Event-related desynchronization, as a proxy for mirror neuron activity, has been used as a neurophysiological marker for motor execution after mirror visual feedback. Using EEG, this study investigated ERD upon the immediate effects of single-session MVF in unimanual arm movements compared with the ERD effects occurring without a mirror, in two groups: stroke patients with left hemiplegia and their healthy counterparts. During EEG recordings, each group performed one session of mirror therapy training in three task conditions: with a mirror, with (...) no mirror, and with a covered mirror. An asymmetry index was calculated from the subtraction of the event-related spectrum perturbations between the C3 and C4 electrodes located over the sensorimotor cortices contralateral and ipsilateral to the moved arm. Results of the effect of task versus group in contralateral and ipsilateral motor areas showed that there was a significant effect of task condition at the contralateral motor area in the high beta band at C3. High beta ERD showed that the suppression was greater over the contralateral hemisphere than it was over the ipsilateral hemisphere in both study groups. The magnitude of low beta ERD in patients with stroke was more suppressed in contralesional C3 under the no mirror compared to that of the covered mirror and similarly more suppressed in ipsilesional C4 ERD under the no mirror compared to that of the mirror condition. The correlation analysis revealed that the magnitude of ERSP power correlated significantly with arm severity in the low and high beta bands in patients with stroke, and a higher asymmetry index in the low beta band was associated with higher arm functioning under the no-mirror condition. There was a shift in sensorimotor ERD toward the contralateral hemisphere as induced by MVF accompanying unimanual movement in both stroke patients and healthy controls. The use of ERD in the low beta band as a neurophysiological marker to indicate the relationships between the amount of MVF-induced ERD attenuation and motor severity, and the outcome indicator for improving stroke patients’ neuroplasticity in clinical trials using MVF are warranted to be explored in the future. (shrink)

Music can reduce stress and anxiety, enhance positive mood, and facilitate social bonding. However, little is known about the role of music and related personal or cultural variables in maintaining wellbeing during times of stress and social isolation as imposed by the COVID-19 crisis. In an online questionnaire, administered in 11 countries, participants rated the relevance of wellbeing goals during the pandemic, and the effectiveness of different activities in obtaining these goals. Music was found to be the most effective activity (...) for three out of five wellbeing goals: enjoyment, venting negative emotions, and self-connection. For diversion, music was equally good as entertainment, while it was second best to create a sense of togetherness, after socialization. This result was evident across different countries and gender, with minor effects of age on specific goals, and a clear effect of the importance of music in people's lives. Cultural effects were generally small and surfaced mainly in the use of music to obtain a sense of togetherness. Interestingly, culture moderated the use of negatively valenced and nostalgic music for those higher in distress. (shrink)

PurposeThis study aims to develop and validate a stigma scale for Chinese patients with breast cancer.MethodsPatients admitted to the Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University, for breast cancer treatment participated in this study. Development of the Breast Cancer Stigma Scale involved the following procedures: literature review, interview, and applying a theoretical model to generate items; the Breast Cancer Stigma Scale’s content validity was assessed by a Delphi study and feedback from patients with breast cancer ; (...) exploratory factor analysis was used to assess the construct validity; convergent validity was assessed with the Social Impact Scale ; internal consistency Cronbach’s α, split-half reliability, and test–retest reliability were used to identify the reliability of the scale.ResultsThe final version of the Breast Cancer Stigma Scale consisted of 15 items and showed positive correlations with the Social Impact Scale. Exploratory factor analysis revealed four components of the Breast Cancer Stigma Scale: self-image impairment, social isolation, discrimination, and internalized stigma, which were strongly related to our perceived breast cancer stigma model and accounted for 69.443% of the total variance. Cronbach’s α for the total scale was 0.86, and each subscale was 0.75–0.882. The test–retest reliability with intra-class correlation coefficients of the total scale was 0.947, and split-half reliability with intra-class correlation coefficients of the total scale was 0.911. The content validity index was 0.73–1.0.ConclusionThe newly developed Breast Cancer Stigma Scale offers a valid and reliable instrument for assessing the perceived stigma of patients with breast cancer in clinical and research settings. It may be helpful for stigma prevention in China. (shrink)

Kapitola X., Zánik středověku v které běží o otázku, zda je náš rytíř figurou potvrzující středověk. Don Quijote začíná jako retro-rytíř. Krámuje kusy brnění svých prarodičů. Jeho cíl je, zdá se, inspirován středověce. Ve středověku existovali rytíři, v době Dona Quijote již ne. Přesto se v tomto románu bezúspěšně pátrá po potvrzení věku zvaného „medium aevum“. Je tento věk potvrzen alespoň skrytě? Anebo zjistíme, podíváme-li se na jádro našeho caballero andante, že je jen středověkým převlekem pro opuštění středověku? Následující, zeširoka (...) pojatá „dřevořezba“, dává na tuto otázku jednoznačnou odpověď. (shrink)

al-mujallad 1. al-Sifr al-awwal min al-khalq ilá al-ḥaqq -- al-mujallad 2. al-Sifr al-thānī min al-khalq bi-al-ḥaqq fī al-ʻilm al-ṭabīʻī fī funūn sittah; al-Sifr al-thālith min al-ḥaqq ilá al-khalq bi-al-ḥaqq fī al-ʻilm al-ilāhī fī mawāqif ʻasharah; al-Sifr al-rābiʻ bi-al-ḥaqq fī al-khalq fī ʻilm al-nafs fī aḥad ʻashar bāban.

Monetary intelligence theory asserts that individuals apply their money attitude to frame critical concerns in the context and strategically select certain options to achieve financial goals and ultimate happiness. This study explores the dark side of monetary Intelligence and behavioral economics—dishonesty. Dishonesty, a risky prospect, involves cost–benefit analysis of self-interest. We frame good or bad barrels in the environmental context as a proxy of high or low probability of getting caught for dishonesty, respectively. We theorize: The magnitude and intensity of (...) the relationship between love of money and dishonest prospect may reveal how individuals frame dishonesty in the context of two levels of subjective norm—perceived corporate ethical values at the micro-level and Corruption Perceptions Index at the macro-level, collected from multiple sources. Based on 6382 managers in 31 geopolitical entities across six continents, our cross-level three-way interaction effect illustrates: As expected, managers in good barrels, mixed barrels, and bad barrels display low, medium, and high magnitude of dishonesty, respectively. With high CEV, the intensity is the same across cultures. With low CEV, the intensity of dishonesty is the highest in high CPI entities —the Enron Effect, but the lowest in low CPI entities. CPI has a strong impact on the magnitude of dishonesty, whereas CEV has a strong impact on the intensity of dishonesty. We demonstrate dishonesty in light of monetary values and two frames of social norm, revealing critical implications to the field of behavioral economics and business ethics. (shrink)

Corruption involves greed, money, and risky decision-making. We explore the love of money, pay satisfaction, probability of risk, and dishonesty across cultures. Avaricious monetary aspiration breeds unethicality. Prospect theory frames decisions in the gains-losses domain and high-low probability. Pay dissatisfaction (in the losses domain) incites dishonesty in the name of justice at the individual level. The Corruption Perceptions Index, CPI, signals a high-low probability of getting caught for dishonesty at the country level. We theorize that decision-makers adopt avaricious love-of-money aspiration (...) as a lens and frame dishonesty in the gains-losses domain (pay satisfaction-dissatisfaction, Level 1) and high-low probability (CPI, Level 2) to maximize expected utility and ultimate serenity. We challenge the myth: Pay satisfaction mitigates dishonesty across nations consistently. Based on 6500 managers in 32 countries, our cross-level three-dimensional visualization offers the following discoveries. Under high aspiration conditions, pay dissatisfaction excites the highest- (third-highest) avaricious justice-seeking dishonesty in high (medium) CPI nations, supporting the certainty effect. However, pay satisfaction provokes the second-highest avaricious opportunity-seizing dishonesty in low CPI entities, sustaining the possibility effect—maximizing expected utility. Under low aspiration conditions, high pay satisfaction consistently leads to low dishonesty, demonstrating risk aversion—achieving ultimate serenity. We expand prospect theory from a micro and individual-level theory to a cross-level theory of monetary wisdom across 32 nations. We enhance the S-shaped Curve to three 3-D corruption surfaces across three levels of the global economic pyramid, providing novel insights into behavioral economics, business ethics, the environment, and responsibility. (shrink)

Background: The factors influencing parents’ willingness to enroll their children in biobanks are poorly understood. This study sought to assess parents’ willingness to enroll their children, and their perceived benefits, concerns, and information needs under different consent and data-sharing scenarios, and to identify factors associated with willingness. Methods: This large, experimental survey of patients at the 11 eMERGE Network sites used a disproportionate stratified sampling scheme to enrich the sample with historically underrepresented groups. Participants were randomized to receive one of (...) three consent and data-sharing scenarios. Results: In total, 90,000 surveys were mailed and 13,000 individuals responded (15.8% response rate). 5737 respondents were parents of minor children. Overall, 55% (95% confidence interval 50–59%) of parents were willing to enroll their youngest minor child in a hypothetical biobank; willingness did not differ between consent and data-sharing scenarios. Lower educational attainment, higher religiosity, lower trust, worries about privacy, and attitudes about benefits, concerns, and information needs were independently associated with less willingness to allow their child to participate. Of parents who were willing to participate themselves, 25% were not willing to allow their child to participate. Being willing to participate but not willing to allow one’s child to participate was independently associated with multiple factors, including race, lower educational attainment, lower annual household income, public health care insurance, and higher religiosity. Conclusions: Fifty-five percent of parents were willing to allow their youngest minor child to participate in a hypothetical biobank. Building trust, protecting privacy, and addressing attitudes may increase enrollment and diversity in pediatric biobanks. (shrink)

Guidelines for a model bride in Islam based on Islamic teachings; includes stories of six exemplary Muslim wives during Prophet Muhammad's time.

Critical appreciation of an article on Islamic philosophy, by the founder of Ahmadiyyah sect; read at a gathering of religious scholars in Lahore in 1896.

daftar-i avval. Nishastʹhā va guftigūhā -- jild-i duvvum. Mabāḥis̲-i naẓarī, tārīkhī va kārburdī -- jild-i sivvum. Insān, imāmat, siyāsat -- jild-i chahārum. Akhlāq va siyāsat.

Islamic philosophy; Muslim theology; Islam; doctrines.

Keith Donnellan’s distinction between the attributive and referential uses of definite descriptions has spurred debates regarding the truth conditions of the utterance “the F is G” with definite descriptions used referentially. In this article, I present a semantic account of referential descriptions, grounded in the contextual factors of the utterance, including the speaker’s intention and presupposition as well as the interlocutor’s recognition of them. This account is called the IPR-semantic account, according to which the speaker’s intention (I), presupposition (P), and (...) the interlocutor's recognition (R) jointly determine whether “the F” in an utterance “the F is G” is used referentially or attributively, and the meaning of “the F” is determined by whether it is used referentially or attributively. Moreover, I argue that the meaning of the referential description “the F” is the intended object e, embodied with a property H that has prompted the speaker to presuppose that e is F and to intend to use “the F” to refer to e, as well as the interlocutor to recognize the presupposition and intention. According to the IPR-semantic account, the utterance “the F is G” with “the F” used referentially expresses a singular proposition, namely, that e is G, and it is true if and only if the intended object e is G. Additionally, I argue that the IPR-semantic account not only surpasses some alternative semantic accounts but also outperforms Kripke’s pragmatic account. (shrink)

Purpose: The cognitive effects of total sleep deprivation on the brain remain poorly understood. Electroencephalography is a very useful tool for detecting spontaneous brain activity in the resting state. Quasi-stable electrical distributions, known as microstates, carry useful information about the dynamics of large-scale brain networks. In this study, microstate analysis was used to study changes in brain activity after 24 h of total sleep deprivation.Participants and Methods: Twenty-seven healthy volunteers were recruited and underwent EEG scans before and after 24 h (...) of TSD. Microstate analysis was applied, and six microstate classes were identified. Topographies and temporal parameters of the microstates were compared between the rested wakefulness and TSD conditions.Results: Microstate class A showed lower global explained variance, frequency of occurrence, and time coverage in TSD than RW, whereas microstate class D displayed higher GEV, frequency of occurrence, and time coverage in TSD compared to RW. Moreover, subjective sleepiness was significantly negatively correlated with the microstate parameters of class A and positively correlated with the microstate parameters of class D. Transition analysis revealed that class B exhibited a higher probability of transition than did classes D and F in TSD compared to RW.Conclusion: The observation suggests alterations of the dynamic brain-state properties of TSD in healthy young male subjects, which may serve as system-level neural underpinnings for cognitive declines in sleep-deprived subjects. (shrink)

Das weit uber die Zeit seiner Abfassung und uber die Grenzen seines Entstehungslandes hinaus unter dem Namen "Qabusname" bekannte, literarisch wie kulturgeschichtlich bedeutsame Werk heisst wortlich "Buch der Ratschlage," persisch "nasihat-name." Sein Verfasser Kej Kawus wurde um 1021/22 n.Chr. geboren und genoss die fur die persischen Furstensohne seit Jahrhunderten vorgeschriebene Erziehung, bei der eine Synthese von ritterlichen und geistigen, vornehmlich religiosen Tugenden angestrebt wurde. Es handelt sich um eines der interessantesten und eigenartigsten Erzeugnisse der mittelalterlichen iranischen Literatur. Mit Recht werden (...) der intime Ton des Werks und die reizvolle Schlichtheit der hubschen Anekdoten sowie die auf Schmuck verzichtende Einfachheit der Erzahlkunst geruhmt. Die vorliegende Ubersetzung des "Qabusname" ist die erste in deutscher Sprache, die nach dem persischen Original vorgenommen wurde. Die einzige fruhere deutsche Ubersetzung des Orientalisten H. F. von Diez erfolgte aus dem Turkischen und wurde 1811 veroffentlicht. Schon Goethe beschaftigte sich bei seiner Begegnung mit dem klassischen Schrifttum der Perser unter der Fuhrung H. F. von Diez eindringlich mit dem Qabusname. Der Beziehung des Dichters zu diesem so bedeutsamen Stuck der persischen Literatur ist daher ein besonderes Kapitel gewidmet. (shrink)

al-Mujallad al-awwal. Muqaddimāt al-taḥqīq wa-muqaddimat al-Imām al-Zubaydī lil-Itḥāf -- al-mujallad al-thānī. Kitāb al-ʻIlm ilá nihāyat al-bāb al-thālith -- al-mujallad al-thālith. Tatimmat kitāb al-ʻilm min al-bāb al-rābiʻ ilá ākhir al-kitāb -- al-mujallad al-rābiʻ. Kitāb Qawāʻid al-ʻaqāʼid -- al-mujallad al-khāmis. Kitāb Asrār al-ṭahārah -- al-mujallad al-sādis. Kitāb Asrār al-ṣalāh ilá nihāyat shurūṭ al-jumʻah min al-bāb al-khāmis -- al-mujallad al-sābiʻ. Tatimmat kitāb asrār al-ṣalāh min ādāb al-jumʻah ilá ākhir al-kitāb -- al-mujallad al-thāmin. Kitābā Asrār al-zakāh wa-asrār al-ṣawm -- al-mujallad al- tāsiʻ. Kitāb asrār (...) al-ḥajj -- al-mujallad al-ʻāshir. Kitābā ādāb tilāwat al-Qurʼān wa-al-adhkār wa-al-daʻawāt -- al-mujallad al-ḥādī ʻashar. Kitābā tartīb al-awrād wa-tafḍīl iḥyāʼ al-layl wa-ādāb al-akl -- al-mujalladal-thānī ʻashar. Kitābā ādāb al-Nikāḥ wa-ādāb al-Kasb wa-al-maʻāsh -- al-mujallad al-thālith ʻashar. Kitāb al-Ḥalāl wa-al-ḥarām -- al-mujallad al-rābiʻ ʻashar. Kitāb al-Ulfah wa-al-ukhuwwah -- al-mujallad al-khāmis ʻashar. Kitābā ādāb al-ʻUzlah wa-ādāb al-Safar -- al-mujallad al-sādis ʻashar. Kitābā ādāb al-Samāʻ wa-al-wajd wa-al-Amr bi-al-maʻrūf wa-al-nahy ʻan al-munkar -- al-mujallad al-sābiʻ ʻashar. Kitābā ādāb al-maʻīshah wa-akhlāq al-nubūwah wa-sharḥ ʻajāʼib al-qalb -- al-mujallad al-thāmin ʻashar. Kitābā riyāḍat al-nafs wa-tahdhīb al-akhlāq wa-kasr al-shahwatayn -- al-mujallad al-tāsiʻ ʻashar. Kitābā āfāt al-lisān wa-dhamm al-ghaḍab -- al-mujallad al-ʻishrūn. Kitābā dhamm al-dunyā wa-dhamm al-bukhl -- al-mujallad al-ḥādī wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitābā dhamm al-jāh wa-dhamm al-kibr wa-al-ʻajab -- al-mujallad al-thānī wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitābā dhamm al-ghurūr wa-al-tawbah -- al-mujallad al-thālith wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitābā al-ṣabr wa-al-shukr -- al-mujallad al-rābiʻ wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitābā al-rajā wa-al-khawf -- al-mujallad al-khāmis wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitāb al-zuhd wa-al-faqr -- al-mujallad al-sādis wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitāb al-tawḥīd wa al-tawakkul -- al-mujallad al-sābiʻ wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitāb al-maḥabbah wa-al-shawq wa-al-uns wa-al-riḍā -- al-mujallad al-thāmin wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kutub al-ikhlāṣ wa-al-nīyah wa-al-murāqabah wa-al-muḥāsabah wa-al-tafakkur -- al-mujallad al- tāsiʻ wa-al-ʻishrūn. Kitāb dhikr al-mawt wa-mā baʻdih ilá nihāyat al-bāb al-thāmin -- al-mujallad al-thalāthūn. Kitāb dhikr al-mawt wa-mā baʻdih ilá ākhar al-kitāb wa-yalīhi maṣādir al-taḥqīq. (shrink)

Averroës, 1126-1198; Islamic philosophy.

Laughter as superiority -- The elements of laughter -- The one necessary thing -- Objections to the normative thesis -- Comic virtues and vices -- The social virtues -- The charismatic virtues -- Machine law -- Machine scholarship -- Machine art and machine cities -- The battle of the norms -- Resistance to laughter -- The sociability thesis -- Conclusion.

In describing the flawless regularity of developmental processes and the correlation between changes at certain genetic loci and changes in morphology, biologists frequently employ two metaphors: that genes ‘control’ development, and that genomes embody ‘programs’ for development. Although these metaphors have an admirable sharpness and punch, they lead, when taken literally, to highly distorted pictures of developmental processes. A more balanced, and useful, view of the role of genes in development is that they act as suppliers of the material needs (...) of development and, in some instances, as context‐dependent catalysts of cellular changes, rather than as ‘controllers’ of developmental progress and direction. The consequences of adopting this alternative view of development are discussed. (shrink)