Student motivation is a well-established predictor of academic engagement and achievement. Despite its importance, motivation is difficult to assess accurately, as it is shaped by multiple, overlapping constructs and contextual factors. This complexity continues to pose challenges for researchers and practitioners seeking measurement tools with valid and reliable scores. While open-ended responses provide meaningful information about students’ motivation, traditional human scoring is time-consuming, subject to inconsistencies, and not easily scalable. Advances in natural language processing, especially with transformer-based large language models, offer promising new approaches for automated scoring. However, their use in scoring student motivation assessments remains largely undocumented, and practical applications are in the early stages of development. This dissertation addresses this gap through two studies. The first study presents a scoping review of transformer-based approaches to motivation scoring, examining model types, scoring methods, target constructs, and available psychometric evidence. Guided by the PRISMA-ScR protocol, the review identified only nine studies, underscoring the limited research in this area. The second study empirically evaluates transformer models for motivation assessment, comparing fine-tuned encoder models (BERT, DeBERTa) with rubric-prompted decoder models (GPT-3.5 Turbo, GPT-4.1). Model performance is evaluated through a psychometric lens, including analyses of human–machine agreement, construct validity, subgroup fairness, and predictive validity with academic outcomes such as GPA and retention. Notably, DeBERTa outperformed human raters in predicting academic outcomes, suggesting that certain transformer models may capture motivational signals with greater predictive value—even when agreement with human scores is modest. However, validity analyses revealed important limitations: models demonstrated inconsistent construct validity and notable subgroup disparities, raising concerns about fairness. Overall, while transformer-based approaches, specifically DeBERTa, hold promise for scalable motivation assessment, challenges remain in ensuring interpretability, validity, and equity. This study also discusses the challenges and limitations encountered, outlines practical implications for educational assessment, and identifies directions for future research in developing robust and fair applications of transformer models.
The acetone-to-isobutene (ATIB) conversion is part of the ethanol cascade reaction to produce highly valuable compounds. Lewis acid sites can lead to selective C–C coupling and self-deoxygenation pathways in the acetone aldol condensation reaction. However, the reaction mechanism, nature of active sites, and the role of local environment are not well understood. This work demonstrates that well-dispersed isolated Ce atoms within the dealuminated BEA zeolite (CedeAlBEA) exhibit exceptional isobutene formation during the ATIB reaction by providing optimal Lewis acidity, which facilitates the direct decomposition of diacetone alcohol (DAA) to isobutene. In contrast, elevated cerium loadings lead to the formation of CeO2 nanoparticles, which favor side reactions such as DAA dehydration to mesityl oxide (MSO). In situ DRIFTS experiments with acetone adsorption reveal that adjacent silanol (Si–OH) groups in open Ce sites play an essential role in acetone activation, enabling the concerted adsorption of two acetone molecules, on the OH group and the Lewis active site, thus facilitating selective C–C bond formation and stabilizing the transition state for isobutene production. Kinetic assessments, including reactions with DAA as the reactant and kinetic isotope effect measurements, demonstrated that the direct decomposition of DAA to isobutene and acetic acid is the rate-limiting step. Accordingly, a Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism is proposed, involving the cooperative adsorption of two acetones molecules on isolated Ce species and the adjacent Si–OH groups. Building on these insights, bimetallic Ce–M catalysts were developed by introduction of a second metal with distinct electronic properties to enhance metal dispersion. In this system, the isolated Ce atoms serve as anchors for the second metal, generating dual Lewis acid sites. Combinations such as Ce–Ga and Ce–Sc preserved high dispersion and achieved 100% theoretical selectivity to isobutene (88.9% yield) even at high total metal loadings. These findings demonstrate that pairing confined Ce atoms with a secondary metal can overcome dispersion limitations, increase active site density, and mitigate metal aggregation, offering a novel strategy for the rational design of bifunctional zeolite catalysts for selective C–C coupling and deoxygenation reactions.
Abstract Child-directed speech (CDS) is widely theorized to provide a structured scaffold for early language acquisition, yet the semantic properties of this register remain insufficiently quantified. In particular, it remains unclear how figurative language and semantic grounding interact within caregiver input to stabilize early form–meaning mappings. We present a large-scale computational analysis of metaphoricity and lexical concreteness in a naturalistic corpus of CDS, evaluated against a size-matched baseline of adult-directed speech (ADS). Using a token-level metaphor detection model and human-indexed semantic norms, we test two primary accounts: the reduced metaphoricity hypothesis (H1), which predicts a systematic reduction of nonliteral expressions in caregiver input, and the lexical concreteness hypothesis (H2), which predicts an intensified reliance on perceptually grounded vocabulary. Cross-register comparisons revealed robust support for both accounts: CDS contained a significantly lower density of metaphorical expressions and a higher baseline of both continuous and categorical lexical concreteness than ADS. Longitudinal mixed-effects models further showed that these semantic constraints undergo gradual, age-dependent tuning. As children mature, caregivers appear to relax these constraints incrementally, diversifying their figurative repertoire and reducing overall vocabulary concreteness over time. Taken together, these findings suggest that the semantic structure of caregiver speech functions as a dynamic, responsive learning environment. By initially favoring concrete, transparent, and literal forms, CDS may reduce interpretive ambiguity during early phases of reference anchoring before gradually shifting toward the more abstract and flexible lexical patterns characteristic of adult speech.
Abstract When reporting speech, speakers not only relay information, but may also signal their degree of commitment to that information. This study aims to gather reliable empirical data on the role of so-called reportative evidentials (like ‘I heard that Jack is a bachelor’) in impacting the degree of perceived speaker commitment (here, their commitment to the truth of Jack being a bachelor). To measure perceived speaker commitment we use the physiological method of facial electromyography or fEMG. We show how this method can be used to trace perceived norm violations in conversation, from which we can then derive the commitments attributed to the discourse participants. In addition to comparing assertions with and without the use of reportative evidentials, we zoom in on the differences between two common reportative constructions: embedding (‘I heard that Jack is a bachelor’) versus parenthetical (‘Jack is a bachelor, I heard’). In the literature there is controversy as to whether these two constructions have the same effect on speaker commitment. Results show that the use of reportative evidentials indeed lowers (but does not fully remove) perceived speaker commitment, but do not provide evidence that the two constructions have different effects. The findings can be understood within discourse frameworks that both model the contents of what is said and the degree of commitment to these contents.
Zusammenfassung. Dieser Artikel führt eine Kollektivachse in das Cross-Logik-System (CLS) ein. Ausgangspunkt ist ein einzelner sprachlicher Marker: das verneinte Modalverb des Mögens, also das geäußerte oder ungeäußerte "mag nicht". Die These lautet, dass Gruppen diesen Marker nicht nur durch Druck oder Sanktion verdrängen, sondern durch Einigung. Wo Konsens hergestellt wird, ohne dass das Gegeneinander ausgesprochen wurde, entsteht ein Rest, den nicht die Gruppe, sondern eine Person trägt. Wird das Thema wiederholt vertagt und nicht priorisiert, bleibt das Problem nicht ungelöst — es wird ersetzt: Die Gruppe bearbeitet nicht länger die Sache, sondern den Träger, und entlastet sich durch dessen Ausschluss. Beitrag. Der Artikel entwickelt einen fünfachsigen Beschreibungsapparat (Relationsmodus, Einigungstyp, Verstummungsquelle, Verschleppung, Substitution), formuliert ein Falsifikationskriterium und prüft es an zwei ausgearbeiteten Fällen — einem Arbeitsfall, kodiert als Messreihe mit drei Momentaufnahmen, und einem Familienfall als Kontrast. Er verbindet Präferenzfälschung (Kuran), Isolationsfurcht und Schweigespirale (Noelle-Neumann), organisationales Schweigen (Morrison und Milliken), das Abilene-Paradox (Harvey), Konflikteskalation (Glasl) und den Mobbingverlauf (Leymann) zu einer funktional zusammenhängenden Kette. Falsifikationskriterium. Kehrt das Problem nach dem Ausschluss mit einem neuen Träger zurück, war die Person nicht die Ursache, sondern die Stelle, an der die unausgesprochene Ablehnung sichtbar wurde. Verschwindet es dauerhaft, trifft die Substitutionsthese für diesen Fall nicht zu. Das Kriterium ist nur bei kündbarer Mitgliedschaft anwendbar; in Familien verläuft die Verdrängung über dauerhafte Etikettierung und endet im Verstummen des Trägers — dem Übergang von der Fremdverdrängung in die Selbstverdrängung. Artefakte. Zwei JSON-Schemas mit deutschsprachigen Feldern und Codes, ein Prüfer mit Messreihenprüfung und Migrationsfunktion, acht Referenzdatensätze zu den beiden Fällen sowie Codebook und Addendum. Quellcode und Daten liegen im zugehörigen Repository.
Paper XVIII develops the dynamical content of QH=3 confinement: why the baryon sector is confined, what topological reaction rules govern its decay, and what experimental signatures distinguish it from the lepton sector. Using the Jones polynomial evaluated at the WZW root of unity q5=e2πi/5, the paper shows that rationality of the Jones invariant tracks fusion of the cable strands in a satellite construction rather than which QH sector is involved, forces pion emission as a topological necessity in baryon formation, derives the complete jet energy cascade from the trefoil's crossing geometry, and obtains a zero-free-parameter estimate of the up/down–vs–strange-type quark mass scale ratio from the trefoil's tangent geometry. This is a draft paper with several open problems noted below, two of which are addressed in the companion draft Paper XIX. Jones polynomial arithmetic: fusion, not sector, splits rational from irrational Computing the trefoil T(2,3) correctly as a (2,3)-cable satellite of one component of the QH=2 Hopf link (rather than as an abstract free-standing knot) gives |Jonessat(q5)|=1/φ. Directly computing the Hopf link's own Jones invariant gives the same modulus, |JonesT(2,2)(q5)|=1/φ: the two sectors are related by a single phase, Jonessat(q5)=q5−1·JonesT(2,2)(q5), not by an inversion of the golden ratio. A satellite twist family reveals where the rational/irrational split actually lies: varying the half-twist count n, every fused configuration (genuine torus knot, odd n) has an irrational, golden-ratio-related modulus (n=3 trefoil: 1/φ; n=5 cinquefoil: φ), while every unfused configuration (cable strands not yet merged, even n) has a rational invariant (n=4: V=1; n=6: V=−1). The split tracks fusion, not which QH sector is involved — and the integer value −1 originally associated with the trefoil itself actually occurs at n=6, an unfused, non-baryon configuration. The independent, established confinement criterion remains dimq(3/2)=1 from Paper XVII; it is numerically distinct from the Jones modulus (1≠1/φ) and no identification between the two is asserted. Whether the physical formation path passes through the rational n=4 intermediate, and whether this explains why the QH=3 gradient-flow solver finds a flat energy plateau rather than a sharp saddle, is recorded as an open conjecture, not an established result. Pion emission is topologically forced The satellite/cable construction from knot theory gives the reaction rule directly: QH=2+QH=2 → QH=3+QH=1. Threading one component of the Hopf link T(2,2) through the solid-torus neighbourhood of the other with the (2,3)-cable framing produces the trefoil T(2,3), and a QH=1 unknot is necessarily left over. Pion emission is therefore a topological necessity, not a dynamical accident: the reaction is the unique minimal charge-conserving channel forming a baryon from two QH=2 lepton-sector objects, with no free parameters. Energy cascade and jet ordering: 3-3-3-3 The ρJ4 field is minimum at the three crossing vertices (maximum curvature, pure colour, topological bottleneck) and maximum in the A-segment bodies. Crossings act as topological lenses — energy arrives via A-segments, is redirected at the crossing, and exits at B-segment departure zones — not as ejection points. The full jet energy ordering from the N=256 gradient-flow cascade is four groups of three: (1) primary B-departure exits (jets 1–3, hard, coplanar at z=+r0); (2) distal lobe secondaries (jets 4–6, ~16°–19° off the three-jet plane); (3) crossing approach-side entry disturbances (jets 7–9, softer); (4) midpoint torsion-twist residuals (jets 10–12, softest). The topological upper bound is 12 jets per baryon, a prediction with no perturbative QCD analogue. φ* prediction and the Botner framework The three crossing vertices of T2,3 sit 120° apart with tangents in the z=+r0 horizontal plane. When ρ+ρ− pairs are produced from baryon-initiated string-breaking, the decay-plane angle distribution follows (1+β3cos 3φ*)/2π with β3 ≈ 0.58 from the A/B arc-segment energy ratio — a zero-free-parameter prediction. Photon-initiated production gives (1+βcos 2χ)/2π (the cos 2χ structure measured by Botner/DELPHI 1992). The two signals differ in angular frequency (3 vs 2) and have no common parameters, making them unambiguously distinguishable. The Jeremie anomaly in four-jet BZ angle distributions at m3+m4>10 GeV is consistent with the topologically distinct 4th jet at a discrete predicted deflection angle, though a dedicated experimental analysis confirming this remains an open problem. Isospin mass-scale ratio from writhe geometry The trefoil has a ℤ2 writhe asymmetry: three crossing vertices sit at z=+r0, while midpoints and distal lobes sit at z=0. Their exit tangent z-components are exactly 0 (crossings), −0.525 (midpoints), and +0.321 (lobes). Taking the mean-squared out-of-plane fraction of the midpoint/lobe network gives ⟨ġz2⟩M,L=½(0.5252+0.3212)=0.189. This predicts the geometric-mean mass scale ratio between the down-type and up-type quark triplets as Mdown/Mup ≈ 0.189, against the PDG-measured value 0.157 — a 21% match with zero free parameters, the first numerical connection between the trefoil's exact geometry and the observed two-triplet quark mass hierarchy. Speculative correspondences connecting the 12-site fraying pattern to six-quark flavour counting (the 3+3 midpoint-breaking combinatorial) and the ℤ2 writhe asymmetry to isospin charge assignment are recorded as falsifiable conjectures. Six open problems are listed in the paper, including a first-principles derivation of β3, quantitative QH=3 production thresholds, and experimental confirmation of the Jeremie anomaly; the companion draft Paper XIX resolves the multi-component Jones-polynomial open problem and reformulates the quark-mass-from-midpoint-breaking open problem, but leaves the others open.
Understanding a social interaction requires-at least-the recognition of social agents (i.e., people), their individual actions, and the relationship between them. In what sequence do these processing steps occur? In three behavioral experiments (n = 184), we presented visual scenes showing bodies (or sometimes chairs), in spatial relations that implied interaction (face-to-face) or not (back-to-back), and in postures that suggested different types of interactions (i.e., 'fighting' or 'dancing'). We presented these scenes for different time-durations (17, 33, 50, 67, 167 ms) followed by masking, as a way to manipulate the available processing time. In three different tasks, participants had to report the object category (body/chair), the spatial relation (facing/non-facing) or the interaction category (fighting/dancing). Categorization of people and their spatial relation yielded comparable performance at every stimulus duration, which was consistently more accurate than performance in interaction categorization. This implies that it takes no longer to access the objects' category (bodies vs. chairs) than to access the relation between objects (facing vs. non-facing); whereas substantially longer processing time is required in order to categorize social interactions with comparable accuracy. The parallel between categorization of objects and spatial relations suggests that relations between objects are extracted as rapidly as categorical object information, providing the building blocks for social interaction recognition. These findings impose important constraints on future models of social interaction recognition.
People naturally take into account others' limited perceptual access when attributing mental states such as preferences and knowledge. This ability is central to intuitive psychology, and even infants recognize when others have only partial observability. Understanding how mental state attributions adapt under limited perceptual access is thus crucial for advancing models of intuitive psychology. Here, we introduce POPKI (Physically-grounded Observation, Preference, and Knowledge Inference), a Bayesian inverse-planning framework designed to model graded surprise based on agents' inferred preferences and knowledge in visually constrained 3D environments. Building on and expanding the AGENT dataset, we develop new scenarios that test how partial observability shapes judgments of surprise. Despite the tremendous progress of state-of-the-art vision-language models (VLMs), our experiments show that they fail to capture the nuances of perceptual access when judging surprise. POPKI, in contrast, offers a principled approach to modeling human-like uncertainty under partial observability and closely replicates human surprise patterns. It provides a foundation for advancing psychological reasoning models and enhancing human-AI interaction.
Sentence processing models posit that syntactic processing difficulty contributes to the processing time of each word (e.g., Lewis & Vasishth, 2005). On the other hand, the E-Z Reader 10 model of eye movements in reading (Reichle et al., 2009) proposes that syntactic processing affects eye movements only when integration of an input word fails. We present two eye movement experiments designed to address this tension. Readers were presented with ungrammatical sentences with a singular subject and a plural verb, but with a plural local noun that often induces an illusion of grammaticality, e.g., *The editor of the magazines are reviewing the articles before publication. After each critical sentence was removed from the screen, the reader made a binary acceptability judgment. When readers rejected the ungrammatical critical sentences, there was also pronounced disruption to incremental reading. However, on the majority of trials readers accepted these sentences, and on those trials the eye movement record revealed only a very small increase in reading time compared to corresponding grammatical sentences; critically, this small effect was entirely explained by the difference between conditions in the lexical surprisal of the verb. Thus, as predicted by E-Z Reader 10, an effect of agreement computation above and beyond the effect of surprisal was in evidence only when agreement computation failed, i.e., the sentence was rejected. We discuss implications for models of incremental sentence processing and reading.
Despite the large number of proposed event roles, psycholinguistic evidence supports only two core knowledge categories with distinct processing correlates: agent and patient roles. This evidence aligns with the proto-role approach, which proposes only two proto-roles, proto-agent and proto-patient. Here, we investigate the processing correlates of arguments labeled as "experiencers" to determine whether they exhibit specific processing correlates, as agents and patients do, or whether they are subsumed under the proto-agent role category, sharing similar processing correlates with agents and differing from patients. We conducted both eye-tracking and EEG reading tasks, where Spanish speakers were instructed to read intransitive sentences with either agent, experiencer, or patient subjects. In eye-tracking, agents and experiencers elicited longer fixation times and regression counts than patients, in both the verb and post-verb regions. In EEG, we replicated the known N400 component associated with processing patients compared to both agents and experiencers. Crucially, no N400 effect was observed when comparing agents to experiencers. Additionally, patients revealed a power increase in the theta band compared to agents and experiencers, and a power decrease in the low-beta band. These findings replicate previous results supporting a transient preference for agents in language comprehension and suggest that experiencers align with agents in this regard, providing further evidence for the proto-role approach.
We present a geometric classification of matter based on curvature closure within the ACORN (Alternating Curvature Ontology of Nature) framework. Stable matter states arise as closed curvature circulations in five-dimensional SpaceTime$^{+}$, while near-closure and projection effects account for instability, binding, and invisibility. Within this framework, the electron–proton mass ratio is recovered from integer curvature synchronization, electric charge emerges from conserved holonomy under dimensional projection, and the neutrino is identified as a curvature defect whose action is fixed by the Planck constant. Composite nuclear stability is illustrated by the alpha particle as a higher-order synchronized closure with a small internal binding curvature fraction. The same principle of curvature closure admits a class of stable, electromagnetically silent states that possess gravitational mass, providing a natural geometric realization of dark matter consistent with galactic rotation curves and gravitational lensing. Dark energy is interpreted as the large-scale open curvature response of the same underlying geometry. Together, these results establish a coherent ladder of matter and dark matter states classified by curvature closure, recovering known physical behavior without introducing new particles, forces, or postulates.
The Quantum Fold Machine is the standalone 80-page paper for the completed Reversible and Quantum Computation branch of the third clean-room reconstruction of Smithian Fold Theory (SFT). From the admitted Foundation, Mathematics, Information Science and Classical Computation receipts it derives a complete reversible model; Fold quantum information units and state composition; superposition-equivalent support; phase and interference; entanglement; measurement; reversible transformations and gates; quantum circuit syntax and semantics; universality; algorithms; complexity; communication; coding; error correction; fault tolerance; simulation; verification; learning; full operational classical-quantum correspondence; and computational limits. The construction imports no complex amplitude, Hilbert-space axiom, irrational normalization, imaginary proof quantity, stochastic collapse postulate, fitted parameter, hardware constant or physical benchmark. One Fold distinction supplies the information unit. Complete held-label words supply branch support. A branch carries an exact phase label from a generated finite cycle. Joint pair-cell support is entangling exactly when it is nonfactorable. Interference is complete predecessor merging with retained phase provenance. Measurement retains a selected observation class and a complete pre-observation reconstruction record. Gates are exact finite bijections with reversible phase actions. The frozen inventory contains 21 claims. Their grammars execute 5,376 candidates and preserve 5,376 decisions, 21 unique survivors, 21 depth-independent certificates, 84 adverse controls and 21 implementation-distinct validations. The manuscript documents every dependency, theorem, structural axis, elimination count, survivor, law, operational witness, induction certificate, control, limitation and exact evidence identity. Multi-error correction is computationally exhausted at forced repetition widths three, five and seven: all four masks through one error, all sixteen masks through two errors and all sixty-four masks through three errors decode to the source held label. The 2t+1 base/successor law extends the exact majority separation to every generated positive finite fault depth t. Fault-tolerance claims remain conditional on the declared error and circuit grammar; no measured hardware threshold is imported. Quantum computation retains classical computability boundaries because every circuit remains a generated finite description executed by the admitted universal process. Physical realization, measured quantum probabilities and natural quantum laws remain work for the later empirical Physics branch. The accompanying open release supplies the PDF, full Markdown manuscript, complete evidence/source archive and checksum ledger.
Version 2 (2026-08-04). Revised to the NLL Universal Paper Format v6. The original text is retained in full; nothing has been deleted. Corrections appear as marked blocks placed at the section that carries the claim, and each one states what the paper said, what the data show, the corrected claim, why it happened, and what still stands. This version completes an audit the paper began correctly.The Buddhi retraction here is unforced, correctly reasoned, and remains the most valuable document in the corpus. But the Bhaya verdict tested one alternative — whether 0.32% re-expresses Shewhart's three-sigma — and stopped; the likely explanation was never tested, and this paper quotes the detector itself.The correction supplies it: bhaya is set to exactly 1.0 on firing and decays otherwise, so >= 0.99 cannot be reached by benign input. The 0/26 three-sigma sweep was correct work aimed at the wrong hypothesis. Everything below this line is the original description from version 1. It is retained unchanged for the record. Where it conflicts with the corrections above, the corrections stand. Two framings it repeats have since been withdrawn in full — the Bhaya Quiescence Law and the Buddhi S-Curve. Both are addressed in Maya-Meta P1, now superseded, and in the self-audit of Maya-Meta P2. This paper performs a rigorous self-audit of two empirical constants reported across the Maya Research corpus, asking whether they reflect genuine emergent behaviour or are artifacts of mathematical construction or prior statistical conventions. Two direct experiments were conducted using real saved data from the Maya corpus to test whether the Buddhi S-Curve Determinism and the Bhaya Quiescence Law could be explained away by known alternative mechanisms. Free-parameter logistic fits on measured data yielded R²=0.149 (Samvad-P1, n=194) and per-stage R²=−0.227 to 0.079 (Vaidya-P2, n=84), confirming that the S-curve's perfect fit (R²=1.0000) is formula-determined and circular by construction, while a line-by-line audit across 26 substrates found zero three-sigma references in the Bhaya detection path, establishing that its proximity to Shewhart's 0.27% false-alarm rate is a coincidence of value rather than mechanism. Both constants are therefore reframed with greater precision: real monotonic consolidation progression exists in the data, and the Bhaya Quiescence Law (β*≤0.32%) reflects fear-neuron firing rate against a fixed threshold rather than any statistical test. This work forms part of the Maya-Meta Series, which synthesises and stress-tests empirical constants across the full Maya Research portfolio. Series: Maya-Meta Series — synthesis and confirmation of empirical constants across the full Maya Research portfolio. Bhaya Quiescence Law (β* ≤ 0.32%) and Buddhi S-Curve Determinism (R²=1.0000) confirmed across 19+ substrates. Links: GitHub Repository (private — to request access: email research@nexuslearninglabs.in with subject Code Access Request — Maya-Meta-P2.git and your research context) | Interactive Dashboard | FAQ | Full Series Index — venky2099.github.io Nexus Learning Labs, Bengaluru · UDYAM-KR-02-0122422 · BHASKAR IN-0526-9452JSORCID: 0000-0002-3315-7907 · VAIRAGYA_DECAY_RATE = 0.002315 — an ORCID-derived provenance mark, not an experimental parameter. Each paper's disclosure block states whether it reached a result in that paper.Canary: MayaNexusVS2026NLL_Bengaluru
The closed Poecilia sphenops lineage examined in this study shows progressive phenotypic divergence across approximately nine to ten generations under stable aquarium conditions. The population originated from a reduced founder group and currently consists of nineteen individuals distributed across generations G8–G10. Two chromatic lines, black and orange mottled, remained stable throughout the lineage, while the orange phenotype developed progressively stronger mottling patterns in recent generations. Male individuals displayed marked variation in body size and morphology, including three recurrent dwarf morphotypes classified as mild, intermediate and extreme. These forms were concentrated in the most recent cohorts and included traits such as peduncle elongation, reduced somatic mass and occasional structural or functional abnormalities. In contrast, females maintained consistently higher viability and showed comparatively limited morphological variation beyond colouration. Reproductive records collected between 2021 and 2025 revealed a stable seasonal pattern dominated by December spawning events, with occasional activity in April and June. Although no genetic analyses were performed, the observed patterns are consistent with phenotypic divergence occurring in a small, isolated population maintained under long-term environmental stability. Together, these observations suggest that confined P. sphenops populations may provide useful systems for documenting the emergence and persistence of divergent morphotypes across successive generations.
NEXA (Neurodivergent Expression Assessment) — development and preliminary psychometric properties of a transdiagnostic self-report measure of neurodivergent traits for Brazilian Portuguese-speaking adults. N=1,002 (979 analytic), 81 items, general-factor saturation=.955 (upper bound), ECV=.497, PUC=.808, known-groups d=1.20, NEXA-SF20 (alpha=.903). Convergent validity: RAADS-R r=.727 (n=91), ASRS-18 r=.438 (n=55), AURA informant r=.43 (n=186). Preprint for Journal of Personality Assessment submission (2026-08-06). (c) 2026 NeurAtip. All rights reserved. NEXA items are proprietary; access via Research Use License Agreement.
This text represents a thought experiment within the fields of theoretical physics and ontology.The objective is not to dispute the observational data underpinning the ΛCDM model, but toperform a profound reconstruction of the interpretation of that data. This work returns torelationalism and the principle of a closed zero-sum balance to explore whether causality, time,and gravity can be derived as emergent properties of informational constraints (entropy) withina nite system. It is not a textbook, but an attempt at a synthesis of relational physics andthermodynamic logic. This text presents a theoretical reconstruction of the meaning of entropy within a closed systemwith zero total energy. Contrary to traditional interpretations that view entropy as an absolutemeasure of decay, we dene it here as an internal state variable that determines the limitationsof accessible microstates within the system. Within this framework, gravity is redened as anemergent geometrical consequence of entropic gradients.
This article presents a comprehensive critical-propositional analysis of Mauricio Bustamante’s presentation, Physics beyond the Standard Model with High-Energy Cosmic Neutrinos, published on Zenodo in 2024. The study examines the scientific potential of high-energy and ultra-high-energy cosmic neutrinos as probes of fundamental physics, including the neutrino-matter cross section at energies beyond those reached by terrestrial accelerators, neutrino flavor composition, neutrino decay, secret neutrino interactions, propagation across cosmological distances, and possible signatures of physics beyond the Standard Model. Bustamante’s research program is placed in dialogue with the foundational, recent, supporting, and dialogical bibliography of the Theory of Objectivity (TO). Particular attention is devoted to the seven Absolute Truths of TO, modal necessity, phenomenic elements, the Expansive and Reductive Inductive Effects, the cosmogonic theorem, and the cosmological Eras proposed by the theory. The analysis distinguishes modal necessity from physical modeling, empirical prediction, and experimental corroboration. Bustamante’s work is not interpreted as a theory of cosmic origin and therefore does not directly confirm or refute the modal and cosmogonic core of TO. Its principal relevance lies in the operational domain, since energy, arrival direction, flavor composition, arrival time, and the neutrino-nucleon cross section constitute observational channels through which physical consequences derived from TO could eventually be tested. Significant conceptual convergence is identified in relation to physical boundaries, distinguishability, relational observation, information transport, physical recording, and the transformation of physical signals into scientific knowledge. The article also examines points of tension concerning the elementary status of neutrinos, the interpretation of individualizing fields, the meaning of composition, and the proposed equivalence among information, knowledge, and atomic radiation. Empirical studies associated with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory are considered as possible operational bridges for TO. Current measurements of the neutrino-nucleon cross section and searches for secret neutrino interactions are broadly compatible with the Standard Model and impose relevant constraints on hypotheses of new physics. These results do not directly confirm TO, but they establish concrete observational domains in which future quantitative predictions derived from the theory may be evaluated, constrained, or rejected. The article proposes a TO-neutrino research program based on formal correspondence rules, propagation models, quantitative flavor predictions, energy-dependent effects, multimessenger observations, prior registration of predictions, and explicit failure criteria. Bustamante’s work is ultimately assigned a dialogue score of 7.0 out of 10 in relation to the Theory of Objectivity, primarily because of its strong operational emphasis on information, relations, boundaries, and empirical testability. This analysis received analytical support from ChatGPT. Keywords: Theory of Objectivity; Vidamor Cabannas; Denivaldo Silva; Mauricio Bustamante; high-energy cosmic neutrinos; ultra-high-energy neutrinos; physics beyond the Standard Model; neutrino flavor composition; neutrino-nucleon cross section; secret neutrino interactions; IceCube Neutrino Observatory; modal necessity; physical information; relational observation; phenomenic elements; Expansive Inductive Effect; Reductive Inductive Effect; cosmogonic theorem; cosmological Eras; empirical corroboration; scientific testability; multimessenger astronomy; ChatGPT-assisted analysis.
In the present study, we will use qualitative data to first assess the motivations underlying why people do or do not want to change their personality and the prevalence of these motivations. Our second aim is to assess whether AI models might be leveraged for the coding of such data by comparing how human raters and AI models perform when coding qualitative personality change-seeking motivation responses. We will assess the latter based on two factors. The first is level of interrater agreement both within rater type (AI or human) and across rater type. The second is how associations between change seeking motivations and known correlates (e.g., change seeking is negatively associated with life satisfaction and self-esteem; Hudson & Roberts, 2014; Quintus et al., 2017) compared given rater type.
