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International audience; Motivated by the desire to reliably and automatically classify structure of thousands of COSMOS galaxies, we present ZEST, the Zurich Estimator of Structural Types. To classify galaxy structure, ZEST uses (1) five nonparametric diagnostics: asymmetry, concentration, Gini coefficient, second-order moment of the brightest 20% of galaxy pixels, and ellipticity; and (2) the exponent n of single-Sérsic fits to the two-dimensional surface brightness distributions. To fully exploit the wealth of information while reducing the redundancy present in these diagnostics, ZEST performs a principal component (PC) analysis. We use a sample of ~56,000 IAB1, PC2, and PC3. We demonstrate the robustness of the ZEST grid on the z=0 sample of Frei et al. The ZEST classification breaks most of the degeneracy between different galaxy populations that affects morphological classifications based on only some of the diagnostics included in ZEST. As a first application, we present the evolution since z~1 of the luminosity functions (LFs) of COSMOS galaxies of early, disk, and irregular galaxies and, for disk galaxies, of different bulge-to-disk ratios. Overall, we find that the LF up to a redshift z=1 is consistent with a pure luminosity evolution (of about 0.95 mag at z~0.7). We highlight, however, two trends that are in general agreement with a downsizing scenario for galaxy formation, i.e., (1) a deficit of a factor of about 2 at z~0.7 of MB>-20.5 structurally classified early-type galaxies and (2) an excess of a factor of about 3, at a similar redshift, of irregular galaxies. Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope , obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555 also based on data collected at the Subaru Telescope, which is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan; Kitt Peak National Observatory, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which are operated by AURA, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation; and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope operated by the National Research Council of Canada, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique de France, and the University of Hawaii.

the pack and “thinks different.” Quite surely, that famous advertising byline helped win the computer maker, Apple, ultimate iconic status of innovator as the ultimate iconoclast. Equally famously, Apple Computer made its system incompatible with the prevailing standard: you were either with the nearly 90% of users whose PCs ran on Microsoft Windows or aligned with Apple’s unique system. Apple’s chief, Steve Jobs, had declared his objective to “put a ding in the universe”; he certainly did so by banging into the sides of much bigger competitors: Microsoft, IBM, HP, Dell, among many others. The Us vs. Them image of the innovator is not limited to Apple alone. The popular idea of the innovator as the “disruptor”—and the many examples of companies on the Web or from emerging markets that have, indeed, disrupted long standing incumbents—has reinforced the competitive facet of innovation. And the metaphors keep coming: making the competiton irrelevant; innovate—or die. In fact, it is often remarked that some of the best-known innovative companies hire attorneys with as much zest as in their hiring of scientists and engineers. In the midst of all of these images of zero-sum innovation, the critical role of consensus, cooperation and coordination in most successful innovations may have been overlooked. Last year, the percentage of successful innovative products that were developed or commercialized with others was as high as 79%. The total return to shareholders for companies that adopted a collaborative approach to innovation was on average 1.6 times that of more insular innovators. Collaboration also led to better outcomes for users of the innovative products: the clinical survival rates of patients who use products from externally sourced programs in pharmaceuticals are twice the survival rates of patients served by products of internally sourced programs. The importance of outsiders in the innovation process often begins with the very idea that ultimately becomes a winning innovation. The office supplies retailing giant, Staples, had aspirations to boost its sales from highly appealing private label merchandise. One of its hottest recent products is the Wordlock, predicated on the simplest of ideas: people remember combinations of letters that spell familBhaskar Chakravorti

Although there are various definitions o/wellness, few conceptual definitions have addressed the contextual dimensions of wellness relative to African American counselors. The authors present an overview of generic models of wellness, discuss factors that both inhibit and promote wellness, offer some culture-specific models of wellness, and address implications for future research. ********** In recent years, the issue of promoting wellness has gained considerable interest among counseling, human development, and medical professionals (Constantine & Sue, 2006; J. E. Myers, 1992; J. E. Myers, Madathil, & Tingle, 2005; Prilleltensky & Prilleltensky, 2003). Although wellness does not constitute a new domain for counselors, it appears to be so because historically the profession has maintained a mental health orientation that emphasizes the treatment of pathology rather than the application of interventions that optimize human potential. The promotion of wellness has been linked to several populations, such as children (Cicchetti, Rappaport, Sandier, & Weissberg, 2000), patients with AIDS (Holt, Houg, & Romano, 1999), teachers (Queen & Queen, 2003), and persons with physical and mental illness (Sperry, Lewis, Carlson, & Englar-Carlson, 2005). However, for the past 2 decades, the holistic notion of wellness in counseling has received less attention and, consequently, the focus on developmental theories and wellness strategies have been underemphasized (J. E. Myers, 1992). J. E. Myers (1991) defined wellness as the "maximizing of human potential through positive life-style choices" (p. 183). In another definition, Ardell (1985) emphasized that wellness is a conscious and intentional approach to an advanced state of physical and psychological/spiritual health. In order to illustrate the distinction between health and wellness, Greenberg (1985) offered a definition of wellness that integrates social, mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical components, where a high level of wellness is exhibited when the components are balanced. He further commented that health is typically defined as the absence of illness, whereas wellness emphasizes a zest and enthusiasm for life. Within the counseling literature, two models of wellness have emerged: the Wheel of Wellness (J. E. Myers, Sweeney, & Witmer, 2000) and the Indivisible Self (J. E. Myers & Sweeney, 2005) models. These models characterize holistic constructions of wellness and prevention over the life span and encompass both a multidisciplinary focus and theoretical grounding in Adlerian individual psychology. The Wheel model is composed of five life tasks that are essential to optimal wellness: spirituality, self-direction, work and leisure, friendship, and love. The self-direction life task includes 12 additional tasks necessary for wellness: sense of worth, sense of control, realistic beliefs, emotional awareness and coping, problem solving and creativity, sense of humor, nutrition, exercise, self-care, stress management, gender identity, and cultural identity. The Wheel of Wellness highlights the overlaps of these various domains of wellness, which can ultimately help counselors understand clients as individuals and as part of their respective environments. The second model, the Indivisible Self, is more evidence-based and incorporates 17 wellness dimensions and five "selves": the essential sell social sell creative sell physical sell and coping self (J. E. Myers & Sweeney, 2005). The essential self is composed of four components: spirituality, self-care, gender identity, and cultural identity. The creative self consists of thinking, emotions, control, positive humor, and work. The coping self includes four components: realistic beliefs, stress management, self-worth, and leisure. The social self consists of two components: friendship and love. The physical self includes two components: exercise and nutrition. …

Truly a pleasant sight was that same drawing-room at 240, Oxford Street, when poets, artists and musicians, friends of the master of the house, met in kindly, lively converse ... Keats, with his picturesque head, leaning against the instrument, one foot raised on his knee and smoothed beneath his hands; Leigh Hunt, with his jet-black hair and expressive mouth; Shelley, with his poet's eyes and brown curls: Lamb, with his spare figure and earnest face; all seen by the glow and warmth and brightness of candlelight, when the young musician and his friends assembled in that unostentatious informal fashion which gave zest to professional social intercourse at the then period. 1

DCI (Data, Context and Interaction) comes from role-based programming and separates the system state from its behavior making it possible to preserve use cases in code to the great extent. In its Java implementation, DCI relies on the Qi4J (renamed to Apache Zest at the time of finalizing this paper) framework for role injection. This paper provides an assessment of DCI via its Qi4J implementation and beyond based on an independent study of a small car dealer system development. Two most important conceptual findings are that roles can reduce inheritance and decrease maintainability and that generic roles can be played by objects of inappropriate classes. The findings specific to the Qi4J implementation include loss of the direct domain model access from the generic context roles, entities defining their casting rules, use of interfaces instead of classes as templates for objects, no access management of the data class attributes and methods, and no direct support of polymorphism.

Development of software is happening on an increasingly distributed fashion. Individuals normally coordinate and interact over any combination of IRC rooms, mailing lists, private email, etc. Conversely, big players like Google Inc. employ yearly Googlegeist polls asking its employees how they feel about the company, its directions and its managers. As a consequence, the amount of time required for managers and management to feel the pulse of their subordinates is removed from actual work. We argue that software development status can be computed by eliciting just a few bits of information that can be anonymously extracted by a single poll - the poll can be completed very quickly and its administration can happen as a simple prompt inside windows that developers would be visiting anyway (e.g., the log-in screen, commit screens, etc.). This paper elaborates this idea and develops a prototype to articulate the idea in practice. Finally, the idea is discussed using a preliminary validation by means of statistical methods and simulations.

Feng Shui can give positive effects that can bring harmony, success and zest for living comfort. This study seeks to examine the influence of Feng Shui theory on house buying selection. Survey questionnaire is done to meet the objective. Statistical Package for the social science software (SPSS) is used to do the reliability analysis and descriptive analysis. The Feng Shui factor that can influence respondents on house buying selection is ranked according to their mean value. The finding or this research reveals the house location is the most important factor for house buying selection.

BACKGROUND: Aging is a universal phenomenon that will present itself as a dominant social and welfare challenge.AIM: This study was to examine life satisfaction among people residing in Gorgan and its correlation with certain demographic factors in 2013.METHODS: A total of 250 elder people were selected for the study through the convenience sampling during 4 months. Data collected through life satisfaction index-A (LSIA). This instrument consists of 5 subscales, including, zest for life, resolution and fortitude, congruence between desired and achieved goals, positive self-concept and mood tone. The Multiple Linear Regression analysis was used in order to determine factors influencing the overall LSIA.RESULTS: The overall LSIA score was 22.1 ± 7.5 with the maximum and minimum mean scores pertaining to the resolution and fortitude (6.1 ± 2.5) and the positive self-concept (3.1 ± 1.2) subscales, respectively. Level of education, type of living and gender were variables influencing the overall LSIA (PCONCLUSION: Given the overall LSIA, it appears that future plans for this age group should be seriously revised along with cultural plans for promoting reverence for old age in the general public.

PURPOSE: To introduce a perimetric algorithm (Spatially Weighted Likelihoods in Zippy Estimation by Sequential Testing [ZEST] [SWeLZ]) that uses spatial information on every presentation to alter visual field (VF) estimates, to reduce test times without affecting output precision and accuracy. METHODS: SWeLZ is a maximum likelihood Bayesian procedure, which updates probability mass functions at VF locations using a spatial model. Spatial models were created from empirical data, computational models, nearest neighbor, random relationships, and interconnecting all locations. SWeLZ was compared to an implementation of the ZEST algorithm for perimetry using computer simulations on 163 glaucomatous and 233 normal VFs (Humphrey Field Analyzer 24-2). Output measures included number of presentations and visual sensitivity estimates. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in accuracy or precision of SWeLZ for the different spatial models relative to ZEST, either when collated across whole fields or when split by input sensitivity. Inspection of VF maps showed that SWeLZ was able to detect localized VF loss. SWeLZ was faster than ZEST for normal VFs: median number of presentations reduced by 20% to 38%. The number of presentations was equivalent for SWeLZ and ZEST when simulated on glaucomatous VFs. CONCLUSIONS: SWeLZ has the potential to reduce VF test times in people with normal VFs, without detriment to output precision and accuracy in glaucomatous VFs. TRANSLATIONAL RELEVANCE: SWeLZ is a novel perimetric algorithm. Simulations show that SWeLZ can reduce the number of test presentations for people with normal VFs. Since many patients have normal fields, this has the potential for significant time savings in clinical settings.

Problem statement and literature review. It’s known that zest of citrus has a lot of useful phytochemical compounds adding bitter savour to it, limiting its wide use in technologies of culinary products. A large number of research papers, prepared by both domestic and foreign scientists, are devoted to the problem of zest of citrus to manufacture products in different fields of food industry. However, the matter of creation of technologies of structured semi-finished products for desserts, based on secondary products to manufacture freshly squeezed juices, is not revealed enough. Description of the research main material. It’s developed the technology of structured semi-finished products made from zest of citrus for desserts involving removal of zest of prepared orange and grapefruit peels and overwatering them with cold water, three stages hydrothermal processing and drying in the convecting device. The novelty of this technology provides three stages thermal processing of zest enabling to avoid bitter savour of semi-finished products and keep vitamins and phytochemical biological value compounds in it as much as possible. The developed semi-finished product is recommended to use for preparation of a wide range of desserts and decoration semi-finished products for confectioneries. The technology of Orange Truffle dessert is developed by using this semi-finished product. It’s grounded reasonability of introduction of pollen into recipes of desserts for the purpose of enriching products with biologically active substances, bioflavanoids, ferments and vitamins. Researches of quality parameters of the developed dessert proves its high taste properties and biological value enabling to recommend it to be used as part of healthful nutrition diet. Conclusions. Using the structured semi-finished product made from peel of citrus in manufacture of desserts will enable to widen range of desserts for healthful nutrition and intensify technological process of their manufacture and contribute to cut wastes.

‘You’re young … and perhaps your life here in Switzerland doesn’t satisfy you entirely? In Africa and Asia there is need for you.’1 These words were published in a brochure by the Swiss Confederation in the late 1960s and aimed to motivate young Swiss to work as volunteers in the field of development aid. They combined the notion of ‘developing countries’ being in desperate need of Western aid with the idea of young people’s zest for action. In this article we wish to further explore the connections between these two concepts. Utilizing two case studies, we scrutinize the experiences of young Swiss men and women who, between the 1940s and the 1970s, spent short or longer periods of time in (former) European colonies, working for transnational companies or in development aid. We focus on how these young people dealt with colonialism, decolonization and the idea of development, and examine how their practices corresponded with the discourses and institutions they were confronted with.

The Values-in-Action (VIA)-classification distinguishes six core virtues and 24 strengths. As the assignment of the strengths to the virtues was done on theoretical grounds it still needs empirical verification. As an alternative to factor analytic investigations the present study utilizes expert judgments. In a pilot study the conceptual overlap among five sources of knowledge (strength’s name including synonyms, short definitions, brief descriptions, longer theoretical elaborations, and item content) about a particular strength was examined. The results show that the five sources converged quite well, with the short definitions and the items being slightly different from the other. All strengths exceeded a cut-off value but the convergence was much better for some strengths (e.g., zest) than for others (e.g., perspective). In the main study 70 experts (from psychology, philosophy, theology, etc.) and 41 laypersons rated how prototypical the strengths are for each of the six virtues. The results showed that 10 were very good markers for their virtues, 9 were good markers, four were acceptable markers, and only one strength failed to reach the cut-off score for its assigned virtue. However, strengths were often markers for two or even three virtues, and occasionally they marked the other virtue more strongly than the one they were assigned to. The virtue prototypicality ratings were slightly positively correlated with higher coefficients being found for justice and humanity. A factor analysis of the 24 strengths across the ratings yielded the six factors with an only slightly different composition of strengths and double loadings. It is proposed to adjust either the classification (by reassigning strengths and by allowing strengths to be subsumed under more than one virtue) or to change the definition of certain strengths so that they only exemplify one virtue. The results are discussed in the context of factor analytic attempts to verify the structural model.

The purpose of the present investigation was to research, develop, and evaluate a systematic and progressive positive psychology program that is founded on evidence based happiness enhancement strategies. A review of the literature revealed happiness comes primarily from developing: 1) Self-Awarenessmthe detection of our true natures, true selves, and true values. It also includes the development of emotional awareness or the recognition of emotions and the true causes of those emotions in self and others; 2) Acceptancemthe view that we and the world are exactly the way we should be at any given moment, and happiness comes from accepting what we can about where we are while moving towards meaningful goals; 3) Life-enjoymentmthe zest, humour, and flexibility we bring to everyday events; 4) Transcendencemthe development of positive relationships in our lives and the recognition of the universal unity of being or the oceanic feeling that comes from knowing we are intimately connected to all things; 5) Perspectivemthe scientific truth that the things that happen to us are not nearly as important as how we choose to react to them; 6) Purposemthe notion that happiness comes mainly from finding meaning in life and 7) Psychic Energympeople who reach their natural capacities for happiness do not put their energy into mundane concerns, rather they find purpose by putting their efforts into three main things: work and meaningful engagement, love and relationships, and by developing perspective or the attitude they take towards unavoidable suffering. Based on the research on happiness as well as the known psychological benefits of physical activity, the Physical Activity Based Happiness Enhancement Program was developed combining physical activity, meditation, and positive psychology in a comprehensive strategy that focuses on building happiness, rather than on eliminating anxiety and depression. The program was designed to help participants reach their natural capacities for happiness through two main approaches: b Class-Based: Happiness Enhancement Weekend Workshop b Field-Based: Walking/Running Meditation Maintenance Program. The weekend workshop was designed to develop the psychological skills suggested in the literature to be utilized by happy people (i.e., what happy people know and do). The workshop contained lectures, practical individual and group exercises, group discussions, and multi-media. The second major section was a Walking/Running Meditation Maintenance Program, which was designed to support and reinforce the information and techniques presented in the Happiness Enhancement Workshop. The literature suggests both physical activity and meditation have strong links to increased happiness. Since it has been shown that aerobic exercise often leads to the same mental characteristics as mindfulness (see Green, 1995), walking or running and meditation were combined to form a comprehensive mind-body maintenance exercise. The Walking/Running Meditation Program combined walking or running at any pace with a meditation three times each week for 13 weeks. Each week a new meditation and a new practical happiness enhancement task were introduced. There were 17 (13 female, 4 male) participants who completed the program with an average age of 38 years. The intervention was associated with increased participant happiness (SWLS) and decreased depression, but there were no differences found on stress and anxiety measures (DASS-21). There were significant increases on the broad values of courage, humanity, justice, and temperance, but no differences on wisdom and knowledge or transcendence (VIA-Brief). Significant increases were found on the individual strengths of bravery or courage, zest or enthusiasm, love or attachment, social intelligence or social skills, teamwork, forgiveness or mercy, appreciation of beauty and excellence or awe, and hope or optimism. There were no significant changes on the other individual strength sub-scales on the VIA-Brief. The transformative learning responses showed evolution in the participantsr general definitions of happiness, their descriptions of self, feelings of connections with the majority of people, stated life-purposes, and the time taken for quiet contemplation, each in a way that was consistent with the objectives of the intervention. There is still much room for improvement as there was a tendency among participants to maintain some perspectives and beliefs that the research suggested were counterproductive to happiness. All program evaluation questions were found to be statistically significant on chi-squared tests in the desired direction. Participants perceived the program was well organized, catered, researched, presented, and included logical progressions between ideas, good practical exercises, useful learning materials, stimulating discussion, new and interesting information, accepting facilitators, a relaxed learning environment, and believed it was useful in increasing present happiness and would also be useful in increasing future happiness. The main objective of researching and creating a comprehensive happiness enhancement program for the observed population was achieved. After making the suggested program improvements, future studies are needed to address issues of a small sample size, lack of a control group, and to compare various populations and formulations of the program.

Literary texts play a significant role in improving mental and linguistic skills, value teaching, motivation, imagination, creativity and socialisation of individuals. Individuals, who improve themselves in the foregoing, are capable of easily overcoming real-life problems. Literary texts encourage linguistic pleasure, aesthetic perspective and a zest of life. Therefore, it is one of the important phenomenona to use literary texts as a means of developing as well as reinforcing linguistic and personal skills. In this context, this research was conducted on the effects of fairy tales as literary texts on improving linguistic and personal skills in teaching Turkish to foreigners. Turkish Language teachers are the most important witnesses in determining the level of functionality of linguistic capacities in teaching Turkish as a foreign language. In this study, a questionnaire was prepared for the teachers who teach Turkish as a foreign language to the Georgian speakers at universities and high schools to determine the effects of fairy tales upon the act of teaching Turkish and personal capabilities; data was collected by the method of face-toface interviews. The obtained data was analysed with an SPSS software program to calculate frequency distribution and percentage rates. As it appears from the findings, it was observed that fairy tales play a significant role in motivating learners, exchange of culture and improvement of linguistic skills while teaching Turkish as a foreign language. In addition to this, it was further observed that fairy tales prepared as course material to be used as a foreign resource while teaching Turkish to foreign learners were very few in number, Edebî metinlerin zihinsel ve dilsel becerilerin gelişimi, değer öğretimi, motivasyonun sağlanması, hayal gücü ve yaratıcılığın geliştirilmesi ve bireylerin sosyallaşmesinde etkileri büyüktür. Söz konusu açılardan kendini geliştirenler gerçek hayatta karşılaşacakları problemlerin üstesinden daha kolay gelirler. Edebî metinler insanlarda dil zevki, estetik bakış ve yaşama sevinci oluşturur. Bu nedenle dilsel ve kişisel becerilerin geliştirilmesi, pekiştirilmesi için dil öğretiminde edebî türlerin araç olarak kullanılması önemli olgulardandır. Bu bağlamda edebî metin olarak masalların yabancılara Türkçe öğretiminde dilsel ve kişisel becerilerin gelişimine etkileri üzerine bu araştırma yapılmıştır. Masalların yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğretiminde, dilsel yetilerin işlevsellik düzeyinin saptanmasındaki en önemli tanığı Türkçe öğretmenleridir. Çalışmada, Gürcistan’daki üniversiteler ve liselerdeki Gürcü dili taşıyıcılarına Türkçeyi yabancı dil olarak öğreten Türkçe öğretmenlerine masal türünün Türkçe öğrenim ve kişisel yetileri üzerindeki etkilerini belirlemek üzere bir anket hazırlanmış ve yüz yüze görüşme yoluyla veriler toplanmıştır. Elde edilen veriler SPSS programında analiz edilerek frekans dağılımları ve yüzdelik oranları hesaplanmıştır. Bulgulara göre yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğretiminde masalların öğrenci motivasyonunu sağlanmasında, kültür aktarımında ve dilsel becerilerin gelişiminde önemli bir rol oynadığı anlaşılmıştır. Bununla birlikte yardımcı kaynak olarak yabancılara Türkçe öğretiminde kullanılmak üzere ders materyali olarak hazırlanmış masalların az olduğu saptanmıştır.

Positive psychology has identified six virtues comprising 24 character strengths of humans. This study examines the relationships among these character strengths, including Happiness, Life Purpose and Life Satisfaction as valued by Singapore Chinese, Malays, Indians and Other Asians and Caucasians. A sample of Singapore adults (N = 304) completed an online survey in English comprising four measures, the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths, the Orientations to Happiness Scale, the Satisfaction with Life Scale and the Life Engagement Test. Results show that Zest, Hope, Curiosity, Capacity to Love and Gratitude are the top five character strengths of the sampled Singaporeans. Happiness orientation through pursuing a Life of Meaning is preferred by all four ethnic groups. Ethnic differences are found for character strengths of Kindness, Humour, Gratitude, and Religiousness and Spirituality. Life of Meaning and Life of Engagement, Happiness orientations and character strengths of Curiosity and Perseverance are direct predictors of Life Purpose. In turn, Life Purpose and character strengths of Capacity to Love and Gratitude are found to be direct predictors of Life Satisfaction. Despite its other limitations, this study lays the groundwork for future studies using more robust sampling strategies and greater participation from the major ethnic groups in Singapore.

Although preemergence applications of Cinch ATZ provided excellent green foxtail control, it did not provide commercially acceptable levels of Palmer amaranth or crabgrass control. All postemergence tank mixes of Zest raised the level of control achieved by the preemergence applications of Cinch ATZ to excellent levels for these species. With the exception of the Huskie tank mix, which provided excellent Palmer amaranth control, all other postemergence programs provided only adequate control of Palmer amaranth, crabgrass, or green foxtail. Weed pressure of these species was extreme. Under conditions of extreme weed pressure, a foundation treatment of Cinch ATZ followed by a postemergence application would be needed for commercially acceptable levels of weed control.

‘You’re young … and perhaps your life here in Switzerland doesn’t satisfy you entirely? In Africa and Asia there is need for you.’1 These words were published in a brochure by the Swiss Confederation in the late 1960s and aimed to motivate young Swiss to work as volunteers in the field of development aid. They combined the notion of ‘developing countries’ being in desperate need of Western aid with the idea of young people’s zest for action. In this article we wish to further explore the connections between these two concepts. Utilizing two case studies, we scrutinize the experiences of young Swiss men and women who, between the 1940s and the 1970s, spent short or longer periods of time in (former) European colonies, working for transnational companies or in development aid. We focus on how these young people dealt with colonialism, decolonization and the idea of development, and examine how their practices corresponded with the discourses and institutions they were confronted with.

This study explores the predictive influence of primary school teachers' academic optimism, hope and zest for work on perceptions of their self-efficacy and success. A total of 600 teachers were selected through stratified sampling from 27 primary schools in central districts of Ankara, Turkey, to form the research sample. Intervariable exploratory correlations were identified using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, and path analysis was used to examine the direct and indirect predictive powers of these factors on teacher self-efficacy and perceived success. The research findings reveal positive and significant relationships among teacher self-efficacy, perceived success, academic optimism, hope and zest for work and that these factors positively predict teacher self-efficacy. Furthermore, academic optimism, hope and zest for work positively predict teachers' perceived success. These factors were also shown to indirectly predict self-efficacy through perceived success. Discussion of the findings is provided within the context of improving teachers' self-efficacy and positive psychological state.Keywords: Self-efficacy * Perceived success * Academic optimism * Hope * Zest for workIn recent years, positive psychology concepts such as self-efficacy, psychological well-being, performance, stress, burnout, depression and anxiety have been a major focus of research (Meyers, Woerkom, & Bakker, 2013; Peterson, 2009; Seear & Vella-Brodrick, 2013). To Seligman (2002), positive psychology aims to better the quality of life rather than solve existing problems; likewise, Kurz (2006) stated that positive psychology focuses on proper concentration of competences and capacities rather than problems. Positive psychology is an aggregate term that covers well-being, satisfaction, happiness, emotional satisfaction, optimism, faith and zest for work, which all concern subjective positive experiences (Hoy & Tarter, 2011; Seligman, 2002; Seligman & Csikzsentmihalyi, 2000). Specifically, self-efficacy is believed to be a positive feature that should be explored in educational research (Hoy & Tarter, 2011).The self-efficacy level is considered as an important indicator of a successful teaching career. Previous research has uncovered a positive relationship between self-efficacy and success (Bandura, 1977, 1993; Mills, Pajares, & Heron, 2007; Zeldin, Britner, & Pajares, 2008). Bandura (1993) further stated that teachers' mission to set proper learning environments is highly dependent on their teaching capability and self-efficacy. The literature indicates a relationship between self-efficacy and attitude toward the teaching profession (Duban & Gokcakan, 2012; Ozdemir, 2008), educational leadership (Calik, Sezgin, Kavgaci, & Kilinc, 2012; Kurt, 2009), student success (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996; Usher & Pajares, 2006) and job-related stress and burnout (Schwarzer & Hallum, 2008).In addition to self-efficacy and perceived success, positive beliefs are also considered to influence the professional success of teachers. Within this context, this study focuses on academic optimism, hope and zest for work and how they may be linked to teacher self-efficacy and perceived success. Research findings show a correlation between academic optimism and organizational commitment (Coban & Demirtas, 2011; Kurz, 2006) and student success (Fahy, Wu, & Hoy, 2010; Hoy, Tarter, & Hoy, 2006; McGuigan & Hoy, 2006; Smith & Hoy, 2007). In addition, hope was found to be related to anxiety (Nolan & Stitzlein, 2011), life satisfaction (Brdar & Kashdan, 2010; Chan, 2009; Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004; Peterson, Ruch, Beermann, Park, & Seligman, 2007; Peterson, Park, Hall, & Seligman, 2009) and organizational commitment (Bullough & Hall-Kenyon, 2012). Conversely, little research has focused on zest for work, though one study identified a negative relation between this factor and job stress (Josepshon & Vingard, 2007). …

It is “an age of personality,” wrote Coleridge in 1809 (Friend, II, 286–87), discomfited by the appetite of readers for details of the private lives of public figures and literary men. In this chapter, I investigate the role of allusion in fueling this appetite, focusing on the particular uses to which it was put in the new genre that, more than any other, characterized the age—the magazine essay. Shorter, lighter, less demanding than poetry, the essay was also more amusing and popular. In the hands of the coterie who wrote for the London Magazine, it was also informal, colloquial, spontaneous, intimate— celebrating the ordinary pleasures and bemoaning the routine pains of the metropolitan life that the essayists shared with their readers. These authors—disparagingly termed “Cockneys”—voiced with a new focus and zest the middlebrow perspective of London “cits”— shopmen and office workers. No deep learning or classical education was needed to enjoy their prose: although it shared some of the values defined in Wordsworth’s Excursion and Coleridge’s Biographia, readers did not have to grapple with Miltonic inversions or allusions to Schelling: the essay was user friendly.

Parents’ written descriptions (average length = 211 words) of children between the ages of 3 and 9 years were collected on a password-protected website (n = 680). The presence of the 24 character strengths in the VIA Classification and the level of child’s happiness were coded with content analysis. Descriptions were rich in character language (average strengths mentioned per description = 3.09), and coding was reliable. Consistent with previous research with youth and adults, the character strengths of love, zest, and hope were associated with happiness; gratitude was associated with happiness among older children. The early development of character strengths and possible ways of fostering them are discussed.

This paper is part of a broader research project which examines the history of leisure motor touring in Australia from the 1920s to 2004. At the core of this piece is an examination of the way adventure is presented in three non-fiction narratives that span 80 years. By considering different points in time the impact of the developing tourist infrastructure, improvements to roads and growing knowledge of the landscape, on the constructs of adventure can be seen. Yet, despite fundamental cultural shifts the lure and zest of adventure continued to function as a means of framing the overland experience. The narratives reveal the subjective nature of adventure and how it can be repackaged and re-presented at specific historical moments.

We investigated cultural influences on the distribution of character strengths, gender differences in character strengths, and the relationship of happiness to character strengths. Young adults from the United States (n=1099) and Japan (n=308) completed the English or Japanese versions of the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths. American and Japanese showed similar distributions of the 24 strengths measured: Higher strengths included love, humor and kindness, and lesser strengths included prudence, self-regulation, and modesty. Gender differences across cultures were also similar: Females were more likely than males to report strengths of love and kindness, whereas males were more likely to report bravery and creativity. In both samples, associations with happiness were found for zest, hope, curiosity and gratitude. The present study is a first step in an international study of character strengths, and we discuss the ubiquity and variation of character across culture.

The modified binary search, or MOBS, technique is an adaptive, non-parametric procedure for estimating thresholds [Tyrrell, R. A, & Owens, D. A. (1988). A rapid technique to assess the resting states of eyes and other threshold phenomena: the modified binary search (MOBS). Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 20, 137–141.], which has recently been incorporated into a commercially available perimeter. Information regarding the performance of this technique is limited, however. We performed Monte Carlos simulations on the MOBS procedure, as well as on a Zippy Estimation by Sequential Testing, or ZEST, procedure (King-Smith, Grigsby, Vingrys, Benes, & Supowit, 1994) and an Accelerated Stochastic Approximation, or ASA, procedure (Kesten, 1958) for comparison. The efficiency, convergence probability, and robustness to false positive and false negative responses were determined. Differences between the three procedures typically were small, the most prominent being the number of presentations required to estimate threshold.

Few studies shed light on what older people themselves consider a good or dignified death. This study is part of a larger project where interviews were used to follow 12 nursing home residents over time. The aim of the present study was to reach a deeper understanding of seven older people’s thoughts, feelings and attitudes towards death. The participants were interviewed on four occasions across 18–24 months, and the interviews were analysed using a hermeneutic method. The findings revealed three main themes: 1. Zest for life, 2. Indifferent attitude, 3. Longing for death. The themes mirror the complexity of what ageing and nearing the end of life can mean. A strong desire among the participants was to be more involved in their own personal care and in everyday life at the nursing home. Person-oriented care based on the philosophy of palliative care, and including conversation as a natural component, might promote the older person’s possibilities to obtain a good death.

Health means vital force : a phenomenological study about self-image, ability and zest for life

ONE YEAR ON, UKRAINIANS HAVE LOST FAITH IN THEIR NEW GOVERNMENT AND THE MEDIA IS ALL AT SEA IN THE RUN UP TO MARCH ELECTIONS

Resources, Energy, and Development 3(1): 57–60 Esha Shah’s Social Designs is an interesting book, though the analysis falls much in the same line of that of many other published dissertations like On the Water Front by Mollinga (2003). Institutional analyses have usually been interesting to read due to the stories they attempt to tell about interactions between human and its habitat world, resulting in formation of social relations, which further create a more important aspect of human existence in the form of institutions. My reading of Social Designs was initiated with these preconceived notions. As I finished reading the first two chapters with these notions getting further reinforced, simultaneously I started realizing the new dimensions in Shah’s analyses. Like Mollinga, Shah has also attempted to see how an external stimulus to an existing system creates ripples in the status quo. However, while Mollinga attempted to look at management regimes of canal irrigations in South India, Shah’s interesting contribution is her experiment with technology. Solely because of this zest of experimentation, Shah deserves a big congratulation. Social Designs presents two critical arguments on a broader scale. Both are related to interactions between technology and institutions. The first reflects on how Esha Shah. 2003. Social Designs: tank irrigation technology and agrarian transformation in Karnataka, South India New Delhi: Orient Longman. 288 pp. Rs 295

Purpose. Several current perimetric test strategies use information from neighboring test locations to seed the procedure. When this initial estimate is close to the true threshold, the algorithms terminate quickly with low error. However, when neighboring thresholds are dissimilar, seeding procedures in this manner results in poor accuracy and repeatability. This study aims to develop a test procedure that avoids assumptions based on neighboring locations yet terminates with an acceptable number of presentations. We explore the utility of a combined screening and threshold approach. Methods. Our approach [estimation minimizing uncertainty (EMU)] first applies suprathreshold screening and then in those locations that fail the screening, a ZEST procedure commencing with a uniform probability density function (pdf). EMU was compared with full threshold (FT) using computer simulation. Input to the simulation was empirical standard automated perimetry data (FT) from 265 normal subjects and 163 observers with glaucomatous visual field loss. Test performance was assessed using four patient error models designed to represent patients who respond with no errors, typical false-positive errors, typical false-negative errors, and extremely unreliable patients. Results. When patients made typical false-positive errors, EMU required about 20% fewer presentations than FT averaged across the visual field. EMU required a greater number of presentations than FT when false-negative errors were made. The percentage of locations misclassified as either normal (defined as the thresholds greater than the lower 95% confidence limit of age-corrected norms) or abnormal by EMU was lower than for FT.

A survey based on the Life Satisfaction Inventory A (LSIA) was used to investigate gardeners' and nongardeners' perceptions of life satisfaction. The LSIA was developed in 1961 by Neugarten and measures five components of quality of life including zest for life, resolution and fortitude, congruence between desired and achieved goals, high physical, psychological and social self-concept, and a happy optimistic mood tone. The survey was posted for four months on one of the largest online resources for Texas Master Gardeners within the Aggie Horticulture network, the Texas Master Gardener Web page (http:aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/mastergd/mg.html). During the 4 months, 402 responses were gathered. Additionally, identical `paper/pencil' format surveys were distributed to garden, church, social and community groups with about 400 responses received. In each group of participants, respondents differentiated themselves as gardeners or nongardeners by responding positively or negatively to the survey question, Do you garden? Results indicated statistically significant differences in comparisons of the overall life satisfaction scores with gardeners receiving higher mean scores indicating more positive results on the LSIA. When responses to individual statements were analyzed, results indicated statistically significant differences on 20% of the statements. Differences were detected on statements relating to energy levels, optimism, zest for life, and physical self-concept with gardeners answering more positively on all statements when compared to nongardeners' responses. Additionally, gardeners rated their overall health and their physical activity levels higher than did nongardeners.

In this work, originally undertaken 10 years ago, the author asks whether there might be any one particular psychopathology likely to be linked specifically with the physical illness known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) or myalgic encephalitis (ME), and whether CFS/ME aids and abets, and ‘fits’, an original mental state. She thinks the question cannot yet be answered, but hypothesizes that in some personality structures the onset of CFS/ME following a physical illness exacerbates negativity, and is an aspect of ordinary depression where there is a lowering of energy levels and a loss of zest for life, or it may reveal the pathological aspect of unresolved rage. Depending on the degree of pathological disturbance, working with and through the rage may or may not result in a resolution of the symptoms of ME. Some of the problems in the transference and countertransference relationship are considered, which make it extremely difficult to separate out reality from fantasy. There is then the further problem of the denial of the psyche by the patient as part of the violence inherent in the illness. The findings in this paper are corroborated by research undertaken over the last four years and these are incorporated into the paper. One case is presented, an example of ME in a borderline male patient in whom resolution could not be achieved. Copyright © 2005 The British Association of Psychotherapists

We took a closer look at the link between character strengths and well-being by following up on suggestions by Snyder (this issue) and Harvey and Pauwels (this issue). We explored the simultaneous association between 24 strengths of character and life satisfaction and found that a number of different strengths independently predicted life satisfaction. Hope was among the important predictors, as Snyder proposed, but it was no more robust a predictor than the character strengths of gratitude, love, and zest. We also found that trauma moderated the association between modesty and well-being, as Harvey and Pauwels hypothesized. With increasing trauma, the correlation between modesty and enthusiasm about life increased in magnitude. These new analyses further our comparative investigation of character strengths and imply that there are different routes to a satisfied life.

Park, Peterson, and Seligman (in press) provide interesting evidence about character strength and satisfaction with life. We were not surprised at some of the main findings, to wit: Zest, curiosity, love, hope, and gratitude were all fairly strongly associated with satisfaction with life. Furthermore, the more intensely these characteristics were endorsed, the more life satisfaction was reported. As the authors suggest, these characteristics seem to be logically connected with satisfaction. For example, love frequently is associated with life satisfaction (Diener & Seligman, 2002), and qualities such as gratitude and hope may connect past and future well in the minds of respondents. What is most remarkable about this evidence is the very meager relationship between modesty and humility and life satisfaction. Looking at the sample, which was found on the Internet and which was made up of a very large number of adults at midlife, it is difficult to understand why so many people at this point in their lives would not endorse modesty and humility as essential to life satisfaction. The VIA definition of modesty and humility (e.g., “not regarding oneself as more special than one is) also strikes us as true to these concepts. In addition, the data show that related concepts such as perspective/wisdom are much more strongly related to life satisfaction. Perhaps the ideas of humility and modesty simply are not well appreciated in our culture? Self–esteem enhancement movements often eschew humility, and there is evidence that elevated self–esteem may be associated with displaced aggression

We investigated the relationship between various character strengths and life satisfaction among 5,299 adults from three Internet samples using the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths. Consistently and robustly associated with life satisfaction were hope, zest, gratitude, love, and curiosity. Only weakly associated with life satisfaction, in contrast, were modesty and the intellectual strengths of appreciation of beauty, creativity, judgment, and love of learning. In general, the relationship between character strengths and life satisfaction was monotonic, indicating that excess on any one character strength does not diminish life satisfaction.

This paper primarily compares retention among three types of stud attachments of dentures and analyzes the stress associated with polarized photoelasticity to elucidate the stress distribution of various implants near the ambient surface of an implant under different conditions of loading on the prosthetics of a tooth. The experimental results yield many significant data. Using the two‐force principle to measure the retention of attachments yields two important areas of results. Under dry conditions, the O‐ring attachment has the largest retention force. While under wet conditions, the Zest attachment has the largest retention force. The photoelastic method is applied to analyze the stress distribution on the arch mandible. When the implants are loaded, the magnetic attachment will generate the largest stresses on the implant. The stresses associated with the Zest attachment are the smallest and can be neglected. Concerning the materials of the experimental arch model, PL‐2 photoelastic birefring...

The first part of this two-part paper is about work undertaken with my husband, Hans Allback, to create conditions in which we could continue to use historic windows and doors. During the 1980s and 1990s the Swedish authorities, in association with window and glass manufacturers, wanted people to change to modern triple-glazed windows to save energy and achieve improved noise reduction. In order to to sell our services for renovating and protecting old houses, we therefore required scientific evidence of the performance of original doors and windows in use. In collaboration with Professor Bertil Fredlund of Lund Institute of Technology we have been able to provide a number of answers. Background – the vision of life economy Back in the 1970s, Hans [Allback] and I ran a small building company geared to the maintenance and reconstruction of older properties. We trusted the contemporary expertise of paint suppliers, building material traders, and researchers. Knowledge of the use of historic methods to restore and maintain older properties was very poor. We replaced old materials with new, and Hans worked frequently with alkyd-based paints that contained large amounts of solvents. At that time there was little mention of the problems of working in such an environment. After many years as a painter, Hans became ill as a result of exposure to the solvents. His symptoms, such as nausea, headaches, and apathy, became an accepted part of his daily life. He even put his beloved accordion aside, since he could no longer play it. After a period of six months working at the Technical Museum in Malmo however, and in the absence of solvents, Hans could clearly feel his zest for life returning. Out came the accordion again. In 1982 we formulated the dream of ‘good work’ – to be able to work in a meaningful, creative, and agreeable manner that did not adversely affect our

This case study explores the unique challenges confronting a small-sized Hong Kong enterprise in the wake of the "Green Revolution". The founder Mr. Peter Chan, possessed of a zest to protect the natural environment, sought to combine profit for the company with environmental protection. The science and technology behind the development of PestControl®, an organic and environmentally friendly pesticide, was clearly superior to that of its closest competition. However, despite an impressive growth rate in the 1990s, Chan was concerned about his firm's ability to sustain growth. The case is a classic example of entrepreneurship fighting for survival in a rapidly changing society.

Bayesian adaptive threshold procedures may be run for a fixed number of trials, or may be stopped when the calculated confidence interval for the threshold reaches a selected limit (a dynamic termination criterion). This study used Monte-Carlo simulations to determine whether the confidence interval is a useful predictor of errors in the estimated threshold. No difference was found between the distribution of errors in a fixed trial procedure versus a dynamically terminated procedure of the same average number of trials. In addition, the width of the confidence interval failed to usefully predict observer variability arising from a shallow psychometric function slope or increased false positive response probabilities. This study suggests that dynamic termination criteria are of little use in Bayesian adaptive threshold procedures.

In the present study, we report on an additive evaluation of mental well-being in an established program of preventive medicine including general and gynecologic examination, and screening mammography. An easy-to-use questionnaire including 19 questions was completed by 5247 women. Answers were grouped into mental well-being, zest for living, sexuality, and self-assessment of psychic disorders. A risk score for the presence of major depression was calculated. Women with high and intermediate risk for major depression were found in 5.0-7.2% and 15.4-19.8% depending on age, respectively. Seven to 9.2% and 19.2-26.5% of women suspected themselves to be at a high and intermediate risk for psychic disorders, respectively. Deterioration of well-being as well as the risk of developing depression is mostly overlooked in a general preventive medicine setting. We conclude that problems involving mental well-being seem to affect a significant number of women. The incorporation of easy-to-use questionnaires able to screen for mental problems to general preventive medicine programs must be strongly recommended.

Executive Overview Tom Peters describes himself as a prince of disorder, champion of bold failures, maestro of zest, professional loudmouth (as a speaker he's “a spitter”…according to the cartoon strip Dilbert), corporate cheerleader, lover of markets, capitalist pig…and card-carrying member of the ACLU. The Economist tags him the Uber-guru. And his unconventional views led Business Week to describe him as business's “best friend and worst nightmare.” Tom followed up on the success of In Search of Excellence with four more best-selling hardback books: A Passion for Excellence (1985, with Nancy Austin), Thriving on Chaos (1987), Liberation Management (1992), and The Circle of Innovation: You Can't Shrink Your Way to Greatness (1937). He has also authored hundreds of articles for various newspapers and popular and academic journals, including California Management Review, The Academy of Management Executive (three times!), and Harvard Business Review. Tom is a graduate of Cornell (B.C.E., M.C.E.) and Stanfo...

One may introduce a concept of Hawking irreversibility as the point where temperature has risen so much that the global warming consequences threaten the survival of mankind. The recent news out of China that its CO2s are increasing again makes this term highly policy relevant. Moreover, the methane emissions have started to augment, which also calls up Hawking irreversibility. The drive behind these dire developments is the endless zest for affluence and wealth, fueled by ever larger energy consumption. Asian miracle economies should take this warming seriously and srart the implementatuion os COP21 Treaty.

Customary parallel calculations for mining nonstop item create opportunity to adjust stack of similar data among hubs. The paper aims to review this process by analyzing the critical execution downside of the common parallel recurrent item-set mining calculations. Given a larger than average dataset, data apportioning strategies inside the current arrangements endure high correspondence and mining overhead evoked by repetitive exchanges transmitted among registering hubs. We tend to address this downside by building up a learning apportioning approach referred as Hadoop abuse using the map-reduce programming model. All objectives of Hadoop are to zest up the execution of parallel recurrent item-set mining on Hadoop bunches. Fusing the comparability metric and furthermore the locality-sensitive hashing procedure, Hadoop puts to a great degree comparative exchanges into an information segment to lift neighborhood while not making AN exorbitant assortment of excess exchanges. We tend to execute Hadoop on a 34-hub Hadoop bunch, driven by a decent change of datasets made by IBM quest market-basket manufactured data generator. Trial uncovers the fact that Hadoop contributes towards lessening system and processing masses by the uprightness of dispensing with excess exchanges on Hadoop hubs. Hadoop impressively outperforms and enhances the other models considerably.

Jiang Yong Women Script is a unique branch of Chinese character and has triggered keen zest among scholars. However, the meaning of feminism reflected by Women Script has not been thoroughly studied or comprehensively understood, and there are still some misunderstandings about Women Script needed to be disabused. This article corrects several common misunderstanding and explain different aspects of Women Script, including Women Script’s the definition, the origin, the rise, the retention and the difference between Women Script and Chinese character. Also, this article evaluates the feminism-significance of Women Scripts in an objective way—pointing out its progressiveness and limitation.

Some people might look at networking with a skeptical eye and wonder, “What’s in it for me?” I can tell you that having an extensive network has made the work that I do easier and more enjoyable, whether it’s as a sales and marketing professional serving the chemistry enterprise or as a leader in an ACS division or local section. In fact, people who know me know my zest for networking both within and outside the American Chemical Society. How has networking helped my work? In 2011, when I first started organizing the Cape Cod Science Cafe for my local section, the ACS Northeastern Local Section (NESACS), I relied heavily on my community connections to identify science communications topics of local interest, identify free venues, and generate an audience. I also reached out to my local civic association, town officials, parent/teacher associations, Girl Scouts, and other community groups for help.

Laughter is good for physical as well as mental health. We need to laugh more and seek stress reducing humor in our everyday lives. Laughter is the human gift for coping with stress and for survival. The elation that is felt while laughing is a great way of combating the physical effects of stress. When we laugh, our body relaxes and endorphins (natural painkillers) are released into the blood stream. When stress exceed it tends to produce various health problems. The physical health benefit of laughter yoga includes lowers stress hormones, decreases pain, relaxes muscles, prevents heart disease and boosts immunity. Mental health benefits includes it adds joy and zest to life, improves mood. Socially it strengthens relationships, enhances teamwork and promotes group bonding. Laughter is a reaction to certain stimuli, fundamentally mild stress, which serves as an emotional balancing mechanism of an individual, and acts as a best medicine to reduce the stress.

Purpose A new automated visual field testing approach that samples scotoma edges at a finer spatial resolution, GOANNA (Gradient-Oriented Automated Natural Neighbour Approach) was previously shown to improve accuracy and precision around those regions compared to current procedures in computer simulation. The purpose of this study was to observe if this improvement translated to more accurate classification of glaucomatous progression. Methods Computer simulations were undertaken on six procedures: three variants of GOANNA on 150 locations; two variants of ZEST on 52 locations; and the ideal case where true thresholds are perfectly measured. The median number of presentations of GOANNA was matched to ZEST. The procedures were run on 156 sequences of simulated progressing fields and 156 sequences of stable fields to determine sensitivity and specificity using point-wise linear regression. Reliable (0% FP, 0% FN) and typical false positive (15% FP, 3% FN) response error conditions were investigated. Area under ROC curves (AUC) were plotted against the number of visual fields acquired to evaluate the performance of these procedures. Results The GOANNA framework exhibited equal or greater AUC than ZEST at all visits when baseline fields were initially defective (under both response error conditions) and when baseline fields were initially healthy when no false responses were made. Retest implementations of GOANNA exhibited an improvement over the original GOANNA after the first seven visits when fields were initially healthy. Conclusion The results suggest that the improvement in precision and accuracy around scotoma borders seen in the GOANNA framework translates to earlier and more accurate detection of progressing fields compared with ZEST, especially in the early stages of glaucomatous progression.

Character strengths are positive, morally valued traits of personality. This study aims at assessing the relationship between character strengths and subjective well-being (i.e., life satisfaction, positive and negative affect) in a representative sample of German-speaking adults living in Switzerland (N = 945). We further test whether this relationship is consistent at different stages in life. Results showed that hope, zest, love, social intelligence and perseverance yielded the highest positive correlations with life satisfaction. Hope, zest, humor, gratitude and love presented the highest positive correlations with positive affect. Hope, humor, zest, honesty, and open-mindedness had the highest negative correlations with negative affect. When examining the relationship between strengths and well-being across age groups, in general, hope, zest and humor consistently yielded the highest correlations with well-being. Additionally, in the 27-36 years group, strengths that promote commitment and affiliation (i.e., kindness and honesty) were among the first five positions in the ranking of the relationship between strengths and well-being. In the 37-46 years group, in addition to hope, zest and humor, strengths that promote the maintenance of areas such as family and work (i.e., love, leadership) were among the first five positions in the ranking. Finally, in the 47-57 years group, in addition to hope, zest and humor, strengths that facilitate integration and a vital involvement with the environment (i.e., gratitude, love of learning) were among the first five positions in the ranking. This study partially supports previous findings with less representative samples on the association between character strengths and well-being, and sheds light on the relative importance of some strengths over others for well-being across the life span.

We hypothesized that gelotophobia (the fear of being laughed at), gelotophilia (the joy of being laughed at), and katagelasticism (the joy of laughing at others) relate differently to character strengths. In Study 1 (N = 5,134), self-assessed gelotophobia was primarily negatively related to strengths (especially to lower hope, zest, and love), whereas only modesty yielded positive relations. Gelotophilia demonstrated mainly positive relations with humor, zest, and social intelligence. Katagelasticism existed widely unrelated from character strengths with humor demonstrating the comparatively highest coefficients. Study 2 consisted of N = 249 participants who provided self- and peer-ratings of strengths and self-reports on the three dispositions. The results converged well with those from Study 1. When comparing self- and peer-reports, those higher in gelotophobia under-estimated and those higher in gelotophilia over-estimated their virtuousness, whereas those higher in katagelasticism seemed to have a realistic appraisal of their strengths. Peer-rated (low) hope and modesty contributed to the prediction of gelotophobia beyond self-reports. The same was true for low modesty, creativity, low bravery, and authenticity for gelotophilia and for low love of learning regarding katagelasticism. Results suggest that there is a stable relation between the way people deal with ridicule and laughing and their virtuousness.

Adjustment to aging (AtA) is a multifactor adjustment process with implications on aging well among older adults. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a scale to assess the factors that older adults recognized as indicators of their AtA, with a cross-national comparative perspective towards aging well. Convenience sampling was used to gather questionnaire data, including demographics and the proposed scale. Complete data was available for 1,291 older community-dwelling adults, aged between 75 and 102 years (M = 83.9; SD = 6.68), who represented four different nationalities. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed for dimension reduction and exploration of the factorial structure. Data gathered with the 22-items AtA five-factor scale showed overall good psychometric properties (in terms of distributional properties, statistical significant factor weights, factorial, convergent, discriminant criterion and externalrelated validities, as well as reliability). Five factors were selected for the Adjustment to Aging Scale: (a) sense of purpose and ambitions (b) zest and spirituality; (c) body and health; (d) aging in place and stability; and (e) social support. We present a 22-item scale with five factors for AtA estimation in a cross-national elderly population which produced valid and reliable data for elder persons from four different nationalities. Results showed that this scale is an adequate cross-cultural instrument for research, clinical practice and program development in the health care context. These may benefit from clearly understanding AtA as an important component for reducing health disparities and for aging well, across nationalities. Foundation for Science and Technology

Ya.B. Zeldovich was a pre-eminent Soviet physicist whose seminal contributions spanned many fields ranging from physical chemistry to nuclear and particle physics, and finally astrophysics and cosmology. March 8, 2014 marks Zeldovich's birth centenary, and this article attempts to convey the zest with which Zeldovich did science, and the important role he played in fostering and mentoring a whole generation of talented Scientists., Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures. Originally written for the Indian popular science journal Resonance

Although previous studies have examined selected factors influencing health behavior, the complex interplay of the concept of health and health behavior in persons with chronic illness has not been investigated. The purpose of this study was to investigate the individual effects of six factors in the concept of health on the health behavior of Taiwanese people with chronic illness. A sample of 372 persons with chronic illness completed instruments measuring their concept of health and health behavior. Six proposed models were assessed using the maximum likelihood estimation, which is implemented by LISREL 8.3. The overall fit of the models tested in this study lends support to the assertion that the factors of the concept of health affect health behavior. Zest for life, serenity and meaning were the strongly affecting factors. These factors each accounted for 34-43% of the variance in health behavior. The results of this study support the notion that the health behavior of people with chronic illness can be predicted by their concept of health. Further research using a longitudinal design is needed to clarify the causal relationship between the concept of health and health behavior in Taiwanese people with chronic illness.