Investigating Gαs Pepducin’s Effect on β2AR Signaling for CHF Pharmacology

Introduction: Congestive heart failure affects nearly six million Americans and significantly impairs their quality of life. New and better interventions are needed to improve HF patients’ survival and outcomes. Pharmacologics that bias β2AR signaling towards arrestin, which promotes cardiomyocyte survival and contractility, may offer advantages over traditional β-blockers. Objective: It has been demonstrated that peptides mimicking the C-terminus of the Gαs subunit block downstream signaling of GPCRs. The study’s objective is to determine if a pepducin derived from the C-terminus of the Gαs subunit of the β2AR could block Gs signaling but maintain arrestin-recruitment, thereby producing a cardioprotective phenotype. Methods: We used inverse PCR and bacterial transformation to design the peptide. We transfected Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells with the pepducin and used FACS and Glosensor assays to measure the concentration of cAMP in various cells. Results: Results showed no inhibition of Gs signaling. Therefore, arrestin-recruitment was not tested. Discussion: Previous researchers have demonstrated the results we failed to show, therefore we have reason to believe the peptide failed to inhibit Gs signaling because it is too small or too unstable. We are abandoning this line of research and will be continuing to approach the project’s objective from new angles

Evidence-based understanding of introductions of research articles

Achieving publications in high-impact journals is a major cornerstone for academic careers in the US and elsewhere in the world. However, apart from novel insights and relevant contributions to the field, there are expectations of editors and reviewers regarding the structure and language of manuscripts that prospective contributors have to adhere to. As these expectations are mostly communicated using best-practice examples, especially international researchers might often wonder how to implement them in their manuscripts. Applying an applied linguistics model to 60 papers that were published in US-based and Indian management journals we derive evidence-based advice for the writing of introductions

European Report on Prisoner Reintegration through Entrepreneurship and Psychology

It has been well documented that reintegration into the workforce is a key factor in reducing recidivism amongst people with a criminal record. However, mainstream employment poses a challenge for many individuals with criminal histories who experience discrimination from prospective employers. Entrepreneurship or self-employment offers an alternative pathway into the labour market but it is not widely promoted as a viable career option. In recent years, in-prison entrepreneurship education programmes (particularly in the USA) have grown in prominence to offer participants another option in terms of future labour market activation. Despite the recorded success of these initiatives, the adoption of such programmes within Europe is not widespread. The aim of this report is to provide evidence-based analysis and recommendations for the piloting of an e-learning entrepreneurship education programme developed under PREP (Prisoner Reintegration through Entrepreneurship and Psychology) which is an EU Erasmus+ funded project. The report covers the criminal justice systems across three national contexts – Ireland, Germany and Romania. The data for the findings and recommendations derive from a literature review of the key academic fields and country-level interviews conducted with justice-impacted individuals and key informants across the criminal justice systems.ERASMUS+ Strategic Partnership

Efficacy of Electroconvulsive Therapy and Ketamine Therapy in Major Depressive Disorder; A Comparative Study

Objective: To evaluate and compare the efficacy of Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and Ketamine infusions in hospitalized patients suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD). Study Design: Comparative cross-sectional study. Place and duration of study: Armed Forces Institute of Mental Health, Rawalpindi Pakistan, from Feb to Apr 2021. Methodology: Forty in-patients diagnosed as having MDD were randomly allocated ECT/Ketamine intervention as per international standards. Either group of patients acted as a control for the other. Their Beck Depressive Inventory (BDI) scores before and after the completion of treatment cycles were assessed to determine their response to treatment. Results: The Ketamine-Group showed fewer depressive symptoms than the ECT Group. The depressive symptoms were reduced in 16(80.78%) patients after Ketamine infusions, while 15(77.78%) patients showed improvement after ECT sessions.In addition, the response to Ketamine was quicker. Conclusion: This study has reported that low dose Ketamine has a more rapid impact than Electroconvulsive therapy in improving symptoms of depression in major depressive disorder patients

DIGITAL EDUCATION : TO TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE

To achieve long-term sustainability individuals, groups, and organizations need to mitigate climate change and adapt to the new environmental scenarios. Indeed, climate change is a process that cannot be ignored in any way any longer. Not only it is happening everywhere, and the effects are more noticeable every year, but it has also been happening for decades with an impact on every ecosystem of the planet. This means that climate change is a fundamental issue that affects every person, group, and organization. Professionally, we need as much expertise as we can gather. More practitioners are needed with experience in every field to help mitigate climate change as much as possible while facilitating rapid adaptation to a progressively damaging climate change. Climate change is caused by humans and human behavior, even if some issues seem technological and environmental problems, the origin is still human behavior. Therefore, there is a critical need for being able to count on behavioral experts that contribute to explaining current behaviors. Additionally, behavior change experts who are able to motivate individuals, groups, and organizations to engage in mitigation and adaptation behaviors are equally necessary. To achieve this, a more comprehensive range of educational opportunities is needed. This education must be included in vocational training and applied science universities. However, nothing will have an impact as far-reaching as education about climate change for students during their bachelor and master programs. The capacity of highly trained professionals with behavioral change expertise can have a trickling-down effect that will benefit the whole world. Because of how crucial education in climate change is, an urgent need is currently a pressing matter to provide specialized education on how to understand and improve the sustainability behavior of people, groups, and organizations. This need to increase both the amount and quality of sustainability-related education is met with an insufficient amount of education resources being offered. Creating new courses or even programs on this topic is not a realistic possibility for many institutions. In some cases, the development of new content might not be feasible due to local difficulties, and in other cases, climate change might not be a preference whatsoever. Therefore, it is crucial to offer alternatives to institutions that due to factors such as lack of local expertise, different agendas, or the difficulties linked to generating new content cannot offer education on climate change and behavior themselves. This education alternative should be easy to implement and adapt to the specific programs. The most straightforward contribution to facilitating education in climate change at bachelor and master levels is offering online courses that can be imported. Additionally, to maximize the reach of these courses, they should include content that can be learned in a self-guided manner. The PSYCLIC project offers the latest content about climate change and human behavior. This material will be available to be directly imported digitally at any university program. Additionally, it has a modular structure that is self-guided by default. However, the education resource that the PSYCLIC project offers will not make a meaningful impact unless the target community (i.e., institutions that could offer education on the topic of climate change and behavior but do not do so) is eager to use the education resources that the project will offer. To understand if the profile of scholars that the PSYCLIC project has as the target are ready and kin on using what the project will offer, we reached other colleagues to explore the demands and barriers for ready to use digital education material on climate change and behavior.ERASMUS+ / Projektname: Psychology and Climate Change - Digital Education / Projekt Akronym: PSYCLI

Economic predictors of differences in interview faking between countries : economic inequality matters, not the state of economy

Many companies recruit employees from different parts of the globe, and faking behavior by potential employees is a ubiquitous phenomenon. It seems that applicants from some countries are more prone to faking compared to others, but the reasons for these differences are largely unexplored. This study relates country-level economic variables to faking behavior in hiring processes. In a cross-national study across 20 countries, participants (N = 3839) reported their faking behavior in their last job interview. This study used the random response technique (RRT) to ensure participants anonymity and to foster honest answers regarding faking behavior. Results indicate that general economic indicators (gross domestic product per capita [GDP] and unemployment rate) show negligible correlations with faking across the countries, whereas economic inequality is positively related to the extent of applicant faking to a substantial extent. These findings imply that people are sensitive to inequality within countries and that inequality relates to faking, because inequality might actuate other psychological processes (e.g., envy) which in turn increase the probability for unethical behavior in many forms

Erweiterung internationaler Perspektiven in der Management- und angewandten Psychologie-Forschung : ein evidenzbasierter Ansatz

Self-reflection is an integral part of the research process as its aim is to understand a field’s trends, current challenges and future developments in order to identify vulnerabilities to the research process (e.g., Bennett, Wolford, & Miller, 2009; Gardner, Lowe, Moss, Mahoney, & Cogliser, 2010; Kahnemann, 2012; Shen et al., 2011; Tourish, 2011). Therefore, many researchers agree that self-reflection processes should also be an integral part of research education, as they help students to question their preconceptions of methods, theories and approaches as well as the influence of researchers’ identity on the way they think and argue (Wang, 2014). At the same time, facing criticism from inside and outside the research communities can ensure the validity of findings and therefore self-reflection processes can be seen as a part of the research process that ultimately increases the validity of findings (e.g., Open Science Collaboration, 2015). For a long time now, one of the important self-reflection processes that has been going on surrounds the debate regarding the dominance of US researchers and therefore US-centric theories and data in the most relevant management journals (e.g., Boyacigiller & Adler, 1991; George, 2012; Holtbrügge, 2013; Kirkman & Law, 2005; Martinko, Campbell, & Douglas, 2000; Üsdiken, 2014). Especially the increasing drive of research institutions to encourage their researchers to communicate research findings on international platforms and the establishment of the once US-based journals as international outlets for leading management research is making editors and reviewers realize that they have to increase their efforts to include more international perspectives on management (Adler & Harzing, 2009; Kraut & Mondo, 2009). This is an especially difficult task, as researchers across the world have experienced differing research socializations and hence might not fulfill explicit and implicit expectations of mostly US-based editors and reviewers of high impact journals (Martinko et al., 2000; Tourish, 2011). Therefore, editors and reviewers of high impact journals have to more explicitly communicate their expectations in order to further the internationalization of their journals (e.g., Eden & Rynes, 2003). However, academic writing advice from editors and reviewers of high impact journals has been mostly focused on best-practice examples from very successful researchers and lacks systematic evidence that could be easier to comprehend and implement (e.g., Grant & Pollock, 2011). At the same time, most analyses of the reasons why non-US researchers lack visibility in high impact journals have been focused on quality, financial, or language issues (e.g., Boshoff, 2010; Gantman, 2009; White, 2002). Yet, these explanations might not hold up for many countries that have heavily invested in research in the past decades and have a high level of English language proficiency (e.g., Lau, 2002; Wagner & Wong, 2012). Therefore, in this thesis, I explore reasons for the lacking visibility of non-US researchers in high impact journals from multiple perspectives. First, I explore situational differences in topics of interest across countries that might highlight challenges for non-US researchers to position their research in high impact journals. Second, I explore how psychological identification processes might influence non-US researchers’ selection of an international publication strategy. Third, incorporating a model for the analysis of introductions from the field of applied linguistics, I analyze one of the most important parts of a research article that is relevant in the peer-review process, i.e., the introduction, and extrapolate expectations of editors and reviewers of high impact journals by analyzing the rhetorical structure of introductions in published articles. Lastly, I delve deeper into the implicit expectations of editors and reviewers, by analyzing the usage of hedges (i.e., words that reduce commitment to a proposition) in journal articles across the world, thereby highlighting significant differences that might be related to the limited visibility of non-US researchers in high impact journals.In dieser Arbeit werden mögliche Gründe für die mangelnde Sichtbarkeit nicht-amerikanischer Forschung in einflussreichen Managementzeitschriften untersucht. Erstens werden Länderunterschiede in Forschungsinteressen untersucht, die es nicht-amerikanischen Forschern/innen erschweren könnten, Forschungsergebnisse in einflussreichen Managementzeitschriften zu publizieren. Zweitens werden psychologische Identifikationsprozesse nicht-amerikanischer Forschern/innen untersucht, die bei der Entscheidung für eine internationale Publikationsstrategie relevant sein könnten. Drittens wird mittels eines sprachwissenschaftlichen Modells zur Analyse von Artikeleinleitungen versucht, Empfehlungen für die rhetorische Gestaltung von Einleitungen akademischer Managementartikel abzuleiten. Viertens werden in dieser Arbeit implizite Erwartungen von Herausgebern/innen und Gutachtern/innen einflussreicher Managementzeitschriften untersucht. Letzteres geschieht durch Analyse der Verwendung sogenannter „Hedges“ in amerikanischer, europäischer und indischer Forschungspublikation

Furthering international perspectives on management and applied psychological research : an evidence-based approach

Self-reflection is an integral part of the research process as its aim is to understand a field’s trends, current challenges and future developments in order to identify vulnerabilities to the research process (e.g., Bennett, Wolford, & Miller, 2009; Gardner, Lowe, Moss, Mahoney, & Cogliser, 2010; Kahnemann, 2012; Shen et al., 2011; Tourish, 2011). Therefore, many researchers agree that self-reflection processes should also be an integral part of research education, as they help students to question their preconceptions of methods, theories and approaches as well as the influence of researchers’ identity on the way they think and argue (Wang, 2014). At the same time, facing criticism from inside and outside the research communities can ensure the validity of findings and therefore self-reflection processes can be seen as a part of the research process that ultimately increases the validity of findings (e.g., Open Science Collaboration, 2015). For a long time now, one of the important self-reflection processes that has been going on surrounds the debate regarding the dominance of US researchers and therefore US-centric theories and data in the most relevant management journals (e.g., Boyacigiller & Adler, 1991; George, 2012; Holtbrügge, 2013; Kirkman & Law, 2005; Martinko, Campbell, & Douglas, 2000; Üsdiken, 2014). Especially the increasing drive of research institutions to encourage their researchers to communicate research findings on international platforms and the establishment of the once US-based journals as international outlets for leading management research is making editors and reviewers realize that they have to increase their efforts to include more international perspectives on management (Adler & Harzing, 2009; Kraut & Mondo, 2009). This is an especially difficult task, as researchers across the world have experienced differing research socializations and hence might not fulfill explicit and implicit expectations of mostly US-based editors and reviewers of high impact journals (Martinko et al., 2000; Tourish, 2011). Therefore, editors and reviewers of high impact journals have to more explicitly communicate their expectations in order to further the internationalization of their journals (e.g., Eden & Rynes, 2003). However, academic writing advice from editors and reviewers of high impact journals has been mostly focused on best-practice examples from very successful researchers and lacks systematic evidence that could be easier to comprehend and implement (e.g., Grant & Pollock, 2011). At the same time, most analyses of the reasons why non-US researchers lack visibility in high impact journals have been focused on quality, financial, or language issues (e.g., Boshoff, 2010; Gantman, 2009; White, 2002). Yet, these explanations might not hold up for many countries that have heavily invested in research in the past decades and have a high level of English language proficiency (e.g., Lau, 2002; Wagner & Wong, 2012). Therefore, in this thesis, I explore reasons for the lacking visibility of non-US researchers in high impact journals from multiple perspectives. First, I explore situational differences in topics of interest across countries that might highlight challenges for non-US researchers to position their research in high impact journals. Second, I explore how psychological identification processes might influence non-US researchers’ selection of an international publication strategy. Third, incorporating a model for the analysis of introductions from the field of applied linguistics, I analyze one of the most important parts of a research article that is relevant in the peer-review process, i.e., the introduction, and extrapolate expectations of editors and reviewers of high impact journals by analyzing the rhetorical structure of introductions in published articles. Lastly, I delve deeper into the implicit expectations of editors and reviewers, by analyzing the usage of hedges (i.e., words that reduce commitment to a proposition) in journal articles across the world, thereby highlighting significant differences that might be related to the limited visibility of non-US researchers in high impact journals.In dieser Arbeit werden mögliche Gründe für die mangelnde Sichtbarkeit nicht-amerikanischer Forschung in einflussreichen Managementzeitschriften untersucht. Erstens werden Länderunterschiede in Forschungsinteressen untersucht, die es nicht-amerikanischen Forschern/innen erschweren könnten, Forschungsergebnisse in einflussreichen Managementzeitschriften zu publizieren. Zweitens werden psychologische Identifikationsprozesse nicht-amerikanischer Forschern/innen untersucht, die bei der Entscheidung für eine internationale Publikationsstrategie relevant sein könnten. Drittens wird mittels eines sprachwissenschaftlichen Modells zur Analyse von Artikeleinleitungen versucht, Empfehlungen für die rhetorische Gestaltung von Einleitungen akademischer Managementartikel abzuleiten. Viertens werden in dieser Arbeit implizite Erwartungen von Herausgebern/innen und Gutachtern/innen einflussreicher Managementzeitschriften untersucht. Letzteres geschieht durch Analyse der Verwendung sogenannter „Hedges“ in amerikanischer, europäischer und indischer Forschungspublikation

Personal agency in newly arrived refugees: The role of personality, entrepreneurial cognitions and intentions, and career adaptability

In light of recent developments in the world of work towards increased uncertainty, a rapid pace of change and new possibilities for intentional self-development, subsequent research has strongly emphasized the role of personal agency (e.g., self-initiative, entrepreneurship, and adaptability capacities) in taking advantage of this environment. Here, we adopt this view of personal agency to study early integration processes of refugees facing personal situations that involve examples of extreme uncertainty combined with new opportunities. Specifically, we examine the relationship between personality factors, entrepreneurial alertness and intentions, and career adaptability in a sample of N = 267 refugees (M = 27.56 years, 78.1% male), mostly from Syria, newly arrived in Germany after their flight. Employing structural equation modeling, the data revealed that entrepreneurial alertness is a crucial proximal predictor of entrepreneurial intentions and career adaptability in newly arrived refugees. In addition, the personality factors self-efficacy and resilience were relevant background factors: they predicted entrepreneurial alertness, which in turn mediated the direct link between these background factors and career adaptability. The results underscore the relevance of an agentic perspective in the study of refugees by highlighting the importance of entrepreneurial cognitions and underlying personality factors for the early integration process