On Protosocialist Nations

Few questions are of greater importance for our species than those relating to the nature of the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and other societies emerging from the historic revolutions of the twentieth century. Are these models for a brighter, happier, and more humane future? Or are they threats to all that is good and decent about humanity? The answers to such questions necessarily affect our views on all political questions, from Star Wars and the arms race to U.S. intervention in Central America

Effectiveness of an expert system for teaching casting defect diagnosis in engineering and technical education

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a significant difference in the amount of technical subject matter learned during a fixed period of instruction by students working with a computer expert system and students working with human experts from a technical field. All students participating in the study were enrolled in a manufacturing processes course at Oregon State University during the spring term, 1986, and, as part of the course were learning to diagnose defective castings. Prior to the experiment, students were given initial instruction in casting processes and randomly divided into two experimental groups for treatment. The students in Group I completed a laboratory exercise that provided opportunity for hands-on practice diagnosing defective castings. They were given access to a laboratory instruction manual and allowed to ask for assistance from two individuals who were present, both experts in casting processes . Students in Group II completed the same exercise with the same defective castings and lab instruction manuals. They were not, however, given access to human experts; they instead worked with a computer expert system, TELECAST, that interacts with the user and provides diagnoses for defective castings. Students' knowledge of casting defect diagnosis was evaluated with a test instrument prior to the treatment and again following treatment. The analysis of covariance was the statistical tool used to analyze the test results. Statistical analysis revealed there was no difference in the amount learned by the two groups of students (calculated F = .002). The TELECAST expert system proved to be no more and no less effective than the human experts at effecting learning

Conversion Matrix Method of Moments for Time-Varying Electromagnetic Analysis

A conversion matrix approach to solving network problems involving time-varying circuit components is applied to the method of moments for electromagnetic scattering analysis. Detailed formulations of this technique's application to the scattering analysis of structures loaded with time-varying circuit networks or constructed from general time-varying media are presented. The computational cost of the method is discussed, along with an analysis of compression techniques capable of significantly reducing computational cost for partially loaded systems. Several numerical examples demonstrate the capabilities of the technique along with its validation against conventional methods of modeling time-varying electromagnetic systems, such as finite difference time domain and transient circuit co-simulation.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figure

Prevalence of Child Malnutrition in North Kivu, DRC: Evidence from Bunyuka Parish

Sub-Saharan Africa is the second most undernourished region in the world, with an estimated 265 million people in 2009. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has the highest percentage of undernourished people in the region, 75% from 2004 to 2006. The Kivu region in Eastern DRC, in particular, has suffered through decades of conflict and lack of security and infrastructure obstruct data collection in this region. The main contribution of this paper is to present primary survey evidence on the prevalence of malnutrition in the village of Bunyuka in North Kivu. From a sample of over 700 mothers and 1400 children, we find significant prevalence of malnutrition and high dependence on nutritionally deficient food sources

The adaptive significance of cultural behavior: Comments and reply

Fundamentally, theoretically, there is only one process underlying genetic and cultural evolution: natural selection. Organism fitness-enhancement (“adaptive significance”) is one of its practical mechanisms; group formation and maintenance is another, often but not always through fitness-enhancement; and need-fulfillment is still another. If Durham can accept that formulation, and switch from “organism-thinking” to “instruction-thinking” (Cloak, 1975: 178), he will free himself from two handicaps: First, he can forget his worries about “reductionism” and “determinism” (1976a: 100, 101). Under this general theory of natural selection, cultural evolution is biological evolution, continued by “other” (nongenetic) means. Second, he will spare himself the appearance of anthropomorphism, mentalism, and wishy-washiness attendant on his discussion of kinds of “significance,” other than adaptive “significance,” of cultural behaviors (1976a: 102–106, 115).Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44494/1/10745_2005_Article_BF01880258.pd

Potential of essential fatty acid deficiency with extremely low fat diet in lipoprotein lipase deficiency during pregnancy: A case report

BACKGROUND: Pregnancy in patients with lipoprotein lipase deficiency is associated with high risk of maternal pancreatitis and fetal death. A very low fat diet (< 10% of calories) is the primary treatment modality for the prevention of acute pancreatitis, a rare but potentially serious complication of severe hypertriglyceridemia. Since pregnancy can exacerbate hypertriglyceridemia in the genetic absence of lipoprotein lipase, a further reduction of dietary fat intake to < 1–2% of total caloric intake may be required during the pregnancy, along with the administration of a fibrate. It is uncertain if essential fatty acid deficiency will develop in the mother and fetus with this extremely low fat diet, or whether fibrates will cross the placenta and concentrate in the fetus. CASE PRESENTATION: A 23 year-old gravida 1 woman with primary lipoprotein lipase deficiency was seen at 7 weeks of gestation in the Lipid Clinic for management of severe hypertriglyceridemia that had worsened with pregnancy. While on her habitual fat intake of 10% of total calories, her pregnancy resulted in an exacerbation of the hypertriglyceridemia, which prompted further restriction of fat intake to < 2% of total calories, as well as administration of gemfibrozil at a lower than average dose. The level of gemfibrozil, as the active metabolite, in the venous and arterial fetal cord blood was within the expected therapeutic range for adults. The clinical signs and a biomarker of essential fatty acid deficiency, namely the ratio of 20:3 [n-9] to 20:4 [n-6] fatty acids, were closely monitored throughout her pregnancy. Despite her extremely low fat diet, the levels of essential fatty acids measured in the mother and in the fetal blood immediately postpartum were normal. Normal essential fatty acid levels may have been achieved by the topical application of sunflower oil. CONCLUSIONS: An extremely low fat diet in combination with topical sunflower oil and gemfibrozil administration was safely implemented in pregnancy associated with the severe hypertriglyceridemia of lipoprotein lipase deficiency

Maternal High Fat Diet Is Associated with Decreased Plasma n–3 Fatty Acids and Fetal Hepatic Apoptosis in Nonhuman Primates

To begin to understand the contributions of maternal obesity and over-nutrition to human development and the early origins of obesity, we utilized a non-human primate model to investigate the effects of maternal high-fat feeding and obesity on breast milk, maternal and fetal plasma fatty acid composition and fetal hepatic development. While the high-fat diet (HFD) contained equivalent levels of n-3 fatty acids (FA's) and higher levels of n-6 FA's than the control diet (CTR), we found significant decreases in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and total n-3 FA's in HFD maternal and fetal plasma. Furthermore, the HFD fetal plasma n-6∶n-3 ratio was elevated and was significantly correlated to the maternal plasma n-6∶n-3 ratio and maternal hyperinsulinemia. Hepatic apoptosis was also increased in the HFD fetal liver. Switching HFD females to a CTR diet during a subsequent pregnancy normalized fetal DHA, n-3 FA's and fetal hepatic apoptosis to CTR levels. Breast milk from HFD dams contained lower levels of eicosopentanoic acid (EPA) and DHA and lower levels of total protein than CTR breast milk. This study links chronic maternal consumption of a HFD with fetal hepatic apoptosis and suggests that a potentially pathological maternal fatty acid milieu is replicated in the developing fetal circulation in the nonhuman primate

Culture theory: The developing synthesis from biology

We believe that a useful, complete theory of culture is simpler than the dichotomies promoted by the coevolutionary approach suggest. Culture can be regarded as an aspect of the environment into which each human is born and must succeed or fail, developed gradually by the succession of humans who have lived throughout history. We hypothesize that culture results from the inclusive-fitness-maximizing efforts of all humans who have lived. We think the evidence suggests that cultural traits are, in general, vehicles of genic survival, and that the heritability of cultural traits depends on the judgments (conscious and unconscious) of individuals with regard to their effects on the individual's inclusive fitness.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44477/1/10745_2005_Article_BF01531192.pd