I Femminiellə: Unearthing Sanctified Queerness

This project serves as an unearthing, in the figuratively archeological sense, of the religious roots and foundations of queerness, often overlooked in contemporary gender discourses, through the exposing of pre and post-modern queer religious iconography specific to the Neapolitan third-gender community of the femminiellə. Although the femmininellə have origins in a long lineage of non-binary forms and figures throughout global and Italian history, they have been more recently brought to the surface of gender discourses through the avenue of photography, showcased in digital and physical exhibition spaces

Is Biological Death Final? Recomputing the Drake-S Equation for Postmortem Survival of Consciousness

This participatory team science project extended Laythe and Houran’s (2022) prior application of a famous probabilistic argument known as the ‘Drake equation’ to the question of postmortem survival. Specifically, we evaluated effect sizes from peer-reviewed, empirical studies to determine the maximum average percentage effect that ostensibly supports (i.e., anomalous effects ) or refutes (i.e., known confounds ) the survival hypothesis. But unlike the earlier application, this research included a study-specific estimate of the hypothesized variable of ‘living agent psi’ via a new meta-analysis of empirical studies (N = 17) with exceptional subjects vs participants from the general population. Our updated analysis found that putative psi was a meaningful variable, although it along with other known confounds still did not account for 30.3% of survival-related phenomena that appear to attest directly to human consciousness continuing after physical (biological) death. Thus, the popular conventional variables that we measured here are seemingly insufficient to account for a sizable portion of the purported empirical data that has been interpreted as evidence of survival. Our conclusion is nonetheless tempered by several assumptions and limitations of our speculative exercise, which ultimately does not affirm the existence of an ‘afterlife’ but rather highlights the need for measurements with greater precision and/ or a more comprehensive set of quantifiable variables. Therefore, we discuss how our probabilistic approach provides important heuristics to guide future research in this highly controversial domain that touches both parapsychology and transpersonal psychology

Mirror- and Eye-Gazing: An Integrative Review of Induced Altered and Anomalous Experiences

none3sìopenCaputo, Giovanni B.; Lynn, Steven Jay; Houran, JamesCaputo, Giovanni B.; Lynn, Steven Jay; Houran, Jame

Is Biological Death Final? Recomputing the Drake-S Equation for Postmortem Survival of Consciousness

This participatory team science project extended Laythe and Houran’s (2022) prior application of a famous probabilistic argument known as the Drake equation to the question of postmortem survival. Specifically, we evaluated effect sizes from peer-reviewed, empirical studies to determine the maximum average percentage effect that ostensibly supports (i.e., anomalous effects ) or refutes (i.e., known confounds ) the survival hypothesis. But unlike the earlier application, this research included a study-specific estimate of the hypothesized variable of living agent psi via a new meta-analysis of empirical studies (N = 17) with exceptional subjects vs participants from the general population. Our updated analysis found that putative psi was a meaningful variable, although it along with other known confounds still did not account for 30.3% of survival-related phenomena that appear to attest directly to human consciousness continuing after physical (biological) death. Thus, the popular conventional variables that we measured here are seemingly insufficient to account for a sizable portion of the purported empirical data that has been interpreted as evidence of survival. Our conclusion is nonetheless tempered by several assumptions and limitations of our speculative exercise, which ultimately does not affirm the existence of an ‘afterlife’ but rather highlights the need for measurements with greater precision and/ or a more comprehensive set of quantifiable variables. Therefore, we discuss how our probabilistic approach provides important heuristics to guide future research in this highly controversial domain that touches both parapsychology and transpersonal psychology

Dead Reckoning: A Multiteam System Approach to Commentaries on the Drake-S Equation for Survival

We used a multiteam system approach (MTS) to map the critical and constructive feedback from four invited Commentaries on Rock et al.’s (2023) probabilistic analysis of purported evidence for postmortem survival. The goal was to mine actionable insights to guide future research with the potential for important learnings or breakthroughs about the nature or limits of human consciousness and their relation to transpersonal psychology. The commentators’ input identified only a few measurable variables or empirical tactics that conceivably challenge or refine our latest Drake-S Equation for survival. However, a review of these suggestions using logical and statistical criteria revealed that none immediately upend our previous conclusion that the published effect sizes for various Known Confounds (including hypothetical living agent psi ) do not fully account for the published prevalence rates of Anomalous Experiences traditionally interpretated as survival. However, the commentators proposed several good recommendations for new studies that could eventually alter this calculus. Accordingly, we outline the architecture of a proposed cross-disciplinary research program that extends the present MTS approach and its collected insights and focuses strictly on empiricism over rhetoric in this domain. The results of this coordinated effort should likewise help to clarify a range of psychological and biomedical phenomena that speak to the nature and limits of human consciousness

The Dr. John Hall story: a case study in putative “Haunted People Syndrome”

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Research suggests a “Haunted People Syndrome (HP-S)” defined by recurrent and systematic perceptions of anomalous subjective and objective anomalies. Such signs or symptoms are traditionally attributed to “spirits and the supernatural,” but these themes are hypothesised to morph to “surveillance and stalking” in reports of “group-(or gang) stalking,” We tested this premise with a quali-quantitative exercise that mapped group-stalking experiences from a published first-hand account to a Rasch measure of haunt-type anomalies. This comparison found significant agreement in the specific “signs or symptoms” of both phenomena. Meta-patterns likewise showed clear conceptual similarities between the phenomenology of haunts and group-stalking. Findings are consistent with the idea that both anomalous episodes involve the same, or similar, attentional or perceptual processes and thereby support the viability of the HP-S construct

Quantifying The Phenomenology Of Ghostly Episodes: PART I – Need For A Standard Operationalisation

We review conceptualizations and measurements of base (or core) experiences commonly attributed to haunts and poltergeists (i.e., “ghostly episodes”). Case analyses, surveys, controlled experiments, and field studies have attempted to gauge anomalous experiences in this domain, albeit with methods that do not cumulatively build on earlier research. Although most approaches agree, to an extent, on the base experiences or events that witnesses report, the literature lacks a standard operationalization that can be used to test the factor structure of these occurrences or allow meaningful comparisons of findings across studies. Towards filling this gap, our review and deliberation identified 28 base experiences that include subjective (or psychological) experiences more typical of haunts, and objective (or physical) manifestations more common to poltergeist-like disturbances. This qualitatively-vetted list is proposed as the foundation for new measurement approaches, research designs, and analytical methods aimed to advance model-building and theory-formation

Conceptual and clinical implications of a “Haunted People Syndrome”.

Evidence suggests that subjective and objective anomalies associated with ghostlyepisodes form a unidimensional Rasch scale and that these interconnected“signs orsymptoms”arguably describe a syndrome model. This view predicts that symptomperception—that is, the phenomenology of these anomalous episodes—can be markedlyskewed by an experient’s psychological set. This is impacted, in turn, by psychosocialvariables that affect attentional, perceptual, and interpretational processes. Therefore, wepresent an overview that discusses how (a) Belief in the Paranormal, (b) ReligiousIdeology, (c) Ideological Practice, (d) Social Desirability, (e) Latency, and (f) Environ-mental Setting ostensibly influence the contents or interpretations of accounts. Theseexperiential details are similarly expected to reveal insights into the psychodynamicsbeing expressed or contextualized via these narratives. Future research in this area shouldhelp to validate and clarify the proposed syndrome model, as well as explore whichnuances in the phenomenology of ghostly episodes reflect idiosyncrasies of experients’psychological set versus the nature of the core phenomenon itself

Three-Port Bi-Directional DC–DC Converter with Solar PV System Fed BLDC Motor Drive Using FPGA

The increased need for renewable energy systems to generate power, store energy, and connect energy storage devices with applications has become a major challenge. Energy storage using batteries is most appropriate for energy sources like solar, wind, etc. A non-isolated three-port DC–DC-converter energy conversion unit is implemented feeding the brushless DCmotor drive. In this paper, a non-isolated three-port converter is designed and simulated for battery energy storage, interfaced with an output drive. Based on the requirements, the power extracted from the solar panel during the daytime is used to charge the batteries through the three-port converter. The proposed three-port converter is analyzed in terms of operating principles and power flow. An FPGA-based NI LabView PXI with SbRio interface is used to develop the suggested approach’s control hardware, and prototype model results are obtained to test the proposed three-port converter control system’s effectiveness and practicality. The overall efficiency of the converter’s output improves as a result. The success rate is 96.5 percent while charging an ESS, 98.1 percent when discharging an ESS, and 95.7 percent overall