Two overriding considerations shaped the development of early research on the biological effects of microwave radiation—possible medical application and uncertainty about the hazards of exposure to radar. Reports in the late 1940s and early 1950s of hazards resulting from microwave exposure led to the near abandonment of medical research related to microwave diathermy at the same time that military and industrial concern over hazards grew, culminating in the massive research effort known as ‘the Tri-Service program’ . Both the early focus (...) on medical application and the later search for hazards played important roles in dictating how this field of research developed as a science. (shrink)

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

Examines the relationship between making objects and knowing nature in Europe from the mid-15th to mid-19th centuries.

The progressive art guide - an entirely new method of self-instruction on modern arts, shown in their progressive stages of completion is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1888. Hansebooks is editor of the literature on different topic areas such as research and science, travel and expeditions, cooking and nutrition, medicine, and other genres. As a publisher we focus on the preservation of historical literature. Many works of historical writers and scientists are available today as antiques only. (...) Hansebooks newly publishes these books and contributes to the preservation of literature which has become rare and historical knowledge for the future. (shrink)

Healthcare workers are often assumed to have a duty to work, even if faced with personal risk. This is particularly so for professionals. However, the health service also depends on non-professionals, such as porters, cooks and cleaners. The duty to work is currently under scrutiny because of the ongoing challenge of responding to pandemic influenza, where an effective response depends on most uninfected HCWs continuing to work, despite personal risk. This paper reports findings of a survey of HCWs conducted across (...) three National Health Service trusts in the West Midlands, UK, to establish whether HCWs’ likelihood of working during a pandemic is associated with views about the duty to work. The sense that HCWs felt that they had a duty to work despite personal risk emerged strongly regardless of professional status. Besides a strong sense that everyone should pull together, all kinds of HCWs recognised a duty to work even in difficult circumstances, which correlated strongly with their stated likelihood of working. This suggests that HCWs’ decisions about whether or not they are prepared to work during a pandemic are closely linked to their sense of duty. However, respondents’ sense of the duty to work may conflict with their sense of duty to family, as well as other factors such as a perceived lack of reciprocity from their employers. Interestingly, nearly 25% of doctors did not consider that they had a duty to work where doing so would pose risks to themselves or their families. (shrink)

Although considerable research indicates that mental energy is an important factor in many domains, including athletic performance (Cook & Davis, 2006), athletic mental energy (AME) has never been conceptualized and measured. Therefore, the aim of this study was to conceptualize and develop a reliable and valid instrument to assess athletic mental energy. In Study 1, a focus group interview established the initial framework of athletic mental energy. Study 2 used a survey to collect athletes’ experiences of athletic mental energy (...) and develop a scale draft titled “Athletic Mental Energy Scale (AMES).” In Study 3, we examined the psychometric properties and the underlying structure of AMES via item analysis, internal consistency, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA). In Study 4, we used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine AMES’s factorial validity; and examined concurrent and discriminant validity by examining correlations with athletes’ life stress, positive state of mind, and burnout. In study 5, we examined the measurement invariance of the 6-factor, 18-item AMES with Taiwanese and Malaysian samples. Study 6 examined the predictive validity by comparing AMES scores of successful and unsuccessful martial artists. Across these phases, results showed a 6-factor, 18-item AMES had adequate content validity, factorial structure, nomological validity, discriminant validity, predictive validity, measurement invariance, and reliability. We suggest future studies may use AMES to examine its relationships with athletes’ cognition, affect, and performance. The application of AMES in sport psychology was also discussed. (shrink)

H. Dohm has amply demonstrated how the cook of Plautus, Pseud. 790ff. exhibits characteristic features of the mageiros of Greek comedy. He has also argued, however, that this scene contains substantial Plautine expansion, comparable with that which has been recognised in the cook scene of the Aulularia. I wish to suggest that Dohm is largely right but that the Plautine expansion is even more extensive than he supposes. In 790–838 Plautus is probably for the most part following his (...) Greek model fairly closely. One can trace a logical sequence of ideas, as follows. Ballio: ‘I couldn't have found a worse cook’ . Cook: ‘Why did you hire me then?’ . Ballio: ‘You were the only one left. And why was that?’ . Cook: ‘I am expensive, but nowadays people look for cheap cooks, who produce only concoctions of seasoned vegetables. That is why men are so short-lived’ . Ballio: ‘You can make men live longer then?’ . Cook: ‘Certainly, for 200 years’ . The cook then proceeds to give a list of his fantastic sauces for fish and meat , until he is cut short by Ballio's ‘Damn your lies’ . We have here a typical comic mageiros: he is loquacious and boastful , claims magic powers , denigrates his rivals , reels off lists of foods, real and fictitious , and uses grandiose language . Within this essentially Greek section there are three short passages which look like Plautine additions. First, Dohm is surely right, following E. Fraenkel, to see 790f. as a Plautine addition. (shrink)

The long-term persistence of neurotic symptoms, such as anxiety, poses difficult problems for any psychological theory. An attempt is made to revive the Watson-Mowrer conditioning theory and to avoid the many criticisms directed against it in the past. It is suggested that recent research has produced changes in learning theory that can be used to render this possible. In the first place, the doctrine of equipotentiality has been shown to be wrong, and some such concept as Seligman's “preparedness” is required, (...) that is the notion that certain CS are biologically prepared to be more readily connected with anxiety responses than others. In the second place, the law of extinction has to be amended, and the law of incubation or enhancement added, according to which the exposure of the CS-only may, under certain specified conditions, have the effect of increasing the strength of the CR, rather than reducing it. The major conditions favouring incubation are Pavlovian B conditioning, that is a type of conditioning in which the CR is a drive; a strong UCS, and short exposure of the CS-only. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the view of evolution of Jan Lever (1922–2010), founder of the biology department at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and compares his view with those of J.H. Diemer and H. Dooyeweerd. Together with Dooyeweerd, Lever wrote a series of chapters on the species concept inPhilosophia Reformata(1948–1950) in which species were defined as constant types. In his book,Creatie en Evolutie(1956), Lever still subscribed to Dooyeweerd’s philosophy but also suggested that it is possible that biological evolution occurred, including that of (...) human beings, and that scientific research can shed light on these processes. Influenced by his idea of individuality structures, Dooyeweerd criticized Lever and suggested that species are constant; that science cannot speak to the topics that Lever discusses. It is argued that Dooyeweerd’s views are influenced by the typological thinking of the time and that reformational thought would benefit from de-emphasizing this aspect of reformational philosophy. (shrink)

Although the view that punishment is to be justified on utilitarian grounds has obvious appeal, an examination of utilitarianism reveals that, consistently and accurately interpreted, it dictates unjust punishments which are unacceptable to the common moral consciousness. In this rule?utilitarianism is no more satisfactory than is act?utilitarianism. Although the production of the greatest good, or the greatest happiness, of the greatest number is obviously a relevant consideration when determining which punishments may properly be inflicted, the question as to which punishment (...) is just is a distinct and more basic question and one which must be answered before we can determine which punishments are morally permissible. That a retributivist theory, which is a particular application of a general principle of justice, can account more satisfactorily for our notion of justice in punishment is a positive reason in its support. (shrink)

There appear to be a number of general things which can be said about forgiveness. If these are left sufficiently vague they seem to be applicable to all the situations in which the term is used.First, there can be no question of forgiveness unless an injury has been inflicted on somebody by a moral agent. There must be something to forgive; and the injury that is to be forgiven must be one for which a moral agent can be held responsible. (...) One cannot forgive a rock for falling on one's foot or a cougar for attacking one's child—even though a child might kick the rock and a father might shoot the cougar. (shrink)

This paper is a critical examination of Vendler's well-known aspectual classes (states, activities, accomplishments, achievements). It is argued that it not classes that play a role in the explanation of aspectual phenomena but rather some specific semantic factors from which aspectual classes can be constructed, in particular factors inherent to the (lexical) verb and to the determiners of noun phrases.

In Section I, the purely conceptual issue as to whether animals other than human beings, all or some, may possess rights is examined. This is approached via a consideration of the concept of a moral right, and by way of examining the claims of sentience, consciousness, capacities for pleasure and pain, having desires, possessing interests, self-consciousness, rationality in various senses. It is argued that only beings possessed actually or potentially of the capacity to be morally self-determining can be possessors of (...) rights. In Section II, normative questions concerning the rights animals might possess if they were to be capable of possessing rights are discussed. The approach followed is that of considering the kinds of argument advanced in support of human rights, and whether these arguments, and the rights they are claimed to establish, are transferable to animals, and whether there are or might be specifically animal rights. In Section III the question of what is or could be the goal of one who recognizes and seeks to respect all rights, animal and human, is raised. In particular, the issue as to whether a goal of maximizing the satisfaction of rights could remain a coherent one if animal rights are acknowledged, is explored. (shrink)

IT IS ARGUED THAT LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS DOES NOT DEAL WITH\nTHE PROBLEM OF UNIVERSALS IN A SATISFACTORY WAY. THE\nCONTRIBUTIONS OF RYLE, WITTGENSTEIN AND PEARS ARE\nCONSIDERED. IT IS HELD THAT THE PROBLEM OF UNIVERSALS IS A\nGENUINE METAPHYSICAL PROBLEM AND DOES NOT ADMIT OF BEING\nDISPOSED OF BY CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS. MOREOVER, THE FAILURE\nOF ATTEMPTS BY LINGUISTIC ANALYSTS HERE MUST CAST DOUBT ON\nTHE SOUNDNESS OF THEIR BOLD ANTIMETAPHYSICAL CLAIMS. IT IS\nCONCLUDED THAT THE PROBLEM OF UNIVERSALS IS NOT PRIMARILY\nONE OF NAMING, BUT RATHER OF RESEMBLANCES. (STAFF).

Much problem solving and learning research in math and science has focused on formal representations. Recently researchers have documented the use of unschooled strategies for solving daily problems -- informal strategies which can be as effective, and sometimes as sophisticated, as school-taught formalisms. Our research focuses on how formal and informal strategies interact in the process of doing and learning mathematics. We found that combining informal and formal strategies is more effective than single strategies. We provide a theoretical account of (...) this multiple strategy effect and have begun to formulate this theory in an ACT-R computer model. We show why students may reach common impasses in the use of written algebra, and how subsequent or concurrent use of informal strategies leads to better problem-solving performance. Formal strategies facilitate computation because of their abstract and syntactic nature; however, abstraction can lead to nonsensical interpretations and conceptual errors. Reapplying the formal strategy will not repair such errors; switching to an informal one may. We explain the multiple strategy effect as a complementary relationship between the computational efficiency of formal strategies and the sense-making function of informal strategies. (shrink)

This book presents a series of Dr. Blumenthal's studies on the history of Neoplatonism, from its founder Plotinus to the end of Classical Antiquity, relating especially to the Neoplatonists' doctrines about the soul. The work falls into two parts. The first deals with Plotinus and considers the soul both as part of the structure of the universe and in its capacity as the basis of the individual's vital and cognitive functions. The second part is concerned with the later history of (...) Neoplatonism, including its end. Its main focus is the investigation of how Neoplatonic psychology was modified and developed by later philosophers, in particular the commentators on Aristotle, and used as the starting point for their Platonizing interpretations of his philosophy. (shrink)