Background: The proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation reciprocal contraction pattern has the potential to increase the maximum rate of torque development. However, it is a more complex resistive exercise task and may interfere with improvements in the maximum rate of torque development due to motor skill learning, as observed for unidirectional contractions. The purpose of this study was to examine the cost-benefit of using the PNF exercise technique to increase the maximum rate of torque development.Methods: Twenty-six participants completed isometric maximal extension-to-flexion or (...) flexion-only contractions at the wrist. Ten of the assigned contractions were performed on each of three sessions separated by 48-h for skill acquisition. Retention was assessed with 5 contractions performed 2-weeks after acquisition. Torque and surface electromyographic activity were analyzed for evidence of facilitated contractions between groups, as well as alterations in muscle coordination assessed across test sessions. The criterion measures were: mean maximal isometric wrist flexion toque; the maximal rate of torque development ; root-mean-square error variability of the rate of torque versus torque phase-plane; the rate of wrist flexion muscle activation ; a coactivation ratio for wrist flexor and extensor sEMG activity; and wrist flexor electromechanical delay.Results: There were no significant differences between groups with respect to maximal wrist flexion torque, dτ/dtmax or RMSE variability of torque trajectories. Both groups exhibited a progressive increase in maximal strength and in dτ/dtmax from the start of acquisition to retention. RMSE was lowest after a 2-week rest interval. There were no significant differences between groups in the rate of muscle activation or the coactivation ratio. There was a reduction in coactivation that was retained after a 2-week rest interval. Alternatively, EMD was significantly greater in the experimental group across all sessions. However, both groups had a similar pattern of improvement to the third consecutive day of testing, but returned close to baseline value after the 2-week rest interval.Discussion: The wrist extension-to-flexion contraction pattern did not result in a greater maximal rate of torque development than simple contractions of the wrist flexors. There was no difference between groups with respect to motor skill learning. The main adaptation in neuromotor control was a decrease in coactivation, not the maximal rate of muscle activation. (shrink)

Britain in the fin de siècle was home to many significant communities of political émigrés. Among Russian revolutionaries who made London their home were Sergei Stepniak and Feliks Volkhovskii, forced to flee Russia as a result of their revolutionary activities in the 1870s. Britain became a symbol of liberty in their writings as a source of comparison with tsarist rule. These comparisons also supported their justifications of the use of terrorism by Russian revolutionaries when writing for audiences with concerns about (...) the use of terrorism in Britain. The emphasis on Russian otherness in these comparisons also helped to justify their opposition to Russian imperialism, while at the same time praising a benevolent imperialism rooted in social and cultural activism. Their thought represents a blending of liberal and socialist ideas employed to place the Russian experience beyond the scope of modernity and liberal political understanding. (shrink)

The number of traumatic events that occur worldwide is increasing, yet the literature pays little attention to their implications for leader development. This paper calls for a consideration of how collective trauma such as genocides and the Holocaust can shape the cognition of leaders who are second- and third-generation descendants. Drawing on research on the transgenerational transmission of collective trauma, social learning, social identity and psychodynamic theories, we identify three mechanisms through which collective trauma can be transmitted to leaders: cultural (...) artifacts, community events and family narratives. In this article, we introduce the topic of collective trauma in leader development and draw on the theories of psychodynamic, social identity and social learning to explain how the transmission of collective trauma occurs. We also propose how the transmitted trauma shapes leader cognition, values and behaviors. This framework can serve as a basis for future theory-building in leader and leadership development that will be key to the study of authentic and ethical leadership. (shrink)

Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for one’s past, can serve as a resource for individuals coping with discomforting experiences. The experience of bereavement poses psychological and physical risks....

Mammalian sperm undergo discharge of a single, anterior secretory granule following their attachment to the zona pellucida surrounding the oocyte. This secretory discharge is known for historical reasons as the acrosome reaction. It fulfils a number of purposes and without it, sperm are unable to penetrate the zona pellucida and fuse with the oocyte. In this review, we focus on the role of the acrosome reaction in the development of fusion competence in sperm. Any naturally occurring membrane fusion has two (...) major sequential steps: a docking or adhesion step, in which two membranes adhere, and a fusion step, in which their lipid bilayers are destabilized and merged and a cellular compartment is either created or destroyed. Recent evidence suggests that there is an important role for oocyte integrins and sperm‐bound disintegrins in mammalian sperm/oocyte adhesion and fusion. The fusion mechanism employed by sperm remains poorly understood, however, and circumstantial evidence suggests it is more complex than the interaction between a single protein species and its target. Sperm/oocyte fusion is probably the most accessible eukaryotic model for intercellular fusion currently available, partly because it is temporally separated from gene expression. Elucidation of the mechanism of sperm/oocyte fusion may throw light on the mechanism of other intercellular fusions such as myoblast fusion, and the evolutionary relationship of intercellular membrane fusion to intracellular membrane fusion. (shrink)

In Book 2 of The Peloponnesian War, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides describes the Plague of Athens which killed an estimated 75,000 people in 430 BC, the second year of the war. Thucydides i...

The Central Bank of China is testing its Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) in the cities of Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu and Xunan with the involvement of four large state-owned banks in the...

In three studies, we examined food as an elicitor of nostalgia. Study 1 participants visualised eating either a nostalgic or regularly consumed food. Study 2 participants visualised consuming 12 foods. Study 3 participants consumed 12 flavour samples. Following their food experiences, all participants responded to questions regarding the profile of food-evoked nostalgia (i.e. autobiographical relevance, arousal, familiarity, positive and negative emotions) and several psychological functions (i.e. positive affect, self-esteem, social connectedness, meaning in life). Study 2 and 3 participants also reported (...) their state nostalgia. Results revealed that food is a powerful elicitor of nostalgia. Food-evoked nostalgia has a similar contextual profile to previously examined elicitors, but is a predominantly positive emotional experience. Food-evoked nostalgia served multiple psychological functions and predicted greater state nostalgia. (shrink)

This collection of original essays, by some of the best known contemporary criminal law theorists, tackles a range of issues about the criminal law's 'special part' - the part of the criminal law that defines specific offences. One of its aims is to show the importance, for theory as well as for practice, of focusing on the special part as well as on the general part which usually receives much more theoretical attention. Some of the issues covered concern the proper (...) scope of the criminal law, for example how far should it include offences of possession, or endangerment? If it should punish only wrongful conduct, how can it justly include so-called 'mala prohibita', which are often said to involve conduct that is not wrongful prior to its legal prohibition? Other issues concern the ways in which crimes should be classified. Can we make plausible sense, for instance, of the orthodox distinction between crimes of basic and general intent? Should domestic violence be defined as a distinct offence, distinguished from other kinds of personal violence? Also examined are the ways in which specific offences should be defined, to what extent those definitions should identify distinctive types of wrongs, and the light that such definitional questions throw on the grounds and structures of criminal liability. Such issues are discussed in relation not only to such crimes as murder, rape, theft and other property offences, but also in relation to offences such as bribery, endangerment and possession that have not traditionally been subjects for in depth theoretical analysis. (shrink)

25 leading contemporary theorists of criminal law tackle a range of foundational issues about the proper aims and structure of the criminal law in a liberal democracy. The challenges facing criminal law are many. There are crises of over-criminalization and over-imprisonment; penal policy has become so politicized that it is difficult to find any clear consensus on what aims the criminal law can properly serve; governments seeking to protect their citizens in the face of a range of perceived threats have (...) pushed the outer limits of criminal law and blurred its boundaries. To think clearly about the future of criminal law, and its role in a liberal society, foundational questions about its proper scope, structure, and operations must be re-examined. What kinds of conduct should be criminalized? What are the principles of criminal responsibility? How should offences and defences be defined? The criminal process and the criminal trial need to be studied closely, and the purposes and modes of punishment should be scrutinized. Such a re-examination must draw on the resources of various disciplines-notably law, political and moral philosophy, criminology and history; it must examine both the inner logic of criminal law and its place in a larger legal and political structure; it must attend to the growing field of international criminal law, it must consider how the criminal law can respond to the challenges of a changing world.Topics covered in this volume include the question of criminalization and the proper scope of the criminal law; the grounds of criminal responsibility; the ways in which offences and defences should be defined; the criminal process and its values; criminal punishment; the relationship between international criminal law and domestic criminal law. Together, the essays provide a picture of the exciting state of criminal law theory today, and the basis for further research and debate in the coming years. (shrink)

Michael A. Peters Beijing Normal UniversityDeclinism is back in fashion again. It is now a common and persistent source of historical reflection that has been a constant theme since the first Chris...

Drawing from both theoretical and empirical research, the literature on basic income (BI) is now voluminous, pronouncing both its merits and its limitations. Burgeoning research documents the impacts of un/conditional cash transfers and negative income tax programs, with many studies highlighting the effectiveness of these programs in reducing poverty, and improving a host of social, economic and health outcomes. We consider possible avenues for BI architecture to be adopted within Canada’s existing constellation of income security programs, to the benefit of (...) disadvantaged groups in society. Identifying key federal and provincial (i.e., Ontario) transfer and tax benefit programs, we highlight which programs might best be maintained or converted to a BI. While opponents decry the (alleged) exorbitant costs of BI schemes, we suggest that the existing approach not only produces an ineffective system—which actually engenders poverty and the health and social problems that accompany it—but an excessively costly one. (shrink)

Eyewitnesses to crimes sometimes search for a culprit on social media before viewing a police lineup, but it is not known whether this affects subsequent lineup identification accuracy. The present online study was conducted to address this. Two hundred and eighty-five participants viewed a mock crime video, and after a 15–20 min delay either viewed a mock social media site including the culprit, viewed a mock social media site including a lookalike, or completed a filler task. A week later, participants (...) made an identification from a photo lineup. It was predicted that searching for a culprit on social media containing the lookalike would reduce lineup identification accuracy. There was a significant association between social media exposure and lineup accuracy for the Target Present lineup, but for the Target Absent lineup there was no significant association with lineup identification accuracy. The results suggest that if an eyewitness sees a lookalike when conducting a self-directed search on social media, they are less likely to subsequently identify the culprit in the formal ID procedure. (shrink)

Anticipated nostalgia is a new construct that has received limited empirical attention. It concerns the anticipation of having nostalgic feelings for one’s present and future experiences. In three...

One of the central issue of developmental biology concerns the molecular mechanisms whereby a multipotent cell gives rise to distinct differentiated progeny. Differences between specialised cell types reflect variations in their patterns of gene expression. The regulation of transcription initiation is an important control point for gene expression and it is, therefore, not surprising that transcription factors play a pivotal role in mammalian development and differentiation.Haemopoiesis offers a uniquely tractable system for the study of lineage commitment and differentiation. The importance (...) of transcription factor in the normal regulation of haemopoiesis is underlined by the frequency with which transcription factors are targeted by leukaemogenic mutations. Studies of the function and regulation of haemopoietic transcription factors, especially those expressed in lineage‐restricted patterns, should greatly increase our understanding of the molecular control of haemopoiesis. In this review we have focused on insights provided by recent studies of the GATA and SCL proteins. (shrink)

Using fMRI, we investigated how right temporal lobe gliomas affecting the posterior superior temporal sulcus alter neural processing observed during speech perception and production tasks. Behavioural language testing showed that three pre-operative neurosurgical patients with grade 2, grade 3 or grade 4 tumours had the same pattern of mild language impairment in the domains of object naming and written word comprehension. When matching heard words for semantic relatedness (a speech perception task), these patients showed under-activation in the tumour infiltrated right (...) superior temporal lobe compared to 61 neurotypical participants and 16 patients with tumours that preserved the right postero-superior temporal lobe, with enhanced activation within the (tumour-free) contralateral left superior temporal lobe. In contrast, when correctly naming objects (a speech production task), the patients with right postero-superior temporal lobe tumours showed higher activation than both control groups in the same right postero-superior temporal lobe region that was under-activated during auditory semantic matching. The task dependent pattern of under-activation during the auditory speech task and over-activation during object naming was also observed in eight stroke patients with right hemisphere infarcts that affected the right postero-superior temporal lobe compared to eight stroke patients with right hemisphere infarcts that spared it. These task-specific and site-specific cross-pathology effects highlight the importance of the right temporal lobe for language processing and motivate further study of how right temporal lobe tumours affect language performance and neural reorganisation. These findings may have important implications for surgical management of these patients, as knowledge of the regions showing functional reorganisation may help to avoid their inadvertent damage during neurosurgery. (shrink)

While the literature in business ethics abounds with philosophical analyses, perspectives from religious thinkers are curiously underrepresented. What religious analysis has occured has often been moralistic in tone, more fit to the pulpit than the classroom or the boardroom. In the three essays that follow, presented originally at a panel at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in 1989, ethicists from the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish traditions analyze a case study familiar to many who teach and (...) research in business ethics - the Consolidated Foods Case. Each author shows how a particular religious tradition might react to the case. The authors show how insights from their traditions would affect corporation's moral deliberations about policy. Specific policy recommendations are offered to CEO John Bryan. (shrink)

The effects of research ethics training on medical students' attitudes about clinical research are examined. A preliminary randomized controlled trial evaluated 2 didactic approaches to ethics training compared to a no-intervention control. The participant-oriented intervention emphasized subjective experiences of research participants. The criteria-oriented intervention emphasized specific ethical criteria for analyzing protocols. Compared to controls, those in the participant-oriented intervention group exhibited greater attunement to research participants' attitudes related to altruism, trust, quality of relationships with researchers, desire for information, hopes about (...) participation and possible therapeutic misconception, importance of consent forms, and deciding quickly about participation. The participant-oriented group also agreed more strongly that seriously ill people are capable of making their own research participation decisions. The criteria-oriented intervention did not affect learners' attitudes about clinical research, ethical duties of investigators, or research participants' decision making. An empathy-focused approach affected medical students' attunement to research volunteer perspectives, preferences, and attributes, but an analytically oriented approach had no influence. These findings underscore the need to further examine the differential effects of empathy-versus analytic-focused approaches to the teaching of ethics. (shrink)

This book is written primarily for psychology and education students whose programs include a course in child psychology, child development, or theories of development. The text may also be used to supplement courses on child development organized thematically or chronologically. Instructors of graduate courses in child development may wish to consider this text as a primary synthesis containing more source material and source citations than others of its kind. The primary aim of the book is to describe what developmental theories (...) are, what they can do, where they come from, how they work, and how they can be used to explain human nature. (shrink)

While the literature in business ethics abounds with philosophical analyses, perspectives from religious thinkers are curiously underrepresented. What religious analysis has occured has often been moralistic in tone, more fit to the pulpit than the classroom or the boardroom. In the three essays that follow, presented originally at a panel at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in 1989, ethicists from the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish traditions analyze a case study familiar to many who teach and (...) research in business ethics — the Consolidated Foods Case. Each author shows how a particular religious tradition might react to the case. The authors show how insights from their traditions would affect corporation's moral deliberations about policy. Specific policy recommendations are offered to CEO John Bryan. (shrink)

Ethical issues are pivotal to the practice of psychiatry. Anyone involved in psychiatric practice and mental healthcare has to be aware of the range of ethical issues relevant to their profession. An increased professional commitment to accountability, in parallel with a growing "consumer" movement has paved the way for a creative engagement with the ethical movement. The bestselling 'Psychiatric Ethics' has carved out a niche for itself as the major comprehensive text and core reference in the field, covering a range (...) of complex ethical dilemmas which face clinicians and researchers in their everyday practice. This new edition takes a fresh look at recent trends and developments at the interface between ethics and psychiatric practice. Coming ten years after the third edition, the editors have observed several emerging aspects of psychiatric practice requiring coverage, as a result, 5 new chapters have been added, including cutting edge topics - such as neuroethics. All other chapters have been fully revised and updated. The book will continue to be essential reading for psychiatrists, psychologists, other mental health professionals, and bioethicists, as well as of interest to policy makers, managers and lawyers. (shrink)

Many accounts of faith hold that faith is deference to an authority about what to believe or what to do. I show that this kind of faith fits into a more general account of faith, the risky‐commitment account. I further argue that it can be rational to defer to an authority even when the authority's pronouncement goes against one's own reasoning. Indeed, such deference is rational in typical cases in which individuals treat others as authorities.

Lara Buchak sets out a new account of rational decision-making in the face of risk. She argues that the orthodox view is too narrow, and suggests an alternative, more permissive theory: one that allows individuals to pay attention to the worst-case or best-case scenario, and vindicates the ordinary decision-maker.

Early last year, the GenEthics Consortium (GEC) of the Washington Metropolitan Area convened at George Washington University to consider a complex case about genetic testing for Alzheimer disease (AD). The GEC consists of scientists, bioethicists, lawyers, genetic counselors, and consumers from a variety of institutions and affiliations. Four of the 8 co-authors of this paper delivered presentations on the case. Supplemented by additional ethical and legal observations, these presentations form the basis for the following discussion.

Purpose A survey of the attitudes of students in eight countries towards the revelations of mass surveillance by the US’ NSA and the UK’s GCHQ has been described in an introductory paper and seven country-specific papers. This paper aims to present a comparison of the results from these countries and draws conclusions about the similarities and differences noted. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire was deployed in Germany, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, The People’s Republic of China, Spain, Sweden and Taiwan. The original survey (...) was in English, translated into German, Japanese and Chinese for relevant countries. The survey consists of a combination of Likert scale, Yes/no and free-text responses. The results are quantitatively analysed using appropriate statistical tools and the qualitative answers are interpreted. Findings There are significant differences between respondents in the countries surveyed with respect to their general privacy attitudes and their willingness to follow Snowden’s lead, even where they believe his actions served the public good. Research limitations/implications Owing to resource limitations, only university students were surveyed. In some countries, the relatively small number of respondents limits the ability to make meaningful statistical comparisons between respondents from those countries and from elsewhere on some issues. Practical implications Snowden’s actions are generally seen as laudable and having had positive results, among the respondents surveyed. Such results should give pause to governments seeking to expand mass surveillance by government entities. Originality/value There have been few surveys regarding attitudes to Snowden’s revelations, despite the significant press attention and political actions that have flowed from it. The context of attitudes to both the actions he revealed and the act of revelation itself is useful in constructing political and philosophical arguments about the balance between surveillance activity for state security and the privacy of individual citizens. (shrink)