Recall and recognition of dreams and waking events: A diary paradigm

Summary: Dream recall is often considered to be poor, although it is rarely systematically compared to the retrieval of waking event memories. A diary paradigm was implemented to explore the memory profile of recalled dreams over time, in comparison to recalled waking experiences. Twenty-five participants completed a dream and waking-event diary over two weeks. Titles of reports were re-presented in a surprise recall task. Subsequently, extracts of the reports were represented for recognition. No significant differences were found between dream and waking event memories in terms of either recall or recognition although some differences were found in terms of recollective experience, with waking-events being "remembered"as episodic memories more than dreams. Diary dream memories that are recalled, reported and to some extent rehearsed are therefore accessible and detailed in a similar manner to waking experiences, providing that they are adequately encoded close to their time of occurrence. The continuity of retrieval processes over sleep and wake is outlined

Clause Construction: A Glimpse into Judicial and Arbitral Decision-Making

For decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has insisted that forcing a plaintiff to arbitrate—rather than allowing her to litigate—does not affect the outcome of a dispute. Recently, the Court has invoked this “parity assumption” to expand arbitral jurisdiction. Reasoning that it does not matter whether an arbitrator or a judge resolves a particular issue, the Justices have allowed arbitrators to decide important questions about the arbitral proceeding itself. The parity assumption has proven impossible to test. First, cases that are arbitrated differ from those that end up in the judicial system, complicating efforts to compare outcomes from each sphere. Second, arbitral awards are rarely published and thus remain shrouded in mystery. However, one important topic defies these limitations. Jurisdictions are divided over whether courts or arbitrators should perform a task known as “clause construction”—determining whether an arbitration clause that does not mention class actions permits such procedures. As a result, both judges and arbitrators have been weighing in on the same question. Moreover, because class members are entitled to notice of rulings that impact their rights, the American Arbitration Association requires arbitral clause-construction awards to be available to the public. For once, then, it is possible to assess how the two kinds of decisionmakers resolve the same issue. This Article capitalizes on this opportunity by analyzing a dataset of 150 recent judicial and arbitral clause-construction decisions. Its logit regression analysis concludes that arbitrators are nearly 64 times more likely than judges to allow class actions. This Article then uses its findings to propose a solution to the circuit split over clause construction and to inform the broader debate over the boundaries between judicial and arbitral power

Improving Emergency Response in the Outpatient Clinic Setting

Background: Effective triage, assessment, and activation of necessary systems in emergent situations of clinical instability is vital in reducing morbidity and mortality of patients in any clinical setting. When medical emergencies occur outside of the hospital, organized and expedited transfer to a higher level of care reduces the potential for adverse events, lasting deficits, and patient death. Aim: The aim of this project was to identify weaknesses in the emergency response system in the community-based outpatient clinic setting and to propose solutions. Methods: The “Swiss Cheese” theoretical framework was used to do a root cause analysis of two clinical scenarios. Weaknesses in the emergency response system in the community-based outpatient clinic setting were identified. Results: Several tools were utilized including a fish bone diagram and the 5-Whys tool. Two root causes were identified. The first is that clinic staff does not have a working knowledge with specifics regarding the emergency response process. The second is that the existing emergency response checklist document is visually confusing and duties are not in sequence. Discussion and Implications for the CNL: Weaknesses in the emergency response system will be discussed. Knowledge and experience from inpatient care will be translated to the outpatient clinic setting. The role of the CNL in designing an effective emergency response system will be discussed with the proposal of several plans of action

Illegible Salvation: The Authority of Language in The Concept of Anxiety

This essay examines the analysis of language in The Concept of Anxiety and argues that language ultimately reveals itself as both dangerous and salvific. The pseudonymous author, Vigilius Haufniensis, is suspicious of language, for it divides the individual from herself and thereby makes possible the self-forgetfulness of objective chatter. Indeed, this warning (which commenters have tended to follow uncritically) is a legitimate one – yet it fails to grasp that by rendering the self other than itself, language constitutes the self. In other words, the individual’s very existence depends on language. Moreover, the attempt to establish oneself as absolutely self-identical is precisely sin. Language opens us to alterity, and for this reason the demonic cannot endure it and seeks to control it. Language is uncontrollable, however, to the point that no sign permits us to be certain that we have rightly distinguished good from evil, the salvific from the demonic – and salvation can come only if we renounce the attempt to establish distinctions that are beyond our power. By employing a pseudonymous figure who views language with suspicion, Kierkegaard shows that language is dangerous, even deadly, but also allows us to realize that language is the condition of possibility for salvation

"The United States Food and Drug Administration: Its role, authority, history, harmonization activities, and cooperation with the European Union."

The purpose of this article is to provide background about the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The article will focus particularly upon the agency's authority, its place in the United States system, and its history as a domestic institution and as a participant in international activities. Finally, the article summarizes principal areas of regulatory cooperation with the European Union in the foods area and outlines future areas of cooperation. The article may be of interest to counterparts in other countries, confronted with such food safety issues - particularly the recent evidence that humans might develop a variant of a fatal neurological disease (Creutzfeld-Jakob disease) as a result of eating beef from cattle afflicted with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)

Drift waves and transport

Drift waves occur universally in magnetized plasmas producing the dominant mechanism for the transport of particles, energy and momentum across magnetic field lines. A wealth of information obtained from quasistationary laboratory experiments for plasma confinement is reviewed for drift waves driven unstable by density gradients, temperature gradients and trapped particle effects. The modern understanding of Bohm transport and the role of sheared flows and magnetic shear in reducing the transport to the gyro-Bohm rate are explained and illustrated with large scale computer simulations. The types of mixed wave and vortex turbulence spontaneously generated in nonuniform plasmas are derived with reduced magnetized fluid descriptions. The types of theoretical descriptions reviewed include weak turbulence theory, Kolmogorov anisotropic spectral indices, and the mixing length. A number of standard turbulent diffusivity formulas are given for the various space-time Scales of the drift-wave turbulent mixing. [S0034-6861(99)00803-X].Physic