Sacred marriage in the study of religion: A perspective from India on a concept that grew out of the ancient near east

Current scholarly understandings of ‘sacred marriage’ are seriously impaired by work that focuses on ancient cultures, primarily in the Near East, but also in Greece. Even when ‘diffusionism’, ‘patternism’, and an apparent preoccupation with rituals presumed sexual are all factored out, modern scholars offer little new because they appeal to rituals never witnessed and to fragmentary texts which we can only hope had some connection to ritual. Focusing on an extant ritual tradition in India with a 200-year-old festival and an explicitly associated text from the 13th century , Harman suggests that here, at least, sacred marriage is an elaborate, ritual statement of kinship responsibilities and obligations reestablished each year among deities and between deities and selected human beings.     

Factor analysis by minimizing residuals (minres)

This paper is addressed to the classical problem of estimating factor loadings under the condition that the sum of squares of off-diagonal residuals be minimized. Communalities consistent with this criterion are produced as a by-product. The experimental work included several alternative algorithms before a highly efficient method was developed. The final procedure is illustrated with a numerical example. Some relationships of minres to principal-factor analysis and maximum-likelihood factor estimates are discussed, and several unresolved problems are pointed out.The authors wish to thank the Factor Analysis Work Group (supported, in part, by ONR) for valuable criticisms and suggestions made in the course of a discussion of the present work in April, 1965.     

Critical review: Richard B. Brandt,A Theory of the Good and the Right

Conclusion To sum up. Doubts can be raised about cognitive psychoterapy. The charge of utopianism may apply in part. And a few quibbles are possible about other points. This hardly detracts from the enormous achievement of the book, which really sets a new standard for the subject, in my opinion. Brandt makes abundantly clear the importance and usefulness of trying to state issues in neutral nonmoral terminology in a way that permits them to be answered but also allows one to understand why one might be interested in the answers. He shows how psychological theory can be applied in philosophy in unsuspected ways. He greatly advances our understanding of the sorts of criticisms that actions are subject to, and therefore advances our understanding of practical reasons. He provides an excellent account of what a morality is. He raises an important issue about desire satisfaction versions of utilitarianism and presents a plausible theory concerning the measurement of a group's total happiness.The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979.     

Eye movements simultaneously recorded by electrooculographic and photoelectric methods.

Three types of eye movements, saccadic, reading, and pursuit, were recorded from 6 college subjects, two in each by the electrooculographic and photoelectric methods simultaneously. A deviation index (DI), which is the standard deviation divided by the mean, was devised to compare the precision of recording amplitude deflection, and a proportion index (PI), which is ml divided by M2, was devised to compare the mean amplitude indirectly between these two methods. Results showed that the proportion indexes of three types of eye movements were comparable, and the mean index of 0.54 indicated that the amplification in the electrooculographic method was about half as much as that in the photoelectric. The mean deviation index of 0.132 vs 0.135 was, again, comparable, meaning that these two methods of recording amplitude deflections are of about the same degree of magnitude and precision. Certain qualitative differences regarding the amplitude and velocity peak deflection between these two methods were also noted.     

Alcohol and the prior residence effect in male convict cichlids (Cichlasoma nigrofasciatum)

A series of experiments were undertaken to demonstrate the dominance advantage of a territorial resident over an intruder (the prior residence effect) in the adult male Convict Cichlid (Cichlasoma nigrofasciatum) and to evaluate the effects of alcohol (ethanol) on this phenomenon. After successfully demonstrating the prior residence effect, additional experiments were conducted in which the resident or intruder was given one of three different doses of ethanol (0.15%, 0.20%, 0.35%). These doses have previously been shown to reduce or increase intraspecific aggression in this species Over the entire dosage range, drugging the intruder produced no changes in the dominance advantage of the resident. However, drugging the resident at the higher doses (0.20%, 0.35%) resulted in loss of the resident's dominance advantage. These effects were not due to impaired locomotor behavior of the drugged fish, as no abnormal motor behaviors were noted. In general, as reported in previous studies, the resident fish, whether drugged or not, typically attacked first. Also as has been previously shown, the fish that attacked (bit) first typically showed eventual dominance. The present results show that the dominance advantage of the territorial resident is not altered by giving an intruder a hypo- or hyperaggression-producing dose of alcohol. Changes in the dominance advantage occur only as a function of drugging the resident, thereby providing evidence that the behavior of the territorial resident is either directly or indirectly (reaction of the intruder to these changes) responsible for the prior residence effect. The present studies also provide some pharmacological approaches for determining the variables important in a laboratory analog of a naturally occurring instance of intraspecific aggression.     

Primary care physicians attitude toward diagnosis and treatment of late-life depression

Underdiagnosis and undertreatment of late-life depression is common, especially in primary care settings. To help assess whether physicians attitude and confidence in diagnosing and managing depression serve as barriers to care, a total of 176 physicians employed in 18 primary care groups were administered surveys to assess attitudes towards diagnosis, treatment, and management of depression in elderly patients, (individuals over 65 years of age). Logistic regression was performed to assess the association of physician characteristics on attitudes. Nearly all of the physicians surveyed felt that depression in the elderly was a primary care problem, and 41% reported late-life depression as the most common problem seen in older patients. Physicians were confident in their ability to diagnose and manage depression, yet 45% had no medical education on depression in the previous three years. Physicians confidence in their ability to diagnose, treat, and manage depression, and their reported adequacy of training, do not appear to correspond to the amount of continuing medical education in depression, suggesting that physician overconfidence may potentially be serving as a barrier to care.     

A longitudinal study of negative affect and self-perceived competence in young adolescents.

In a 4-wave, 2-year longitudinal design, the authors obtained measures of negative affect (NA) and self-perceived competence from 220 boys and 216 girls who were 7th graders at the beginning of this study. NA was operationalized as the common dimension underlying self-reports of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and negative emotions. Self-perceived competence consisted of 2 higher order constructs: a well-behaved/good-student factor and an attractive/athletic/popular factor. Structural equation modeling revealed very high stability estimates for all constructs. Nevertheless, self-perceived competence in the attractive/athletic/popular domain predicted changes in NA. Conversely, NA predicted changes in self-perceived competence in the well-behaved/good-student domain. The primacy of NA versus self-cognitions depends, in part, on the type of self-cognitions being examined.