Is War Justified? and Lost Glory

Includes: Is War Justified? , by Marigrace Franklin and Lost Glory , by C. Myron Winegardne

Perspective training to treat anger problems after brain injury: Two case studies

BACKGROUND: People with acquired brain injury (ABI) often show increased anger and aggression. Anger has been linked to attributions of hostile intent. The more intentional and hostile the judgments of other’s behaviours are, the angrier the responses tend to be. Some people with ABI tend to make harsher attributions than healthy controls (negative attribution bias). Poor perspective-taking may distort assessment of others’ intentions, thereby contributing to this bias and subsequent anger responses. OBJECTIVE: Examine changes in anger and perspective-taking after a Perspectives Group in two participants with ABI. METHODS: This study is a case report exploring observational changes in anger, hostility, verbal and physical aggression and perspective-taking in two males with ABI and severe emotion dysregulation. Participants and their spouses also provided qualitative feedback through a semi-structured interview following perspectives training. The six-week “Perspectives Group” used hypothetical and real-life situations to teach participants to consider the perspectives of others when determining their intentions. RESULTS: Both participants showed post-treatment declines in aggression. Although only minimal changes occurred on the perspective-taking measure, spouses described important behavioural changes in their partners that indicated both decreased aggression and better perspective taking. CONCLUSIONS: These preliminary findings support further investigation of perspectives training for reducing anger after ABI

Time perception impairment following thalamic stroke: a case study

Impaired time perception is considered to be a relatively unusual and poorly understood consequence of brain injury. This paper presents a case study of altered time perception in JB, a 50-year-old woman who in 2011 had a small thalamic stroke affecting the right anteromedian region. We report on her subjective experience and present results from studies of retrospective timing (i.e., estimating how much time has passed and the clock time) and prospective timing (i.e., producing and reproducing intervals). The results showed that relative to neurologically healthy and brain-injured controls, JB had impaired retrospective timing and impaired prospective time reproduction. However, her prospective time production did not differ significantly from either of the control groups. We interpret this to mean that JB’s essential timing functions are intact, and that rather, her time perception impairment stems from a problem in anterograde memory for time intervals. Further, we argue that unlike other cognitive domains, time perception alteration is neither anticipated nor evaluated in most patients, yet these impairments can have a remarkably serious impact on daily life. We encourage further investigation of this topic

Ecology of the Common Snipe in Northern Utah

The study addresses five areas relating to the biology and management of common snipe (Capella gallinago), including habitat requirements, food habits , breeding biology, sexing and aging and census techniques. The primary habitat requirement of snipe was determined to be areas that were saturated or covered with shallow water . Secondary requirements were vegetation of less than 3 decimeters in height and between 30 and 50 percent density. Food habit studies determined that snipe selected animal material with larger and more abundant organisms being preferred without regard to species . Plant material appeared to be ingested only i r.cidentally. Common snipe u se winnowing as a courtship display, distraction device and a means of defining territory. Winnowing activity was most intense in periods of subdued light and cooler temperatures . A ground call emitted from a perch also was used to define territory . Snipe on the ground were observed to use the fanned, erect rectrices as a courtship display and as a distraction device. No new techniques were developed for externally sexing snipe and previously used techniques were unreliable. Using the presence of a faint black terminal line on the rectrices as indication of an immature, 84. 5 percent of 58 snipes were correctly aged. A previously suggested method using the characteristics of the upper wing coverts correctly aged 84. 0 percent of snipe correctly. Discriminant functions developed for externally sexing and aging snipe are not considered reliable because of measurement difficulties and variations in samples. Strip census methods and capture- recapture techniques tested were not effective in estimating snipe populations . The use of average territory size divided into the amount of suitable habitat and actual counts resulted in reliable estimates of the population