Some men can obtain hundred years or more, but the grounds are as yet unknown. Till now medical research has given no specific clues. Intensive consideration shows that life under quite natural (no longer found), not too hard social and climatic conditions (more maritime than arid) and in mountainous regions is decisive. It is clear that few territories of the earth come into consideration. The specific mental situation of mountain dwellers which contrasts in important points to that of the inhabitants (...) of flat country, plays a decisive part. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Elementary Students’ Construction of Geometric Transformation Reasoning in a Dynamic Animation Environment” by Alan Maloney. Upshot: Parnorkou and Maloney describe how a dynamic animation environment, Graphs ’n Glyphs, supported fourth-grade students’ understandings of translations and rotations. Two elements were critical in their teaching experiment: the design of the software and tasks. This commentary focuses on the decisions that they made and possible implications they had for students’ reasoning.

Those who deny the usefulness of the concept of “motive” for psychology commonly bring two arguments in support of theirview. The first is that the whole notion of “motive” is “animistic” and “folklorish”, since a motive cannot be directly observed. The second is that “motives” cannot be accurately observed, and therefore are beyond the scope of scientific study, because they are “the secret of the agent”, and the agenthimself has no indubitable knowledge of his “motives”. In a recent article, Professor (...) MacIver defends the view that the imputation of “motives” is necessary to a complete explanation of behaviour. To the first of the above criticisms, he replies that such a view neglects a part of reality and that since “motives” exist they should be studied by psychology. This reply does nothing to demonstrate the necessity of imputing motives in order to obtain a complete explanation of behaviour. To the second criticism he replies “motives” are not the secret of the agent, and we can only assert that the agent has mistaken his “motive” if we can gain indepen-dent knowledge of it. We can do this, Professor MacIver asserts, by observing typical behaviour in typical circum-stances, and making inferences from the coherence of total situations. Professor MacIver's replies to the second of the above criticisms are valid only if “motive” is defined as equivalent to “need”, so that we can say “under such-and-such conditions, such-and-such behaviour occurs”. A statement of this type says nothing about the agent's awareness of his goal. When the term “consciousness” is carefully defined along the lines suggested by Boring, the methods of imputation described by Professor MacIver can be seen to lead us only to the agent's “drives”, or “needs”, defined without reference to the agent's awareness of his goal. Professor MacIver uses “motives” to mean “awareness of the goal”, but gives us no clue as to how they may be imputed, and adduces no proof that their imputation is necessary. A possible criterion of the presence of a “motive” is the degree of direction observable in the organism's varied reac-tions in response to frustration, though the more precise definition of such a criterion must await further experiment. In view of the ambiguity of the term “motive” and its penumbra of false suggestion, it is desirable that the term be dropped from psychology. (shrink)

laudationem ferculum est insecutum plane non pro expectatione magnum: novitas tamen omnium convertit oculos. rotundum enim repositoriurr duodecim habebat signa in orbe disposita, super quae proprium convenien. temque materiae structor imposuerat cibum: super arietem cicer arietinum, super taurum bubulae frustum, super geminos testiculos ac rienes, supei cancrum coronam, super leonem ficum Africanam, super virginem steriliculam super libram stateram in cuius altera parte scriblita erat, in altera placenta super scorpionem † pisciculum marinum, super sagittarium oclopetam, supei capricornum locustam marinam,† super pisces (...) duos mullos. in medio autem caespes cum herbis excisus favum sustinebat. (shrink)

Level statistics and nodal point distribution in a rectangular semiconductor quantum dot are studied for different degrees of spin-orbit coupling. The chaotic features occurring from the spin-orbit coupling have no classical counterpart. Using experimental values for GaSb/InAs/GaSb semiconductor quantum wells we find that level repulsion can lead to the semi-Poisson distribution for nearest level separations. Nodal lines and nodal points are also investigated. Comparison is made with nodal point distributions for fully chaotic states.

With disagreement, doubts, or ambiguous grounds in end–of-life decisions, doctors are advised to involve a clinical ethics committee. However, little has been published on doctors’ experiences with discussing an end-of-life decision in a CEC. As part of the quality assurance of this work, we wanted to find out if clinicians have benefited from discussing end-of-life decisions in CECs and why. We will disseminate some Norwegian doctors’ experiences when discussing end-of-life decisions in CECs, based on semi-structured interviews with fifteen Norwegian physicians (...) who had brought an end-of-life decision case to a CEC. Almost half of the cases involved conflicts with the patients’ relatives. In a majority of the cases, there was uncertainty about what would be the ethically preferable solution. Reasons for referring the case to the CEC were to get broader illumination of the case, to get perspective from people outside the team, to get advice, or to get moral backing on a decision already made. A great majority of the clinicians reported an overall positive experience with the CECs’ discussions. In cases where there was conflict, the clinicians reported less satisfaction with the CECs’ discussions. The study shows that most doctors who have used a CEC in an end-of-life decision find it useful to have ethical and/or legal aspects illuminated, and to have the dilemma scrutinized from a new perspective. A systematic discussion seems to be significant to the clinicians. (shrink)

Apollodorus' Bibliotheca is often used, though little studied. Like any author, however, Apollodorus has his own aims. As scholars have noticed, he does not include any discussion of Rome and rarely mentions Italy, an absence they link to tendencies of the Second Sophistic, during which period he was writing. I refine this view by exploring the nature of Apollodorus' project as a whole, showing that he creates a system of genealogies that connects Greece with other places and peoples of the (...) ancient world, specifically the Near East. The nature of the Bibliotheca allows us to see these myths as a closed system, in which these genealogical connections depend upon the perceived importance of these peoples; e.g. the Persians have more connections with the Greeks than the Molossians do. It is from this system that Apollodorus excludes Rome, thereby denying the Romans any genealogical connections with the Greeks and thus marking them as being of little importance. The consciousness of Apollodorus' decisions is clear from the many opportunities he had to include Rome and the fact that his sources contained myths about Rome or Italy. The Bibliotheca is a tendentious account of Greek myth with its own goals, and our knowledge of Apollodorus' aims must condition any use of this text. (shrink)

The average male–female performance difference in the three sports of track athletics, swimming and time trial cycling are examined between the years 1948 and 1976. During this period females have gradually come to participate in a much larger number of events, particularly those of longer duration. In each of these three sports, women's performances in relation to men's have more or less continuously improved and it appears that if the changes between 1948 and 1976 are maintained, average female performance will (...) equal that of males for all events currently competed in by both sexes in these sports at some time during the next century. Estimates as to when, precisely, this will occur vary somewhat according to the basis on which the calculations are made. The other main change evident during these years is that in all three sports women's performances relative to men's for events of long duration have become as good or better than their relative performance at events of short duration. (shrink)

The term ‘environment’ is not uniformly defined in the public health sciences, which causes crucial inconsistencies in research, health policy, and practice. As we shall indicate, this is somewhat entangled with diverging pathogenic and salutogenic perspectives (research and policy priorities) concerning environmental health. We emphasise two distinct concepts of environment in use by the World Health Organisation. One significant way these concepts differ concerns whether the social environment is included. Divergence on this matter has profound consequences for the understanding of (...) health and disease, for measures derived from that understanding targeting health promotion and disease prevention, and consequently, for epistemic structures and concept development in scientific practice. We hope to improve the given situation in public health by uncovering these differences and by developing a fruitful way of thinking about environment. Firstly, we side with the salutogenic conception of environment as a _health resource_ (as well as a source of health risks). Secondly, we subdivide the concept of environment into four _health-oriented environmental categories_ (viz., natural, built-material, socio-cultural, and psychosocial) and we link these with other theoretical notions proposed in the health sciences literature. Thirdly, we propose that in public health ‘environment’ should be understood as consisting of all extrinsic factors that influence or are influenced by the health, well-being, and development of an individual. Consequently, none of the four categories should be excluded from the concept of environment. We point out the practical relevance and fruitfulness of the conception of environment as a health source and frame this in causal terms, representing _individual health environments_ as causal networks. Throughout, we side with the view that for the design of human health-promoting settings, increased attention and consideration of environmental resources of salutogenic potential is particularly pressing. (shrink)

Yoga is believed to have beneficial effects on cognition, attenuation of emotional intensity and stress reduction. Previous studies were mainly performed on eastern experienced practitioners or unhealthy subjects undergoing concomitant conventional therapies. Further investigation is needed on the effects of yoga per se, as well as its possible preventive benefits on healthy subjects. We investigated the effects of yoga on memory and psychophysiological parameters related to stress, comparing yoga practice and conventional physical exercises in healthy men . Memory tests, salivary (...) cortisol levels and stress, anxiety, and depression inventories were assessed before and after 6 months of practice. Yoga practitioners showed improvement of the memory performance, as well as improvements in psychophysiological parameters. The present results suggest that regular yoga practice can improve aspects of cognition and quality of life for healthy individuals. An indirect influence of emotional state on cognitive improvement promoted by yoga practice can be proposed. (shrink)

This study investigates the use of modal verbs in Chinese–English government press conference interpretation. Modal verbs mark the speaker’s opinion of or attitude toward the event described in a sentence. Interpreters also use modal verbs to indicate the stances of the source language speakers. The use of modal verbs has been examined in such contexts as research papers, textbooks, and second language learners’ output; however, studies that compare differences in modal verbs between source and target languages in the context of (...) interpreting are sparse. The investigation being reported is based on a comparable corpus—an original Chinese GPC and its English-translated version—and a parallel corpus—a translated English GPC and the original English version from the US. The results of the comparable corpus analysis indicate that the frequency of modal verbs in translated English is significantly higher than in original Chinese, in which only 40% of the modal verbs in translated English are consistent with their Chinese counterparts, while others are employed through amplification and value variation. The results of the parallel corpus analysis suggest that the increase of modal verbs in the target texts may help to achieve certain types of pragmatic functions in English. (shrink)