Herzliya Medical Center

Emotion regulation and attachment styles are interrelated and are critical factors in psychopathology and treatment outcomes, particularly in youths with suicidal behavior receiving psychiatric inpatient care. This study examined the influence of emotion regulation and attachment style on psychiatric hospitalization duration among adolescents admitted due to suicidal ideation or behavior. Participants included 79 Israeli adolescents (mean age 15.35 years, 87.3% female) admitted to a tertiary psychiatric inpatient unit following a suicidal crisis. Data was collected using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), the Experience in Close Relationships Scale (ECR), the Screen for Child Anxiety-Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED), the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS). Data were analyzed using correlation and multiple regression analyses. Analysis revealed that greater emotion regulation difficulties predicted longer hospitalization duration (β = 0.41, p < 0.001), while avoidant attachment style was associated with shorter hospitalization duration (β = -0.35, p < 0.001). Notably, the level of suicidality as well as psychopathology symptoms (depression and anxiety) did not predict hospitalization duration. These findings underscore the important role of emotion regulation and attachment style in determining treatment duration in suicidal adolescents, beyond the severity of psychopathology and suicidality, suggesting their unique contribution to treatment planning. Clinical interventions targeting emotion regulation and attachment styles could enhance inpatient care effectiveness, offer a more personalized treatment approach and potentially reducing hospitalization duration.

Animacy is central to HRI, as it is critical for perceptions of intentionality and influences acceptance, interaction quality, and trust. In order to better understand the underlying mechanisms of the sense of animacy and its role in HRI, we conducted an experiment (n=13) using a social robotic object that is ambiguous with respect to its perceived animacy. We examined how brain activity related to a subjective animacy rating of the robot by participants after watching it perform simple gestures. Using functional imaging, we found that the ventral occipitotemporal (VOT) cortex, a region known to distinguish animate from inanimate entities, also responds to robots along this same organizational gradient. In an exploratory analysis, activity in the left VOT was associated with the individual differences in participants’ subjective animacy rating of the robot. This extends established principles of animacy perception to non-humanoid robots and suggests that individual differences in brain responses may shape how robots are experienced. We discuss implications for HRI, including guiding social cue design, informing gesture alignment with robot roles, and raising ethical considerations around attachment and trust.

It is well established that when people seek medical care for physical conditions, their affective state significantly impacts health and recovery. Despite this, patients’ emotional needs are often overlooked due to the prioritization of physical care and resource constraints. Robots’ social capabilities, especially robotic attentiveness, present an opportunity to address this gap and enhance patients’ experience in healthcare settings. While robots are already integrated into healthcare, they are largely leveraged for functional support, with limited attention to their potential role in addressing affective challenges. In this field study, we evaluated whether a simple attentive robot could improve the affective experience in the emergency department (ED) of a public general hospital. Participants’ waiting experience was compared across three conditions: (1) waiting next to an attentive robot; (2) waiting next to a non-attentive robot; and (3) waiting without a robot. Behavioral and self-report measures indicated that the attentive robotic behavior reduced the unpleasantness of the waiting experience. Our findings highlight the power of leveraging simple robotic attentiveness to support patients' affective state in stressful healthcare environments.

Abstract Transient luminous events (TLEs), such as sprites, have been investigated via observations and simulations for decades. Recent TLE research has focused on effects leading to the delay of a sprite from its parent lightning flash. Here we investigate a sprite with by far the longest recorded delay to date, a delay of almost a full second (916.6 ± 16.6 ms) from the onset of the parent flash, as observed from the ISS during the ILAN‐ES campaign on 6 February 2024. Based on meteorological, satellite, and ground‐based ELF data, we reconstruct a realistic charge configuration for the parent thunderstorm. We input this reconstructed charge configuration to a 3D quasi‐electrostatic model in order to simulate regions of possible sprite inception as a function of time corresponding to this sprite event following the lightning. We demonstrate how the observed delayed sprite could have been incepted by a prolonged piecewise pattern of the current in the parent flash.

Kidney transplantation is the treatment of choice for end-stage renal disease, offering significant survival benefits. However, outcomes vary based on donor type and patient characteristics. We aimed to identify factors influencing long-term survival following kidney transplantation. This was a population-based retrospective cohort study of kidney transplant recipients from 2005 to 2018 in Israel, assessing survival from one-month post-transplant. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed to identify predictors of mortality. Among 1,847 recipients, 679 received kidneys from living donors and 1,168 from deceased donors. The median age was 52 years (IQR 38–62), and the mean post-transplant survival time was 11.9 years (95% CI 11.7–12.3). Increased mortality risk was associated with age over 65 years (HR 3.73), current or past smoking (HR= 1.32), diabetes mellitus (HR= 1.79), heart failure (HR= 1.49), and atrial fibrillation (HR= 1.79). Receiving a kidney from a living donor (HR= 0.49) and higher pre-transplant hemoglobin levels (HR= 0.75) were linked to improved survival. Recipient comorbidities and donor type are key determinants of post-transplant outcomes. These findings support a tailored approach to transplant evaluation, balancing potential survival and quality-of-life benefits with individual risk profiles.