212 research outputs found
In the name of democracy : the value of democracy explains leniency towards wrongdoings as a function of group political organization
According to the "democracy-as-value" hypothesis, democracy has become an ideological belief system providing social value to democratic individuals, groups and institutions, granting legitimacy to their actions (even if dishonest or violent), and protecting them from consecutive punishments. The present research investigates the extent to which this legitimizing process is based on the individual endorsement of democratic principles. Across four experiments, following the misdeed of a (few) group member(s), respondents who valued democratic group organization and democracy in general expressed more lenient retributive justice judgments towards democratic (as compared with nondemocratic) offender groups. These findings shed light on the ways in which democratic ideology infuses justice judgments
Collective punishment depends on collective responsibility and political organization of the target group
What factors determine the willingness to inflict collective punishment upon a group for a misdeed committed by individual group members? This research investigates the effect of collective responsibility shared among group members and the moderating effect of the group's political organization (democratic vs. nondemocratic). Hypothesizing that moral accountability should be greater for democratic offender groups compared to nondemocratic groups, five experiments showed that the positive effect of collective responsibility on support for collective punishment (Experiment 1) was stronger for democratic groups than for nondemocratic groups (Experiments 2-5). A sixth experiment revealed that the moral and social value ascribed to democracy led to higher expectations towards democratic groups, resulting in negative perceptions of the democratic offender group and ultimately in increased collective punishment. The results are discussed in terms of defense strategies of democratic values
The Sensitivity and Psychometric Properties of a Brief Computer-Based Cognitive Screening Battery in a Depression Clinic
At present, there is poor accuracy in assessing cognitive and vegetative symptoms in depression using clinician or self-rated measures, suggesting the need for development of standardized tasks to assess these functions. The current study assessed the psychometric properties and diagnostic specificity of a brief neuropsychological screening battery designed to assess core signs of depression; psychomotor retardation, attention and executive functioning difficulties, and impaired emotion perception within an outpatient psychiatry setting. Three hundred eighty-four patients with mood disorders and 77 healthy volunteers participated. A large percentage of patients met diagnostic criteria for Major Depressive Disorder alone (49%) or with another comorbid psychiatric disorder (24%). A brief, 25-min battery of computer-based tests was administered to control participants and patients measuring the constructs of inhibitory control, attention, visual perception, and both executive and visual processing speed. The patient groups performed significantly worse than the control group regardless of diagnosis on visual perception and attention accuracy and processing speed factors. Surprisingly, the anxiety disorder group performed better than several other psychiatric disorder groups in inhibitory control accuracy. Developing valid and reliable measures of cognitive signs in mood disorders creates excellent opportunities for tracking cognitive status prior to initiation of treatment, and allows for reliable retest following treatment
"Malignant" mitral stenosis
Symptomatic mitral stenosis caused by a left atrial mass as the first sign of metastasis of a malignant tumor is extremely rare and frequently associated with poor prognosis. We report a case of a 59-year-old man with a history of grade 3 malignant fibrous histiocytoma on his left tigh treated by limb-sparing surgery 17 months earlier, who was admitted with 10-days of worsening dyspnea. Imaging revealed a left atrial mass protruding through the mitral valve that resulted in severe mitral stenosis. Biopsy confirmed metastasis of malignant fibrous histiocytoma
Moment inversion problem for piecewise D-finite functions
We consider the problem of exact reconstruction of univariate functions with
jump discontinuities at unknown positions from their moments. These functions
are assumed to satisfy an a priori unknown linear homogeneous differential
equation with polynomial coefficients on each continuity interval. Therefore,
they may be specified by a finite amount of information. This reconstruction
problem has practical importance in Signal Processing and other applications.
It is somewhat of a ``folklore'' that the sequence of the moments of such
``piecewise D-finite''functions satisfies a linear recurrence relation of
bounded order and degree. We derive this recurrence relation explicitly. It
turns out that the coefficients of the differential operator which annihilates
every piece of the function, as well as the locations of the discontinuities,
appear in this recurrence in a precisely controlled manner. This leads to the
formulation of a generic algorithm for reconstructing a piecewise D-finite
function from its moments. We investigate the conditions for solvability of the
resulting linear systems in the general case, as well as analyze a few
particular examples. We provide results of numerical simulations for several
types of signals, which test the sensitivity of the proposed algorithm to
noise
Can we continue research in splenectomized dogs? Mycoplasma haemocanis: Old problem - New insight
We report the appearance of a Mycoplasma haemocanis infection in laboratory dogs, which has been reported previously, yet, never before in Europe. Outbreak of the disease was triggered by a splenectomy intended to prepare the dogs for a hemorrhagic shock study. The clinical course of the dogs was dramatic including anorexia and hemolytic anemia. Treatment included allogeneic transfusion, prednisone, and oxytetracycline. Systematic follow-up (n=12, blood smears, antibody testing and specific polymerase chain reaction) gives clear evidence that persistent eradication of M. haemocanis is unlikely. We, therefore, had to abandon the intended shock study. In the absence of effective surveillance and screening for M. haemocanis, the question arises whether it is prudent to continue shock research in splenectomized dogs. Copyright (C) 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel
Local modes, phonons, and mass transport in solid He
We propose a model to treat the local motion of atoms in solid He as a
local mode. In this model, the solid is assumed to be described by the Self
Consistent Harmonic approximation, combined with an array of local modes. We
show that in the bcc phase the atomic local motion is highly directional and
correlated, while in the hcp phase there is no such correlation. The correlated
motion in the bcc phase leads to a strong hybridization of the local modes with
the T phonon branch, which becomes much softer than that obtained
through a Self Consistent Harmonic calculation, in agreement with experiment.
In addition we predict a high energy excitation branch which is important for
self-diffusion. Both the hybridization and the presence of a high energy branch
are a consequence of the correlation, and appear only in the bcc phase. We
suggest that the local modes can play the role in mass transport usually
attributed to point defects (vacancies). Our approach offers a more overall
consistent picture than obtained using vacancies as the predominant point
defect. In particular, we show that our approach resolves the long standing
controversy regarding the contribution of point defects to the specific heat of
solid He.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure
CD4+FOXP3+ regulatory T cells are abundantly present in inflamed muscle of patients with juvenile dermatomyositis
Protection against glucose-induced neuronal death by NAAG and GCP II inhibition is regulated by mGluR3
Glutamate carboxypeptidase II (GCP II) inhibition has previously been shown to be protective against long-term neuropathy in diabetic animals. In the current study, we have determined that the GCP II inhibitor 2-(phosphonomethyl) pentanedioic acid (2-PMPA) is protective against glucose-induced programmed cell death (PCD) and neurite degeneration in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons in a cell culture model of diabetic neuropathy. In this model, inhibition of caspase activation is mediated through the group II metabotropic glutamate receptor, mGluR3. 2-PMPA neuroprotection is completely reversed by the mGluR3 antagonist (S)-α-ethylglutamic acid (EGLU). In contrast, group I and III mGluR inhibitors have no effect on 2-PMPA neuroprotection. Furthermore, we show that two mGluR3 agonists, the direct agonist (2 R ,4 R )-4-aminopyrrolidine-2, 4-dicarboxylate (APDC) and N -acetyl-aspartyl-glutamate (NAAG) provide protection to neurons exposed to high glucose conditions, consistent with the concept that 2-PMPA neuroprotection is mediated by increased NAAG activity. Inhibition of GCP II or mGluR3 may represent a novel mechanism to treat neuronal degeneration under high-glucose conditions.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65724/1/j.1471-4159.2003.02321.x.pd
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