Onko kirkko altruistinen?

Kirja-arvostelu: Altruismi : antamisen lahja evankelis-luterilaisessa kirkossa / Juho Saari & Sakari Kainulainen & Anne Birgitta Yeung. Helsinki, 2005

Pengaruh Penusukan Tunggal Titik Akupunktur Telinga Ciao Kan terhadap Tekanan Darah dan Frekuensi Denyut Jantung

Dalam praktek klinis kedokteran gigi, seringkali pasien datang dengan tekanan darah yang tinggi meskipun ia tidak memiliki riwayat hipertensi sebelumnya. Pada kondisi ini, tingginya tekanan darah seringkali dipengaruhi oleh tingkat kecemasan pasien yang nantinya akan mempengaruhi sistem saraf otonom. Akupunktur merupakan suatu metode pengobatan dengan penusukan jarum tanpa memasukkan bahan kimia ke dalam tubuh pasien. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengkaji pengaruh penusukan tunggal titik akupunktur telinga Ciao Kan terhadap tekanan darah dan frekuensi denyut jantung. Hipotesis yang diajukan adalah penusukan tunggal titik akupunktur telinga Ciao Kan menyebabkan terjadinya penurunan tekanan darah dan frekuensi denyut jantung. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian eksperimental dengan mempergunakan rancangan penelitian pre-post test design. Subjek penelitian adalah laki-laki berusia 25–35 tahun dengan tekanan sistolik lebih atau sama dengan 130 mmHg yang memenuhi kriteria inklusi dan eksklusi. Subjek menjalani orthostatic stress test, penusukan titik akupunktur telinga Ciao Kan, pengukuran tekanan darah dan frekuensi denyut jantung. Metode statistik yang dipergunakan adalah uji t, uji korelasi Pearson, dan uji ANOVA satu jalur. Uji t dilakukan pada data yang telah ditransformasi. Tekanan sistolik turun signifikan pada subyek penelitian selama perlakuan (p0,05). Dengan demikian dapat dikatakan bahwa penusukan tunggal titik akupunktur telinga Ciao Kan menyebabkan terjadinya penurunan tekanan darah dan frekuensi denyut jantung. The Effect of Single Acupuncture on Ciao Kan Ear Acupoint on Blood Pressure and Heart Rate In dental clinical practice. Patient sometime come with high blood pressure even though they have no history of hypertension. In this condition, high blood pressure could be influenced by anxiety that will have an effect on autonomic nerve system. Acupuncture is a healing method with needle puncture without giving chemical substance to patient\u27s body. This research aimed at evaluating the effect of a single acupuncture on Ciao Kan ear acupoint on blood pressure and heart rate. Hypothesis of this research was single acupuncture on Ciao Kan ear acupoint could decrease blood pressure and heart rate. This was a pre-post test design experiment. Subjects were men, 25 – 35 years old with systolic blood pressure equal or more than 130 mmHg who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Subject did orthostatic stress test, acupuncture on Ciao Kan ear acupoint, blood pressure measurement, and heart rate measurement. T test was done on the transformed data. Systolic blood pressure decreased significantly (p 0.05). It could be said that single acupuncture on Ciao Kan ear acupoint could decrease blood pressure and heart rate

Anything You Can Do, You Can Do Better: Neural Substrates of Incentive-Based Performance Enhancement

Performance-based pay schemes in many organizations share the fundamental assumption that the performance level for a given task will increase as a function of the amount of incentive provided. Consistent with this notion, psychological studies have demonstrated that expectations of reward can improve performance on a plethora of different cognitive and physical tasks, ranging from problem solving to the voluntary regulation of heart rate. However, much less is understood about the neural mechanisms of incentivized performance enhancement. In particular, it is still an open question how brain areas that encode expectations about reward are able to translate incentives into improved performance across fundamentally different cognitive and physical task requirements

SUSIG: an on-line signature database, associated protocols and benchmark results

We present a new online signature database (SUSIG). The database consists of two parts that are collected using different pressure-sensitive tablets ( one with and the other without an LCD display). A total of 100 people contributed to each part, resulting in a database of more than 3,000 genuine signatures and 2,000 skilled forgeries. The genuine signatures in the database are real signatures of the contributors. In collecting skilled forgeries, forgers were shown the signing process on the monitor and were given a chance to practice. Furthermore, for a subset of the forgeries ( highly skilled forgeries), this animation was mapped onto the LCD screen of the tablet so that the forgers could trace over the mapped signature. Forgers in this group were also informed of how close they were to the reference signature, so that they could improve their forgery quality. We describe the signature acquisition process and several verification protocols for this database. We also report the performance of a state-of-the-art signature verification system using the associated protocols. The results show that the highly skilled forgery set is significantly more difficult compared to the skilled forgery set, providing researchers with challenging forgeries. The database is available through http://icproxy.sabanciuniv.edu:215

SUSIG: An On-line Handwritten Signature Database, Associated Protocols and Benchmark Results”

In this paper we describe a new online signature database which is available for use in developing or testing signature verification systems. The SUSIG database consists of two parts, collected using different pressure sensitive tablets (one with and one without LCD display). A total of 100 people contributed to each part, resulting in a database of more than 3000 genuine and 2000 skilled forgery signatures. One of the greatest problems in constructing such a database is obtaining skilled forgeries: people who donate to a database do not have the same motivation, nor the acquired skill of a true forger intent on passing as the claimed identity. In this database, skilled forgeries were collected such that forgers saw the actual signing process played-back on the monitor and had a chance of practicing. Furthermore, for a subset of the skilled forgeries (highly skilled forgeries), the animation was mapped onto the LCD screen of the tablet so that the forgers could watch, as well as trace over the signature. Forgers in this group were also informed of how close they were to the reference signatures, so that they could improve the forgery and forgeries that were visibly dissimilar were not submitted. We describe the signature acquisition process, approaches used to collect skilled forgeries, and verification protocols which should be followed while assessing performance results. We also report performance of a state of the art online signature verification algorithm using the SUSIG database and the associated protocols. The results of this system show that the highly skilled forgery set composed of traced signatures is more difficult compared to the skilled forgery set. Furthermore, single session protocols are easier than across-session protocols. The database is made available for academic purposes through http://biometrics.sabanciuniv.edu/SUSIG

Lagrangian statistics of particle pairs in homogeneous isotropic turbulence

We present a detailed investigation of the particle pair separation process in homogeneous isotropic turbulence. We use data from direct numerical simulations up to Taylor's Reynolds number 280 following the evolution of about two million passive tracers advected by the flow over a time span of about three decades. We present data for both the separation distance and the relative velocity statistics. Statistics are measured along the particle pair trajectories both as a function of time and as a function of their separation, i.e. at fixed scales. We compare and contrast both sets of statistics in order to gain an insight into the mechanisms governing the separation process. We find very high levels of intermittency in the early stages, that is, for travel times up to order ten Kolmogorov time scales. The fixed scale statistics allow us to quantify anomalous corrections to Richardson diffusion in the inertial range of scales for those pairs that separate rapidly. It also allows a quantitative analysis of intermittency corrections for the relative velocity statistics.Comment: 16 pages, 16 figure

Can Synergy in Triple-Helix Relations be Quantified? A Review of the Development of the Triple-Helix Indicator

Triple-Helix arrangements of bi- and trilateral relations can be considered as adaptive eco-systems. During the last decade, we have further developed a Triple-Helix indicator of synergy as reduction of uncertainty in niches that can be shaped among three or more distributions. Reduction of uncertainty can be generated in correlations among distributions of relations, but this (next-order) effect can be counterbalanced by uncertainty generated in the relations. We first explain the indicator, and then review possible results when this indicator is applied to (i) co-author networks of academic, industrial, and governmental authors and (ii) synergies in the distributions of firms over geographical addresses, technological classes, and industrial-size classes for a number of nations. Co-variation is then considered as a measure of relationship. The balance between globalizing and localizing dynamics can be quantified. Too much synergy locally can also be considered as lock-in. Tendencies are different for the globalizing knowledge dynamics versus locally retaining wealth from knowledge in industrial innovations