The Impact of Religious Connectedness on Health-Related Quality of Life in Patients with Diabetic Foot Ulcers

Religious connectedness is common phenomenon in Saudi Arabia and adjacent Gulf countries. An observational case control study was designed, enrolling 180 adult patients to report the association between religious connectedness and health-related quality of life (HRQL) in people with and without diabetes and foot ulcers. Sixty diabetic patients with foot ulcers (Group I) were compared with sixty diabetic patients without foot ulcer (Group II) and sixty healthy subjects (Group III) for assessment of their HRQL by using SF-36 questionnaire. The effect of religious connectedness was assessed using intrinsic/extrinsic religious connectedness scale. HRQL was found to be significantly lower in Group I compared with Group II and III as well as in group II compared with group III (P < 0.001). Group I patients showed a poorer HRQL with increased severity, duration and multiplicity of foot ulcers. There was a strong positive relationship between religious connectedness and HRQL as indicated by a positive correlation between religious connectedness scale and mental, physical component summary scores (r = 0.66 and 0.59 respectively and P < 0.001). While quality of life is generally poor in people with diabetic foot ulcers, there exists a strong positive relationship between religious connectedness and higher HRQL. These findings may have implications on improving outcomes.     

Sunday School Student and Theological Fatalism

I will briefly argue that theological fatalism is not a genuine ‘theological’ problem, for it can be reduced to another alleged incompatibility that arises independently of the existence or non-existence of God. I will conclude that the way of arguing against the existence of God or His omniscience by appealing to theological fatalism is blocked for libertarian atheists.     

A model of amygdala–hippocampal–prefrontal interaction in fear conditioning and extinction in animals

Empirical research has shown that the amygdala, hippocampus, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) are involved in fear conditioning. However, the functional contribution of each brain area and the nature of their interactions are not clearly understood. Here, we extend existing neural network models of the functional roles of the hippocampus in classical conditioning to include interactions with the amygdala and prefrontal cortex. We apply the model to fear conditioning, in which animals learn physiological (e.g. heart rate) and behavioral (e.g. freezing) responses to stimuli that have been paired with a highly aversive event (e.g. electrical shock). The key feature of our model is that learning of these conditioned responses in the central nucleus of the amygdala is modulated by two separate processes, one from basolateral amygdala and signaling a positive prediction error, and one from the vmPFC, via the intercalated cells of the amygdala, and signaling a negative prediction error. In addition, we propose that hippocampal input to both vmPFC and basolateral amygdala is essential for contextual modulation of fear acquisition and extinction. The model is sufficient to account for a body of data from various animal fear conditioning paradigms, including acquisition, extinction, reacquisition, and context specificity effects. Consistent with studies on lesioned animals, our model shows that damage to the vmPFC impairs extinction, while damage to the hippocampus impairs extinction in a different context (e.g., a different conditioning chamber from that used in initial training in animal experiments). We also discuss model limitations and predictions, including the effects of number of training trials on fear conditioning.     

Intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and learning English as a foreign language

The objective of this study was to examine the relationships of amotivation, extrinsic motivation, and intrinsic motivation with learning the English language. The 230 Iranian students at Shiraz University were tested using the Language Learning Orientations Scales to measure Amotivation, Extrinsic Motivation, and Intrinsic Motivation as explanatory variables. Grade point average in English exams was selected as a measure of English learning Achievement. Multiple regression analysis revealed that learning Achievement scores were predicted by scores on the Amotivation subscale, Introjected Regulation subscale, Knowledge subscale, and Stimulation subscale, whereas, the External and Identified Regulation and Accomplishment subscales did not have a significant relationship with Achievement. The results are discussed in terms of differences in Iranian context and culture.     

Construct Validity of the Relationship Profile Test: Links With Measures of Psychopathology and Adult Attachment

This study assessed the construct validity of the Relationship Profile Test (RPT; Bornstein &; Languirand, 2003 Bornstein, R. F., &; Languirand, M. A. (2003). Healthy dependency. New York, NY: Newmarket. [Google Scholar]) with a substance abuse sample. One hundred-eight substance abuse patients completed the RPT, Experiences in Close Relationships Scale–Short Form (Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, &; Vogel, 2007 Wei, M., Russell, D. W., Mallinckrodt, B., &; Vogel, D. L. (2007). The Experience in Close Relationships Scale (ECR)–Short Form: Reliability, validity and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 88, 187–204.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Personality Assessment Inventory (Morey, 1991 Morey, L. C. (1991). Personality Assessment Inventory professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. [Google Scholar]), and Symptom Checklist–90–Revised (Derogatis, 1983 Derogatis, L. R. (1983). SCL–90–R administration, scoring, and procedures manual II. Towson, MD: Clinical Psychometric Research. [Google Scholar]). Results suggest that the RPT has good construct validity when compared against theoretically related broadband measures of personality, psychopathology, and adult attachment. Overall, health dependency was negatively related to measures of psychopathology and insecure attachment, and overdependence was positively related to measures of psychopathology and attachment anxiety. Many of the predictions regarding RPT detachment and the criterion measures were not supported. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Quantity discrimination in parental fish: female convict cichlid discriminate fry shoals of different sizes

Numerical abilities have been found to be adaptive in different contexts, including mating, foraging, fighting assessment and antipredator strategies. In species with parental care, another potential advantage is the possibility to adjust parental behavior in relation to the numerosity of the progeny. The finding that many fish vary their parental investment in relation to brood size advocates the existence of a mechanism for appraising offspring number, an aspect that has never been directly investigated. Here we tested the ability of parental female convict cichlid (Amatitlania nigrofasciata) to discriminate between two fry groups differing in number by measuring time spent attempting to recover groups of fry experimentally displaced from the next. Females spent more time trying to recover the fry from larger groups when tested with contrasts 6 versus 12 (1:2) and 6 versus 9 fry (2:3); however, they showed no preference in the 6 versus 8 (3:4) contrast, suggesting that this task exceeds their discrimination capacity.     

Religiosity and Determinants of Safe Sex in Iranian Non-Medical Male Students

This study evaluates the safe sex determinants in college students. In the qualitative section, premarital sex, sex with steady girlfriend and religion’s impact were highlighted. In the quantitative part, the relations between the religiosity score and past sexual activity, attitude, norms, and self-efficacy with regard to sexual abstinence were investigated. Students who had a higher religious score were significantly more likely to have high self-efficacy in refusing sex, and their attitudes supported their abstinence. Additionally, these students were more likely never to have had a sexual relationship. Findings suggest that greater religious involvement is a protective factor in high-risk sexual behavior. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Acute exposure to a 50 Hz magnetic field impairs consolidation of spatial memory in rats

This study was planned to evaluate the effect of an exposure to magnetic fields on consolidation and retrieval of hippocampus dependent spatial memory using a water maze. In Experiments 1 and 2, rats were trained in a hidden version (spatial) of water maze task with two blocks of four trials. The retention of spatial memory was evaluated 48 h later. Exposure to a 50 Hz 8 mT, but not 2 mT magnetic fields for 20 min immediately after training impaired retention performance. The same time exposure shortly before retention testing had no effect. In Experiment 3, rats were trained in a cued version of water maze with two blocks of four trials. Exposure to magnetic field at 8 mT for 20 min immediately after training did not impair retention performance. These findings indicate that acute exposure to a 50 Hz magnetic field at 8 mT for short time can impair consolidation of spatial memory.     

The Concept of Death: A Religio-philosophical Analysis

In an age in which vast progress has been made in organ transplant technology, it is imperative to determine the point at which a human being is considered dead, for transplantation cannot occur until after death. Traditional religious views imply that a human being is dead upon the departure of the soul from the body. Taking the biological death of the body as a conclusive sign of the soul's departure is not an option. Biological death refers to decomposition, and this cannot equate to the death of the person as such, for this would make the concept and practice of transplantation absurd, for transplantable parts of a biologically dead—i.e. decomposing—body could not be used. On the other hand, if parts of the human body are themselves still biologically alive, could it not be said that taking such parts would amount to murder?

Two conclusions follow from this predicament. First, death as a ‘normative’ concept stands in sharp distinction from a purely biological concept. Second, a normative concept of death is entangled with a normative concept of personhood. That is to say, from the moment that a human being is not considered a person as such, parts of the body could be removed for transplantation or, indeed, for any other justified medical purpose. In this regard, various theories of the person are put forward. Which of these theories is compatible with a workable concept of death? In this paper two principal theories of the person will be discussed and it will be argued that a brain-based theory of death is conducive to a normative concept of death, thus allowing for organ transplantation.