83,861 research outputs found
Psychiatry's Turbid Solution
Psychiatry?s generic concept of disorder has long served an important legitimizing function for the broad array of conditions for which individuals seek mental health treatment, regardless of their presumed causes. Wakefield?s proposal to restrict the mental disorder concept to only a subset of these conditions has given rise to concerns about the uncertain consequences of classifying others as non-disorders. In Bergner?s recent counterproposal, this concern is masked in the form of a conspicuously overinclusive definition of mental disorder. Bergner?s resistance to Wakefield?s classification objective underscores an important, unmet, and often unacknowledged need within the clinical treatment community. The challenge ahead lies in finding ways to address this need without compromising the integrity of efforts to develop a more coherent concept of mental disorder
The Abduction of Disorder in Psychiatry
The evolutionary cornerstone of J. C. Wakefield's (1999) harmful dysfunction thesis is a faulty assumption of comparability between mental and biological processes that overlooks the unique plasticity and openness of the brain?s functioning design. This omission leads Wakefield to an idealized concept of natural mental functions, illusory interpretations of mental disorders as harmful dysfunctions, and exaggerated claims for the validity of his explanatory and stipulative proposals. The authors argue that there are numerous ways in which evolutionarily intact mental and psychological processes, combined with striking discontinuities within and between evolutionary and contemporary social/cultural environments, may cause non-dysfunction variants of many widely accepted major mental disorders. These examples undermine many of Wakefield's arguments for adopting a harmful dysfunction concept of mental disorder
Dynamics of three-body correlations in quenched unitary Bose gases
We investigate dynamical three-body correlations in the Bose gas during the
earliest stages of evolution after a quench to the unitary regime. The
development of few-body correlations is theoretically observed by determining
the two- and three-body contacts. We find that the growth of three-body
correlations is gradual compared to two-body correlations. The three-body
contact oscillates coherently, and we identify this as a signature of Efimov
trimers. We show that the growth of three-body correlations depends
non-trivially on parameters derived from both the density and Efimov physics.
These results demonstrate the violation of scaling invariance of unitary
bosonic systems via the appearance of log-periodic modulation of three-body
correlations
Status of the Instream Flow Issue in Arkansas, 1987
Expansion of Arkansas\u27 population with concurrent increases in the state\u27s domestic, industrial, and agricultural water uses and possible out-of-state diversion are placing substantial demands on the state\u27s water resources. In an attempt to address this growing concern, Act 1051 (1985) of the Arkansas legislature was passed requiring the determination of present and future state water needs. A specific area of this mandate was the quantification of instream flow requirements. Basic instream flow needs are maintenance of the aquatic ecosystem and dependent riparian environment. Flow reservation may compliment other instream uses such as recreation, navigation, water quality, and groundwater recharge. However, offstream uses (e.g. irrigation and industry) may compete for these same flows and often at the most critical time of year. In order to answer questions concerning instream flow requirements, over 40 methods of instream flow determination have been developed, the majority in the semi-arid western United States. These individual procedures may be classified into four major methodologies: (1) discharge, (2) single transect, (3)multiple transect, and (4) regression analysis of historical data. Requirements of these four types vary according to necessary level of expertise, time and effort expended, and monetary outlay. In one year, requests for fish and wildlife instream flow needs for approximately 60 stream reaches throughout Arkansas limited the possible options. Modification and further development of a well-known method is outlined as an initial step in the process of quantifying Arkansas\u27 instream flow needs. Examples are given for some of the major river basins throughout the state
Sagnac effect in a chain of mesoscopic quantum rings
The ability to interferometrically detect inertial rotations via the Sagnac
effect has been a strong stimulus for the development of atom interferometry
because of the potential 10^{10} enhancement of the rotational phase shift in
comparison to optical Sagnac gyroscopes. Here we analyze ballistic transport of
matter waves in a one dimensional chain of N coherently coupled quantum rings
in the presence of a rotation of angular frequency, \Omega. We show that the
transmission probability, T, exhibits zero transmission stop gaps as a function
of the rotation rate interspersed with regions of rapidly oscillating finite
transmission. With increasing N, the transition from zero transmission to the
oscillatory regime becomes an increasingly sharp function of \Omega with a
slope \partialT/\partial \Omega N^2. The steepness of this slope dramatically
enhances the response to rotations in comparison to conventional single ring
interferometers such as the Mach-Zehnder and leads to a phase sensitivity well
below the standard quantum limit
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The Direct Costs and Benefits of US Electric Utility Divestitures
This paper studies the impact of divestiture on the efficiency and costs of electric utilities. The empirical literature shows that there exist economies of scope for electric utilities and that divestiture decreases distribution efficiency but increases generation efficiency. This paper is to bring together these different results. Our analysis covers distribution, transmission, and power sourcing. Our data is an unbalanced panel of about 138 US electric utilities for the years 1994 to 2006 over which we observe 30 divestitures between 1997 and 2003. First, we regress firmlevel efficiencies for distribution and power sourcing on various divestiture indicators. Second, we compare the weighted cost between divested and non-divested firms and calculate a net present value for the entire sample of divestitures. Last, we regress net benefits from divestiture on the distribution side on the net benefit for power sourcing to see whether individual firms successfully off-set any costs of divestiture. We find that divestiture reduces distribution efficiency but increases power sourcing efficiency. Both effects depend on the amount of own nuclear generation output but not fossil-fuel or hydro output. The net present value for all divestitures in our sample is $11.3 billion. It seems that relatively lower costs of power outweigh losses in economies of scope as well as other restructuring costs. However, lower costs of power might be the result of favourable contracts put in place at the time of divestiture. Our study complements traditional studies of economies of scope and shows that divestitures might well be worth it
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