Validation of the Short Version (TLS-15) of the Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45) Across 37 Languages

Love is a phenomenon that occurs across the world and affects many aspects of human life, including the choice of, and process of bonding with, a romantic partner. Thus, developing a reliable and valid measure of love experiences is crucial. One of the most popular tools to quantify love is Sternberg’s 45-item Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45), which measures three love components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. However, our literature review reveals that most studies (64%) use a broad variety of shortened versions of the TLS-45. Here, aiming to achieve scientific consensus and improve the reliability, comparability, and generalizability of results across studies, we developed a short version of the scale—the TLS-15—comprised of 15 items with 5-point, rather than 9-point, response scales. In Study 1 (N = 7,332), we re-analyzed secondary data from a large-scale multinational study that validated the original TLS-45 to establish whether the scale could be truncated. In Study 2 (N = 307), we provided evidence for the three-factor structure of the TLS-15 and its reliability. Study 3 (N = 413) confirmed convergent validity and test–retest stability of the TLS-15. Study 4 (N = 60,311) presented a large-scale validation across 37 linguistic versions of the TLS-15 on a cross-cultural sample spanning every continent of the globe. The overall results provide support for the reliability, validity, and cross-cultural invariance of the TLS-15, which can be used as a measure of love components—either separately or jointly as a three-factor measure

Exploring Attitudes Toward “Sugar Relationships” Across 87 Countries: A Global Perspective on Exchanges of Resources for Sex and Companionship

The current study investigates attitudes toward one form of sex for resources: the so-called sugar relationships, which often involve exchanges of resources for sex and/or companionship. The present study examined associations among attitudes toward sugar relationships and relevant variables (e.g., sex, sociosexuality, gender inequality, parasitic exposure) in 69,924 participants across 87 countries. Two self-report measures of Acceptance of Sugar Relationships (ASR) developed for younger companion providers (ASR-YWMS) and older resource providers (ASR-OMWS) were translated into 37 languages. We tested cross-sex and cross-linguistic construct equivalence, cross-cultural invariance in sex differences, and the importance of the hypothetical predictors of ASR. Both measures showed adequate psychometric properties in all languages (except the Persian version of ASR-YWMS). Results partially supported our hypotheses and were consistent with previous theoretical considerations and empirical evidence on human mating. For example, at the individual level, sociosexual orientation, traditional gender roles, and pathogen prevalence were significant predictors of both ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS. At the country level, gender inequality and parasite stress positively predicted the ASR-YWMS. However, being a woman negatively predicted the ASR-OMWS, but positively predicted the ASR-YWMS. At country-level, ingroup favoritism and parasite stress positively predicted the ASR-OMWS. Furthermore, significant cross-subregional differences were found in the openness to sugar relationships (both ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS scores) across subregions. Finally, significant differences were found between ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS when compared in each subregion. The ASR-YWMS was significantly higher than the ASR-OMWS in all subregions, except for Northern Africa and Western Asia

Predictors of Enhancing Human Physical Attractiveness: Data from 93 Countries

People across the world and throughout history have gone to great lengths to enhance their physical appearance. Evolutionary psychologists and ethologists have largely attempted to explain this phenomenon via mating preferences and strategies. Here, we test one of the most popular evolutionary hypotheses for beauty-enhancing behaviors, drawn from mating market and parasite stress perspectives, in a large cross-cultural sample. We also test hypotheses drawn from other influential and non-mutually exclusive theoretical frameworks, from biosocial role theory to a cultural media perspective. Survey data from 93,158 human participants across 93 countries provide evidence that behaviors such as applying makeup or using other cosmetics, hair grooming, clothing style, caring for body hygiene, and exercising or following a specific diet for the specific purpose of improving ones physical attractiveness, are universal. Indeed, 99% of participants reported spending \u3e10 min a day performing beauty-enhancing behaviors. The results largely support evolutionary hypotheses: more time was spent enhancing beauty by women (almost 4 h a day, on average) than by men (3.6 h a day), by the youngest participants (and contrary to predictions, also the oldest), by those with a relatively more severe history of infectious diseases, and by participants currently dating compared to those in established relationships. The strongest predictor of attractiveness-enhancing behaviors was social media usage. Other predictors, in order of effect size, included adhering to traditional gender roles, residing in countries with less gender equality, considering oneself as highly attractive or, conversely, highly unattractive, TV watching time, higher socioeconomic status, right-wing political beliefs, a lower level of education, and personal individualistic attitudes. This study provides novel insight into universal beauty-enhancing behaviors by unifying evolutionary theory with several other complementary perspectives

Exploring Attitudes Toward “Sugar Relationships” Across 87 Countries: A Global Perspective on Exchanges of Resources for Sex and Companionship

The current study investigates attitudes toward one form of sex for resources: the so-called sugar relationships, which often involve exchanges of resources for sex and/or companionship. The present study examined associations among attitudes toward sugar relationships and relevant variables (e.g., sex, sociosexuality, gender inequality, parasitic exposure) in 69,924 participants across 87 countries. Two self-report measures of Acceptance of Sugar Relationships (ASR) developed for younger companion providers (ASR-YWMS) and older resource providers (ASR-OMWS) were translated into 37 languages. We tested cross-sex and cross-linguistic construct equivalence, cross-cultural invariance in sex differences, and the importance of the hypothetical predictors of ASR. Both measures showed adequate psychometric properties in all languages (except the Persian version of ASR-YWMS). Results partially supported our hypotheses and were consistent with previous theoretical considerations and empirical evidence on human mating. For example, at the individual level, sociosexual orientation, traditional gender roles, and pathogen prevalence were significant predictors of both ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS. At the country level, gender inequality and parasite stress positively predicted the ASR-YWMS. However, being a woman negatively predicted the ASR-OMWS, but positively predicted the ASR-YWMS. At country-level, ingroup favoritism and parasite stress positively predicted the ASR-OMWS. Furthermore, significant cross-subregional differences were found in the openness to sugar relationships (both ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS scores) across subregions. Finally, significant differences were found between ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS when compared in each subregion. The ASR-YWMS was significantly higher than the ASR-OMWS in all subregions, except for Northern Africa and Western Asia

The Northridge Earthquake of 1994: Ground Motions and Geotechnical Aspects

Following the January 1994 Northridge Earthquake in Southern California, the authors traveled to Los Angeles and surveyed the earthquake damage region. Subsequently, seismologic, geologic and ground motion data were compiled and evaluated. This paper presents our observations and evaluation of: geologic and soil effects; soil-structure interaction; liquefaction; slope failures and rock slides; and ground deformations

Spatiao – Temporal Evaluation and Comparison of MM5 Model using Similarity Algorithm

Introduction temporal and spatial change of meteorological and environmental variables is very important. These changes can be predicted by numerical prediction models over time and in different locations and can be provided as spatial zoning maps with interpolation methods such as geostatistics (16, 6). But these maps are comparable to each other as visual, qualitative and univariate for a limited number of maps (15). To resolve this problem the similarity algorithm is used. This algorithm is a simultaneous comparison method to a large number of data (18). Numerical prediction models such as MM5 were used in different studies (10, 22, and 23). But a little research is done to compare the spatio-temporal similarity of the models with real data quantitatively. The purpose of this paper is to integrate geostatistical techniques with similarity algorithm to study the spatial and temporal MM5 model predicted results with real data. Materials and Methods The study area is north east of Iran. 55 to 61 degrees of longitude and latitude is 30 to 38 degrees. Monthly and annual temperature and precipitation actual data for the period of 1990-2010 was received from the Meteorological Agency and Department of Energy. MM5 Model Data, with a spatial resolution 0.5 × 0.5 degree were downloaded from the NASA website (5). GS+ and ArcGis software were used to produce each variable map. We used multivariate methods co-kriging and kriging with an external drift by applying topography and height as a secondary variable via implementing Digital Elevation Model. (6,12,14). Then the standardize and similarity algorithms (9,11) was applied by programming in MATLAB software to each map grid point. The spatial and temporal similarities between data collections and model results were obtained by F values. These values are between 0 and 0.5 where the value below 0.2 indicates good similarity and above 0.5 shows very poor similarity. The results were plotted on maps by MATLAB software. Results Discussion In this study the similarity and geostatistical algorithm were combined to compare and evaluate spatio-temporal of predicted temperature and precipitation data by MM5 model with actual data. The analysis of the similarity map is based on the F values, the area and also the uniformity of distribution over the area. The similarity between predicted and actual data is higher when F values are low and distributed more uniform. The temperature similarity maps showed that F values are between 0.0 - 0.2 in cold seasons. It was shown that the values had spatial continuity and uniform distribution. A large part of area (almost 80%) is covered by lowest F value (F˂0.1), which shows very high similarity among temperature datasets. The highest values (0.15 0.3) in the central region indicate errors in the model predictions data. But generally prediction of model in both seasons for the temperature was good. In annual time scale, F values are between 0.0 - 0.25. The area of good similarity value (0.0˂F˂0.1) is almost 65% of the whole region with spatial continuity and uniform distribution. Accuracy of the model declined from temperature of the cold season to annual and then warm season respectively. The precipitation similarity maps showed that in cold season F values changes between 0.05 - 0.4. These values had less spatial continuity than temperature. In more than half of the area (60%) there was fairly good similarity where 0.05 0.3) in the central mountainous area and south part of region suggests the low similarity in the model predictions. Similarity between the cold seasons is much higher than the warm seasons, which is due to the variability of precipitation during the seasons. In the annual time scale, F values are between 0.05 - 0.3. F values (0.0˂F˂0.1) are almost 40% of the whole region with uniform distribution. Overall, the higher uniform distribution of annual similarity values showed that prediction of model for annual precipitation data is better than seasonal. The maximum F values identified the areas with modeling error for various reasons. In this study the central and the southern parts had maximum F values at different time steps. Plotted mean monthly values of similarity indicated minimum and maximum temperature F values were occurred in January and July while for precipitation was taken place in January and September respectively. This shows that MM5 model prediction was good in January. Conclusion: In this paper, the similarity algorithm discovered spatial and temporal similarities between the predicted and actual data for temperature and precipitation variables. According to the obtained F values, the model predicts temperature was better than precipitation. Due to the upward movement of the convective zone and the effects of topography for both variables, the similarity between predicted and actual data is low in warm seasons. In small areas of the south and the central region of the study area, F values are between 2.0 and 4.0, respectively, which could be considered as a weak similarity. The area with high f values (F > 0.45) can be seen on every precipitation map, which suggests a large error values related to reporting of the station data. Keywords: Algorithms, Numerical prediction models, Similarity comparison, Spatio- tempora

Invariant Solutions of Richards' Equation for Water Movement in Dissimilar Soils

Scaling methods allow a single solution to Richards' equation (RE) to suffice for numerous specific cases of water flow in unsaturated soils. During the past half-century, many such methods were developed for similar soils. In this paper, a new method is proposed for scaling RE for a wide range of dissimilar soils. Exponential-power (EP) functions are used to reduce the dependence of the scaled RE on the soil hydraulic properties. To evaluate the proposed method, the scaled RE was solved numerically considering two test cases: infiltration into relatively dry soils having initially uniform water content distributions, and gravity-dominant drainage occurring from initially wet soil profiles. Although the results for four texturally different soils ranging from sand to heavy clay (adopted from the UNSODA database) showed that the scaled solution were invariant for a wide range of flow conditions, slight deviations were observed when the soil profile was initially wet in the infiltration case or deeply wet in the drainage case. The invariance of the scaled RE makes it possible to generalize a single solution of RE to many dissimilar soils and conditions. Such a procedure reduces the numerical calculations and provides additional opportunities for solving the highly nonlinear RE for unsaturated water flow in soils

SPATIO‐TEMPORAL VARIATIONS OF SEVEN WEATHER VARIABLES IN IRAN: APPLICATION OF CRU TS AND GPCC DATA SETS †

Iran's climate-sensitive agriculture and water resources are vulnerable to climate change and investigation of climatic trends helps in preparing adaptation strategies. Weather stations are sparsely distributed and access to complete weather data is limited. In such situations, gridded global/regional data sets are promising alternatives. Here, monthly time series of seven weather variables (i.e. monthly averages or monthly totals of daily values) were obtained from the Climatic Research Unit TS V4.01 and Global Precipitation Climatology Centre V7 gridded data sets in 675 grid cells covering the country and analysed over the periods 1957–1986 and 1987–2016 at annual, seasonal and monthly scales. Over the two periods and at a national scale, mean temperature has increased by 0.004 (P = 0.717) and 0.04 °C yr−1 (P = 0.000), while the diurnal temperature range has not significantly changed (P > 0.6). Annual total precipitation experienced an insignificant increase (0.81 mm yr−1; P = 0.666) over the first period but declined by 2.12 mm yr−1 (P = 0.041) over the second. Potential evapotranspiration (PET) has increased by 0.32 (P = 0.398) and 1.43 mm yr−1 (P = 0.015), respectively. Since 1987, significant increasing trends in temperature were detected all over the country. While significant increasing trends in annual precipitation were detected in the central regions and south-west over the first period, decreasing trends prevailed during 1987–2016 in the south, southwest and east with winter being the largest contributor to annual trends. Over the last three decades, annual PET has increased mostly in the north-west and south-east while significant increasing trends were detected in 89% of grid cells, except in a few cells in the north-east. Cloud cover, vapour pressure and frequency of frost days were also analysed. These results are crucial for policy-makers, researchers and engineers in the country and internationally who usually base their decisions and designs on outdated data sparsely distributed in space