An Exploration of Powerful Power of Thought Experiences

This study explored participant’s assumptions regarding power of thought and analyzed examples they provided of powerful power of thought experiences. The method used was intuitive inquiry, which allows for both traditional and transpersonal research techniques to be employed. Each of the four participants produced an initial two page (aprox.) reflection, read each others reflections, and then produced a second two page reflection paper. Clarifying questions were then asked, and the final coding and analysis completed. Six strong themes between all study participants were uncovered: belief that it can work, complexity, guidance, unity, choice, and release. A shared cosmology was observed that centered around participant choice. Two types of choice, and hence methodological attitudes towards power of thought (PoT), were observed: volitional and non-volitional. Volitional PoT participants tended to actively and consciously attempt to control the process and typically viewed guidance received during it as helpful feedback to those ends. For non-volitional PoT participants the process was more centered on the concept of surrender or turning things over to a higher intelligence/power. Feedback for these participants related to developing and maintaining a sense of connectedness with this intelligence/power

Superintendent Recruitment: Effects of Superintendent Job Status, School Councils (Principal Selection Models), District Wealth, and Signing Bonus on Applicant Rating of the Job

This nearly perfect replicated study (Millay, 2003) was a superintendent recruitment simulation with the purpose of investigating factors that influence recruiting qualified individuals to serve as district superintendents of public schools. The study was a factorial experiment involving a four-way 2 x 2 x 2 x (3 x S) fixed-factor betweenwithin analysis of variance (ANOVA) which yielded 24 cells. The participants in the study were Kentucky Superintendents (N = 72) and individuals in Kentucky certified to be a school superintendent (N = 72) but employed in another position. The between-groups variables were superintendent job status (superintendent, certified), district wealth (high, low), and signing bonus (yes, no). The within-groups repeated measures variable was school councils (decentralized, centralized, and hybrid). Each study participant rated three jobs; one job located in a district with decentralized school governance conducted through school councils; a second with centralized school governance conducted through the district central office; and finally a hybrid model where the superintendent joins the school council with a single vote for the position of principal. The dependent variable was an additive composite score of applicant rating of the job of superintendent. Descriptive statistics revealed a small representation of minorities and females. Superintendents rated jobs in centralized districts much higher than hybrid and decentralized districts. Certified participants rated jobs in hybrid districts slightly higher than centralized districts. Job status, signing bonus, and school councils were all three highly statistically significant for likelihood to interview and accept a superintendent position. Three two-way interactions were statistically significant for the likelihood to interview when signing bonus and job status variables were in the job description, the likelihood to accept a superintendent position when district wealth and job status were in the job description, and the likelihood to accept a superintendent position when district wealth and school council were in the job description. There was a three-way interaction among job status, district wealth, and signing bonus

PhD

thesisChemical modification of a crude endotoxin prepared by the RE procedure from a strain of S^, typhimurium yielded certain significant changes in biological activity. The chemical procedures employed were oxidation by boron trifluoride and potassium periodate, acety-lation, and methylation. The results obtained with these endotoxoids, with the exception of the potassium periodate RE preparation, compared favorably with those reported by other investigators with regard to yield, pyrogenicity, lethality, and mouse immunogenicity. Where differences occurred these may have been due to the different strains of gram-negative organisms employed as well as the purity" of the respective endotoxins used as starting materials. A main purpose for the use of chemically altered crude endotoxins was the possible development of a less toxic enteric fever vaccine, Each endotoxoid preparation was tested for pyrogenicity in rabbits as well as mouse lethality and immunogenicity, and these data were compared with similarly obtained parent RE preparation data as well as standard vaccine. The pyrogen test results with Acet-RE and the potassium periodate RE preparations indicated that these, on a weight basis, were approximately 100 times less pyrogenic than the preparations of Boivin and parent RE. Under similar conditions the potassium methylate RE preparation showed an approximate 10 fold reduction in fever effects in rabbits, and the boron trifluoride RE preparation showed no reduction in pyrogenicity. No enhancement or diminution in mouse lethality of the potassium periodate, potassium methylate, Acet-RE, and boron trifluoride preparations was noted when compared to comparable doses of the parent RE preparation. That is, none of these preparations approached a mouse LDcQ with the amounts tested (2,500 ug). Studies were also undertaken to determine immunogenicity in mice by comparing Boivin, RE, and the previously mentioned endotoxoid preparations with a heat-killed, phenol-preserved (HP) vaccine prepared from the same strain of S. typhimurium. With the exception of using IOLD50 instead of an LD50 challenge, the immunogenicity of the respective vaccines was determined for the most part by active-immunized mouse protection tests as outlined by the Division of Biological Standards, Public Health Service? Although two 100 ug immunizing doses of the Boivin, RE, and the respective endotoxoid preparations varied in mouse protection (potassium methylate RE >Boivin > RE > Acet-RE >boron trifluoride RE > potassium periodate RE), it was obvious, with the exception of the potassium methylate preparation, that the HP vaccine yielded greatest protection against the IOLD50 challenge with S. typhimurium. Further mouse protection studies indicated the minimal immunogenic dose (MID) of the potassium methylate RE vaccine preparation to be approximately 50 ug. These data suggested an approximate five fold difference between the minimal pyrogenic dose (MPD) of 10 ug and the MID (50 ug). The procedure of acetylation, which apparently has the greatest effect on reducing rabbit pyrogenicity, received major experimental attention in the effort to develop a less toxic enteric fever vaccine, Active-immunized mouse protection experiments in mice employing the Acet-RE vaccine preparation in two 200 ug and 500 ug immunizing (pyrogenic) doses indicated a definite protective effect against a lOLD50 challenge when compared to the HP vaccine. Furthermore, the apparent similarity between the parent RE and Acet-RE vaccine preparations in their protective ability in mice suggested that acetylation had not altered immunogenically the antigenic sites to any great extent on the original RE preparation. These results indicated at most a five fold difference between the HH) in the rabbit and the approximate effective immunogenic dose (EID) in the mouse. Results with both the Acet-RE and potassium raethylate RE vaccine preparations should be considered further in the search for a less toxic enteric fever vaccine

Clusters of Individuals Experiences form a Continuum of Persistent Non-Symbolic Experiences in Adults

Persistent forms of nondual awareness, enlightenment, mystical experience, and so forth (Persistent Non-Symbolic Experience) have been reported since antiquity. Though sporadic research has been performed on these experiences, the scientific literature has yet to report a large-scale cognitive psychology study of this population. Method: Assessment of the subjective experience of 319 adult participants reporting persistent non-symbolic experience was undertaken using 6-12 hour semi-structured interviews and evaluated using grounded theory and thematic analysis. Results: Five core, consistent categories of change were uncovered: sense-of-self, cognition, affect, perception, and memory. Participants’ reports formed phenomenological groups in which the types of change in each of these categories were consistent. Multiple groupings were uncovered that formed a range of composite experiences. The variety of these experiences and their underlying categories may inform the debate between constructivist, common core, and participatory theorists

Asynchronous sessions with implicit functions and messages

Session types are a well-established approach to ensuring protocol conformance and the absence of communication errors such as deadlocks in message passing systems. Haskell introduced implicit parameters, Scala popularised this feature and recently gave implicit types first-class status, yielding an expressive tool for handling context dependencies in a type-safe yet terse way. We ask: can type-safe implicit functions be generalised from Scala’s sequential setting to message passing computation? We answer this question in the affirmative by presenting the first concurrent functional language with implicit message passing. The key idea is to generalise the concept of an implicit function to an implicit message, its concurrent analogue. Our language extends Gay and Vasconcelos’s calculus of linear types for asynchronous sessions (LAST) with implicit functions and messages. We prove the resulting system sound by translation into LAST

Asynchronous sessions with implicit functions and messages

Session types are a well-established approach to ensuring protocol conformance and the absence of communication errors such as deadlocks in message passing systems. Haskell introduced implicit parameters, Scala popularised this feature and recently gave implicit types first-class status, yielding an expressive tool for handling context dependencies in a type-safe yet terse way. We ask: can type-safe implicit functions be generalised from Scala's sequential setting to message passing computation? We answer this question in the affirmative by generalising the concept of an implicit function to an implicit message, its concurrent analogue. We present two calculi, each with implicit message passing. The first, Im, is a concurrent functional language that extends Gay and Vasconcelos's calculus of linear types for asynchronous sessions (Last) with implicit functions and messages. The second, MpIm, is a π-calculus with implicit messages that extends Coppo, Dezani-Ciancaglini, Padovani and Yoshida's calculus of multiparty asynchronous sessions (Mpst ). We argue, via examples, that these new language features provide utility to the programmer, and prove each system sound by translation into its respective base calculus

Asynchronous sessions with implicit functions and messages

Session types are a well-established approach to ensuring protocol conformance and the absence of communication errors such as deadlocks in message passing systems. Haskell introduced implicit parameters, Scala popularised this feature and recently gave implicit types first-class status, yielding an expressive tool for handling context dependencies in a type-safe yet terse way. We ask: can type-safe implicit functions be generalised from Scala's sequential setting to message passing computation? We answer this question in the affirmative by generalising the concept of an implicit function to an implicit message, its concurrent analogue. We present two calculi, each with implicit message passing. The first, Im, is a concurrent functional language that extends Gay and Vasconcelos's calculus of linear types for asynchronous sessions (Last) with implicit functions and messages. The second, MpIm, is a π-calculus with implicit messages that extends Coppo, Dezani-Ciancaglini, Padovani and Yoshida's calculus of multiparty asynchronous sessions (Mpst ). We argue, via examples, that these new language features provide utility to the programmer, and prove each system sound by translation into its respective base calculus

Optimal Population Codes for Space: Grid Cells Outperform Place Cells

Rodents use two distinct neuronal coordinate systems to estimate their position: place fields in the hippocampus and grid fields in the entorhinal cortex. Whereas place cells spike at only one particular spatial location, grid cells fire at multiple sites that correspond to the points of an imaginary hexagonal lattice. We study how to best construct place and grid codes, taking the probabilistic nature of neural spiking into account. Which spatial encoding properties of individual neurons confer the highest resolution when decoding the animal’s position from the neuronal population response? A priori, estimating a spatial position from a grid code could be ambiguous, as regular periodic lattices possess translational symmetry. The solution to this problem requires lattices for grid cells with different spacings; the spatial resolution crucially depends on choosing the right ratios of these spacings across the population. We compute the expected error in estimating the position in both the asymptotic limit, using Fisher information, and for low spike counts, using maximum likelihood estimation. Achieving high spatial resolution and covering a large range of space in a grid code leads to a trade-off: the best grid code for spatial resolution is built of nested modules with different spatial periods, one inside the other, whereas maximizing the spatial range requires distinct spatial periods that are pairwisely incommensurate. Optimizing the spatial resolution predicts two grid cell properties that have been experimentally observed. First, short lattice spacings should outnumber long lattice spacings. Second, the grid code should be self-similar across different lattice spacings, so that the grid field always covers a fixed fraction of the lattice period. If these conditions are satisfied and the spatial “tuning curves” for each neuron span the same range of firing rates, then the resolution of the grid code easily exceeds that of the best possible place code with the same number of neurons