Do Iron Curtains Happen More than Once?

Two separations significant for World Christendom commemorated their 50th birthdays on 13 August: the construction of the Berlin Wall and the splitting up of the “All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists”. On 18 August, in one of two major Russian-language commentaries on the second event, Moscow’s Mikhail Cherenkov celebrated in the news service “Protestant” the maverick and courageous spirit of the underground, “Initiativniki” Baptist movement. He described them as a “mighty spiritual” and “radical reformist” movement and exclaimed: No one could have expected that an “anti-church directive” put out by the All-Union Council could “invoke such massive resistance on the local-church level”. Who would have reckoned that “simple, uneducated, inexperienced pastors from the most remote of provinces could organise a resistance movement capable of engulfing the entire Soviet Union?” Cherenkov compares its martyrs to the early church fathers who died with “For Christ alone!” on their lips. The Initiativniki were in any case also part of the “down with Moscow” sentiment still alive in the wide expanses of Russia. The author also compares three of Moscow’s newest Baptist congregations. Finally, he discusses the rehabilitation of large numbers of addicts by Protestant churches in Russia

Testing the Paleolithic-human-warfare hypothesis of blood-injectiion phobia in the Balitmore ECA Follow-up Study-Towards a more etiologically-based conceptualization for DSM-V

Objective: The research agenda for the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) has emphasized the need for a more etiologically-based classification system, especially for stress-induced and fear-circuitry disorders. Testable hypotheses based on threats to survival during particular segments of the human era of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) may be useful in developing a brain-evolution-based classification for the wide spectrum of disorders ranging from disorders which are mostly overconsolidationally such as PTSD, to fear-circuitry disorders which are mostly innate such as specific phobias. The recently presented Paleolithic-human-warfare hypothesis posits that blood–injection phobia can be traced to a “survival (fitness) enhancing” trait, which evolved in some females of reproductive-age during the millennia of intergroup warfare in the Paleolithic EEA. The study presented here tests the key a priori prediction of this hypothesis—that current blood–injection phobia will have higher prevalence in reproductive-age women than in post-menopausal women. Method: The Diagnostic Interview Schedule (version III-R) , which included a section on blood and injection phobia, was administered to 1920 subjects in the Baltimore ECA Follow-up Study. Results: Data on BII phobia was available on 1724 subjects (1078 women and 646 males) . The prevalence of current blood– injection phobia was 3.3% in women aged 27–49 and 1.1% in women over age 50 (OR 3.05, 95% CI 1.20–7.73) . [The corresponding figures for males were 0.8% and 0.7% (OR 1.19, 95% CI 0.20–7.14)] . Conclusions: This epidemiological study provides one source of support for the Paleolithic-human-warfare (Paleolithic-threat) hypothesis regarding the evolutionary (distal) etiology of bloodletting-related phobia, and may contribute to a more brain- evolution-based re-conceptualization and classification of this fear circuitry-related trait for the DSM-V. In addition, the finding reported here may also stimulate new research directions on more proximal mechanisms which can lead to the development of evidence-based psychopharmacological preventive interventions for this common and sometimes disabling fear-circuitry disorder

Role of p38 MAPK inhibitor in conditioned fear

p38 mitogen activated protein kinase (p38) is a kinase that has been implicated in cellular plasticity, stress, and psychiatric disorders and recently in the process of DNA repair. Recently, we have shown that p38 is responsible for inhibiting Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3β (GSK3β), which has also been shown to be involved in the same processes and recently in the process of DNA repair. We have also shown that GSK3β is regulated by stress and that its inhibition produces exaggerated conditioned fear. The goal of this study is to examine whether inhibiting p38 will result in a similar exaggeration of conditioned fear. To this end, mice were injected systemically with the potent and selective inhibitor of p38, SB203580 or vehicle prior to tone and foots­hock fear conditioning and tested for freezing to the tone one day later. Mice injected with SB203580 showed greater tone freezing than mice injected with vehicle. In contrast to tone freezing, SB203580 injections did not affect freezing to the context. Injections of SB203580 prior to 24 hours after fear conditioning, but before fear testing, also did not affect freezing. These data suggest that p38 plays a role in regulating the strength of conditioned fear. The fact that p38 regulates GSK3β and that inhibition of GSK3β also produces exaggerated conditioned fear raises the possibility that a p38 to GSK3β pathway may be regulating the strength of conditioned fear

Feedback Controlled Software Systems

Software systems generally suffer from a certain fragility in the face of disturbances such as bugs, unforeseen user input, unmodeled interactions with other software components, and so on. A single such disturbance can make the machine on which the software is executing hang or crash. We postulate that what is required to address this fragility is a general means of using feedback to stabilize these systems. In this paper we develop a preliminary dynamical systems model of an arbitrary iterative software process along with the conceptual framework for stabilizing it in the presence of disturbances. To keep the computational requirements of the controllers low, randomization and approximation are used. We describe our initial attempts to apply the model to a faulty list sorter, using feedback to improve its performance. Methods by which software robustness can be enhanced by distributing a task between nodes each of which are capable of selecting the best input to process are also examined, and the particular case of a sorting system consisting of a network of partial sorters, some of which may be buggy or even malicious, is examined

Disability in a Technology-Driven Workplace

New Internet and Web-based technology applications have meant significant cost and time efficiencies to many American businesses. However, many employers have not yet fully grasped the impact of these new information and communication technologies on applicants and employees with certain disabilities such as vision impairments, hearing problems or limited dexterity. Although not all applicants and employees who have a disability may experience IT-access problems, to select groups it can pose a needless barrier. The increasing dominance of IT in the workplace presents both a challenge and an opportunity for workers with disabilities and their employers. It will be up to HR professionals to ensure that Web-based HR processes and workplace technologies are accessible to their employees with disabilities.

The Impact of Business Size on Employer Response

More than 10 years have passed since the employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) came into effect for employers of 15 or more employees. Americans with disabilities continue to be more unemployed and underemployed than their nondisabled peers. Small businesses, with fewer than 500 employees, continue to be the most rapidly growing part of our national economy and therefore a potential source of employment for American job seekers with disabilities. A Cornell University survey of human resource professionals examined how employers of different sizes are complying with the ADA. The authors point to needed ADA and accommodation services that rehabilitation counselors can provide to employers

Study Guide Mathematical Modeling for Decision Making II DA 3410

The mission of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command is to organize, train, educate, man, equip, fund, administer, mobilize, deploy and sustain Army special operations forces to successfully conduct worldwide special operations, across the range of military operations, in support of regional combatant commanders, American ambassadors and other agencies as directed