The Puzzle in Babrius\u27s Prologue

The idyllic description of the Golden Age in the prologue is false and unrealistic, whereas his dark and violent fables show the truth, a contradiction designed to instruct readers to figure out for themselves the moral of each fable

The Effects of Sexual Orientation and Behavioral Style on Perceptions of Men\u27s Leadership Potential and Effectiveness

This study addressed a gap in the industrial-organizational psychology research by investigating perceptions of LGBTQ leaders in the workplace. Specifically, it investigated the theory that gay men and heterosexual women experience similar scrutiny and resulting discrimination when in leadership roles. Participants were 363 psychology students who evaluated an applicant for a managerial position. Participants scored the candidate’s leadership potential (hirability) and effectiveness based upon his resume, biography, and short video interview. The candidate’s sexual orientation (gay, heterosexual, control) and behavioral style (agentic/masculine, communal/feminine) were manipulated, for a resulting 2 x 3 research design. By integrating gender and leadership theories with stereotyping literature, it was hypothesized that the gay candidate would be perceived to be less hirable and less effective than the heterosexual candidate. Further, an interaction between the candidate’s sexual orientation and behavioral style was expected. Specifically, it was hypothesized that scores of hirability and effectiveness would be lower for the gay candidate who employed a communal behavioral style than the gay candidate who used agentic behaviors. There was no main effect found for sexual orientation; gay and heterosexual candidates received similar scores. There was a marginally significant interaction effect on perceived leadership effectiveness in the expected direction. These results are discussed in parallel with findings in gender and leadership literature. Limitations and recommendations for future research directions are discussed

The Effects of Sexual Orientation and Behavioral Style on Perceptions of Leadership Potential and Effectiveness

This research explored the influences that sexual orientation and gender norm adherence play in impacting perceptions of a leader’s hirability into and evaluation within a leadership role. Though sexual minority issues in the workplace represent a growing field of research, investigations into sexual orientation’s impact on outcomes relevant to leadership remain scant. As increasing numbers of openly gay and lesbian men and women take positions of leadership, there is a need for more information regarding the experiences of sexual minority leaders, with potential benefits to these individuals, their organizations, and related stakeholders. The research conducted here was intended to address this gap by investigating the effect of a leader’s sexual orientation and adherence to gender role behavioral norms on perceptions of their leadership in both stereotypically masculine and feminine leadership roles. Participants were asked to review and evaluate the qualifications of a male or a female candidate of heterosexual or gay/lesbian sexual orientation for a managerial position in retail sales. This position was described in particularly masculine/agentic or feminine/communal terms. They then viewed the candidate’s interview video, with the applicant displaying either an agentic or a communal behavioral style, and subsequently provided an evaluation of his or her effectiveness as a leader. Drawing from both role congruity theory and sexual orientation research, it was hypothesized that discrimination will occur based on the distances between stereotypes of gay men and lesbian women (specifically, that gay men are feminine and lesbian women are masculine), gender role expectations of men and women, and beliefs about a leader role’s requirements. It was expected that gay men would be perceived as less hirable into a leadership position than heterosexual men, and even more so for positions with masculine-typed tasks, while lesbian women would be perceived as more hirable into a masculine-typed leadership position than heterosexual women. It was further expected that, when a male leader uses an agentic (masculine) style, they would be perceived as more effective if they are heterosexual than if they are gay. On the other hand, lesbian women who enact agentic behaviors would be evaluated as less effective than heterosexual agentic women. However, the masculine stereotype of lesbian women was predicted to null the effects of prejudice demonstrated in evaluations of communal female leaders’ effectiveness, so that lesbian women who enacted a communal (feminine) style were expected to receive more positive evaluations of leader effectiveness than heterosexual communal women. Although findings did not support hypotheses, several significant interactions were revealed in unexpected directions. Sexual orientation had no influence on men or women’s hirability into leader roles, regardless of the requirements, and no impact on ratings of female leader’s effectiveness. Similarly, both gay and heterosexual men received similar ratings of effectiveness when employing a communal style; however, while this rating did not change when gay men instead used an agentic style, ratings for heterosexual men were significantly lower. Implications are discussed in light of recent cultural shifts around beliefs about and attitudes toward LGBT individuals

Bridging the Gap between Security Competencies and Security Threats: Toward a Cyber Security Domain Model

Security incidents are increasing in a wide range of organizational types and sizes worldwide. Although various threat models already exist to classify security threats, they seem to take insufficient account of which organizational assets the threat events are targeting. Therefore, we argue that conducting more job-specific IT security training is necessary to ensure organizational IT security. This requires considering which assets employees use in their daily work and for which threat events employees need to build up IT security competencies. Subsequently, we build a framework-based Cyber Security Domain Model (CSDM) for IT-secure behavior. We follow the Evidence Centered Assessment Design (ECD) to provide a deep- dive analysis of the domain for IT-secure behavior. As the leading result relevant for research and practice, we present our CSDM consisting of 1,087 cyber threat vectors and apply it to five job specifications

901-90 In Vivo Genetic Engineering of Cardiac Cells: Intracoronary Administration of Antisense (AS) Oligonucleotides (ODN)

We have previously documented that transfection of antisense ODN by a highly efficient Sendai virus (HVJ)-liposome delivery system can be utilized to modify lesion formation within the peripheral vasculature in vivo. In this study, we defined the feasibility of modifying cardiac cell gene expression via a catheter-based coronary infusion of AS ODN in rabbits. The coronary artery was cannulated via an over-the-wire approach from the carotid artery. Fluorescein (F)-Iabeled ODN were utilized to evaluate the cellular distribution and kinetics of ODN uptake within the myocardium after a single intraluminal bolus of HVJ-liposomes containing ODN. Cellular uptake of F-ODN was primarily localized in the microvasculature and significant staining was also observed in conduit vessels and cardiac myocytes. Immunohistochemical analysis verified prominent localization of F-ODN within the microvascular endothelium. Expression of F-ODN was observed within 10 minutes, peaked at 1 day, and remained evident for up to one week after transfection by the HVJ-liposome method. In contrast, F-ODN infused within liposomes without the viral particle exhibited transient expression that was undetectable within 3 days. These findings indicate that a single intracoronary bolus infusion of ODN within HVJ-liposomes is a reproducible methodology for delivery of AS ODN to targeted cells within the myocardium. Future studies will characterize the feasibility of using this approach to modify cardiac structure and function via regulating myocardial cell gene expression

Opioid Consumption after Orthopedic Surgery: Prospective Randomized Trial on the Effects of Preoperative Counseling

Introduction: Recently, there have been increases in morbidity and mortality associated with opioid medications. Physician overprescribing, particularly within orthopedics, contributes to large quantities of leftover opioids, leading to an increased risk of non-medical opioid use and abuse. Objective: To understand the role of preoperative patient counseling on postoperative opioid consumption, a prospective randomized study was done, with the idea that patients receiving counseling would take fewer opioids than their control counterparts. Methods: Patients undergoing elective outpatient orthopedic surgery at Jefferson affiliate hospitals were enrolled over a 3-month period. Patients were randomized to a control group or to receive preoperative counseling in the form of a multimedia presentation aimed at educating the patient on opioid medications, strategies for pain management and the opioid epidemic. Information on demographics, surgical procedure, amount and type of opioid prescribed, number of opioids consumed and non-opioid analgesic use was collected at the first postoperative visit. Results: 283 patients were enrolled (57% women, 43% men). On average, patients who were counseled consumed 2.30 fewer opioids than their control counterparts (P=0.0497), equating to 34% of their entire prescription, compared to 42% in the control. Among patients who were counseled, 84.16% thought the preoperative multimedia presentation was helpful and 92.86% thought that all patients should watch the video before surgery. Discussion: There is evidence to suggest that preoperative opioid counseling is effective in decreasing postoperative opioid consumption. Leftover opioids totaled nearly 4,000 among all patients, indicating that orthopedic surgeons are prescribing far more than are being consumed

Calcineurin initiates smooth muscle differentiation in neural crest stem cells

The process of vascular smooth muscle cell (vSMC) differentiation is critical to embryonic angiogenesis. However, despite its importance, the vSMC differentiation program remains largely undefined. Murine gene disruption studies have identified several gene products that are necessary for vSMC differentiation, but these methodologies cannot establish whether or not a factor is sufficient to initiate the differentiation program. A gain-of-function system consisting of normal vSMC progenitor cells would serve as a useful complement to whole animal loss-of-function studies. We use such a system here, namely freshly isolated rat neural crest stem cells (NCSCs), to show that activation of the calcineurin signaling pathway is sufficient to drive these cells toward a smooth muscle fate. In addition, we present data suggesting that transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1, which also causes NCSCs to differentiate into smooth muscle, activates calcineurin signaling in NCSCs, leading to a model in which activation of calcineurin signaling is the mechanism by which TGF-β1 causes SMC differentiation in these cells

Conditional probabilities in Ponzano-Regge minisuperspace

We examine the Hartle-Hawking no-boundary initial state for the Ponzano-Regge formulation of gravity in three dimensions. We consider the behavior of conditional probabilities and expectation values for geometrical quantities in this initial state for a simple minisuperspace model consisting of a two-parameter set of anisotropic geometries on a 2-sphere boundary. We find dependence on the cutoff used in the construction of Ponzano-Regge amplitudes for expectation values of edge lengths. However, these expectation values are cutoff independent when computed in certain, but not all, conditional probability distributions. Conditions that yield cutoff independent expectation values are those that constrain the boundary geometry to a finite range of edge lengths. We argue that such conditions have a correspondence to fixing a range of local time, as classically associated with the area of a surface for spatially closed cosmologies. Thus these results may hint at how classical spacetime emerges from quantum amplitudes.Comment: 26 pages including 10 figures, some reorganization in the presentation of results, expanded discussion of results in the context of 2+1 gravity in the Witten variables, 3 new reference

Generalized Sums over Histories for Quantum Gravity I. Smooth Conifolds

This paper proposes to generalize the histories included in Euclidean functional integrals from manifolds to a more general set of compact topological spaces. This new set of spaces, called conifolds, includes nonmanifold stationary points that arise naturally in a semiclasssical evaluation of such integrals; additionally, it can be proven that sequences of approximately Einstein manifolds and sequences of approximately Einstein conifolds both converge to Einstein conifolds. Consequently, generalized Euclidean functional integrals based on these conifold histories yield semiclassical amplitudes for sequences of both manifold and conifold histories that approach a stationary point of the Einstein action. Therefore sums over conifold histories provide a useful and self-consistent starting point for further study of topological effects in quantum gravity. Postscript figures available via anonymous ftp at black-hole.physics.ubc.ca (137.82.43.40) in file gen1.ps.Comment: 81pp., plain TeX, To appear in Nucl. Phys.