238 research outputs found

    Cognition and the development of fear

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    It is significant that most sources of childhood and later fears identified by various investigators can be broadly categorized in terms of a general tendency to fear the very strange, especially when it is closely associated with the familiar, and that a key factor influencing whether or not an object or situation will arouse fear is the amount of control which is felt in its relation. The prospect of pain, for instance, which according to G. Stanley Hall' "puts to life the question of its very survival or extinction, complete or partial", was reported by C.W. Valentine to have produced surprisingly little fear in the children he tested as long as if was roused in circumstances under the child's own control, in an expected form, and in a familiar situation. It is, of course, the type of control supplied by our knowledge and expectations about our surroundings (Sartre's "hodological map" or the mental construction of reality created in the course of an individual's numerous experiences with his milieu which is at the base of Piaget's assimilation- accommodation model of the cognitive system) which is challenged or removed when we are faced with the very strange or the uncanny. For the human infant, as with many animals, strangeness elicits alarm: sudden noise, loss of support, jerky movements, quick changes of luminescence, and objects that rapidly expand or advance will cause an infant to show signs of distress. But what constitutes "strangeness" and the methods of coping with it will also change with the child's developing awareness and understanding of its environment.peer-reviewe

    Video violence : cognitive and cultural implications

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    There is nothing unprecedented about the peak of popularity which is currently being enjoyed by horrific stories and films depicting violent situations. Given the fact that there is a tradition of this type of fiction, however, there are a number of significant changes in just what is today taken to constitute the horrific and shocking, as well as in the manners in which this subject is handled. In this essay I propose to place the phenomenon of contemporary horrific fiction within the context of a wider cultural debate. This will involve the alignment of some of this fiction's underlying assumptions and concerns with some of the theories, beliefs and anxieties which have dominated our century's attempts to understand itself, and with some of the images which contemporary society has found fit to express its conception of itself and of its habitat. The arguments developed here, therefore, build on the understanding that our perceptions of the environment both determine and are expressed in the myths of our times.peer-reviewe

    Orthopaedic surgery

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    Over the past fifty years orthopaedic surgery made giant strides forward. It developed from a discipline that dealt primarily with the treatment of fractures, bone infections and tendon transfers and that treated degenerate joints by fusing them to one of such sophistication as to be able to treat fractures by internal fixation and early mobilisation. It is now possible to replace most joints in the body and to benefit from the results of stem cell research that hold promise of yet further exciting developments, the more important but by no means exclusive advances in orthopaedic surgery are presented.peer-reviewe

    The importance of education in Diabetes care

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    Diabetes is a condition that cannot be cured but can be controlled. It has been shown that people with controlled diabetes are less liable to develop the complications of the disease. Education is important because one cannot have good control without education in the management of diabetes.peer-reviewe

    Growing up between cultures : linguistic and cultural identity among Maltese youth and their ethnic counterparts in Australia

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    The paper explores how young people’s cultural identities are being increasingly redefined in complex linguistic and performative relation to transcultural experiences. It first considers the situation of young people of Maltese origin whose parents settled in Australia after the Second World War, and critiques the suggestion that these youths ’ educational performance and access to professional level employment may have been negatively affected by their alleged loss of ‘mother tongue’, ethnic identity and cultural heritage. The paper challenges this perception by outlining the complex ways in which young people growing up in Malta itself (the ‘home’ or ‘mother’ country) perceive, construct and perform their linguistic and cultural identities. It argues that young Maltese people’s performative and linguistic constructions of their cultural identities provide a striking example of ‘glocal’ hybridity, and that, irrespective of whether they choose to claim Maltese or English or a combination of the two as the primary marker of their cultural identity, this hybridity is experienced as a positive performance and expression of selfhood.peer-reviewe

    Min sab l-ewwel magna tal-ħjata

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    L-awtur jagħtina tagħrif dwar l-invenzjoni tal-magna tal-ħjata.N/

    'Not suitable for children' : young Maltese children's perceptions of adulthood and adult-rated TV programmes

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    This paper joins the educational debate on the role of the media in the lives and socialisation of young people by considering how young children' s experiences of watching television form an integral part of their emerging sense of identity. The focus is on how children talk about and perceive 'adult-rated' material on television, and how this relates to their understanding of how 'adulthood' is distinguished from 'childhood. ' It contends that younger children' s understanding of the 'adult' is often pieced together from disjointed and commodified fragments, and that this fragmentation also informs children's performative attempts to distance themselves from the 'childish' in order to build their own 'adult' subjectivities. The evidence is drawn mainly from a series of thirty focus-group interviews with 164 children aged between five and ten, and coming from different socio-economic backgrounds in the Mediterranean island state of Malta. The interviews were conducted in 1998 and 1999, and formed part of a larger project which also included a comparable number of interviews with older children (aged 11 to 14) as well as with parents and teachers.peer-reviewe

    Proximal femoral focal deficiency : a case report

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    Proximal Femoral Focal Deficiency (PFFD) is a rare and complex congenital anomaly (1:50,000-200,000 population) that results in varying degrees of femoral hypoplasia with limb shortening and pelvic abnormalities. It may be present bilaterally in association with other malformations/deficiencies of the lower limbs, and the upper limbs may also be involved. Other anomalies may also be present such as cleft palate, congenital heart defects, and spinal anomalies. The aetiology is unknown. We present a case of PFFD who was born locally.peer-reviewe

    Emergent realities for social wellbeing : environmental, spatial and social pathways

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    The subject of Space is often perceived as abstract. Yet, our communications infrastructure, navigation on land, sea and air, surveillance, border control and security, agriculture, meteorological observation, monitoring of natural disasters and early warning systems all rely on Space. Furthermore, the understanding of our planet, the solar system and beyond through space science, all rely on investment in the space sector. Space is not a luxury, but it is indeed essential for our daily lives.peer-reviewe

    Long noncoding RNAs and their link to cancer.

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    The central dogma of molecular biology, developed from the study of simple organisms such as Escherichia coli, has up until recently been that RNA functions mainly as an information intermediate between a DNA sequence (gene), localized in the cell nucleus, serving as a template for the transcription of messenger RNAs, which in turn translocate into the cytoplasm and act as blueprints for the translation of their encoded proteins. There are a number of classes of non-protein coding RNAs (ncRNAs) which are essential for gene expression to function. The specific number of ncRNAs within the human genome is unknown. ncRNAs are classified on the basis of their size. Transcripts shorter than 200 nucleotides, referred to as ncRNAs, which group includes miRNAs, siRNAs, piRNAs, etc, have been extensively studied. Whilst transcripts with a length ranging between 200 nt up to 100 kilobases, referred to as lncRNAs, make up the second group, and are recently receiving growing concerns. LncRNAs play important roles in a variety of biological processes, regulating physiological functions of organisms, including epigenetic control of gene regulation, transcription and post-transcription, affecting various aspects of cellular homeostasis, including proliferation, survival, migration and genomic stability. LncRNAs are also capable of tuning gene expression and impact cellular signalling cascades, play crucial roles in promoter-specific gene regulation, and X-chromosome inactivation. Furthermore, it has been reported that lncRNAs interact with DNA, RNA, and/or protein molecules, and regulate chromatin organisation, transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation. Consequently, they are differentially expressed in tumours, and they are directly linked to the transformation of healthy cells into tumour cells. As a result of their key functions in a wide range of biological processes, lncRNAs are becoming rising stars in biology and medicine, possessing potential active roles in various oncologic diseases, representing a gold mine of potential new biomarkers and drug targets
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