Humility in Personality and Positive Psychology

A case could be made that the practice of philosophy demands a certain humility, or at least intellectual humility, requiring such traits as inquisitiveness, openness to new ideas, and a shared interest in pursuing truth. In the positive psychology movement, the study of both humility and intellectual humility has been grounded in the methods and approach of personality psychology, specifically the examination of these virtues as traits. Consistent with this approach, the chapter begins with a discussion of the examination of intellectual humility as a “character trait,” comparing intellectual humility to various well-known traits in the personality psychology literature (e.g the “Big 5” and the “Big 2”) as well as other key traits such as the need for cognition and the need for closure. The chapter then turns to the proverbial issue of whether virtues in general, and intellectual humility in particular, are a matter of “nature”- that is, an innate trait determined by heritability, or “nurture” – a trait mostly shaped by situation and environment. While the chapter does not resolve the issue, it provides occasion for an examination of the role of situations in the expression of intellectual humility, and for the interaction of “situation” and “trait.” The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the interaction of trait with situation provides the most robust understanding of the psychology of any character virtue, including humility and intellectual humility

Improving body image in an idealised media culture: community solutions and positive body image interventions

Section A: This section provides a systematic review of the emerging research base into promoting positive body image in the context of western idealised media. The findings suggest that strategies such as changing the media presented to rely less on a thin-ideal, media literacy training, and encouraging a focus on body functionality have the potential to promote positive body image and protect it from the impacts of idealised media exposure. Methodological limitations are examined, indicating only tentative conclusions about the differential processes by which the media impact on positive body image can be disrupted by interventions. Several areas for further research are highlighted, including exploring the relationship between social media and positive body image. Section B: This section explores how women familiar with body positive social media understand their engagement with it and any impacts they have noticed. Eight women were interviewed about their experiences of engaging regularly with body positive social media and the results analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Four core themes emerged, encompassing each woman’s unique journey through developing an understanding of the meaning of body positivity, and using social media to connect with people, ideas and activism, whilst slowly internalising new values to develop their relationships to themselves and their bodies. The impacts of these journeys are summarised as enabling them to live in alignment with their values and experience self-acceptance. Implications for the emerging research base into body positive social media and incorporating these benefits into clinical practice are discussed

Information, evolution and utility

Human utility embodies a number of seemingly irrational aspects. The leading example in this paper is that utilities often depend on the presence of salient unchosen alternatives. Our focus is to understand why an evolutionary process might optimally lead to such seemingly dysfunctional features in our motivations and to derive implications for the nature of our utility functions.Evolution, information, internal conflict, self control, temptation, time consistency, utility

Efficiently Learning from Revealed Preference

In this paper, we consider the revealed preferences problem from a learning perspective. Every day, a price vector and a budget is drawn from an unknown distribution, and a rational agent buys his most preferred bundle according to some unknown utility function, subject to the given prices and budget constraint. We wish not only to find a utility function which rationalizes a finite set of observations, but to produce a hypothesis valuation function which accurately predicts the behavior of the agent in the future. We give efficient algorithms with polynomial sample-complexity for agents with linear valuation functions, as well as for agents with linearly separable, concave valuation functions with bounded second derivative.Comment: Extended abstract appears in WINE 201

Imaging a 1-electron InAs quantum dot in an InAs/InP nanowire

Nanowire heterostructures define high-quality few-electron quantum dots for nanoelectronics, spintronics and quantum information processing. We use a cooled scanning probe microscope (SPM) to image and control an InAs quantum dot in an InAs/InP nanowire, using the tip as a movable gate. Images of dot conductance vs. tip position at T = 4.2 K show concentric rings as electrons are added, starting with the first electron. The SPM can locate a dot along a nanowire and individually tune its charge, abilities that will be very useful for the control of coupled nanowire dots

Microbial Response to Biodegradable Mulch: Can Degradation Rate Be Accelerated by Management?

Single-use, petroleum-based polyethylene mulch is ubiquitous in certified organic mulched vegetable systems, representing a broken nutrient cycle and a waste concern. Current organic-allowable biodegradable mulches cannot match the performance of polyethylene, in part because of the requirements that they contain 100% bio-based feedstock, and biodegrade within two years after soil incorporation. It is valuable to understand whether management can influence postharvest degradation rate of mulch films. Two biodegradable mulches: a potentially organic nonwoven polylactic acid and wood particle prototype (PLA), and a widely-adopted non-organic starch/copolymer blend, Bio360® (BLK), were used in field trials in two distinct ecoregions of Nebraska, at Lincoln (LNK) and Scottsbluff (SBF). We tested degradation rate, influence on soil microbial community, and microbial recruitment of buried mulch residue under five management treatments. Mulch mass loss, tensile strength, and qualitative presence by bulk recovery were not affected by management treatments which included cover cropping and high rates of compost. Likewise, management had little impact on microbial community structure present on mulch surfaces. Instead, location and mulch type were strong drivers of degradation rate, while mulch type alone was the primary driver of mulch-associated microbial community. BLK mulch was nearly completely undetectable after 12 months of burial at LNK, but 67% of BLK mass remained at SBF. PLA mass loss was initially more rapid at SBF, but after 12 months this difference was not prominent with 33% and 37% remaining at SBF and LNK, respectively. Direct mass measurement is uncommon in field-based biodegradable mulch literature. We used a novel approach to direct mulch mass measurement: mesh bags and mass by combustion. While mesh bags are instrumental in detecting mass changes over time, we showed that they are a strong driver of microbial profiles present in soil and mulch sample fractions, so caution is warranted in interpreting mesh bag results as representative of field status of mulch. Advisors: Rhae A. Drijber and Samuel E. Wortma

Remembering the nation, disremembering women? : stories of the South African transition

The thesis explores the making of nationhood, and its contestation, in narrative representations of women during the South African transition. This temporal span extends across the first decade of democracy and the first two terms of governance following the historic 1994 elections. The transition is a fertile temporal zone in which new myths and symbols are generated. My interest lies in the new national symbols and myths that emerge from this historical moment and the ways in which they have been figured through images and appropriations of women and their bodies. Women's bodies, I argue, are the contested sites upon which nationalism erects its ideological edifices. I engage with the mutually informing productions and performances of gender and nation, and the re-membering of a previously divided and divisive South Africa as a unified 'rainbow' nation. I proceed by tracing narrative acts of memory and repression, with a specific focus on the re-memberings and dismemberings of women's bodies as they are reconstituted as ideal vessels for a national allegory. Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-238)

Tunable effective g-factor in InAs nanowire quantum dots

We report tunneling spectroscopy measurements of the Zeeman spin splitting in InAs few-electron quantum dots. The dots are formed between two InP barriers in InAs nanowires with a wurtzite crystal structure grown by chemical beam epitaxy. The values of the electron g-factors of the first few electrons entering the dot are found to strongly depend on dot size and range from close to the InAs bulk value in large dots |g^*|=13 down to |g^*|=2.3 for the smallest dots. These findings are discussed in view of a simple model.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Fuel Injector: Air swirl characterization aerothermal modeling, phase 2, volume 2

A well integrated experimental/analytical investigation was conducted to provide benchmark quality data relevant to prefilming type airblast fuel nozzle and its interaction with combustor dome air swirler. The experimental investigation included a systematic study of both single-phase flows that involved single and twin co-axial jets with and without swirl. A two-component Phase Doppler Particle Analyzer (PDPA) equipment was used to document the interaction of single and co-axial air jets with glass beads that simulate nonevaporating spray and simultaneously avoid the complexities associated with fuel atomization processes and attendant issues about the specification of relevant boundary conditions. The interaction of jets with methanol spray produced by practical airblast nozzle was also documented in the spatial domain of practical interest. Model assessment activities included the use of three turbulence models (k-epsilon, algebraic second moment (ASM) and differential second moment (DSM)) for the carrier phase, deterministic or stochastic Lagrangian treatment of the dispersed phase, and advanced numerical schemes. Although qualitatively good comparison with data was obtained for most of the cases investigated, the model deficiencies in regard to modeled dissipation rate transport equation, single length scale, pressure-strain correlation, and other critical closure issues need to be resolved before one can achieve the degree of accuracy required to analytically design combustion systems

Volatility and dividend risk in perpetual American options

American options are financial instruments that can be exercised at any time before expiration. In this paper we study the problem of pricing this kind of derivatives within a framework in which some of the properties --volatility and dividend policy-- of the underlaying stock can change at a random instant of time, but in such a way that we can forecast their final values. Under this assumption we can model actual market conditions because some of the most relevant facts that may potentially affect a firm will entail sharp predictable effects. We will analyse the consequences of this potential risk on perpetual American derivatives, a topic connected with a wide class of recurrent problems in physics: holders of American options must look for the fair price and the optimal exercise strategy at once, a typical question of free absorbing boundaries. We present explicit solutions to the most common contract specifications and derive analytical expressions concerning the mean and higher moments of the exercise time.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, iopart, submitted for publication; deep revision, two new appendice