The rationale for an “oblimax” method of transformation in factor analysis

Factorial transformation is viewed as an estimation problem in which the usual assumption of homogeneously distributed error cannot be applied, but may be replaced by a principle of maximum kurtosis. This leads to quartimax in the orthogonal case, and to oblimax in the oblique case. Oblimax is readily programmable, and typically provides results similar to those of subjective rotation. However, oblimax may encounter special difficulty in data which do not determine a simple structure, or which have been imprecisely factored.The Managing Editor has substituted the word transformation for the word rotation in the title and throughout this paper, on the grounds that oblique rotation is a self-contradictory term, the use of which need not be perpetuated.This paper is primarily a condensation of material that first appeared in ETS Research Bulletins 53-10 and 54-31, both long out of print. In this treatment the principle of maximum kurtosis receives increased emphasis, and the special case for equation (10) is recognized. The writer is indebted to his former colleagues, Mr. Charles Pinzka and Dr. Ledyard Tucker, for invaluable assistance in achieving a straightforward and general derivation of equation (10).     

Strictness and Congregational Growth in Middletown

The relative effectiveness of strictness theory and modernization theory in explaining congregational growth is tested using a random sample of white, Protestant churches in Middletown (N = 98). Although the former theory predicts that growth is positively related to an authoritative structure and to enforcing rules of ascetic strictness, modernization theory predicts the opposite pattern. For our sample, authoritative leadership seemed not to produce congregational growth. The main finding was that strict rules positively related to growth among working-class congregations, but negatively related to growth among middle-class congregations.     

Cyborgs, uploading and immortality — Some serious concerns

Transhumanism and Extropianism are two recent ‘movements’ which aspire to transcend the perceived limitations of human biological evolution. This paper takes a critical look at two of the most controversial aspects of Extropianism—Uploading and Immortality. Uploading is the process by which a human will be able to transfer the entire contents of their brain to a more suitable supercomputational medium. When the newentity exist as software, immortality is virtually assured. This should be possible, it is claimed, within the next fifty years! From both a pragmatic and philosophical perspective, I argue that these claims are at best misguided and at worst absurd.     

Spontaneously hypertensive, Wistar Kyoto and Sprague-Dawley rats differ in their use of place and response strategies in the water radial arm maze

This study further characterises the use of mnemonic systems in the spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR), which is frequently used as a rodent model of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The objective of this study was to assess the preference of male SHR, Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) and Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats for a place or response strategy when trained on an ambiguous T-maze task, and also to examine whether all strains acquired information about both strategies during ambiguous training, regardless of their preferred strategy. In the first experiment, SHR and WKY showed a preference for a response strategy on the ambiguous T-maze task; in contrast, SD displayed a preference for a place strategy. In the second experiment, all strains demonstrated that they learned information about both the response and place strategies during ambiguous training. However, on a conditioned place preference test SHR did not display as strong a preference for the place arm as WKY and SD. This finding supports previous research in a conditioned cue preference test, in which SHR did not display a preference for the cue associated with the platform. These observations that the strains differ with respect to behavioural strategy in a learning task suggest that they differ in the underlying neural circuitry that serves goal-directed behaviour, and are consistent with SHR having deficits associated with the nucleus accumbens.     

Discriminative control of punished stereotyped behavior in humans

The purpose of this experiment was to establish discriminative control of responding by an antecedent stimulus using differential punishment because the results of past studies on this topic have been mixed. Three adults with mental retardation who exhibited stereotypy not maintained by social consequences (i.e., automatic reinforcement) participated. For each subject, stereotypy occurred frequently in the presence of a stimulus correlated with nonpunishment of stereotypy and rarely, if ever, in the presence of a stimulus correlated with punishment of stereotypy. Latency measures showed that the antecedent stimulus correlated with punishment served as the discriminative stimulus for the suppression of stereotypy. These results are important insofar as they show that discriminative control by an antecedent stimulus develops with punishment, and because it sometimes may be desirable to establish such control of socially inappropriate behavior.     

Empirical Support for an Evolutionary Model of Self‐Destructive Motivation

We tested predictions generated from an evolutionary account of self‐destructive motivation in two survey studies of 18–24‐year‐old university students. As hypothesized, hierarchical regressions showed that the positive relationship between perceived burden to family and suicide ideation was amplified for participants with low measured health and romantic relationship satisfaction, and for participants with relatively young mothers. The moderating effect of maternal age was also observed in logistic regressions of suicide attempts. These effects occurred independently of depression, hopelessness, and other relevant extraneous variables. Results have implications for understanding self‐destructive motivation, assessing suicide risk, and preventing suicidal thinking and behavior.     

Does God Cheat at Dice? Divine Action and Quantum Possibilities

The recent debates concerning divine action in the context of quantum mechanics are examined with particular reference to the work of William Pollard, Robert J. Russell, Thomas Tracy, Nancey Murphy, and Keith Ward. The concept of a quantum mechanical "event" is elucidated and shown to be at the center of this debate. An attempt is made to clarify the claims made by the protagonists of quantum mechanical divine action by considering the measurement process of quantum mechanics in detail. Four possibilities for divine influence on quantum mechanics are identified and the theological and scientific implications of each discussed. The conclusion reached is that quantum mechanics is not easily reconciled with the doctrine of divine action.     

当今医学科技的发展趋势及我国的发展战略

作为生命科学最重要组成部分的医学科学走向科技发展的新时代。在下个世纪,科研重点将向生命科学和生命医学转移。充分认识医学科学技术的地位和作用,及当代医学科技发展的主要趋势和特点,制定我国医学科学的发展战略,加强医学高技术的发展,对我国的医学科技发展将具有十分重要的意义。