The Way of Goodness and Holiness: A Spirituality for Pastoral Ministers (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2011)

Reviewed by David Lichter

Modeling elastic properties of polystyrene through coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations

This paper presents an extended coarse-grained investigation of the elastic properties of polystyrene. In particular, we employ the well-known MARTINI force field and its modifications to perform extended molecular dynamics simulations at the $\mu$s timescale, which take slow relaxation processes of polystyrene into account, such that the simulations permit analyzing the bulk modulus, the shear modulus, and the Poisson ratio. We show that through the iterative modification of MARTINI force field parameters it turns out to be possible to affect the shear modulus and the bulk modulus of the system, making them closer to those values reported in the experiment.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figure

Entre el Consejo de Solón y el de Clístenes:¿Heliea en época de Pisístrato?

In these pages we consider the possibility of some kind of continuity between Solonian and Cleisthenic Boule, over all in its hypothetical judicial function as Heliaia in the time of the tyranny. The Peisistratid government supported by the Attic demos, promoted a more unified and stronger sense of citizenship which favoured the resistance and the victory of the Athenian people over Cleomenes and Isagoras; this took place at the end of dm Sixth Century B.C. under the leadership of the Council and before Cleisthenes returned from his exile

Never too much—the benefit of talent to team performance in the National Basketball Association: Comment on Swaab, Schaerer, Anicich, Ronay, and Galinsky (2014)

As long ago as the 4th century BCE, Aristotle (~350 BCE/1999) claimed that moderate amounts of qualities, rather than an abundance thereof, are needed for success. Indeed, there are a number of too-much-of-a-good-thing (TMGT) phenomena in psychology in which generally positive traits start to exert negative influence after a certain point (for reviews, see Grant & Schwartz, 2011; Pierce & Aguinis, 2013; for a general framework, see Busse, Mahlendorf, & Bode, 2016). Swaab, Schaerer, Anicich, Ronay, and Galinsky (2014) demonstrated such a phenomenon in team sports: Having more talented team members leads to better team performance up to a certain point, after which talent becomes “too much” and detrimental to performance. This too-much-talent (TMT) effect was present in basketball and soccer, professional team sports with high coordination requirements, presumably because status conflicts among highly skilled members impair coordination in teams. The TMT effect was absent in baseball, in which these requirements are lower. Here, we reexamine the TMT effect in basketball, the only domain in which the TMT effect has been shown,1 using the same data set as in the original study as well as a much larger data set. We demonstrate that Swaab et al.’s evidence of TMT is based on an inappropriate approach to testing the inverse-U-shaped relation. The results demonstrate that the common belief among laypeople (Swaab et al., 2014 Study 1) is actually correct—teams generally benefit from more talented members although the benefits decrease marginally. We did not observe any case in which increased talent was detrimental to team success

Large data and Bayesian modeling—aging curves of NBA players

Researchers interested in changes that occur as people age are faced with a number of methodological problems, starting with the immense time scale they are trying to capture, which renders laboratory experiments useless and longitudinal studies rather rare. Fortunately, some people take part in particular activities and pastimes throughout their lives, and often these activities are systematically recorded. In this study, we use the wealth of data collected by the National Basketball Association to describe the aging curves of elite basketball players. We have developed a new approach rooted in the Bayesian tradition in order to understand the factors behind the development and deterioration of a complex motor skill. The new model uses Bayesian structural modeling to extract two latent factors, those of development and aging. The interaction of these factors provides insight into the rates of development and deterioration of skill over the course of a player’s life. We show, for example, that elite athletes have different levels of decline in the later stages of their career, which is dependent on their skill acquisition phase. The model goes beyond description of the aging function, in that it can accommodate the aging curves of subgroups (e.g., different positions played in the game), as well as other relevant factors (e.g., the number of minutes on court per game) that might play a role in skill changes. The flexibility and general nature of the new model make it a perfect candidate for use across different domains in lifespan psychology

Seasonality in submesoscale turbulence

Although the strongest ocean surface currents occur at horizontal scales of order 100 km, recent numerical simulations suggest that flows smaller than these mesoscale eddies can achieve important vertical transports in the upper ocean. These submesoscale flows, 1–100 km in horizontal extent, take heat and atmospheric gases down into the interior ocean, accelerating air–sea fluxes, and bring deep nutrients up into the sunlit surface layer, fueling primary production. Here we present observational evidence that submesoscale flows undergo a seasonal cycle in the surface mixed layer: they are much stronger in winter than in summer. Submesoscale flows are energized by baroclinic instabilities that develop around geostrophic eddies in the deep winter mixed layer at a horizontal scale of order 1–10 km. Flows larger than this instability scale are energized by turbulent scale interactions. Enhanced submesoscale activity in the winter mixed layer is expected to achieve efficient exchanges with the permanent thermocline below.United States. Office of Naval Research (Grant ONR-N00014-09-1-0458)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant NSF-OCE-1233832

Novel silica-based ion exchange resin

Shortcomings of chelating resins have been addressed by a new class of ion exchange resins called dual mechanism bifunctional polymers (DMBPs). DMBPs use hydrophilic cation exchange ligands with rapid uptake kinetics and use chelating ligands for selectivity for one or more metals; result is a resin that quickly recognizes and removes targeted metals from waste, remediation, and process streams. Eichrom`s Diphonix {reg_sign} resin is the first DMBP to be widely released as a commercial product; it is polystyrene based. Objective of this work is to synthesize commercial quantities of a silica-based ion exchange resin with the same or better metal ion selectivity, metal uptake kinetics, and acid stability as Diphonix. Feasibility was determined, however the process needs to be optimized. Studies at Eichrom and ANL of the performance of Diphonix resin over a broad range of HNO3 and HCl conditions and inorganic salt loadings are discussed together with the proposed method of incorporating similar characteristics into a silica-based resin. The new, silica-based resin functionalized with diphosphonic acid ligands can be used in environmental restoration and waste management situations involving processing of low-level, transuranic, and high-level radioactive wastes; it can also be used for processing liquid mixed waste including wastes contaminated with organic compounds

Home advantage mediated (HAM) by referee bias and team performance during covid

The fans’ importance in sports is acknowledged by the term ‘the 12th man’, a figurative extra player for the home team. Sport teams are indeed more successful when they play in front of their fans than when they play away. The supposed mechanism behind this phenomenon, termed Home Advantage (HA), is that fans’ support spurs home players to better performance and biases referees, which in turn determines the outcome. The inference about the importance of fans’ support is, however, indirect as there is normally a 12th man of this kind, even if it is an opponent’s. The current pandemic, which forced sporting activities to take place behind closed doors, provides the necessary control condition. Here we employ a novel conceptual HA model on a sample of over 4000 soccer matches from 12 European leagues, some played in front of spectators and some in empty stadia, to demonstrate that fans are indeed responsible for the HA. However, the absence of fans reduces the HA by a third, as the home team’s performance suffers and the officials’ bias disappears. The current pandemic reveals that the figurative 12th man is no mere fan hyperbole, but is in fact the most important player in the home team