Lightning

This Why Files article examines lightning. Lightning is the second deadliest storm-related hazard in the United States. Topics covered include: what lightning is, how it injures and kills, and what has been learned in the past few years from research on nature's electricity. Two experts were interviewed for this article. Educational levels: General public, High school, Intermediate elementary, Middle school

Spatial and time domain spectral energetics in the GLAS circulation model

Zonally averaged eddy kinetic energies and time domain energetics spectra were calculated for the GLAS general circulation model. The spatial results show significant improvements in the magnitude and distribution of the eddy kinetic energy. The spectral results provide a technique for tracing when and where the model predictions diverge from observations

On modular signs

We consider some questions related to the signs of Hecke eigenvalues or Fourier coefficients of classical modular forms. One problem is to determine to what extent those signs, for suitable sets of primes, determine uniquely the modular form, and we give both individual and statistical results. The second problem, which has been considered by a number of authors, is to determine the size, in terms of the conductor and weight, of the first sign-change of Hecke eigenvalues. Here we improve significantly the recent estimate of Iwaniec, Kohnen and Sengupta.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure; new version with new coauthor and strong improvements of two of the two main results

Fluctuation of cognitive-emotional states during competition:an idiographic account

The purpose of this paper is to describe athletes’ cognitive-emotional processes during competitions through an idiographic and ecologically valid study method based on verbal protocols and event sequential analyses. A world-class marksman and regional-level marksman filled in an affect grid after each shot during several competitions. Verbal reports were collected after each set by a delayed retrospective recall method and compared according to perceived performance periods. Event sequential analyses were conducted. The results showed distinct interpersonal patterns of affective states fluctuations and self-regulation strategies. Furthermore, intrapersonal patterns as a function of perceived performance were also identified. We suggest that the proposed methods are useful in studying athletes’ cognitive-emotional processes during ongoing competitions, as they ensure high ecological validity and provide in-depth information for more effective, individually-tailored interventions

A Fellow\u27s Perspective on Technology in Healthcare

No abstract available

An idiographic approach to the fluctuation of appraisals and coping during a trapshooting competition

Events occurring during competition can impact athletes differently and influence their cognitive states and emotional states. Therefore, appraisal and coping processes are individual and can be understood better using an idiographic approach. The purpose of this study is two-fold: 1) to describe the nature of the fluctuation of emotional states and coping processes during the competition and 2) to propose an idiographic and ecologically valid method of study of these processes through the use of verbal protocols and sequential analysis. One master world-class elite (58 years old and 28 years of competitive experience) and one master 4th-category regional level trapshooter (59 years old and 30 of experience) participated in this study. Participants completed an affect grid after each shot during two competitions of the national trapshooting championship. Each competition was composed of 6 sets of 25 shots. After each set, participants provided verbal reports using a delayed verbal protocol procedure. This procedure consisted of identifying critical moments within the competition, and reporting thoughts and feelings immediately before and after each critical moment. Verbal reports were transcribed verbatim and coded according to Lazarus’ cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion. Units of information were submitted to event sequential analysis to determine the probability of occurrence of paired-events. The elite level athlete reported a stable pattern of pleasure and arousal levels, while the non-elite athlete reported greater fluctuation of emotional states. It was found great inter- and intra-individual variability depending on the context, but patterns of appraisal and coping were identified through sequential analysis

Extended Agency and the Problem of Diachronic Autonomy

It seems to be a humdrum fact of human agency that we act on intentions or decisions that we have made at an earlier time. At breakfast, you look at the Taco Hut menu online and decide that later today you’ll have one of their avocado burritos for lunch. You’re at your desk and you hear the church bells ring the noon hour. You get up, walk to Taco Hut, and order the burrito as planned. As mundane as this sort of scenario might seem to be, philosophers have raised a problem in understanding it. If you are simply abiding by this morning’s decision, how are you acting autonomously? Your earlier self seems to be calling the shots; if you are just acting accordingly, without thinking through it or in some other way trying to ensure that the past decision conforms to your present standpoint, it is not clear how this amounts to an exercise of your present autonomous agency. It seems, rather, that your earlier self has succeeded in slaving you to her own purposes. She was the one who wanted (intended, judged it to be good, etc.) to have an avocado burrito. In simply following through, your current self seems to be just an automaton performing the commands left behind by your former self. Of course, you might not allow yourself to be shackled by your earlier self. You might refuse to follow anything but your own present judgments: you will only go to Taco Hut if this is what you judge you should do right now, and once at Taco Hut you will only eat the avocado burrito if that is what you want to eat once there. But if this is the way you generally operate, this seems to block your ability to make effective future-directed decisions. The puzzle, then, is one of explaining how the future self can do the bidding of her past self without losing her autonomy. We call this “the Problem of Diachronic Autonomy.” Philosophers raising this problem take it to show that there must be reasons or rational requirements to follow-through with our past decisions. According to these philosophers, we can only make sense of our diachronic autonomy if our past decisions put rational pressure on us to follow through. We argue that there is no Problem of Diachronic Autonomy. There is, in other words, no puzzling situation that needs explaining. Consequently, there is no need coming from this purported puzzle to think that our future-directed decisions generate reasons or rational requirements to follow through. The correct view of our diachronic autonomy is the “naïve” one: the “future self” can do the bidding of the “past self” without giving up its autonomy because, very simply, the past self is the same agent as the future self. I am acting autonomously when I get the avocado burrito, because I was the one who decided to get the burrito. I am acting on my own freely-formed decision