Are Big Gods a big deal in the emergence of big groups?

In Big Gods, Norenzayan (2013) presents the most comprehensive treatment yet of the Big Gods question. The book is a commendable attempt to synthesize the rapidly growing body of survey and experimental research on prosocial effects of religious primes together with cross-cultural data on the distribution of Big Gods. There are, however, a number of problems with the current cross-cultural evidence that weaken support for a causal link between big societies and certain types of Big Gods. Here we attempt to clarify these problems and, in so doing, correct any potential misinterpretation of the cross-cultural findings, provide new insight into the processes generating the patterns observed, and flag directions for future research

THE BIG PICTURE - SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING APPLICATIONS IN RANGELAND ASSESSMENT AND CROP INSURANCE

Livestock Production/Industries, Risk and Uncertainty,

Between Law and Virtue

Legal ethics, professional responsibility, and professionalism are timely topics as lawyers continually reevaluate the standards of their profession, particularly in light of the challenges of multidisciplinary and multijurisdictional practice, as well as the embarrassment facing lawyers involved in and surrounding the Enron collapse. In this article, our goal is to discuss how to think and talk about ethics and professionalism. By way of preview, we need to understand that ethics and professionalism use different vocabularies and, consequently, talk past each other to some extent. Our hope is that understanding the existence of these two vocabularies helps reduce the misunderstanding. Both the areas of legal ethics and of professionalism are dynamic and both are a part of legal education and continuing professional education. Legal ethics and professional responsibility have been a required part of legal education since Watergate. Today, professionalism and professional training are becoming an increasing part of law school and post law school instruction. This article traces briefly the history of legal ethics in the United States and discusses the fundamental conflict that prevents aspiration and discipline from residing in the same space. Then it elaborates on the concept of professionalism and discusses current efforts to give content to professionalism for purposes of teaching it to law students and promoting it with lawyers

Between Law and Virtue

Legal ethics, professional responsibility, and professionalism are timely topics as lawyers continually reevaluate the standards of their profession, particularly in light of the challenges of multidisciplinary and multijurisdictional practice, as well as the embarrassment facing lawyers involved in and surrounding the Enron collapse. In this article, our goal is to discuss how to think and talk about ethics and professionalism. By way of preview, we need to understand that ethics and professionalism use different vocabularies and, consequently, talk past each other to some extent. Our hope is that understanding the existence of these two vocabularies helps reduce the misunderstanding. Both the areas of legal ethics and of professionalism are dynamic and both are a part of legal education and continuing professional education. Legal ethics and professional responsibility have been a required part of legal education since Watergate. Today, professionalism and professional training are becoming an increasing part of law school and post law school instruction. This article traces briefly the history of legal ethics in the United States and discusses the fundamental conflict that prevents aspiration and discipline from residing in the same space. Then it elaborates on the concept of professionalism and discusses current efforts to give content to professionalism for purposes of teaching it to law students and promoting it with lawyers

INCORPORATING SAFETY-FIRST CONSTRAINTS IN LINEAR PROGRAMMING PRODUCTION MODELS

A recent survey indicated that many procedures view risk in a safety-first context. Traditional methods used to impose safety-first constraints in optimization models have often been difficult to implement. This is particularly true when endogenous decisions affect the distribution of the chance-constrained random variable. This paper presents a method whereby probabilistic constraints can be easily imposed upon finitely discrete random variables. The procedure uses a linear version of the lower partial moment stochastic inequality. The resulting solutions are somewhat conservative but are less so than the results using the previously published mean income-absolute deviation stochastic inequality.Production Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

PERFORMANCE OF RISK-INCOME MODELS OUTSIDE THE ORIGINAL DATA SET

Selected risk programming solutions (i.e., profit maximization, Target-MOTAD, and MOTAD) are tested in an economic environment outside the data set from which they were developed. Specifically, solutions are derived from either a longer 10-year (1965-74) or shorter 6-year estimation period (1969-74), and then, they are tested for consistent risk-income characteristics over a later 10-year period (1975-84). Risk solutions estimated from earlier periods perform well in the later test period in spite of different economic conditions between time periods. However, favorable performance may be related to the specific example used in this analysis. Further testing for other farm situations is needed before general conclusions can be reached.Risk and Uncertainty,

Kinosternon subrubrum subrubrum (Eastern Mud Turtle) Predator Escape

Known avian predators of Kinosternon subrubrum include crows and eagles (Ernst et al. 1994. Turtles of the United States and Canada, Smithsonian Inst. Press, Washington, DC; Mitchell 1994. The Reptiles of Virginia, Smithsonian Inst. Press, Washington, DC)..

Depression and Psychotherapy for Adults in Long-Term Care Facilities

The purpose of this study was to investigate depression and psychotherapy for adults who are in long-term care facilities. Depression is a serious problem for the elderly in general and for residents of nursing homes in particular. The current study drew on the dynamic stress vulnerability approach to explain how illness occurs in older people, using evidence obtained from the biological, social, and psychological domains with respect to depression. The research question addressed the difference in posttreatment depressive symptoms among 6 types of psychotherapy as measured by the Hamilton rating scale for depression (HRSD)? The 6 therapy techniques were (a) cognitive behavioral therapy, (b) supportive psychotherapy, (c) life review therapy, (d) reality oriented therapy, (e) mindfulness training, and (f) affect regulation therapy. A 1-group pretest-posttest research design was used with archival data from de-identified medical records. The analysis of this study controlled for pretreatment depressive symptoms as measured by the HRSD. A statistically significant main effect of psychotherapy was found, revealing a difference in posttreatment depressive symptoms as measured by the HRSD between at least 1 pair of the 6 types of psychotherapy after controlling for pretreatment HRSD. The covariate, pretreatment HRSD, was also statistically significant, indicating a relationship between pretreatment HRSD and posttreatment HRSD when controlling for psychotherapy group. This research study contributes to the breadth of information concerning efficacious treatments for depression among the elderly in nursing homes and can assist researchers, nursing homes, and doctors to promote positive social change by better treating the depressive symptoms in a pretreatment environment