Sloth: America\u27s Ironic Structural Vice

Individualism is a popular cultural trope in the United States, often touted for its promotion of industriousness and rejection of laziness. This essay argues that, ironically, America\u27s brand of individualism actually promotes a more fundamental form of the very vice it purports to oppose. To make this case, the essay defines the unique form of individualism in the United States and then retrieves the classical definition of sloth as a vice against charity (not diligence), contrasting Aquinas and Barth with Weber to demonstrate that this peculiarly American individualist impulse undermines civic charity by reaping the benefits of civic relationships while denying any concomitant responsibilities. Identifying this narrative of individualism as a structural vice, the essay proposes structural remedies for reinvigorating civic charity, solidarity, and the common good in the United States

Competition-related factors directly influence preferences for facial cues of dominance in allies

Alliance formation is a critical dimension of social intelligence in political, social and biological systems. As some allies may provide greater ‘leverage’ than others during social conflict, the cognitive architecture that supports alliance formation in humans may be shaped by recent experience, for example in light of the outcomes of violent or non-violent forms intrasexual competition. Here we used experimental priming techniques to explore this issue. Consistent with our predictions, while men’s preference for dominant allies strengthened following losses (compared to victories) in violent intrasexual contests, women’s preferences for dominant allies weakened following losses (compared to victories) in violent intrasexual contests. Our findings suggest that while men may prefer dominant (i.e. masculine) allies following losses in violent confrontation in order to facilitate successful resource competition, women may ‘tend and befriend’ following this scenario and seek support from prosocial (i.e. feminine) allies and/or avoid the potential costs of dominant allies as long-term social partners. Moreover, they demonstrate facultative responses to signals related to dominance in allies, which may shape sex differences in sociality in light of recent experience and suggest that intrasexual selection has shaped social intelligence in humans

Application of electronic and physical techniques to the study of short range atmospheric dispersion and related topics

Novel instrumental techniques have been conceived, developed and in one case, patented, which were employed to investigate various aspects of atmospheric dispersion and related topics. The first technique made use of unipolarly ionised air as the tracer 'material', and the results obtained formed the earliest direct experimental evidence of significant concentration fluctuations in vapour/particulate clouds dispersing in the lower atmosphere. Fluctuations are important because they are critical in determining the physiological response associated with exposures to toxic substances and those of importance in malodour nuisance. Later developments in technique included precision control of the unipolar ion current released; these were sufficiently novel to secure a patent. Subsequent innovations involved the development and substantial modification of an existing gas detection method to render its performance fully acceptable for pollution monitoring. This advance led to the invention of the UVIC® detector, described in Volume II, and generated the numerous patent applications referenced therein. Several papers discuss the nature and implications of the information obtained using the experimental methods developed. Examples are the open terrain atmospheric dispersion experiments and analyses, the work on insect pheromones and that on dispersion around an isolated building. From these papers, notably the first, the full impact of concentration fluctuations on the assessment of risks associated with exposure to toxic substances began to emerge. Two papers are included on the investigation of electric field effects arising from factory chimney plumes. Prior to publication, the existence of this phenomenon was not recognised. Papers on the use of electrically charged aerosols for improving deposition efficiency in crop spraying and on the examination of the effects of electrical charging on the behaviour of mildew spores, demonstrate the application of electrical techniques to novel areas of research. It is shown that the method may also have utility for wind tunnel investigations

Mining topological relations from the web

Topological relations between geographic regions are of interest in many applications. When the exact boundaries of regions are not available, such relations can be established by analysing natural language information from web documents. In particular we demonstrate how redundancy-based techniques can be used to acquire containment and adjacency relations, and how fuzzy spatial reasoning can be employed to maintain the consistency of the resulting knowledge base

A sex difference in the context-sensitivity of dominance perceptions

Although dominance perceptions are thought to be important for effective social interaction, their primary function is unclear. One possibility is that they simply function to identify individuals who are capable of inflicting substantial physical harm, so that the perceiver can respond to them in ways that maximize their own physical safety. Another possibility is that they are more specialized, functioning primarily to facilitate effective direct (i.e., violent) intrasexual competition for mates, particularly among men. Here we used a priming paradigm to investigate these two possibilities. Facial cues of dominance were more salient to women after they had been primed with images of angry men, a manipulation known to activate particularly strong self-protection motivations, than after they had been primed with images of angry women or smiling individuals of either sex. By contrast, dominance cues were more salient to men after they had been primed with images of women than when they had been primed with images of men (regardless of the emotional expressions displayed), a manipulation previously shown to alter men's impressions of the sex ratio of the local population. Thus, men's dominance perceptions appear to be specialized for effective direct competition for mates, while women's dominance perceptions may function to maximize their physical safety more generally. Together, our results suggest that men's and women's dominance perceptions show different patterns of context-sensitivity and, potentially, shed new light on the routes through which violence and intrasexual competition have shaped dominance perceptions

On the stability analysis of periodic sine-Gordon traveling waves

We study the spectral stability properties of periodic traveling waves in the sine-Gordon equation, including waves of both subluminal and superluminal propagation velocities as well as waves of both librational and rotational types. We prove that only subluminal rotational waves are spectrally stable and establish exponential instability in the other three cases. Our proof corrects a frequently cited one given by Scott.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure

Reducing low birth weight: prioritizing action to address modifiable risk factors

Background Low birth weight (LBW) affects 6.9% of all UK births and has remained largely unchanged for many years. The United Nations and theWorld Health Assembly have set targets to substantially reduce global incidence. Understanding the contribution of modifiable risk factors to the burden of LBW is required to ensure appropriate interventions are in place to achieve this reduction. Methods Data from published studies on the risks from key modifiable factors were used alongside prevalence data from theWelsh population to calculate the population attributable risk for each factor individually and in combination. Results Fourteen risk factors accounted for nearly half of LBW births, and 60% of those to younger mothers (,25 years). Tobacco smoke exposure was the largest contributor.We estimated that smoking in pregnancy was a factor in one in eight LBW births, increasing to one in five for women aged under 25. Conclusions Risk factors are interrelated and inequitably distributed within the population. Exposure to one factor increases the likelihood of exposure to a constellation of factors further increasing risk. Action to address LBW must consider groups where the risk factors are most prevalent and address these risk factors together using multi-component interventions