Religiosity, moral obligation, and the moral virtue of gratitude

The purpose of the current study was to examine relations among religiosity, moral obligation, and gratitude. Gratitude was conceptualized as a virtue and operationalized as connective gratitude; connective gratitude occurs when a benefactor freely gives a benefit to a beneficiary and the beneficiary, recognizing the good intentions of the benefactor, freely wishes to repay the benefactor if and when appropriate. Religiosity was examined on two dimensions: transcendence, defined as the extent of belief in God or a higher power, and interpretation, defined as the way religious content is processed from literal to symbolic. Analysis of a religiosity measure (PCBS), an open-ended survey to assess the expression of gratitude, and a vignette to assess moral obligation showed that there were no significant associations between the interpretation dimension of religiosity and gratitude, but that interpretation was related to the type of moral obligation expressed. In addition, there were no significant relations between the transcendent dimension of religiosity and either gratitude as a virtue or moral obligation. However, a significant association was found between a different type of gratitude (measured with the GQ-6) and the transcendence dimension, suggesting an inconsistency between these two ways of defining and measuring gratitude

Application Of Composite Materials In Solar Cars And Techniques For Its Performance Improvements

The focus of this paper is on the polymer matrix composite dashboard of a solar car, Racing on Solar Energy (R.O.S.E), made of carbon fiber with Bondo’s high strength polyester Fiberglass Resin. While a composite piece was pulled from a custom-built composite tool made of fiber glass and fiberglass resin via a plug and mold method using a wet layup, the resulting piece was not of good surface quality. Meaning that there were many voids, and the decision was made to cover the piece with a carbon fiber vinyl as opposed to leaving the surface as was. The goal of this paper is to not only highlight the history of composite material along with the important role they contribute to renewable energy, specifically solar cars, but to outline another method of laying up carbon fiber via vacuum bagging to produce a more satisfactory composite piece. While the vacuum bagging was unsuccessful, the process and materials used were correct and can be evaluated as to how to improve the outcome for another attempt. Methods used are methods professional composite companies use, but I am not a certified composites technician and have only learned through resources online, speaking to professionals, and trial and error

Laying the foundation for protective digital parenting : the development of a theoretical framework, a validated measure of digital parenting attitudes, and a person-centered analysis of digital parenting styles

Over the past thirty years, the advent and proliferation of digital and social technologies has expanded the contexts in which children and families play, learn, communicate, and grow. Although burgeoning, developmental and family science research exploring the intersection of technology, development, and the family system has lagged behind the pace of technological adoption and innovation. The current studies were developed and conducted to aid researchers in considering how digital and social technologies may influence diverse areas of inquiry. Study 1 delineates an adaptation of Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory for the digital age, entitled neo-ecological theory. The microsystem is expanded to include virtual and physical microsystems, which impacts the conceptualization of proximal processes, person characteristics, contextual influences, and time. In addition, neo-ecological theory re-emphasizes the importance of macrosystemic influences on proximal processes in the digital age. Study 2 explicates the development and validation of the Digital Parental Mediation Scale (DPMS), a quantitative measure of parents’ attitudes about digital-specific parenting practices. Utilizing the DPMS, Study 3 used latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify four profiles of digital parental mediation styles. The results of Studies 2 and 3 showed that parents’ attitudes about the four dimensions of digital mediation, as well as parents’ digital mediation styles, were differentially related to parent and household characteristics (including parent gender and race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, child age, and parents’ technology-related confidence), suggesting great heterogeneity in how parents approach parenting in the digital age. Directions for future research and limitations to generalizability across temporal, cultural, and developmental contexts are discussed

Sexual Size Dimorphism and Body Condition in the Australasian Gannet

Funding: The research was financially supported by the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment. Acknowledgments We thank the Victorian Marine Science Consortium, Sea All Dolphin Swim, Parks Victoria, and the Point Danger Management Committee for logistical support. We are grateful for the assistance of the many field volunteers involved in the study.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Nanoparticles of Selenium as Species with Stronger Physiological Effects in Sheep in Comparison with Sodium Selenite

The present study was designed to compare the effects of nano red selenium and sodium selenite on the antioxidative activities of neutrophils and the hematological parameters in sheep. Fifteen sheep were randomly allocated into three groups. Groups 1 and 2 received selenium nanoparticles orally at 1 mg/kg and sodium selenite at 1 mg Se/kg for 10 consecutive days; group 3 served as the control. To assess the degrees of oxidative stress and of lipid peroxidation of the cellular membranes, the levels of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were determined in serum samples that were collected at different supplementation intervals, i.e., after 0, 10, 20, and 30 days. In addition, hematological parameters in the serum samples were measured by routine procedures. It was found that TBARS levels in groups 1 and 2 were significantly higher on days 20 and 30 compared to the basal level on day 0. It was also found that on day 30, the TBARS activities in both treated groups were significantly higher than those of the controls (P < 0.05). These findings may explain the seemingly paradoxical effects of supplemental selenium on the indicators of oxidative stress, as the levels of TBARS were generally expected to decrease in the presence of selenium. There were no significant differences between the PCV and RBC values in the three groups. The white blood cell count (WBC) in group 1 showed a significant increase on days 20 and 30 in comparison with the control group. However, in group 2, there was a significant increase of the WBC value just on day 20 in comparison with the control group. Also, there were significant increases of the neutrophil counts and significant decreases of the lymphocyte counts on day 10 in group 1, in comparison with those in group 2 and controls, and on days 20 and 30 in groups 1 and 2 in comparison with those in the control group

The stellar halo of the Galaxy

Stellar halos may hold some of the best preserved fossils of the formation history of galaxies. They are a natural product of the merging processes that probably take place during the assembly of a galaxy, and hence may well be the most ubiquitous component of galaxies, independently of their Hubble type. This review focuses on our current understanding of the spatial structure, the kinematics and chemistry of halo stars in the Milky Way. In recent years, we have experienced a change in paradigm thanks to the discovery of large amounts of substructure, especially in the outer halo. I discuss the implications of the currently available observational constraints and fold them into several possible formation scenarios. Unraveling the formation of the Galactic halo will be possible in the near future through a combination of large wide field photometric and spectroscopic surveys, and especially in the era of Gaia.Comment: 46 pages, 16 figures. References updated and some minor changes. Full-resolution version available at http://www.astro.rug.nl/~ahelmi/stellar-halo-review.pd

An epidemiological model for prediction of endometrial cancer risk in Europe

Endometrial cancer (EC) is the fourth most frequent cancer in women in Europe, and as its incidence is increasing, prevention strategies gain further pertinence. Risk prediction models can be a useful tool for identifying women likely to benefit from targeted prevention measures. On the basis of data from 201,811 women (mostly aged 30–65 years) including 855 incident EC cases from eight countries in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort, a model to predict EC was developed. A step-wise model selection process was used to select confirmed predictive epidemiologic risk factors. Piece-wise constant hazard rates in 5-year age-intervals were estimated in a cause-specific competing risks model, five-fold-cross-validation was applied for internal validation. Risk factors included in the risk prediction model were body-mass index (BMI), menopausal status, age at menarche and at menopause, oral contraceptive use, overall and by different BMI categories and overall duration of use, parity, age at first full-term pregnancy, duration of menopausal hormone therapy and smoking status (specific for pre, peri- and post-menopausal women). These variables improved the discriminating capacity to predict risk over 5 years from 71 % for a model based on age alone to 77 % (overall C statistic), and the model was well-calibrated (ratio of expected to observed cases = 0.99). Our model could be used for the identification of women at increased risk of EC in Western Europe. To achieve an EC-risk model with general validity, a large-scale cohort-consortium approach would be needed to assess and adjust for population variation

The Novel Object and Unusual Name (NOUN) database: a collection of novel images for use in experimental research

Many experimental research designs require images of novel objects. Here we introduce the Novel Object and Unusual Name (NOUN) Database. This database contains 64 primary novel object images and additional novel exemplars for ten basic- and nine global-level object categories. The objects’ novelty was confirmed by both self-report and a lack of consensus on questions that required participants to name and identify the objects. We also found that object novelty correlated with qualifying naming responses pertaining to the objects’ colors. Results from a similarity sorting task (and subsequent multidimensional scaling analysis on the similarity ratings) demonstrated that the objects are complex and distinct entities that vary along several featural dimensions beyond simply shape and color. A final experiment confirmed that additional item exemplars comprise both sub- and superordinate categories. These images may be useful in a variety of settings, particularly for developmental psychology and other research in language, categorization, perception, visual memory and related domains