Publications by authors named "Verges A"

Article Synopsis
  • - The Cannabis Refusal Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (CRSEQ) assesses people's confidence in resisting cannabis, consisting of 14 items that categorize into Emotional Relief Self-Efficacy, Opportunistic Self-Efficacy, and Social Facilitation, aiming to validate its use in the Chilean population.
  • - A study involving 1,275 Chilean individuals showed strong internal consistency and good fit for both 14-item and 19-item models, with the 14-item model demonstrating slightly superior fitting statistics, making it more applicable for various settings.
  • - The CRSEQ demonstrated convergent validity with cannabis use behaviors and was confirmed for demographic invariance, allowing meaningful comparisons across different sex and age groups, which is valuable for educational and
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  • Tropical herbivorous fish are expanding into temperate regions, leading to overgrazing and changes in marine ecosystems, particularly affecting seagrass habitats.
  • A study conducted along 1700 km of eastern Australia tested the effects of two levels of simulated herbivory on seagrass growth and chemical traits, revealing that growth rates remained similar regardless of the amount of leaf biomass lost.
  • Findings indicated that seagrass could be resilient to future increases in herbivory, with variations in growth patterns tied to seasonal changes rather than herbivory levels, suggesting the species might thrive despite climate change impacts.
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  • Marine macroalgae play a crucial role in coastal ecosystems, especially in Mediterranean bays, where they coexist with seagrasses and create essential habitats that have faced disturbances over time.
  • Research evaluated the success of a 10-year restoration of a macroalgal forest by measuring oxygen and pH changes and comparing these to healthy and degraded habitats.
  • The findings showed that the restored forest achieved similar oxygen production and increased pH compared to healthy forests, with a six-fold increase in biomass, indicating a successful recovery of primary production and further emphasizing the need to protect coastal marine environments.
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Kelp forests and urchin barrens are two stable states in rocky reef ecosystems, each providing unique ecosystem functions like habitat for marine species and primary production. While studies frequently show that kelp forests support higher levels of some ecosystem functions than urchin barren habitats, no research has yet compared average differences. To address this gap, we first conducted a meta-analysis of studies that directly compared the ecosystem functions, services and general attributes provided by each habitat.

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Aims: The aim was to translate and culturally adapt the Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0 (YFAS 2.0) to the Chilean population, evaluate its psychometric properties in a non-clinical sample, and assess the correlations between symptoms count of food addiction (FA) with demographic and anthropometric variables.

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In 2021 and 2022, the national and cross-sector project CAPRIV funded by the French Ministry of Agriculture, made it possible to assess the influence of application techniques associated or not with a hedge or an anti-drift net on spray drift and bystander exposure. The acronym CAPRIV stands for "Concilier l'application des PPP et la protection des riverains" (Reconciling the use of PPPs and the protection of residents), within the orchard, viticulture, and field crops sectors. This specific data article focuses on viticulture.

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The Mediterranean Sea provides fertile ground for understanding the complex interplay between invasive species and native habitats, particularly within the context of climate change. This thermal tolerance study reveals the remarkable ability of Lophocladia trichoclados, a red algae species that has proven highly invasive, to adapt to varying temperatures, particularly thriving in colder Mediterranean waters, where it can withstand temperatures as low as 14 °C, a trait not observed in its native habitat. This rapid acclimation, occurring in less than a century, might entail a trade-off with high temperature resistance.

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According to Lewisohn's model of depression, decreases in behavioral activation (BA) occurring after facing a vital stressor may increase the risk of depression. Transition to parenthood is a potentially stressful life event that increases the risks of postpartum depression. We aimed to (a) describe the changes in BA and depressive symptomatology between the prepartum period, 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months postpartum and (b) evaluate the bidirectionality of the relationship between intraindividual changes in BA and intraindividual changes in depressive symptoms longitudinally.

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In 2021 and 2022, the national and cross-sector project CAPRIV funded by the French Ministry of Agriculture, made it possible to assess the influence of application techniques associated or not with a hedge or an anti-drift net on spray drift and bystander exposure. The acronym CAPRIV stands for "" (Reconciling the use of PPPs and the protection of residents), within the orchard, viticulture, and field crops sectors. This specific data article focuses on field crops, especially on wheat.

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  • Ocean warming leads to increased grazing pressure from tropical herbivores on temperate seaweed communities, particularly affecting the kelp Ecklonia radiata due to changes in its microbiota.
  • Changes in Ecklonia's microbiota under heat stress promoted microbial growth associated with disease, resulting in heightened consumption by the tropical sea urchin Tripneustes gratilla.
  • The effects of temperature on seaweed-associated microbiota and grazing are species-specific, highlighting the complex ecological interactions that may arise from warming oceans.
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Background: Symptoms often play an important role in the scientific inquiry of psychological disorders and have been theorized to play a functional role in the disorders themselves. However, little is known about the course of specific symptoms and individual differences in course. Understanding the course of specific symptoms and factors influencing symptom course can inform psychological theory and future research on course and treatment.

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This article explores the analysis and interpretation of wording effects associated with using direct and reverse items in psychological assessment. Previous research using bifactor models has suggested a substantive nature of this effect. The present study uses mixture modeling to systematically examine an alternative hypothesis and surpass recognized limitations in the bifactor modeling approach.

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Article Synopsis
  • Invasive species are becoming increasingly problematic due to climate change, highlighting the need to understand how different stress factors affect ecosystems.
  • Effective modeling frameworks are crucial for identifying the environmental causes of invasions and predicting both current and future species distributions.
  • Misidentifications of species, such as Lophocladia lallemandii in the Mediterranean, can lead to serious errors in invasion predictions, underscoring the importance of taxonomic studies for accurate forecasting.
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While marine kelp forests have provided valuable ecosystem services for millennia, the global ecological and economic value of those services is largely unresolved. Kelp forests are diminishing in many regions worldwide, and efforts to manage these ecosystems are hindered without accurate estimates of the value of the services that kelp forests provide to human societies. Here, we present a global estimate of the ecological and economic potential of three key ecosystem services - fisheries production, nutrient cycling, and carbon removal provided by six major forest forming kelp genera (Ecklonia, Laminaria, Lessonia, Macrocystis, Nereocystis, and Saccharina).

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The negative impact of ageism on the mental health of older persons has been well studied, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship have not been explored in detail. The present study examines the relationship of ageism with depressive and anxious symptoms in older people, evaluating the indirect effect via loneliness. The analysis was carried out with a sample of 577 older adults living in Chile, using structural equation modeling to assess the direct and indirect effects of the proposed model.

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Climate-driven species redistributions are reshuffling the composition of marine ecosystems. How these changes alter ecosystem functions, however, remains poorly understood. Here we examine how impacts of herbivory change across a gradient of tropicalization in the Mediterranean Sea, which includes a steep climatic gradient and marked changes in plant nutritional quality and fish herbivore composition.

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Climate change is leading to novel species interactions and profoundly altering ecosystems. In marine systems, tropical and subtropical species are increasing in higher latitudes. This has been linked to the deforestation of temperate coastlines, as direct effects of ocean warming combine with increased herbivory from tropical and sub-tropical fishes and lead to the decline of canopy-forming kelp.

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The aim is to analyse the relationship between social influence for Internet use and Internet addiction (IA) in older women, considering the use of Internet-based social networks as a mediator. The participants were 480 older women Internet users. Social influence, frequency of use of social networks and IA (including loss of control and emotional dysregulation) were evaluated.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Algal turfs are key components of shallow-water marine ecosystems, playing a vital role in various ecological functions due to their abundance and the sediments they contain.
  • - Different methods for collecting sediment samples from algal turfs, such as vacuum sampling, airlift sampling, and TurfPods, are discussed, highlighting the required equipment and construction details.
  • - The paper aims to promote standardized approaches in sediment quantification to enhance comparisons and understanding of algal turf sediments among researchers and conservation managers globally.
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Objectives: This study aims to evaluate a comprehensive model that includes predictors of use, types of Internet use, and psychological well-being outcomes in the older population.

Methods: The total sample comprised 650 older Internet users. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the effect of predictors (i.

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Kelp forest ecosystems and their associated ecosystem services are declining around the world. In response, marine managers are working to restore and counteract these declines. Kelp restoration first started in the 1700s in Japan and since then has spread across the globe.

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