Religiosität und Spiritualität als Bewältigungsmechanismus beim Krebs

Das Ziel dieser Dissertation ist es, den Zusammenhang zwischen Religion und Spiritualität auf der einen Seite, und der Bewältigung bzw. Umgang mit einer Krankheit auf der anderen Seite besser zu verstehen. Im Spezifischen untersucht diese Arbeit Religion und Spiritualität als Bewältigungsmechanismen für eine Krebserkrankung. Dies ist insbesondere für Krebspatienten wichtig, da die Wissenschaft Religion und Spiritualität als Bewältigungsmechanismen erforscht hat und die bisherigen Ergebnisse kontrovers sind. Das vorrangige Ziel dieser Analyse ist es daher, zu verstehen ob Religion und Spiritualität positive Bewältigungsmechanismen für Krebspatienten sind, und wie dieser Zusammenhang von Patienteneigenschaften (z.B. Alter, Bildung) oder Krankheitsvariablen (z.B. Krebsart, Stadium) abhängt. Die Methodik dieser Arbeit ist eine systematische Meta-Analyse sämtlicher vorhandenen empirischen Studien. Vier wesentliche Ergebnisse ergeben sich aus dieser Studie. Erstens korreliert Spiritualität bzw. dessen 'Sinn'-Komponente signifikant positiv mit Lebensqualität und negativ mit emotionalem Stress. Zweitens ist die Korrelation der 'Sinn'-Komponente von Spiritualität mit Lebensqualität und Emotionalem Stress stärker als dessen 'Glauben'-Komponente. Drittens weist generelle Religiosität nur einen schwach bis nicht signifikanten Zusammenhang mit Lebensqualität und emotionalem Stress auf. Viertens zeigt religiöse Bewältigung (hauptsächlich negative religiöse Bewältigung) eine signifikant positive Korrelation mit emotionalem Stress und eine signifikant negative Korrelation mit Lebensqualität, während positive religiöse Bewältigung keinen signifikanten Zusammenhang mit den abhängigen Variablen zeigt. Diese Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Spiritualität als positiver Bewältigungsmechanismus für Krebs angesehen werden kann, insbesondere wenn Patienten in der Krankheitssituation eine Bedeutung finden können. Für soziodemografische sowie Krankheits-Charakteristika konnten nur ein teilweise signifikanter, jedoch nicht konsistenter moderierender Einfluss auf die verschiedenen Zusammenhänge zwischen unabhängigen und abhängigen Variablen gefunden werden. Der moderierende Einfluss solcher Variablen sollte daher in Zukunft in direkten empirischen Versuchen und Studien detailliert untersucht werden.The aim of the present study is to investigate the existing controversially debated relationship between religion and spirituality and coping with an illness. Specifically, the study analyzes religion and spirituality as coping mechanisms with cancer, since for cancer patients in particular little is known about religion and spirituality as a coping mechanism, in addition to the very diverse results published so far in the field. The study’s goal is to understand whether religion or spirituality can be viewed as a positive coping mechanism for cancer patients and whether this relationship depends on a patient’s specific characteristics (e.g. age, education) or on the illness characteristics (e.g. cancer type, illness stage). The applied research methodology is a systematic meta-analysis, a research method that was evaluated as the most appropriate to ensure that the current research problem is clearly defined and set within the established context. Four main findings emerged from this research. First, spirituality highly correlates with augmented quality of life and with reduced emotional distress. Second, the meaning component of spirituality showed stronger correlations with higher quality of life and reduced emotional distress in comparison to the faith one. Third, general religiousness showed weak to non significant correlations with quality of life and emotional distress. Fourth, negative religious coping showed significant relations with augmented emotional distress and reduced quality of life while positive religious coping showed non-significant relationship with the mentioned above dependent variables. The results suggest that spirituality as a coping mechanism with cancer is a strong positive coping mechanism. Specifically, constructing a meaning from the illness experience seems to have a powerful connection with a better psycho-social well being among cancer patients. At the same time, religion has both positive and negative implication for psycho-social well-being of cancer patients, depending upon the type of religion as mentioned above. Last, illness and socio-demographic variables did not show a consistent pattern of moderation for the effect sizes of the different dependent-independent variables combination, suggesting that when it comes to religion and spirituality, situational factors and specific religious and non religious functions, beliefs and practices need to be taken into account

Expectations Management

Empirical evidence suggests the existence of a market premium for firms whose earnings exceed analysts ' forecasts and that firms respond by managing analysts ' ex-pectations downward. This paper provides a theoretical analysis of the driving forces behind expectations management, paying particular attention to the differing roles played by publicly-communicated and privately-communicated analyst forecast guid-ance. While conventional wisdom suggests that both private and public forecasts are used to guide analysts ' forecasts downward, we find that only the private forecast is used for this purpose. In contrast, managers bias their public forecast upwards, in order to reduce investors ' inference of the downwardly-biased guidance privately provided to the analyst. We show that the magnitudes of private and public bias increase with the precision of the information privately communicated to the analyst. This result sug-gests that Regulation Fair Disclosure may have played an important role in reducing managers ' motivation to engage in private as well as public expectations management. Our findings also suggest a simple rational explanation for the observed market pre-mium for beating analysts ' expectations. We show that the quality of reported earnings is an important determinant of the magnitude of this premium, and even whether such a premium exists. We thank the participants at the 2013 Penn State Accounting Conference, and workshop participants at Baruch College and at the University of Chicago for their helpful comments. All remaining errors are our own

Perceived Challenges and Coping Mechanism in Transitional Learning on Students’ Performance in TLE

This study aimed to determine the perceived challenges and coping mechanisms in transitional learning on students’ performance in TLE based on the achievement test. This employed the descriptive-correlational with the comparative design of quantitative method as participated by 150 Grade Nine (9) respondents in the researcher’s locale, who were chosen using the random sampling procedures. The data were gathered using an evaluation questionnaire and achievement test which are validated with the help of the experts. Data communications were established before data gathering procedures and were analyzed using percentage, mean, weighted mean, standard deviation, Pearson r, and t-test. The respondents were at the level of approaching mastery in TLE 9 competencies. The study’s findings revealed that there was a significant difference in perceived challenges and coping mechanisms in transitional learning and the sex profile of the respondents. However, there is no significant relationship between the perceived challenges and coping mechanisms in transitional learning and TLE performance. The study recommends the enhancement of teaching

Time-to-Sell of New Green Housing

This research explores the time-to-sell (TTS) of green real estate. We employ data on primary market transactions in six newly developed multi-story condominiums—of which three are green and three are conventionally built—located in a single neighborhood of Netanya, Israel. We find that, after addressing the potential endogeneity between unit TTS and price, the average TTS of units in green, as compared to conventional, structures is significantly shorter. Considering developers' financing cost, this shorter TTS is equivalent to an indirect price premium of 1%–5%. We also find that whenever the indirect green premium associated with TTS decreases, the green quality-adjusted price premium increases. Thus, considering both price and TTS, we estimate a total green price premium of about 5%

Escitalopram or novel herbal mixture treatments during or following exposure to stress reduce anxiety-like behavior through corticosterone and BDNF modifications.

Anxiety disorders are a major public health concern worldwide. Studies indicate that repeated exposure to adverse experiences early in life can lead to anxiety disorders in adulthood. Current treatments for anxiety disorders are characterized by a low success rate and are associated with a wide variety of side effects. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the anxiolytic effects of a novel herbal treatment, in comparison to treatment with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor escitalopram. We recently demonstrated the anxiolytic effects of these treatments in BALB mice previously exposed to one week of stress. In the present study, ICR mice were exposed to post natal maternal separation and to 4 weeks of unpredictable chronic mild stress in adolescence, and treated during or following exposure to stress with the novel herbal treatment or with escitalopram. Anxiety-like behavior was evaluated in the elevated plus maze. Blood corticosterone levels were evaluated using radioimmunoassay. Brain derived neurotrophic factor levels in the hippocampus were evaluated using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. We found that (1) exposure to stress in childhood and adolescence increased anxiety-like behavior in adulthood; (2) the herbal treatment reduced anxiety-like behavior, both when treated during or following exposure to stress; (3) blood corticosterone levels were reduced following treatment with the herbal treatment or escitalopram, when treated during or following exposure to stress; (4) brain derived neurotrophic factor levels in the hippocampus of mice treated with the herbal treatment or escitalopram were increased, when treated either during or following exposure to stress. This study expands our previous findings and further points to the proposed herbal compound's potential to be highly efficacious in treating anxiety disorders in humans

Inducible and reversible phenotypes in a novel mouse model of Friedreich's Ataxia.

Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA), the most common inherited ataxia, is caused by recessive mutations that reduce the levels of frataxin (FXN), a mitochondrial iron binding protein. We developed an inducible mouse model of Fxn deficiency that enabled us to control the onset and progression of disease phenotypes by the modulation of Fxn levels. Systemic knockdown of Fxn in adult mice led to multiple phenotypes paralleling those observed in human patients across multiple organ systems. By reversing knockdown after clinical features appear, we were able to determine to what extent observed phenotypes represent reversible cellular dysfunction. Remarkably, upon restoration of near wild-type FXN levels, we observed significant recovery of function, associated pathology and transcriptomic dysregulation even after substantial motor dysfunction and pathology were observed. This model will be of broad utility in therapeutic development and in refining our understanding of the relative contribution of reversible cellular dysfunction at different stages in disease