Science and Consciousness Just Wed: Should This Union Be Annulled?

If science relates only to the objectifiable, how can it relate to consciousness?

Lawrence LeShan’s Clairvoyant Reality as William James’ Revelation of Veridical Reality

The “Clairvoyant Reality” of pioneering psychologist Lawrence LeShan and medium Eileen Garrett, reprinted here in honor of LeShan’s recent passing at age 100, may well be the understanding of “veridical reality” that James proclaimed would not be found “in this generation or the next”

Thermoregulation and behavior of a peripheral population of evening bats (\u3ci\u3enycticeius humeralis\u3c/i\u3e)

I used temperature-sensitive radio transmitters to measure body temperatures of tree-roosting evening bats (Nycticeius humeralis) at the northern edge of their range in Lenawee Co., Michigan. Temperature at sunset, diurnal temperature, and nocturnal temperature significantly correlated with use of torpor, whereas ambient temperature at sunset of the previous night, temperature at sunrise, amount of precipitation, abundance of insects, roost type, number of roost-mates, reproductive condition, and age did not. An analysis of individuals roosting in the same tree on the same day suggested that additional factors might determine exactly how low and for how long bats adjust their body temperatures. I also recorded nocturnal activity at the roost with a video recorder and receiver-logger and constructed an ethogram of seven behaviors associated with entering or emerging. Evening bats spent only 144 ± 114 (SD) min foraging each night, which is less than other species of bats

TOZAL Study: An open case control study of an oral antioxidant and omega-3 supplement for dry AMD

BACKGROUND: The primary objective of this prospective study was to measure the change from baseline in visual function – Best-Corrected Visual Acuity (BCVA) via the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) chart, contrast sensitivity, central 10 degree visual fields and retinal imaging (angiograms and photographs) at 6 months in subjects with atrophic (dry) age-related macular degeneration treated with a targeted nutritional supplement. METHODS: 37 mixed gender patients with a mean age of 76.3 +/- 7.8 years were enrolled at 5 independent study sites and received standard of care with a novel formulation of a nutritional supplement. Results were compared to a placebo cohort constructed from the literature that was matched for inclusion and exclusion criteria. A paired t-test was used to test a null hypothesis and a two-sided alpha level of 0.05 was used to determine statistical significance. RESULTS: 76.7% of subjects receiving the nutritional supplement demonstrated stabilization or improvement of BCVA at 6 months. Subjects gained an average of 0.0541 logMAR or one-half of a line of visual acuity (VA) over the 6-month period. There was a statistically significant improvement in VA from baseline with P = .045. The results provide strong evidence that the treatment being studied produces an improvement in VA. CONCLUSION: Treatment with this unique nutritional supplement increased VA above the expected baseline decrease in the majority of patients in this population with dry macular degeneration. The results of the TOZAL study agree with the LAST and CARMIS studies and are predictive for positive visual acuity outcomes in the AREDS II trial. However, patients will likely require supplementation for longer than 6 months to effect changes in additional visual parameters

語用論的指導と日本人EFL学習者の挨拶ルーティンの使用

College-level English as a foreign language (EFL) students in Japan typically have six years of English language instruction in the form of rote memorization, grammar practice, and exposure to limited patterns of expression (Ishihara & Cohen, 2010). This language instruction often depends on textbooks to introduce vocabulary, grammatical forms, and communication strategies. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been investigated as a way to enhance the EFL classroom approach to address aspects of theories of second language acquisition, such as the Input Hypothesis (Krashen, 1981), Learner Strategies (Tarone & Yule, 1989), and the role of formal instruction (Ellis, 1995). CLT was developed as a way to address certain aspects of communicative competence that have plagued EFL classrooms. These problems are seen in EFL classrooms in Japan as the inability to communicate competently in English. Recent trends in language instruction in Japan have been to use CLT to enhance the classroom experience in High School. Indeed, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) has identified language-use situations and functions that are necessary for good communication abilities (MEXT, 2011). Unfortunately, studies looking at CLT show no evidence of improvements (Humphries, Burns, & Tanaka, 2015). This dissertation reports the findings of a study on the effectiveness of pragmatic instruction in helping Japanese students competently greet and respond to greetings in American English. Methods in the instruction and assessment of language functions and language-use situations are also investigated in this research. It is hypothesized in this dissertation that proper instructions in pragmatic rules supported by comprehensive assessment that frame CLT methodology will greatly enhance the learning experience and produce the improvements sought after in the EFL classroom. In the main study, a pilot study, and various quasi-experiments, students were placed in situations where the greeting speech act should occur; their participation was recorded in an applied production oral performance. All the students in the main study were given a computer-based pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest that included a variety of questions designed to evaluate general greeting practices as well as the use of various expressions and their appropriateness in different contexts. The students were also asked to demonstrate some awareness of the differences and importance of practicing greetings in questionnaire responses that followed the study. The treatment groups were given either implicit pragmatic instruction in the form of structured input based and awareness-raising tasks or explicit pragmatic instruction along with structured input based and awareness-raising tasks (Ellis, 2003). The data collected served to better understand the role that pragmatic instruction and assessment can play in the EFL classroom in Japan. To this end, phenomena were identified that can affect the use of certain greeting practices and within assessment procedures, one of which is a micro-greeting (Zeff, 2017). A reallife scenario assessment strategy, in the form of an applied production test, was developed to help understand communicative competence in American greetings, and tasks for teaching the greeting speech act were advanced. A communicatively competent person should be able to greet someone in an appropriate manner in the target language. Without this skill, it is difficult to appear competent. The dissertation includes data findings and an analytical discussion that explore this idea of language acquisition and how pragmatic instruction and speech act theory fits into core L2 education goals (Norris & Ortega, 2000)

Dan Bricklin's page-garden.

Londoniv, 203 p.: illus.; 21 cm