Interactions between empathy and resting heart rate in early adolescence predict violent behavior in late adolescence and early adulthood.

BackgroundAlthough resting heart rate (RHR) and empathy are independently and negatively associated with violent behavior, relatively little is known about the interplay between these psychophysiological and temperament-related risk factors.MethodsUsing a sample of 160 low-income, racially diverse men followed prospectively from infancy through early adulthood, this study examined whether RHR and empathy during early adolescence independently and interactively predict violent behavior and related correlates in late adolescence and early adulthood.ResultsControlling for child ethnicity, family income, and child antisocial behavior at age 12, empathy inversely predicted moral disengagement and juvenile petitions for violent crimes, while RHR was unrelated to all measures of violent behavior. Interactive effects were also evident such that among men with lower but not higher levels of RHR, lower empathy predicted increased violent behavior, as indexed by juvenile arrests for violent offenses, peer-reported violent behavior at age 17, self-reported moral disengagement at age 17, and self-reported violent behavior at age 20.ConclusionsImplications for prevention and intervention are considered. Specifically, targeting empathic skills among individuals at risk for violent behavior because of specific psychophysiological profiles may lead to more impactful interventions

The interaction between monoamine oxidase A and punitive discipline in the development of antisocial behavior: Mediation by maladaptive social information processing.

Previous studies demonstrate that boys' monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) genotype interacts with adverse rearing environments in early childhood, including punitive discipline, to predict later antisocial behavior. Yet the mechanisms by which MAOA and punitive parenting interact during childhood to amplify risk for antisocial behavior are not well understood. In the present study, hostile attributional bias and aggressive response generation during middle childhood, salient aspects of maladaptive social information processing, were tested as possible mediators of this relation in a sample of 187 low-income men followed prospectively from infancy into early adulthood. Given racial-ethnic variation in MAOA allele frequencies, analyses were conducted separately by race. In both African American and Caucasian men, those with the low-activity MAOA allele who experienced more punitive discipline at age 1.5 generated more aggressive responses to perceived threat at age 10 relative to men with the high-activity variant. In the African American subsample only, formal mediation analyses indicated a marginally significant indirect effect of maternal punitiveness on adult arrest records via aggressive response generation in middle childhood. The findings suggest that maladaptive social information processing may be an important mechanism underlying the association between MAOA × Parenting interactions and antisocial behavior in early adulthood. The present study extends previous work in the field by demonstrating that MAOA and harsh parenting assessed in early childhood interact to not only predict antisocial behavior in early adulthood, but also predict social information processing, a well-established social-cognitive correlate of antisocial behavior

Prepotentials for local mirror symmetry via Calabi-Yau fourfolds

In this paper, we first derive an intrinsic definition of classical triple intersection numbers of K_S, where S is a complex toric surface, and use this to compute the extended Picard-Fuchs system of K_S of our previous paper, without making use of the instanton expansion. We then extend this formalism to local fourfolds K_X, where X is a complex 3-fold. As a result, we are able to fix the prepotential of local Calabi-Yau threefolds K_S up to polynomial terms of degree 2. We then outline methods of extending the procedure to non canonical bundle cases.Comment: 42 pages, 7 figures. Expanded, reorganized, and added a theoretical background for the calculation

Knowledge, attitudes and practices of medical staff towards obesity management in patients with spinal cord injuries: an International survey of four western European countries

Objective: To (1) examine the opinions of medical staff working in spinal cord injury (SCI) centres (SCICs); (2) evaluate their knowledge, attitudes and practices towards obesity prevention and management; (3) report the number of beds and dietitians available at each SCIC. Methods: A 37-item questionnaire was sent to 23 SCICs in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and the Republic of Ireland between September 2012 and January 2013. Results: Eighteen SCICs returned the questionnaires for analysis. All respondents stated that they had an interest in obesity treatment but only 2.3% of the respondents received training in obesity management. Sixty-one percent of staff did not consider body mass index (BMI) to be appropriate for use in SCI patients and subsequently less than half of the respondents use BMI routinely. The majority of respondents reported that they are confident in dealing with overweight (74.5%) and obese (66.1%) SCI adults, less than half (44.1%) are confident in treating overweight and obese SCI children. Respondents also indicated the need for nationally adopted guidelines and a lack of physical activity provision. There were 17.5 whole-time equivalent (WTE) dietitians recorded in 22 SCICs, equivalent to 47.8 beds per WTE dietitians (range 10–420). Non-UK SCIC dietitians are significantly better resourced than in UK SCICs (beds per WTE dietitian: 36 vs 124, P=0.035). Conclusion: Medical staff expressed the need to participate in obesity prevention and management. Appropriate training should be considered for all medical staff and the development of specific weight management guidelines and dietetic provision should be considered

Exercise interventions for preventing dementia or delaying cognitive decline in people with mild cognitive impairment

This is the protocol for a review and there is no abstract. The objectives are as follows: To evaluate the effects of exercise interventions for preventing dementia in people with mild cognitive impairment. We refer to Forbes 2015b and Forbes 2015c for the review protocols on exercise interventions for maintaining cognitive function in cognitively healthy people in mid and late life

Exercise interventions for maintaining cognitive function in cognitively healthy people in mid life

This is the protocol for a review and there is no abstract. The objectives are as follows: To evaluate the effects ofexercise interventions on cognitive function in cognitively healthy people in mid life. We refer to Forbes 2015b for the review protocol on Exercise interventions for maintaining cognitive function in cognitively healthy people in late life and to Forbes 2015c for the review protocol on Exercise interventions for prevention of dementia in people with mild cognitive impairment

Exercise interventions for maintaining cognitive function in cognitively healthy people in late life

This is the protocol for a review and there is no abstract. The objectives are as follows: To evaluate the effects ofexercise interventions on cognitive function in cognitively healthy people in late life. We refer to Forbes 2015b for the review on Exercise interventions for maintaining cognitive function in cognitively healthy people in mid life, and to Forbes 2015c for the review on Exercise interventions for prevention of dementia in people with mild cognitive impairment

Mirror Map as Generating Function of Intersection Numbers: Toric Manifolds with Two K\"ahler Forms

In this paper, we extend our geometrical derivation of expansion coefficients of mirror maps by localization computation to the case of toric manifolds with two K\"ahler forms. Especially, we take Hirzebruch surfaces F_{0}, F_{3} and Calabi-Yau hypersurface in weighted projective space P(1,1,2,2,2) as examples. We expect that our results can be easily generalized to arbitrary toric manifold.Comment: 45 pages, 2 figures, minor errors are corrected, English is refined. Section 1 and Section 2 are enlarged. Especially in Section 2, confusion between the notion of resolution and the notion of compactification is resolved. Computation under non-zero equivariant parameters are added in Section

The time-varying performance of UK analyst recommendation revisions : do market conditions matter?

This study examines the time-varying performance of investment strategies following analyst recommendation revisions in the UK stock market, with specific emphasis on the impact of changing market conditions. We find a negative relationship between the recommendation performance and market conditions as measured in terms of past market return and market volatility. In particular, the upgrade (downgrade) portfolio generates significantly positive (negative) net abnormal returns in bad market conditions (e.g., the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 and the credit crisis in 2007), but not in other periods of time. Moreover, our non-temporal threshold regression analysis shows that the reported negative relationship disappears when market conditions become better, i.e., when the past market return (market volatility) is higher (lower) than a certain level, indicating the importance of taking non-linearity into account in the long sample period as examined in this study. Our time-series bootstrap simulations further confirm that the superior recommendation performance in bad market conditions is not due to random chance; analysts have certain skills in making valuable up/downward revisions in bad markets

Participatory Militias: An Analysis of an Armed Movement's Online Audience

Armed groups of civilians known as "self-defense forces" have ousted the powerful Knights Templar drug cartel from several towns in Michoacan. This militia uprising has unfolded on social media, particularly in the "VXM" ("Valor por Michoacan," Spanish for "Courage for Michoacan") Facebook page, gathering more than 170,000 fans. Previous work on the Drug War has documented the use of social media for real-time reports of violent clashes. However, VXM goes one step further by taking on a pro-militia propagandist role, engaging in two-way communication with its audience. This paper presents a descriptive analysis of VXM and its audience. We examined nine months of posts, from VXM's inception until May 2014, totaling 6,000 posts by VXM administrators and more than 108,000 comments from its audience. We describe the main conversation themes, post frequency and relationships with offline events and public figures. We also characterize the behavior of VXM's most active audience members. Our work illustrates VXM's online mobilization strategies, and how its audience takes part in defining the narrative of this armed conflict. We conclude by discussing possible applications of our findings for the design of future communication technologies.Comment: Participatory Militias: An Analysis of an Armed Movement's Online Audience. Saiph Savage, Andres Monroy-Hernandez. CSCW: ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work 201