On the (Ir)Relevance of Lutheran Theology: Teaching Lutheran Theology in Tanzania

Abstract : The Lutheran interpretation of the gospel we have preached and taught in Tanzania finds little resonance. This may be due to our individualistic and guilt‐oriented, narrow reading of Luther. Luther's theology may again become relevant in Tanzania should it find local interpretations. Good news can indeed be glad tidings when the Word meets human need and anguish. The dominating questions of the human condition change between cultures, societies and times. Our context is not 16th century Wittenberg.     

Do captive mandrills invent new gestures?

Studies of intraspecific behavioral variability have documented cases where behaviors are present in some populations or groups but are absent in others. In some cases these differences cannot be explained by recourse to environmental or genetic variation, and may instead represent “traditions”. Despite many examples of animal traditions in acoustic communication, relatively few examples exist of gestural traditions. Here I report on a study of communication across eight captive groups of mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) in which a prominent gesture (Hand extension) was unique to two groups. Habitat variability, genetic differences, and sampling bias were not sufficient to account for the gesture’s limited distribution across the study groups. Within the two groups where the gesture did occur only the juveniles in the group performed it, consistently directing it toward adults. Quantitative analysis of the contexts and responses associated with the gesture suggested that juveniles utilized it to provoke adults. Moreover, the gesture appeared to minimize the risk juveniles incurred while inciting adults, suggesting that repeated social interactions shaped the gesture’s form. Interestingly, both the groups where the gesture emerged contained few juveniles. With limited play partners, these juveniles may have resorted to harassing adults as an alternative social play outlet. The creation of this novel gesture may thus be due to the combined influence of a shortage of play partners and of the increased free time for playful social exploration afforded by captivity. Although juveniles frequently “eavesdropped” on dyadic interactions involving the gesture and would subsequently initiate an interaction with the recipient of the gesture, there was no definitive evidence for social transmission; the gesture could instead have been independently invented by each juvenile. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Impulsivity as a predictor of newly-diagnosed peptic ulcer disease: A prospective cohort study

We examined the role of impulsivity in the development of peptic ulcer disease (PUD). The subjects were initially healthy 4636 hospital employees aged 19–62 who responded to a questionnaire on personality, health habits, mental health, and PUD in 1998 and 2000. We used multivariate logistic analyses to determine the relationship between impulsivity and newly-diagnosed PUD among those employees who did not have PUD at baseline. Impulsivity was assessed with the Karolinska Scale of Personality. High level of impulsivity was associated with increased 2-year incidence of doctor-diagnosed PUD after adjustment of age, gender, education and shift work (odds ratio = 2.42, 95% confidence interval = 1.21–4.82). Additional adjustment for the effects of smoking, alcohol consumption, BMI, physical activity, minor psychiatric morbidity and diagnosed depression and other psychiatric disease had little effect on this relationship. The present study suggests that impulsivity may be a risk factor for the development of PUD.     

Using a virtual reality system to study balance and walking in a virtual outdoor environment: a pilot study.

Falls and fall-related injuries are a major problem for elderly persons. Most falls occur during walking and turning, and the risk of falling increases when attention is diverted to something besides walking. It is often difficult to standardize methods for testing balance and fall tendency in a clinically relevant setting. We describe the development of a system using a virtual environment (VE) to assess how attention demanding and unexpected events influence a person's capacity to control balance and movement. The hardware in the system consists of a head-mounted display (HMD), a magnetic tracker system, and two SGI computers. The software consists of the image generation of the VE and the management and visualization of motion tracking data. In a preliminary pilot study eight subjects (age 23-80) participated. Each subject walked on a normal floor and was visually presented a familiar outdoor environment in the HMD. They were exposed to different unexpected events, such as a virtual snowfall and tilting of the VE. Disturbances of balance and walking patterns such as changes in speed, stride length and balance reactions like slipping were observed. Two subjects experienced symptoms of cyber sickness with a SSQ score above 25 points. Walking with sensors only did not affect walking time, but in VE the subjects generally walked more slowly. Virtual tilting of the environment had an impact on balance performance during walking. This effect was not observed while the test subjects were walking in a virtual snowfall. The model needs further development but may hold a potential for clinical use.     

Testing for the presence of 1/f noise in continuation tapping data.

A number of recent papers have suggested that the series of time intervals produced in continuation tapping may have fractal properties. This proposition, nevertheless, was only based on the visual appraisal of graphical results, and was not statistically supported. In the present study, we applied the ARMA/ARFIMA modeling procedures proposed by Wagenmakers, Farrell, and Ratcliff (2005) to test for the presence of long-range dependencies in continuation tapping data. Our results demonstrate the presence of long-range dependencies in most series and offer strong support for the hypothesis that fluctuations in tapping series are fractal in nature.     

Effects of nutritive and non-nutritive sucking on infant heart rate variability during the first 6 months of life

The effects of eating on heart rate variability (HRV) differ between adults and newborns. This may reflect the impact of suckling on the overall psychophysiological and autonomic nervous system maturation. The purpose of the present study was to explore whether the reactions of HRV during feeding change towards the adult pattern during the first 6 months of life. In addition, the effects of non-nutritive and nutritive sucking on heart rate (HR) and HRV were compared. The participants were 23 infants on whom recordings were performed as newborns and at 6, 12 and 24 weeks old. Nutritive sucking caused an increase in HR and a decline in HRV. The results were consistent with previous reports of a decrease in high frequency components of HRV during feeding in newborns, reflecting a decrease in parasympathetic activity. This response was apparent in all four ages studied, and remained similar throughout the 6-month period. However, age as an independent factor seemed to influence both HR and HRV. Pacifier sucking had no significant effects on HRV at any age. The results demonstrate the physical strain that sucking imposes on the baby, with a specific autonomic nervous system response involved. We consider this response an essential part of the overall psychophysiological maturation of infants.     

Radical Innovation and End-User Involvement: The Ambilight Case

To make technology research more effective and to deal with fierce cost competition, technology research should be more focused on radical innovation and needs to adopt a more end-user-focused approach. Product improvement is already quite often building on knowledge collected around consumers’ experiences with these products to come with a next, improved generation of products. However, in case of creating novel products from “scratch,” this will be more difficult. The user-centered research approach including insights, scenarios, and experience prototypes provides a good method to incorporate the consumer perspective in the earliest stages of the product creation process. The development of the Ambilight TV will be used as a case to illustrate this approach.     

How Do You Say Nature?: Opening the Design Space with a Knowledge Environment

In this paper, we describe a design study on how families in Los Angeles experience nature, with a particular focus on how using alternative formats for research analysis and presentation can enrich a design research inquiry. Conducted in Pasadena, CA as a part of Super Studio, the year-long design research class emphasized knowledge building and sharing through design methods of analysis, exhibition, and concept prototypes. After conducting interviews and engaging participants with probes, the class built the results into an open-ended knowledge environment. The main observation from the exhibition – that Angelenos have a limited vocabulary for describing nature and their interaction with it – helped to define the opportunity for design intervention that created connection points between Angelenos and nature. There are few attempts to describe how probe returns evolve into design concepts. Showcased is a process that depends on the unique affordances of design as the vehicle for discovery and invention.     

Defining task-set reconfiguration: The case of reference point switching

Some researchers argue that task switching involves task-set reconfiguration-that is, changing the existing task set to perform a different task. Although this idea is intriguing, it is often unclear what is reconfigured and which processes are involved in reconfiguration. We addressed these issues by defining task sets, identifying differences between them, and obtaining evidence that was diagnostic of reconfiguration. In two experiments, subjects performed relative judgment tasks that involved comparing a target with a reference point that repeated or switched across trials. The task was the same on every trial, but the task set was not, because a task-set parameter-the reference point-had to be changed. Target-reference point distance effects that changed with the reference point provided diagnostic evidence that reconfiguration occurred, and this reconfiguration led to switch costs. We discuss how our approach can be generalized to define reconfiguration more clearly in other task-switching situations. nt|mis|This research was supported by Grants BCS 0133202 and BCS 0446806 from the National Science Foundation to G.D.L.