Religiosity and socio-economic status as predictors of adolescents’ family models: A multilevel analysis

This study explores multilevel relations between adolescents’ religiosity and socio-economic status (SES) with their family-related values across 10 cultures. The study is part of the international “Value of Children and Intergenerational Relations”-project (P.I.: Gisela Trommsdorff and Bernhard Nauck). Its theoretical background is Kagitcibasi’s (2007) model of family change, a recent approach in cross-cultural psychology aiming to explain how societal changes affect the family at different levels of analyses. A critical assumption of Kagitcibasi’s model is that when traditional cultures are affected by modernization processes, they need not necessarily develop in direction of the independent Western family model, but may instead develop a family model of emotional interdependence characterized by declining material but continuing emotional interdependencies in the family. While the relation between economic status and family models is an integral part of Kagitcibasi’s theory, religiosity so far has been neglected as a potentially relevant factor for family model formation. In a prior study using the same dataset, Mayer (2009) identified family model value profiles of independence, emotional interdependence, and total interdependence, where the cross-cultural distribution of these value profiles varied strongly. Applying multilevel modelling, the current study aims to predict adolescents’ affiliation to a specific family model by individual-level and culture-level measures of religiosity and socio-economic status. Method: The study includes n = 2566 adolescents (57% female, age 13-20 years) from China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, South Africa, Switzerland, and Turkey . Since the dependent variable (family model cluster membership) was nominal, hierarchical nonlinear random coefficient models were computed. Results: 1) Religiosity: Adolescents’ self-reported importance of religion was used as a predictor at the individual level and at the cultural level (aggregated). Results showed that importance of religion was significantly related to family models across cultures at the individual level as well as the cultural level. At both levels, the higher the reported importance of religion, the more likely was the adolescent’s affiliation to the two interdependent family model as compared to the independent family model. While the individual-level relation was relatively weak, the culture-level importance of religion explained 73% of the cross-cultural variation regarding the affiliation to the three family models. 2) SES: Adolescents’ self-reported SES was used as the individual-level predictor and the Human Development Index (HDI) was used as the culture-level predictor . Results showed that while individual-level SES was not significantly related to family models, the culture-level HDI strongly predicted affiliation to the independent as opposed to both interdependent family models, as well as to the emotionally interdependent as opposed to the totally interdependent family model. HDI explained 77% of the cross-cultural variation of adolescents’ family models. Additional combined analyses showed that the culture-level importance of religion and HDI together explained 87% of the cross-cultural variation of adolescents’ family models. Conclusion: The current study shows that at the cultural level, both the importance of religion and the socio-economic status of a culture have a strong impact on adolescents’ family models. At the within-culture individual level, importance of religion, but not SES, is related to adolescents’ family-related values. The results suggest that religiosity is an important factor for adolescents’ family orientation deserving greater theoretical and empirical attention in the cross-cultural study of family models

Family values and parenting of East and West German mothers: Two cohorts from the Value of Children study

This study is part of the international Value-of-Children and Intergenerational Relations Project (P.I.: Gisela Trommsdorff & Bernhard Nauck). The current study compared family-related values and child-rearing goals as well as reported parenting behavior between mothers from East Germany (Chemnitz) and West Germany (Konstanz) across two cohorts of mothers (N = 411). The first cohort consisted of mothers of adolescent children (age 14-18 years), and the second cohort of mothers of small children (age 2-5 years). Results showed that East German mothers of both cohorts were more collectivistic and showed stronger conservative family values than West German mothers while reporting a lower ideal number of children. With regard to the importance of reasons to have children (‘values of children,’ VOC), all samples reported an equally high importance of emotional values and an equally low importance of traditional utilitarian values. East German mothers of both cohorts reported higher family-related VOCs than West German mothers. With regard to child-rearing goals, East German as compared to West German mothers of both cohorts reported a higher importance of children’s obedience to parents and of children’s school achievement. With respect to reported parenting behavior East German mothers reported more controlling parenting than West German mothers. To summarize, East German mothers reported more conservative and family-oriented values and a somewhat stricter parenting orientation than West German mothers; these differences occurred in both cohorts. Results are discussed from a cultural-psychological perspective of social change

Struktura zemljišnog pokrova na dolomitima Samoborskog i Žumberačkog gorja

Soil on the dolomites of Samobor and Žumberak hills developed as a consequence of interaction of specific pedogenetic factors. The zone of saccharoidal Triassic dolomites is characterized by heavily dissected relief with tent-like crests with steep sloping sides and cut in "V"-shaped valleys, displaying a great density of valley network. Dolomite parent rock is poorly permeable with a shallow, fairly uniform zone of physical weathering into dolomite gravel, which results in a dominance of calcareous skeletal rendzinas on dolomite.Tla na dolomitima Samoborskog i Žumberačkog gorja razvila su se kao posljedica interakcije specifičnih pedogenetskih čimbenika. Vodeći čimbenici postanka tala jesu matična dolomitna stijena i njena trošina te jako disecirani reljef, koji preraspodjeljuje tvari i energiju. Zbog toga su na strmim prisojnim padinama većinom zastupljene plitke rendzine, plitki kalcikambisoli i litosoli. U donjim trećinama uskih vlažnih uvala prevladavaju duboke rendzine na raznim ekspozicijama. Skeletni koluviji nalaze se u uskim potočnim dolinama i na bočnim konusima sipara nastalih akumulacijom dolomitne trošine. Na prisojnim strmim i vrlo strmim pristrancima, pod šumom Querco-Ostryetum carpinifoliae Ht. 1938 i njenim degradacijskim stadijima, prevladava plitka karbonatna skeletna rendzina, plitki i srednje duboki kalcikambisol i litosol na erozijom zahvaćenim površinama. Na osojnim pristrancima, pod šumom Lamio orvalae-Fagetum (Ht. 1938) Borhidi 1963 u strukturi zemljišnog pokrova prevladava karbonatna skeletna srednje duboka rendzina na dolomitu, kalcikambisol i luvisol. Na užim zaravnima hrptova nalaze se travnjaci i oranice na karbonatnim plitkim i srednje dubokim antropogeniziranim rendzinama i kalcikambisolima s lokalnim nalazima reliktne crvenice. Zemljišne kombinacije većinom su tipa niza, a sastoje se od dva do tri pedotaksona. Homogene kartografske jedinice obuhvaćaju veće površine luvisola na detaljnim kartama a također i koluvije iako su njihova nutarnja svojstva jako varijabilna ovisno o sastavu, količini nanosa i vremenu sedimentacije materijala

Cross-Cultural Differences in Visual Perception and Aesthetic Preferences

The comparison of countries that are either ascribed a holistic or an analytic style of perception is common practice. Holistic perception highlights context information and the relation between objects is paramount. With an analytic perception style, the focal object is of greatest importance and context is de-emphasized. Here, we compare samples from the US, Germany and India with regard to their perception style. A total of 596 participants completed the Framed Line Test (FLT) and performed a photo selection task (PS). The absolute task of the FLT requires the context-free reproduction of a line within a frame while the relative task asks for the context-bound reproduction of the line. The PS has participants choose their favorite photograph out of a set of four, where only the size of the depicted person was manipulated while the background stayed the same. We hypothesized that participants from India would show a higher accuracy in the relative FLT task compared to the two Western samples, while participants from the US and Germany would show a higher accuracy in the absolute task. Furthermore, Indian participants would select pictures with more background information (smaller model sizes) compared to participants from the US and Germany. For the FLT, an interaction effect of cultural group and task resulted. While participants from the US and Germany had a more accurate performance in both tasks compared to Indian participants, the difference was significantly smaller for the relative task, indicating a relatively better performance of Indian participants in this task, which was in line with hypotheses. In the PS, contrary to predictions, participants from India chose larger model sizes compared to participants from the US or Germany. Results indicate that the two opposing cultural perception styles cannot be easily distinguished and further research including a broader variety of countries is needed

Controlling for culture-specific response bias using ipsatization and response style indicators: Family orientation in seventeen cultures and two generations

Within-subject standardization (ipsatization) has been advocated as a possible means to control for culture-specific responding (e.g., Fisher, 2004). However, the consequences of different kinds of ipsatization procedures for the interpretation of mean differences remain unclear. The current study compared several ipsatization procedures with ANCOVA-style procedures using response style indicators for the construct of family orientation with data from 14 cultures and two generations from the Value-of-Children-(VOC)-Study (4135 dyads). Results showed that within-subject centering/standardizing across all Likert-scale items of the comprehensive VOC-questionnaire removed most of the original cross-cultural variation in family orientation and lead to a non-interpretable pattern of means in both generations. Within-subject centering/standardizing using a subset of 19 unrelated items lead to a decrease to about half of the original effect size and produced a theoretically meaningful pattern of means. A similar effect size and similar mean differences were obtained when using a measure of acquiescent responding based on the same set of items in an ANCOVA-style analysis. Additional models controlling for extremity and modesty performed worse, and combinations did not differ from the acquiescence-only model. The usefulness of different approaches to control for uniform response styles (scalar equivalence not given) in cross- cultural comparisons is discussed

Generation of gravitational waves and tidal disruptions in clumpy galaxies

Obtaining a better understanding of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) is crucial, as their properties could shed light on the origin and growth of their supermassive counterparts. Massive star-forming clumps, which are present in a large fraction of massive galaxies at z ∼ 1–3, are among the venues wherein IMBHs could reside. We perform a series of Fokker–Planck simulations to explore the occurrence of tidal disruption (TD) and gravitational wave (GW) events about an IMBH in a massive star-forming clump, modelling the latter so that its mass (⁠108M⊙⁠) and effective radius (100 pc) are consistent with the properties of both observed and simulated clumps. We find that the TD and GW event rates are in the ranges of 10−6 to 10−5 and 10−8 to 10−7 yr−1, respectively, depending on the assumptions for the initial inner density profile of the system (ρ ∝ r−2 or ∝ r−1) and the initial mass of the central IMBH (105 or 103M⊙⁠). By integrating the GW event rate over z = 1–3, we expect that the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna will be able to detect ∼2 GW events per year coming from these massive clumps; the intrinsic rate of TD events from these systems amounts instead to a few 103 per year, a fraction of which will be observable by e.g. the Square Kilometre Array and the Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics. In conclusion, our results support the idea that the forthcoming GW and electromagnetic facilities may have the unprecedented opportunity of unveiling the lurking population of IMBHs

Elektivna disekcija regije IV ne povećava rizik postoperativnog hipoparatireoidizma kod bolesnika liječenih zbog dobro diferenciranog karcinoma štitnjače

The aim of this study was to compare the incidence of postoperative hypoparathyroidism in two groups of patients who were treated for differentiated thyroid cancer. Methods: A retrospective analysis of 179 patients who were treated for differentiated thyroid cancer in our institution from January 2011 until December 2018 was performed. Only patients initially treated with total thyroidectomy and those who did not have preoperatively confirmed central compartment and lateral neck lymph node metastases were included in this study. Two main groups of patients were analysed. The patients who were treated with total thyroidectomy and elective central compartment lymph node dissection simultaneously were included in the first group. The patients who were treated only with total thyroidectomy were included in the second group. The rate of transitory and persistent postoperative hypoparathyroidism was compared between the two groups. Results: A total of 117 patients (65.4%) underwent total thyroidectomy and elective central compartment lymph node dissection simultaneously (TT + CCLN d group). The remaining 62 patients (34.6%) underwent total thyroidectomy only (TT group). A total of 22.6% patients in the TT group developed postoperative hypoparathyroidism compared with 25.6% in the TT + CCLN d group. The rate of persistent hypoparathyroidism in the TT and TT + CCLN d groups was 3.2% and 6.0%, respectively. The difference in the rate of transient and persistent postoperative hypoparathyroidism was not statistically significant between the two groups. Within the TT + CCLN d group, 82.9% of patients underwent ipsilateral paratracheal lymph node dissection and 17.1% underwent bilateral paratracheal lymph node dissection. The rate of postoperative hypoparathyroidism was analysed in those two subgroups of patients and did not prove to be statistically significant. Discussion: While its impact on the local recurrence rate is still controversial, elective central compartment lymph node dissection could be a great tool for selection of patients who could profit from adjuvant radioiodine treatment. On the other hand, central compartment lymph node dissection could potentially increase the risk of hypoparathyroidism due to involuntary injury to parathyroid glands and/or their blood supply. Our study did not find a statistically significant difference regarding postoperative hypoparathyroidism between patients who underwent central compartment lymph node dissection compared with patients who underwent total thyroidectomy only. Our data are not in accordance with some of the previously published studies. Our results demonstrated that elective central compartment lymph node dissection is a safe procedure and does not significantly increase the risk of postoperative hypoparathyroidism when it is performed simultaneously with total thyroidectomy.Cilj rada je usporediti incidenciju postoperativnog hipoparatireoidizma između dvije skupine bolesnika liječenih zbog dobro diferenciranog karcinoma štitnjače. Metode: Retrospektivno smo analizirali 179 bolesnika koji su u našoj ustanovi liječeni zbog dobro diferenciranog karicnoma štitnjače u periodu od siječnja 2011 do prosinca 2018. U studiju su bili uključeni samo bolesnici kod kojih je inicijalno učinjena totalna tiroidektomija te oni koji na osnovu preoperativne obrade nisu imali potvrđene metastaze na lateralnom vratu i u regiji VI. Analizirane su dvije skupine bolesnika. U prvu skupinu su uključeni bolesnici kod kojih je u istom aktu učinjena totalna tireoidektomija i disekcija regije VI. Svi ostali bolesnici kod kojih je učinjena samo totalna tireoidektomija uključeni su u drugu skupinu. Stopa tranzitornog i trajnog hipoparatireoidizma je uspoređivana između dvije skupine. Rezultati: Kod ukupno 117 bolesnika (65,4%) učinjena je disekcija regije VI istodobno s totalnom tireoidektomijom. (TT + CCLN d skupina). Kod preostalih 62 bolesnika (34,6%) učinjena je samo totalna tireoidektomija. (TT skupina). Ukupno 22,6% bolesnika iz TT skupine je razvilo postoperativni hipoparatireoidizam usporedno s 25,6% bolesnika iz TT + CCLN d skupine. Stope trajnog hipoparatireoidizma u TT i TT + CCLN d skupinama su iznosile 3,2 i 6 %. Stopa tranzitornog kao i trajnog postoperativnog hipoparatireoidizma nije bila statistički značajna između dvije skupine. Unutar TT + CCLN d skupine, kod 82,9% bolesnika je učinjena disekcija ipsilateralnih paratrahealnih limfnih čvorova, za razliku od 17,1% bolesnika kod kojih je učinjena disekcija bilateralnih paratrahealnih čvorova. Stopa postoperativnog hipoparatireoidizma je analizirana u dvjema podskupinama i nije se pokazala statistički značajnom. Rasprava: Iako je utjecaj elektivne disekcije regije VI na lokoregionalno recidiviranje i dalje kontroverzan, ona može biti odličan alat za probir bolesnika koji mogu imati korist od adjuvantne radiojodne ablacije. S druge strane, disekcija regije VI potencijalno može povećati rizik hipoparatireoidizma zbog nenamjerne ozljede doštitnih žlijezda ili/i njihove krvne opskrbe. Naša studija nije pokazala statistički značajnu razliku u stopi postoperativnog hipoparatireoidizma između skupine bolesnika kod kojih je učinjena disekcija regije VI u usporedbi sa skupinom bolesnika kod kojih je učinjena samo totalna tireoidektomija. Naši podaci su u proturiječju s nekim ranije publiciranim studijama. Naši rezultati su pokazali da je elektivna disekcija regije VI sigurni postupak i značajno ne povećava rizik postoperativnog hipoparatireoidizma kada se izvodi istodobno s totalnom tireoidektomijom

A cable-suspended intelligent crane assist device for the intuitive manipulation of large payloads

This paper presents a cable-suspended crane system to assist operators in moving and lifting large payloads. The main objective of this work is to develop a simple and reliable system to help operators in industry to be more productive while preventing injuries. The system is based on the development of a precise and reliable cable angle sensor and a complete dynamic model of the system. Adaptive horizontal and vertical controllers designed for direct physical human-robot interaction are then proposed. Different techniques are then proposed to estimate the payload acceleration in order to increase the controller performances. Finally, experiments performed on a full-scale industrial system are presented

Increasing awareness of climate change with immersive virtual reality

Previous research has shown that immersive virtual reality (VR) is a suitable tool for visualizing the consequences of climate change. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether visualization in VR has a stronger influence on climate change awareness and environmental attitudes compared to traditional media. Furthermore, it was examined how realistic a VR experience has to be in order to have an effect. The VR experience consisted of a model of the Aletsch glacier (Switzerland) melting over the course of 220 years. Explicit measurements (new environmental paradigm NEP, climate change scepticism, and nature relatedness) and an implicit measurement (implicit association test) were collected before and after the VR intervention and compared to three different non-VR control conditions (video, images with text, and plain text). In addition, the VR environment was varied in terms of degrees of realism and sophistication (3 conditions: abstract visualization, less sophisticated realistic visualization, more sophisticated realistic visualization). The six experimental conditions (3 VR conditions, three control conditions) were modeled as mixed effects, with VR versus control used as a fixed effect in a mixed effects modeling framework. Across all six conditions, environmental awareness (NEP) was higher after the participants (N = 142) had been confronted with the glacier melting, while no differences were found for nature relatedness and climate change scepticism before and after the interventions. There was no significant difference between VR and control conditions for any of the four measurements. Nevertheless, contrast analyses revealed that environmental awareness increased significantly only for the VR but not for the control conditions, suggesting that VR is more likely to lead to attitude change. Our results show that exposure to VR environments successfully increased environmental awareness independently of the design choices, suggesting that even abstract and less sophisticated VR environment designs may be sufficient to increase pro-environmental attitudes