The Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life Questionnaire (SoMe): Relations to demographics and well-being

Shortfalls of widely used measures of meaning in life are described. Their use results in biased correlations and restriction of the complexity inherent in experiences of meaning. To qualify results, the Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life Questionnaire (SoMe) is employed. It offers separate scales to measure a positive and a negative dimension of meaning: meaningfulness–a fundamental sense of meaning and belonging, and crisis of meaning–the evaluation of life as frustratingly empty and lacking meaning. Both intercorrelate moderately (?.38/?.35). Additionally, the SoMe assesses 26 sources of meaning. Based on a representative sample, relationships between meaningfulness, crisis of meaning, and sources of meaning with demographics are reported (Study 1). In Study 2, SoMe scales are correlated with positive (mood, satisfaction with life) and negative (neuroticism, anxiety, depression) indicators of well-being. SEM reveals that meaningfulness predicts positive well-being, but is not predictive of negative well-being. Crisis of meaning is a strong predictor for both positive and negative well-being.     

Task-switching cost and repetition priming: Two overlooked confounds in the fixed-set procedure of the Sternberg paradigm and how they affect memory set-size effects

Subjects performed Sternberg-type memory recognition tasks (Sternberg paradigm) in four experiments. Category-instance names were used as learning and testing materials. Sternberg's original experiments demonstrated a linear relation between reaction time (RT) and memory-set size (MSS). A few later studies found no relation, and other studies found a nonlinear relation (logarithmic) between the two variables. These deviations were used as evidence undermining Sternberg's serial scan theory. This study identified two confounding variables in the fixed-set procedure of the paradigm (where multiple probes are presented at test for a learned memory set) that could generate a MSS RT function that was either flat or logarithmic rather than linearly increasing. These two confounding variables were task-switching cost and repetition priming. The former factor worked against smaller memory sets and in favour of larger sets whereas the latter factor worked in the opposite way. Results demonstrated that a null or a logarithmic RT-to-MSS relation could be the artefact of the combined effects of these two variables. The Sternberg paradigm has been used widely in memory research, and a thorough understanding of the subtle methodological pitfalls is crucial. It is suggested that a varied-set procedure (where only one probe is presented at test for a learned memory set) is a more contamination-free procedure for measuring the MSS effects, and that if a fixed-set procedure is used, it is worthwhile examining the RT function of the very first trials across the MSSs, which are presumably relatively free of contamination by the subsequent trials.     

In the Halfway House of Ill Repute: Gender Verification under a Different Name,Still No Contribution to Fair Play

The aftermath of Caster Semenya’s resounding victory in the women’s 800?m at the 2009 Athletics World Championships in Berlin highlighted the ethical and scientific flaws of gender verification in women’s athletics. It has led the governing international body of professional athletics, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), to adopt new rules regarding athletes with differences of sexual developments (DSDs) in women’s competitions in 2011 (Regulations on Hyperandrogenism). The International Olympic Committee followed suit and adopted a similar set of rules in 2012. Locating the practice of gender verification in a history of sexist stereotyping of women athletes (in Section 1), I argue (in Section 2), following other critics, that the IAAF’s new rules suffer from the same ethical flaws as their predecessors; and specifically that they still invite and rely on qualitative measuring of an athlete’s femininity and masculinity. In the central section of this paper (Section 3), I relate the practice of gender verification to the vexing question of what constitutes an unfair advantage in sports. I suggest, first, that athletes with a DSD should be at liberty to exploit competitive advantages their conditions might confer on them, just as most athletes in most sports are at liberty to exploit their congenital traits (the only irrelevant difference being that DSDs are construed as gendered advantages). In a second step, I argue that gender segregation in sports and gender verification practices cannot both be defended by an appeal to fairness. If we want to preserve gender segregation, then we ought to give up gender verification; and if we are not prepared to give up regulation of gendered congenital advantages, then we ought to give up gender segregation in favor of a classification system that tracks genetic predisposition rather than gender.     

The Virtues of a Good Fight: Assessing the Ethics of Fighting in the National Hockey League

Violence in sports is under intense public scrutiny. One hotly disputed issue concerns the acceptability of violent retaliation in sports, particular in the form of fighting in the National Hockey League (NHL). The question posed here is: Can fighting in the NHL be virtuous? Some think not, maintaining that fighting is undisciplined and ostensibly at odds with the virtues of good temper and justice. Contrary to this conclusion, this paper presents arguments that support the view that fighting in the NHL can be virtuous and clearly and consistently action guiding if certain conditions are met. These conditions require that fighting as a practice helps to provide an education in the virtues, is reasonably safe, is good for the community of participants, and is part of a morally sensitive and progressive tradition and organizational structure. Yet in the end, while fighting in the NHL can be morally justified, recognizing and instilling the virtues of a good fight would require some rather significant formal and informal changes to the game.     

Learning to read and write in Spanish: phonology in addition to which other processes? / Aprendiendo a leer y escribir en español: además de la fonología, ¿qué otros procesos?

Abstract

This study reviews some of the most relevant cognitive skills related to literacy acquisition in Spanish. Beyond the well-known influence of phonological segmental skills, it highlights the growing importance of other cognitive skills needed for acquisition, whether explicit or implicit in nature, to which too little attention has been devoted, including suprasegmental or prosodic skills, morphological skills and the implicit learning of linguistic regularities. It appears that all these skills constitute relevant factors that should be taken into account in order to understand typical as well as atypical literacy development.     

Self-Reference,Reality Principles,Marxism, and Social Transformations in the Postmodern Era

Three distinct turning points (“bottleneck breakings”) in universal evolution are discussed at some length in terms of “self-reference” and (corresponding) “Reality Principles.” The first (origin and evolution of animate Nature) and second (human consciousness) are shown to necessarily precede a third one, that of Marxist philosophy. It is pointed out that while the previous two could occupy a natural (so in a sense neutral) place as parts of human science, the self-reference of Marxism, as a social human phenomenon, through its direct bearings on the practice of society, did have a stormy history. I conclude that the fall of Bolshevism was unavoidable, and still, we might uphold our hope for a truly free society of humankind, just on the very basis of what we have learned of the fate of Marxist philosophy as such, as a recursively evolving social practice: the freedom of humankind of its own ideological burdens (constraints).     

Brief psychodynamic psychotherapy in adolescent depression: Two case studies

In this paper the authors outline the basic principles of a manualized, brief psychodynamic approach that was evaluated as part of an outcome study within the National Health Service researching the effectiveness of two different forms of psychotherapy for major depression in childhood/adolescence: Focused Individual Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Systems Integrative Family Therapy. As well as describing some of the difficulties encountered in short-term dynamic psychotherapy with adolescents, the authors present therapeutic work with two adolescents with major depressive disorder who were both seen as part of the research study. The authors depict some of the challenges and unavoidable difficulties which emerged during the therapy, arising from the needs of the research programme.     

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.     

On the evaporation kinetics of C60/toluene solutions

The increasing interest in fullerene nanoparticles makes the question regarding their effect on liquid evaporation behavior unavoidable. In this study, we used a gravimetric technique to investigate the effect of C₆₀ fullerene nanospheres on the evaporation kinetics of toluene over their entire range of solubility. Saturated solutions showed the highest evaporation rate. The increase in the evaporation rate as a function of concentration is not monotonic, but rather exhibits a maximum and a minimum. The results strongly support the notion of molecular structuring within the liquid toluene depending on fullerene mole fractions.     

人文关怀在消除IVF—ET患者心理压力中的作用

近年我国不少生殖医学中心在如何提高体外受精一胚胎移植（IVF—ET）治疗成功率问题上,都将注意力集中在临床用药的研究、控制性超促排卵方案的改进以及实验室条件的改善上,大多忽视IVF—ET患者心理方面的治疗。有研究表明：IVF—ET治疗的成功,不仅与患者自身的病理及生理状况有关,更与患者在治疗过程中产生的心理压力有关。因此,建议医护人员在给不孕症患者实施IVF-ET助孕治疗的全过程中,应给予患者更多人文关怀,这样不仅能够减少IVF—ET患者心理健康问题的发生,而且可以改善患者的身心状态和应对治疗能力,从而提高IVF—ET治疗成功率。