Search results for "bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Science and Technology Studies"
showing 10 items of 120 documents
The Phenomenology of Specialization of Criminal Suspects
2012
A criminal career can be either general, with the criminal committing different types of crimes, or specialized, with the criminal committing a specific type of crime. A central problem in the study of crime specialization is to determine, from the perspective of the criminal, which crimes should be considered similar and which crimes should be considered distinct. We study a large set of Swedish suspects to empirically investigate generalist and specialist behavior in crime. We show that there is a large group of suspects who can be described as generalists. At the same time, we observe a non-trivial pattern of specialization across age and gender of suspects. Women are less prone to commi…
Salt content impacts food preferences and intake among children
2012
This work was supported by a PhD grant from the Nutrition, Chemical Food Safety and Consumer Behavior Division of INRA (French National Institute for Agronomical Research, France) and the Regional Council of Burgundy (France) received by SB; and by a research grant (Gustolf) from Regional Council of Burgundy (France) received by SN. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.; Decreasing dietary sodium intake, which can be achieved by reducing salt content in food, is recommended. Salt contributes to the taste of foods and makes them more enjoyable. Whether a food is liked or disliked is an important determina…
Early Life Stress and Physical and Psychosocial Functioning in Late Adulthood
2013
Background. Severe stress experienced in early life may have long-term effects on adult physiological and psychological health and well-being. We studied physical and psychosocial functioning in late adulthood in subjects separated temporarily from their parents in childhood during World War II. Methods. The 1803 participants belong to the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study, born 1934–44. Of them, 267 (14.8%) had been evacuated abroad in childhood during WWII and the remaining subjects served as controls. Physical and psychosocial functioning was assessed with the Short Form 36 scale (SF-36) between 2001 and 2004. A test for trends was based on linear regression. All analyses were adjusted for age…
Yersinia pestis DNA from Skeletal Remains from the 6th Century AD Reveals Insights into Justinianic Plague
2013
Yersinia pestis, the etiologic agent of the disease plague, has been implicated in three historical pandemics. These include the third pandemic of the 19th and 20th centuries, during which plague was spread around the world, and the second pandemic of the 14th–17th centuries, which included the infamous epidemic known as the Black Death. Previous studies have confirmed that Y. pestis caused these two more recent pandemics. However, a highly spirited debate still continues as to whether Y. pestis caused the so-called Justinianic Plague of the 6th–8th centuries AD. By analyzing ancient DNA in two independent ancient DNA laboratories, we confirmed unambiguously the presence of Y. pestis DNA in…
Does Observation of Postural Imbalance Induce a Postural Reaction?
2011
Import JabRef | WosArea Life Sciences and Biomedicine - Other Topics; International audience; Background: Several studies bring evidence that action observation elicits contagious responses during social interactions. However automatic imitative tendencies are generally inhibited and it remains unclear in which conditions mere action observation triggers motor behaviours. In this study, we addressed the question of contagious postural responses when observing human imbalance. Methodology/Principal Findings: We recorded participants' body sway while they observed a fixation cross (control condition), an upright point-light display of a gymnast balancing on a rope, and the same point-light di…
Screening for distress in routine oncological care-a survey in 520 melanoma patients.
2012
Introduction Despite the increasing incidence of melanoma little is known about patients' emotional distress associated with this disease. Supplemented by the problem list (PL), the distress thermometer (DT) is a recommended screening instrument to measure psychosocial distress in cancer patients. Our objective was to explore the acceptance and the feasibility of the DT and PL as a concise screening tool in an ambulatory setting for routine care and to elucidate determinants of distress in melanoma patients with regard to sociodemographic and clinical variables. Methods Consecutive melanoma outpatients were asked to complete the DT with the PL prior to their scheduled consultation. Demograp…
The Molecular Genetic Architecture of Self-Employment
2013
Economic variables such as income, education, and occupation are known to affect mortality and morbidity, such as cardiovascular disease, and have also been shown to be partly heritable. However, very little is known about which genes influence economic variables, although these genes may have both a direct and an indirect effect on health. We report results from the first large-scale collaboration that studies the molecular genetic architecture of an economic variable-entrepreneurship-that was operationalized using self-employment, a widely-available proxy. Our results suggest that common SNPs when considered jointly explain about half of the narrow-sense heritability of self-employment es…
What users think about the differences between caffeine and illicit/prescription stimulants for cognitive enhancement
2012
Pharmacological cognitive enhancement (CE) is a topic of increasing public awareness. In the scientific literature on student use of CE as a study aid for academic performance enhancement, there are high prevalence rates regarding the use of caffeinated substances (coffee, caffeinated drinks, caffeine tablets) but remarkably lower prevalence rates regarding the use of illicit/prescription stimulants such as amphetamines or methylphenidate. While the literature considers the reasons and mechanisms for these different prevalence rates from a theoretical standpoint, it lacks empirical data to account for healthy students who use both, caffeine and illicit/prescription stimulants, exclusively f…
Monitoring training and recovery responses with heart rate measures during standardized warm-up in elite badminton players.
2020
\(\bf Purpose\) To investigate short-term training and recovery-related effects on heart rate during a standardized submaximal running test. \(\bf Methods\) Ten elite badminton players (7 females and 3 males) were monitored during a 12-week training period in preparation for the World Championships. Exercise heart rate (HRex) and perceived exertion were measured in response to a 5-min submaximal shuttle-run test during the morning session warm-up. This test was repeatedly performed on Mondays after 1–2 days of pronounced recovery (‘recovered’ state; reference condition) and on Fridays following 4 consecutive days of training (‘strained’ state). In addition, the serum concentration of creati…
Validating the German version of the Quality of Relationship Inventory: confirming the three-factor structure and report of psychometric properties.
2012
Research on psychosocial influences such as relationship characteristics has received increased attention in the clinical as well as social-psychological field. Several studies demonstrated that the quality of relationships, in particular with respect to the perceived support within intimate relationships, profoundly affects individuals' mental and physical health. There is, however, a limited choice of valid and internationally known assessments of relationship quality in Germany. We report the validation of the German version of the Quality of Relationships Inventory (QRI). First, we evaluated its factor structure in a representative German sample of 1.494 participants by means of confirm…