Narcissism Moderates the Relationship between Provocation and Intergroup Aggression

Intergroup aggression may be defined as any behavior intended to hurt another person because of his or her group membership. We tested a person x situation model of intergroup aggression that integrates group identity processes, situational forces, and personality. Since social norms prohibit unjustified aggression (Otten, et al., 1996), we expected aggressive responses only after provocation. Drawing from research on individual-group discontinuity (Wildschut, et al., 2003), we expected provocation to stimulate more aggression in an intergroup condition than in an interpersonal condition. Finally, we expected participants with “dark” personalities (high levels of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) to have exaggerated responses to intergroup provocation (Jonason \u26 Webster, 2010). Participants (N=212) completed measures of personality and exchanged essays with an online partner, characterized as a local student (interpersonal condition) or an international student (intergroup condition). Participants then received either insulting feedback (provocation condition) or praise (no provocation condition) from their partner. Next, participants completed the positive-and-negative-affect scale. Finally, aggression was assessed using the tangram paradigm (Barlest \u26 Anderson, 2011). Participants selected 11 tangram puzzles for their partner to solve to potentially win a prize. Aggression was defined as the number of hard tangrams selected (an act intended to hurt the partner’s chances of winning). We found that narcissistic participants reacted more aggressively toward an outgroup member after provocation compared to their low narcissistic counterparts. Additional analyses determined that feelings of anger accounted for the high levels of aggression expressed by the insulted narcissists. The results support a person x situation approach to intergroup aggression and have implications for integrating personality and social psychological approaches. In general, it seems that there are some distinct factors that uniquely influence intergroup aggression, including the dynamics of ingroup bias, individual-group discontinuity, and certain personality dispositions.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2013/1033/thumbnail.jp

Longitudinal Measurement of Serum Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Impaired vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) signaling causes emphysema in animal models. In chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, alterations in VEGF tissue expression have been observed. We hypothesize that circulating VEGF may be a biomarker to phenotype COPD patients.; The aim of this study was to investigate VEGF serum levels in stable and exacerbated COPD.; VEGF serum levels as well as parameters of short- and long-term outcome were assessed and analyzed in two COPD cohorts [PROMISE, n = 117; ProCOLD (PC), n = 191].; VEGF serum levels at stable COPD were neither related to forced expiratory volume in 1 s nor to the Modified Medical Research Council dyspnea score, 6-min walking distance or BODE index. There was no association between single VEGF levels and COPD exacerbation frequency or mortality at 1 and 2 years of follow-up. In PC an increase in VEGF over time (ΔVEGF) was associated with the exacerbation frequency as well as the 1- and 2-year hospitalization rate (p = 0.046, 0.009 and 0.006, respectively). Furthermore, in PC ΔVEGF was associated with 1- and 2-year survival (p = 0.009 and 0.041, respectively).; Single serum VEGF levels, at stable and exacerbated COPD, were not associated with clinically significant outcomes in COPD. Conversely, the VEGF course seems related to COPD prognosis

Educación Corporal y la matriz de una teoría práctica: el caso del carácter práctico de la pedagogización del deporte en Educación Física

Algunas reflexiones hechas, con anterioridad, en torno a la identidad de la Educación Física, dejaron asomadas la necesidad de pensar una Educación Física transformada en términos de la matriz de pensamiento práctico ó Teoría Práctica. Retomando dicho desafío avanzamos en algunas definiciones para tornar plausible, a que nos referimos con una tal matriz de pensamiento y exponemos el caso emblemático, que constituyó la inclusión del deporte como contenido de la Educación Física escolar. Dicho caso se presenta como una referencia de las condiciones estrechas que guardan la dimensión corporal desde un sentido práctico, para desarrollar una Educación Corporal consecuente.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Educación Corporal y la matriz de una teoría práctica: el caso del carácter práctico de la pedagogización del deporte en Educación Física

Algunas reflexiones hechas, con anterioridad, en torno a la identidad de la Educación Física, dejaron asomadas la necesidad de pensar una Educación Física transformada en términos de la matriz de pensamiento práctico ó Teoría Práctica. Retomando dicho desafío avanzamos en algunas definiciones para tornar plausible, a que nos referimos con una tal matriz de pensamiento y exponemos el caso emblemático, que constituyó la inclusión del deporte como contenido de la Educación Física escolar. Dicho caso se presenta como una referencia de las condiciones estrechas que guardan la dimensión corporal desde un sentido práctico, para desarrollar una Educación Corporal consecuente.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Does Energy Community Membership Change Sustainable Attitudes and Behavioral Patterns? Empirical Evidence from Community Wind Energy in Germany

Community energy is seen as a helping hand for local, decentralized energy transition. Besides the main goal of supporting the community-friendly and socially acceptable development of renewable energies, the hope is also that a pro-environmental influence on sustainability behavior will be triggered when joining a community energy project. An analysis of a survey among 16 community energy projects in Germany, with 565 completed questionnaires, shows that a certain part of the members pays more attention to their energy behavior and develop a more positive attitude towards a decentralized energy transition and citizen participation after joining the community energy project. Therefore, we can empirically support that climate protection projects, such as community energy, influence pro-environmental attitudes and behavior, but this does not apply equally to all population groups. Members with higher income and stronger interest in returns are less likely to change their behavior. Based on these findings, we recommend the development of community energy policies that are more responsive to differences in social structure and address both privileged and underprivileged groups in a sophisticated way using specific offers and modes of involvement within the associations

Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide for Diagnosing Exacerbation in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) is the most abundant neuropeptide in the lung. VIP has been linked to pulmonary arterial hypertension and hypoxia.; We aimed to assess circulating VIP levels at exacerbation and at stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and to evaluate the diagnostic performance in a well-characterized cohort of COPD patients.; The nested cohort study included patients with Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease stage II-IV. Patients were examined at stable state and at acute exacerbation of COPD (AE-COPD), and dedicated serum was collected at both conditions. Serum VIP levels were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Diagnostic accuracy was analyzed by receiver operating characteristic curve and area under the curve (AUC).; Patients with acute exacerbation (n = 120) and stable COPD (n = 163) had similar characteristics at baseline. Serum VIP levels did not correlate with oxygen saturation at rest (p = 0.722) or at exercise (p = 0.168). Serum VIP levels were significantly higher at AE-COPD (130.25 pg/ml, 95% CI 112.19-151.83) as compared to stable COPD (40.07 pg/ml, 95% CI 37.13-43.96, p < 0.001). The association of increased serum VIP with AE-COPD remained significant after propensity score matching (p < 0.001). Analysis of the Youden index indicated the optimal serum VIP cutoff value as 56.6 pg/ml. The probability of AE-COPD was very low if serum VIP was ≤35 pg/ml (sensitivity >90%) and very high if serum VIP was ≥88 pg/ml (specificity >90%). Serum VIP levels presented a robust performance to diagnose AE-COPD (AUC 0.849, 95% CI 0.779-0.899).; Increased serum VIP levels are associated with AE-COPD

Two-phase equilibrium and molecular hydrogen formation in damped Lyman-alpha systems

Molecular hydrogen is quite underabundant in damped Lyman-alpha systems at high redshift, when compared to the interstellar medium near the Sun. This has been interpreted as implying that the gas in damped Lyman-alpha systems is warm. like the nearby neutral intercloud medium, rather than cool, as in the clouds which give rise to most H I absorption in the Milky Way. Other lines of evidence suggest that the gas in damped Lyman-alpha systems -- in whole or part -- is actually cool; spectroscopy of neutral and ionized carbon, discussed here, shows that the damped Lyman-alpha systems observed at lower redshift z $$ 2.8 are warm (though not devoid of H2). To interpret the observations of carbon and hydrogen we constructed detailed numerical models of H2 formation under the conditions of two-phase thermal equilibrium, like those which account for conditions near the Sun, but with varying metallicity, dust-gas ratio, $etc$. We find that the low metallicity of damped Lyman-alpha systems is enough to suppress H2 formation by many orders of magnitude even in cool diffuse clouds, as long as the ambient optical/uv radiation field is not too small. For very low metallicity and under the most diffuse conditions, H2 formation will be dominated by slow gas-phase processes not involving grains, and a minimum molecular fraction in the range $10^{-8}-10^{-7}$ is expected.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures; accepted 2002-04-30 by Astronomy and Astrophysic

Measurement of low-energy cosmic-ray electron and positron spectra at 1 AU with the AESOP-Lite spectrometer

We report on a new measurement of the cosmic ray (CR) electron and positron spectra in the energy range of 20 MeV -- 1 GeV. The data were taken during the first flight of the balloon-borne spectrometer AESOP-Lite (Anti Electron Sub Orbital Payload), which was flown from Esrange, Sweden, to Ellesmere Island, Canada, in May 2018. The instrument accumulated over 130 hours of exposure at an average altitude of 3 g.cm$^{-2}$ of residual atmosphere. The experiment uses a gas Cherenkov detector and a magnetic spectrometer, consisting of a permanent dipole magnet and silicon strip detectors (SSDs), to identify particle type and measure the rigidity. Electrons and positrons were detected against a background of protons and atmospheric secondary particles. The primary cosmic ray spectra of electrons and positrons, as well as the re-entrant albedo fluxes, were extracted between 20 MeV -- 1 GeV during a positive solar magnetic polarity epoch. The positron fraction below 100 MeV appears flat, suggesting diffusion dominated solar modulation at low rigidity. The all-electron spectrum is presented and compared with models from a heliospheric numerical transport code.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figure

The impact of (co-) ownership of renewable energy production facilities on demand flexibility

The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources requires financial, technical and social innovation. This is particularly true for wind and solar energy which have structural differences to fossils: they depend on weather and thus are volatile in their power production scheme. Not only must a new energy infrastructure be built, but consumers motivated to change consumption habits so as to balance demand with a volatile energy supply and to accept new technologies like smart meters. Consumer (co-)ownership has proved successful in engaging consumers in financing renewable energy infrastructures, thus becoming “prosumers”. In addition, studies also indicate that co-ownership can induce behavioral changes in energy consumption. Based on a sample of 2,143 completed questionnaires collected through an online survey, the study presented in this paper seeks to empirically analyze empirically whether (co-)ownership also has an influence on demand side flexibility. Our results indicate a statistical correlation between (co-)ownership of renewable energy production facilities and the willingness of private households to adjust their consumption behavior. However, the relation is complex: Only when prosumers have the choice between self-consumption and sale of the surplus electricity production to the grid we observe a statistically significant effect on consumption behavior. As every kilowatt-hour not consumed is one potentially sold to the grid an economic incentive kicks in which is equally important for energy efficient behavior. To exclude a self-selection bias we have applied propensity score matching

The impact of (co-) ownership of renewable energy production facilities on demand flexibility

The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources requires financial, technical and social innovation. This is particularly true for wind and solar energy which have structural differences to fossils: they depend on weather and thus are volatile in their power production scheme. Not only must a new energy infrastructure be built, but consumers motivated to change consumption habits so as to balance demand with a volatile energy supply and to accept new technologies like smart meters. Consumer (co-)ownership has proved successful in engaging consumers in financing renewable energy infrastructures, thus becoming “prosumers”. In addition, studies also indicate that co-ownership can induce behavioral changes in energy consumption. Based on a sample of 2,143 completed questionnaires collected through an online survey, the study presented in this paper seeks to empirically analyze empirically whether (co-)ownership also has an influence on demand side flexibility. Our results indicate a statistical correlation between (co-)ownership of renewable energy production facilities and the willingness of private households to adjust their consumption behavior. However, the relation is complex: Only when prosumers have the choice between self-consumption and sale of the surplus electricity production to the grid we observe a statistically significant effect on consumption behavior. As every kilowatt-hour not consumed is one potentially sold to the grid an economic incentive kicks in which is equally important for energy efficient behavior. To exclude a self-selection bias we have applied propensity score matching