The Big Five Inventory (BFI) is a self-report measure designed to assess the high-order personality traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, the BFI was translated from English into 28 languages and administered to 17,837 individuals from 56 nations. The resulting cross-cultural data set was used to address three main questions: Does the factor structure of the English BFI fully replicate across cultures? How valid are the BFI trait profiles of individual nations? And how are personality traits distributed throughout the world? The five-dimensional structure was robust across major regions of the world. Trait levels were related in predictable ways to self-esteem, sociosexuality, and national personality profiles. People from the geographic regions of South America and East Asia were significantly different in openness from those inhabiting other world regions. The discussion focuses on limitations of the current data set and important directions for future research.

As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, a total of 17,804 participants from 62 cultural regions completedthe RelationshipQuestionnaire(RQ), a self-reportmeasure of adult romanticattachment. Correlational analyses within each culture suggested that the Model of Self and the Model of Other scales of the RQ were psychometrically valid within most cultures. Contrary to expectations, the Model of Self and Model of Other dimensions of the RQ did not underlie the four-category model of attachment in the same way across all cultures. Analyses of specific attachment styles revealed that secure romantic attachment was normative in 79% of cultures and that preoccupied romantic attachment was particularly prevalent in East Asian cultures. Finally, the romantic attachment profiles of individual nations were correlated with sociocultural indicators in ways that supported evolutionary theories of romantic attachment and basic human mating strategies.

Explaining public opposition to GMOs 11Concerns about health, environmental and socio-economic hazards have resulted in a strong 12 public opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) [1][2][3]. These worries tend to have a 13 large impact on national and international policies. For instance, in India, the government 14 suspended the culture of Bacillus thuringiensis-engineered Solanum melongena (Bt brinjal), 15 despite the initial approval for commercialization [4]. In Europe, the lack of public support for 16 GMOs has led to a de facto moratorium within the European Union on new GM crops from 1999 17 to 2004 and has steered the development of an extremely strict and expensive regulatory 18 framework concerning the import and cultivation of GM crops [5]. In Africa and Asia, the 19 resistance to GMOs has had tragic consequences, costing thousands of lives [6, 7]. 20However, research shows that cultivation of GM crops does not pose any specific health 21 or environmental risks, but instead can bring benefits to local farmers [8][9][10][11]. The reason for the 22 discrepancy between public opinion and scientific evidence needs clarification. Some people 23 suggest that post-Christian beliefs or romantic notions of nature are responsible, whereas others 24 blame the lack of direct benefits for Western consumers [6, 12, 13]. These accounts are definitely 25 on the right track. Nonetheless, they fail to explain why opposition also occurs in non-Christian 26 cultures, why people do not reject every technology that brings no immediate benefits or why 27 people prefer romantic views in the first place. 28Here, we suggest a cognitive approach to account for the opposition to GMOs. In other 29 words, we use ideas from the cognitive sciences, evolutionary psychology and cultural attraction 30 to rationalize the popularity and typical features of this phenomenon. We argue that intuitions 31 and emotions make the mind highly susceptible to particular negative representations of GMOs. 91In their campaigns, opponents of GMOs explicitly appeal to these essentialist intuitions by intuitions. These intuitions tend to translate in religious beliefs, but they can also contribute to a 103 quasi-religious view on nature [30, 31]. Indeed, large parts of Europe, where the resistance 104 against GM food is strong, are highly secular. In the cognitive science of religion, religion is 105 commonly assumed to be a byproduct, generated by the peculiarities of our mental make-up that 106 includes essentialist thinking, but that is also highly receptive to the feeling that the world has 107 been designed for a particular purpose [32][33][34][35]. This design illusion has effectively been 108 debunked by evolutionary theory, but the mix of essentialist, teleological and intentional biases 109 continues to allure a lot of people in believing that a certain order exists in nature that should not 110 be meddled with. Indeed, genetic engineering is considered the opposite of "natural" [3, 36]. activists bombard the public with edite...

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The bipolar transurethral resection in saline system is as efficacious as monopolar transurethral prostate resection but it is safer than the latter because of the lesser decrease in postoperative hypernatremia and the smaller risk of transurethral resection syndrome. However, probably due to technical reasons, transurethral resection in saline operative time is significantly longer.

OBJECTIVE To assess the extent to which prostate HistoScanningTM (PHS), a new ultrasound‐based technology that uses computer‐aided analysis to quantify tissue disorganization induced by malignant processes, can identify and characterize foci of prostate cancer compared with step‐sectioned radical prostatectomy (RP) specimens. PATIENTS AND METHODS Between September 2004 and February 2006, 29 men had PHS before their scheduled RP. A three‐dimensional ultrasound raw‐data file was acquired, and PHS analysed regions of interest (ROI) corresponding to tissue volumes of ≈ 0.04 mL. In 13 men the histology was examined on sections of the whole‐mount prostate onto which a grid of 5 × 5 mm squares was applied. On a test set of 14 of the 29 patients, PHS analysis was used before knowing the histology results (blinded data), to predict the maximum tumour diameter, focality, laterality and extraprostatic extension (EPE). RESULTS Identification and characterization by PHS of the index tumour in the 14 patients in the test set correlated closely (r = 0.95, P < 0.001) with the reference test. The concordance in the attribution of multifocality (present/absent), unilateral/bilateral disease between PHS and histology was 100%. EPE as determined by PHS was attributed to all three pT3a pathological specimens in the blinded paired data. In the same set of data, EPE was attributed to one prostate cancer that on pathological inspection was deemed to be organ‐confined (pT2b). CONCLUSIONS PHS has the potential to identify and characterize prostate cancer foci noninvasively. The precision appears to be sufficient to suggest that PHS might be useful as a triage test for men deemed to be at risk of prostate cancer and who wish to avoid prostate biopsy.

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Casodex 150 mg/day monotherapy resembles surgical castration in achieving androgen deprivation, despite an increase in LH and testosterone levels. In contrast to castration, libido and sexual activity are usually maintained and hot flushes are rare. However, mild gynaecomastia and/or breast tenderness were noted in 48 and 30% of patients.