Goal Orientation Heterogeneity in Teams: Investigating Implications for Individual Satisfaction with the Team and Team Conflict

The primary purpose of this research was to examine how goal orientation heterogeneity in teams relates to both individual satisfaction with the team and team conflict. Based on current research on team member heterogeneity and goal orientation, I hypothesized, at the individual level of analysis, that goal orientation dissimilarity would be negatively related to individual satisfaction with the team and, at the team level of analysis, that goal orientation diversity would be positively related to relationship and task conflict. Data were collected from a sample of 420 engineering students working on complex design projects in 101 project teams. Results indicate that goal orientation dissimilarity is negatively, albeit modestly, related to individual satisfaction with the team for the learning-avoid, performance-approach, and performance-avoid dimensions. For no dimension of goal orientation was diversity related to relationship or task conflict at the team level of analysis

The Attitudinal and Motivational Consequences of Personality Differences in Teams

In our team-based world of work, understanding the effects of team member differences is critical. This research examined the effects of personality congruence (i.e., (dis)similarity) on individual team members’ satisfaction with the team and autonomous motivation. The potential role of psychological need fulfillment as a mediator of the relation between personality congruence and these outcomes was also considered. Multilevel polynomial regression with response surface analysis provided no evidence for a congruence pattern relating any of the HEXACO model of personality’s six domains to individual satisfaction with the team, autonomous motivation, or any of the psychological needs. Supplemental analyses revealed a significant congruence pattern for the emotionality sub-trait of dependence. As individual and team levels of dependence became more discrepant, satisfaction with the team was lower. This study contributes to the relatively limited research conducted on personality dissimilarity in teams and should provide useful direction for team composition researchers. The findings provide further evidence for the need to consider personality differences at the facet level and the potential importance of investigating moderators of personality congruence relations to explain the inconsistent findings to date. If replicated, the results could have practical implications. Individuals putting together work groups may consider the trait of dependence when affective outcomes are of concern. These implications are discussed in detail, as well as study limitations and directions for future research

Downbeat Nystagmus in a 7-Year-Old Girl with Epstein-Barr Virus-Associated Meningitis and Cerebellitis

Downbeat nystagmus is a type of jerk nystagmus that may be seen in patients with lesions affecting the vestibulocerebellum. This is a case of a 7-year-old girl presenting with a history of fever, headache, and episodic vertigo with downbeat nystagmus. The diagnosis of Epstein-Barr virus meningitis with acute cerebellitis was made by contrast magnetic resonance imaging, cerebrospinal fluid analysis, and serum Epstein-Barr virus titers. Contrast magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated enhancement of the meninges and inferior cerebellar folia, correlating with the neuroophthalmological symptom of downbeat nystagmus

A Multiscale Approach to Blast Neurotrauma Modeling: Part I – Development of Novel Test Devices for in vivo and in vitro Blast Injury Models

The loading conditions used in some current in vivo and in vitro blast-induced neurotrauma models may not be representative of real-world blast conditions. To address these limitations, we developed a compressed-gas driven shock tube with different driven lengths that can generate Friedlander-type blasts. The shock tube can generate overpressures up to 650 kPa with durations between 0.3 and 1.1 ms using compressed helium driver gas, and peak overpressures up to 450 kPa with durations between 0.6 and 3 ms using compressed nitrogen. This device is used for short-duration blast overpressure loading for small animal in vivo injury models, and contrasts the more frequently used long duration/high impulse blast overpressures in the literature. We also developed a new apparatus that is used with the shock tube to recreate the in vivo intracranial overpressure response for loading in vitro culture preparations. The receiver device surrounds the culture with materials of similar impedance to facilitate the propagation of a single overpressure pulse through the tissue. This method prevents pressure waves reflecting off the tissue that can cause unrealistic deformation and injury. The receiver performance was characterized using the longest helium-driven shock tube, and produced in-fluid overpressures up to 1500 kPa at the location where a culture would be placed. This response was well correlated with the overpressure conditions from the shock tube (R2 = 0.97). Finite element models of the shock tube and receiver were developed and validated to better elucidate the mechanics of this methodology. A demonstration exposing a culture to the loading conditions created by this system suggest tissue strains less than 5% for all pressure levels simulated, which was well below functional deficit thresholds for strain rates less than 50 s−1. This novel system is not limited to a specific type of culture model and can be modified to reproduce more complex pressure pulses

Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity.

Atrophy of neurons in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a key role in the pathophysiology of depression and related disorders. The ability to promote both structural and functional plasticity in the PFC has been hypothesized to underlie the fast-acting antidepressant properties of the dissociative anesthetic ketamine. Here, we report that, like ketamine, serotonergic psychedelics are capable of robustly increasing neuritogenesis and/or spinogenesis both in vitro and in vivo. These changes in neuronal structure are accompanied by increased synapse number and function, as measured by fluorescence microscopy and electrophysiology. The structural changes induced by psychedelics appear to result from stimulation of the TrkB, mTOR, and 5-HT2A signaling pathways and could possibly explain the clinical effectiveness of these compounds. Our results underscore the therapeutic potential of psychedelics and, importantly, identify several lead scaffolds for medicinal chemistry efforts focused on developing plasticity-promoting compounds as safe, effective, and fast-acting treatments for depression and related disorders

T-infinity: The Dependency Inversion Principle for Rapid and Sustainable Multidisciplinary Software Development

The CFD Vision 2030 Study recommends that, NASA should develop and maintain an integrated simulation and software development infrastructure to enable rapid CFD technology maturation.... [S]oftware standards and interfaces must be emphasized and supported whenever possible, and open source models for noncritical technology components should be adopted. The current paper presents an approach to an open source development architecture, named T-infinity, for accelerated research in CFD leveraging the Dependency Inversion Principle to realize plugins that communicate through collections of functions without exposing internal data structures. Steady state flow visualization, mesh adaptation, fluid-structure interaction, and overset domain capabilities are demonstrated through compositions of plugins via standardized abstract interfaces without the need for source code dependencies between disciplines. Plugins interact through abstract interfaces thereby avoiding N 2 direct code-to-code data structure coupling where N is the number of codes. This plugin architecture enhances sustainable development by controlling the interaction between components to limit software complexity growth. The use of T-infinity abstract interfaces enables multidisciplinary application developers to leverage legacy applications alongside newly-developed capabilities. While rein, a description of interface details is deferred until the are more thoroughly tested and can be closed to modification

Dietary prophage inducers and antimicrobials: toward landscaping the human gut microbiome.

The approximately 1011 viruses and microbial cells per gram of fecal matter (dry weight) in the large intestine are important to human health. The responses of three common gut bacteria species, and one opportunistic pathogen, to 117 commonly consumed foods, chemical additives, and plant extracts were tested. Many compounds, including Stevia rebaudiana and bee propolis extracts, exhibited species-specific growth inhibition by prophage induction. Overall, these results show that various foods may change the abundances of gut bacteria by modulating temperate phage and suggests a novel path for landscaping the human gut microbiome

Neural correlates of taste reactivity in autism spectrum disorder.

Selective or \u27picky\u27 eating habits are common among those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These behaviors are often related to aberrant sensory experience in individuals with ASD, including heightened reactivity to food taste and texture. However, very little is known about the neural mechanisms that underlie taste reactivity in ASD. In the present study, food-related neural responses were evaluated in 21 young adult and adolescent males diagnosed with ASD without intellectual disability, and 21 typically-developing (TD) controls. Taste reactivity was assessed using the Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile, a clinical self-report measure. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to evaluate hemodynamic responses to sweet (vs. neutral) tastants and food pictures. Subjects also underwent resting-state functional connectivity scans.The ASD and TD individuals did not differ in their hemodynamic response to gustatory stimuli. However, the ASD subjects, but not the controls, exhibited a positive association between self-reported taste reactivity and the response to sweet tastants within the insular cortex and multiple brain regions associated with gustatory perception and reward. There was a strong interaction between diagnostic group and taste reactivity on tastant response in brain regions associated with ASD pathophysiology, including the bilateral anterior superior temporal sulcus (STS). This interaction of diagnosis and taste reactivity was also observed in the resting state functional connectivity between the anterior STS and dorsal mid-insula (i.e., gustatory cortex).These results suggest that self-reported heightened taste reactivity in ASD is associated with heightened brain responses to food-related stimuli and atypical functional connectivity of primary gustatory cortex, which may predispose these individuals to maladaptive and unhealthy patterns of selective eating behavior. Trial registration: (clinicaltrials.gov identifier) NCT01031407. Registered: December 14, 2009

The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey : cosmological implications of the full shape of the clustering wedges in the data release 10 and 11 galaxy samples

We explore the cosmological implications of the angle-averaged correlation function, ξ(s), and the clustering wedges, ξ⊥(s) and ξ∥(s), of the LOWZ and CMASS galaxy samples from Data Releases 10 and 11 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. Our results show no significant evidence for a deviation from the standard Λ cold dark matter model. The combination of the information from our clustering measurements with recent data from the cosmic microwave background is sufficient to constrain the curvature of the Universe to Ωk = 0.0010 ± 0.0029, the total neutrino mass to ∑mν < 0.23 eV (95 per cent confidence level), the effective number of relativistic species to Neff = 3.31 ± 0.27 and the dark energy equation of state to wDE = −1.051 ± 0.076. These limits are further improved by adding information from Type Ia supernovae and baryon acoustic oscillations from other samples. In particular, this data set combination is completely consistent with a time-independent dark energy equation of state, in which case we find wDE = −1.024 ± 0.052. We explore the constraints on the growth rate of cosmic structures assuming f(z) = Ωm(z)γ and obtain γ = 0.69 ± 0.15, consistent with the predictions of general relativity of γ = 0.55.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe