Effects of personality traits and social status on academic achievement: Gender differences

This study investigates the contribution of personality traits (HEXACO traits and Schizotypy) and social status dimensions (sociometric and perceived popularity) in understanding boys’ and girls’ respective academic achievement. The sample included 163 elementary school students from Serbia, aged 14–15 (87 girls and 76 boys). Regression analysis reveals that personality traits explain a similar amount of academic achievement variance in two gender groups (22% vs. 20% in girls’ favor), but social status proves to be a better predictor of academic achievement for boys (27% vs. 4% in boys’ favor). High Conscientiousness, perceived popularity as well as low extraversion turned out to be related to girls’ academic achievement. Low Schizotypy and Honesty‐Humility, as well as high openness, sociometric, and perceived popularity turned out to be related to boys’ academic achievement. Conscientiousness appears not to be related to boys’ academic achievement. The results are discussed and recommendations for improving educational practices are offered.     

Quantitative measures for assessment of the hydraulic excavator digging efficiency

In this paper, quantitative measures for the assessment of the hydraulic excavator digging efficiency are proposed and developed. The following factors are considered: (a) boundary digging forces allowed for by the stability of an excavator, (b) boundary digging forces enabled by the driving mechanisms of the excavator, (c) factors taking into consideration the digging position in the working range of an excavator, and (d) sign and direction of potential digging resistive force. A corrected digging force is defined and a mathematical model of kinematic chain and drive mechanisms of a five-member excavator configuration was developed comprising: an undercarriage, a rotational platform and an attachment with boom, stick, and bucket. On the basis of the mathematical model of the excavator, software was developed for computation and detailed analysis of the digging forces in the entire workspace of the excavator. By using the developed software, the analysis of boundary digging forces is conducted and the corrected digging force is determined for two models of hydraulic excavators of the same mass (around 17 000 kg) with identical kinematic chain parameters but with different parameters of manipulator driving mechanisms. The results of the analysis show that the proposed set of quantitative measures can be used for assessment of the digging efficiency of existing excavator models and to serve as an optimization criterion in the synthesis of manipulator driving mechanisms of new excavator models.     

Sliding manifold design for linear systems with unmatched disturbances

This paper offers an efficient sliding manifold design method that minimizes the impact of unmatched disturbances onto SM dynamics and system accuracy. System sensitivity upon unmatched constant or slowly varying external disturbance vector is evaluated by the steady-state dependent criterion function. An infinite set of sliding manifolds that minimize the chosen optimization criterion is determined and a way of selecting a manifold out of that set that provides adopted SM dynamics is suggested. The proposed approach has been demonstrated on numerical examples and verified by simulations.     

Circulating resistin protein and mRNA concentrations and clinical severity of coronary artery disease

Introduction

Previous studies have implicated a strong link between circulating plasma resistin and coronary artery disease (CAD). The aim of this study was to evaluate the differences in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) resistin mRNA and its plasma protein concentrations between the patients with CAD of different clinical severity.

Material and methods

This study included 33 healthy subjects as the control group (CG) and 77 patients requiring coronary angiography. Of the latter 30 was CAD negative whereas 47 were CAD positive [18 with stable angina pectoris (SAP) and 29 with acute coronary syndrome (ACS)]. Circulating resistin was measured by ELISA; PBMC resistin mRNA was determined by real-time PCR.

Results

Resistin protein was significantly higher in the ACS group compared to the CG (P = 0.001) and the CAD negative group (P = 0.018). Resistin mRNA expression did not vary across the study groups, despite the positive correlation seen with plasma resistin (ρ = 0.305, P = 0.008). In patients, plasma resistin and PBMC resistin mRNA negatively correlated with HDL-C (ρ = -0.404, P < 0.001 and ρ = -0.257, P = 0.032, respectively). Furthermore, the highest plasma resistin tertile showed the lowest HDL-C (P = 0.006). Plasma resistin was positively associated with serum creatinine (ρ = 0.353, P = 0.002).

Conclusion

Significant increase of plasma resistin in patients with ACS compared to CG and CAD negative patients was observed. Despite no change in PBMC resistin mRNA in different disease conditions a positive association between resistin mRNA and resistin plasma protein was evident. Both plasma resistin and PBMC resistin mRNA were negatively associated with plasma HDL-C, and plasma resistin positively with serum creatinine.Key words: resistin, human; gene expression; coronary artery disease; acute coronary syndrome