Identity, Morality, and Threat offers a critical examination of the social psychological processes that generate outgroup devaluation and ingroup glorification as the source of conflict. Daniel Rothbart and Karyna Korostelina bring together essays analyzing the causal relationship between escalating violence and opposing images of the Self and Other.

In this essay, it is submitted that consent comes in degrees and the wrongfulness and harmfulness of conduct is contingent on the degree of voluntariness underwriting the particular consent decision. A fully free decision to consent changes the normative nature of the act: genuine gift-giving is not theft. Lovemaking is not rape. Partially free decisions to consent can change the nature of the act if it makes the act less harmful and thus less wrongful. Partial consent is not about claiming (...) that the conduct was partially justified, but rather about demonstrating the particular act was less harmful and thus deserving of a less serious crime label than is found in the label rape simpliciter. A second theme picked up in this essay is the issue of conditional consent. It is submitted that breaching a condition (conditions such as D is rich, D is a pacifist, D does not have HIV and so on) of consent to sexual intercourse will not change otherwise consensual nature of the sexual intercourse itself, but it may give rise to criminal liability for the collateral harm caused such as HIV infection. (shrink)

The most important issue remains: Whether attorneys should serve on HECs? Will they tend to inhibit the development of other discussions, ethical discussions, regarding the issues brought before the HEC? D. Niemira (17, p. 982) suggests that what a hospital needs is not necessarily an attorney to help in their ethical deliberations, but an ethicist. This suggestion should receive further analysis. What types of ethical deliberations to which attorneys have not been exposed in their legal training are important given the (...) broader attorney-role (beyond giving legal opinion) in HEC discussions?The pro-active attorney faces many challenges, both in the current setting (as cases are brought to the HEC) and as future questions are raised (due to innovations in medical technology). These questions remain unclarified by the courts. The nature of the attorney's role is ever challenging; he or she remains in a key position that is currently needed (regarding the uncharted areas of HEC decisionmaking) and important for the future (as new cases emerge and require extensive deliberations). (shrink)

Models of word meaning that exploit patterns of word usage across large text corpora to capture semantic relations, like the topic model and word2vec, condense word-by-context co-occurrence statistics to induce representations that organize words along semantically relevant dimensions (e.g., synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, etc.). However, their reliance on latent representations leaves them vulnerable to interference, makes them slow learners, and commits to a dual-systems account of episodic and semantic memory. We show how it is possible to construct the meaning of words (...) online during retrieval to avoid these limitations. We implement a spreading activation account of word meaning in an associative net, a one-layer highly recurrent network of associations, called a Dynamic-Eigen-Net, that we developed to address the limitations of earlier variants of associative nets when scaling up to deal with unstructured input domains like natural language text. We show that spreading activation using a one-hot coded Dynamic-Eigen-Net outperforms the topic model and reaches similar levels of performance as word2vec when predicting human free associations and word similarity ratings. Latent Semantic Analysis vectors reached similar levels of performance when constructed by applying dimensionality reduction to the Shifted Positive Pointwise Mutual Information but showed poorer predictability for free associations when using an entropy-based normalization. An analysis of the rate at which the Dynamic-Eigen-Net reaches asymptotic performance shows that it learns faster than word2vec. We argue in favor of the Dynamic-Eigen-Net as a fast learner, with a single-store, that is not subject to catastrophic interference. We present it as an alternative to instance models when delegating the induction of latent relationships to process assumptions instead of assumptions about representation. (shrink)

Growth mindset is an important aspect of children’s socioemotional development and is subject to change due to environmental influence. Orchestral music education may function as a fertile context in which to promote growth mindset; however, this education is not widely available to children facing economic hardship. This study examined whether participation in a program of orchestral music education was associated with higher levels of overall growth mindset and greater change in levels of musical growth mindset among children placed at risk (...) by poverty. After at least 2 years of orchestral participation, students reported significantly higher levels of overall growth mindset than their peers; participating students also reported statistically significant increases in musical growth mindset regardless of the number of years that they were enrolled in orchestral music education. These findings have implications for future research into specific pedagogical practices that may promote growth mindset in the context of orchestral music education and more generally for future studies of the extra-musical benefits of high-quality music education. (shrink)

In the past decades, reductionism has dominated both research directions and funding policies in clinical psychology and psychiatry. The intense search for the biological basis of mental disorders, however, has not resulted in conclusive reductionist explanations of psychopathology. Recently, network models have been proposed as an alternative framework for the analysis of mental disorders, in which mental disorders arise from the causal interplay between symptoms. In this target article, we show that this conceptualization can help explain why reductionist approaches in (...) psychiatry and clinical psychology are on the wrong track. First, symptom networks preclude the identification of a common cause of symptomatology with a neurobiological condition; in symptom networks, there is no such common cause. Second, symptom network relations depend on the content of mental states and, as such, feature intentionality. Third, the strength of network relations is highly likely to depend partially on cultural and historical contexts as well as external mechanisms in the environment. Taken together, these properties suggest that, if mental disorders are indeed networks of causally related symptoms, reductionist accounts cannot achieve the level of success associated with reductionist disease models in modern medicine. As an alternative strategy, we propose to interpret network structures in terms of D. C. Dennett's (1987) notion ofreal patterns, and suggest that, instead of being reducible to a biological basis, mental disorders feature biological and psychological factors that are deeply intertwined in feedback loops. This suggests that neither psychological nor biological levels can claim causal or explanatory priority, and that a holistic research strategy is necessary for progress in the study of mental disorders. (shrink)

What you need to know to take amazing photos—or shoot movies!—with your Nikon D300s camera This portable, full-color guide explains all essential controls, features, and functions of the Nikon D300s camera, including the exciting new D-Movie with auto-focus feature, 3-inch LCD screen, quiet shutter release, and external microphone for movie recording. You’ll find step-by-step instructions and invaluable tips and tricks to help you take your best stills or live action, whether you’re capturing portraits, candid shots, sports or travel images, or (...) macro photography. Shows you how to get the very most out of your new Nikon D300s digital camera Discusses in detail all the essential controls, features, and functions of the Nikon D300s, including the new D-Movie feature Provides step-by-step instructions and full-color images of each menu screen Explains not only how to adjust white balance, autofocus, exposure, and other settings, it explains when and why you should adjust these settings Gives you a thorough digital photography refresher on lighting and composition Shares valuable tips and tricks to help you capture amazing shots Shows you topic-specific secrets to capturing portraits, candid shots, sports or travel photos, macro photography, and others Now that you have a Nikon D300s, make sure you have a copy of the Nikon D300s Digital Field Guide! (shrink)

Progressive supranuclear palsy is a movement disorder with prominent tau neuropathology. Brain diseases with abnormal tau deposits are called tauopathies, the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease. Environmental causes of tauopathies include repetitive head trauma associated with some sports. To identify common genetic variation contributing to risk for tauopathies, we carried out a genome-wide association study of 1,114 individuals with PSP and 3,247 controls followed by a second stage in which we genotyped 1,051 cases and 3,560 controls for the (...) stage 1 SNPs that yielded P ≤ 10-3. We found significant previously unidentified signals associated with PSP risk at STX6, EIF2AK3 and MOBP. We confirmed two independent variants in MAPT affecting risk for PSP, one of which influences MAPT brain expression. The genes implicated encode proteins for vesicle-membrane fusion at the Golgi-endosomal interface, for the endoplasmic reticulum unfolded protein response and for a myelin structural component. © 2011 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Though virtually unknown before 1851, the exceptionally scenic Yosemite Valley of California soon attracted continuing attention as a geological anomaly. J. D. Whitney, state geologist and Harvard professor, advocated a tectonic theory of its origin. Despite its seemingly official status, Whitney's theory even failed to convince some of his own subordinates. An unexpectedly effective dissenter not associated with Whitney was John Muir, then a tatterdemalion vagrant. Though the two men never met, conflict between their inflexible and mutually exclusive geological theories (...) persisted well into the twentieth century. Eventually, both dogmatists were proved wrong, but Muir had come closer to what we now accept. Several geological and geomorphological issues of importance entered into later discussions of Yosemite. The whole controversy, moreover, illuminates such further issues as the influence of preconceptions on theorizing, the role of authority in science, and the interactions of professionals with amateurs. (shrink)

Can a bomb ever be "clean"? Are we relieved to be warned that there will be an " odor " when once we were told that something would "stink"? Or, to put it another way, when is a euphemism a mark of good taste and when is it a sign of verbal obfuscation? To answer such questions, D.J. Enright invited sixteen distinguished writers to ponder and explore the ubiquitous phenomenon of euphemism. The result is a delightful and provocative collection that (...) not only includes general reflections on euphemism and its history but also treats such specific categories as sex, death, and other natural functions; politics; the language of the great Christian texts; euphamisms spoken to and by children; the law; medicine; office life; and the jargon of official spokesmen, military communiques, and tyrants. Such writers as Diane Johnson, Robert Nisbet, John Gross, Robert Burchfield, and Joseph Epstein bring a variety of perspectives and sensibilities to bear on these topics. Because euphemisms are so intimate and integral to our thinking, any study of them is bound to throw light on the human condition, both past and present. In these essays, humor jostles horror and the homely alternates with the farfetched. Taken together they form an eloquent and often amusing testament to the richness of the subject. About the Author: D.J. Enright is a noted English poet and critic. He recently compiled and edited The Oxford Book of Death. (shrink)

A combination of social forces has thrown marriage into question in westernised societies at the end of the millennium. This uncertainty creates space for new ways of thinking about marriage. In this context, we examine the idea of marriage as friendship. We trace its genealogy in the work of Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor and then subject it to critical scrutiny using some of Michel de Montaigne’s ideas. We ask how applicable the ideal of higher friendship is (...) to marriage and what might be gained and lost by a synthesis of marriage and friendship. Grounding the discussion in historical sources is valuable because the topic is so little explored in the contemporary philosophical literature. This approach also allows any enduring value in these historical texts to be elicited. (shrink)