Living together: Muslim-Christian relations in eighteenth-century Cyprus as reflected by the Shari'a court records

The relations between Muslims and Christians of Cyprus today are tense and this situation is exploited by politicians and historians at the expense of ordinary Cypriots. Especially after July 1974, when the Turkish army intervened to prevent the annexation of the island to Greece by a coup d'etat led by Nicos Sampson, a Greek general, the Greek Cypriots have lived in the south and the Turks in the north of the island. Here, the author aims to portray a different picture of the relations between the two communities from that given in the recent historiography of the island. It is shown that at the beginning of the eighteenth century, contrary to the picture often given, life was not intolerable for Greek Cypriots, and the two religious communities enjoyed much in common and collaborated in almost every aspect of daily life.     

A review of the H-reflex and M-wave in the human triceps surae

The soleus is the most commonly used muscle for H-reflex studies in humans, while limited comparable data have been produced from the gastrocnemii muscles. This article reviews the fundamental differences between the structure and function of the human soleus and gastrocnemii muscles, including recent data published about their complex innervation zones. Protocols for eliciting, recording, and assessing the H-reflex and M-wave magnitude in the human triceps surae are also discussed.     

Re-reading al-birūnī's India: a case for intercultural understanding

It is argued that until recently the major motive behind the interest in religious traditions other than one's own has been to refute the truth-claims of the former. This attitude was based on the conviction that the religious tradition to which the student of religion belonged contained all that he or she needed to know, since whatever remained outside the authoritative revelation was at best irrelevant and at worst dangerous. Although prevalent throughout history, this approach was not the only model for studying religions other than one's own. There have been scholars within the Islamic tradition who showed genuine interest in studying and understanding other religious traditions on their own terms. Arguably, one of the best representatives of these scholars was al-Birūnī (973–1048 CE) whose accomplishments in other disciplines, notably in natural sciences, overshadowed his crucial contribution to the study of religion. This paper is an attempt to contribute to the current debate in the study of religion by analyzing the method al-Birūnī employed in his treatment of the religious traditions of India. In pursuing the subject, the paper aims to elucidate the phenomenological, dialogical and comparative aspects of al-Birūnī's thought in light of contemporary scholarship.     

Religion,Culture and the Shaping of Religious Attitudes: The Case of Islam

That we live in a world of racial, cultural, ideological and religious differences is a fact of existence. Our awareness of this is not new. What is new, however, is the growing appreciation of these differences and the realization that in a significant sense difference is creative and so must be celebrated. Nevertheless, difference is also challenging. At the present time, no student of religion can avoid asking the pressing question of what attitude to take towards people of ‘other’ religious traditions. This article will investigate how this question has been approached within the culture(s) of Islam. It will argue that the attitude of Muslims towards the people of other religious traditions is not fixed, even within the same time and place. The current context of society and the state of affairs (social, political, demographic, etc.) affects this doctrine.     

Schizophrenia or Possession?

Schizophrenia is typically a life-long condition characterized by acute symptom exacerbations and widely varying degrees of functional disability. Some of its symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations, produce great subjective psychological pain. The most common delusion types are as follows: “My feelings and movements are controlled by others in a certain way” and “They put thoughts in my head that are not mine.” Hallucinatory experiences are generally voices talking to the patient or among themselves. Hallucinations are a cardinal positive symptom of schizophrenia which deserves careful study in the hope it will give information about the pathophysiology of the disorder. We thought that many so-called hallucinations in schizophrenia are really illusions related to a real environmental stimulus. One approach to this hallucination problem is to consider the possibility of a demonic world. Demons are unseen creatures that are believed to exist in all major religions and have the power to possess humans and control their body. Demonic possession can manifest with a range of bizarre behaviors which could be interpreted as a number of different psychotic disorders with delusions and hallucinations. The hallucination in schizophrenia may therefore be an illusion—a false interpretation of a real sensory image formed by demons. A local faith healer in our region helps the patients with schizophrenia. His method of treatment seems to be successful because his patients become symptom free after 3 months. Therefore, it would be useful for medical professions to work together with faith healers to define better treatment pathways for schizophrenia.     

Teacher Training: Effects of Directed Rehearsal on the Teaching Skills of Physical Education Majors

Directed rehearsal was used to improve the teaching skills of six preservice elementary physical education teachers during a teaching practicum. The teaching skills lesson introduction, lesson closure, task presentation, and general and specific subject-matter feedback were assessed using a multiple baseline design across behaviors for each teacher. Social validity, in the form of the acceptability of directed rehearsal as a teacher training intervention, was also assessed using a questionnaire. Directed rehearsal was effective in improving the teaching skills of the teachers to either 100% correct implementation or, in the case of subject-matter feedback, to an established rate. In addition, the intervention was acceptable to the teachers and the practicum instructor. These results extend both the error correction and the research on teacher education literatures.     

Development of Family Functions and Relationship in Families: A Mixed-Design Study

Abstract

This is a mixed-design study that examines the effects of a psychoeducation program on family functioning and the parent-adolescent relationship. The quantitative dimension of the study was quasi-experimental and included the pretest, post-test and follow-up model with control and experiment groups. The data were collected from both parents and adolescents. In the study, there were 32 adolescents in the experiment group (18 male, 14 female), while the control group consisted of 31 adolescents (15 male, 16 female). The results of the study show that the education program decreases the problem behaviors of adolescents while increasing family functions and promoting the adolescent-parent relationship     

Effects of interior colors on mood and preference: comparisons of two living rooms

The purpose was to assess whether various colors across room interiors do, in fact, evoke different moods. Digital images of two imaginary living rooms were used as the experimental settings. For each of the experiments, the rooms' spatial characteristics were fixed, with only the colors changed: either warm, cool, or achromatic colors. As predicted, warm colors tended to produce stronger participant responses when rating the scene on "high arousal," "exciting," and "stimulating." Cool colors tended be associated with "not very arousing," but to be rated higher on "spacious" and "restful." It is generally assumed that cool and achromatic colors evoke calmer and more peaceful emotions. The study's results show that the spatial characteristics of the imaginary spaces themselves affected participants' responses only on measures of "happiness" and "vividness." Lastly, sex differences were also found, with women's ratings generally more positive than those of men.     

Methods of time and frequency domain examination of physiological tremor in the human jaw

This paper discusses, using the human jaw as a model, some of the commonly used techniques for examining physiological tremor. The EMG component driving mandibular physiological tremor approximately 7Hz can be revealed in the time domain manifestation of EMG by demodulation. The co-occurrence of approximately 7Hz physiological tremor (PT) in force and EMG can also be seen in the frequency domain representations of these signals and coherence analysis provides a method by which the degree of co-occurrence can be statistically investigated. Additionally, estimation of time lags between the signals by phase and cumulant density analysis provides evidence of the direction of dependence. Data presented herein using these techniques illustrates that for the human jaw, PT arises from a rhythmic component of EMG. This component is frequency and amplitude invariant across a range of bite forces indicating that it is not due to interaction between the stretch reflex and the mechanical resonance of the system.