive experiments demonstrate that MT-SRR can better fuse features on different scales as well as ameliorate the bad effect caused by a data imbalance. The results on the benchmark datasets show that our proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art methods with significant improvement.

Intergenerational Taekwondo Program: A Narrative Review and Practical Intervention Proposal.

Taekwondo is a modernized martial art that includes various combinations of hand and kicking techniques and core values of Taekwondo philosophy such as courtesy, mutual respect, and self-control. Physical inactivity is highly prevalent among older adults and is a major contributor to health-related problems. Intergenerational physical activity programs are used as an effective tool to make a positive connection between generations and provide additional health benefits for both generations. This review study aimed to examine the theories of intergenerational physical activity programs and propose the Intergenerational Taekwondo Program (ITP). Various theories such as the transtheoretical model, contact theory, social capital theory, situated learning theory, human development theory, personality theory, and whole-person wellness model have been adopted in intergenerational physical activity programs. Our review suggests that to develop the Intergenerational Taekwondo Program, instructors should (1) establishing common goals, (2) understand differences in physical and mental abilities, and (3) offer incentives to encourage participants in physical activity programs. The proposed ITP program has the potential to not just provide unique inherent values and improving physical functions, but also to form generational connections.

Exploring the pattern of use and accessibility of urban green spaces: evidence from a coastal desert megacity in Saudi Arabia.

Urban green spaces (UGSs) provide various ecosystem services (ESs) that directly and indirectly enhance people's well-being. However, in the Saudi context, the assessment role of UGSs (such as urban parks and gardens) and their use and accessibility has remained unexplored. This study aims to assess the use and accessibility of five urban parks in the Jeddah megacity of Saudi Arabia from diversified perspectives. Data were collected through a primary survey and questionnaire method using a social preference approach (SPA). Correlation analysis and factor analysis were performed to assess the relationship between activities and services (benefits) provided by urban parks and to examine their most significant benefits. A Kruskal-Wallis (K-S test) test was performed to determine significant differences in the perceived valuations of park benefits. A benefit dominancy index (BDI) was also developed to determine which urban parks provide the most benefit. The findings of the study showed that (i) the urban parks were mostly used for spending time with relatives (partners) and friends, followed by mental refreshment and relaxation, physical activity, and spending time with children; (ii) there are substantial seasonal variations in park visits in the Jeddah megacity; (iii) socio-demographic attributes largely affect the use of urban parks; and (iv) there are also substantial discrepancies between importance and performance related to urban management strategies. Thus, the findings of this study show that city planners and policy makers must focus on the enhancement of UGSs for the well-being of urban citizens.

Unconscious social relation threats: Invisible boss face biases attention.

Threatening stimuli as a kind of salient information often guide attentional orienting. Besides physically threatening stimuli, social threats can also strongly bias attention, even in the absence of conscious awareness. However, the available evidence mainly came from studies on an emotional face. It is unclear whether social relation threats, such as a boss face without emotional expressions, can also direct attentional orienting unconsciously. This study aimed to reveal the extent to which the attentional system has developed to process threatening stimuli by exploring whether invisible social relation threats unconsciously biased attention. We asked graduate and undergraduate students to perform a modified Posner's cue-target task, in which the probe was preceded by a pair of competitive face cues (an advisor's face and another faculty member's face), rendered invisible through continuous flash suppression. Experiment 1a's results showed that the advisor's face reflexively oriented graduate students' spatial attention, which was significantly correlated with subjective social threat evaluation. However, Experiment 1b showed that an invisible advisor's face did not induce the same effect in undergraduate students, as they reported significantly fewer threats from their advisors than graduates. To ensure the robustness of this new effect, we preregistered a replicate study and successfully replicated the above results in Experiments 2a and 2b. Our findings provide evidence for the existence of an attentional orienting bias toward invisible social relation threats. These results suggest that the attentional system evolved to promote the exploration of our visual environment for threatening social relation signals.

Electronic Games for Facilitating Social Interaction Between Parents With Cancer and Their Children During Hospitalization: Interdisciplinary Game Development.

BACKGROUND: Most cancer treatments today take place in outpatient clinics; however, it might be necessary for some patients to be admitted to hospital departments due to severe side effects or complications. In such situations, support from family and social relations can be crucial for the patients' emotional well-being. Many young adolescents and children whose parents have cancer describe how they are not seen, heard, or listened to as the worried relatives they are. Within the intensive care unit, it has been recommended that early supportive interventions are tailored to include children of the intensive care patient; a similar approach might be relevant in the oncological setting. To our knowledge, no studies have explored how to involve young relatives who are visiting their parent at an oncological department. Recently, a framework for developing theory-driven, evidence-based serious games for health has been suggested. Such a process would include stakeholders from various disciplines, who only work toward one specific solution. However, it is possible that bringing together different disciplines, such as design, art, and health care, would allow a broader perspective, resulting in improved solutions. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to develop tools to enhance the social interaction between a parent with cancer and their child when the child visits the parent in the hospital. METHODS: In total, 4 groups of design students within the Visual Design program were tasked with developing games addressing the objective of strengthening relations in situ during treatment. To support their work, the applied methods included professional lectures, user studies, and visual communication (phase I); interviews with the relevant clinicians at the hospital (phase II), co-creative workshops with feedback (phase III), and evaluation sessions with selected populations (phase IV). The activities in the 4 phases were predefined. This modified user design had the child (aged 4-18 years) of a parent with cancer as its primary user. RESULTS: Overall, 4 different games were designed based on the same information. All games had the ability to make adults with cancer and their children interact on a common electronic platform with a joint goal. However, the interaction, theme, and graphical expression differed between the games, suggesting that this is a wide and fertile field to explore. CONCLUSIONS: Playing a game can be an efficient way to create social interaction between a parent with cancer and a child or an adolescent, potentially improving the difficult social and psychological relations between them. The study showed that the development of serious games can be highly dependent on the designers involved and the processes used. This must be considered when a hospital aims to develop multiple games for different purposes.

Distance perception warped by social relations: Social interaction information compresses distance.

Though distance perception feeds the fundamental input that constructs a visual structure of the world, the suggestion has been made that it is constrained by this constructed structure. Instead of focusing on the physically defined structure, this study investigates whether and how social relations, especially the quality of social interaction (how individuals interact) rather than its content (what type of social interaction), precisely influences distance perception. The quality of social interaction was framed as an actor's intent and incurred outcome regarding another individual, whether helpful or harmful. Through visual animations, intent was operationalized as an agent's (i.e., actor's) intentional or unintentional act having an influence on another agent (i.e., affectee). Two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, the act was helpful, resulting in small or great beneficial consequences to the affectee. In Experiment 2, the act was harmful and resulted in small or great losses to the affectee. We found that when the help or harm had a large effect on others (the great-benefits or great-losses conditions), distance was perceived as shorter than when help or harm was minor, and the actor's intent did not affect distance perception. This suggests that, regardless of the type of social interaction, distance perception is mainly influenced by the outcome of an act not by the actor's intent. It implies that the perceived quality of social interaction creates a social constraint on distance perception. These findings are consistent with the idea that the intent and outcome of an action are assessed differently, and they help us understand how social relation penetrates the perceptual system.

Hormones in speed-dating: The role of testosterone and cortisol in attraction.

There is evidence that testosterone and cortisol levels are related to the attraction of a romantic partner; testosterone levels relate to a wide range of sexual behaviors and cortisol is a crucial component in the response to stress. To investigate this, we conducted a speed-dating study among heterosexual singles. We measured salivary testosterone and cortisol changes in men and women (n = 79) when they participated in a romantic condition (meeting opposite-sex others, i.e., potential romantic partners), as well as a control condition (meeting same-sex others, i.e., potential friends). Over the course of the romantic speed-dating event, results showed that women's but not men's testosterone levels increased and cortisol levels decreased for both men and women. These findings indicate that men's testosterone and cortisol levels were elevated in anticipation of the event, whereas for women, this appears to only be the case for cortisol. Concerning the relationship between attraction and hormonal change, four important findings can be distinguished. First, men were more popular when they arrived at the romantic speed-dating event with elevated cortisol levels. Second, in both men and women, a larger change in cortisol levels during romantic speed-dating was related to more selectivity. Third, testosterone alone was unrelated to any romantic speed-dating outcome (selectivity or popularity). However, fourth, women who arrived at the romantic speed-dating event with higher testosterone levels were more selective when their anticipatory cortisol response was low. Overall, our findings suggest that changes in the hormone cortisol may be stronger associated with the attraction of a romantic partner than testosterone.

Contribution of social relationships to self-rated health among Japanese community-dwelling elderly.

Objective: Participation in social activities is associated with physical and psychological health in the community-dwelling elderly population. We examined the two factors of social relations and community health resources, associated with higher self-rated health levels in the community-dwelling elderly. Methods: A total of 145 community-dwelling elderly people ≥ 65 years old from two neighborhood associations in Nagasaki City were recruited for this study, representing 85% of the officially registered ≥ 65-year-old population in the target area. Face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire were conducted by trained interviewers in August 2009, with questions related to sociodemographic characteristics, social relationships, and self-rated health (SRH). Community health resources (type and walking distance from home) were evaluated by one of the authors as a community assessment. Results: Seventy-eight community-dwelling elderly people (25 men and 53 women) participated in the study. Elderly people who reported going out every day were more likely to show higher SRH scores (excellent/good) than those going out less often (OR: 3.7; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.0, 14.2; P = 0.056). The numbers of interactions with friends in higher and lower SRH groups were 6.5 ± 8.4 (mean ± standard deviation) and 2.4 ± 1.1 (P = 0.01, Mann-Whitney U test), respectively. The numbers of relatives talking on the phone in higher and lower SRH groups were 2.9 ± 1.3 and 2.2 ± 1.2 (P = 0.031, Mann-Whitney U test), respectively. Meeting scores with friends in higher and lower SRH groups were 7.8 ± 5.8 and 4.5 ± 3.6 (P = 0.068), respectively. The scores of community health resources among higher and lower SRH groups were 21.2 ± 1.5 and 20.9 ± 1.4 (P = 0.547), respectively. The scores of community association/activities in higher and lower SRH groups were 3.9 ± 1.0 and 3.6 ± 0.9 (P = 0.227), respectively. Conclusion: This study indicated the importance of interaction with friends and relatives for maintaining higher SRH among community-dwelling elderly people.

Contribution of social relationships to self-rated health among Japanese community-dwelling elderly / Journal of Rural Medicine

Objective: Participation in social activities is associated with physical and psychological health in the community-dwelling elderly population. We examined the two factors of social relations and community health resources, associated with higher self-rated health levels in the community-dwelling elderly.Methods: A total of 145 community-dwelling elderly people ≥ 65 years old from two neighborhood associations in Nagasaki City were recruited for this study, representing 85% of the officially registered ≥ 65-year-old population in the target area. Face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire were conducted by trained interviewers in August 2009, with questions related to sociodemographic characteristics, social relationships, and self-rated health (SRH). Community health resources (type and walking distance from home) were evaluated by one of the authors as a community assessment.Results: Seventy-eight community-dwelling elderly people (25 men and 53 women) participated in the study. Elderly people who reported going out every day were more likely to show higher SRH scores (excellent/good) than those going out less often (OR: 3.7; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.0, 14.2; P = 0.056). The numbers of interactions with friends in higher and lower SRH groups were 6.5 ± 8.4 (mean ± standard deviation) and 2.4 ± 1.1 (P = 0.01, Mann-Whitney U test), respectively. The numbers of relatives talking on the phone in higher and lower SRH groups were 2.9 ± 1.3 and 2.2 ± 1.2 (P = 0.031, Mann-Whitney U test), respectively. Meeting scores with friends in higher and lower SRH groups were 7.8 ± 5.8 and 4.5 ± 3.6 (P = 0.068), respectively. The scores of community health resources among higher and lower SRH groups were 21.2 ± 1.5 and 20.9 ± 1.4 (P = 0.547), respectively. The scores of community association/activities in higher and lower SRH groups were 3.9 ± 1.0 and 3.6 ± 0.9 (P = 0.227), respectively.Conclusion: This study indicated the importance of interaction with friends and relatives for maintaining higher SRH among community-dwelling elderly people.

Improvement of older-person-specific QOL after hearing aid fitting and its relation to social interaction.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to investigate whether hearing aids use is associated with improvement of older-person-specific QOL and whether social interactions modify the association. METHODS: The WHOQOL-OLD questionnaire was answered by 105 older adults aged 60 to 90 years who were newly fitted hearing aids on the day of fitting and at 2 - 6 months afterward. The associations between the daily hours of hearing aid usage and social relations with changes in the WHOQOL-OLD total score after hearing aids fitting were estimated adjusting for possible confounders. RESULTS: Older persons with hearing loss experienced significant increases in WHOQOL-OLD total score after hearing aid fitting. Regular use of hearing aid was associated with a greater increase in the total score. The combined categorical variable of social relations and hearing aid usage revealed no separate effects of these two variables, but a combined effect; only those with frequent social interactions who used their hearing aid regularly had a significantly greater increase in WHOQOL-OLD total score. CONCLUSION: This study's findings indicate that hearing aid fitting may be associated with a subsequent improvement in older-person-specific QOL by improvements in hearing due to the hearing aid, and possibly enhanced communication opportunities.

Social Influence Factors for Utilization Rate of Medical and Health App / 医学信息学杂志

Addressing the problems that the unitization rate of medical and health App are generally low,based on the empirical approach,the paper demonstrates the positive influence of social factors on the utilization rate of mobile health App,and deeply analyzes the action mechanism and linkage effect of social factors such as social relation network,social support and subjective norms,so as to nationally design the socialized development strategies for mobile health App,thus providing the decision-making basis for the sustainable development and user cultivation of m-Health.

A Correlative Study on Ethics Morality, Society, Psychological Cognition with Health and Disease / 中国医学伦理学

Objective:To study the correlations between ethics morality, society, psychological cognition and health and disease. Methods:A total of 356 patients were selected to analyze the influence to health and disease from six perspectives that included family ethics, social morality, life style, interpersonal relationship, mental health, and personality traits. Result:Psychosomatic diseases were occurred in 126 cases, and 220 cases of neuro-sis diseases. The disease incidences in the subjects with high cognitive level were significantly lower than those with low cognitive level (P<0. 01). The cognitive levels of family ethics, social ethics, life style, interpersonal rela-tionship, and mental health were closely related to health and disease (P<0. 05). Conclusion:The cognitive lev-els of ethics morality, society, psychology were closely associated with disease. It should be vigorously advocated that the whole society follow the ethics morality standards, to prevent diseases.

The neural basis of perceiving person interactions.

This study examined whether the grouping of people into meaningful social scenes (e.g., two people having a chat) impacts the basic perceptual analysis of each partaking individual. To explore this issue, we measured neural activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while participants sex-categorized congruent as well as incongruent person dyads (i.e., two people interacting in a plausible or implausible manner). Incongruent person dyads elicited enhanced neural processing in several high-level visual areas dedicated to face and body encoding and in the posterior middle temporal gyrus compared to congruent person dyads. Incongruent and congruent person scenes were also successfully differentiated by a linear multivariate pattern classifier in the right fusiform body area and the left extrastriate body area. Finally, increases in the person scenes' meaningfulness as judged by independent observers was accompanied by enhanced activity in the bilateral posterior insula. These findings demonstrate that the processing of person scenes goes beyond a mere stimulus-bound encoding of their partaking agents, suggesting that changes in relations between agents affect their representation in category-selective regions of the visual cortex and beyond.

Abstract and concrete categories? Evidences from neurodegenerative diseases.

We assessed the performance of patients with a diagnosis of Alzheimer׳s disease (AD) and of the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia (sv-PPA) in a series of tasks involving both abstract and concrete stimuli, which were controlled for most of the variables that have been shown to affect performance on lexical-semantic tasks. Our aims were to compare the patients׳ performance on abstract and concrete stimuli and to assess category-effects within the abstract and concrete domains. The results showed: (i) a better performance on abstract than concrete concepts in sv-PPA patients. (ii) Category-related effects in the abstract domain, with emotion concepts being preserved in AD and social relations being selectively impaired in sv-PPA. In addition, a living-non living dissociation may be (infrequently) observed in individual AD patients after controlling for an extensive set of potential confounds. Thus, differences between and within the concrete or abstract domain may be present in patients with semantic memory disorders, mirroring the different brain regions involved by the different pathologies.

Teoria dos quatro discursos, pesquisa psicanalítica e laço social entre psicanalistas / Lacan’s theory of the four discourses, psychoanalytical research and social relations among psychoanalysts

O texto trata da teoria lacaniana dos quatro discursos fundamentais que Lacan, em 1969, propôs com os nomes de 'Amo', 'Universitário', 'Histeria' e 'Analista'. Nesta redação de trabalho também será proposta uma escritura de discurso, quiçá ainda não formulada. Chamaremos de discurso do pesquisador psicanalítico ou da pesquisa psicanalítica. Partindo primeiramente de um desenvolvimento introdutório sobre o lugar do silêncio na escritura dos quatro discursos fundamentais, o texto interrogará depois o problema da especificidade do laço social de psicanalistas, debatendo com proposições do psicanalista Philippe Julien. A apresentação do discurso do pesquisador será feita em discrepância com o autor francês, já que prevê outra resolução do problema(AU)

The text is about the theory of the four fundamental discourses that Lacan, in 1969, proposed with the following names: 'Master', 'University', 'Hysteric' and 'Analyst'. In our paper, we propose a writing discourse, perhaps not yet formulated, called psychoanalytical researcher or psychoanalytical research discourse. Starting, firstly, from an introductory development about the place of silence in the writing of the four fundamental discourses, the text questions the problem of specificity of the social relation of psychoanalysts, debating with propositions from the psychoanalyst Philippe Julien. The presentation of the researcher discourse is done in discrepancy with the French author, since it predicts another solution for the problem(AU)