Development and preliminary validation of the interest in leadership scale

Interest pertains to an individual's psychological arousal toward a topic, which is thought to motivate effort allocation and attention. Interest in leadership has been identified as a potential antecedent of leader development; however, supporting empirical evidence has been hindered by the lack of a relevant scale to measure the construct. Study 1 outlines the development of the Interest in Leadership Scale (ILS) using Rasch scale development principles. Study 2 establishes the predictive validity of the ILS with self-rated leadership emergence and transformational leadership behaviors. This measure is likely to prove useful in the future measurement of and research into the topic of interest in leadership

The effects of land use disturbance vary with trophic position in littoral cichlid fish communities from Lake Tanganyika

1. Impacts of anthropogenic disturbance are especially severe in freshwater ecosystems. In particular, land use disturbance can lead to increased levels of pollution, including elevated nutrient and sediment loads whose negative impacts range from the community to the individual level. However, few studies have investigated if these impacts are uniform across species represented by multiple trophic levels. To address this knowledge gap, we focused on Lake Tanganyika cichlid fishes, which comprise hundreds of species representing a wide range of feeding strategies. Cichlids are at their most diverse within the near‐shore environment; however, land use disturbance of this environment has led to decreasing diversity, particularly in herbivores. We therefore tested if there is a uniform effect of pollution across species and trophic groups within the hyper‐diverse rocky shore cichlid fish community. 2. We selected three sites with differing levels of human impact along the Tanzanian coastline and 10 cichlid species, comprising varying taxonomic and trophic groups, common to these sites. Nitrogen and carbon stable isotope values for 528 samples were generated and analysed using generalised linear mixed models. We also estimated stomach contents including sediment proportions. 3. Our study highlights that multiple sources of pollution are having differing effects across species within a diverse fish community. We found that nitrogen stable isotope values were significantly higher at the most disturbed (urbanised) site for benthic feeding species, whereas there was no difference in these isotopes between sites for the water column feeding trophic group. Stomach contents revealed that the elevated δ15N values were unlikely to have been caused by differences in diet between sites. However, at the most disturbed site, higher proportions of sediment were present in most herbivores, irrespective of foraging behaviour. 4. It is likely that anthropogenic nitrogen loading is the cause of higher nitrogen stable isotope values since there was no evidence of species shifting trophic levels between sites. Results support our previous study showing herbivore species to be most affected by human disturbance and make the link to pollution much more explicit. As lower diversity of consumers can negatively affect ecosystem processes such as stability, alleviating environmental impact through sewage treatment and afforestation programmes should continue to be a global priority for the conservation of aquatic ecosystems, as well as human health

Brueckner Rearrangement Effects in Λ5^5_\LambdaHe and ΛΛ6^6_{\Lambda\Lambda}He

Rearrangement effects in light hypernuclei are investigated in the framework of the Brueckner theory. We can estimate without detailed numerical calculations that the energy of the $\alpha$-core is reduced by more than 2.5 MeV when the $\Lambda$ adheres to $^4$He to form $^5_\Lambda$He. Similar assessment of rearrangement contributions is essential to deduce the strength of $\Lambda\Lambda$ interaction from experimentally observed $\Delta B_{\Lambda\Lambda}$. The recently observed experimental value of $\sim$ 1 MeV for the $\Delta B_{\Lambda\Lambda}$ of \hll suggests that the matrix element of $$ in \hll is around -2 MeV.Comment: 7 pages, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Hog1 regulates stress tolerance and virulence in the emerging fungal pathogen Candida auris

We thank Elizabeth Johnson and Adrien Szekely from the Mycology Reference Laboratory, Public Health England, for the clinical C. auris isolates used in this study. We also thank Katharina Trunk for comments on the manuscript. This work was funded by the BBSRC (BB/K016393/1, BB/P020119/1) and the Wellcome Trust (097377/101873). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Characterization of halogen-bridged binuclear metal complexes as hybridized two-band materials

We study the electronic structure of halogen-bridged binuclear metal (MMX) complexes with a two-band Peierls-Hubbard model. Based on a symmetry argument, various density-wave states are derived and characterized. The ground-state phase diagram is drawn within the Hartree-Fock approximation, while the thermal behavior is investigated using a quantum Monte Carlo method. All the calculations conclude that a typical MMX compound Pt_2(CH_3CS_2)_4I should indeed be regarded as a d-p-hybridized two-band material, where the oxidation of the halogen ions must be observed even in the ground state, whereas another MMX family (NH_4)_4[Pt_2(P_2O_5H_2)_4X] may be treated as single-band materials.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures embedded, to be published in Phys. Rev.

On the selection of AGN neutrino source candidates for a source stacking analysis with neutrino telescopes

The sensitivity of a search for sources of TeV neutrinos can be improved by grouping potential sources together into generic classes in a procedure that is known as source stacking. In this paper, we define catalogs of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and use them to perform a source stacking analysis. The grouping of AGN into classes is done in two steps: first, AGN classes are defined, then, sources to be stacked are selected assuming that a potential neutrino flux is linearly correlated with the photon luminosity in a certain energy band (radio, IR, optical, keV, GeV, TeV). Lacking any secure detailed knowledge on neutrino production in AGN, this correlation is motivated by hadronic AGN models, as briefly reviewed in this paper. The source stacking search for neutrinos from generic AGN classes is illustrated using the data collected by the AMANDA-II high energy neutrino detector during the year 2000. No significant excess for any of the suggested groups was found.Comment: 43 pages, 12 figures, accepted by Astroparticle Physic

Coastal lagoons and rising sea level: a review

Sea-level rise (SLR) poses a particularly ominous threat to human habitations and infrastructure in the coastal zone because 10% of the world's population lives in low-lying coastal regions within 10 m elevation of present sea level. There has been much discussion about projected (and the sources of projection) vs. measured SLR rates. Which rates should coastal scientists and managers apply in their studies, and what is the degree of confi- dence of such forecasts, are still open questions. This paper reviews the patterns and effects of relative SLR (RSLR) in coastal lagoons. Three main components are presented in the review: (a) a summary of the main approaches used in predicting medium- to long-term trends in RSLR, (b) a summary of the main evolutionary trends of coastal lagoons and the tools used to examine such trends, and (c) an identification of future research needs. The review reveals that the major source of uncertainty is how and when RSLR will manifest itself at different spatio-temporal scales in coastal lagoon systems, and how its effects can be mitigated. Most of the studies reviewed herein articulate a natural ‘defence’ mechanism of barriers in coastal lagoons by landward barrier retreat through continuous migration, and a gradual change in basin hypsometry during the retreat process. So far, only a relatively small number of detailed studies have integrated and quantified human impacts and coastal lagoon evolution induced by RSLR. We conclude that much more research about adaptation measures is needed, taking into consideration not only the physical and ecological systems but also social, cultural, and economic impacts. Future challenges include a downscaling of SLR approaches from the global level to regional and local levels, with a detailed application of coastal evolution prediction to individual coastal lagoon systemsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Common variants near MC4R are associated with fat mass, weight and risk of obesity.

To identify common variants influencing body mass index (BMI), we analyzed genome-wide association data from 16,876 individuals of European descent. After previously reported variants in FTO, the strongest association signal (rs17782313, P = 2.9 x 10(-6)) mapped 188 kb downstream of MC4R (melanocortin-4 receptor), mutations of which are the leading cause of monogenic severe childhood-onset obesity. We confirmed the BMI association in 60,352 adults (per-allele effect = 0.05 Z-score units; P = 2.8 x 10(-15)) and 5,988 children aged 7-11 (0.13 Z-score units; P = 1.5 x 10(-8)). In case-control analyses (n = 10,583), the odds for severe childhood obesity reached 1.30 (P = 8.0 x 10(-11)). Furthermore, we observed overtransmission of the risk allele to obese offspring in 660 families (P (pedigree disequilibrium test average; PDT-avg) = 2.4 x 10(-4)). The SNP location and patterns of phenotypic associations are consistent with effects mediated through altered MC4R function. Our findings establish that common variants near MC4R influence fat mass, weight and obesity risk at the population level and reinforce the need for large-scale data integration to identify variants influencing continuous biomedical traits