The personality construct of hardiness: I. Effects on experiencing, coping, and strain.

Through research and practice over the past 20 years, hardiness has emerged as a personality disposition that enhances performance, conduct, morale, stamina, and health. This article furthers the construct validity of hardiness theorizing and assessment by determining the role of hardiness in moment-to-moment experiencing, coping, and strain reactions. Using the experiential sampling technique, the 1st study showed that the higher the hardiness level as measured by the Personal Views Survey II, the greater the tendency, with regard to one's activities, to enjoy them (commitment), feel that you have chosen them (control), and sense that you are learning through them (challenge). The 2nd study showed that the tendency for work stressors to elicit more transformational (hardy) coping is intensified by hardiness level. Further this study found that regressive (avoidance) coping is unrelated to event context but negatively related to hardiness. The 3rd study provided evidence that hardiness is negatively related to both self-report (checklist) and objective (blood pressure) measures of organismic strain. Taken together, the 3 studies provide further support for hardiness theorizing and measurement and contribute to the gathering evidence of its importance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Early experiences in hardiness development.

Personality hardiness has emerged in research as an important buffer in the stress-illness relationship. Little, however is known about the antecedents in early experience. Based on conceptualizations in existential psychology and research on the resilient child, the present study tested hypotheses implicating stresses, compensatory family standards and self-perception, and parental stimulation as formative influences for hardiness in adulthood. Responses to life review interview questions given by managers previously selected to be low or high in hardiness were coded blind for the early experience variables hypothesized. The study demonstrated adequate interscorer agreement on early experience coding. Correlation and regression analyses demonstrated the expected prevalence of compensatory family standards and self-perceptions in high- versus low hardiness participants but failed to show any differences regarding stresses and parental stimulations. Discussion of these results centers on the developmental importance of compensatory effort. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pervasive Software Environments for Supporting Disaster Responses

In complex emergency scenarios, teams from various emergency-response organizations must collaborate. These teams include both first responders, such as police and fire departments, and those operators who coordinate the effort from operational centers. The Workpad architecture consists of a front- and a back-end layer. The front-end layer is composed of several front-end teams of first responders, and the back-end layer is an integrated peer-to-peer network that lets front-end teams collaborate through information exchange and coordination. Team members at the front end carry PDAs, with team leaders' PDAs equipped with gateway communication technologies that let them communicate with the back-end centers.     

Research Frontiers in Object Technology

Object technology has been widely acclaimed as offering a revolution in computing that will resolve a myriad of problems inherent in developing and managing organizational information processing capabilities. Although its foundations arose in computer programming languages, object technology has implications for a wide range of business computing activities including: Programming, Analysis and Design, Information Management, and Information Sharing. We examine six fundamental research frontiers in each activity: Common Business Classes; Organizational Barriers; Applications and Tools; Reuse and Object Management; Standards, Testing, and Metrics; and Technology Investment. The cross product of the business computing activities with these fundamental research frontiers yields a taxonomy within which to position the research needed to realize the promises offered by object technology.     

Repeated impact response of hand lay-up and vacuum infusion thick glass reinforced laminates

Vacuum infusion (VI) is being considered as a viable alternative to more traditional hand lay-up (HL). Main reason in favor of the more costly technique is the cleaner and friendlier work environment. Moreover, VI potentially offers another important benefit over HL in that prepreg levels of resin may be achieved, resulting in stronger and lighter laminates. The present paper compares the two manufacturing techniques on the basis of the response to repeated impact loading. The laminate is a thick non-symmetric glass-fiber-reinforced plastics intended for nautical application. Four impact velocities (1.5, 2.2, 3.1 and 3.8 m/s) were considered, and a minimum of four specimens for any given velocity were subjected to 40 repeated impacts or up to perforation. The impact response was evaluated in terms of damage progression by visual observation of the impacted specimens, evolution of the peak force and of the bending stiffness with the number of impacts and by calculating the Damage Index (DI), a damage variable recently proposed by the authors to monitor the penetration process in thick laminates. Results point out that for impact velocities for which no perforation occurs within test duration, the experimental data essentially overlap. On the contrary, for perforation tests, HL specimens survived more impacts before perforating absorbing more total energy than VI specimens. Plots of the DI variable against the number of impacts were observed to exhibit an initial linear portion, owing to a stable process of damage accumulation within the laminate, and to undergo an unstable growth a few impacts before perforation. When comparing the VI and HL specimens it was observed that, given an impact energy, the level of damage at first impact as well as the rate of stable damage accumulation is alike for the two sets of specimens. On the contrary, it is the number of impacts of the stable damage accumulation region which is lower for VI specimens.     

Hardiness and optimism as expressed in coping patterns.

These studies focused on the differences between hardiness (HAR) and optimism in their relationship to transformational coping ([TC]; e.g., problem solving, planning) and regressive coping (e.g., disengagement, stoicism). Specifically, it was hypothesized that the pattern of involvement in TC and avoidance coping is clearer in HAR than in optimism. In the first study, participants reported their usual coping efforts when confronted with stressful circumstances. The second study required participants to identify a significant current stressor and report on their ongoing efforts to cope with it. In both studies, HAR related to more coping efforts than did optimism. Furthermore, although both HAR and optimism related positively to signs of TC, only HAR related negatively to signs of regressive coping. The third study involved participants confronted with life-threatening stressor. Here, optimism increased to the level of HAR in the number of coping efforts used. But the pattern for optimism combined transformational coping with stoicism (regressive coping), whereas the pattern for HAR was the same as in the two previous. studies. Results of the three studies suggest that the hypothesis is accurate and that HAR involves less complacency than does optimism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Compositional characteristics and volatile organic compounds of traditional PDO Feta cheese made in two different mountainous areas of Greece

The compositional characteristics of Feta cheese manufactured in two mountainous areas from raw milk, from sheep fed by grass, and the forages’ volatile organic compounds (VOC) were studied, to differentiate the Feta cheese. Although the main compositional features did not vary greatly, the proteolysis mode was altered. The VOC profiles of the cheeses varied. While some VOCs were common to both groups of cheeses, others were discriminatory for each production area. There were common terpenes in both the bulk forage and the mature cheeses. Overall, the VOC composition of Feta could provide a basis for identification with regard to its region of origin.