April Fool Research Articles

Sharing and Inspiring

When you work in education, August is the start of a new year. It is a time not only to reflect on past accomplishments and failures but also to set goals. It is a little bit of a challenge for me to be writing this in mid-April, because I'm not quite in that mindset yet. Even so, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on my involvement over the past few years with Professional School Counseling, and I want to take this opportunity to share with you my goals for the journal. I must start by saying that I am excited to be coming on board as the Professional School Counseling editor. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but laugh when, on April Fool's Day, the previous editor, Rick Auger, Ph.D., sent me an e-mail in which he reminded me that was my first official day on the job. It took me a minute to remember he wasn't joking. I have spent the past couple of years as associate editor, working closely with Rick, and I want to express how much I value having worked with him. The collaborative manner in which he approached his role as editor has allowed me to slowly transition into that role. I also want to welcome Chris Sink, Ph.D., Seattle Pacific University, on board as the new associate editor. If you're not aware, Chris is a former editor of Professional School Counseling, and he brings a wealth of other editorial experience with him. Kathleen Rakestraw continues to serve as the person who manages everything and keeps us moving; we would be lost without her. As I was reviewing back issues of Professional School Counseling, I realized that my goals are not really that different from those of recent editors. In December 2006, Rick wrote that he wanted to make the journal relevant to practicing school counselors, include voices from people outside of school counseling, present empirical data, and publish high-quality articles. I must say that I still agree with all of those things. In particular, any of you who have submitted manuscripts over the past few years probably know that Rick and I have tried to encourage authors to collect data to support their ideas. Accountability and evidence-based practice are two important concepts for school counselors, and I believe that our professional journal should help school counselors understand how to demonstrate their effectiveness and also provide them with evidence-based interventions they can implement in their schools. To be more specific, I would like to see Professional School Counseling (a) be informative to practitioners, counselor educators, and graduate students; (b) address topics that are timely; and (c) focus on evidence-based and/or theory-based ideas and interventions. We rely on the editorial board to help ensure these goals are met. An efficient review process, managed by Kathleen, ensures that we are able to publish articles before the information becomes dated. The editorial board also provides feedback regarding the perceived relevance of the manuscripts for the journal. …

Pearl and Wagner: One Funny Day (review)

Reviewed by: Pearl and Wagner: One Funny Day Hope Morrison McMullan, Kate. Pearl and Wagner: One Funny Day; illus. by R. W. Alley. Dial, 2009 40p. ISBN 978-0-8037-3085-4 $14.99 R Gr. 1–2 Wagner the mouse is actually having not a funny day but a terrible day. After oversleeping and arriving late to school, he finds himself the butt of a slew of April Fool’s pranks, and he just doesn’t see the humor. In the second chapter, he gets fooled in the other direction when his good friend Pearl the rabbit chooses Bud as her dance-contest partner over Wagner (“‘April fools, right?’ said Wagner. ‘No,’ said Pearl. ‘For real’”). Finally, though, Wagner gets into the swing of things, faking a highly contagious illness that is spread by sneezing and ending the story with a loud, “Ah . . . ah . . . ah . . . April fools!” This latest in the Pearl and Wagner series (see Pearl and Wagner: Three Secrets, BCCB 9/04) focuses less on the duo’s friendship than on Wagner’s personal predicament. McMullen is successful at presenting the seriousness of that situation to the readers, who will definitely empathize with the frustration, hurt, and, ultimately, satisfaction that Wagner feels throughout the short chapters. Alley uses a combination of pen, ink, and watercolor to illustrate an expressive and carefully characterized animal cast. There is lots of contrast among the characters and abundant emotion detailed in their facial expressions, and the compositions are imbued with energy and movement. The short sentences and easygoing dialogue in combination with the detailed illustrations make this an excellent choice for early readers, and many among this group are likely to relate to Wagner’s not-so-funny feelings about his not-so-funny day. [End Page 412] Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Towards a World IP Court

One of this year’s April Fool japes was an intercontinental ploy by a group of bloggers based around the world to convince readers that the G20 leaders, meeting in London at the beginning of that month, had agreed to establish a World Intellectual Property Litigation Court by 2012—just in time for the London Olympics. Clothed by the respectability of Genevabased Intellectual Property Watch weblog and information service, the conspirators sketched out an otherwise barely plausible fantasy relating to the Court’s location, operation and governance. Responses varied. Some, including seasoned watchers of the international scene, were fooled. Others emailed to say that they were not. A third group, consisting of bloggers who had not been let into the secret, asked if they could be brought into next year’s. But it was the fourth group who generated the response with which this Editorial deals, in short: we know it’s not going to happen, but sincerely wish it were true. Is this view the seed of misplaced sentiment, never to germinate on the unforgiving soil of reality, or does it have a justification and hence a future? The resolution of this question depends on the answers to at least three further questions. Is a World IP Litigation Court desirable? In an ideal world in which IP laws are the same in each jurisdiction, where legal representation is either equally accessible or dispensable, where a single currency prevails and commercial values are shared, such a court may be imagined either as a final appellate body to guarantee consistency or as a trial court for disputes (particularly those with international dimensions to them). If those conditions are not fulfilled, there is a risk that the court will be perceived as a mechanism for imposing a set of prevailing standards and legal machinery over others, possibly also promoting more of the very inconsistency the notion seeks to remove. Is a World IP Litigation Court politically acceptable? It all depends. Intellectual property law as we have it today is a complex web of rights and remedies. Enforcement is seen as the prerogative of the ‘haves’ while defences and exceptions are the haven of the ‘have nots’. A court should ideally strike a fair, consistent and predictable balance between the two, but it is difficult even for a parochial court within a single jurisdiction to demonstrate that this is so. If a court hears three patent cases in a year and throws out two of them, the bald and inadequate statistic shouts that it is ‘anti-patent’—and a World IP Court’s decisions would be deeply scrutinized for signs that it favours not so much a successful litigant as that for which the litigant is just a symbol (thus a win for Microsoft or Macdonald’s would be ‘a win for big business’, regardless of the merits of the case). Is the tendency towards political and economic symbolism a reason for rejecting a court of this nature, or a reason for making such a court the very best possible arbiter? Is a World IP Litigation Court feasible? At least the answer to this question permits some consideration of empirical evidence. While no court of this nature exists, the arbitral and mediation bodies patiently promoted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for the voluntary resolution of, initially, regular IP disputes and latterly domain name disputes have demonstrated the ability to reach decisions, for the most part, relatively swiftly, cheaply and consistently. Whether the respect and goodwill generated by this consensual framework are capable of being converted into a coercive machine for the trial of disputed issues and the making of enforcement orders is however a matter of speculation. Not only is a World IP Litigation Court not a matter for current discussion; its appearance of the agenda of the G20 leaders and the leading international trade enforcement and standards-setting bodies is not even a distant spot on the agenda’s horizon. Yet, by keeping this distant and unlikely goal in sight, we may be able to at least achieve at regional level, within Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Asia-Pacific, a greater degree of cooperation and consistency than we have achieved to date.

A Campus with Sense of Humor [Et Cetera

On April Fool's Day (April 1, 2009), the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine cartoonist, Tayfun Akgul, had the opening of his “outdoor” cartoon exhibit on the campus of Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Turkey. This exhibit was not an ordinary show: Large-scale cartoons (10 cartoons, totaling 500 square meters) were hung from the buildings (see Figures 1–4). All cartoons were originally published in Tayfun's cartoon book, Bilimum (in Turkish, by the Cartoonists' Association of Turkey, 2004.) The exhibit was to remain open until June 2009.

From αβγ to precision cosmology: The amazing legacy of a wrong paper

You’d have to be living in a cave in Afghanistan not to know that cosmology is in the midst of an extraordinary period of discovery—perhaps even a golden age. But you might not know that it all started on April Fool’s Day 60 years ago. Ralph Alpher, Hans Bethe, and George Gamow published a Letter to the Editor entitled “The Origin of the Chemical Elements” in the April 1 issue of Physical Review. Gamow asked Bethe to add his name to the paper he and his student Alpher were writing to create the author list “alpha, beta, gamma”; Bethe agreed. The αβγ paper marked the birth of the hot Big Bang cosmology and started the march to precision cosmology. It is also exhibit 1 in my case that an interestingly wrong paper can be far more important than a trivially right paper; recall Wolfgang Pauli’s famous putdown, “It isn’t even wrong.” In 1948 cosmology was practiced by a handful of hardy individuals, mostly astronomers; determinations of the Hubble constant were almost 10 times as large as they are today; the redshifts of less than a hundred relatively nearby galaxies had been measured; and the 200-inch Hale telescope on Mount Palomar was a year away from first light. Cosmology is now center-stage science and attracts a thousand researchers, both physicists and astronomers; two Nobel Prizes have been awarded (1978 and 2006, and more to come); an armada of telescopes, experiments, and even accelerators has been brought to bear on the problems of the universe; and precision cosmology is no longer an oxymoron.

FX Strategies in 2006: U.S. Dollar Versus Yen

Riding the early morning Metro North train from Grand Central to Greenwich on April Fools Day 2006, Luke Anthony briefly pondered the revitalization of some of the once grand Harlem neighborhoods. But then his thoughts turned back to the task at hand: to form a cohesive view of the likely path of the Japanese yen. Was the dollar on one of its patented upward swings that would bring it to 140 ¥/$ before long? Or is the past years dollar appreciation just a brief pause in a longer-term downward march as the record current account deficit drags it to the depths?

Implausible diseases and public health

The BMJ published in 2006 a paper introducing a new pathology: the motivational deficiency disorder.1 This time, it was an April fool's day joke, so humanity escaped a new condition (perhaps a pandemic …). However, there are many papers, not published on 1 April, which present other novel diseases, from irritable bowel syndrome to social phobia, male baldness, restless legs and all the like.2 No doubts that discovering new diseases or new syndromes is an important task of medical research. No doubt either that a shaken up demography and a changing environment are both creative of new … Correspondence: Fred Paccaud, Institute of Social and Preventive medicine, Bugnon 17, 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland. email: fred.paccaud{at}chuv.ch

Service charges in commercial property — Information on the new RICS Code of Practice

Commercial service charges unlike residential are not subject to legislation so the lease contract and case law govern the position. There have been attempts to indicate good practice and more teeth will be added by the RICS Code which comes into force on 1 April 2007.This article details the main provisions and questions how much weight the Code will have. Hopefully it will not be an April Fool.

The Persistence of Donaldson's Memory

Retrospective issues of professional journals typically include both personal remembrance of the subject scholar and an evaluation of the ongoing relevance or influence of his work. have a personal memory of Donaldson, which include here briefly both for its inherent interest and because, in the nature of things, it is unlikely to be known at all widely.1 1974 brought to Ann Arbor perhaps the fifth or sixth incarna tion of the Hash an annual April Fool's Day gathering on the Diag, the main quadrangle of the University of Michigan, initially conceived as a massive act of civil disobedience and designed to promote the decrimi nalization of marijuana use. By 1974, however, a victim of its own success, the protest had largely degenerated into a party for truant high schoolers. Undergraduates like me typically caught only a whiff of the Bash's milling crowd as they continued on their way to class. My Chaucer's Canterbury Tales class met in a room facing the Diag that semester, and Professor Donaldson had the unusual habit of coming to class several minutes early. So we were not surprised to see him standing watch at the window that day?he often did so?but it was a bit startling when he pumped his left fist and shouted Hurrah! out the window a couple of times. Noticing the shock on our faces, he asked those of us in the first row what was going on out there. Hash Bash, we replied. what? he asked. We explained. Oh, he mused, I thought it was a rally to impeach Nixon. The memory of that story generates a personal, persistent smile. But Donaldson's scholarship, like that of other academics, also persists insti tutionally in a variety of ways. First there are the important formulations about problems in our field. Some formulations persist even distinct from the names of the scholars who originally articulated them, as was evident in the sessions of the 2006 International Congress of the New Chaucer Society and the discussions they engendered. heard a paper offering an unattributed reminder that the C-Text of Piers Plowman disambiguated that poem and made it more obviously orthodox; a colleague's frustrated response to a paper that she felt was reviving the

Geology of southeast Alaska: rock and ice in motion

Geology of southeast Alaska: rock and ice in motion

Popular Sweetner Sucralose as a Migraine Trigger

Sucralose (trichlorogalactosucrose, or better known as Splenda) is an artificial sweetener from native sucrose that was approved by the FDA on April 1, 1998 (April Fool's Day). This observation of a potential causal relationship between sucralose and migraines may be important for physicians to remember this can be a possible trigger during dietary history taking. Identifying further triggers for migraine headaches, in this case sucralose, may help alleviate some of the cost burden (through expensive medical therapy or missed work opportunity) as well as provide relief to migraineurs.

Seven reasons to shave your head and three reasons not to

Many of these monthly missives have addressed the different ways ACM is working to change the image of computing professionals. This month, in the spirit of April Fool's Day, we root out the ACM President's effort to change that image one person at a time---starting at the top.

Technology Tips: Teachers' Technology Class Continues Discussion of Pitfalls

You may recall the “April Fool's” Technology Tips column published during the 2004-2005 school year in which Todd Lee and his colleagues described some pranks that technology regularly plays on its users. In this month's tip, Larry Lesser and his students respond to these tips and add more possible technology pitfalls to the list. Lesser's examples use TI graphing calculators, Microsoft Excel, Mathematica, and InFocus projection devices. The “Surfing Note” this month includes a link to a large collection of interactive Java-based course materials for exploration in mathematics and science.—Eds.

Shame and Other Cases of Modularity without Modules

On the surface, self-centred emotions like shame or pride are related to subtle understandings of one's own identity and relevant objects (Taylor 1985; Ben Ze'ev 2000). Changes of beliefs about these objects often result in changes in the related emotions.If I am very proud that, on the first of April, I won the Jacques Chirac Prize for moral philosophy and then realize that it was just an April Fool's joke, my pride will probably vanish. I will probably be ashamed that I believed it. Cases like this support the idea that having beliefs is a necessary condition for feeling pride or shame.If this is true and if we endorse Jerry Fodor's views about modularity, it follows that shame can't be modular because, according to these views, no beliefs or other central mental processes are supposed to be involved in the operation of modules (Fodor 1983). Further, contempt, derision, or avoidance are supposed to be typical causes of shame, but they may trigger other emotions as well: hatred, anger, self-pity, or sadness, etc.

Exploring Other Worlds: Margaret Fox, Elisha Kent Kane, and the Antebellum Culture of Curiosity, and: The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox, and: Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism (review)

Exploring Other Worlds: Margaret Fox, Elisha Kent Kane, and the Antebellum Culture of Curiosity. By David Chapin. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004. Pp. vii, 257. Cloth, $80.00; paper, $24.95.)The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox. By Nancy Rubin Stuart. (New York: Harcourt Books, 2005. Pp. xiii, 393. Cloth $25.00; paper, $14.00.)Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism. By Barbara Weisberg. (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004. Pp. viii, 324. Cloth $14.95; paper $24.95.)On April Fool's Day 1848, fourteen-year-old Maggie and eleven-yearold Kate Fox were surprised to find that the strange rapping noises that had so vexed their parents over the past weeks were causing a huge stir in their small farming community. As interest in the rappings spread, Maggie and Kate joined their sister Leah (twenty years their senior) in nearby Rochester and the spirit raps that followed soon attracted the allegiance of the city's reformers and radicals. With Leah as their guide, over the next five years the Fox sisters became famous. They hobnobbed with many of the nation's most prestigious citizens as their seances sparked both controversy and a new religious movement, Spiritualism, all within the context of a nation bursting with issues of industrialization, immigration, urbanization, scientific discovery, and religious fervor. In the mid-185Os, Maggie abandoned Spiritualism and became secretly engaged to the politically and socially powerful Arctic explorer Elisha Kane, only to wind up abandoned after his untimely death. By the 186Os both she and Kate struggled with personal problems and growing feelings of resentment toward Leah, who had married a wealthy man and achieved a secure social status that eluded them. By 1888, after Leah published a self-aggrandizing account of their history and Kate was stripped of her funds after being widowed, the two younger Fox sisters, alcoholic and largely destitute, lashed out at Spiritualism by publicly revealing that the spirit raps were nothing but the sound of their toe joints popping. But less than a year later, with little explanation, they reasserted their devotion to Spiritualism and retracted their earlier confession. Both died a few years later, essentially forgotten.The story of the Fox sisters has it all: ghost story, romance, mystery, and tragedy. It is thus not surprising that they have been the subjects of multiple biographies, all of which rely almost entirely on the sisters' own contradictory histories.1 Mariam Pond (wife of a grand-nephew of the sisters) wrote a sympathetic, first-hand history based on her in-laws' recollections of nearly century-old events, backing them with little evidence and no concrete sources. Earl Wesley Fornell attempted a more academic biography, but outside of a bit of historical contextualization (much of it erroneous), added little to the story. Herbert G.Jackson did a better job, tapping the vast contemporary newspaper sources that chronicled the sisters' public lives, but with little new analysis. One other biography, George Corner's Doctor Kane of the Arctic Seas (1972) further outlined Maggie's relationship to Elisha Kane and his family, but none of these books penetrated much deeper than the confusing and contradictory story that the sisters put before the public in their own books. None even dug deep enough to solidify birth dates.Cultural and social historians have also been tantalized by the Fox sisters because the spiritualist movement they helped launch is wonderful fodder for explaining many antebellum trends. R. Laurence Moore's demonstration of the interplay between nineteenth-century religious and scientific rhetoric (In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism, Parapsychology, and American Culture [1977]) and Ann Braude's linking of Spiritualism and the early women's movement (Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth Century America [1989]) have both heavily impacted thinking about the era. …

A Curly Top, a Royal Engagement and a Local Bylaw: Cinema Exhibition and Innovation in Utrecht in 1936

O n April Fool's Day, 1936 more than 300 persons, almost exclusively mothers with their young daughters, crowded the Gebouw voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen (Building for Arts and Sciences) in the centre of Utrecht. They had responded to a newspaper advertisement placed by the local Flora Cinema which had called for Shirley Temple look-alikes to present themselves for a contest. The winner would be awarded a Shirley Temple doll, while her mother would receive the sum of 25 Guilders (a substantial amount of money at that time) in a savings account. Everyone was relieved that they were not being fooled when Is. Cohen Barnstijn,1 the owner of the Flora Cinema, turned up with four gentlemen: the jury consisting of the director of the Gerzon fashion store which was sponsoring the contest, a photographer and two journalists. The local newspaper Utrechts Nieuwsblad could not help but comment that 'the majority of the contestants looked as much like Shirley as a flea resembles an elephant, although it needs to be said that there were some girls who really had something in common with the little American film star'.2 The newspaper considered the 'special costumes' that some mothers had made for their offspring an 'eyesore', nor was it particularly impressed with the 'curly top wigs' that some of the girls were wearing. At the end of a long afternoon, three girls received a Shirley Temple doll from the jury, while the mother of Anneke Mietendorff, the ultimate winner, was presented with the coveted savings account cheque. The contest was part of a publicity campaign for the new Shirley Temple film Curly Top that opened two days later at the Flora Cinema. Ironically, the three girls were not allowed to see that particular film nor any other Shirley Temple film for that matter as a local bylaw (Lichtbeeldenverordening) banned those under the age of fourteen from attending any film show within the municipality of Utrecht. Exception was made for 'films concerning the subject of science, industry, agriculture and trade', i.e. the kind of films that exhibitors were loath to screen (except on a Sunday morning for the members of an institute for adult education) knowing that they would make a loss. The fact that young people were not allowed to see the films of Shirley Temple, the very symbol of innocence, offered local cinema exhibitors an ideal excuse to reopen their campaign to have the regulation repealed. They had fought this measure ever since it had come into force in 1915. So it would be easy to see the 1936 campaign as just another moment in the decades-long exhibitors' struggle to do away with the obstacles (entertainment tax was

Periodical Payments for Future Pecuniary Losses

Section 100 of the Courts Act 2003 came into effect on 1 April 2005 (yes, April Fool’s Day). The guidance reads: “The power for the Courts to order periodical payments will apply in all cases where orders or settlements have not been made before 1 April. The power to order variable payments will apply only to proceedings which are issued on or after 1 April.” It is apparently the government’s hope that periodical payments will become the norm in personal injury cases. Superficially, the idea of compensating a claimant for the actual period he requires care or cannot work, rather than an calculated estimate that is bound to be either too high or too low, is attractive provided the payments are secure and appropriately increased to take account of inflation. Despite significant evidence that suggests that wages have for many years consistently outstripped the retail prices index (RPI), it is the RPI that is applied when calculating a lump sum (and the 2.5% discount) and structured settlements which attract a tax concession on annual payments. It is notable that structured settlements were, even at the height of their popularity, usually confined to large claims; the fall of the stock market and poor annuity returns and loss of public confidence has meant they are considered less attractive than formerly. If there is underestimation of the inflation of wages by pinning the calculations to the RPI, the claimant’s lost future earnings and the wages of his or her care-givers may fall increasingly short of true compensation. Unlike a lump sum award, when compensation is paid out annually with insufficient uplift to update pecuniary losses in real terms, there is no opportunity for prudent investment to make up the shortfall. However, provided the funding of long term periodical payments into the future are secure, the claimant and his or her family will not risk the award becoming exhausted before the claimant dies. However, many claimants’ lawyers are concerned that periodical payments regimes are beset with problems (in particular, the limited annuities market – see more below – and security of future payments) which may make such awards less appealing to both sides than hoped for by government, though the enjoyment of assured annual payments (especially when free of income tax) certainly has its attractions. The new provisions and the issues and concerns they provoke are thoughtfully considered by Philip Norris QC along with his views on current and likely future guidance and government responses and judicial attitudes.

James Devaney and the Brisbane Resistance to Modernism

This grainy old photograph from The Courier-Mail of 2 April 1971, under the headline ‘The Three Ancients’, shows three grey-haired men — James Devaney (identified as being 80 years old), Frank Francis (75), and Robert S. Byrnes (71) — standing around a middle-aged woman who sits at a Victorian-style desk in front of a photograph of the Queen. The caption explains this puzzling image. As an April Fool's Day gesture, the self-styled ‘three ancients’, all former presidents of the Queensland Branch of the Federation of Australian Writers (FAW(Q)), are singing a song called ‘Three Ex-P's’ (to the tune of ‘Three Blind Mice’) to the current president, Maureen Freer. The three men, we are assured, ‘have made a large contribution to the cultural activities of Queensland’.

Abdominal aortic aneurysms and the Pulitzer Prize

Certainly, the morning’s headlines were a belated April fool’s joke. A Pulitzer Prize for reporting about abdominal aortic aneurysms? The glory of journalism’s highest honor for a swollen blood vessel? Where’s the news here? Why, the law of Laplace, which explains the fluid dynamics of aneurysms, was described 200 years ago, a century before the Pulitzer was even created.

Charles Janeway, Jr.

Charles Janeway, Jr.