Higher Rank Order Research Articles

Further evidence that the worst performance rule is a special case of the correlation of sorted scores rule

According to the worst performance rule (WPR), the correlations between intelligence and sorted performances, for example on reaction time tasks, should strengthen from the best to the worst performance. A commonly proposed explanation for the WPR is that poor performances reflect lapses of attention that are particularly strongly related to intelligence. The correlation of sorted scores rule (CSSR), on the other hand, claims that the WPR arises due to certain statistical properties of the data. Specifically, the magnitude of intelligence-performance correlations will change with the rank order of the test when intelligence is correlated with the within-individual standard deviation (WISD) of the tests. If the latter correlation is negative, a WPR is seen, i.e. intelligence-performance correlations will be lower for tests with higher rank order. If the intelligence-WISD correlation were positive, however, intelligence-performance correlations would instead increase with test rank order. In the present study, through strategic slicing of two samples (N = 1485, and N = 43,987, respectively), we created subsamples with a large range of intelligence-WISD correlations. In accordance with the CSSR, but not the WPR, the association between intelligence-performance correlations and test rank order was found to reflect the intelligence-WISD correlation of the subsample. This supports that the WPR might be a special case of the more general CSSR and that the WPR is crucially dependent on intelligence-WISD correlations. The findings also indicate that the predictions made by the CSSR generalize to other predictors besides intelligence and to other outcomes besides reaction time.

The state‒religion issue in Israel: is the consociational model still alive?

ABSTRACTThis article seeks to determine the accuracy of predictions made by researchers of Israeli politics regarding the disappearance of the consociational model in state‒religion relations, to be replaced by the emergence of a crisis model, which threatens the stability of Israeli democracy. Using a unique methodological tool, based on the relative importance assigned to the issue in the platforms of the parties, we followed the positioning of the issue on the agenda over the years, and investigated whether it was becoming more prominent since the 1990s as an indication of the crumbling of the consociational model. The findings revealed, indeed, that in the late 1990s the tension around religion‒state relations reached its peak and was reflected in a higher rank order on the agenda. However, during the twenty-first century, the tension has not been rising, while the 2015 elections show a dramatic decline in the issue’s positioning on the agenda, which refutes the researchers’ forecast.

ESR and X-ray Structure Investigations on the Binding and Mechanism of Inhibition of the Native State of Myeloperoxidase with Low Molecular Weight Fragments.

As an early visitor to the injured loci, neutrophil-derived human Myeloperoxidase (hMPO) offers an attractive protein target to modulate the inflammation of the host tissue through suitable inhibitors. We describe a novel methodology of using low temperature ESR spectroscopy (6 K) and FAST™ technology to screen a diverse series of small molecules that inhibit the peroxidase function through reversible binding to the native state of MPO. Our initial efforts to profile molecules on the inhibition of MPO-initiated nitration of the Apo-A1 peptide (AEYHAKATEHL) assay showed several potent (with sub-micro molar IC50s) but spurious inhibitors that either do not bind to the heme pocket in the enzyme or retain high (>50 %) anti oxidant potential. Such molecules when taken forward for X-ray did not yield inhibitor-bound co-crystals. We then used ESR to confirm direct binding to the native state enzyme, by measuring the binding-induced shift in the electronic parameter g to rank order the molecules. Molecules with a higher rank order—those with g-shift Rrelative ≥15—yielded well-formed protein-bound crystals (n = 33 structures). The co-crystal structure with the LSN217331 inhibitor reveals that the chlorophenyl group projects away from the heme along the edges of the Phe366 and Phe407 side chain phenyl rings thereby sterically restricting the access to the heme by the substrates like H2O2. Both ESR and antioxidant screens were used to derive the mechanism of action (reversibility, competitive substrate inhibition, and percent antioxidant potential). In conclusion, our results point to a viable path forward to target the native state of MPO to tame local inflammation.

Orientational properties of perylene tetracarboxylic diimide molecules in liquid–crystalline matrices

Molecular orientational order of perylene tetracarboxylic diimide, N,N’-di(n-hexyl)-1,6,7,12-tetrachloroperylene-3,4,9,10-carboxylic acid imide (Cl4-PTCDI-6C), dissolved in homologous series of liquid crystals, i.e. 4-(trans-4′-n-alkylcyclohexyl)-isothiocyanato-benzene (nCHBT) and 4-n-alkyl-4′-cyanobiphenyl (nCB), is investigated by using UV–V is absorption and fluorescence spectroscopies. The orientational order parameter , determined experimentally for Cl4-PTCDI-6C molecules in nCHBT and nCB, is much lower than that for some other derivatives of perylene dissolved in the same liquid crystal hosts. The order parameter , obtained for Cl4-PTCDI-6C in nCHBT and nCB, is also smaller than obtained previously from Raman scattering in the liquid crystal hosts. The orientational order parameter for the Cl4-PTCDI-6C probe takes extremely low negative values, which indicates the importance of higher rank order parameters in the description of the dye distribution in the liquid–crystalline matrices. The bulky chlorine atoms, substituted in the perylene tetracarboxylic diimide molecular core, seem to be primarily responsible for the small orientational order parameters of the dye molecules. Finally, the odd–even effect, manifesting itself in an alternating increase and decrease of and for Cl4-PTCDI-6C along with increasing number of carbon atoms in the alkyl chains in nCHBT homologous series, is discussed.