Objectification theory predicts college women’s attitudes toward cosmetic surgery

This study investigated cosmetic surgery attitudes within the framework of objectification theory. One hundred predominantlyWhite, British undergraduate women completed self-report measures of impression management, global selfesteem, interpersonal sexual objectification, self-surveillance, body shame, and three components of cosmetic surgery attitudes. As expected, each of the objectification theory variables predicted greater consideration of having cosmetic surgery in the future. Also, as expected, sexual objectification and body shame uniquely predicted socialmotives for cosmetic surgery, whereas self-surveillance uniquely predicted intrapersonal motives for cosmetic surgery. These findings suggest that women’s acceptance of cosmetic surgery as a way to manipulate physical appearance can be partially explained by the degree to which they view themselves through the lenses of sexual and self-objectification

Management, Organizations and Contemporary Social Theory

Social theorists speculate about large-scale social questions, asking of any phenomenon, how is it possible? This book addresses how various social theories contribute key insights into the nature of organizations and management

Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) in a Portuguese hospital and its risk perception by health care professionals

Objective: To describe the epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and to assess its perception by healthcare professionals. Design: Survey, through a two-part questionnaire. Setting: A 441-bed district general hospital. Participants: Part I - Inpatients over 16 years of age, in whom a non-nasal MRSA was isolated between February and August of 2005. Part II - nurses and doctors responsible for these patients. Methods: Part I - Demographic and clinical data collected from medical notes. Part II - Perception of doctors and nurses. Observed agreement and "Kappa" statistic were used to compare perceptions. A P value lower than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: Of the 111 patients identified, 50.9% had history of hospitalization during the previous year, with high exposure to antimicrobial therapy and invasive procedures. Hospital stay was 4.5 times higher than the average inpatients and mortality 5.5 times higher. Proportion of MRSA was 60.0%, with an incidence density of 1.66%. Although agreement between nurses and doctors was low, the majority admitted nosocomial origin of the MRSA and its transmission through the hands of professionals. Reinforcement of hand hygiene was considered important to manage these patients by 69.4% of nurses and 64.9% of doctors. Additionally, all nurses and 89.4% of doctors agreed on the need to isolate these patients. Conclusions: High endemic level of MRSA detected in a susceptible population, associated with a lower awareness of management of these patients by doctors, compared with nurses, justifies a global programme to control MRSA. This programme should include consensus-based measures for management of patients, rational use of antimicrobials, and dynamic and focused educational programmes. © 2011 Sociedade Portuguesa de Cardiologia.Financial support: “Programa Operacional Ciência e Inovação 2010”, supported by European Social Funding and Portuguese Ministry of Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior)

Selecting Metrics to Evaluate Human Supervisory Control Applications

The goal of this research is to develop a methodology to select supervisory control metrics. This methodology is based on cost-benefit analyses and generic metric classes. In the context of this research, a metric class is defined as the set of metrics that quantify a certain aspect or component of a system. Generic metric classes are developed because metrics are mission-specific, but metric classes are generalizable across different missions. Cost-benefit analyses are utilized because each metric set has advantages, limitations, and costs, thus the added value of different sets for a given context can be calculated to select the set that maximizes value and minimizes costs. This report summarizes the findings of the first part of this research effort that has focused on developing a supervisory control metric taxonomy that defines generic metric classes and categorizes existing metrics. Future research will focus on applying cost benefit analysis methodologies to metric selection. Five main metric classes have been identified that apply to supervisory control teams composed of humans and autonomous platforms: mission effectiveness, autonomous platform behavior efficiency, human behavior efficiency, human behavior precursors, and collaborative metrics. Mission effectiveness measures how well the mission goals are achieved. Autonomous platform and human behavior efficiency measure the actions and decisions made by the humans and the automation that compose the team. Human behavior precursors measure human initial state, including certain attitudes and cognitive constructs that can be the cause of and drive a given behavior. Collaborative metrics address three different aspects of collaboration: collaboration between the human and the autonomous platform he is controlling, collaboration among humans that compose the team, and autonomous collaboration among platforms. These five metric classes have been populated with metrics and measuring techniques from the existing literature. Which specific metrics should be used to evaluate a system will depend on many factors, but as a rule-of-thumb, we propose that at a minimum, one metric from each class should be used to provide a multi-dimensional assessment of the human-automation team. To determine what the impact on our research has been by not following such a principled approach, we evaluated recent large-scale supervisory control experiments conducted in the MIT Humans and Automation Laboratory. The results show that prior to adapting this metric classification approach, we were fairly consistent in measuring mission effectiveness and human behavior through such metrics as reaction times and decision accuracies. However, despite our supervisory control focus, we were remiss in gathering attention allocation metrics and collaboration metrics, and we often gathered too many correlated metrics that were redundant and wasteful. This meta-analysis of our experimental shortcomings reflect those in the general research population in that we tended to gravitate to popular metrics that are relatively easy to gather, without a clear understanding of exactly what aspect of the systems we were measuring and how the various metrics informed an overall research question

Conformational stability of ibuprofen: Assessed by DFT calculations and optical vibrational spectroscopy

A thorough conformational analysis of ibuprofen [2-(4-isobutylphenyl) propionic acid] was carried by out, using density functional theory (DFT) calculations coupled to optical vibrational spectroscopy (both Raman and FTIR). Eight different geometries were found to be energy minima. The relative orientations of the substituent groups in the ibuprofen molecule, which can be considered as a para-substituted phenyl ring, were verified to hardly affect its conformational stability. The internal rotations converting the calculated conformers of ibuprofen were studied and the intramolecular interactions governing the conformational preferences of the molecule were analyzed by quantitative potential energy deconvolution using Fourier type profiles. The harmonic vibrational frequencies and corresponding intensities were calculated for all the conformers obtained, leading to the assignment of the spectra, and evidencing the sole presence of one of the lowest energy conformers in the solid state. Vibrational spectroscopic proof of intermolecular hydrogen bonds between the carboxylic groups of adjacent ibuprofen molecules, leading to the formation of dimers, was also obtained. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. and the American Pharmacists Association J Pharm Sci 97:845-859, 200

Temperature dependence of the magnetization processes in Co/Al oxide/Permalloy trilayers

The magnetization process of Co/Al oxide/Py trilayers and its evolution with the temperature have been analyzed. The particular behavior of the Co layers, including the shift of the hysteresis loops and a coercivity increase with the decrease of temperature, is related with the apparition of a CoO layer at the Co/Al-oxide interface

High-Resolution Mid-Infrared Morphology of Cygnus A

We present subarcsecond resolution mid-infrared images at 10.8 and 18.2 microns of Cygnus A. These images were obtained with the University of Florida mid-IR camera/spectrometer OSCIR at the Keck II 10-m telescope. Our data show extended mid-IR emission primarily to the east of the nucleus with a possible western extension detected after image deconvolution. This extended emission is closely aligned with the bi-conical structure observed at optical and near-IR wavelengths by the HST. This emission is consistent with dust heated from the central engine of Cygnus A. We also marginally detect large-scale low level emission extending > 1.5 kpc from the nucleus which may be caused by in-situ star formation, line emission, and/or PAH contamination within the bandpass of our wide N-band filter.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Self-efficacy, mental models and team adaptation: a first approach on football and futsal refereeing

Objective: Within the football and futsal refereeing context, even though referees work within teams, there is very little research considering the implications of team dynamics. In response, this study starts to address this gap in the literature by investigating the moderating effect of mental models on the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and perceptions of team adaptation within the exciting context of professional and national football and futsal refereeing. Design: We obtained online questionnaires from 339 active football and futsal referees within the National and Professional league at two distinct points (April and May) within the football season. Results: Self-efficacy beliefs were positively associated with perceptions of team adaptation (only for football referees). Mental models were positively associated with team adaptation. Likewise, the moderation between mental models and self-efficacy beliefs was positively associated with perceptions of team adaptation (only for futsal referees). However, such an effect was only significant at the futsal referees’ level. Conclusion: This study emphasises the importance of mental models for team adaptation and the importance of self-efficacy beliefs in predicting perceptions of team adaptation. We hope that this study represents the first step in a greater appreciation of the salience of team dynamics and their impact on football and futsal referees’ performance and that future research can build upon our work.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Self-efficacy, mental models and team adaptation: A first approach on football and futsal refereeing

Objective Within the football and futsal refereeing context, even though referees work within teams, there is very little research considering the implications of team dynamics. In response, this study starts to address this gap in the literature by investigating the moderating effect of mental models on the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and perceptions of team adaptation within the exciting context of professional and national football and futsal refereeing. Design We obtained online questionnaires from 339 active football and futsal referees within the National and Professional league at two distinct points (April and May) within the football season. Results Self-efficacy beliefs were positively associated with perceptions of team adaptation (only for football referees). Mental models were positively associated with team adaptation. Likewise, the moderation between mental models and self-efficacy beliefs was positively associated with perceptions of team adaptation. However, such an effect was only significant at the futsal referees’ level. Conclusion This study emphasises the importance of mental models for team adaptation and the importance of self-efficacy beliefs in predicting perceptions of team adaptation. We hope that this study represents the first step in a greater appreciation of the salience of team dynamics and their impact on football and futsal referees’ performance and that future research can build upon our work.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

On the differential geometry of curves in Minkowski space

We discuss some aspects of the differential geometry of curves in Minkowski space. We establish the Serret-Frenet equations in Minkowski space and use them to give a very simple proof of the fundamental theorem of curves in Minkowski space. We also state and prove two other theorems which represent Minkowskian versions of a very known theorem of the differential geometry of curves in tridimensional Euclidean space. We discuss the general solution for torsionless paths in Minkowki space. We then apply the four-dimensional Serret-Frenet equations to describe the motion of a charged test particle in a constant and uniform electromagnetic field and show how the curvature and the torsions of the four-dimensional path of the particle contain information on the electromagnetic field acting on the particle.Comment: 10 pages. Typeset using REVTE