Psychological health and attitude toward Christianity: a study among pupils attending Catholic schools in the Netherlands

This study examines the wider relevance of recent research conducted in England, Northern Ireland and Hong Kong concerning the association between religion and psychological health among young people, by administering translations of the same measures to a sample of 980 pupils attending Catholic secondary schools in the Netherlands. These pupils completed the short-form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire together with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity. The data confirmed the key finding from previous research that a more positive attitude toward Christianity is associated with lower scores recorded on the psychoticism scale. The implications of these findings are discussed for religious educators

On the theory of magnetic field dependence of heat conductivity in dielectric in isotropic model

Phonon polarization in a magnetic field is analyzed in isotropic model. It is shown, that at presence of spin-phonon interaction phonon possess circular polari-zation which causes the appearance of heat flux component perpendicular both to temperature gradient and magnetic field.Comment: 5 pages, 0 figure

Always picture-ready:Adolescents' experiences of social media pressures around body ideals and body projects

Previous research has demonstrated that both passive and active social media usage may have a detrimental impact on people’s body image and satisfaction (Faelens et al., 2021; Fioravanti et al., 2022). Moreover, particularly the editing affordances of social media platforms highlight the apparent malleability inherent to contemporary conceptualizations of bodies as projects (cf. Shilling, 2003). Considering this, it is unsurprising that recent studies found a relation between (selfie) editing and a greater acceptance of – and a higher intention to undergo – cosmetic procedures (Hermans et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2022).Whereas many quantitative studies have examined the link between social media usage, body (dis)satisfaction, and (intended) body projects, fewer qualitative projects have been executed. It is particularly important to focus on adolescents as they are both avid users of social media and adolescents’ self-concept is particularly vulnerable to external influence; moreover, current adolescents have grown up with an unprecedented normalized view of particular body projects, including cosmetic procedures (Ching & Xu, 2019).In light of the above, this study explored the question of how Dutch adolescents perceive and negotiate body ideals and body ‘projects’ encountered on social media. We particularly focused on attitudes towards cosmetic procedures. To answer the research question, 13 focus groups were conducted with a total of 42 adolescents (aged 14-19), across the Netherlands. Participants were recruited at schools and youth councils around the country to account for national and regional differences. Moreover, we included a diverse group of adolescents with different educational attainment levels. Considering the potentially sensitive nature of the study, we recruited friendship groups for our small focus groups (approximately four participants per group). As Allen (2006, p. 164) has argued, focus groups can be helpful when researching sensitive topics as they may “increase the likelihood of people sharing personal experiences”

Facies discrimination with electrical resistivity tomography using a probabilistic methodology: Effect of sensitivity and regularization

peer reviewedElectrical resistivity tomography (ERT) has become a standard geophysical method in the field of hydrogeology, as it has the potential to provide important information regarding the spatial distribution of facies. However, inverted ERT images tend to be grossly smoothed versions of reality because of the regularization of the inverse problem. In this study, we use a probabilistic methodology based upon co-located measurements to assess the utility of ERT to identify hydrofacies in alluvial aquifers. With this methodology, ERT images are interpreted in terms of the probability of belonging to pre-defined hydrofacies. We first analyze through a synthetic study the ability of ERT to discriminate between different facies. As ERT data suffer from a loss of sensitivity with depth, we find that low sensitivity regions are more affected by misclassification. To counteract this effect, we adapt the probabilistic framework to include the spatially varying data sensitivity. We then apply our learning to a field case. For the latter, we consider two different regularization procedures. In contrast to the data sensitivity which affects the facies probability to a limited amount, the regularization can affect the probability maps more considerably because it has a strong influence on the spatial distribution of inverted resistivity. We find that a regularization strategy based on the most realistic prior information tends to offer the most reliable discrimination of facies. Our results confirm the ability of ERT surveys, when properly designed, to detect facies variations in alluvial aquifers. The method can be easily extended to other contexts

Hartle-Hawking state is a maximum of entanglement entropy

It is shown that the Hartle-Hawking state of a scalar field is a maximum of entanglement entropy in the space of pure quantum states satisfying the condition that backreaction is finite. In other words, the Hartle-Hawking state is a curved-space analogue of the EPR state, which is also a maximum of entanglement entropy.Comment: Latex, 4 pages, Some comments are added on the "small backreaction condition

Risiko-Chancen-Analyse mit Value at Risk bei Investitionsentscheidungen

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