The Resilience of Structure Built Around the Predicate: Homesign Gesture Systems in Turkish and American Deaf Children

Deaf children whose hearing losses prevent them from accessing spoken language and whose hearing parents have not exposed them to sign language develop gesture systems, called homesigns, which have many of the properties of natural language—the so-called resilient properties of language. We explored the resilience of structure built around the predicate—in particular, how manner and path are mapped onto the verb—in homesign systems developed by deaf children in Turkey and the United States. We also asked whether the Turkish homesigners exhibit sentence-level structures previously identified as resilient in American and Chinese homesigners. We found that the Turkish and American deaf children used not only the same production probability and ordering patterns to indicate who does what to whom, but also used the same segmentation and conflation patterns to package manner and path. The gestures that the hearing parents produced did not, for the most part, display the patterns found in the children's gestures. Although cospeech gesture may provide the building blocks for homesign, it does not provide the blueprint for these resilient properties of language.     

Research misconduct among clinical trial staff

Between 1993 and 2002, 39 clinical trial staff were investigated for scientific misconduct by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI). Analysis of ORI case records reveals practices regarding workload, training and supervision that enable misconduct. Considering the potential effects on human subjects protection, quality and reliability of data, and the trustworthiness of the clinical research enterprise, regulations or guidance on use of clinical trial staff ought to be available. Current ORI regulations do not hold investigators or institutions responsible for supervision and training of clinical trial staff. Given the important issues at stake, the definition of research misconduct should encompass the intentional or negligent mismanagement of scientific projects. Individual institutions and professional associations not only can but should adopt stricter standards of conduct than those reflected in federal regulations.     

Dark-adaptation mechanisms of the long-wave foveal cones

The ordinary long-term rod and cone dark-adaptation curves have generally been assumed to follow a single exponential rate of recovery. However, in two previous papers on rod dark-adaptation (Stabell et al., 1986a, b), the recovery curve was found to consist of three different sections. The results of the present paper show the same type of recovery function with three different sections for the long-term dark-adaptation curve of the long-wave cone system. During the major, middle section log cone threshold, like log rod threshold, is linearly related to the logarithm of the concentration of bleached photopigment. Presupposing that the bleached cone photopigment acts as a ligand, the change in threshold level obtained during the middle section of the dark-adaptation curve is well described by the change in activity rate of an allosteric, postively cooperative enzyme built as a dimer.     

Performance under simulated offshore climate conditions

An experimental study was set up simulating the environmental conditions and work load among drillers and maintenance personnel offshore. Thirty-six male subjects participated in the experimental study involving 3h exposures with dry gloves, wet gloves or without gloves. The subjects were working on tasks involving heavy and light muscle work, dexterity and cognitive tasks. Body and skin temperatures and heart rate variability were continuously monitored. Neuropsychological and endocrinological parameters were intermittently monitored. The data from the work performance tasks showed that motor functions, both gross and fine, were impaired when working with wet and, especially, without gloves. Working without gloves also affected mental work tasks. The neuropsychological and physiological data confirmed the work task studies: working with wet or without gloves led to increased tremor and impaired finger dexterity. Furthermore, reasoning was consistently impaired throughout the exposures compared with working with dry gloves. The heart-rate variability data and the endocrine results also showed a significant central nervous stress reaction for the two hypothermic conditions compared with the dry glove condition. Especially for drilling further north these data should imply that both health and performance may be detrimentally affected during working under such conditions with insufficient thermal protection.     

Problems in contemporary psychoanalytic theory: 1. Controversial issues

In two articles the controversial situation within contemporary psychoanalytic theory is discussed with reference to both the form and content of the theory. In the first article some areas of theoretical conflict between traditional drive theory, on the one hand, and object relations theory, self theory, and ego theory, on the other, are surveyed. It is concluded that inconsistency and ambiguity seem so penetrating that one can hardly speak of a unified theory of psychoanalysis at present. This seems to be a new situation in the history of psychoanalysis. A main issue of disagreement is that between drive theory and object relations theory concerning the nature of human motivation. In order to bridge the theoretical gap between the two positions, it seems necessary for psychoanalysis to disclaim the monolithic status of the drives and to adopt a broad theory of motivation where drives are only one contribution among several types of motivating forces. In the second article some lines of advance in psychoanalytic theory are discussed.     

Memory in schizophrenia and affective disorders*

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the stability of memory and information processing in schizophrenics and affectively disturbed patients. Twenty-two schizophrenics, eight affectives and 14 normal controls were tested twice, with an interval of approximately one year. Results showed that normals performed better than schizophrenics and affectively disturbed patients on almost all of the cognitive measures. The differences reached a level of significance on a reaction time test, a vigilance task and a long-term memory task. The only measure where the difference did not reach a level of significance was on a short-term memory test. Groups' performance to some extent changed over time on most of the measures, but the changes were not significantly different for different groups.     

Social change,political beliefs,and everyday expectations in hungarian society

The sudden political shift in Hungary from state socialism to democracy concealed the much slower pace of change in economics and civil society. Distrust and suspicion evolved towards politics and politicians. Liberalism became the major political ideology but it lacked consistency and a firm social basis. A permanent social deprivation was experienced since the inception of the transition period, which gave rise to hidden socialist expectations supporting strong state intervention into housing, employment, education, health care. There is a strong social basis in Hungary for any political aspiration that introduces nationalism into political discourse. Inconsistencies between cognitive elements of diverse political ideologies were revealed along with a strong drive for consistency among intellectuals, who were the leading forces in the transition process. The authors of this article argue that there will be no successful transition without the development of new patterns of thought and social skills replacing helplessness, intolerance and aggression. His major research areas include Hungarian national identity, political socialization, political and ideological attitudes. His major research areas cover social mobility under state socialism, political sociology and perception of social injustice from a cross-national perspective.     

Dark adaptation of the long-wave cones at different eccentricities

Using a Wright colorimeter the ordinary long-term, long-wave cone dark-adaptation curve was measured at 0, 2, 4, 7, 17, 25, 40 and 49 degrees nasally in the visual field. In opposition to previous findings, the results show that the dark-adaptation function of the long-wave cones changes markedly when the test field is moved outward from the rod-free fovea. It is suggested that the kinetics of the long-wave cone photopigment change with eccentricity. Also, at variance with previous findings, the present curves at all eccentricities may reasonably well be interpreted as consisting of three different sections; a first section where the threshold decreases rapidly, followed by a major, approximately linear section and a terminating section that converges asymptotically towards the final level of sensitivity. This finding suggests that the dark-adaptation process of the cone system, under the given experimental conditions, is based on three somewhat different processes.     

Rod suppression of cone-mediated information about colour and form during dark adaptation

Following substantial bleaches, the specific form and hue thresholds were measured during dark adaptation with a test stimulus of 1 x 2 degrees at 40 degrees extrafoveally. The wavelength of the test field was varied between runs. The results show that both thresholds started to rise at about the cone-rod break of the dark-adaptation curve, irrespective of wavelength used in the test. Furthermore, the specific threshold for form was found to rise when a scotopic stimulus was superimposed on a photopic test flash. On the other hand, both thresholds remained at the cone-plateau level when the test flash was confined within the rod-free fovea. In order to explain the rise in the specific thresholds, it is suggested that signals from rods generated directly in response to the test stimulus may suppress both cone-mediated form and colour. It is also suggested that this type of rod-cone interaction represents a general characteristic involved in several kinds of visual information processing.