The End of the Story? Narrative Openness in Life and Death

In this 2019 John McKendy Memorial Lecture,1 Dr. William Randall discussed how few topics intrigue us more than death. Yet few topics are more taboo—not unlike aging, with which, in many people’s minds, it can seem synonymous. But just as a narrative perspective on aging enables us to envision its more positive potentials in terms of meaning, wisdom, and spirituality, so a narrative perspective can shed a more redemptive light on death, presumably the final event in the story of our lives. Drawing on insights from psychology, gerontology, cosmology, theology, and literary theory, Dr. Randall used the concept of narrative openness to entertain alternative and ultimately enticing ways of storying the so-called end of life

Nonlinear Conjugate Gradients Algorithm For 2-D Magnetotelluric Inversion

We investigate a new algorithm for computing regularized solutions of the two-dimensional magnetotelluric inverse problem. The algorithm employs a nonlinear conjugate gradients (NLCG) scheme to minimize an objective function that penalizes data residuals and second spatial derivatives of resistivity. We compare this algorithm theoretically and numerically to two previous algorithms for constructing such 'minimum-structure' models: the Gauss-Newton method, which solves a sequence of linearized inverse problems and has been the standard approach to nonlinear inversion in geophysics, and an algorithm due to Mackie and Madden, which solves a sequence of linearized inverse problems incompletely using a (linear) conjugate gradients technique. Numerical experiments involving synthetic and field data indicate that the two algorithms based on conjugate gradients (NLCG and Mackie-Madden) are more efficient than the GaussNewton algorithm in terms of both computer memory requirements and CPU time needed to find accurate solutions to problems of realistic size. This owes largely to the fact that the conjugate gradients-based algorithms avoid two computationally intensive tasks that are performed at each step of a Gauss-Newton iteration: calculation of the full Jacobian matrix of the forward modeling operator, and complete solution of a linear system on the model space. The numerical tests also show that the Mackie-Madden algorithm reduces the objective function more quickly than our new NLCG algorithm in the early stages of minimization, but NLCG is more effective in the later computations. To help understand these results, we describe the Mackie-Madden and new NLCG algorithms in detail and couch each as a special case of a more general conjugate gradients scheme for nonlinear inversion

Narrative Development Later in Life: A Novel Perspective

Prevailing paradigms in gerontology tend to eclipse the creative side of aging, implicitly perceiving it in terms of a narrative of decline. Building on insights from the field of narrative gerontology, this paper proposes an explicitlyliterary metaphor for understanding the subjective experience of aging, one in which our lives themselves are conceived in textual terms: As novels we are continually composing––as author, narrator, protagonist, and reader more or less at once. Drawing on literary theorist Mikhail Bahktin, the paper argues the merits of the metaphor of life-as-novel, notes the entailments it carries with it, and enlists it to deepen our understanding of narrative development in later life, with special emphasis on the challenges such development can face. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of a “novel perspective” for the practice of narrative care with older adults and for future research into the poetics of growing old

Attention to Social Comparison Information: An Individual Difference Factor Affecting Consumer Conformity

Interpersonal influence in consumer behavior is moderated by the extent of consumer sensitivity to social comparison information concerning product purchase and usage behavior (cf. Calder and Burnkrant 1977). Two survey studies indicate that Lennox and Wolfe\u27s (1984) attention-to-social-comparison-information (AT-SCI) scale has adequate convergent and discriminant validity and moderates the relative influence of normative consequences on behavioral intentions, as predicted. A quasi-experiment and an experiment in which control subjects under no social pressure are compared with high and low ATSCI subjects under pressure reveal that high ATSCI subjects are more likely to comply with normative pressures

GROUND AND KNEE JOINT REACTION FORCES DURING VARIATIONS OF PLYOMETRIC EXERCISES

Six Division-I athletes, who routinely used piyometric exercises, performed drop jumps from 46 and 61 cm, a pike jump, tuck jump, single leg jump, counter movement jump, squat jump, and a squat jump holding dumb ells equal to 30% of 1 RM squat. GRF obtained via an AMTI force plate and video analysis of mar1 0.05). Results indicate that although peak GRF forces of landing from plyometric exercise may not differ, the KRF do possibly due to variability in landing technIques

HAMSTRING ELECTROMYOGRAPHIC RESPONSE OF THE BACK SQUAT AT DIFFERENT KNEE ANGLES DURING CONCENTRIC AND ECCENTRIC PHASES

This study examined mean I-EMG for the hamstring group, during eccentric vs. concentric phases of the back squat at knee angles of 160-150, 140-130, 120-110 and 100-90. A 2X4 Repeated Measures ANOVA of the I-EMG hamstring activity revealed a significant interaction of contraction phase by angle (p.05). Closer analysis of each contraction phase via a One-way (angle) Repeated Measures ANOVA showed hamstring I-EMG during the eccentric contraction at 120-110 and 100-90 to be greater than 160-150 (p.05). In addition, there was no difference between 160-150 and 140-130 during the eccentric phase (p>.05). Furthermore, there were no differences found between mean I-EMG activity for any of the angles during concentric knee extension (p>.05)