General Validity Research Articles

A longitudinal meta-analysis of range restriction estimates and general mental ability validity coefficients: Better addressing overcorrection amid decline effects.

Psychometric corrections can be crucial for obtaining valid operational results, but concerns are rising about potential overcorrections for general mental ability (GMA) validity coefficients. Our two-part study identifies a source of overprediction: using national norms rather than recent local applicant pool variance for range restriction corrections. Study 1 demonstrates increasing homogeneity in Wonderlic occupational applicant pool variance across four data time waves, suggesting they are no longer interchangeable with the general working population, a divergence attributable to a rise in education. Study 2 employs the Morris meta-analytic approach to gauge the impact of using national norms over occupational ones in range restriction. An analysis of 649 GMA validity coefficients from four time waves of General Aptitude Test Battery and Wonderlic data shows a radical drop in corrected and uncorrected correlations, indicating that historical corrected GMA validity coefficients differ from contemporary ones by up to 16-fold (i.e., an R² of 42.3% vs. 2.6%), and range restriction corrections are now minimal in about 75% of cases. This drop in correlations appears due to the filtering effects of increased education, both due to the demands of the knowledge economy and credentialism, where organizations are using college or university degrees as a proxy for GMA. Credentialism is an incredibly inefficient form of GMA assessment, suggesting an urgent societal need to incorporate selection fundamentals more broadly. Altogether, these results indicate that labor market dynamics have a deeper impact on personnel selection than typically appreciated, meaning that many of our estimates have and will eventually age out. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Policy Guidance for Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing Services: Framework Development Study.

The online offer of commercial genetic tests, also called direct-to-consumer genetic tests (DTC-GTs), enables citizens to gain insight into their health and disease risk based on their genetic profiles. DTC-GT offers often consist of a combination of services or aspects, including advertisements, information, DNA analysis, and medical or lifestyle advice. The risks and benefits of DTC-GT services have been debated and studied extensively, but instruments that assess DTC-GT services and aid policy are lacking. This leads to uncertainty among policy makers, law enforcers, and regulators on how to ensure and balance both public safety and autonomy and about the responsibilities these 3 parties have toward the public. This study aimed to develop a framework that outlines aspects of DTC-GTs that lead to policy issues and to help provide policy guidance regarding DTC-GT services. We performed 3 steps: (1) an integrative literature review to identify risks and benefits of DTC-GT services for consumers and society in Embase and Medline (January 2014-June 2022), (2) structuring benefits and risks in different steps of the consumer journey, and (3) development of a checklist for policy guidance. Potential risks and benefits of DTC-GT services were mapped from 134 papers and structured into 6 phases. In summary, these phases were called the consumer journey: (1) exposure, (2) pretest information, (3) DNA analysis, (4) data management, (5) posttest information, and (6) individual and societal impact. The checklist for evaluation of DTC-GT services consisted of 8 themes, covering 38 items that may raise policy issues in DTC-GT services. The themes included the following aspects: general service content, validity and quality assurance, potential data and privacy risks, scientific evidence and robustness, and quality of the provided information. Both the consumer journey and the checklist break the DTC-GT offer down into key aspects that may impact and compromise individual and public health, safety, and autonomy. This framework helps policy makers, regulators, and law enforcers develop methods to interpret, assess, and act in the DTC-GT service market.

Design and Content Validity of Health Games for children with Atopic Dermatitis

Objective: The success of managing atopic dermatitis (AD) largely depends on patient adherence to treatment. Achieving adherence requires more than knowledge transfer; it also requires a change in patients’ health behavior. Therefore, we conducted this study to develop and validate the content of health games for the pediatric population with AD. Methods: This study focused on developing and validating the content of health games about AD. Among these were the book Oli e o Grande Desafio da Coceira™ (“Oli and the Great Itching Challenge”) and the games Dermatrilha™ (“Dermatrail”) and Caixinha Surpresa da Dermatite™ (“Dermatitis Surprise Box”). The instrument development process consisted of five stages: planning of the instruments, development of the instruments, development of content validation questionnaires, evaluation by an expert committee, and a pre-test with the target audience. Results: The expert committee comprised 20 professionals: 5 pediatric dermatologists, 5 hospital psychologists, 5 illustrators/designers, and 5 early childhood education teachers. The target audience comprised 25 children with AD aged 5 to 12 years. The content validity index was 0.94 in the evaluation by the expert committee and 0.95 in the evaluation by the target audience. Among the games, the general content validity index was 0.95 among the members of the expert committee and 0.92 among the target audience, being higher than 0.80 for all items. Conclusion: The health games evaluated in this study are useful psychoeducational tools with high content validity for use in the therapeutic education of children with AD.

Іоаникіївська богадільня в Богуславі (за матеріалами «Київських єпархіальних відомостей»)

The objective of the article is to investigate the history of the establishment and activities of the Ioanykiivskyi Almshouse based on materials from the journal «Kyiv Diocesan News». The methodological framework of the study is based on general scientific principles of scientific validity, objectivity, systematicity, structuralism, historicism, and methods of analysis, synthesis, generalization, and application aimed at comprehensive coverage of facts and phenomena, the use of reliable, verified information, and presenting the material in a clear sequence. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the study and systematization of reports from the Ioanykiivskyi Almshouse, which were submitted for consideration at diocesan congresses and published in the journal «Kyiv Diocesan News», helping to form an understanding of the establishment and functioning of the shelter as an important component of the social protection system for lonely, disadvantaged representatives of the clergy and the charitable activities of the Orthodox Church as a whole. Conclusions. Within the social welfare system of the Orthodox Church, particular support was needed for lonely and disadvantaged members of the clergy, especially widows and orphans. Thanks to a donation of 50,000 rubles from Metropolitan Ioanykii, who transferred it to the Kyiv Diocesan Guardianship, the idea of establishing an almshouse named after the benefactor became feasible. The shelter was located in the premises of a former theological school in the town of Bohuslav, Kaniv County. Admission to the shelter was upon request to the diocesan guardianship with mandatory certification by the local charitable council. When vacancies were available, individuals from the clergy were admitted to the almshouse for a fee, which was used for the needs of the shelter. Several dozen individuals, mostly women, were constantly residing in the institution. The funding for the shelter was provided from the interest on the Ioanykiivskyi capital. The rules for staying in the almshouse and the work schedule were regulated by the provisions. Over time, the living conditions in the shelter improved, funds were allocated for repairs, and medical assistance. The question of opening a school for children was constantly raised, as envisaged by the provisions, but due to a lack of funds, this was never realized.

A MATLAB approach for developing digital rock models of heterogeneous limestones for reactive transport modeling

Porosity is a key parameter controlling the physico-chemical behavior of porous rocks. Digital rock physics offers a unique technique for imaging the inherently heterogeneous rock microstructure at fine spatial resolutions and its computational reconstruction, through which a better understanding and prediction of the rock behavior can be achieved. In this study, we propose a simple but accurate method to build a 3D porosity map of centimeter-scale carbonate rock cores from X-ray Micro Computed Tomography (XMCT) imaging data. The method consists of 3 main steps: i) decomposition of 3D volumetric XMCT data into sub-volumes, ii) processing of equidistributed 2D cross-section images in each sub-volume and iii) 2D slice-by-slice calculation of porosity and its assembly to reconstruct a 3D continuum porosity map over the whole core domain using a MATLAB code. The proposed approach significantly conserves the required memory to manipulate large image datasets. The digitized porosity representations are used to build 3D permeability maps of the cores by applying an explicit permeability-porosity relationship. The permeability maps are used as input for numerical simulation of the rock response to the percolation of reactive fluids through which the general validity of the approach is verified. The developed digital rock model paves the way for an improved understanding of reactive transport in carbonate rocks.

Stable acceptance for mighty knowledge

Drawing on the puzzling behavior of ordinary knowledge ascriptions that embed an epistemic (im)possibility claim, we tentatively conclude that it is untenable to jointly endorse (i) an unfettered classical logic for epistemic language, (ii) the general veridicality of knowledge ascription, and (iii) an intuitive ‘negative transparency’ thesis that reduces knowledge of a simple negated ‘might’ claim to an epistemic claim without modal content. We motivate a strategic trade-off: preserve veridicality and (generalized) negative transparency, while abandoning the general validity of contraposition. We criticize various approaches to incorporating veridicality into domain semantics, a paradigmatic ‘information-sensitive’ framework for capturing negative transparency and, more generally, the non-classical behavior of sentences with epistemic modals. We then present a novel information-sensitive semantics that successfully executes our favored strategy: stable acceptance semantics, extending a vanilla bilateral state-based semantics for epistemic modals with a knowledge operator loosely inspired by the defeasibility theory of knowledge.

The Ottawa clinical fear of recurrence instruments: Ascreener, self-report, and clinical interview.

Clinical fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) was recently defined by a group of experts during a Delphi study. Five criteria were agreed upon, namely: (a) high levels of preoccupation, (b) high levels of worry, (c) that are persistent, (d) hypervigilance and hypersensitivity to physical sensations that e) may result in functional impairment. No existing instruments comprehensively capture all these criteria for clinical FCR. To remedy this gap, a set of three patient-reported outcome instruments including a one-item screener, self-report questionnaire, and semi-structured clinical interview, named the Ottawa Clinical Fear of Recurrence instruments, were developed. To do so, the research team first conducted a literature review of potential items. Additional FCR experts discussed the content of the screener and interview. The self-report's items were assessed for content validity by the same expert panel using Likert ratings and the Content Validity Index to narrow down the number of items. The three instruments were piloted with a group of cancer survivors to assess face validity following the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer recommendations. The literature review and content validity assessment led to a final draft pre-pilot of 23 potential items for the self-report questionnaire. The instruments were piloted. Pilot study participants suggested changing wording and response options (particularly for the self-report) for greater clarity. Based on the feedback received, minor modifications were made, mostly for the self-report. In general, content and face validity for the three instruments were good for both experts and cancer survivors.

Higher-derivative corrections to flavoured BPS black hole thermodynamics and holography

A Cardy-like regime of the four-dimensional superconformal index has been shown to be governed by ’t Hooft anomalies and to single out a large-N saddle carrying the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of dual supersymmetric black holes in AdS5. For the universal index where no flavour fugacities are turned on, this correspondence has been improved by matching the first subleading corrections to the saddle-point action with the four-derivative corrections to the black hole action in minimal gauged supergravity, as well as the respective corrected entropies. Here, we extend this match by including flavour symmetries. We consider five-dimensional gauged supergravity with vector multiplet and four-derivative couplings, and provide an effective theory reproducing the ’t Hooft anomalies of the R- and flavour symmetries of generic holographic superconformal field theories at next-to-leading order in the large-N expansion. Then we focus on a specific model dual to ℂ3/ℤν quiver gauge theories, where the ’t Hooft anomaly coefficients receive simple but sufficiently generic corrections. In this model, we evaluate the four-derivative corrections to the on-shell action of the supersymmetric multi-charge black hole, showing agreement with the flavoured Cardy-like formula from the index. We give a prediction for the corrected entropy of the supersymmetric black hole and discuss the general validity of our results. Taking the limit of infinite AdS5 radius, we also obtain four-derivative corrections to the action and entropy of supersymmetric asymptotically flat black holes.

Pension system design: roles and interdependencies of tax-financed and funded pensions

The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the roles, objectives, and trade-offs in a two-pillar pension system consisting of tax-financed, public pensions and defined contribution, individual pensions. A pension system has many moving parts and our aim is to provide the reader with an understanding of how the parts interact and work together, a theme rarely addressed in the literature. In the first part of this paper, we give a qualitative overview of market failures, behavioural aspects, and distributional issues that form the background for a multi-pillar pension system design with mandatory components. In the second part of this paper, we present three thematic, quantitative analyses that illustrate fundamental relationship concerning wealth, inequality, insurance, and demographic changes. This paper also contains a detailed description of the agent-based model used for the analyses. The model is calibrated to Danish data, but the insights drawn from the model are of general validity.

Further Examination of the Pulsed- and Steady-Pedestal Paradigms under Hypothetical Parvocellular- and Magnocellular-Biased Conditions.

The pulsed- and steady-pedestal paradigms were designed to track increment thresholds (ΔC) as a function of pedestal contrast (C) for the parvocellular (P) and magnocellular (M) systems, respectively. These paradigms produce contrasting results: linear relationships between ΔC and C are observed in the pulsed-pedestal paradigm, indicative of the P system's processing, while the steady-pedestal paradigm reveals nonlinear functions, characteristic of the M system's response. However, we recently found the P model fits better than the M model for both paradigms, using Gabor stimuli biased towards the M or P systems based on their sensitivity to color and spatial frequency. Here, we used two-square pedestals under green vs. red light in the lower-left vs. upper-right visual fields to bias processing towards the M vs. P system, respectively. Based on our previous findings, we predicted the following: (1) steeper ΔC vs. C functions with the pulsed than the steady pedestal due to different task demands; (2) lower ΔCs in the upper-right vs. lower-left quadrant due to its bias towards P-system processing there; (3) no effect of color, since both paradigms track the P-system; and, most importantly (4) contrast gain should not be higher for the steady than for the pulsed pedestal. In general, our predictions were confirmed, replicating our previous findings and providing further evidence questioning the general validity of using the pulsed- and steady-pedestal paradigms to differentiate the P and M systems.

On the Korteweg‐de Vries approximation for a Boussinesq equation posed on the infinite necklace graph

Motivated by the question how to describe long‐wave dynamics on periodic networks, we consider a Boussinesq equation posed on the infinite periodic necklace graph. For the description of long‐wave traveling waves, we derive the KdV equation and establish the validity of this formal approximation by providing estimates for the error. The proof is based on suitable energy estimates. As a consequence of the approximation result, the soliton dynamics present in the KdV equation can approximately be seen for the original system, too. There are no serious obstacles to transfer the analysis to other dispersive systems or to other periodic quantum graphs for which the KdV equation can be derived. However, a general KdV validity theory on quantum graphs would be extremely abstract and of minor use.

The Stability of Hydrogen‐Bonded Ion‐Pair Complex Unexpectedly Increases with Increasing Solvent Polarity

AbstractThe generally observed decrease of the electrostatic energy in the complex with increasing solvent polarity has led to the assumption that the stability of the complexes with ion‐pair hydrogen bonds decreases with increasing solvent polarity. Besides, the smaller solvent‐accessible surface area (SASA) of the complex in comparison with the isolated subsystems results in a smaller solvation energy of the latter, leading to a destabilization of the complex in the solvent compared to the gas phase. In our study, which combines Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Infrared Spectroscopy experiments, quantum chemical calculations, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we question the general validity of this statement. We demonstrate that the binding free energy of the ion‐pair hydrogen‐bonded complex between 2‐fluoropropionic acid and n‐butylamine (CH3CHFCOO−…NH3But+) increases with increased solvent polarity. This phenomenon is rationalized by a substantial charge transfer between the subsystems that constitute the ion‐pair hydrogen‐bonded complex. This unexpected finding introduces a new perspective to our understanding of solvation dynamics, emphasizing the interplay between solvent polarity and molecular stability within hydrogen‐bonded systems.

The Stability of Hydrogen-Bonded Ion-Pair Complex Unexpectedly Increases with Increasing Solvent Polarity.

The generally observed decrease of the electrostatic energy in the complex with increasing solvent polarity has led to the assumption that the stability of the complexes with ion-pair hydrogen bonds decreases with increasing solvent polarity. Besides, the smaller solvent-accessible surface area (SASA) of the complex in comparison with the isolated subsystems results in a smaller solvation energy of the latter, leading to a destabilization of the complex in the solvent compared to the gas phase. In our study, which combines Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Infrared Spectroscopy experiments, quantum chemical calculations, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we question the general validity of this statement. We demonstrate that the binding free energy of the ion-pair hydrogen-bonded complex between 2-fluoropropionic acid and n-butylamine (CH3CHFCOO-…NH3But+) increases with increased solvent polarity. This phenomenon is rationalized by a substantial charge transfer between the subsystems that constitute the ion-pair hydrogen-bonded complex. This unexpected finding introduces a new perspective to our understanding of solvation dynamics, emphasizing the interplay between solvent polarity and molecular stability within hydrogen-bonded systems.

Information-response inequality in the small noise limit

The invariant response was defined from a formulation of the fluctuation-response theorem in the space of probability distributions. An inequality which sets the mutual information as a limiting factor to the invariant response is here derived in the small noise limit based on Stam's isoperimetric inequality. Beyond the small noise limit, numerical violations exclude its general validity, however, a strong distribution bias is observed. Applications to the thermodynamics of feedback control and to estimation theory are discussed.

Translation, cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the MBI-SS questionnaire for Chinese art students

The 16-item Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI-SS) was translated into simplified Chinese (MBI-SS-C) and tested for reliability and validity among Chinese art college students. A sample of 437 students from a Beijing art college was analyzed. The MBI-SS-C with 16 items shows relatively poor psychological measurement characteristics for items 2 and 7. The remaining 14 items showed good validity and reliability after being removed. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the structural validity of the 14-item MBI-SS-C. The Cronbach alpha for the MBI-SS-C was 0.854, with the three subscales having Cronbach alpha of 0.898, 0.890 and 0.902. The 14-item MBI-SS-C has a moderate correlation with general self-efficacy (GSE) and high concurrent validity. The 14-item MBI-SS-C is a reliable tool for evaluating burnout in Chinese art college students and is simple and effective.

Stability of 2D Crystals from Tessellation

AbstractReticular chemistry has been a cornerstone in the design of novel 2D materials. Despite numerous possibilities for topological arrangements, only a few with high symmetry can form stable networks. Here, starting from 2D carbons, four types of highly stable tessellations are discovered, which consist of chains of non‐hexagonal rings separated by hexagonal ribbons. A modified Read–Shockley model is established to perfectly describe the stability of these highly stable frameworks, which is based on the interaction between non‐hexagonal rings. Moreover, these four types of tessellations and the modified Read–Shockley model are found to be of general validity in designing highly stable 2D materials, which is verified by the calculations on polymorphs of boron nitride and molybdenum disulfide. Besides, among the studied 2D carbon allotropes, two semi‐metallic structures with highly anisotropic Dirac cones and one semimetal with a Dirac nodal line at the Fermi level are discovered, as protected by their D2h symmetry. Spin‐orbital coupling is further found to open small bandgaps for these three Dirac structures, making them nontrivial topological insulators. The in‐depth understanding of the stability of 2D crystals in this study provides a new way for rational design of 2D crystals that may show peculiar electronic structures.

Debt Sustainability Assessment in the Biogas Sector: Application of Interest Coverage Ratios in a Sample of Agricultural Firms in Italy

The biogas sector in Europe and Italy is attracting growing investment, combining agricultural activity, the circular economy, and renewable energy production. Firms in the sector widely use debt capital and, for this reason, there is a need to evaluate the structure of investments, financing, and debt service capacity calculated by applying interest coverage ratios (ICRs). ICRs are widely used by banks in granting loans, and calculation of ICRs allows managers and policy makers to correctly evaluate firms’ performance in the sector. In this research, based on a sample of 160 observations, the structure of investments and sources of financing of firms in the biogas sector, operating in northern Italy, are analyzed. ICRs are calculated with different approaches to establish which ICRs provide the most reliable results in the application. The research analyzes the correlations and highlights significant differences between ICRs. The research highlights some important findings: (a) the NWC is negative in 109 out of 160 observations and, therefore, constitutes a source of financing in the majority of observations; (b) ICRs based on EBITDA and CF are above the threshold value of “1” in 143 and 145 observations, respectively, while ICRs based on EBIT, OCF, and UFCF are above the threshold value of “1” in 132, 133, and 122 observations, respectively. The research allows the conclusion that the ICRs based on EBITDA and CF tend to overestimate results; ICRs based on EBIT, OCF and UFCF are preferable, and can therefore be applied by managers, banks, and policy makers and be used as debt covenants. For the calculation of the repayment of the NFP, the research has highlighted that ICRs in which the cost of the debt is deducted from the numerator are preferable. The research can thus be usefully applied and expanded to other territories, or by considering a larger sample with the aim of inferring conclusions of general validity.

Combustion stage configurations for intercooled regenerative reheat gas turbine systems

Low-power gas turbines have been widely used for decades as combined heat and power. In the recent years, they received increasing interest with respect to applications such as range extenders in the automotive sector and for alternative fuels use.In this framework, the present work analyzes the combustion stages optimization of an intercooled regenerative reheat gas-turbine system, for a low power gas turbine. In particular, a thorough analysis was carried out to identify the optimal combustion system configuration in order to ensure suitable turbine inlet temperature and global efficiency of the thermodynamic cycle higher than 40%. Starting from the typical intercooled regenerative reheat gas turbine system, several configurations were analyzed. In particular, air bypass systems were introduced as suitable strategy able to tune the combustion chamber working temperatures and turbine inlet ones, according to operating requirements and combustion unit specifications. Furthermore, different bypass ratios were considered, analyzing the effectiveness of air bypass systems in terms of efficient combustion and reduced pollutant emissions (CO and NOx).An innovative cyclonic flow burner, assumed to operate under MILD (Moderate or Intense Low oxygen Dilution) combustion conditions, was considered as main combustion unit and in the reheat process. In this respect, the choice was motivated by the well-established high fuel flexibility and very low pollutants emission typical of such a combustion unit and the MILD process.Analyses were performed considering methane as fuel, which is currently the most used fuel in land-based applications. However, results here reported have general validity and may be directly applied with respect to the use of innovative energy vectors.

Donor genetic determinant of thymopoiesis, rs2204985, and stem cell transplantation outcome in a multipopulation cohort

BackgroundA genetic polymorphism, rs2204985, has been reported to be associated with the diversity of T-cell antigen receptor repertoire and TREC levels, reflecting the function of the thymus. As the thymus function can be assumed to be an important factor regulating the outcome of stem cell transplantation (SCT), it was of great interest that rs2204985 showed a genetic association to disease-free and overall survival in a German SCT donor cohort. Tools to predict the outcome of SCT more accurately would help in risk assessment and patient safety. ObjectiveTo evaluate the general validity of the original genetic association found in the German cohort, we determined genetic associations between rs2204985 and the outcome of SCT in 1,473 SCT donors from four different populations. Study designGenetic associations between rs2204985 genotype AA versus AG/GG and overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in 1,473 adult, allogeneic SCT from Finland, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Poland were performed using the Kaplan-Meier analysis and log-rank tests. We adjusted the survival models with covariates using Cox regression. ResultsIn unrelated SCT donors (N = 425), the OS of genotype AA versus AG/GG had a trend for a similar association (p = 0.049, log-rank test) as previously reported in the German cohort. The trend did not remain significant in the Cox regression analysis with covariates. No other associations were found. ConclusionWeak support for the genetic association between rs2204985, previously also associated with thymus function, and the outcome of SCT could be found in a cohort from four populations.

Fuzzy cognitive maps for municipal governance improvement.

This paper applies Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs) to understand the diverse behavior of municipal governments in Ecuador to find common elements that influence the well-being of citizens in the short and long term. Information gathering was conducted in two stages: in the first one, a group of 16 national experts was consulted to develop the initial FCM; in the second stage, local experts from 220 municipalities were interviewed to collect information on the general validity of initial FCMs and specific values given to concepts and relationships in their municipalities. Results show the importance of certain concepts for long-term municipal performance, such as the need for a competitive entrepreneurial sector, improving human resources in the municipality, and, particularly, having a competent mayor with leadership skills and a forward-looking vision that enables the development of municipal projects required to reach an efficient and equitable coverage of goods and services throughout the city. Through the application of genetic algorithms, the FCM was calibrated to ascertain the long-term dynamics of municipal development and the optimal values of the concepts that would optimize the attainment of the set objectives. The derived outcomes suggest the desirability of the maintenance of, in principle, unwanted structures like financial transfers from the central government and the need to exploit natural resources to attain urban development.