Octapod-shaped,nanosized, amorphous precipitates in a crystalline ferrite matrix

The development of uniquely octapod-shaped nanosized amorphous silicon–nitride precipitates in a ferrite matrix was observed upon nitriding of Fe–4.5at.%Si alloy. The legs of the amorphous precipitate are oriented along ?1?1?1?-directions of the ferrite. The occurrence of such peculiarly shaped amorphous silicon–nitride precipitates, which experience a volume misfit of more than 100% with the surrounding ferrite, was attributed to precipitate growth influenced by long-range diffusion within the evolving highly anisotropic stress field around the developing precipitates after nucleation.     

The Neural Correlates of Updating Information in Verbal Working Memory

The aim of the present study was to re-examine cerebral areas subserving the updating function of the central executive with a running span task requiring subjects to watch strings of consonants of unknown length and then to recall serially a specific number of recent items. In order to dissociate more precisely the updating process from the storage function, a four-item instead of a six-item memory load was used, contrary to our previous study (Salmon et al., 1996). In addition, a serial recall procedure was preferred to a recognition procedure in order to suppress the use of visuospatial strategies. The most significant increase of rCBF occurred in the left frontopolar cortex (Brodmann's area 10), spreading to the left middle frontal (Brodmann's area 46). Results suggest that frontopolar activation underlies an updating process in working memory.     

Knowledge of Memory Aging Across the Lifespan

ABSTRACT. The authors examined knowledge of normal and pathological memory aging in a lifespan sample of 198 individuals who ranged in age from 13 to 88 years. Participants completed the Knowledge of Memory Aging Questionnaire (Cherry, Brigman, Hawley, & Reese, 2003). The authors hypothesized that high school students would be less knowledgeable about memory aging issues than college students, middle-aged, and community-dwelling older adults. Consistent with this hypothesis, response accuracy was lower for high school students compared to their older counterparts. Follow-up analyses revealed that high school students’ responses to a subset of questions that tap ageist views of adult cognition were less accurate than the other age groups, implying a response bias toward stereotypical images of memory aging. Implications for research and the design of instructional materials to increase people's knowledge about normative changes in adult cognition are discussed.     

Engineering academic performance with selective retrieval: the benefits of implied ability

Research on retrieval fluency suggests that, under different recall constraints, recalling past failures might be as effective as past successes for engineering task performance. In the current study, students recalling three instances of academic success correctly answered more items on a knowledge task than those recalling nine instances. Other students, asked to recall nine instances of failure, answered more items correctly than those recalling three failures and more than those recalling nine successes. This pattern was partially mediated by the assessments of one's ability as compared with other students. The results are interpreted as extending previous research in retrieval fluency by suggesting that the ease of retrieving task‐related instances informs individuals about their comparative ability that, in turn, influences performance.     

Group Therapy Abroad

Abstract

Writing in a narrative tradition, the authors report on the 14th and final convening of the Boston-Threshold Group–sponsored annual Northern Ireland Group Psychotherapy Conference. “It Can Be Done: The Power of the Group to Bear the Unbearable.” They provide context and leadership perspectives on the history of the conference and the planning of its final meeting. Associations to the opening plenary presentation of the play Rounding Third, by Richard Dresser, as performed by the Red Well Theater Group, link themes of power sharing, trauma, containment, and hope to the here-and-now experience of the conference participants. Personal meanings attributed to the conference tradition and its ending are shared.     

The Search for Mathematical Creativity: Identifying Creative Potential in Middle School Students

The identification of creative potential in mathematics poses many challenges. Much of the research into the identification of mathematical creativity has focused on the development of measurement instruments. Scoring of these instruments is time consuming and subject to scorer interpretation, limiting their use. This study sought a simpler means to obtain indicators of creative potential in mathematics. Existing instruments were used to explore the relationship between mathematical creativity and mathematical achievement, attitude towards mathematics, self-perception of creative ability, gender, and teacher perception of mathematical talent and creative ability. Data were gathered from 89 7th graders in a suburban Connecticut school. The regression model predicted 35% of the variance in mathematical creativity scores. Mathematical achievement was the strongest predictor accounting for 23% of the variance. Student attitudes towards mathematics, self-perception of their own creative abilities, and gender contributed the remaining 12% of variance. Interpretation of the relative importance of the independent variables was complicated by correlations among them.     

Sadhu Sundar Singh and his critics: An episode in the meeting of East and West

Robert Alun Jones, The Secret of the Totem: Religion and Society from McLennan to Freud. New York, Columbia University Press, 2005, 347 pp. £32/$49.50, ISBN 0 231 13438 X.

Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004, 392 pp., $38.50/$25.50, ISBN 0 8122 3764 1.

Laurence Coupe, Kenneth Burke on Myth. New York, NY, Routledge, 2005, xivD206 pp., $85, ISBN 0 415 93640 3.

Eva Jane Neumann Fridman, Sacred Geography: Shamanism Among the Buddhist Peoples of Russia. Bibliotheca Shamanistica, vol. 12. Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó , 2004, xivD323 pp., $87.89, ISBN 963 05 81140.

Jeanne Shami, John Donne and Conformity in Crisis in the Late Jacobean Pulpit. Cambridge, Brewer, 2003, xD318 pp., $85, ISBN 0 85991 789 4.

Gavin Flood, The Ascetic Self: Subjectivity, Memory and Tradition. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, xiiiD288 pp., $75.00 (hardback), ISBN 0 521 84338 3, $29.99 (paperback), ISBN 0 521 60401 X.     

A common whore and her relations

This paper engages in a critical discussion of Wouter Hanegraaff's book Western Esotericism and the Academy (2012), acknowledging its importance but also focusing on some points that appear problematic. Particular attention is given to the concept of ‘Platonic Orientalism,’ the concept of ‘form of thought,’ and the theoretical basis for a satisfactory etic definition of ‘Western esotericism.’ Hanegraaff claims that his book offers a solid argument for understanding Western esotericism ‘ultimately’ as a ‘historiographical concept,’ rather than as a ‘form of thought.’ This claim is questioned in the paper.     

Dialogue and faith

‘Dialogue’ between members of differing traditions is nowadays replacing polemics, debate, and monologue preaching of traditional missionary policy. Terms in which it can be conducted have not yet, however, been widely found. It will be illuminating to discover whether among diverse groups conversation in the terms propounded here could prove fruitful, or at least mutually intelligible. This will be a highly significant test of the theory, expecially in view of the possible importance of this activity for the world's future religious development.1 W. Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (Mentor ed. New York 1964), p. 177.