Does Intraindividual Variability of Personality States Improve Perspective Taking? An Ecological Approach Integrating Personality and Social Cognition

Research integrating cognitive abilities and personality has focused on the role of personality traits. We propose a theory on the role of intraindividual variability of personality states (hereafter state variability) on perspective taking, in particular, the ability to infer other peoples’ mental states. First, we review the relevant research on personality psychology and social cognition. Second, we propose two complementary routes by which state variability relates to anchoring and adjustment in perspective taking. The first route, termed ego-dispersion, suggests that an increased state variability decreases egocentric bias, which reduces anchoring. The second route, termed perspective-pooling, suggests that an increased state variability facilitates efficient adjustment. We also discuss how our theory can be investigated empirically. The theory is rooted in an ecological interpretation of personality and social cognition, and flags new ways for integrating these fields of research

Mindful self-focus–an interaction affecting Theory of Mind?

Is thinking about oneself helpful or harmful for understanding other people? The answer might depend on how a person thinks about themself. Mindfulness is one prominent construct that seems to affect the quality and content of a person’s thoughts about themselves in the world. Thus, we hypothesize that the relationship between self-focus and Theory of Mind (ToM) is moderated by mindfulness. We evaluate our hypothesis with a large cross-sectional dataset (N = 543) of native and non-native German and English speakers using OLS and MM-estimated robust multiple regression analysis. We found a small but robust self-focus × mindfulness interaction effect on ToM so that there was a significant positive relation between self-focus and ToM for more mindful individuals and no significant relation for less mindful individuals. The findings support our hypothesis that mindfulness moderates the relationship between self-focus and ToM performance. We discuss the limitations and differences between the present study and previous findings.Peer Reviewe

Personality development in disruptive times: The impact of personal versus collective life events

Personality development is related to life events that change social roles and environments. Here, we provide an overview of the differences between personal and collective life events relevant to personality development. Following some basic assumptions about the malleability of personality traits due to life events, we discuss the differences in the thematic, social, spatial, and temporal characteristics of personal and collective life events. Personal life events often cover the domains of health, work, family, and love in individual people's lives, while collective life events refer to disasters and power struggles that affect many people. Collective life events are different because they can (a) trigger different personal life events for different people, (b) indirectly affect many more individuals who identify with a directly affected group, and (c) change social role demands through cultural changes. We discuss how these, and other differences affect the way researchers should investigate collective life events.Friedrich‐Ebert‐Stiftung http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100005846Peer Reviewe

Physical and chemical characteristics of the Yaquina Estuary, Oregon

This report discusses data collected in the Yaquina Estuary from July 1976 through December 1977 at 6-8 week intervals. Also summarized are recording salinometer, runoff and precipitation data from September 1967 through July 1968. Station names and locations for the 76-77 field data are shown in Figure 1. Figure 2 shows 67-68 recording station locations. After a brief description of the setting of the Yaquina Estuary, estuarine dynamics and classification, and estuarine chemistry are presented. Then, temperature-salinity relations are reviewed using the Rattray-Officer model in simulating variable distributions reported by Callaway and Specht (1982) and Callaway (1991). Finally, the numerical models DynHyd and WASP are reviewed, some output for each model are shown and the results discussed

Functional specialization among members of knickkopf family of proteins in insect cuticle organization.

Citation: Chaudhari SS, Moussian B, Specht CA, Arakane Y, Kramer KJ, Beeman RW, et al. (2014) Functional Specialization Among Members Of Knickkopf Family Of Proteins In Insect Cuticle Organization. PLoS Genet 10(8): e1004537. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1004537Our recent study on the functional analysis of the Knickkopf protein from T. castaneum (TcKnk), indicated a novel role for this protein in protection of chitin from degradation by chitinases. Knk is also required for the laminar organization of chitin in the procuticle. During a bioinformatics search using this protein sequence as the query, we discovered the existence of a small family of three Knk-like genes (including the prototypical TcKnk) in the T. castaneum genome as well as in all insects with completed genome assemblies. The two additional Knk-like genes have been named TcKnk2 and TcKnk3. Further complexity arises as a result of alternative splicing and alternative polyadenylation of transcripts of TcKnk3, leading to the production of three transcripts (and by inference, three proteins) from this gene. These transcripts are named TcKnk3-Full Length (TcKnk3-FL), TcKnk3-5′ and TcKnk3-3′. All three Knk-family genes appear to have essential and non-redundant functions. RNAi for TcKnk led to developmental arrest at every molt, while down-regulation of either TcKnk2 or one of the three TcKnk3 transcripts (TcKnk3-3′) resulted in specific molting arrest only at the pharate adult stage. All three Knk genes appear to influence the total chitin content at the pharate adult stage, but to variable extents. While TcKnk contributes mostly to the stability and laminar organization of chitin in the elytral and body wall procuticles, proteins encoded by TcKnk2 and TcKnk3-3′ transcripts appear to be required for the integrity of the body wall denticles and tracheal taenidia, but not the elytral and body wall procuticles. Thus, the three members of the Knk-family of proteins perform different essential functions in cuticle formation at different developmental stages and in different parts of the insect anatomy

Impact 2001

Index Competitive Agricultural Systems in a Global Economy ............................................................. 1 Safe and Secure Food and Fiber Systems ............................................................. 20 Healthy, Well-Nourished Population ............................................................. 28 Greater Harmony Between Agriculture and the Environment ............................................................. 38 Economic Development and Quality of Life for People and Communities ............................................................. 46 Society-Ready Graduates ............................................................. 5

Impact 2001

Index Competitive Agricultural Systems in a Global Economy ............................................................. 1 Safe and Secure Food and Fiber Systems ............................................................. 20 Healthy, Well-Nourished Population ............................................................. 28 Greater Harmony Between Agriculture and the Environment ............................................................. 38 Economic Development and Quality of Life for People and Communities ............................................................. 46 Society-Ready Graduates ............................................................. 5

Transcriptional profiling of degraded RNA in cryopreserved and fixed tissue samples obtained at autopsy

BACKGROUND: Traditional multiplexed gene expression methods require well preserved, intact RNA. Such specimens are difficult to acquire in clinical practice where formalin fixation is the standard procedure for processing tissue. Even when special handling methods are used to obtain frozen tissue, there may be RNA degradation; for example autopsy samples where degradation occurs both pre-mortem and during the interval between death and cryopreservation. Although specimens with partially degraded RNA can be analyzed by qRT-PCR, these analyses can only be done individually or at low levels of multiplexing and are laborious and expensive to run for large numbers of RNA targets. METHODS: We evaluated the ability of the cDNA-mediated Annealing, Selection, extension, and Ligation (DASL) assay to provide highly multiplexed analyses of cryopreserved and formalin fixed, paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissues obtained at autopsy. Each assay provides data on 1536 targets, and can be performed on specimens with RNA fragments as small as 60 bp. RESULTS: The DASL performed accurately and consistently with cryopreserved RNA obtained at autopsy as well as with RNA extracted from formalin-fixed paraffin embedded tissue that had a cryopreserved mirror image specimen with high quality RNA. In FFPE tissue where the cryopreserved mirror image specimen was of low quality the assay performed reproducibly on some but not all specimens. CONCLUSION: The DASL assay provides reproducible results from cryopreserved specimens and many FFPE specimens obtained at autopsy. Gene expression analyses of these specimens may be especially valuable for the study of non-cancer endpoints, where surgical specimens are rarely available

Distinguishing grade I meningioma from higher grade meningiomas without biopsy

BACKGROUND: Many meningiomas are identified by imaging and followed, with an assumption that they are WHO Grade I tumors. The purpose of our investigation is to find clinical or imaging predictors of WHO Grade II/III tumors to distinguish them from Grade I meningiomas. METHODS: Patients with a pathologic diagnosis of meningioma from 2002-2009 were included if they had pre-operative MRI studies and pathology for review. A Neuro-Pathologist reviewed and classified all tumors by WHO 2007. All Brain MRI imaging was reviewed by a Neuro-radiologist. Pathology and Radiology reviews were blinded from each other and clinical course. Recursive partitioning was used to create predictive models for identifying meningioma grades. RESULTS: Factors significantly correlating with a diagnosis of WHO Grade II-III tumors in univariate analysis: prior CVA (p = 0.005), CABG (p = 0.010), paresis (p = 0.008), vascularity index = 4/4: (p = 0.009), convexity vs other (p = 0.014), metabolic syndrome (p = 0.025), non-skull base (p = 0.041) and non-postmenopausal female (p = 0.045). Recursive partitioning analysis identified four categories: 1. prior CVA, 2. vascular index (vi) = 4 (no CVA), 3. premenopausal or male, vi \u3c 4, no CVA. 4. Postmenopausal, vi \u3c 4, no CVA with corresponding rates of 73, 54, 35 and 10% of being Grade II-III meningiomas. CONCLUSIONS: Meningioma patients with prior CVA and those grade 4/4 vascularity are the most likely to have WHO Grade II-III tumors while post-menopausal women without these features are the most likely to have Grade I meningiomas. Further study of the associations of clinical and imaging factors with grade and clinical behavior are needed to better predict behavior of these tumors without biopsy