Stability and Change of Personality across the Life Course: The Impact of Age and Major Life Events on Mean-Level and Rank-Order Stability of the Big Five

Does personality change across the entire life course, and are those changes due to intrinsic maturation or major life experiences? This longitudinal study investigated changes in the mean levels and rank order of the Big Five personality traits in a heterogeneous sample of 14,718 Germans across all of adulthood. Latent change and latent moderated regression models provided four main findings: First, age had a complex curvilinear influence on mean levels of personality. Second, the rank-order stability of Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Openness, and Agreeableness all followed an inverted U-shaped function, reaching a peak between the ages of 40 and 60, and decreasing afterwards, whereas Conscientiousness showed a continuously increasing rank-order stability across adulthood. Third, personality predicted the occurrence of several objective major life events (selection effects) and changed in reaction to experiencing these events (socialization effects), suggesting that personality can change due to factors other than intrinsic maturation.. - Fourth, when events were clustered according to their valence, as is commonly done,. - effects of the environment on changes in personality were either overlooked or. - overgeneralized. In sum, our analyses show that personality changes throughout the life. - span, but with more pronounced changes in young and old ages, and that this change is. - partly attributable to social demands and experiences.personality development, Big Five, life events, stability, adulthood

The Benefits of Believing in Chance or Fate: External Locus of Control as a Protective Factor for Coping with the Death of a Spouse

The death of a spouse is an extremely stressful life event that consequently causes a large drop in life satisfaction. Reactivity to the loss, however, varies markedly, a phenomenon that is currently not well understood. Because lack of controllability essentially contributes to the stressful nature of this incident, we analyzed whether individual differences in the belief in external control influence the coping process. To examine this issue, widowed individuals (N = 414) from a large-scaled panel study were followed for the 4 years before and after the loss by using a latent growth model. Results showed that belief in external control led to a considerably smaller decline in life satisfaction and higher scores in the year of the loss. Thus, although usually regarded as a risk factor, belief in external control acts as a protective factor for coping with the death of a spouse.Locus of control, life satisfaction, latent growth model, subjective well-being, subjective indicators, family and networks

Polarization-controlled single photons

Vacuum-stimulated Raman transitions are driven between two magnetic substates of a rubidium-87 atom strongly coupled to an optical cavity. A magnetic field lifts the degeneracy of these states, and the atom is alternately exposed to laser pulses of two different frequencies. This produces a stream of single photons with alternating circular polarization in a predetermined spatio-temporal mode. MHz repetition rates are possible as no recycling of the atom between photon generations is required. Photon indistinguishability is tested by time-resolved two-photon interference.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

A Single-Photon Server with Just One Atom

Neutral atoms are ideal objects for the deterministic processing of quantum information. Entanglement operations have been performed by photon exchange or controlled collisions. Atom-photon interfaces were realized with single atoms in free space or strongly coupled to an optical cavity. A long standing challenge with neutral atoms, however, is to overcome the limited observation time. Without exception, quantum effects appeared only after ensemble averaging. Here we report on a single-photon source with one-and-only-one atom quasi permanently coupled to a high-finesse cavity. Quasi permanent refers to our ability to keep the atom long enough to, first, quantify the photon-emission statistics and, second, guarantee the subsequent performance as a single-photon server delivering up to 300,000 photons for up to 30 seconds. This is achieved by a unique combination of single-photon generation and atom cooling. Our scheme brings truly deterministic protocols of quantum information science with light and matter within reach.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

The use of soil amendments in the revegetation process of smelter-impacted soils

Non-Peer Reviewe

Frictional Drag Between Coupled 2D Hole Gases in GaAs/AlGaAs Heterostructures

We report on the first measurements of the drag effect between coupled 2D-hole gases. We investigate the coupling by changing the carrier densities in the quantum wells, the widths of the barriers between the gases and the perpendicular magnetic field. From the data we are able to attribute the frictional drag to phonon coupling, because the non-parabolicity allows to tune the Fermi wavevector and the Fermi velocity separately and, thereby, to distinguish between phonon- and plasmon-dominated coupling.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Efeito do tamanho e de múltiplos casais sobre o potencial reprodutivo de Spodoptera eridania (Stoll, 1782) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae).

Entre os lepidópteros de importância agrícola, Spodoptera eridania (Stoll, 1782) tem despertado atenção por atingir níveis de dano econômico em culturas de importância como algodão e soja. Entretanto, existem poucos estudos detalhados de biologia, especialmente relacionados a aspectos reprodutivos. Visando determinar a capacidade máxima reprodutiva desta espécie avaliou-se o efeito do tamanho, empregando como parâmetro o peso pupal, e o número de casais por gaiola (um e três) sobre o número de cópulas, fecundidade e fertilidade. Os experimentos foram conduzidos em sala climatizada (25 ± 1ºC, 70 ± 10% UR e fotofase de 14 horas) com observações diárias. Adultos, emergidos no mesmo dia, classificados de acordo com a massa pupal, como pequenos, médios e grandes foram dispostos em gaiolas plásticas, (10 x 15cm), alimentados com dieta artificial e água estéril. Foram formadas 15 gaiolas com um casal cada, todos de tamanho médio, cinco gaiolas com 3 casais de tamanho pequeno e médio e 4 com três casais de tamanho grande. O número médio de cópulas dos casais de tamanho médio mantidos individualmente (1,13) foi significativamente menor do que o dos insetos pequenos (2,58), médios (2,47) e grandes (2,33),mantidos a três por gaiola. A fecundidade média dos casais individuais (1.398,00) também foi significativamente menor que a dos mantidos a três por gaiola, tanto de tamanho pequeno (1.709,07), médio (2.044,27) e grande (2.469,92). Entre estes últimos observou-se efeito positivo entre o tamanho da pupa e a fecundidade, com diferenças significativas entre todos os tamanhos. A fertilidade média dos casais individuais (67,45) foi muito inferior a observada para os casais pequenos (97,32%), médios (96,43%) e grandes (98,91%), mantidos a três por gaiola. Estes resultados indicam que em estudos que estimam o potencial reprodutivo devem ser utilizados pelo menos três casais por gaiola e que sejam descritos os pesos das pupas que originaram os adultos

Parâmetros biológicos dos estágios imaturos de Spodoptera eridania (Stoll, 1782) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), em condições controladas.

O gênero Spodoptera (Guenée, 1852) é cosmopolita e abriga grande parte das lagartas de importância agrícola. Spodoptera eridania (Stoll, 1782) é uma espécie polífaga que se alimenta de plantas de 57 famílias, incluindo muitas de importância econômica. Este estudo objetivou detalhar parâmetros biológicos de desenvolvimento dos estágios imaturos de S. eridania, em condições controladas (25 ± 1ºC, 70 ± 10% UR e fotofase de 14 horas). Foram avaliados 4.454 ovos provenientes de 16 posturas e 298 larvas neonatas, individualmente, alimentadas com dieta artificial modificada de Grenee et al. A viabilidade dos ovos, larvas, pré-pupas e pupas foi de 97,82; 93,62; 96,42; 97,03%, com duração de 4,00; 16,18; 1,58 e 9,17 dias, respectivamente. Observou-se que 93% das fêmeas e 100% dos machos passaram por seis e 7% das fêmeas passaram por sete instares larvais. A partir do quinto ínstar observou-se diferenciação no tamanho das cápsulas entre machos e fêmeas de seis instares e, entre fêmeas com as de sete instares, a diferenciação iniciou no quarto ínstar, com razão de crescimento menor que as demais, no entanto o tamanho final foi maior que nas larvas de seis instares, compensado pelo ínstar adicional. O tamanho final das cápsulas foi significativamente diferente entre fêmeas (2,64mm) e machos (2,50mm), bem como entre as fêmeas que passaram por seis (2,64mm) e sete ínstares (2,72mm). Nas larvas femininas e masculinas de seis instares a razão média de crescimento foi de 1,52 e 1,51, respectivamente; nas de sete ínstares foi de 1,44. As pupas femininas das larvas que passaram por seis instares foram significativamente maiores (377,53mg) do que os machos (329,45mg), porém, menores que as provenientes de larvas que passaram por sete ínstares (435,11mg). Tanto a metodologia de criação quanto a dieta larval foram adequadas, pois permitiram 85,87% de sobrevivência e um detalhamento muito maior das observações, especialmente, quando larvas

Development of ultra-light pixelated ladders for an ILC vertex detector

The development of ultra-light pixelated ladders is motivated by the requirements of the ILD vertex detector at ILC. This paper summarizes three projects related to system integration. The PLUME project tackles the issue of assembling double-sided ladders. The SERWIETE project deals with a more innovative concept and consists in making single-sided unsupported ladders embedded in an extra thin plastic enveloppe. AIDA, the last project, aims at building a framework reproducing the experimental running conditions where sets of ladders could be tested