Revising the Intolerance of Uncertainty Model of Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Evidence from UK and Italian Undergraduate Samples

The Intolerance of Uncertainty Model (IUM) of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) attributes a key role to Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU), and additional roles to Positive Beliefs about Worry (PBW), Negative Problem Orientation (NPO), and Cognitive Avoidance (CA), in the development and maintenance of worry, the core feature of GAD. Despite the role of the IUM components in worry and GAD has been considerably demonstrated, to date no studies have explicitly assessed whether and how PBW, NPO, and CA might turn IU into worry and somatic anxiety. The current studies sought to re-examine the IUM by assessing the relationships between the model’s components on two different non-clinical samples made up of UK and Italian undergraduate students. One-hundred and seventy UK undergraduates and 488 Italian undergraduates completed measures assessing IU, worry, somatic anxiety, depression, and refined measures of PBW, NPO, and CA. In each sample, two mediation models were conducted in order to test whether PBW, NPO, and CA differentially mediate the path from IU to worry and the path from IU to somatic anxiety. Secondly, it was tested whether IU also moderates the mediations. Main findings showed that, in the UK sample, only NPO mediated the path from IU to worry; as far as concern the path to anxiety, none of the putative mediators was significant. Differently, in the Italian sample PBW and NPO were mediators in the path from IU to worry, whereas only CA played a mediational role in the path from IU to somatic anxiety. Lastly, IU was observed to moderate only the association between NPO and worry, and only in the Italian sample. Some important cross-cultural, conceptual, and methodological issues raised from main results are discussed

Employees’ perceptions of the impact of work on health behaviours

Research examining the impact of work on health behaviours has rarely provided a complete picture of the impact across health behaviours. Twenty-four employees were interviewed about their smoking, drinking, exercise and eating. Themes included the impact of the work environment, including policy, convenience and workplace cultural norms; business events effecting one’s routine, and again convenience and workplace cultural norms; being busy at work effecting time and energy for healthy behaviour; and work stress leading to health behaviours being used as coping responses on bad and good days. The impact of work is similar across health behaviours and is primarily detrimental

Selective Separation of Metallic Phases from Chalcopyrite

Owing to the environmental problems associated with copper extraction alternative processes are sought. The carbothermic reduction of natural chalcopyrite concentrates, from Ghatsila mines in Bihar, India, in the presence of lime, was studied across the temperature range 850-1250°C. Studies have been completed previously in synthetic chalcopyrite. This study stresses the need to investigate the reduction of natural chalcopyrite. The reduction of chalcopyrite proceeds in two steps, initially with the direct reduction by carbon. This is followed by indirect reduction by the carbon monoxide evolved from the first stage of reduction. Both stages of the reduction were investigated to determine the reaction mechanism. Metallic copper and iron are produced from the reduction of chalcopyrite. The oxysulphide phase, Cm, also produced from the reduction of chalcopyrite, was not previously categorised. X-ray diffraction analysis and scanning electron microscopy were utilised to evaluate the structure of Cm. Silver is an important by-product of copper extraction therefore it was necessary to study its path during the reduction of chalcopyrite. This was achieved by additions of Ag and Ag2S prior to reduction. Silver will preferentially segregate out with the copper phase hence providing a valuable metallic product from the reduction reaction. The addition of Ag to the reduction mixtures facilitates metallic phase separation of copper and iron. Arsenic and antimony are deleterious elements present in naturally occurring chalcopyrite. The addition of calcium sulphate and silica to chalcopyrite, heat treated under partially reducing conditions, will produce a calcium silicate slag phase that will entrain impurities such as arsenic and antimony, thus providing a method of control of those elements. An initial investigation into the possible control and elimination of impurities during extraction of copper has been conducted with favourable results

New methods for stress assessment and monitoring at the workplace

The topic of stress is nowadays a very important one, not only in research but on social life in general. People are increasingly aware of this problem and its consequences at several levels: health, social life, work, quality of life, etc. This resulted in a significant increase in the search for devices and applications to measure and manage stress in real-time. Recent technological and scientific evolution fosters this interest with the development of new methods and approaches. In this paper we survey these new methods for stress assessment, focusing especially on those that are suited for the workplace: one of today’s major sources of stress. We contrast them with more traditional methods and compare them between themselves, evaluating nine characteristics. Given the diversity of methods that exist nowadays, this work facilitates the stakeholders’ decision towards which one to use, based on how much their organization values aspects such as privacy, accuracy, cost-effectiveness or intrusivenes