The Minds of God(s) and Humans: Differences in Mind Perception in Fiji and North America

Previous research suggests that how people conceive of minds depends on the culture in which they live, both in determining how they interact with other human minds and how they infer the unseen minds of gods. We use exploratory factor analysis to compare how people from different societies with distinct models of human minds and different religious traditions perceive the minds of humans and gods. In two North American samples (American adults, N=186; Canadian students, N=202), we replicated a previously found two-factor agency/experience structure for both human and divine minds, but in Fijian samples (Indigenous iTaukei Fijians, N=77; Fijians of Indian descent, N=214; total N=679) we found a three-factor structure, with the additional containing items related to social relationships. Further, Fijians’ responses revealed a different three-factor structure for human minds and gods’ minds. We used these factors as dimensions in the conception of minds to predict a) expectations about human and divine tendencies towards punishment and reward; and b) conception of gods as more embodied (an extension of experience) or more able to know people’s thoughts (an extension of agency). We found variation in how these factors predict conceptions of agents across groups, indicating further theory is needed to explain how culturally generated concepts of mind lead to other sorts of social inferences. We conclude that mind perception is shaped by culturally defined social expectations and recommend further work in different cultural contexts to examine the interplay between culture and social cognition.Cultural Evolution of Religion Research Consortiu

Current standards and future perspectives in adjuvant treatment for biliary tract cancers

Biliary tract cancer, including cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) and gallbladder cancer (GBC) are rare tumours with a rising incidence. Prognosis is poor, since most patients are diagnosed with advanced disease. Only ∼20% of patients are diagnosed with early-stage disease, suitable for curative surgery. Despite surgery performed with potentially-curative intent, relapse rates are high, with around 60-70% of patients expected to have disease recurrence. Most relapses occur in the form of distant metastases, with a predominance of liver spread. In view of high tumour recurrence, adjuvant strategies have been explored for many years, in the form of radiotherapy, chemo-radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Historically, few randomised trials were available, including a variety of additional tumours (e.g. pancreatic and ampullary tumours) and most evidence relied on phase II and retrospective studies, with no high-quality evidence available to define the real benefit derived from adjuvant strategies. Since 2017, three randomised phase III clinical trials have been reported; all recruited patients with resected biliary tract cancer (CCA and GBC) who were randomised to observation alone, or chemotherapy in the form of gemcitabine (BCAT study; included patients diagnosed with extrahepatic CCA only), gemcitabine and oxaliplatin (PRODIGE-12/ACCORD-18; included patients diagnosed with CCA and GBC) or capecitabine (BILCAP; included patients diagnosed with CCA and GBC). While gemcitabine-based chemotherapy failed to show an impact on patient outcome (relapse-free survival (RFS) or overall survival (OS)), the BILCAP study showed a benefit from adjuvant capecitabine in terms of OS (pre-planned sensitivity analysis in the intention-to-treat population and in the per-protocol analysis), with confirmed benefit in terms of RFS. Based on the BILCAP trial, international guidelines recommend adjuvant capecitabine for a period of six months following potentially curative resection of CCA as the current standard of care for resected CCA and GBC. However, BILCAP failed to show OS benefit in the intention-to-treat (non-sensitivity analysis) population (primary end-point), and this finding, as well as some inconsistencies between studies has been criticised and has led to confusion in the biliary tract cancer medical community. This review summarises the adjuvant field in biliary tract cancer, with evidence before and after 2017, and comparison between the latest randomised phase III studies. Potential explanations are presented for differential findings, and future steps are explored

God's mind on morality

Supplementary material: To view supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2021.1Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Most research on cognition behind religious belief assumes that understanding of other minds is culturally uniform and follows the Western model of mind, which posits that (a) others’ thoughts can be known and (b) action is best explained by mental state inference. This is potentially problematic if, as a growing body of evidence suggests, other populations view minds differently. We recruit Indigenous iTaukei Fijians who hold (a) a model of mind that discourages mental state inference and (b) co-existing Christian (Western) and traditional supernatural agent beliefs. Study 1 (N = 108), uses free-listing to examine how Western and local models of mind relate to beliefs. The Christian God cares about internal states and traits (aligning with the Western model of mind). Study 2 tests whether evoking God triggers intent focus in moral reasoning. Instead, God appears to enforce cultural models of mind in iTaukei (N = 151) and North Americans (N = 561). Expected divine judgement mirrors human judgement; iTaukei (N = 90) expect God to emphasise outcome, while Indo-Fijians (N = 219) and North Americans (N = 412) expect God to emphasise intent. When reminded to think about thoughts, iTaukei (N = 72) expect God to judge outcomes less harshly. Results suggest cultural/cognitive co-evolution: introduced cultural forms can spread new cognitive approaches, while Indigenous beliefs can persist as a reflection of local institutions

Simulating Reionization: Character and Observability

In recent years there has been considerable progress in our understanding of the nature and properties of the reionization process. In particular, the numerical simulations of this epoch have made a qualitative leap forward, reaching sufficiently large scales to derive the characteristic scales of the reionization process and thus allowing for realistic observational predictions. Our group has recently performed the first such large-scale radiative transfer simulations of reionization, run on top of state-of-the-art simulations of early structure formation. This allowed us to make the first realistic observational predictions about the Epoch of Reionization based on detailed radiative transfer and structure formation simulations. We discuss the basic features of reionization derived from our simulations and some recent results on the observational implications for the high-redshift Ly-alpha sources.Comment: 3 pages, to appear in the Proceedings of First Stars III, Santa Fe, July 2007, AIP Conference Serie

The role of Comprehension in Requirements and Implications for Use Case Descriptions

Within requirements engineering it is generally accepted that in writing specifications (or indeed any requirements phase document), one attempts to produce an artefact which will be simple to comprehend for the user. That is, whether the document is intended for customers to validate requirements, or engineers to understand what the design must deliver, comprehension is an important goal for the author. Indeed, advice on producing ‘readable’ or ‘understandable’ documents is often included in courses on requirements engineering. However, few researchers, particularly within the software engineering domain, have attempted either to define or to understand the nature of comprehension and it’s implications for guidance on the production of quality requirements. Therefore, this paper examines thoroughly the nature of textual comprehension, drawing heavily from research in discourse process, and suggests some implications for requirements (and other) software documentation. In essence, we find that the guidance on writing requirements, often prevalent within software engineering, may be based upon assumptions which are an oversimplification of the nature of comprehension. Hence, the paper examines guidelines which have been proposed, in this case for use case descriptions, and the extent to which they agree with discourse process theory; before suggesting refinements to the guidelines which attempt to utilise lessons learned from our richer understanding of the underlying discourse process theory. For example, we suggest subtly different sets of writing guidelines for the different tasks of requirements, specification and design

Soil methane sink capacity response to a long-term wildfire chronosequence in Northern Sweden

Boreal forests occupy nearly one fifth of the terrestrial land surface and are recognised as globally important regulators of carbon (C) cycling and greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon sequestration processes in these forests include assimilation of CO2 into biomass and subsequently into soil organic matter, and soil microbial oxidation of methane (CH4). In this study we explored how ecosystem retrogression, which drives vegetation change, regulates the important process of soil CH4 oxidation in boreal forests. We measured soil CH4 oxidation processes on a group of 30 forested islands in northern Sweden differing greatly in fire history, and collectively representing a retrogressive chronosequence, spanning 5000 years. Across these islands the build-up of soil organic matter was observed to increase with time since fire disturbance, with a significant correlation between greater humus depth and increased net soil CH4 oxidation rates. We suggest that this increase in net CH4 oxidation rates, in the absence of disturbance, results as deeper humus stores accumulate and provide niches for methanotrophs to thrive. By using this gradient we have discovered important regulatory controls on the stability of soil CH4 oxidation processes that could not have not been explored through shorter-term experiments. Our findings indicate that in the absence of human interventions such as fire suppression, and with increased wildfire frequency, the globally important boreal CH4 sink could be diminished

Morphine-induced hallucinations - resolution with switching to oxycodone: a case report and review of the literature

Palliation of pain with morphine in cancer patients can be complicated by adverse effects. Tolerance to these effects such as nausea and drowsiness usually occurs within a few days allowing continuation of morphine therapy. However, some patients may develop intolerable adverse effects even after several months on morphine when the dose is increased. A case of morphine-induced hallucinations in a cancer patient who had been on a subcutaneous infusion of diamorphine for several months is discussed. A switch to oxycodone resolved his hallucinations and gave him a new lease of life. The theories behind and evidence for opioid-switching is discussed along with strategies for dealing with intolerable opioid-induced adverse effects

Identification of areas for improvement in the management of bone metastases in patients with neuroendocrine neoplasms

Background: There is no global consensus on the optimal management of bone metastases (BMs) in neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs). Objectives: To review current management and outcomes of patients with BMs in NENs, in order to identify areas for improvement. Methods: A retrospective study of all patients with NENs, except Grade 3 (G3) lung NENs (April 2002-March 2018) was conducted. Baseline characteristics, nature of BMs, treatment received and overall survival (OS) were evaluated. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS v23.0/STATA v12. Results: Of 1212 patients, 85 (7%) had BMs; median age 58 years. The majority had a gastro-entero-pancreatic primary (49%, n=42) followed by lung (25%, n=21), unknown primary (20%, n=17), and “others” (6%, n=5). Two-thirds (n=57) had G1-2 neuroendocrine tumours, and 41% (n=35) had functional tumours. Overall, 28% (n=24) presented with synchronous BMs at first NEN diagnosis, and 55% (n=47) developed BMs at the same time as other distant metastases. For the subpopulation of patients in whom BMs developed metachronously to other distant metastases (45%, n=38), median time to development of BMs was 14.0 months. BMs were ‘widespread’ in 61% (n=52). Although only 22% (n=19) reported symptoms at initial diagnosis of BMs, most (78%) developed symptoms at some time during the follow-up period (pain/hypercalcaemia 64%, skeletal-related events 20%). BMs were mainly managed with analgesia (44%, n=37). Radiotherapy and bisphosphonates were used in 34% (n=29) and 22% (n=19), respectively. Surgery was rarely performed (2%, n=2). Median OS from identification of BMs was 31.0 months, and 18.9 months from development of BMs-related symptoms. Conclusions: In this cohort study, most patients with BMs developed symptoms. The utility of radiotherapy and/or bisphosphonates should be prospectively and systematically explored further for its potential impact on patients’ quality of life and survival outcomes

Controls on gut phosphatisation : the trilobites from the Weeks Formation Lagerstätte (Cambrian; Utah)

Despite being internal organs, digestive structures are frequently preserved in Cambrian Lagerstätten. However, the reasons for their fossilisation and their biological implications remain to be thoroughly explored. This is particularly true with arthropods--typically the most diverse fossilised organisms in Cambrian ecosystems--where digestive structures represent an as-yet underexploited alternative to appendage morphology for inferences on their biology. Here we describe the phosphatised digestive structures of three trilobite species from the Cambrian Weeks Formation Lagerstätte (Utah). Their exquisite, three-dimensional preservation reveals unique details on trilobite internal anatomy, such as the position of the mouth and the absence of a differentiated crop. In addition, the presence of paired pygidial organs of an unknown function is reported for the first time. This exceptional material enables exploration of the relationships between gut phosphatisation and the biology of organisms. Indeed, soft-tissue preservation is unusual in these fossils as it is restricted to the digestive structures, which indicates that the gut played a central role in its own phosphatisation. We hypothesize that the gut provided a microenvironment where special conditions could develop and harboured a source of phosphorus. The fact that gut phosphatization has almost exclusively been observed in arthropods could be explained by their uncommon ability to store ions (including phosphorous) in their digestive tissues. However, in some specimens from the Weeks Formation, the phosphatisation extends to the entire digestive system, suggesting that trilobites might have had some biological particularities not observed in modern arthropods. We speculate that one of them might have been an increased capacity for ion storage in the gut tissues, related to the moulting of their heavily-mineralised carapace