Cultural differences in implicit theories of citizenship performance: a comparative study of MBA students from the Czech Republic, India, and the United States

2010 Spring.Includes bibliographic references (pages 77-94).Covers not scanned.Print version deaccessioned 2022.The purpose of the present research was to (a) develop a culturally-universal measure of implicit citizenship performance theories and (b) examine cross-cultural differences in the construct. The final measure consisted of four factors - Discourtesy, Interpersonal Harmony, Conscientiousness, and Initiative. Cross-country comparisons using the new measure revealed differences in interpersonal harmony, conscientiousness, and initiative between the American (N = 312), Czech (N = 160), and Indian (N= 195) participants. Country-level collectivism accounted for variation in implicit theories of interpersonal harmony and conscientiousness, and country-level power distance accounted for variation in implicit theories of interpersonal harmony and initiative. The present findings question the assumption that job performance is a culturally universal construct and suggest that some behaviors constituting the job performance domain may be perceived more or less desirable depending on one’s culture

Der Einfluss von Subkulturen auf die Werbung anhand von Guerilla Advertising

In der Arbeit „Der Einfluss von Subkulturen auf die Werbung anhand von Guerilla Advertising“ wird versucht die Beziehung von Subkulturen zur Mainstreamkultur zu untersuchen. Im Speziellen wird hier stellvertretend für die Subkulturen, das Phänomen Street-Art untersucht, welches oft von der Werbung kopiert wird. Vor allem Guerilla Advertising bedient sich vieler Stilelement dieser Kunstform. Durch die Verwendung dieser subkulturellen Ästhetik versucht die Werbung wieder vermehrt Aufmerksamkeit zu erregen und gleichzeitig die schwer erreichbaren jungen Trendsetter anzusprechen. Die zunehmende Ablehnung der konventionellen Werbekanäle zwang die Werbung sich neu zu orientieren. Es wurden wieder Wege gesucht um den Konsumenten auf unkonventionelle und kreative Weise anzusprechen. Aus dieser Not entstand unter anderem das Guerilla Advertising. Diese neue Werbeform versucht Wege zu finden um von den Konsumenten wieder positiv wahrgenommen zu werden. Das Guerilla Advertising ist ein weiterer Beleg dafür, dass sich die Werbung schon seit Jahren von Subkulturen Ideen holt. Speziell die subversiven Stile dieser Kulturen werden kopiert und in entschärfter und allgemein akzeptierter Form kommerziell zweckentfremdet. Ein gutes Beispiel dafür ist zunehmende Verwendung von Schablonenästhetik in der Werbung. Durch diesen „Stilraub“ geraten die Subkulturen unter Erneuerungsdruck um sich wieder von der Mainkultur zu unterscheiden. Sie werden gezwungen sich im stilistischen Feld neu zu positionieren um wieder eine Distinktion zu ihrem Main-Widerpart zu erzeugen. Es findet somit ein ständiges Wechselspiel zwischen subkulturellen Trendsettern und Markenstrategen statt, das in dieser Arbeit anhand von Guerilla Advertising und Street-Art näher gebracht wird.The thesis „Der Einfluß von Subkulturen auf die Werbung anhand von Guerilla Advertising“ (=The Influence of subcultures on advertising using the example of Guerilla Advertising) shows the relation between a subculture and the mainculture. Using the example of street-art, it will be shown how advertising co-ops the styles of subcultures. Especially guerilla advertising tries to copy the aesthetics of street-art to generate attention among the hard to reach „hipster“-targetgroup. The increasing denial of the classical media channels for advertising has changed the landscape. Consumers are now very much in control of the media they consume and how they consume it, so advertisers can no longer spoon-feed messages to the masses in television ad breaks as they once did. Advertisers and agencies have had to take note and evolve, both with the rapidly changing habits of consumers, in order to explore the options beyond television, press and poster. In response to this changing approach to advertising, the agencies came up with a new form of advertising that looks to catch consumers off their guard – guerilla advertising was born. But guerilla advertising also shows the massive influence subcultures have on advertising. Especially the subversive styles are very appealing to the advertisers. Because those rebellious images can create attention like nothing else. Advertising takes these subversive styles and transforms them into inoffensive popculture-styles to use them in their ads. A good example for this transformation are the stencil-styles that are increasingly used in youthoriented ads. Because of the increasing co-optation of their styles the subcultures have to create new aesthetics and styles to recreate their counterposition again. Therefore they constantly have to create new styles to avoid their implementation into the mainstream

Modelling the QCD Phase Transition with an Effective Lagrangian of Light and Massive Hadrons

The temperature dependence of quark and gluon condensates in QCD as precursor of the chiral and deconfining phase transition is modelled with a conformally extended non-linear sigma-model including broken chiral and scale invariance. The model is further enlarged by including (free) heavier hadrons. Within this frame we then study the interplay of QCD scale breaking effects and heavier hadrons in chiral symmetry restoration.Comment: 23 pages, LaTeX, 5 figures, uses epsfig.st

Role of Scalar Meson Resonances in $K_{L}^{0} \rightarrow \pi^{0} \gamma \gamma Decay

Corrections to $K_{L}^{0}\rightarrow \pi^{0} \gamma \gamma$ decay induced by scalar meson exchange are studied within chiral perturbation theory. In spite of bad knowledge of scalar-mesons parameters, the calculated branching ratio can be changed by a few percent.Comment: 18 pages of text, 2 figures (available upon request); preprint IJS-TP-16-94 , TUM-T31-63-94

Microfluidic device facilitates in vitro modeling of human neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis-on-a-chip

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a deadly gastrointestinal disease of premature infants that is associated with an exaggerated inflammatory response, dysbiosis of the gut microbiome, decreased epithelial cell proliferation, and gut barrier disruption. We describe an in vitro model of the human neonatal small intestinal epithelium (Neonatal-Intestine-on-a-Chip) that mimics key features of intestinal physiology. This model utilizes intestinal enteroids grown from surgically harvested intestinal tissue from premature infants and cocultured with human intestinal microvascular endothelial cells within a microfluidic device. We used our Neonatal-Intestine-on-a-Chip to recapitulate NEC pathophysiology by adding infant-derived microbiota. This model, named NEC-on-a-Chip, simulates the predominant features of NEC, including significant upregulation of proinflammatory cytokines, decreased intestinal epithelial cell markers, reduced epithelial proliferation, and disrupted epithelial barrier integrity. NEC-on-a-Chip provides an improved preclinical model of NEC that facilitates comprehensive analysis of the pathophysiology of NEC using precious clinical samples. This model is an advance toward a personalized medicine approach to test new therapeutics for this devastating disease

The sigma and f_0(980) from Ke4 + pi-pi scatterings data

We systematically reconsider, within an improved "analytic K-matrix model", the extraction of the sigma = f_0(600) and f_0(980) masses, widths and hadronic couplings using new Ke4 = K-->pi-pi e nu_e data on pi-pi phase shift below 390 MeV and different sets of pi-pi--> pi-pi / K-K scatterings data from 400 MeV to 1.4 GeV. Our results are summarized in Tables 1, 2 and 5. In units of MeV, the complex poles are: M_sigma=452(12) - i 260(15) and M_f=981(34) -i 18(11), which are comparable with some recent high-precision determinations and with PDG values. Besides some other results, we find: |g_{sigma K+K-}|/|g_{sigma pi+pi-}|=0.37(6) which confirms a sizeable g_{sigma K+K-} coupling found earlier, and which disfavours a large pi-pi molecule or four-quark component of the sigma, while its broad pi-pi width (relative to the one of the rho-meson) cannot be explained within a \bar qq scenario. The narrow pi-pi width of the f_0(980) and the large value: |g_{f K+K-}|/|g_{f pi+pi-}|=2.59(1.34), excludes its pure (\bar uu+\bar dd) content. A significant gluonium component eventually mixed with \bar qq appears to be necessary for evading the previous difficulties.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, 6 table

Interleukin-22 signaling attenuates necrotizing enterocolitis by promoting epithelial cell regeneration

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a deadly intestinal inflammatory disorder that primarily affects premature infants and lacks adequate therapeutics. Interleukin (IL)-22 plays a critical role in gut barrier maintenance, promoting epithelial regeneration, and controlling intestinal inflammation in adult animal models. However, the importance of IL-22 signaling in neonates during NEC remains unknown. We investigated the role of IL-22 in the neonatal intestine under homeostatic and inflammatory conditions by using a mouse model of NEC. Our data reveal tha

Lysoptosis is an evolutionarily conserved cell death pathway moderated by intracellular serpins

Lysosomal membrane permeabilization (LMP) and cathepsin release typifies lysosome-dependent cell death (LDCD). However, LMP occurs in most regulated cell death programs suggesting LDCD is not an independent cell death pathway, but is conscripted to facilitate the final cellular demise by other cell death routines. Previously, we demonstrated that Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) null for a cysteine protease inhibitor, srp-6, undergo a specific LDCD pathway characterized by LMP and cathepsin-dependent cytoplasmic proteolysis. We designated this cell death routine, lysoptosis, to distinguish it from other pathways employing LMP. In this study, mouse and human epithelial cells lacking srp-6 homologues, mSerpinb3a and SERPINB3, respectively, demonstrated a lysoptosis phenotype distinct from other cell death pathways. Like in C. elegans, this pathway depended on LMP and released cathepsins, predominantly cathepsin L. These studies suggested that lysoptosis is an evolutionarily-conserved eukaryotic LDCD that predominates in the absence of neutralizing endogenous inhibitors