Cultural differences in emotional intelligence among top officers on board merchant ships

The current research investigated cultural differences in emotional intelligence among top officers on board vessels of multicultural maritime companies. We found that Southeast Asian officers scored higher than European officers on the total Emotional Intelligence scale. When separating the EQ scale in its facets, higher scores for Asian officers were found on “Utilization of emotions”, “Handling relationships”, and on “Self-control”. Another finding was that Chief officers/Second engineers scored higher than Masters/Chief Officers on “Self-control”. Finally, we found a negative correlation between age and scores on the facet of “Self-control”. These crosscultural differences may have implications for interpersonal relations and ship management

Assessment of high-resolution methods for numerical simulations of compressible turbulence with shock waves

Flows in which shock waves and turbulence are present and interact dynamically occur in a wide range of applications, including inertial confinement fusion, supernovae explosion, and scramjet propulsion. Accurate simulations of such problems are challenging because of the contradictory requirements of numerical methods used to simulate turbulence, which must minimize any numerical dissipation that would otherwise overwhelm the small scales, and shock-capturing schemes, which introduce numerical dissipation to stabilize the solution. The objective of the present work is to evaluate the performance of several numerical methods capable of simultaneously handling turbulence and shock waves. A comprehensive range of high-resolution methods (WENO, hybrid WENO/central difference, artificial diffusivity, adaptive characteristic-based filter, and shock fitting) and suite of test cases (Taylor–Green vortex, Shu–Osher problem, shock-vorticity/entropy wave interaction, Noh problem, compressible isotropic turbulence) relevant to problems with shocks and turbulence are considered. The results indicate that the WENO methods provide sharp shock profiles, but overwhelm the physical dissipation. The hybrid method is minimally dissipative and leads to sharp shocks and well-resolved broadband turbulence, but relies on an appropriate shock sensor. Artificial diffusivity methods in which the artificial bulk viscosity is based on the magnitude of the strain-rate tensor resolve vortical structures well but damp dilatational modes in compressible turbulence; dilatation-based artificial bulk viscosity methods significantly improve this behavior. For well-defined shocks, the shock fitting approach yields good results

Impact of different infliximab dose regimens on treatment response and drug survival in 462 patients with psoriatic arthritis: results from the nationwide registries DANBIO and ICEBIO.

To access publisher's full text version of this article, please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links field or click on the hyperlink at the top of the page marked Files. This article is open access.The aim of this study was to describe dose regimens, dose escalation and clinical outcomes in TNF-α inhibitor (TNFi)-naive patients with PsA treated with infliximab in routine rheumatology care.We conducted an observational cohort study based on the nationwide Danish Rheumatologic Database (DANBIO) and Center for Rheumatology Research (ICEBIO) registries. Stratified by country, characteristics of patients treated with ≤3 mg infliximab/kg body weight, 3-5 mg/kg or ≥5 mg/kg every 8 weeks were described. Outcomes were evaluated by ACR 20%, 50% and 70% (ACR20/50/70) responses and European League Against Rheumatism good response after 6 months, disease activity after 12 months, Kaplan-Meier plots and regression analyses.Four hundred and sixty-two patients (376 Danish, 86 Icelandic) received treatment with infliximab. In Danish patients, the starting dose was ≤3 mg/kg in 110 patients (29%), 3-5 mg/kg in 157 (42%), ≥5 mg/kg in 38 (10%) and unregistered in 71 (19%). In Icelandic patients, corresponding numbers were 64 (74%), 17 (27%), 0 (0%) and 5 (6%). Patients with a higher body weight received lower doses per kilogram. Danish patients received higher doses than Icelandic patients at baseline [median 3.1 (interquartile range 3.0-3.8) vs 2.3 (2.1-2.9) mg/kg, P 70% of Icelandic and Danish PsA patients treated with infliximab received sustained doses below the 5 mg/kg every 8 weeks recommended in international guidelines. Lower starting doses did not affect drug survival or response

miRNA-mRNA Integrated Analysis Reveals Roles for miRNAs in Primary Breast Tumors

Peer reviewe

Prediagnostic concentrations of plasma genistein and prostate cancer risk in 1,605 men with prostate cancer and 1,697 matched control participants in EPIC

PURPOSE: Data from prospective epidemiological studies in Asian populations and from experimental studies in animals and cell lines suggest a possible protective association between dietary isoflavones and the development of prostate cancer. We examined the association between circulating concentrations of genistein and prostate cancer risk in a case-control study nested in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. METHODS: Concentrations of the isoflavone genistein were measured in prediagnostic plasma samples for 1,605 prostate cancer cases and 1,697 matched control participants. Relative risks (RRs) for prostate cancer in relation to plasma concentrations of genistein were estimated by conditional logistic regression. RESULTS: Plasma genistein concentrations were not associated with prostate cancer risk; the multivariate relative risk for men in the highest fifth of genistein compared with men in the lowest fifth was 1.00 (95 % confidence interval: 0.79, 1.27; p linear trend = 0.82). There was no evidence of heterogeneity in this association by age at blood collection, country of recruitment, or cancer stage or histological grade. CONCLUSION: Plasma genistein concentration was not associated with prostate cancer risk in this large cohort of European men

SKIM, a candidate satellite mission exploring global ocean currents and waves

The Sea surface KInematics Multiscale monitoring (SKIM) satellite mission is designed to explore ocean surface current and waves. This includes tropical currents, notably the poorly known patterns of divergence and their impact on the ocean heat budget, and monitoring of the emerging Arctic up to 82.5°N. SKIM will also make unprecedented direct measurements of strong currents, from boundary currents to the Antarctic circumpolar current, and their interaction with ocean waves with expected impacts on air-sea fluxes and extreme waves. For the first time, SKIM will directly measure the ocean surface current vector from space. The main instrument on SKIM is a Ka-band conically scanning, multi-beam Doppler radar altimeter/wave scatterometer that includes a state-of-the-art nadir beam comparable to the Poseidon-4 instrument on Sentinel 6. The well proven Doppler pulse-pair technique will give a surface drift velocity representative of the top meter of the ocean, after subtracting a large wave-induced contribution. Horizontal velocity components will be obtained with an accuracy better than 7 cm/s for horizontal wavelengths larger than 80 km and time resolutions larger than 15 days, with a mean revisit time of 4 days for of 99% of the global oceans. This will provide unique and innovative measurements that will further our understanding of the transports in the upper ocean layer, permanently distributing heat, carbon, plankton, and plastics. SKIM will also benefit from co-located measurements of water vapor, rain rate, sea ice concentration, and wind vectors provided by the European operational satellite MetOp-SG(B), allowing many joint analyses. SKIM is one of the two candidate satellite missions under development for ESA Earth Explorer 9. The other candidate is the Far infrared Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM). The final selection will be announced by September 2019, for a launch in the coming decade

New genetic loci implicated in fasting glucose homeostasis and their impact on type 2 diabetes risk

Levels of circulating glucose are tightly regulated. To identify new loci influencing glycemic traits, we performed meta-analyses of 21 genome-wide association studies informative for fasting glucose, fasting insulin and indices of beta-cell function (HOMA-B) and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) in up to 46,186 nondiabetic participants. Follow-up of 25 loci in up to 76,558 additional subjects identified 16 loci associated with fasting glucose and HOMA-B and two loci associated with fasting insulin and HOMA-IR. These include nine loci newly associated with fasting glucose (in or near ADCY5, MADD, ADRA2A, CRY2, FADS1, GLIS3, SLC2A2, PROX1 and C2CD4B) and one influencing fasting insulin and HOMA-IR (near IGF1). We also demonstrated association of ADCY5, PROX1, GCK, GCKR and DGKB-TMEM195 with type 2 diabetes. Within these loci, likely biological candidate genes influence signal transduction, cell proliferation, development, glucose-sensing and circadian regulation. Our results demonstrate that genetic studies of glycemic traits can identify type 2 diabetes risk loci, as well as loci containing gene variants that are associated with a modest elevation in glucose levels but are not associated with overt diabetes