Many traditional Mahayana, and modern Tibetan, Buddhist texts relate meditation attainment to psychic ability. This teaching served as the hypothesis—that more advanced meditators would choose a psi target correctly, significantly more often than beginners. A basic free-response design was used in which a computer programme (PreCOG) chose a target picture at random from a 4-picture set. There were 25 sets, all pictures of Tibet. PreCOG guided the participants through the procedure, in which they aimed to become aware of the target. (...) 18 participants, Tibetan monks, nuns and Western Buddhist meditators, completed 8 sessions each. Half the sessions used a clairvoyance, and half a precognition, protocol. Age and years of meditation practice correlated significantly with the psi scores (Pearson r = 0.52, p < 0.05). This suggests that, as one practices meditation, psychic awareness begins to manifest more reliably. This result was confounded by a non-significant psi-missing trend. There was no significant difference between the clairvoyance and precognition trials (t-diff (142) = 0.800). There was, however, significant psi-missing from the group of Rinpoches (t = -2.09, 2tail p < 0.05). The three participants who scored most strongly in the psi-missing direction all reported childhood memories of previous lives as monks in Tibet. Keywords: psychic awareness—Tibetan Buddhists—meditation. (shrink)

The relevance of nonlinear dynamics to calcium metabolism led us to reevaluate the role of Ca-regulating hormones in Ca homeostasis. We suggest that, firstly, the main Ca metabolic functions in rat-bone and gut - are organized as dynamic entities able to generate various temporal expressions, including self-oscillating patterns and, secondly, Ca homeostasis results from interaction between both metabolic and hormonal oscillators. Following this schema, a major role for the hormonal system, with its circadian pattern, could be to act directly on (...) metabolic functions or indirectly through feeding behaviour, in order to optimize, coordinate and synchronize the Ca fluxes at ECF level. (shrink)

Objective: To assess the adequacy of the process of informed consent for surgical patients at the University Hospital of the West Indies. Method: The study is a prospective, cross-sectional, descriptive study. 210 patients at the University Hospital of the West Indies were interviewed using a standardised investigator-administered questionnaire, developed by the authors, after obtaining witnessed, informed consent for participation in the study. Data were analysed using SPSS V.12 for Windows. Results: Of the patients, 39.4% were male. Of the surgical procedures, (...) 68.6% were scheduled, 7.6% urgent and 23.8% emergency, 35.2% were minor and 64.8% major. Information imparted/received was acceptable in 40% of cases, good in 24% and inadequate (unacceptable) in 36% of cases. Almost all (97.6%) patients stated that they understood why an operation was planned and 93.3% thought that they had given informed consent. Most (95.2%) thought that they had free choice and made up their own mind. A quarter (25.2%) of all patients were told that it was mandatory for them to sign the form. There was a discussion of possible side effects and complications in 56.7% of patients. Conclusions: This study clearly indicates that surgical patients at the University Hospital of the West Indies feel that they have given informed consent. However, it also suggests that more information should be given to patients for consent to be truly informed. (shrink)

The interaction between cavity modes and optical transitions leads to new coupled light-matter states in which the energy is periodically exchanged between the matter states and the optical mode. Here we present experimental evidence of optical strong coupling between modes of individual sub-wavelength metamaterial nanocavities and engineered optical transitions in semiconductor heterostructures. We show that this behaviour is generic by extending the results from the mid-infrared to the near-infrared. Using mid-infrared structures, we demonstrate that the light-matter coupling occurs at the (...) single resonator level and with extremely small interaction volumes. We calculate a mode volume of 4.9 × 10 from which we infer that only ~2,400 electrons per resonator participate in this energy exchange process. (shrink)

In the recent past, several papers have pointed to the possibility that tumour removal generates a permissive environment in which tumour growth is potentiated. This phenomenon has been coined “perioperative tumour growth” and whilst it represents a departure in terms of our attitude to the surgical process, this concept was first hinted at by Paget1Sir James Paget (1814–1899) was a surgeon and physiologist who is widely held (along with Rudolph Virchow) to be the father of the science of pathology. Paget (...) described Paget's disease of the nipple as well as Paget's disease of bone. himself. Despite this, the time interval immediately before and after cancer surgery (i.e. the perioperative period) remains an underutilised interval during which chemotherapeutic regimens are rarely implemented. Herein, we present a summarised review of the literature that supports the concept that tumour removal may potentiate the growth of residual neoplastic disease. We also outline current knowledge regarding underlying mechanisms and in this manner highlight potential therapeutic entry points. Finally, we emphasise the urgent need for trials of agents that could protect patients against the harmful host–tumour interactions that may occur during the perioperative period. BioEssays 28: 433–437, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In recent years, a series of key social, political and economic events has placed the critique of capitalism very much on the theoretical agenda. Responding to these developments, many have begun to express the need for a rapprochement between social criticism and the critique of political economy. The present essay represents a contribution to the recovery of the project that was once synonymous with critical theory itself via a critical engagement with the early writings of Jürgen Habermas. Not only is (...) Habermas’ explicit engagement with the critique of political economy among the most substantial to be found within the mainstream tradition of critical theory, his early social-theoretical insights into the emergent ‘primacy of the political’ in late capitalism can be taken as representative of a number of broader trends in late-20th-century thought which sought to go beyond the premises and categories of Marx’s economic works. Simply put, no reappraisal of the relationship between critical theory and the critique of political economy can succeed, I submit, without taking seriously Habermas’s path-breaking and wide-ranging innovations. (shrink)

The paper surveys the origins of chemical engineering in England in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It deals particularly with the recognition of the field as an independent discipline, its relations with chemistry and mechanical engineering, and the influence on its growth of industrial ‘demand’. The position of chemical engineering in public discourse, in the City and Guilds Central Institution, and at Imperial College of Science and Technology and University College London are discussed, together with the creation of (...) the Institution of Chemical Engineers in 1922. The idea that the discipline grew merely in response to the demands of industrial capitalists is rejected, and a variety of other interest groups is shown to have participated. (shrink)

Posidonivs was fortunate to be born in an age when the Romans had begun to recognize their own intellectual limitations, and had turned for guidance to a hitherto despised nation, admitted by themselves to be as much their superior in originality as it was inferior to them in practical matters. He was, moreover, the official exponent of a philosophical system which, destined as it was to exercise for hundreds of years the strongest moral influence over the world, had already taken (...) a firm hold on the more thoughtful minds at Rome. Probably any Greek teacher of ability had, in the time of Cicero, a good chance to make a name; Posidonius, who was a man of considerable intellectual gifts, great learning, and some originality, and who was, moreover, the accredited successor to Zeno and Chrysippus, obtained a reputation which lasted for some centuries. (shrink)

Throughout the world, Eastern European critical theory is enjoying a moderate, yet exciting, resurgence. From its oppositional roots in praxis philosophy and critical sociology, this diffuse and dynamic tradition has expanded its field of concern to encompass, among other problems, the aporias of democracy, the Holocaust and legacies of totalitarianism, the vicissitudes of modern culture and the ethical imperatives of living after the grand narrative. In the process, Eastern European thought has come to figure as a vital alternative to the (...) dominant tendencies emanating from Frankfurt and Paris. This essay surveys and introduces a collection of papers delivered at The International Conference of Marxist Critical Theory in Eastern Europe held in Chengdu, P.R.C., in November 2018. It both highlights the thematic range of contemporary scholarship on Eastern European critical theory and signals potential directions in future research. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 42 Heft: 1 Seiten: 298-298.

All of Freud's more recent writings extol the virtues of the scientific method. “The Future of an Illusion” ends with the definite suggestion that religious instruction be taken from the list of topics taught every child and that in its place children be taught to interpret reality in terms of natural science. A similar theme runs through “Civilization and its Discontents”; if there be any hope for humanity, it lies in the scientific method. Finally, Freud's “New Introductory Lectures” ends with (...) the following lines—lines which must be very reassuring to many admirers of Freud who have been somewhat discomfited by some of the recent highly speculative passages from his pen. (shrink)

The article is an interpretation of about the first half of chapter xi of part ii of "philosophical investigations". Wittgenstein is treated as having the single aim of arguing down the massive temptation to suppose that the expression 'to see...As...', And such similar expressions as 'to recognize', Record the occurrence of an experience distinct from the experience of simply seeing the object seen as or recognized. Ways are suggested of making a kind of sense of most of the very perplexing (...) remarks in this stretch of the "investigations". (shrink)

Is it possible to interfere with individual decision-making while preserving freedom of choice? The purpose of this article is to assess whether ‘libertarian paternalism’, a set of political and ethical principles derived from the observations of behavioural sciences, can form the basis of a viable framework for the ethical analysis of public health interventions. First, the article situates libertarian libertarianism within the broader context of the law and economics movement. The main tenets of the approach are then presented and particular (...) attention is given to its operationalization through the notion of a ‘nudge’. Essentially, a ‘nudge’ consists in an intervention, which aims to suggest one choice over another by gently steering individual choices in welfare-enhancing directions yet without imposing any significant limit on available choices. Finally, the article concludes that, while it fails as an overreaching framework of ethical analysis, libertarian paternalism nonetheless constitutes a valuable addition to the conceptual toolbox of public health ethics. (shrink)

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is the most likely site where egocentric spatial relationships are represented in the brain. PPC cells receive visual, auditory, somaesthetic, and vestibular sensory inputs; oculomotor, head, limb, and body motor signals; and strong motivational projections from the limbic system. Their discharge increases not only when an animal moves towards a sensory target, but also when it directs its attention to it. PPC lesions have the opposite effect: sensory inattention and neglect. The PPC does not seem (...) to contain a “map” of the location of objects in space but a distributed neural network for transforming one set of sensory vectors into other sensory reference frames or into various motor coordinate systems. Which set of transformation rules is used probably depends on attention, which selectively enhances the synapses needed for making a particular sensory comparison or aiming a particular movement. (shrink)

This collection of essays, addresses, and one interview come from the years 1966-73 and cover a wide spectrum of interest, dealing with such general topics as 'The Absence of God in Modern Culture' and 'The Future of Christianity.'.

Heath Robinson could perhaps draw a diagram that made sense of the legislative and regulatory structure Bonnicksen describes in this book. However Heath Robinson machines, no matter how baroque, actually achieve something: in the four years covered by this contemporary history the American “system” seems to have achieved very little. That we have not yet seen a confirmed cloned child produced in the USA or elsewhere does not seem due in any part to the activity that Bonnicksen describes. This is (...) not a history of America’s progress towards crafting a policy; it is an account of its failure to make one.The bulk of this book details the legal and regulatory responses to emerging reproductive technology in America following the announcement of the birth of Dolly the cloned lamb in 1997. The remainder gives an overview of the position of other countries around the world, and a brief concluding chapter outlines the options open to the US in the future. Lest anything that follows might suggest otherwise, I found this book interesting and informative, and …. (shrink)