Towards more rigorous personality trait-outcome research

Much of personality research attempts to identify causal links between personality traits and various types of outcomes. I argue that causal interpretations require traits to be seen as existentially and holistically real and the associations to be independent of specific ways of operationalizing the traits. Among other things, this means that, to the extents that causality is to be ascribed to such holistic traits, items and facets of those traits should be similarly associated with specific outcomes, except for variability in the degrees to which they reflect the traits (i.e. factor loadings). I argue that, before drawing causal inferences about personality trait–outcome associations, the presence of this condition should be routinely tested by, for example, systematically comparing the outcome associations of individual items or facets, or sampling different indicators for measuring the same purported traits. Existing evidence suggests that observed associations between personality traits and outcomes at least sometimes depend on which particular items or facets have been included in trait operationalizations, calling trait–level causal interpretations into question. However, this has rarely been considered in the literature. I argue that when outcome associations are specific to facets, they should not be generalized to traits. Furthermore, when the associations are specific to particular items, they should not even be generalized to facets. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology </jats:p

Tervisepsühholoogia

Eesti Arst 2012; 91(2):10

The physics of spectral invariants

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Tarkus toob tervise ja pika elu: inimestevaheliste psühholoogiliste erinevuste tähendusest meditsiinis.

Inimestevahelised psühholoogilised erinevused jagatakse laias laastus kahte kategooriasse: kognitiivsed võimed ning isiksuseomadused. Artiklis keskendutakse kognitiivsete võimete erinevustele ning nende tähendusele inimeste terviseseisundi kujunemisel. Ülevaade tutvustab kognitiivsete erinevuste mõõtmise põhitõdesid ning nende rakendamist kognitiivse võimekuse ja meditsiini kontekstis asjakohaste muutujate vaheliste seoste selgitamisel. Kognitiivse võimekuse mõõtmine on läbipaistev ja objektiivne protseduur, mille väärtuslikkust on võimalik hinnata väga lihtsal ja selgel moel. Kui võimetetestide tulemused võimaldavad teha ennustusi inimeste elukäigu oluliste aspektide – näiteks sotsiaal-majanduslik edukus, eluiga, tervis või tervisekäitumine – kohta sellisel viisil või määral, mida teised teadaolevad tegurid ei suuda, siis on mõistlik neid tõsiselt võtta. Mitmete autorite töödest selgub, et vaimse võimekuse tase ennustab muu hulgas inimeste eluiga, erinevate haiguste ja terviseriskide esinemist ning suutlikkust oma tervise eest hoolt kanda. Samuti arutletakse võimaluse üle, et inimeste võimete erinevused võivad olla seletuseks inimeste sotsiaal-majandusliku olukorra ja tervise üldkehtivale ning paradoksaalsele seosele. Artiklis pakutakse välja mõned praktilised soovitused selleks, et tervist puudutav informatsioon ja terviseteenused mitte üksnes ei oleks kõigile inimestele võrdsel määral kättesaadavad, vaid et erinevat tüüpi inimesed neist ka võrdsel määral kasu saaksid. Eesti Arst 2010; 89(5):330−33

Earth reflector type classification based on multispectral remote sensing image

Earth’s reflectivity is one of the key parameters of climate change, Earth’s radiation budget research and so on. It is determined by the characteristic of Earth atmosphere components. Earth atmosphere components vary strongly in both spatially and temporally, thus complete spatial mosaics and/or richer time series information are needed. In this study, we developed an Earth Reflector Type Index (ERTI) to discriminate major Earth atmosphere components: clouds, cloud-free ocean, bare and vegetated land. Results show that the probability of the ERTI method with selected thresholds being able to discriminate between cloudy and cloud-free scenes is about 82%. ERTI can be used to interpret global Earth’s reflectivity and its temporal variation.Accepted manuscrip

DSCOVR EPIC vegetation earth system data record: product analysis and scientific exploration

The NASA's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) onboard NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) mission was launched on February 11, 2015 to the Sun-Earth Lagrangian L1 point where it began to collect radiance data of the entire sunlit Earth every 65 to 110 min in June 2015. It provides imageries in near backscattering directions at ten ultraviolet to near infrared narrow spectral bands. The DSCOVR EPIC science product suite includes vegetation Earth System Data Record (VESDR) that provides leaf area index (LAI) and diurnal courses of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), sunlit LAI (SLAI), fraction of incident photosynthetically active radiation (FPAR) and directional area scattering function (DASF). The parameters at 10 km sinusoidal grid and 65 to 110 minute temporal frequency generated from the upstream DSCOVR EPIC BRF product were released on June-07-2018 and are available from the NASA Langley Atmospheric Science Data Center. This poster provides an overview of the EPIC VESDR research. This includes a description of the algorithm and its performance, details of the product, its initial quality assessment and obtaining new information on the 3D canopy structure for use in ecological models through novel combinations of the VESDR parameters.Accepted manuscrip

Scaling PRI between coniferous canopy structures

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