Unemployment alters the set-point for life satisfaction

According to set-point theories of subjective well-being, people react to events, but then return to initial levels of happiness and satisfaction over time. We test this idea by examining reaction and adaptation to unemployment in a 15-year longitudinal study. In accordance with set-point theory, individuals first reacted strongly to unemployment and then shifted back toward their former (or “baseline”) levels of life satisfaction. However, on average, individuals did not completely return to their former levels of life satisfaction, even after they became re-employed. The findings suggests that even a short period of unemployment can cause an alteration in a person’s long-term set-point. Within-person analyses showed, however, that there are considerable individual differences in reaction and adaptation to unemployment. Although there was substantial stability in life satisfaction over the years, unemployment did influence long-term levels, thus suggesting that in addition to personality, long-term subjective well-being can also be influenced by life circumstances

Sensing Subjective Well-being from Social Media

Subjective Well-being(SWB), which refers to how people experience the quality of their lives, is of great use to public policy-makers as well as economic, sociological research, etc. Traditionally, the measurement of SWB relies on time-consuming and costly self-report questionnaires. Nowadays, people are motivated to share their experiences and feelings on social media, so we propose to sense SWB from the vast user generated data on social media. By utilizing 1785 users' social media data with SWB labels, we train machine learning models that are able to "sense" individual SWB from users' social media. Our model, which attains the state-by-art prediction accuracy, can then be used to identify SWB of large population of social media users in time with very low cost.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figures, 2 tables, 10th International Conference, AMT 2014, Warsaw, Poland, August 11-14, 2014. Proceeding

Lags and Leads in Life Satisfaction: A Test of the Baseline Hypothesis

We use fourteen waves of the German panel data to ask whether individuals, after life and labour market events, return to some baseline wellbeing level. Although the strongest life satisfaction effect is often at the time of the event, significant lag and lead effects are present. Men are more affected by labour market events (unemployment and layoffs) and women by life events (marriage and divorce). Anticipation is an important component of individual wellbeing. Last, we show that happiness does not provide insurance against hard knocks: those with high baseline satisfaction are most adversely affected by negative events.Life Satisfaction; Anticipation; Habituation; Baseline Satisfaction; Labour Market and Family Events

Influence of age on outcome from thrombolysis in acute stroke: a controlled comparison in patients from the Virtual International Stroke Trials Archive (VISTA)

<p><b>Background and Purpose:</b> Thrombolysis for acute ischemic stroke in patients aged >80 years is not approved in some countries due to limited trial data in the very elderly. We compared outcomes between thrombolysed and nonthrombolysed (control) patients from neuroprotection trials to assess any influence of age on response.</p> <p><b>Method:</b>Among patients with ischemic stroke of known age, pretreatment severity (baseline National Institutes of Health Scale Score), and 90-day outcome (modified Rankin Scale score; National Institutes of Health Scale score), we compared the distribution of modified Rankin score in thrombolysed patients with control subjects by Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test and then logistic regression after adjustment for age and baseline National Institutes of Health Scale score. We examined patients ≤80 and ≥ 81 years separately and then each age decile.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> Rankin data were available for 5817 patients, 1585 thrombolysed and 4232 control subjects; 20.5% were aged >80 years (mean ± SD, 85.1 ± 3.4 years). Baseline severity was higher among thrombolysed than control subjects (median National Institutes of Health Scale score 14 versus 13, P<0.05). The distribution of modified Rankin Scale scores was better among thrombolysed patients (P<0.0001; OR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.26 to 1.54). The association occurred independently with similar magnitude among young (P<0.0001; OR, 1.42; 95% CI, 1.26 to 1.59) and elderly (P=0.002; OR, 1.34; 95% CI, 1.05 to 1.70) patients. ORs were consistent across all age deciles >30 years; outcomes assessed by National Institutes of Health Scale score gave supporting significant findings, and dichotomized modified Rankin Scale score outcomes were also consistent.</p> <p><b>Conclusions:</b> Outcome after thrombolysis for acute ischemic stroke was significantly better than in control subjects. Despite the expected poorer outcomes among elderly compared with young patients that is independent of any treatment effect, the association between thrombolysis treatment and improved outcome is maintained in the very elderly. Age alone should not be a barrier to treatment.</p&gt

Accurate Evolutions of Orbiting Binary Black Holes

We present a detailed analysis of binary black hole evolutions in the last orbit and demonstrate consistent and convergent results for the trajectories of the individual bodies. The gauge choice can significantly affect the overall accuracy of the evolution. It is possible to reconcile certain gauge-dependent discrepancies by examining the convergence limit. We illustrate these results using an initial data set recently evolved by Brügmann et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 211101 (2004)]. For our highest resolution and most accurate gauge, we estimate the duration of this data set's last orbit to be approximately 59MADM

Effective source approach to self-force calculations

Numerical evaluation of the self-force on a point particle is made difficult by the use of delta functions as sources. Recent methods for self-force calculations avoid delta functions altogether, using instead a finite and extended "effective source" for a point particle. We provide a review of the general principles underlying this strategy, using the specific example of a scalar point charge moving in a black hole spacetime. We also report on two new developments: (i) the construction and evaluation of an effective source for a scalar charge moving along a generic orbit of an arbitrary spacetime, and (ii) the successful implementation of hyperboloidal slicing that significantly improves on previous treatments of boundary conditions used for effective-source-based self-force calculations. Finally, we identify some of the key issues related to the effective source approach that will need to be addressed by future work.Comment: Invited review for NRDA/Capra 2010 (Theory Meets Data Analysis at Comparable and Extreme Mass Ratios), Perimeter Institute, June 2010, CQG special issue - 22 pages, 8 figure

Dynamics and gravitational wave signature of collapsar formation

We perform 3+1 general relativistic simulations of rotating core collapse in the context of the collapsar model for long gamma-ray bursts. We employ a realistic progenitor, rotation based on results of stellar evolution calculations, and a simplified equation of state. Our simulations track self-consistently collapse, bounce, the postbounce phase, black hole formation, and the subsequent early hyperaccretion phase. We extract gravitational waves from the spacetime curvature and identify a unique gravitational wave signature associated with the early phase of collapsar formatio

Untersuchungen zur Ermittlung der Bruchzähigkeit and MDF-Platten

Zusammenfassung: Die Bruchzähigkeit ist eine Materialkenngrässe, die das Verhalten eines Werkstoffes gegenüber der Ausbreitung eines Risses kennzeichnet. In dieser Arbeit wurde der Einfluß von Rohdichte und Holzfeuchte auf die Bruchzähigkeit von MDF untersucht. Die Prüfung erfolgte nach ASTM E 399 an CT-Proben (Kompaktzugproben) durch Zugbelastung parallel zur Plattenebene. Zur Beurteilung des Bruchverhaltens und des Bruchbildes wurde zusätzlich die Schallemissionsanalyse und die Rasterelektronenmikroskopie eingesetzt. Die Untersuchungen zeigten, daß die Bruchzähigkeit mit zunehmender Rohdichte ansteigt. Eine Erhöhung der Holzfeuchte bewirkt eine deutliche Reduzierung der Bruchzähigkeit. Die Messungen der Schallemission während der Rißaufweitung brachten keine eindeutigen Ergebnisse im Hinblick auf das Bruchverhalten von MDF. Die rasterelektronenmikroskopischen Untersuchungen machten deutlich, daß die Fasern überwiegend aus dem Faserverbund herausgezogen werden. Reine Holzbrüche, wie sie bei Spanplatte z.T. erfolgen, waren hier nicht nachweisba

Seat Belt Use Among Rural & Urban Pickup Truck Drivers

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), traffic crashes are a leading cause of death among Americans ages four through 34. Many traffic fatalities are the result of a lack of or improper seat belt use. In Missouri, nearly 70 percent of those who die in traffic crashes are not wearing their seat belt. Seat belts, when properly used, are among the most important safety devices in a vehicle and can dramatically increase a driver or passenger's odds of surviving a crash. This report examines Missouri driver attitudes toward seat belt use, particularly focusing on male and female drivers in rural and urban settings, as well as pickup truck drivers vs. non-pickup drivers

Attitudes Toward Seat Belt Use Among Urban & Rural Teens

Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death among 15 to 20 year-olds in the United States. In Missouri, young drivers are involved in a disproportionate number of fatal traffic crashes. Recent surveys show that just 58 percent of teen drivers in Missouri regularly wear seat belts. This is significant, because nearly 70 percent of those who die in traffic crashes in Missouri are not wearing their seat belt. Nationally, there is a large variation in seat belt use among states. In 2005, 60.8 percent of drivers in Mississippi wore seat belts, the lowest rate in the nation, compared to a high of 95.3 percent in Hawaii. Missouri's overall seat belt usage rate in 2005 was 77.4 percent