Dispositional greed and life satisfaction: the role of social comparison for well-being

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted and reshaped effective leadership practices by introducing working-from-home protocols (WFH) and the hybrid workplace model. The current study sought to identify and understand leadership practices adopted in WFH and the transition to the hybrid model, the effectiveness of these practices, and the implications of these on future effective leadership practices in knowledge-based organizations. The current study employed an inductive thematic analysis on semi-structured interviews with thirteen senior leaders in marketing agencies and departments, grounded in causal leadership epistemology. Five themes were identified: (1) remote leadership capabilities required, (2) a soft skills leadership renaissance, (3) introspection is a coping strategy, (4), leaders' temporal quandary, and (5) hybrid leadership uncertainty. The study findings indicated the leaders who successfully coped and continued to be effective exhibited a more adaptive and resilient mindset, evolving their leadership practices and skills to suit the needs of remote (WFH) leadership. They embraced softer leadership skills and developed more humanistic leadership behaviors. They developed an introspection practice to maintain their mental and psychological balance and they mastered time management in an always-on world. This study offers leaders, managers, and employers practical insights into ongoing effective leadership practice with remote (WFH) empowered workforces and hybrid workplace normalization

Cross-Sections for Electron Scattering Accompanied by Ionization of Inner-Shells

A method is presented to describe the electron scattering process at an ionization of inner-shell electrons. The differential cross-section with the energy transfer and the momentum transfer is calculated using the expression of the generalized oscillator strength. This cross-section and the total ionization cross-section are fairly close to the results obtained by the Gryzinski equation. The photo-absorption cross-section obtained by the present treatment shows good agreement with the experimental data in a wide range of the photon energy. Based on the present treatment, the scattering angle distribution of the primary electron is calculated

Signatures of pulsars in the light curves of newly formed supernova remnants

We explore the effect of pulsars, in particular those born with millisecond periods, on their surrounding supernova ejectas. While they spin down, fast-spinning pulsars release their tremendous rotational energy in the form of a relativistic magnetized wind that can affect the dynamics and luminosity of the supernova. We estimate the thermal and non-thermal radiations expected from these specific objects, concentrating at times a few years after the onset of the explosion. We find that the bolometric light curves present a high luminosity plateau (that can reach 10^(43)–10^(44) erg s^(−1)) over a few years. An equally bright TeV gamma-ray emission, and a milder X-ray peak (of the order of 10^(40)–10^(42) erg s^(−1)) could also appear a few months to a few years after the explosion, as the pulsar wind nebula emerges, depending on the injection parameters. The observations of these signatures by following the emission of a large number of supernovae could have important implications for the understanding of core-collapse supernovae and reveal the nature of the remnant compact object

Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and neutrinos from tidal disruptions by massive black holes

Tidal disruptions are extremely powerful phenomena that have been designated as candidate sources of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. The disruption of a star by a black hole can naturally provide protons and heavier nuclei, which can be injected and accelerated to ultra-high energies within a jet. Inside the jet, accelerated nuclei are likely to interact with a dense photon field, leading to a significant production of neutrinos and secondary particles. We model numerically the propagation and interactions of high-energy nuclei in jetted tidal disruption events in order to evaluate consistently their signatures in cosmic rays and neutrinos. We propose a simple model of the light curve of tidal disruption events, consisting of two stages: a high state with bright luminosity and short duration and a medium state, less bright and longer lasting. These two states have different impacts on the production of cosmic rays and neutrinos. In order to calculate the diffuse fluxes of cosmic rays and neutrinos, we model the luminosity function and redshift evolution of jetted tidal disruption events. We find that we can fit the latest ultra-high-energy cosmic-ray spectrum and composition results of the Auger experiment for a range of reasonable parameters. The diffuse neutrino flux associated with this scenario is found to be subdominant, but nearby events can be detected by IceCube or next-generation detectors such as IceCube-Gen2

Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays and Neutrinos

The observation of neutrinos from cosmic accelerators will be revolutionary. High energy neutrinos are closely connected to ultrahigh energy cosmic rays and their sources. Cosmic ray sources are likely to produce neutrinos and the propagation of ultrahigh cosmic rays from distant sources can generate PeV to ZeV neutrinos. We briefly review recent progress on the observations of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays and their implications for the future detections of high energy neutrinos.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of NOW (Neutrino Oscillation Workshop) 2010, to appear in Nucl. Phys. B (Proc. Suppl.

Positive psychology of Malaysian students: impacts of engagement, motivation, self-compassion and wellbeing on mental health

Malaysia plays a key role in education of the Asia Pacific, expanding its scholarly output rapidly. However, mental health of Malaysian students is challenging, and their help-seeking is low because of stigma. This study explored the relationships between mental health and positive psychological constructs (academic engagement, motivation, self-compassion, and wellbeing), and evaluated the relative contribution of each positive psychological construct to mental health in Malaysian students. An opportunity sample of 153 students completed the measures regarding these constructs. Correlation, regression, and mediation analyses were conducted. Engagement, amotivation, self-compassion, and wellbeing were associated with, and predicted large variance in mental health. Self-compassion was the strongest independent predictor of mental health among all the positive psychological constructs. Findings can imply the strong links between mental health and positive psychology, especially selfcompassion. Moreover, intervention studies to examine the effects of self-compassion training on mental health of Malaysian students appear to be warranted.N/

Cosmic Rays at the highest energies

After a century of observations, we still do not know the origin of cosmic rays. I will review the current state of cosmic ray observations at the highest energies, and their implications for proposed acceleration models and secondary astroparticle fluxes. Possible sources have narrowed down with the confirmation of a GZK-like spectral feature. The anisotropy observed by the Pierre Auger Observatory may signal the dawn of particle astronomy raising hopes for high energy neutrino observations. However, composition related measurements point to a different interpretation. A clear resolution of this mystery calls for much larger statistics than the reach of current observatories.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, in the Proceedings of TAUP 201

Sources of UHECRs in view of the TUS and JEM-EUSO experiments

The origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) is one of the most intriguing problems of modern cosmic ray physics. We briefly review the main astrophysical models of their origin and the forthcoming orbital experiments TUS and JEM-EUSO, and discuss how the new data can help one solve the long-standing puzzle.Comment: 4 pages; prepared for ECRS-2012 (http://ecrs2012.sinp.msu.ru/); v2: a reference adde

The optical depth of the Universe to ultrahigh energy cosmic ray scattering in the magnetized large scale structure

This paper provides an analytical description of the transport of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays in an inhomogeneously magnetized intergalactic medium. This latter is modeled as a collection of magnetized scattering centers such as radio cocoons, magnetized galactic winds, clusters or magnetized filaments of large scale structure, with negligible magnetic fields in between. Magnetic deflection is no longer a continuous process, it is rather dominated by scattering events. We study the interaction between high energy cosmic rays and the scattering agents. We then compute the optical depth of the Universe to cosmic ray scattering and discuss the phenomological consequences for various source scenarios. For typical parameters of the scattering centers, the optical depth is greater than unity at 5x10^{19}eV, but the total angular deflection is smaller than unity. One important consequence of this scenario is the possibility that the last scattering center encountered by a cosmic ray be mistaken with the source of this cosmic ray. In particular, we suggest that part of the correlation recently reported by the Pierre Auger Observatory may be affected by such delusion: this experiment may be observing in part the last scattering surface of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays rather than their source population. Since the optical depth falls rapidly with increasing energy, one should probe the arrival directions of the highest energy events beyond 10^{20}eV on an event by event basis to circumvent this effect.Comment: version to appear in PRD; substantial improvements: extended introduction, sections added on angular images and on direction dependent effects with sky maps of optical depth, enlarged discussion of Auger results (conclusions unchanged); 27 pages, 9 figure