Happiness around the world: A combined etic-emic approach across 63 countries

What does it mean to be happy? The vast majority of cross-cultural studies on happiness have employed a Western-origin, or "WEIRD" measure of happiness that conceptualizes it as a self-centered (or "independent"), high-arousal emotion. However, research from Eastern cultures, particularly Japan, conceptualizes happiness as including an interpersonal aspect emphasizing harmony and connectedness to others. Following a combined emicetic approach (Cheung, van de Vijver & Leong, 2011), we assessed the cross-cultural applicability of a measure of independent happiness developed in the US (Subjective Happiness Scale; Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999) and a measure of interdependent happiness developed in Japan (Interdependent Happiness Scale; Hitokoto & Uchida, 2015), with data from 63 countries representing 7 sociocultural regions. Results indicate that the schema of independent happiness was more coherent in more WEIRD countries. In contrast, the coherence of interdependent happiness was unrelated to a country's "WEIRD-ness." Reliabilities of both happiness measures were lowest in African and Middle Eastern countries, suggesting these two conceptualizations of happiness may not be globally comprehensive. Overall, while the two measures had many similar correlates and properties, the self-focused concept of independent happiness is "WEIRD-er" than interdependent happiness, suggesting cross-cultural researchers should attend to both conceptualizations

The economic well-being of nations is associated with positive daily situational experiences

People in economically advantaged nations tend to evaluate their life as more positive overall and report greater well-being than people in less advantaged nations. But how does positivity manifest in the daily life experiences of individuals around the world? The present study asked 15,244 college students from 62 nations, in 42 languages, to describe a situation they experienced the previous day using the Riverside Situational Q-sort (RSQ). Using expert ratings, the overall positivity of each situation was calculated for both nations and individuals. The positivity of the average situation in each nation was strongly related to the economic development of the nation as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI). For individuals’ daily experiences, the economic status of their nation also predicted the positivity of their experience, even more than their family socioeconomic status. Further analyses revealed the specific characteristics of the average situations for higher HDI nations that make their experiences more positive. Higher HDI was associated with situational experiences involving humor, socializing with others, and the potential to express emotions and fantasies. Lower HDI was associated with an increase in the presence of threats, blame, and hostility, as well as situational experiences consisting of family, religion, and money. Despite the increase in a few negative situational characteristics in lower HDI countries, the overall average experience still ranged from neutral to slightly positive, rather than negative, suggesting that greater HDI may not necessarily increase positive experiences but rather decrease negative experiences. The results illustrate how national economic status influences the lives of individuals even within a single instance of daily life, with large and powerful consequences when accumulated across individuals within each nation

Amperometric determination of acetate with a tri-enzyme based sensor

The present work describes a flow injection analysis system incorporating amperometric biosensors for acetate monitoring. Tri-enzyme-modified electrodes were fabricated by immobilizing acetate kinase (AK), pyruvate kinase (PK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) into a poly(ethyleneglycole) diglycidyl ether (PEGDGE) film also containing Brilliant Cresyl Blue (BCB) as an electrochemical mediator. The concentration of acetate could be determined from the decrease in the amperometric current at +50 mV versus Ag/AgCl. Parameters, such as composition of the biosensing film, operational conditions (e.g., applied potential, flow rate) were optimized. The optimized biosensor showed a linear response to acetate in the range of 0.2-8 mM with a detection limit of 0.13 mM (calculated as 3 SIN). The acetate content of different samples (wine and vinegar) could be reliably quantified with the described biosensor

Direct bioelectrocatalysis at carbon electrodes modified with quinohemoprotein alcohol dehydrogenase from Gluconobacter sp. 33

A newly isolated, purified, and characterized PQQ-dependent alcohol dehydrogenase (a bacterial membrane-bound protein) was recently found to display a surprisingly large linear range and high selectivity towards ethanol when integrated into a conducting polymer network on a platinum electrode. These findings motivated us to study the enzyme when simply immobilized onto carbonaceous surfaces in order to establish its characteristics and suitability for sensor development, the sensor design being based on a direct-electron transfer pathway. Graphite rods and screen-printed electrodes were modified in two different ways, and were operated both in FIA and batch mode. The obtained biosensor characteristics were highly dependent on the sensor architecture, the highest sensitivity (179 mA M-1 cm(-2)) and lowest detection limit (1 muM) being obtained for screen-printed electrodes used in a batch mode. A mechanism of the observed direct electron transfer between the enzyme's active center and the electrode is proposed

Standards and specifications in pathology: image management, report management and terminology

For making medical decisions, healthcare professionals require that all necessary information is both correct and easily available. Collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology refers to the use of information technology that supports the creation and sharing or exchange of information, including data and images, during the complex workflow performed in an Anatomic Pathology department from specimen reception to report transmission and exploitation. Collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology is supported by standardization efforts toward knowledge representation for sharable and computable clinical information. The goal of the international integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) initiative is precisely specifying how medical informatics standards should be implemented to meet specific health care needs and making systems integration more efficient and less expensive. The IHE Anatomic Pathology initiative was launched to implement the best use of medical informatics standards in order to produce, share and exchange machine-readable structured reports and their evidences (including whole slide images) within hospitals and across healthcare facilities. DICOM supplements 122 and 145 provide flexible object information definitions dedicated respectively to specimen description and WSI acquisition, storage and display. The profiles "Anatomic Pathology Reporting for Public Health" (ARPH) and "Anatomic Pathology Structured Report" (APSR) provide standard templates and transactions for sharing or exchanging structured reports in which textual observations - encoded using PathLex, an international controlled vocabulary currently being mapped to SNOMED CT concepts - may be bound to digital images or regions of interest in images. Current implementations of IHE Anatomic Pathology profiles in North America, France and Spain demonstrate the applicability of recent advances in standards for Collaborative Digital Anatomic Pathology. The use of machine-readable format of Anatomic Pathology information supports the development of computer-based decision support as well as secondary use of Anatomic Pathology information for research or public health