2,025 research outputs found
Facing the music or burying our heads in the sand?: Adaptive emotion regulation in mid- and late-life
Psychological defense theories postulate that keeping threatening information out of awareness brings short-term reduction of anxiety at the cost of longer-term dysfunction. By contrast, Socioemotional Selectivity Theory suggests that preference for positively-valenced information is a manifestation of adaptive emotion regulation in later life. Using six decades of longitudinal data on 61 men, we examined links between emotion regulation indices informed by these distinct conceptualizations: defense patterns in earlier adulthood and selective memory for positively-valenced images in late life. Men who used more avoidant defenses in midlife recognized fewer emotionally-valenced and neutral images in a memory test 35-40 years later. Late-life satisfaction was positively linked with mid-life engaging defenses but negatively linked at the trend level with concurrent positivity bias
Understanding diamond pricing using unconditional quantile regressions
This paper investigates the relationship between the selling price of diamonds and their weight in carats. For this purpose, we use a unique sample of 112,080 certified diamonds collected from www.info-diamond.com during the first week of July 2011. We find substantial differences in pricing depending on cut shape. The price of diamonds increases markedly with the carat weight, with a price elasticity equal to 1.94. However, estimates from unconditional quantile regressions show that the price-weight elasticity is not constant since it rises along the price distribution of diamonds. Finally, we observe the existence of significant increases in prices for diamonds featured with round weights compared to gems just below these threshold weights
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Social support as protective factor of the effects of part- time work on psychological health: a moderated mediation model
Purpose:The purpose of this study is to examine the protective effect of social support on psychological health and how it differs by gender in the context of part-time employment.
Design/methodology/approach: The sample consisted of 22,786 employees from four service sector organisations. Structural equation modelling was used to test a moderated mediation model assessing the relationship between employment status (part-time vs full-time) and psychological health mediated by social support (from management and colleagues) and moderated by gender.
Findings: Social support from management and colleagues was associated with fewer symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression. Notably, management support had a stronger association than that of colleaguesâ support on each of the three health-related variables. Social support was also found to be a mediator of part-time working on health such that lower social support led to increased health symptoms. Moreover, we found moderating gender effects between social support and psychological health such that colleague support had a stronger effect on reduced depression and stress among men than women whilst management support had a stronger effect on reduced anxiety for women. Finally, significant moderated mediating paths were found, but further research is needed to identify other potential moderators of the mediating effects.
Originality/value: The findings suggest complex relationships between part-time employment, social support, psychological health and gender not examined in previous studies. It highlights the value of diverse sources of support and the necessity of addressing specific genderâs needs for enhancing psychological health of part-time employees
Huysmans pornographe
La question de lâĂ©criture pornographique est dâautant plus intĂ©ressante chez Huysmans que, au-delĂ du tĂ©moignage quâelle offre quant Ă la place de lâĂ©rotisme dans la littĂ©rature de la fin du dix-neuviĂšme siĂšcle, elle est Ă©galement un critĂ©rium inattendu de lâunitĂ© de lâĆuvre. En effet, si la pornographie est au cĆur des pratiques sexuelles et littĂ©raires huysmansiennes, câest moins sa visibilitĂ© explicite qui est Ă souligner que sa surprenante discrĂ©tion dans les romans naturalistes qui ont pourtant fait la rĂ©putation sulfureuse de lâauteur.
Tout au contraire, ce sont les poĂšmes du Drageoir aux Ă©pices qui donnent les portraits de femmes annonciateurs de ce que lâon retrouvera sous la plume de lâauteur dâĂ rebours, ambivalents et marquĂ©s par le caractĂšre antithĂ©tique de lâamour sadique, par la mĂȘme cruditĂ© pornographique que celle des fleurs de Des Esseintes ou le rĂȘve de la Syphilis. Le monde onirique ouvre alors lâespace dâune spiritualisation de lâordure qui est celui du sadisme de FĂ©licien Rops ou de Gilles de Rais, qui transfigure lâĂ©criture du sexe en Ă©criture de la monstruositĂ© et les noces de la chair en noces spirituelles.
Mais le trait le plus marquant est certainement celui de la rĂ©flexion sur lâessence mĂȘme de lâĂ©criture que la question permet Ă lâauteur converti. AprĂšs sâĂȘtre plu Ă provoquer le bourgeois, Huysmans sâemploie en effet Ă scandaliser les bigots par le mĂȘme langage, faisant basculer le point dâĂ©quilibre de sa pornographie de pornĂȘ Ă graphĂȘ.
Cardiac protective effects of Moringa oleifera seeds in spontaneous hypertensive rats
BACKGROUND Hypertension is characterized by a maintained high blood pressure leading to cardiac complications such as left ventricular hypertrophy and fibrosis and an increased risk of heart failure and myocardial infarction. This study investigated the cardiac effects of oral administration of Moringa oleifera (MOI) seed powder in spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHR).
METHODS SHR received food containing MOI seed powder (750mg/d, 8 weeks) or normal food. In vivo measurement of hemodynamic parameters by telemetry and cardiac structure and function analysis by echocardiography were performed. Histological studies were performed to determine fibrosis and protein expression.
RESULTS MOI treatment did not modify blood pressure in SHR but reduced nocturnal heart rate and improved cardiac diastolic function (reduction of isovolumetric relaxation time and deceleration time of the E wave, increase of ejection volume and cardiac output compared to nontreated SHR). Left ventricular anterior wall thickness, interseptal thickness on diastole, and relative wall thickness were reduced after MOI treatment. Furthermore, we found a significant reduction of fibrosis in the left ventricle of MOI-treated SHR. This antihypertrophic and antifibrotic effect of MOI was associated with increased expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)-α and Ύ, reduced cardiac triglyceride level, and enhanced plasmatic prostacyclins.
CONCLUSIONS Our data show a beneficial effect of MOI on the cardiac structure and function in SHR associated with an upregulation of PPAR-α and Ύ signaling. This study thus provides scientific rational support for the empirical use of MOI in the traditional Malagasy medicine against cardiac diseases associated with blood pressure overload
Optokinetic stimulation rehabilitation in preventing seasickness
SummaryObjectivesSeasickness occurs when traveling on a boat: symptoms such as vomiting are very disturbing and may be responsible for discontinuing travel or occupation and can become life-threatening. The failure of classical treatment to prevent seasickness has motivated this retrospective study exploring optokinetic stimulation in reducing these symptoms.Patients and methodsExperimental training of 75 sailors with optokinetic stimulation attempted to reduce seasickness manifestations and determine the factors that could predict accommodation problems.ResultsEighty percent of the trained subjects were able to return on board. No predictive factors such as sex, occupation, degree of illness, number of treatment sessions, time to follow-up, and age were found to influence training efficacy.ConclusionOptokinetic stimulation appears to be promising in the treatment of seasickness. Nevertheless, statistically significant results have yet to demonstrate its efficacy
Quantitative test of the barrier nucleosome model for statistical positioning of nucleosomes up- and downstream of transcription start sites
The positions of nucleosomes in eukaryotic genomes determine which parts of
the DNA sequence are readily accessible for regulatory proteins and which are
not. Genome-wide maps of nucleosome positions have revealed a salient pattern
around transcription start sites, involving a nucleosome-free region (NFR)
flanked by a pronounced periodic pattern in the average nucleosome density.
While the periodic pattern clearly reflects well-positioned nucleosomes, the
positioning mechanism is less clear. A recent experimental study by Mavrich et
al. argued that the pattern observed in S. cerevisiae is qualitatively
consistent with a `barrier nucleosome model', in which the oscillatory pattern
is created by the statistical positioning mechanism of Kornberg and Stryer. On
the other hand, there is clear evidence for intrinsic sequence preferences of
nucleosomes, and it is unclear to what extent these sequence preferences affect
the observed pattern. To test the barrier nucleosome model, we quantitatively
analyze yeast nucleosome positioning data both up- and downstream from NFRs.
Our analysis is based on the Tonks model of statistical physics which
quantifies the interplay between the excluded-volume interaction of nucleosomes
and their positional entropy. We find that although the typical patterns on the
two sides of the NFR are different, they are both quantitatively described by
the same physical model, with the same parameters, but different boundary
conditions. The inferred boundary conditions suggest that the first nucleosome
downstream from the NFR (the +1 nucleosome) is typically directly positioned
while the first nucleosome upstream is statistically positioned via a
nucleosome-repelling DNA region. These boundary conditions, which can be
locally encoded into the genome sequence, significantly shape the statistical
distribution of nucleosomes over a range of up to ~1000 bp to each side.Comment: includes supporting materia
Reconstructing âthe Alcoholicâ: Recovering from Alcohol Addiction and the Stigma this Entails
Public perception of alcohol addiction is frequently negative, whilst an important part of recovery is the construction of a positive sense of self. In order to explore how this might be achieved, we investigated how those who self-identify as in recovery from alcohol problems view themselves and their difficulties with alcohol and how they make sense of othersâ responses to their addiction. Semi-structured interviews with six individuals who had been in recovery between 5 and 35 years and in contact with Alcoholics Anonymous were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The participants were acutely aware of stigmatising images of âalcoholicsâ and described having struggled with a considerable dilemma in accepting this identity themselves. However, to some extent they were able to resist stigma by conceiving of an âaware alcoholic selfâ which was divorced from their previously unaware self and formed the basis for a new more knowing and valued identity
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