Search Results (6)

Garlic is a spice widely used worldwide, but ingestion of garlic can cause unpleasant breath odor that can be offensive in interpersonal interactions. Among several sulfur-containing components of garlic, allyl methyl sulfide is considered the primary causative agent of unpleasant garlic breath and body odor. We discovered that hop cone powder exhibits potent deodorizing activity against allyl methyl sulfide. Oxidation products of the hop bitter acids humulinone and hulupone were detected in a partially purified sample of hop cone powder. Oxidation products of the α-acids cohumulinone and n-humulinone showed approximately 10- and 15-fold stronger deodorizing activity than the parent α-acids, respectively. The deodorizing activity of oxidation products of β-acids was comparable to that of n-humulinone. It is presumed that the oxidation products of hop powder play an important role in the strong deodorizing activity of hop cone powder against allyl methyl sulfide. Full article

Online communication platforms have revolutionized interpersonal interactions by transcending geographical barriers. While facilitating connectivity, these platforms have introduced challenges such as overcoming linguistic differences and preventing spam and offensive content diffusion. This is particularly pertinent in the context of deliberative events, where online platforms could be used to extend the inclusion of citizens in democratic decision-making. In traditional deliberative events, human moderators and translators were used to facilitate conversation; however, the need for these figures imposed a limit on both the number of deliberative events that could be organized and the number of participants. In response, this paper proposes an automated moderator for deliberative events. The moderator is developed in Python for the online communication platform Discord and can be used, thanks to the integrated AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools, to automatically manage conversation agendas, prevent spam and inappropriate language, analyze the sentiment of the conversation, and translate messages into multiple languages. In particular, three classifiers, based on a pre-trained BERT (Bidirection Encoder Representations from Transformers), were fine-tuned for spam detection, toxic comments classification, and sentiment analysis. These allow the moderator to automatically detect and remove spam and offensive messages in different languages, send warnings to users, alert administrators, and, after repeated warnings, impose bans. Additionally, a built-in translator, based on Meta’s No Language Left Behind NLLB model, translates messages into five languages (Italian, English, French, German, and Polish). The developed bot was tested in a simulated deliberative event on a Discord server, demonstrating its ability to manage conversations and prevent linguistic abuse. Full article

Previous research on beliefs about the nature of forgiveness (unconditional and conditional) has focused on their effects on health and well-being. However, little is known about how they influence victims’ responses to interpersonal offenses. Given that avoidance is a common response to offenses during early adulthood, this study investigated the relationships between beliefs in unconditional and conditional forgiveness and avoidance of an offender among Chinese college students, the mediating role of forgiveness, and the moderating role of whether or not the offender explains the offense. Participants were 423 Chinese college students. They were asked to recall an unforgettable incident in which another person had offended them, and then completed the following measures: the offender’s explanation, the belief in unconditional/conditional forgiveness, forgiveness, and avoidance of the offender. The study found that: (1) Victims’ belief in unconditional forgiveness negatively predicts their avoidance of an offender, whereas their belief in conditional forgiveness positively predicts the avoidance of an offender. (2) Forgiveness mediates the relationships between beliefs in unconditional and conditional forgiveness and avoidance of an offender. (3) The offender’s explanation moderates the relationships between the belief in conditional forgiveness and forgiveness, as well as avoidance of an offender. Full article

The mobile internet has resulted in intimate partner violence (IPV) events not being viewed as interpersonal and private issues. Such events become public events in the social network environment. IPV has become a public health issue of widespread concern. It is a challenge to obtain systematic and detailed data using questionnaires and interviews in traditional Chinese culture, because of face-saving and the victim’s shame factors. However, online comments about specific IPV events on social media provide rich data in understanding the public’s attitudes and emotions towards IPV. By applying text mining and sentiment analysis to the field of IPV, this study involved construction of a Chinese IPV sentiment dictionary and a complete research framework. We analyzed the trends of the Chinese public’s emotional evolution concerning IPV events from the perspectives of a time series as well as geographic space and social media. The results show that the anonymity of social networks and the guiding role of opinion leaders result in traditional cultural factors such as face-saving and family shame for IPV events being no longer applicable, leading to the spiral of an anti-silence effect. Meanwhile, in the process of public emotional communication, anger often overwhelms reason, and the spiral of silence remains in effect in social media. In addition, there are offensive words used in the IPV event texts that indicate misogyny in emotional, sexual, economic and psychological abuse. Fortunately, mainstream media, as crucial opinion leaders in the social network, can have a positive role in guiding public opinion, improving people’s ability to judge the validity of network information, and formulating people’s rational behaviour. Full article

Complex human behavior, including interlimb and interpersonal coordination, has been studied from a dynamical system perspective. We review the applications of a dynamical system approach to a sporting activity, which includes continuous, discrete, and switching dynamics. Continuous dynamics identified switching between in- and anti-phase synchronization, controlled by an interpersonal distance of 0.1 m during expert kendo matches, using a relative phase analysis. In the discrete dynamical system, return map analysis was applied to the time series of movements during kendo matches. Offensive and defensive maneuvers were classified as six coordination patterns, that is, attractors and repellers. Furthermore, these attractors and repellers exhibited two discrete states. Then, state transition probabilities were calculated based on the two states, which clarified the coordination patterns and switching behavior. We introduced switching dynamics with temporal inputs to clarify the simple rules underlying the complex behavior corresponding to switching inputs in a striking action as a non-autonomous system. As a result, we determined that the time evolution of the striking action was characterized as fractal-like movement patterns generated by a simple Cantor set rule with rotation. Finally, we propose a switching hybrid dynamics to understand both court-net sports, as strongly coupled interpersonal competition, and weakly coupled sports, such as martial arts. Full article

Rates of childhood and adult trauma are high among incarcerated persons. In addition to criminality, childhood trauma is associated with the risk for emotional disorders (e.g., depression and anxiety) and co-morbid conditions such as alcohol and drug abuse and antisocial behaviors in adulthood. This paper develops rates of childhood and adult trauma and examines the impact of age-of-onset and type-specific trauma on emotional problems and behavior for a sample of incarcerated males (N~4,000). Prevalence estimates for types of trauma were constructed by age at time of trauma, race and types of behavioral health treatment received while incarcerated. HLM models were used to explore the association between childhood and adult trauma and depression, anxiety, substance use, interpersonal problems, and aggression problems (each model estimated separately and controlling for age, gender, race, time incarcerated, and index offense). Rates of physical, sexual, and emotional trauma were higher in childhood than adulthood and ranged from 44.7% (physical trauma in childhood) to 4.5% (sexual trauma in adulthood). Trauma exposure was found to be strongly associated with a wide range of behavioral problems and clinical symptoms. Given the sheer numbers of incarcerated men and the strength of these associations, targeted intervention is critical. Full article