The big carrot: High‐stakes incentives revisited

Using an international dataset of about 35 000 subjects, this paper provides an empirical example of high‐stakes incentives in relation to religious practice. First, we show that incentives (based on absolute belief) play a salient role in religious performance. Second, we find that when both positive (heaven) and negative (hell) incentives are available the former are more effective than the latter. Specifically, it is shown that beliefs in heaven are much more relevant than beliefs in hell when estimating the production of religious commodities (church‐attendance and praying equations). Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

In Defence of Constructive Empiricism: Maxwell’s Master Argument and Aberrant Theories

Over the past years, in books and journals (this journal included), N. Maxwell launched a ferocious attack on B. C. van Fraassen’s view of science called Constructive Empiricism (CE). This attack has been totally ignored. Must we conclude from this silence that no defence is possible and that a fortiori Maxwell has buried CE once and for all? Or is the attack too obviously flawed as not to merit exposure? A careful dissection of Maxwell’s reasoning will make it clear that neither is the case. This dissection includes an analysis of Maxwell’s ‘aberrance–argument’ (omnipresent in his many writings) for the claim that science implicitly and permanently accepts a substantial, metaphysical thesis about the universe, which then paves the way for his own metaphysical-realist hierarchy-view of science. This aberrance-claim, which Maxwell directs against a widely shared and harmful ideology of science called ‘Standard Empiricism’, generally has been ignored too, for more than a quarter of a century. Our conclusions will be that (i) Maxwell’s attacks on CE can be beaten off, and (ii) his ‘aberrance–arguments’ do not establish what Maxwell believes they establish, but (iii) we can draw a number of valuable lessons from these attacks about the nature of science and of the libertarian nature of CE.     

B2C电子商务中消费者的风险来源及其影响

研究目的是通过考察B2C(Business to Consumer)电子商务中消费者知觉到的风险来源来验证电子商务交易中的虚实界面假设。通过访谈法和问卷法调查了337名被试,探讨了B2C电子商务中消费者认知到的风险来源结构,以及这些风险来源对消费者认知风险的影响。结果表明：消费者在B2C电子商务中的认知风险一部分来源于虚实界面     

组织微阵列方法检测CD105、VEGF—C在肝癌组织中的表达

新生血管生成不仅为肿瘤组织提供营养支持,而且是肿瘤细胞进入循环系统的途径。CD105仅在激活的上皮细胞表达;VEGF-C为重要的血管生成因子之一,但二者与肝癌转移是否存在关联尚不明晰。探讨CD105及VEGF-C表达与肝癌肝内转移的关联。构建承栽37例肝癌及癌旁组织的组织微阵列,免疫组织化学方法检测CD105及VEGF-C的表达。存在肝内转移的肝癌组织MVD-CD105均值为28.4±19.4,而无肝内转移的肝癌组织MVD-CD105均值为5.4±5.2,差异显著(P＜0.01);VEGF-C在存在肝内转移的肝癌组织表达率为46.15%(6/14),无肝内转移的肝癌组织中表达率为41.67%(10/24),二者无显著差异。MVD-CD105分值与肝癌肝内转移密切相关;血管生成可能在肝癌肝内转移过程中起重要作用。     

EDUCATION SECTION: Infant observation in Britain:The Tavistock approach

The author draws attention to something distinctive in the psychoanalytic 'air' from the early 1960s onwards: the strong emphasis upon the very early psychological, emotional and cognitive view of infants and young children. She focuses on the work of two analysts in particular, Esther Bick and Wilfred Bion, and the comparable, though differently expressed, centrality of the observational method in their work. Each explored not only the pathological picture but also the nature and integrative function of psychic containment in earliest mental life. Each also shared a preoccupation with what constituted a psychoanalytic attitude and with the process of becoming a psychoanalyst and, in Bick's case, a child analyst or psychotherapist. The author provides an historical background to the idea of observation, followed by an account, with detailed examples, of the nature of infant observation and the observational method as taught and practised at the Tavistock Clinic, London since the late 1940s, and subsequently in many other training institutions. Here the themes of Bick and Bion are constantly interrelated such that the prototype or model for the creation of emotional meaning and thought can be appreciated and learning from experience can take place.     

活性蛋白C：想说爱你不容易

重组人类活性蛋白C（rhAPC）为治疗重症脓毒症的药物,目前有证据表明rhAPC的市场策略有可能已经影响到专业机构诊治指南的制定与执行;rhAPC的临床疗效亦未能被大型临床试验继续证实,因此目前rhAPC的临床应用以及疗效评价要慎重进行。同时,有必要深入反思药品生产商与专业组织的利益关系,并制订对策以加强监管。     

B2C电子商务中的消费者决策支持系统

B2C电子商务环境下的决策支持系统主要包括专家系统,推荐系统和智能代理系统或者其组合等。其目标是帮助消费者发现和澄清需求,在网络海量的信息环境下发现和比较信息,筛选符合客户需要的产品,或者提供建议。该文回顾了近年来网上决策支持系统的研究进展,并对其在B2C电子商务中的应用前景和研究发展趋势进行了预测与展望     

Algebraic study of Sette's maximal paraconsistent logic

The aim of this paper is to study the paraconsistent deductive systemP ¹ within the context of Algebraic Logic. It is well known due to Lewin, Mikenberg and Schwarse thatP ¹ is algebraizable in the sense of Blok and Pigozzi, the quasivariety generated by Sette's three-element algebraS being the unique quasivariety semantics forP ¹. In the present paper we prove that the mentioned quasivariety is not a variety by showing that the variety generated byS is not equivalent to any algebraizable deductive system. We also show thatP ¹ has no algebraic semantics in the sense of Czelakowski. Among other results, we study the variety generated by the algebraS. This enables us to prove in a purely algebraic way that the only proper non-trivial axiomatic extension ofP ¹ is the classical deductive systemPC. Throughout the paper we also study those abstract logics which are in a way similar toP ¹, and are called hereabstract Sette logics. We obtain for them results similar to those obtained for distributive abstract logics by Font, Verdú and the author.     

Altruism: A Social Science Chameleon

The self-interest paradigm that has dominated and defined social science is being questioned today in all the social sciences. Frontline research is represented by C. Daniel Batson's experiments, which claim to present empirical evidence of altruism. Impressive though this is against the background of the self-interest paradigm, its ultimate significance might be to illustrate the inadequacy of social science to deal with a transcendent reality like altruism.     

The use of a portable delayed auditory feedback unit in stuttering therapy

A portable on-the-body delayed auditory feedback was used in the establishment and transfer modes of fluent speech in a stutterer while he was on the Monterey Fluency Program. The performance of the client was compared with a “standard” population of stutterers. The portable DAF was comparable to the larger DAF in establishment and superior in transfer with minimal behavioral and technical problems. Use and potential value of the portable DAF in transfer and maintenance phases of therapy are discussed.