Achievement goals, self-handicapping, and performance: A 2 × 2 achievement goal perspective

Elliot and colleagues (2006) examined the effects of experimentally induced achievement goals, proposed by the trichotomous model, on self-handicapping and performance in physical education. Our study replicated and extended the work of Elliot et al. by experimentally promoting all four goals proposed by the 262 model (Elliot & McGregor, 2001), measuring the participants’ own situational achievement goals, using a relatively novel task, and testing the participants in a group setting. We used a randomized experimental design with four conditions that aimed to induce one of the four goals advanced by the 262 model. The participants (n¼138) were undergraduates who engaged in a dart-throwing task. The results pertaining to self-handicapping partly replicated Elliot and colleagues’ findings by showing that experimentally promoted performance-avoidance goals resulted in less practice. In contrast, the promotion of mastery-avoidance goals did not result in less practice compared with either of the approach goals. Dart-throwing performance did not differ among the four goal conditions. Personal achievement goals did not moderate the effects of experimentally induced goals on selfhandicapping and performance. The extent to which mastery-avoidance goals are maladaptive is discussed, as well as the interplay between personal and experimentally induced goals

COVID-19 publications: Database coverage, citations, readers, tweets, news, Facebook walls, Reddit posts

© 2020 The Authors. Published by MIT Press. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00066The COVID-19 pandemic requires a fast response from researchers to help address biological, medical and public health issues to minimize its impact. In this rapidly evolving context, scholars, professionals and the public may need to quickly identify important new studies. In response, this paper assesses the coverage of scholarly databases and impact indicators during 21 March to 18 April 2020. The rapidly increasing volume of research, is particularly accessible through Dimensions, and less through Scopus, the Web of Science, and PubMed. Google Scholar’s results included many false matches. A few COVID-19 papers from the 21,395 in Dimensions were already highly cited, with substantial news and social media attention. For this topic, in contrast to previous studies, there seems to be a high degree of convergence between articles shared in the social web and citation counts, at least in the short term. In particular, articles that are extensively tweeted on the day first indexed are likely to be highly read and relatively highly cited three weeks later. Researchers needing wide scope literature searches (rather than health focused PubMed or medRxiv searches) should start with Dimensions (or Google Scholar) and can use tweet and Mendeley reader counts as indicators of likely importance

ToppGene Suite for gene list enrichment analysis and candidate gene prioritization

ToppGene Suite (http://toppgene.cchmc.org; this web site is free and open to all users and does not require a login to access) is a one-stop portal for (i) gene list functional enrichment, (ii) candidate gene prioritization using either functional annotations or network analysis and (iii) identification and prioritization of novel disease candidate genes in the interactome. Functional annotation-based disease candidate gene prioritization uses a fuzzy-based similarity measure to compute the similarity between any two genes based on semantic annotations. The similarity scores from individual features are combined into an overall score using statistical meta-analysis. A P-value of each annotation of a test gene is derived by random sampling of the whole genome. The protein–protein interaction network (PPIN)-based disease candidate gene prioritization uses social and Web networks analysis algorithms (extended versions of the PageRank and HITS algorithms, and the K-Step Markov method). We demonstrate the utility of ToppGene Suite using 20 recently reported GWAS-based gene–disease associations (including novel disease genes) representing five diseases. ToppGene ranked 19 of 20 (95%) candidate genes within the top 20%, while ToppNet ranked 12 of 16 (75%) candidate genes among the top 20%

SUSPECTS: enabling fast and effective prioritization of positional candidates.

SUSPECTS is a web-based server which combines annotation and sequence-based approaches to prioritize disease candidate genes in large regions of interest. It uses multiple lines of evidence to rank genes quickly and effectively while limiting the effect of annotation bias to significantly improve performance

Autonomy support, basic need satisfaction and the optimal functioning of adult male and female sport participants: A test of basic needs theory

Grounded in Basic Needs Theory (BNT; Ryan and Deci, American Psychologist, 55, 68–78, 2000a), the present study aimed to: (a) test a theoretically-based model of coach autonomy support, motivational processes and well-/ill being among a sample of adult sport participants, (b) discern which basic psychological need(s) mediate the link between autonomy support and well-/ill-being, and (c) explore gender invariance in the hypothesized model. Five hundred and thirty nine participants (Male = 271;Female = 268; Mage = 22.75) completed a multi-section questionnaire tapping the targeted variables. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis revealed that coach autonomy support predicted participants’ basic need satisfaction for autonomy, competence and relatedness. In turn, basic need satisfaction predicted greater subjective vitality when engaged in sport. Participants with low levels of autonomy were more susceptible to feeling emotionally and physically exhausted from their sport investment. Autonomy and competence partially mediated the path from autonomy support to subjective vitality. Lastly, the results supported partial invariance of the model with respect to gender

Psychometric evaluation of the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale (BPNSFS) in Italy

Two studies were conducted to adapt the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale (BPNSFS) to the Italian context. Results suggest that the BPNSFS can be considered a promising instrument in the context of SDT-based research for investigating satisfaction and frustration of the three basic needs in Italy

A quantitative approach to study indirect effects among disease proteins in the human protein interaction network

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Systems biology makes it possible to study larger and more intricate systems than before, so it is now possible to look at the molecular basis of several diseases in parallel. Analyzing the interaction network of proteins in the cell can be the key to understand how complex processes lead to diseases. Novel tools in network analysis provide the possibility to quantify the key interacting proteins in large networks as well as proteins that connect them. Here we suggest a new method to study the relationships between topology and functionality of the protein-protein interaction network, by identifying key mediator proteins possibly maintaining indirect relationships among proteins causing various diseases.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Based on the i2d and OMIM databases, we have constructed (i) a network of proteins causing five selected diseases (DP, disease proteins) plus their interacting partners (IP, non-disease proteins), the DPIP network and (ii) a protein network showing only these IPs and their interactions, the IP network. The five investigated diseases were (1) various cancers, (2) heart diseases, (3) obesity, (4) diabetes and (5) autism. We have quantified the number and strength of IP-mediated indirect effects between the five groups of disease proteins and hypothetically identified the most important mediator proteins linking heart disease to obesity or diabetes in the IP network. The results present the relationship between mediator role and centrality, as well as between mediator role and functional properties of these proteins.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We show that a protein which plays an important indirect mediator role between two diseases is not necessarily a hub in the PPI network. This may suggest that, even if hub proteins and disease proteins are trivially of great interest, mediators may also deserve more attention, especially if disease-disease associations are to be understood. Identifying the hubs may not be sufficient to understand particular pathways. We have found that the mediators between heart diseases and obesity, as well as heart diseases and diabetes are of relatively high functional importance in the cell. The mediator proteins suggested here should be experimentally tested as products of hypothetical disease-related proteins.</p