667 research outputs found
Workgroup climates and employees' counterproductive work behaviours: A social-cognitive perspective
This research examines employees' anticipation of social and self-sanctions as a self-regulatory mechanism linking workgroup climates and counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) and personality as a limit to these effects. A cross-level study with 158 employees from 26 workgroups demonstrated that in groups with a high compliance climate-a climate emphasizing the importance of complying with organizational rules-employees anticipate more social and self-sanctions, leading those low in conscientiousness and low in agreeableness to engage less frequently in CWBs. In contrast, a high relational climate-a climate emphasizing the importance of positive social relations over self-interest-indirectly unbridles the CWBs of these employees by alleviating the social and self-sanctions they anticipate for CWBs. Climates did not have indirect effects for employees high in agreeableness and high in conscientiousness. These findings elucidate why workgroup climates do not affect the CWBs of all members in the same way
Differential associations of personal and general just-world beliefs with the Five-Factor and HEXACO models of personality.
Recent literature evidences differential associations of personal and general just-world beliefs with constructs in the interpersonal domain. In line with this research, we examine the respective relationships of each just-world belief with the Five-Factor and the HEXACO models of personality in one representative sample of the working population of Switzerland and one sample of the general US population, respectively. One suppressor effect was observed in both samples: Neuroticism and emotionality was positively associated with general just-world belief, but only after controlling for personal just-world belief. In addition, agreeableness was positively and honesty-humility negatively associated with general just-world belief but unrelated to personal just-world belief. Conscientiousness was consistently unrelated to any of the just-world belief and extraversion and openness to experience revealed unstable coefficients across studies. We discuss these points in light of just-world theory and their implications for future research taking both dimensions into account
The Importance of Spatial Scale in Habitat Models: Capercaillie in the Swiss Alps
The role of scale in ecology is widely recognized as being of vital importance for understanding ecological patterns and processes. The capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus) is a forest grouse species with large spatial requirements and highly specialized habitat preferences. Habitat models at the forest stand scale can only partly explain capercaillie occurrence, and some studies at the landscape scale have emphasized the role of large-scale effects. We hypothesized that both the ability of single variables and multivariate models to explain capercaillie occurrence would vary with the spatial scale of the analysis. To test this hypothesis, we varied the grain size of our analysis from 1 to just over 1100hectares and built univariate and multivariate habitat suitability models for capercaillie in the Swiss Alps. The variance explained by the univariate models was found to vary among the predictors and with spatial scale. Within the multivariate models, the best single-scale model (using all predictor variables at the same scale) worked at a scale equivalent to a small annual home range. The multi-scale model, in which each predictor variable was entered at the scale at which it had performed best in the univariate model, did slightly better than the best single-scale model. Our results confirm that habitat variables should be included at different spatial scales when species-habitat relationships are investigate
Mitochondrial protein abundance gradients require the distribution of separated mitochondria
Mitochondria are highly dynamic organelles that interchange their contents mediated by fission and fusion. However, it has previously been shown that the mitochondria of cultured human epithelial cells exhibit a gradient in the relative abundance of several proteins, with the perinuclear mitochondria generally exhibiting a higher protein abundance than the peripheral mitochondria. The molecular mechanisms that are required for the establishment and the maintenance of such inner-cellular mitochondrial protein abundance gradients are unknown. We verified the existence of inner-cellular gradients in the abundance of clusters of the mitochondrial outer membrane protein Tom20 in the mitochondria of kidney epithelial cells from an African green monkey (Vero cells) using STED nanoscopy and confocal microscopy. We found that the Tom20 gradients are established immediately after cell division and require the presence of microtubules. Furthermore, the gradients are abrogated in hyperfused mitochondrial networks. Our results suggest that inner-cellular protein abundance gradients from the perinuclear to the peripheral mitochondria are established by the trafficking of individual mitochondria to their respective cellular destination
Functional connectivity of the irritative zone identified by electrical source imaging, and EEG-correlated fMRI analyses.
OBJECTIVE: The irritative zone - the area generating epileptic spikes - can be studied non-invasively during the interictal period using Electrical Source Imaging (ESI) and simultaneous electroencephalography-functional magnetic resonance imaging (EEG-fMRI). Although the techniques yield results which may overlap spatially, differences in spatial localization of the irritative zone within the same patient are consistently observed. To investigate this discrepancy, we used Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) functional connectivity measures to examine the underlying relationship between ESI and EEG-fMRI findings. METHODS: Fifteen patients (age 20-54), who underwent presurgical epilepsy investigation, were scanned using a single-session resting-state EEG-fMRI protocol. Structural MRI was used to obtain the electrode localisation of a high-density 64-channel EEG cap. Electrical generators of interictal epileptiform discharges were obtained using a distributed local autoregressive average (LAURA) algorithm as implemented in Cartool EEG software. BOLD activations were obtained using both spike-related and voltage-map EEG-fMRI analysis. The global maxima of each method were used to investigate the temporal relationship of BOLD time courses and to assess the spatial similarity using the Dice similarity index between functional connectivity maps. RESULTS: ESI, voltage-map and spike-related EEG-fMRI methods identified peaks in 15 (100%), 13 (67%) and 8 (53%) of the 15 patients, respectively. For all methods, maxima were localised within the same lobe, but differed in sub-lobar localisation, with a median distance of 22.8 mm between the highest peak for each method. The functional connectivity analysis showed that the temporal correlation between maxima only explained 38% of the variance between the time course of the BOLD response at the maxima. The mean Dice similarity index between seed-voxel functional connectivity maps showed poor spatial agreement. SIGNIFICANCE: Non-invasive methods for the localisation of the irritative zone have distinct spatial and temporal sensitivity to different aspects of the local cortical network involved in the generation of interictal epileptiform discharges
Coincidence isometries of a shifted square lattice
We consider the coincidence problem for the square lattice that is translated
by an arbitrary vector. General results are obtained about the set of
coincidence isometries and the coincidence site lattices of a shifted square
lattice by identifying the square lattice with the ring of Gaussian integers.
To illustrate them, we calculate the set of coincidence isometries, as well as
generating functions for the number of coincidence site lattices and
coincidence isometries, for specific examples.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure; paper presented at Aperiodic 2009 (Liverpool
Grain boundary energies and cohesive strength as a function of geometry
Cohesive laws are stress-strain curves used in finite element calculations to
describe the debonding of interfaces such as grain boundaries. It would be
convenient to describe grain boundary cohesive laws as a function of the
parameters needed to describe the grain boundary geometry; two parameters in 2D
and 5 parameters in 3D. However, we find that the cohesive law is not a smooth
function of these parameters. In fact, it is discontinuous at geometries for
which the two grains have repeat distances that are rational with respect to
one another. Using atomistic simulations, we extract grain boundary energies
and cohesive laws of grain boundary fracture in 2D with a Lennard-Jones
potential for all possible geometries which can be simulated within periodic
boundary conditions with a maximum box size. We introduce a model where grain
boundaries are represented as high symmetry boundaries decorated by extra
dislocations. Using it, we develop a functional form for the symmetric grain
boundary energies, which have cusps at all high symmetry angles. We also find
the asymptotic form of the fracture toughness near the discontinuities at high
symmetry grain boundaries using our dislocation decoration model.Comment: 12 pages, 19 figures, changed titl
The quest for companions to post-common envelope binaries. II. NSVS14256825 and HS0705+6700
We report new mid-eclipse times of the two close binaries NSVS14256825 and
HS0705+6700, harboring an sdB primary and a low-mass main-sequence secondary.
Both objects display clear variations in the measured orbital period, which can
be explained by the action of a third object orbiting the binary. If this
interpretation is correct, the third object in NSVS14256825 is a giant planet
with a mass of roughly 12 M_Jup. For HS0705+6700, we provide evidence that
strengthens the case for the suggested periodic nature of the eclipse time
variation and reduces the uncertainties in the parameters of the brown dwarf
implied by that model. The derived period is 8.4 yr and the mass is 31 M_Jup,
if the orbit is coplanar with the binary. This research is part of the
PlanetFinders project, an ongoing collaboration between professional
astronomers and student groups at high schools.Comment: Accepted by Astron. and Astrophy
Exponential distribution of long heart beat intervals during atrial fibrillation and their relevance for white noise behaviour in power spectrum
The statistical properties of heart beat intervals of 130 long-term surface
electrocardiogram recordings during atrial fibrillation (AF) are investigated.
We find that the distribution of interbeat intervals exhibits a characteristic
exponential tail, which is absent during sinus rhythm, as tested in a
corresponding control study with 72 healthy persons. The rate of the
exponential decay lies in the range 3-12 Hz and shows diurnal variations. It
equals, up to statistical uncertainties, the level of the previously uncovered
white noise part in the power spectrum, which is also characteristic for AF.
The overall statistical features can be described by decomposing the intervals
into two statistically independent times, where the first one is associated
with a correlated process with 1/f noise characteristics, while the second one
belongs to an uncorrelated process and is responsible for the exponential tail.
It is suggested to use the rate of the exponential decay as a further parameter
for a better classification of AF and for the medical diagnosis. The relevance
of the findings with respect to a general understanding of AF is pointed out
- …