1,721,049 research outputs found
Symmetry of the face in old age reflects childhood social status
No full textThe association of socioeconomic status (SES) with a range of lifecourse outcomes is robust, but the causes of these associations are not well understood. Research on the developmental origins of health and disease has led to the hypothesis that early developmental disturbance might permanently affect the lifecourse, accounting for some of the burden of chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease. Here we assessed developmental disturbance using bodily and facial symmetry and examined its association with socioeconomic status (SES) in childhood, and attained status at midlife. Symmetry was measured at ages 83 (facial symmetry) and 87 (bodily symmetry) in a sample of 292 individuals from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 (LBC1921). Structural equation models indicated that poorer SES during early development was significantly associated with lower facial symmetry (standardized path coefficient -.25, p=.03). By contrast, midlife SES was not significantly associated with symmetry. The relationship was stronger in men (-.44, p=.03) than in women (-.12, p=.37), and the effect sizes were significantly different in magnitude (p=.004). These findings suggest that SES in early life (but not later in life) is associated with developmental disturbances. Facial symmetry appears to provide an effective record of early perturbations, whereas bodily symmetry seems relatively imperturbable. As bodily and facial symmetries were sensitive to different influences, they should not be treated as interchangeable. However, markers of childhood disturbance remain many decades later, suggesting that early development may account in part for associations between SES and health through the lifecourse. Future research should clarify which elements of the environment cause these perturbations
Predicting mortality from human faces
No full textObjective: To investigate whether and to what extent mortality is predictable from facial photographs of older people. Methods: High-quality facial photographs of 292 members of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921, taken at the age of about 83 years, were rated in terms of apparent age, health, attractiveness, facial symmetry, intelligence, and well-being by 12 young-adult raters. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to study associations between these ratings and mortality during a 7-year follow-up period. Results: All ratings had adequate reliability. Concurrent validity was found for facial symmetry and intelligence (as determined by correlations with actual measures of fluctuating asymmetry in the faces and Raven Standard Progressive Matrices score, respectively), but not for the other traits. Age as rated from facial photographs, adjusted for sex and chronological age, was a significant predictor of mortality (hazard ratio = 1.36, 95% confidence interval = 1.12-1.65) and remained significant even after controlling for concurrent, objectively measured health and cognitive ability, and the other ratings. Health as rated from facial photographs, adjusted for sex and chronological age, significantly predicted mortality (hazard ratio = 0.81, 95% confidence interval = 0.67-0.99) but not after adjusting for rated age or objectively measured health and cognition. Rated attractiveness, symmetry, intelligence, and well-being were not significantly associated with mortality risk. Conclusions: Rated age of the face is a significant predictor of mortality risk among older people, with predictive value over and above that of objective or rated health status and cognitive ability.</p
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Affective forecasting under uncertainty
No full textAffective forecasting denotes the ability to predict one’s own future emotions. Past research indicates that the predictions are generally not precise and people either overestimate or underestimate their emotions. People act mindlessly to a plausible message that deliver minimal amount of information, regardless of the form or meaning. In this study, it was hypothesised that “uncertainty” represented by a less plausible message, elicits mindfulness and prolongs happiness; while “certainty” posed as a more plausible message induces mindlessness and decreases happiness. These hypotheses were tested with 2 repeated measure experiments of forecasting and experiencing and 1 forecasting only experiment. Most of the results were not consistent with previous findings, and participants’ responses were subjected to the influences of uncontrollable outside factors
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Getting Stuff Done: Procrastination, and the Contributions of Grit, Conscientiousness, Morningness, and other related factors
No full textThe relationships between procrastination and grit, conscientiousness, morningness-eveningness, mindset, and other traits considered to be “associated with psychological maturity” (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009, p. 169) were investigated. It was found that there was a strong, negative relationship between grit and procrastination. Those higher in procrastination were found to prefer to wake up later, whilst those higher in grit tended to prefer to wake up earlier. Those in the highest grit group would prefer to wake almost a full hour before those in the lowest grit group. A linear regression analysis - with grit, conscientiousness, and morningness as predictors - was able to account for 41.1% of the variance in procrastination. Many previous findings were also replicated; older individuals were grittier and more morning-oriented; men were more emotionally stable, while women were more likely to report preferring polychronicity (i.e. multitasking). The sample studied reported substantially higher scores on each Big Five personality trait than did a student sample in a previous study - in contrast to the expectation of finding lower mean conscientiousness. Possible reasons for this finding - and issues with measuring procrastination via self-report questionnaires more broadly - are discussed. Suggestions are made for improvements, and for further research into the influence of morningness-eveningness on grit and procrastination.
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