Book Note: Law, Psychology, And Morality: The Role Of Loss Aversion, by Eyal Zamir

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY, as a descriptive theory of human behaviour, claims that individuals seek to maximize their expected well-being.2 But cognitive psychologists have shown this to be false through experimental and empirical research.3 Instead, human behaviour is predictably subject to cognitive biases, resulting in judgments and decisions considered “irrational” by rational choice theorists. One such bias is loss aversion, whereby people prefer not losing some good over gaining a good of equal value.4 In Law, Psychology, and Morality: The Role of Loss Aversion, Eyal Zamir argues that loss aversion provides a partial explanation for many features of human behaviour within legal contexts and procedural and substantive legal principles

Perception of Relations in Reading

The present study deals with the measurement of intelligence on the college level by means of a new type of test employing the medium of reading comprehension. The test was first described by Dr. D. D. Feder at the 1934 meeting of this group. Basic to the new approach is the hypothesis that intelligence is manifested in the ability to perceive relationships in problem situations. In accordance with this hypothesis, individual differences in reading comprehension are due to variations in ability to perceive interrelationships of ideas in reading materials. The new reading test assumes that there are gradations of comprehension which may range from superficial acquaintance with some factual detail, to a deep integration from which the individual extracts fundamental principles. In contrast with the shallow sampling of material characteristic of the usual objective test, the Reading Comprehension Maturity test (or simply RCM) covers a narrower field, but attempts to measure particularly the depth of understanding and integration of given material

Invariant critical sets of conserved quantities

For a dynamical system we will construct various invariant sets starting from its conserved quantities. We will give conditions under which certain solutions of a nonlinear system are also solutions for a simpler dynamical system, for example when they are solutions for a linear dynamical system. We will apply these results to the example of Toda lattice

A Targeted Therapeutic Rescues Botulinum Toxin-A Poisoned Neurons

Botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT), a Category A biothreat agent, is the most potent poison known to mankind. Currently no antidote is available to rescue poisoned synapses. BoNT acts specifically by blocking neurotransmission primarily at peripheral nerve-muscle junctions causing severe flaccid muscle paralysis, which is fatal if proper medical care is not provided. The neurotoxin acts by specifically entering the presynaptic nerve endings where it interferes with the biochemical machinery involved in the process of neurotransmitter release, i.e., neuroexocytosis. Most serotypes of BoNT are known to remain active for weeks to months after entering the nerves, but BoNT/A is the most potent and long lasting in causing muscle paralysis. An effective medical countermeasure strategy requires developing a drug that could rescue poisoned neuromuscular synapses, and would include its efficient delivery specifically to presynaptic nerve terminals. Here we report rescuing of botulinum poisoned nerve cells by Mastoparan-7 (Mas-7), a peptide constituent of bee venom, that was delivered through a drug delivery vehicle (DDV) constructed from the non-toxic fragment of botulinum neurotoxin itself. We found that Mas-7 that was delivered into BoNT/A intoxicated cultured mouse spinal cord cells restored over 40% of stimulated neurotransmitter release. The rescue of the cell poisoning did not occur from inhibition of the endopeptidase activity of BoNT/A against its well known substrate, SNAP-25 that is mechanistically involved in the exocytosis process. Rather, Mas-7 induced a physiological host response apparently unrelated to SNAP-25, but linked to the phospholipase signal transduction pathway. In addition to providing the first effective antidote against botulism, our results open new avenues to study the mechanism of exocytosis, and also to examine an alternative cellular mechanism of botulinum neurotoxin action. An effective BoNT-based DDV can also be utilized for drug delivery against many neuronal and neuromuscular disorders

Bill Burns : Beatrix Ruf Protect Us : A Project About Longing

"Beatrix Ruf Protect Us: A Project About Longing brings together Bill Burns’ recent works dealing with longing, particularly longing for success, for assistance, for recognition, for a different type of world. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Burns makes overt pleas to art world celebrities, critiquing the political system that supports them. The solo exhibition will be comprised of several bodies of work, including the watercolour painting series A Brownnoser’s Story; small scale models of the world’s great museums with signs spelling out his request to the powerbrokers on top of the roofs; and bobbleheads of famous art world curators, in addition to other 2D works, sculptures and video pieces. Of the exhibition, Burns writes: "Beatrix Ruf Protect Us deploys a strategy of radical banality along with playing possum, known in animal behaviour as thanatosis. Thanatosis is a form of self-mimicry whereby the animal mimic imitates itself in a dead state. Here I am asking for deliverance and intercession." Beatrix Ruf Protect Us: A Project About Longing will tour across Canada in 2015-18, and will be accompanied by a publication co-produced by Dunlop Art Gallery, Rodman Hall Art Centre, and YYZ Books. Bill Burns was born in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1957 and has lived and worked as an artist in Toronto, Canada and London, England. His work has been exhibited in major museums and biennial exhibitions since the 1990s." -- Publisher's website

Polysomnography in stable COPD under non-invasive ventilation to reduce patient-ventilator asynchrony and morning breathlessness

Background: Stable severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients with chronic hypercapnic respiratory failure treated by nocturnal bi-level positive pressure non-invasive ventilation (NIV) may experience severe morning deventilation dyspnea. We hypothesised that in these patients, progressive hyperinflation, resulting from inappropriate ventilator settings, leads to patient-ventilator asynchrony (PVA) with a high rate of unrewarded inspiratory efforts and morning discomfort. Methods: Polysomnography (PSG), diaphragm electromyogram and transcutaneous capnography (PtcCO2) under NIV during two consecutive nights using baseline ventilator settings on the first night, then, during the second night, adjustment of ventilator parameters under PSG with assessment of impact of settings changes on sleep, patient-ventilator synchronisation, morning arterial blood gases and morning dyspnea. Results: Eight patients (61 ± 8years, FEV1 30 ± 8% predicted, residual volume 210 ± 30% predicted) were included. In all patients, pressure support was decreased during setting adjustments, as well as tidal volume, while respiratory rate increased without any deleterious effect on nocturnal PtcCO2 or morning PaCO2. PVA index, initially high (40 ± 30%) during the baseline night, decreased significantly after adjusting ventilator settings (p = 0.0009), as well as subjective perception of PVA leaks, and morning dyspnea while quality of sleep improved. Conclusion: The subgroup of COPD patients treated by home NIV, who present marked deventilation dyspnea and unrewarded efforts may benefit from adjustment of ventilator settings under PSG or polygraph

Nonlinear Electromagnetic Waves in Magnetosphere of a Magnetar

We compute electromagnetic wave propagation through the magnetosphere of a magnetar. The magnetosphere is modeled as the QED vacuum and a cold, strongly magnetized plasma. The background field and electromagnetic waves are treated nonperturbatively and can be arbitrarily strong. This technique is particularly useful for examining non-linear effects in propagating waves. Waves travelling through such a medium typically form shocks; on the other hand we focus on the possible existence of waves that travel without evolving. Therefore, in order to examine the nonlinear effects, we make a travelling wave ansatz and numerically explore the resulting wave equations. We discover a class of solutions in a homogeneous plasma which are stabilized against forming shocks by exciting nonorthogonal components which exhibit strong nonlinear behaviour. These waves may be an important part of the energy transmission processes near pulsars and magnetars.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, edited for clarity and references added, version accepted for publication by MNRA

HBT: A (mostly) experimental overview

I will present a review of the field of Hanbury Brown-Twiss interferometry in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The "HBT puzzle" is explored in detail, emphasizing recent theoretical attempts to understand the persisting puzzle. I also present recent experimental results on azimuthally sensitive HBT, HBT of direct photons, and some surprises in the comparison of HBT results from p+p and Au+Au collisions at RHIC.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures. Proceedings of the Quark Matter 2004 conference (Oalkland, CA, USA, January 2004

SERVIR-Africa: Developing an Integrated Platform for Floods Disaster Management in Africa

SERVIR-Africa is an ambitious regional visualization and monitoring system that integrates remotely sensed data with predictive models and field-based data to monitor ecological processes and respond to natural disasters. It aims addressing societal benefits including floods and turning data into actionable information for decision-makers. Floods are exogenous disasters that affect many parts of Africa, probably second only to drought in terms of social-economic losses. This paper looks at SERVIR-Africa's approach to floods disaster management through establishment of an integrated platform, floods prediction models, post-event flood mapping and monitoring as well as flood maps dissemination in support of flood disaster management