Psychological health and attitude toward Christianity: a study among pupils attending Catholic schools in the Netherlands

This study examines the wider relevance of recent research conducted in England, Northern Ireland and Hong Kong concerning the association between religion and psychological health among young people, by administering translations of the same measures to a sample of 980 pupils attending Catholic secondary schools in the Netherlands. These pupils completed the short-form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire together with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity. The data confirmed the key finding from previous research that a more positive attitude toward Christianity is associated with lower scores recorded on the psychoticism scale. The implications of these findings are discussed for religious educators

Влияние различных факторов на прочность торфяных термобрикетов

In-situ observation of the in-volume modification of glasses by focused ultra-short pulsed laser radiation with an interferometer microscope allows for the spatially resolved measurement of the transient optical path difference (OPD) in the surrounding of the laser-induced modification. By the relation of refractive index and temperature an estimation of temperature during modification process is possible. The absorption of the laser radiation is measured and is, together with the estimation of processing temperature during modification, a first step towards a process model for the induced modifications of the transparent material

Dialogical self strategies of self-organization: psychotherapy and restructuring of internal management

A identidade tem sido um conceito central na literatura em psicologia e na forma como as diferentes abordagens terapêuticas têm concebido os processos de mudança. Entre as inúmeras perspectivas desenvolvidas sobre essa dimensão do ser humano, destacamos o paradigma dialógico que tem vindo a influenciar de forma crescente a teoria e prática em psicoterapia. Segundo esta perspectiva, a funcionalidade psicológica está relacionada com o modo como os indivíduos conseguem articular e colocar em diálogo produtivo as suas várias vozes ou posições de identidade. Neste artigo apresentamos uma revisão da literatura sobre as estratégias que subjazem a essa capacidade auto-organizadora do sistema identitário e sobre as diretrizes que poderão orientar uma intervenção terapêutica dialógica quando essa capacidade se torna disfuncional.Self-concept has been playing a crucial role in psychological literature and in the way the different therapeutic approaches conceive the processes of change. From the diverse perspectives developed about this human dimension, we emphasise the dialogical paradigm that has been increasingly influential in the psychotherapeutic theory and practice. According to the dialogical perspective the psychological well-being is dependent on the way individuals articulate and maintain productive dialogues between the different voices of the self or “I-Positions”. In this paper we present a review of the literature on the strategies that underlie this self-regulatory ability of the self-system and the guidelines of the dialogical therapeutic intervention that could be used when these self-regulatory strategies become dysfunctional.(undefined

Loss of heterozygosity for defined regions on chromosomes 3, 11 and 17 in carcinomas of the uterine cervix.

Loss of heterozygosity (LOH) frequently occurs in squamous cell carcinomas of the uterine cervix and indicates the probable sites of tumour-suppressor genes that play a role in the development of this tumour. To define the localization of these tumour-suppressor genes, we studied loss of heterozygosity in 64 invasive cervical carcinomas (stage IB and IIA) using the polymerase chain reaction with 24 primers for polymorphic repeats of known chromosomal localization. Chromosomes 3, 11, 13, 16 and 17, in particular, were studied. LOH was frequently found on chromosome 11, in particular at 11q22 (46%) and 11q23.3 (43%). LOH on chromosome 11p was not frequent. On chromosome 17p13.3, a marker (D17S513) distal to p53 showed 38% LOH, whereas p53 itself showed only 20% LOH. On the short arm of chromosome 3, LOH was frequently found (41%) at 3p21.1. The beta-catenin gene is located in this chromosomal region. Therefore, expression of beta-catenin protein was studied in 39 cases using immunohistochemistry. Staining of beta-catenin at the plasma membrane of tumour cells was present in 38 cases and completely absent in only one case. The tumour-suppressor gene on chromosome 3p21.1 may be beta-catenin in this one case, but (an)other tumour-suppressor gene(s) must also be present in this region. For the other chromosomes studied, 13q (BRCA-2) and 16q (E-cadherin), only sporadic losses (< 15% of cases) were found. Expression of E-cadherin was found in all of 37 cases but in six cases the staining was very weak. No correlation was found between clinical and histological parameters and losses on chromosome 3p, 11q and 17p. In addition to LOH, microsatellite instability was found in one tumour for almost all loci and in eight tumours for one to three loci. In conclusion, we have identified three loci with frequent LOH, which may harbour new tumour-suppressor genes, and found microsatellite instability in 14% of cervical carcinomas

Triple minima in free energy of semiflexible polymers

We study the free energy of the worm-like-chain model, in the constant-extension ensemble, as a function of the stiffness for finite chains of length L. We find that the polymer properties obtained in this ensemble are "qualitatively" different from those obtained using constant-force ensembles. In particular we find that as we change the stiffness parameter, the polymer makes a transition from the flexible to the rigid phase and there is an intermediate regime of parameter values where the free energy has three minima and both phases are stable. This leads to interesting features in the force-extension curves.Comment: Published version, 4 pages, 5 figures, revte

A COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH TO THE TEACIDNG OF LATIN

INTRODUCTION At the University of the Western Cape (UWC) there is a large number of students (about 300) who enrol for the introductory Latin course. Most of these students hope to become lawyers. It is with this in mind that one of the major aims of the UWC Latin course is to enable students to read with comprehension simple Latin texts e.g. 1he Institutes of Gaius, (cf. Kriel 1982). The prescribed handbook is Legal Latin - A Basic Course by Scholtemeijer and Hasse. There are, however, formidable obstacles in the way of enabling students to achieve the aim of reading Latin with confidence. Some of these are constraints faced by most universities, such as not more than 26 weeks of actual teaching time per year, large groups (80-120 students per group), some apathy because Latin is seen as a compulsory requirement, and often a very genuine fear of Latin as a very difficult subject to pass. At UWC yet another factor has become increasingly important over the past few years. A growing percentage of students are studying Latin through the medium of English while English is not their first language. (At the moment we have one: Afrikaans medium group, who are not similarly handicapped). This paper describes how we attempted during 1992 to make learning Latin a meaningful experience for our students; it also draws some conclusions based on the performance of the students and on feedback obtained from them by means of questionnaires about the course. The first section deals with problems generally experienced by students, the second with the methodology adopted to deal with these problems and finally there is an evaluation of the procedure and an indication of the road ahead. Contact time comprised two eighty minute lectures per week dealing with grammar and related experiences, and a weekly tutorial of 40 minutes for which students were divided into groups of approximately 20. There were approximately 15 tutorial groups, and each group maintained their tutor throughout the year. Students were required to write a weekly practical test for which they had to study the grammar and vocabulary introduced during the previous week. They could also practise their vocabulary and paradigms, and later in the year their setwork comprehension, on the CONSENSUS computer programme

Variation at the capsule locus, cps, of mistyped and non-typable Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates

The capsule polysaccharide locus (cps) is the site of the capsule biosynthesis gene cluster in encapsulated Streptococcus pneumoniae. A set of pneumococcal samples and non-pneumococcal streptococci from Denmark, the Gambia, the Netherlands, Thailand, the UK and the USA were sequenced at the cps locus to elucidate serologically mistyped or non-typable isolates. We identified a novel serotype 33B/33C mosaic capsule cluster and previously unseen serotype 22F capsule genes, disrupted and deleted cps clusters, the presence of aliB and nspA genes that are unrelated to capsule production, and similar genes in the non-pneumococcal samples. These data provide greater understanding of diversity at a locus which is crucial to the antigenic diversity of the pathogen and current vaccine strategies

Using planar laser-induced fluorescence to study the phase transformations of two-component liquid and suspension droplets

Using the planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF), we performed experiments to determine evaporation dynamics of homogeneous and heterogeneous droplets of liquids, conditions of their boiling, and explosive breakup. For the 1–2 mm water droplets, the distribution of highly non-homogeneous and non-steady temperature field was detected by highspeed cross-correlation video recording and the Tema Automotive software.We identified highly nonlinear dependences of evaporation rate on heating temperature and time as well as water droplet size. For the two-component liquids and water-based suspensions of graphite, we revealed unsteady temperature fields and established mechanisms and regimes of the explosive breakup of the heterogeneous droplets when heated. The regimes differ in the number and dimensions of the emerging gas–liquid fragments as well as the durations of the main stages. The three regimes of warming-up and evaporation of the heterogeneous droplets have been obtained. The explosive breakup of droplets enables provision for the secondary atomization of the liquid with the emergence of an aerosol cloud. The surface area of the liquid increases several-fold. The temperature variations at the water/solid or water/flammable component interfaces were determined corresponding to each boiling and breakup regime. Using the PLIF, we studied reasons and mechanism of the explosive breakup of water droplets with single large carbonaceous inclusions when heated