Job demands and job resources as predictors of absence duration and frequency

This study among 214 nutrition production employees uses the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model to predict future company registered absenteeism. According to this model, job demands are primarily responsible for health impairment, whereas job resources lead primarily to increased motivation and attachment to work and the organization. Consistent with hypotheses derived from the JD-R model and the absenteeism literature, results of structural equation modeling analyses show that job demands are unique predictors of burnout (i.e., exhaustion and cynicism) and indirectly of absence duration, whereas job resources are unique predictors of organizational commitment, and indirectly of absence spells. These findings have implications for individual and organizational interventions aimed at reducing absenteeism.     

Socialization and development of the work ethic among adolescents and young adults

Work ethic is part of a broader field of attitudes, identified as cultural conservatism. The results of this longitudinal study—three repeated measurements with 620 adolescents and one of their parents as participants—show that parents' social economic status and educational level are associated with their cultural conservatism, and with the educational level and cultural conservatism of their children. During adolescence, parents effectively transfer their own cultural (non-)conservatism to their children. These socialization factors of adolescent cultural conservatism and adolescent educational level are important determinants of their work ethic. Lower educational level and higher cultural conservatisms of adolescents predict a stronger work ethic. Work ethic is a stable type of attitude, with work ethic at a younger age strongly predicting work ethic at a later age.     

From vision to action: experiments and models of steering control during driving

Experienced drivers performed simple steering maneuvers in the absence of continuous visual input. Experiments conducted in a driving simulator assessed drivers' performance of lane corrections during brief visual occlusion and examined the visual cues that guide steering. The dependence of steering behavior on heading, speed, and lateral position at the start of the maneuver was measured. Drivers adjusted steering amplitude with heading and performed the maneuver more rapidly at higher speeds. These dependencies were unaffected by a 1.5-s visual occlusion at the start of the maneuver. Longer occlusions resulted in severe performance degradation. Two steering control models were developed to account for these findings. In the 1st, steering actions were coupled to perceptual variables such as lateral position and heading. In the 2nd, drivers pursued a virtual target in the scene. Both models yielded behavior that closely matches that of human drivers.     

Assessment of thinking style preferences and language proficiency for South African students whose native languages differ

The language proficiency of first-year students at the University of Pretoria (56 men and 59 women, M age=19.40 yr., SD=.80, range from 18.00 to 20.70) was assessed by means of the English Language Skills Assessment. More than one-third of the students did not show proficiency at Grade 10, as expected. This language assessment was not correlated with academic achievement equally well for students in a group. The diversity of thinking style preferences of the students enrolled in a language development course was also assessed on the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument. Scores indicated a range of thinking style preferences but the group's overall mean scores represented detail-oriented and feeling-based modes of thinking processes. These preferences were correlated with academic achievement and learning of languages. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that thinking styles could be a focus of educational strategies in South Africa, using the perspective that qualitatively different approaches to teaching might be associated with students' qualitatively different approaches to learning.     

Variation of meningioma in response to cyproterone acetate in a trans woman

Background: Meningiomas express estrogen and progesterone receptors, suggestive of hormonal responsiveness. So far, eight cases of trans women with a meningioma have been reported in the literature.

Methods: Detailed report of the symptoms, treatment, and follow-up of an individual transgender patient with a meningioma.

Results: A trans woman treated long-term with gender affirming hormone therapy, including cyproterone acetate, a synthetic progestin and anti-androgen, was diagnosed with a meningioma, significantly expanding in volume over 10 years. After stopping cyproterone acetate a substantial volume decrease of the meningioma was noticed within 3 months.

Conclusion: This addition to the literature demonstrates that a conservative approach with interruption of cyproterone acetate may be a sufficient intervention, obviating the need for additional neurosurgical treatment.     

Chinese Christian communism in the early twentieth century

This article deals with a unique period in Chinese Christianity in the early twentieth century. During this period a number of Christian theologians engaged actively with communism and Marxist theory. We focus on the work of Wu Leichuan (1870–1944), Wu Yaozong (1893–1979) and Zhu Weizhi (1905–1999), who creatively sought engagements between Christianity and historical materialism and thereby articulated a unique Chinese development, albeit engaged with international currents of thought. The article analyses their varying methods of doing so, their reconstructions of the figure of Jesus and early Christianity, and the efforts to see both the links and differences between Christianity and communism.     

Narcissism,Bullying, and Social Dominance in Youth: A Longitudinal Analysis

A few previous studies have shown that narcissistic traits in youth are positively associated with bullying. However, research examining the developmental relationship between narcissism and bullying is lacking. Moreover, it is unclear whether narcissists constitute a homogeneous group and whether the bullying of narcissistic youth results in establishing social dominance over peers. The present work addresses these gaps. Children (N?=?393; M _age?=?10.3; 51 % girls) were followed during the last 3 years of primary school. Person-centered analyses were used to examine whether groups with distinct developmental trajectories for narcissism and two bullying forms (direct and indirect) can be identified, and how these trajectories are related. Multiple groups emerged for all constructs examined. For girls, higher narcissism was neither related to more intense bullying, nor to higher social dominance. In contrast, highly narcissistic boys were more likely than their peers to show elevated direct bullying, and in particular elevated indirect bullying. Hence, high narcissism is a risk factor for bullying in boys, but not in girls. However, narcissism is not always accompanied by high bullying, given that many boys on the high bullying trajectories were not high in narcissism. Results show that among narcissistic youth only those who engage in high levels of bullying are high in social dominance.     

The Personality Assessment Inventory as a proxy for the Psychopathy Checklist Revised: testing the incremental validity and cross-sample robustness of the Antisocial Features Scale

The Personality Assessment Inventory's (PAI's) ability to predict psychopathic personality features, as assessed by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), was examined. To investigate whether the PAI Antisocial Features (ANT) Scale and subscales possessed incremental validity beyond other theoretically relevant PAI scales, optimized regression equations were derived in a sample of 281 Canadian federal offenders. ANT, or ANT-Antisocial Behavior (ANT-A), demonstrated unique variance in regression analyses predicting PCL-R total and Factor 2 (Lifestyle Impulsivity and Social Deviance) scores, but only the Dominance (DOM) Scale was retained in models predicting Factor 1 (Interpersonal and Affective Deficits). Attempts to cross-validate the regression equations derived from the first sample on a sample of 85 U.S. sex offenders resulted in considerable validity shrinkage, with the ANT Scale in isolation performing comparably to or better than the statistical models for PCL-R total and Factor 2 scores. Results offer limited evidence of convergent validity between the PAI and the PCL-R.     

Would we rather lose our life than lose our self? Lessons from the Dutch debate on euthanasia for patients with dementia

This article reviews the Dutch societal debate on euthanasia/assisted suicide in dementia cases, specifically Alzheimer's disease. It discusses the ethical and practical dilemmas created by euthanasia requests in advance directives and the related inconsistencies in the Dutch legal regulations regarding euthanasia/assisted suicide. After an initial focus on euthanasia in advanced dementia, the actual debate concentrates on making euthanasia/assisted suicide possible in the very early stages of dementia. A review of the few known cases of assisted suicide of people with so-called early dementia raises the question why requests for euthanasia/assisted suicide from patients in the early stage of (late onset) Alzheimer's disease are virtually non-existent. In response to this question two explanations are offered. It is concluded that, in addition to a moral discussion on the limits of anticipatory choices, there is an urgent need to develop research into the patient's perspective with regard to medical treatment and care-giving in dementia, including end-of-life care.