Milner and Goodale have advanced a justly influential theory of the structure of the human visual system. In broad outline, Milner and Goodale hold that the ventral neural pathway is associated with recognition and experiential awareness, and with a kind of indirect control of action. And they hold that, by contrast, the dorsal neural stream is associated with the non-conscious, direct control of visually informed action. Most of the relevant empirical research has focused on the visual control of close-in, “personal (...) space,” reaching and/or grasping. While their view has not escaped controversy and debate, we think that Milner and Goodale have a compelling story to tell about the visual guidance of such close in, “personal space” action. However, the question of whether their scheme applies to behavior with visually specified targets that are outside of the space accessible by simply reaching and grasping is largely unstudied. And it should be studied, since this is the arena of much human behavior. We provide good reason to think that the Milner and Goodale scheme may well not apply to important classes of mid-range, ‘action space’ behavior. But the matter is in the end to be decided in the lab. We describe a research program to do this. (shrink)

Many efforts to establish concepts and theories of the middle range have sought to find an appropriate balance between theoretical abstraction and the desire to remain faithful to the empirical complexity of phenomenon. As with other forms of expertise, those analyzing socio-technical life face acute tensions in attempting to reconcile the general and the specific in a manner which is regarded as credible. Through a consideration of the self-referential implications of STS critiques of traditional notions of science as well (...) as attempts to establish rules for the acceptability of coercive force, this article develops a sense of what is at stake in attempts by actors and analysts to grasp the general and the specific together. Instead of seeking to identify a point of resolution for the two, it advocates and exemplifies the need to attend to the dilemmas associated with the movement between the general and the specific. The middle range concept of “disposal strategies” is offered both as an aid to the study of socio-technical life and as an example of attending to the movement between the general and specific. (shrink)

Recent developmental models assume a higher tendency to take risks in mid-adolescence, while the empirical evidence for this assumption is rather mixed. Most of the studies applied quite different tasks to measure risk-taking behavior and used a narrow age range. The main goal of the present study was to examine risk-taking behavior in four task settings, the Treasure Hunting Task (THT) in a gain and a loss domain, the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) and the STOPLIGHT task. These task (...) settings differ in affective task moderators, like descriptive vs. experienced outcomes, anticipation of gains vs. losses, static vs. dynamic risk presentation and time pressure vs. no-time pressure and were applied in a sample of 187 participants from age 9 to 18. Beneath age trends, we were interested in their association with individual differences in approach behavior, venturesomeness, impulsivity and empathy above age, gender and fluid intelligence. Our findings revealed that risk-taking behavior is only low to moderately correlated between the four task contexts, suggesting that they capture different aspects of risk-taking behavior. Accordingly, a mid-adolescent peak in risk-propensity was only found under time pressure in the STOPLIGHT that was associated with higher impulsivity and empathy. In contrast, risky decisions decreased with increasing age in task settings, in which losses were anticipated (THT Loss), and this was associated with higher cognitive abilities. We found no age differences when gains were anticipated, neither in a static (THT Gain) nor in a dynamic task setting (BART). These findings clearly suggest the need to consider affective task moderators, as well as individual differences in temperament and cognitive abilities, in actual models about adolescent development. (shrink)

SummaryAnthropometric differences between the two Koreas are of considerable public and scientific interest given the unique socio-political status of North Korea and the fact that the nations share the same genetic ancestry. This study provides new biosocial evidence on these differences by analysing mid-upper arm circumference as a human welfare indicator. This is the first study to compare the nutritional status of adults surveyed inside North Korea with South Koreans. The MUAC measurements of 2793 North Korean women obtained through a (...) household survey conducted in 2002 were compared with those of 1428 South Korean women surveyed around 2003. Comparative analysis was conducted by plotting centiles and calculating mean differences in MUAC by age. This paper finds that the MUAC of the South Koreans was on average 2.8 cm greater than that of their North Korean peers, with MUAC gaps ranging from 1.6 cm to 3.9 cm and becoming more pronounced with age. This research confirms previous studies on height and weight in the two Germanies and in the two Koreas that have shown that biosocial performance is worse in socialist economies as compared with free-market regimes. (shrink)

Records of certain Government Departments known to have purchased scientific instruments from designated suppliers over long periods are potentially important sources of information on both instruments and their makers. The Office of Ordnance was one such Department. Investigation of its financial and administrative records has shown that the appointment ‘Mathematical Instrument Maker to his Majesty's Office of Ordnance’ brought the holder a substantial trade in instruments for drawing, surveying, and military purposes. Detailed entries in the Bill Books enable not only (...) types, quantities, and prices of instruments supplied to be determined, but also the purposes for which they were required. In many cases the actual users of the instruments are named, with their locations in Great Britain and overseas.The records of the Office of Ordnance are extensive, covering the mid-seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century in over ten thousand volumes or bundles. This paper provides an introduction to what is available, and examines in particular the period 1748–1772 when George Adams senior was Mathematical Instrument Maker to this Office. It is shown that during this period Adams supplied over 1500 instruments, ranging from drawing pens to theodolites, detailed in 148 bills amounting to a total value of £2425. Some other well-known instrument makers, such as Thomas Wright, Benjamin Cole & Son, and Jesse Ramsden, were also occasional suppliers of instruments in the same period, while from 1765 onwards the records include bills for instruments purchased by the Office of Ordnance for the Royal Observatory from makers such as Dollond and Bird. The total number of instrument makers' bills located and examined in the period searched, including the 148 by Adams, was 166. In addition, though not within the scope of this paper it was observed that the records contain numerous bills by William Deane before, and by Jeremiah Sisson after, the period of Adams' appointment respectively. (shrink)

Neo-Confucianism was a vast intellectual movement that was launched in Song China and that continued to exert great influence in the countries of East Asia, including Japan, Korean and even Vietnam. By the mid-Ming period in China, it found itself in the midst of a major intellectual transformation, undergoing its most lively philosophical effervescence since its formative stage. My dissertation explores the Neo-Confucian discourse of this time. ;Methodologically, I have attempted to overcome various limitations in existing scholarship, which tends to (...) be devoted to individual thinkers, and sought to provide a wide-ranging contextual treatment of various currents of thought during this period. Also, to explicate what Neo-Confucianism meant to its practitioners, I explore in depth a cardinal philosophical assumption of Neo-Confucianism that was particularly important in mid-Ming Neo-Confucian discourse: the unity between self and world. Without this philosophical underpinning which allows an individual moral agent to contain within himself the whole world, the Neo-Confucian project, which upholds personal morality as the main fulcrum of social well-being, cannot be theoretically sustained. ;By combining these approaches of history and philosophy, I offer a new lens for understanding each of the remarkable thinkers that emerged at that time---Chen Xianzhang , Hu Juren , Zhan Ruoshui , Luo Qinshun , Wang Tingxiang , and Wang Yangming . My account of each thinker seeks to prove that each thinker's philosophy can best be understood as varying responses to the crisis of the moral self in the mid-Ming. In general, mid-Ming thinkers enriched Neo-Confucian thought in the sense that they managed to articulate new conceptual modes by which to recuperate the moral self. ;Although mid-Ming thinkers' philosophical gymnastics represented their endeavor to save Neo-Confucianism, their philosophies, taken together, reveal certain features of the general intellectual milieu at that time. That is, intellectuals contested the idea of the unity of the world---the assumption that made it possible to conceive the individual self as more than an isolated ego. With this shift in the way in which individuals thought about themselves, Neo-Confucianism found itself not just in transformation but also in crisis. (shrink)

The subject of this research is the reflection of Russian realities of the mid XVIII century in cultural sphere. The article touches upon the problem of cross-cultural communication between Russia and France in the XVIII century: the theme of “French presence” in the Russian art and theater culture of the first half and the middle of the XVIII century. The acquired results elucidate the characteristic features of the relations between French and Russian people during this period. The research was conducted (...) with consideration of the unity of internal and external, subjective and objective factors within the framework of the cultural-historical process. The conclusions were made leaning on the analysis of the entire range of sources use and existing research traditions. The article reveals the contribution of the French representatives of art and culture while their stay in Russia, as well as describes the forms and manifestations of their activity that in prospect affected the image of Russia. The author believes that working at the Russian Court, the French representatives imposed the vision of their country on Russia, transforming the Russian images in the French spirit. The presented materials are valuable for the study of cross-cultural communication between Russia and France in the XVIII century. This article is important and relevant in the conditions of constantly developing cultural dialogue and determination of the new vectors of cooperation between the countries. (shrink)

Taken from a published report on wound ballistics research during World War II, Figure 1 depicts the abdomen of a cat that has been shaved, anesthetized, marked with a grid, and shot. The individual squares are frames, the caption says, “ from a high speed motion picture of a cat’s abdomen, showing the volume changes and movements caused by a 6/32nd inch steel sphere.” We can recognize in this image the conventions of scientific inscription. The technologies are sophisticated, quantitative, impressive. (...) The image speaks for itself. Or does it? What exactly is happening when an anesthetized cat with a shaved abdomen painted with a grid gets shot, in a laboratory, and when that event is hyper-documented in high speed photographs, and deployed in a range of texts as evidence? And what do these human creations — these highly quantified experimental wounds — tell us about the culture and practice of twentieth-century science? (shrink)

L’histoire européenne s’est construite sur des mariages entre familles souveraines européennes. Pourtant, ce modèle n’est pas universel : de l’autre côté de la Méditerranée, l’Empire ottoman proposa un autre modèle d’unions matrimoniales royales, qui étonnait les voyageurs occidentaux : les sultans ottomans ne prenaient pas d’épouses de noble lignée ; ils cessèrent même progressivement de prendre des épouses tout court, pour leur préférer des concubines esclaves. Leurs filles mêmes, plutôt que d’être mariées “selon leur rang”, étaient données à des “esclaves”. (...) C’est le pragmatisme politique des Ottomans, ainsi que leur constante volonté d’afficher leur supériorité lignagère, qui explique l’apparition de ce modèle à la fin du xve siècle. L’objectif de l’article est de mettre en perspectives les ressorts politiques d’une telle transformation des règles matrimoniales dynastiques et d’en expliciter les conséquences. (shrink)

Their nursing experience and/or training may lead students preparing for the nursing profession to have less moral distress and more favorable attitudes towards a hastened death compared with those preparing for other fields of study. To ascertain if this was true, 66 undergraduates (54 women, 9 men, 3 not stated) in southeastern USA completed measures of moral distress and attitudes towards hastening death. Unexpectedly, the results from nursing and non-nursing majors were not significantly different. All the present students reported moderate (...) moral distress and strong resistance to any efforts to hasten death but these factors were not significantly correlated. However, in the small sample of nurses in training, the results suggest that hastened death situations may not be a prime reason for moral distress. (shrink)

In recent years, inverse spectra were investigated with imaging optics and a quantitative description with radiometric units was suggested. It could be shown that inverse spectra complement each other additively to a constant intensity level. Since optical intensity in radiometric units is a power area density, it can be expected that energy densities of inverse spectra also fulfill an inversion equation and complement each other. In this contribution we report findings on a measurement of the power area density of inverse (...) spectra for the near ultraviolet, visible and the infrared spectral range. They show the existence of corresponding spectral regions ultra-yellow and infra-cyan in the inverted spectrum and thereby present additional experimental evidence for equivalence of inverse spectra beyond the visible range. (shrink)

Newtons experimentum crucis hat ein komplementares Gegenstück, d.h. ein Experiment, in dem die Rollen von Licht und Schatten genau ausgetauscht sind. Statt wie Newton in der Dunkelkammer zu experimentieren, müssen wir das Komplement des experimentum crucis in einer Streulichtkammer aufbauen (deren Wände sog. Lambertstrahler sind). Wenn es dieses umgestülpte Experiment wirklich gibt, dann liefert es für jeden newtonischen Beweis einen umgestülpten Gegenbeweis, dessen Konklusion die Heterogenitat der Schatten wäre (also die Behauptung, dass nicht weißes Licht, sondern schwarze Schatten eine heterogene (...) Mischung verschiedenfarbiger Strahlen mit unterschiedlichen Brechungseigenschaften seien). Dass Newtons experimentum crucis in diesem Sinne umgestülpt werden kann, wird von Newtons eigener Theorie impliziert. Mehr noch, inzwischen ist der empirische Nachweis der Umstülpung gelungen. (shrink)

This study ascertained reports of assent (affirmative agreement) and permission (agreement by an adult fully capable of being informed) in 114 children's research articles in 1990 in Child Development (CD), Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (JCCP), Journal of Pediatric Psychology, and Journal of Clinical Child Psychology. Of the research projects, 43% failed to specify permission, and 68.5% failed to specify assent. JCCP reported assent significantly more than CD. Assent was reported significantly more in research with older children than with (...) younger children. This lack of sensitivity to assent and permission suggests that many authors, reviewers, and editors consider reporting assent and permission unessential. We recommend specifying assent and permission in all manuscripts, highlighting children's research issues in graduate training, and using specific safeguards when conducting research with children. (shrink)

We share Roberts and Buckloh's (this issue) concern about issues of assent and permission in research with children and agree that our research cannot conclude legitimately that (a) researchers failed to obtain permission/assent, (b) children were put at risk, or (c) failure to report permission/assent procedures was, in any way, unethical. We never made these conclusions. Rather, we argue that publishing assent and permission would enhance compliance with ethical standards, sensitize researchers and readers to its importance, and shift publishing priorities (...) in an appropriate direction. (shrink)

We examined the attitudes of 600 students in large introductory algebra and psychology classes toward an actual or hypothetical cheating incident and the subsequent retake procedure. Overall, 57% of students in one class and 49Y0 in the other reported that they either cheated or would have cheated if given the opportunity. More men (59%) than women (53%) reported cheating or potential cheating. Students who had actually experienced a retake procedure to handle cheating were more satisfied with such a procedure than (...) others were about a hypothetical situation. Despite having a retake, cheaters were significantly more likely than noncheaters to predict that they would cheat again. Results suggest that instructors who require a retake following extensive cheating should devote class time to a discussion of the issue and all possible alternatives. (shrink)

On rationality, reason and criticism -- Arabs. ; Islamic philosophy of Muḥammad ʻĀbid Jābirī and Mohammed Arkoun.

Reputation is a key component in social interactions of group-living animals and appears to play a role in the establishment of cooperation. Animals can form a reputation of an individual by directly interacting with them or by observing them interact with a third party, i.e., eavesdropping. Elephants are an interesting taxon in which to investigate eavesdropping as they are highly cooperative, large-brained, long-lived terrestrial mammals with a complex social organisation. The aim of this study was to investigate whether captive Asian (...) elephants could form reputations of humans through indirect and/or direct experience in two different paradigms: a cooperative string-pulling task and a scenario requiring begging. Fourteen captive Asian elephants in Thailand participated in an experimental procedure that consisted of three parts: baseline, observation, and testing. In the observation phase, the subject saw a conspecific interact with two people—one cooperative/generous and one non-cooperative/selfish. The observer could then choose which person to approach in the test phase. The elephants were tested in a second session 2–5 days later. We found no support for the hypothesis that elephants can form reputations of humans through indirect or direct experience, but these results may be due to challenges with experimental design rather than a lack of capacity. We discuss how the results may be due to a potential lack of ecological validity in this study and the difficulty of assessing motivation and attentiveness in elephants. Furthermore, we highlight the importance of designing future experiments that account for the elephants' use of multimodal sensory information in their decision-making. (shrink)