What anorexic and bulimic patients have to tell: the analysis of patterns of unconscious conflict expressed in stories about everyday events

The development of European associations for counselling and psychotherapy raises questions about the challenge of producing pan-European statements of professional ethics. This article explores the range of ethical predispositions associated with different cultures to be found in Europe before examining how the European Association for Counselling and European Association for Psychotherapy have responded to this diversity. Recently produced ethical statements are examined in some detail. Both are found to be compatible with some of the culturally endorsed ethical predispositions to the exclusion of others. the article concludes by suggesting some of the issues that need to be considered in constructing a truly European ethic for counselling and psychotherapy.     

The Ontological Roots of Human Science: the Message of Evolution—The Physics of Freedom (Choice)

The original proposal of H. H. Pattee (1971) Pattee, H. H. 1971. “Can life explain quantum mechanics?”. In Quantum theory and beyond, Edited by: Bastin, T. 307–319. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  [Google Scholar] of basing quantum theoretical measurement theory on the theory of the origin of life, and its far reaching consequences, is discussed in the light of a recently emerging biological paradigm of internal measurement. It is established that the “measurement problem” of quantum physics can, in principle, be traced back to the internal material constraints of the biological organisms, where choice is a fundamental attribute of the self-measurement of matter. In this light, which is shown to be a consequence of Pattee's original suggestion, it is proposed that biological evolution is a gradual liberation from the inert unity of “subject” and “object” of inanimate matter (as “natural law” and “initial conditions”), to a split biological existence of them and, as a consequence, the “message of evolution” is freedom, rather than complexity in itself. Some classical philosophical systems are brought into context to show that the epistemologies of several strictly philosophical systems of the social sciences are well acquainted with the problem and their solutions support our conclusions.     

Highly fluorescent silver nanofluids with ferroelectric molecules

Highly fluorescent silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs), soluble in a ferroelectric host of polymer molecules such as poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVF₂), have been created in the form of nanofluids. The content of Ag-NPs (flocculates) is varied in steps 0.1–0.2 wt% up to a value of 5.0 wt% in tailoring a broad green emission band over 520–620 nm out of a hybrid percolation Ag–PVF₂ composite. A maximum intensity arises in this band at as small a percolation threshold as ～0.1 wt% Ag-NPs. It contains three distinct bands of peak values 541, 565, and 582 nm in an Ag-NPs tunable response of the localized surface plasmons. The emission-dependent anti-Stokes excitation spectrum contains a similar group of three bands 348, 401, and 421 nm. For Ag-contents above 0.1 wt%, interdependent intensities in the emission and excitation bands drop rapidly by as much as five times, conferring a metal–polymer percolation network. The results open wide applications for biological labels and light emitters using such nanofluids.     

肿瘤干细胞分离方法研究现状

肿瘤干细胞理论能够解释肿瘤的发生、发展和转移等生物学行为,使人们对恶性肿瘤有一个全新的认识,为临床治疗展现全新视角,使肿瘤靶向治疗找到了新靶点,改变目前药物针对全部癌细胞的治疗策略。本文就肿瘤干细胞分离方法做一简要综述。     

Avoidant coping in panic disorder: a yohimbine biological challenge study

Abstract

Few studies have addressed whether the use of avoidance-oriented coping strategies is related to the development of panic in patients with panic disorder(PD). Self-report, clinician-rated, and physiological data were collected from 42 individuals who participated in a yohimbine biological challenge study, performed under double-blind, placebo-controlled conditions. Participants included 20 healthy controls and 22 currently symptomatic patients who met DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for PD. Consistent with prediction, patients with PD who had higher perceived efficacy of avoidance-oriented strategies in reducing anxiety-related thoughts reported increased severity in panic symptoms during the yohimbine challenge condition as compared to the placebo. Further, patients with PD who had more fear of cognitive dyscontrol, cardiovascular symptoms, and publicly observable anxiety also reported increased severity in panic symptoms during the challenge. Healthy controls who had more fear of cardiovascular symptoms similarly reported increased severity in panic symptoms during the challenge. No effects were found for heart rate response to the challenge agent. These results provide support for the role of avoidance-oriented coping strategies and fear of anxiety-related symptoms as risk and maintenance factors in the development of panic symptoms, particularly within a biological challenge model.     

Temporal binding during apparent movement of the human body

Alternating between static images of human bodies with an appropriate interstimulus interval (ISI) produces apparent biological motion. Here we investigate links between apparent biological motion and time perception. We presented two pictures of the initial and final positions of a human movement separated by six different ISIs. The shortest movement path between two positions was always biomechanically impossible. Participants performed two tasks: In an explicit task, participants judged whether they saw the longer, feasible movement path between the two postures, or the shorter, biomechanically impossible path. In an implicit task, participants judged the duration of a white square surrounding the picture sequence. At longer ISIs participants were more likely to see a longer, feasible movement path (explicit task) and underestimated the duration of body picture pairs, compared to trials displaying degraded body pictures (implicit task). We argue that perceiving apparent biological motion involves temporal binding of two static pictures into a continuous movement. Such temporal binding may be mediated by a top-down mechanism that produces a percept of biological motion in the absence of any retinal motion.     

The Getting and Losing Wisdom

SUMMARY

The role of aging and culture in the attainment of wisdom is examined m this chapter. The concept of wisdom m industrialised societies is briefly explored. It is argued that both biology and culture can be positive or negative factors m the capacity of a person to be “wise.” It is concluded that, for many, the negative impact of biological factors of aging are overwhelming, but, for a few, aging enriches their insight.     

The Biology of Morality

Abstract. The morality of human beings, defined here as our ability to determine whether our actions are right or wrong, depends not just on following rules but also on understanding the impact of our actions on another person. How we understand the impact of our actions on another person depends on our state of consciousness, which is mediated by our brain and nervous system. We describe how we understand our morality to flow naturally from the biological state we are living in and how we see our biology and our morality as mutually interactive. A change in one changes the other. Another way of saying this is that changing either our morality or our biology changes both—changes who we are and what we do.     

Naturism as a Form of Religious Naturalism

The version of religious naturalism sketched here is called naturism to distinguish it from conceptions of religious naturalism that make fundamental appeal to some idea of deity, deities, or the divine, however immanental, functional, nonontological, or purely valuational or existential such notions may be claimed to be. The focus of naturism is on nature itself as both metaphysically and religiously ultimate. Nature is sacred in its own right, not because of its derivation from some more–ultimate religious principle, state, being, beings, or order of being. Humans, their cultures, and their histories are conceived as integral parts of nature, manifestations of potentialities that lie within it and have been actualized by biological evolution. While there is no purpose of nature, the natural order contains beings capable of purposive behavior. With this purposive behavior, and the goals and ideals implicit in it, humans have the capacity to give significant direction to their ongoing cultural evolution and to discover and maintain their appropriate place within the community of creatures.     

双螺旋的发现与生物学的统一

双螺旋的发现和遗传密码的破译是20世纪激动人心的大事。在生物学的这个发展过程中,洛克菲勒基金会对应用物理学方法研究分子生物学问题的资助以及大批物理学家向生物学的转移对分子生物学的发展起到了重要的推动作用。选择战略性的课题,善于学习和鉴别已有的研究成果,站在巨人的肩上,是沃森和克里克成功的关键。双螺旋的发现不仅揭示了遗传的奥秘,而且促进了生物学的统一。