Excessive Detail Research Articles

California Decision Brings No Relief to the Unbefriended

California Decision Brings No Relief to the Unbefriended

Isolation and distinctiveness in the design of e-learning systems influence user preferences

ABSTRACTWhen faced with excessive detail in an online environment, typical users have difficulty processing all the elements of representation. This in turn creates cognitive overload, which narrows the user's focus to a few select items. In the context of e-learning, we translated this aspect as the learner's demand for a system that facilitates the retrieval of learning content – one in which the representation is easy to read and understand. We hypothesized that the representation of content in an e-learning system's design is an important antecedent for learner preferences. The aspects of isolation and distinctiveness were incorporated into the design of e-learning representation as an attempt to promote student cognition. Following its development, the model was empirically validated by conducting a survey of 300 university students. We found that isolation and distinctiveness in the design elements appeared to facilitate the ability of students to read and remember online learning content. This in turn was found to drive user preferences for using e-learning systems. The findings provide designers with managerial insights for enticing learners to continue using e-learning systems.

The Mighty Dynamo by Kieran Crowley

Reviewed by: The Mighty Dynamo by Kieran Crowley Amy Atkinson Crowley, Kieran The Mighty Dynamo. Feiwel, 2016 [368p] ISBN 978-1-250-07924-4 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 4-6 A ragtag sports team with pluck and determination defies the odds to eke out an unlikely victory against underhanded competitors in this Irish import that gives this established formula the soccer treatment. Determined to become a pro footballer and earn enough money to bring his dad home from the Australian mines, twelve-year old Noah Murphy desperately wants his team to win the youth World Cup. Unfortunately, billionaire Cornelius Figg is buying his incompetent son’s victory, and he has paid to get star player Noah removed from the school’s roster. When Noah’s genius friend Stevie finds a competition loophole that allows them to play for the local girl’s school, they put together a team, including the local bully, a motormouth, an African-Irish kid—you know the lineup. Interspersed player profiles shed an entertaining light on the various team members (and provide a bit of a soccer education), Noah proves an accessible protagonist long on heart if not brains, and there is some sharp humor as well as interesting soccer scenes. However, excess detail bogs the book down, and stock characters and extraneous verbiage are more likely to bore readers than inspire their imaginations. Indeed, Noah’s team’s greatest obstacle to a satisfying ending is not a fixed match but the book’s frequent forays into tedium. Still, there’s a reason we’ve seen this setup so many times before: it works. Even here, it will provide enjoyable moments and a rewarding conclusion for those diehard young footballers with the stamina to make it through. Copyright © 2016 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Single Supervision and the Governance of Banking Markets: Will the SSM Deliver the Expected Benefits?

In this paper, I try to assess the likely impact of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) on eurozone banking markets. I start by analysing the predictions made by economists and policy-makers with regard to the deeper integration of financial markets which may derive from the Banking Union. I then try to identify the regulatory weaknesses that may throw uncertainty on the benefits commonly expected from the Banking Union. Firstly, I highlight the limits of EU supervisory centralisation as shaped by the reforms enacted after the 2008 financial crisis. Secondly, I analyse the limits of the SSM, which, to some extent, is still grounded on supervisory cooperation despite the fact that the ECB has powers of direction and substitution with respect to national supervisors. I argue, in particular, that the SSM represents a system of semi-strong centralisation, which may still give rise to agency problems, particularly in the relationships with supervisors of non-euro area countries that are still governed by the EU system of enhanced cooperation. Thirdly, I examine the decoupling of supervision from regulation, which derives from the fact that the ECB lacks sufficient regulatory powers when acting as a supervisor of the eurozone banking systems. The separation of regulation—which is harmonised (often with excessive detail) at EU level—and supervision—which is centralised in the euro area—may create problems to the extent that the single supervisor cannot create a prudential rulebook for the eurozone but is subject to EU prudential regulation and national law provisions, often unduly limiting its supervisory discretion.

Victor Fenigstein: Lebensprotokoll, Werkkommentare, Kataloge by Fritz Hennenberg (review)

Victor Fenigstein: Lebensprotokoll, Werkkommentare, Kataloge. By Fritz Hennenberg. Saarbriicken: Pfau, 2013. [290 p. ISBN 9783897274754. 28 [euro].] Curriculum vitae, biography, work commentary, works list, bibliography, discography, radio features. Fritz Hennenberg's 2013 book introduces readers to the life and works of a composer worth hearing in a book worth perusing. Scholars interested in the following topics will want to investigate parts of the book: post-1945 leftist and Marxist European composers, political music, Jewish studies, music and disability, theater history, Brecht and Shakespeare scholarship, polystylism, post-1945 serialism, piano pedagogy, and piano pedagogue lineage. Composers may also be interested in the details of Victor Fenigstein's struggles to become a composer. Hennenberg's latest book is a welcome addition to Fenigstein scholarship as there is little English-language literature on the composer and only slightly more in German. Despite occasionally excessive detail, a questionably-organized biographical section, and lack of an index, Hennenberg's work nevertheless makes a valuable contribution to numerous areas of scholarship. The first section of Hennenberg's book is a biography of sorts: the author selected excerpts from interviews, letters, and Fenigstein's documents and put them in mostly chronological order. Hennenberg did not connect these segments with his own narrative interludes, which leaves disjunct transitions and occasional temporal jumps from one year to another. This portion of the book goes into great detail, perhaps too much: we read about Fenigstein's connections to his pets, the details of many failed starts on his compositional path, and even the potentially embarrassing minutiae of the medical recovery of his wife, Marianne Fenigstein (pp. 89, 68, 95). Given the dearth of writings about Fenigstein, most of this repository of information, anecdotes, and details is welcome, but the lack of indexing makes it difficult to locate relevant information without sifting through biographical odds and ends. For those primarily interested in the music, Hennenberg's Work Commentary section includes analyses and descriptions of works that balance music-theoretical elements with historical background and insight into the composer's motivations. This section, almost twice as long as the biographical portion of the book, does a nice job of repeating just enough biographical detail to allow the reader to jump directly to works that interest them. As for the handful of works that Hennenberg does not analyze, no reason is given for their exclusion, but they are helpfully included in the List of Works. For those generally interested in finding out more about Victor Fenigstein, I recommend reading through the biographical section (pp. 16-95) and skipping to the work commentary on readily-available recorded pieces like Icares, Passages, Memento et epitaphe, and Mara-(im)pulse (all available on Naxos Music Library). For scholars interested in politics and music, Jewish studies, and piano pedagogy, Fenigstein's early biography displays the relevance of Hennenberg's work. Fenigstein was born in Zurich in 1924 to an immigrant Jewish family. His father was a university professor and brought the family into contact with musicians, painters, writers, and philosophers. Fenigstein learned to read music and play piano from his older sister at age four and he took violin lessons from an uncle who was a local professional musician. He made his first public performance as a violinist at age nine, but shifted focus to his piano studies. While still in gymnasium he took lessons with Emil Frey, a composer-pianist teaching at the Zurich Conservatory, and later worked with Edwin Fischer (pp. 43-44). Fenigstein composed a symphony at age sixteen and songs for his future wife when he was seventeen. By the end of gymnasium he had premiered works as a composer and performed as a soloist with his school orchestra. …

The Meaning of Emotional Overinvolvement in Early Development: Prospective Relations With Child Behavior Problems.

Emotional overinvolvement (EOI) in parents’ Five Minute Speech Samples (FMSSs; Magaña-Amato, 1993) is thought to measure overconcern and enmeshment with one’s child. Although related to maladaptive outcomes in studies of adult children, FMSS EOI evidences varied relations with behavior problems in studies with young children. These mixed findings may indicate that certain FMSS EOI criteria reflect inappropriate and excessive involvement with adult children, but do not indicate maladaptive processes when parenting younger children. Thus, this study evaluated relations of each FMSS EOI criterion with changes in child behavior problems from preschool to first grade in a community sample of 223 child–mother dyads (47.98% female; Wave 1 M(age) 49.08 months; 56.50% Hispanic/Latina). Maternal FMSS EOI ratings were obtained at Wave 1, and independent examiners rated child externalizing and internalizing behavior problems at Wave 1 and again 2 years later. Path analyses indicated that both the self-sacrifice/overprotection (SSOP) and statements of attitude (SOAs) FMSS EOI criteria predicted increased externalizing problems. In contrast, excessive detail and exaggerated praise were not related to child externalizing behavior problems, and Emotional Display was not evident in this sample. None of the FMSS EOI criteria evidenced significant relations with internalizing behavior problems. Multigroup comparisons indicated that the effect of SOAs on externalizing behavior problems was significant for boys but not for girls, and there were no significant group differences by race/ethnicity. These findings point to the salience of SSOP and SOAs for understanding the developmental significance of EOI in early development.

Single Supervision and the Governance of Banking Markets

In this paper, I try to assess the likely impact of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) on Eurozone banking markets. I start by analysing the predictions made by economists and policy makers with regard to the deeper integration of financial markets which may derive from the Banking Union. I then try to identify the regulatory weaknesses that may throw uncertainty on the benefits commonly expected from the Banking Union. Firstly, I highlight the limits of EU supervisory centralisation as shaped by the reforms enacted after the 2008 financial crisis. Secondly, I analyse the limits of the SSM, which is to some extent still grounded on supervisory cooperation despite the fact that the ECB has powers of direction and substitution with respect to national supervisors. I argue, in particular, that the SSM represents a system of semi-strong centralization, which may still give rise to agency problems particularly in the relationships with supervisors of non-euro area countries that are still governed by the EU system of enhanced cooperation. Thirdly, I examine the decoupling of supervision from regulation deriving from the fact that the ECB lacks sufficient regulatory powers when acting as a supervisor of the Eurozone banking systems. The separation of regulation – which is harmonized (often with excessive detail) at EU level – and supervision – which is centralized in the euro area – may create problems to the extent that the single supervisor cannot create a prudential rulebook for the Eurozone, but is subject to EU prudential regulation and national law provisions often unduly limiting its supervisory discretion.

The level of physical preparedness of students of higher educational institutions as a prerequisite of modular training

Faidevych Volodymyr. The level of physical preparedness of students of higher educational institutions as a prerequisite of modular training. Journal of Education, Health and Sport. 2015;5(6):87- 94. ISSN 2391-8306. DOI 10.5281/zenodo.18330 http://ojs.ukw.edu.pl/index.php/johs/article/view/2015%3B5%286%29%3A87-94 https://pbn.nauka.gov.pl/works/563528 http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18330 Formerly Journal of Health Sciences. ISSN 1429-9623 / 2300-665X. Archives 2011 – 2014 http://journal.rsw.edu.pl/index.php/JHS/issue/archive Deklaracja. Specyfika i zawartośc merytoryczna czasopisma nie ulega zmianie. Zgodnie z informacją MNiSW z dnia 2 czerwca 2014 r., ze w roku 2014 nie bedzie przeprowadzana ocena czasopism naukowych; czasopismo o zmienionym tytule otrzymuje tyle samo punktow co na wykazie czasopism naukowych z dnia 31 grudnia 2014 r. The journal has had 5 points in Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland parametric evaluation. Part B item 1089. (31.12.2014). © The Author (s) 2015; This article is published with open access at Licensee Open Journal Systems of Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland and Radom University in Radom, Poland Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited. This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper. Received: 21.04.2015. Revised 28.05.2015. Accepted: 05.06.2015. THE LEVEL OF PHYSICAL PREPAREDNESS OF STUDENTS OF HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AS A PREREQUISITE OF MODULAR TRAINING Volodymyr Faidevych Lesya Ukrainka Eastern European National University, Lutsk, Ukraine Summary A persistent deterioration in the health of the population and, in particular, students can be observed in recent times. Having entered into conflict with the real needs of renewal of society, the system of physical education of youth gave rise to the crisis. One of the key problems is changing of explanatory, illustrative and reproductive types of training in intensive technologies. On the basis of the analysis results established that the physical preparedness of students corresponds to the low level of development and is at a low and medium level. 42.9% of students have low level of physical preparedness, 36% of students physical preparedness is at a satisfactory level, and only 21.1% of students have a “high” level of physical preparedness. It means the need for modification of the system of methods, forms and means of teaching physical culture of students for improving the level of fitness. This situation leads to search for new, student-oriented teaching methods of physical training, in which students’ interests would be taken into account. Modular training system occupies a central place among them. The methodology of modular training must be based on the following key provisions: individualization of means and methods of training, increasing volume and intensity of training lessons, accented development of motor skills and on the basis of their motor skills and interest in physical culture. The methodology eliminates the excessive detail, revealing the space for creativity of the teacher, increases the role of complex problem solving. Key words: students, physical culture, modular training, physical preparedness.

Problem‐Based Learning Curriculum and Assessment of Anatomical Knowledge: Kuwait University Experience

Sound knowledge of the structure and function of the human body is an indispensable requisite for safe and efficient clinical practice. Since the dramatic expansion of the body of scientific knowledge, it has become practically impossible to design an all‐inclusive undergraduate medical curriculum. Thus curricular reformists citing the cliché “what students learn today will be outdated tomorrow” made drastic reductions in Anatomy content, arguing that it was merely rote learning of excessive factual details. Therefore, going along with curricular reform, Kuwait University Faculty of Medicine adopted the Problem‐Based Learning (PBL) as the main instructional strategy. This curricular change led to modifications in the assessment strategy as well. Students are no longer required to demonstrate their competency in Anatomy as anatomy questions are included in a multidisciplinary MCQ‐based end‐of‐module examinations and Objective Structured Practical Examination (OSPE). Our data indicate that poor performance in Anatomy including OSPE does not lead to failure in the multidisciplinary examination. We have also noted that student knowledge of Anatomy depends on the number of questions in an exam. Also if there are fewer Anatomy questions in an end‐of‐module examination, students ignore Anatomy. We think that this is a major flaw in the multidisciplinary MCQ‐based end‐of‐module examination and it is affecting their performance during clinical training. We suggest that in order to better prepare students for clinical training, it must be mandatory for them to demonstrate their competency in all basic sciences in a subject‐based examination.

Acceptability and feasibility of self-help Cognitive Remediation Therapy For Anorexia Nervosa delivered in collaboration with carers: A qualitative preliminary evaluation study

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is an eating disorder without a recommended first-line treatment. Cognitive Remediation Therapy (CRT) is showing great promise in helping patients reduce cognitive inflexibility and excessive detail focus, thinking styles that could make engaging in psychological therapies difficult. CRT has shown to be effective, feasible and acceptable in both individual and group formats, and positive qualitative data has been gathered from both service users and clinicians. The aim of the current study was to assess the use of CRT as a self-help treatment for individuals with AN delivered in collaboration with carers. Six families underwent a six-week self-help CRT intervention. Feedback was gathered from qualitative interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. Neuropsychological outcomes were also collected. Participant feedback regarding the intervention was generally positive, with participants describing a number of benefits such as it creating a space for families to spend time together outside of the eating disorder, acting as a ‘gateway’ for more emotional work and helping participants to gain insight into their cognitive profiles. These preliminary findings suggest that self-help CRT delivered in collaboration with carers is an acceptable form of treatment, and adds to the growing literature supporting CRT for AN.

The Geography of Wine: How Landscapes, Cultures, Terroir, and the Weather Make a Good Drop by Brian J. Sommers (review)

Reviewed by: The Geography of Wine: How Landscapes, Cultures, Terroir, and the Weather Make a Good Drop by Brian J. Sommers David M. Cochran Jr. The Geography of Wine: How Landscapes, Cultures, Terroir, and the Weather Make a Good Drop Brian J. Sommers. Plume, New York. 2008. 289 pp. Maps, photos, tables, appendix, index. $16.00 paperback. (ISBN 978-0-452-28890-4) Wine is well-suited to illustrate a wide range of geographical patterns and processes. The cultivation of wine grapes and manufacture of wine itself, not to mention port, brandy, and other alcoholic beverages made from grapes, give rise to complex interactions between humans and environments and exhibit a remarkable variability across cultures, economies, and political systems around the world and through time. In The Geography of Wine, Brian Sommers has written an interesting study of humanity’s long and varied relationship with Vitis vinifera. Wine enthusiasts will find this book of value, and by reading it, some may well come to a greater appreciation of the geographical perspective. Geographers, on the other hand, may find fault with the book’s periodic lapses into excessive detail and with missed opportunities to build upon recent theoretical advances in the field. To be fair, however, the author’s intent is not to dazzle academicians, but to speak to broader audiences both inside and outside the university. In that regard, Sommers generally succeeds. The Geography of Wine is organized topically, in much the same way as many standard geography textbooks. After a brief introduction, the first six chapters examine wine through the lens of the physical environment, focusing on macro- and micro-climates, soils, biogeography, and natural hazards as factors in wine production. This is followed by two chapters that discuss how geographical principles, coupled with GIS and remote sensing technologies, can be applied to contemporary winemaking, from the cultivation of grapes to the production, distribution, and marketing of wine. Both of these chapters, which read more like overviews, seem awkwardly placed in the middle of the book, and might have served better as part of a more expansive introduction. The final seven chapters cover a wide range of human geographical themes about wine. Several I found particularly enjoyable. One chapter focuses on the impacts of diffusion, empire, and colonialism on the historic spread and contemporary distribution of wine. Others examine the role of industrialization and urbanization in transforming wine into the global industry it is today. Another examines the historic influence of alcohol [End Page 86] prohibitions, focusing particularly on the United States temperance movement and prohibition in the early 20th century. Sommers argues convincingly that prohibition benefitted the California wine industry by destroying its competition in more established areas of wine and cider production throughout the eastern half of the United States. Sommers also examines tensions between local and regional wine identities, embodied in the increasingly mainstream term, terroir, and pressures that arise from production schedules of multinational corporations seeking to satisfy global demand. There is even a chapter on alcoholic beverages not made from grapes—notably beer, cider, and distilled spirits—which have their own distinctive geographies and are themselves emergent topics of interest in geographical research. Throughout the book, each chapter contains a case study of a particular wine region. This is a nice touch. In presenting these cases, Sommers introduces readers to virtually all of the famous wine regions of the world, and to many that are lesser known as well, providing detailed explanations why each is noteworthy. The Geography of Wine has a number of regrettable shortcomings. In his discussions about the impacts of environmental factors on grape cultivation and wine production, Sommers frequently gets bogged down in details and includes a great deal of information that has no clear relevance. For example, rather than focusing solely on climates where wine grapes can be cultivated with reasonable success, Sommers takes the reader on an exhaustive tour of all major Köppen climate classes. The fact that polar and tropical climates are unsuitable for wine production perhaps deserves a brief mention, but little more than that. In another chapter, Sommers includes a crash course in soil geography, complete with a description of Oxisols of the humid...

“Big-Picture” Worksheets To Help Students Learn and Understand the Pentose Phosphate Pathway and the Calvin Cycle

Two worksheets designed to help biochemistry instructors teach the pentose phosphate pathway and the Calvin cycle are presented. The worksheets avoid excessive detail, but portray the pathways in such a manner that the fates of all molecules involved are depicted; this format allows students to follow the interconversions without having to wonder where a particular intermediate originated or what final compound it is destined to become. When combined with knowledge of the structures of some basic monosaccharides and of key enzymatic steps (e.g., transketolase and transaldolase), the use of these worksheets can help students learn and understand the pathways rather than superficially memorize them.

Crimson Confederates: Harvard Men Who Fought for the South by Helen P. Trimpi and; A Northern Confederate at Johnson’s Island Prison: The Civil War Diaries of James Parks Caldwell edited by George H. Jones and; Double Duty in the Civil War: The Letters of Sailor and Soldier Edward W. Bacon edited by George S. Burkhardt (review)

Reviewed by: Crimson Confederates: Harvard Men Who Fought for the South by Helen P. Trimpi and; A Northern Confederate at Johnson’s Island Prison: The Civil War Diaries of James Parks Caldwell edited by George H. Jones and; Double Duty in the Civil War: The Letters of Sailor and Soldier Edward W. Bacon edited by George S. Burkhardt Jennifer R. Green (bio) Crimson Confederates: Harvard Men Who Fought for the South. By Helen P. Trimpi. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2009. Pp. 408. Cloth, $59.00.) A Northern Confederate at Johnson’s Island Prison: The Civil War Diaries of James Parks Caldwell. Edited by George H. Jones. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2010. Pp. 277. Paper, $35.00.) Double Duty in the Civil War: The Letters of Sailor and Soldier Edward W. Bacon. Edited by George S. Burkhardt. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2009. Pp. 288. Cloth, $27.95.) Attractively produced with images, these three books represent some of the diversity in Civil War publications on young soldiers’ experiences: a biographical register, a diary, and a heavily commented journal interspersed with letters. In Crimson Confederates: Harvard Men Who Fought for the South, Helen P. Trimpi presents thorough, alphabetically organized entries on college matriculates turned Confederates providing family, service, and career data. In A Northern Confederate at Johnson’s Island Prison: The Civil War Diaries of James Parks Caldwell, George H. Jones provides two [End Page 591] introductory essays to a complete diary of a northerner and teacher turned Confederate prisoner of war. In Double Duty in the Civil War: The Letters of Sailor and Soldier Edward W. Bacon, George S. Burkhardt explains the journal and correspondence of a U.S. sailor turned U.S. Colored Troops officer. Together, these works allow scholars and enthusiasts to read about the variety of youths’ actions in the war and to share their experiences, although the first two texts focus on their subjects without offering substantial context. The topic that loosely binds these works is educated middle-class or elite men entering Civil War service. Trimpi describes the alumni of Harvard College and its professional law, medical, and engineering schools who served in the Confederate military, while Jones and Burkhardt offer primary sources on individuals serving on each side. Jones’s subject is James Parks Caldwell, the son of an Ohio doctor, who attended Miami University of Ohio but moved south to work as a teacher as he trained for the bar and then enlisted in the Confederate army in Mississippi. On the opposing side, Edward Bacon, the son of a Connecticut abolitionist (and procolonization) minister, entered the Union navy at eighteen. The two young men shared the boredom, loneliness, and uncertainty facing soldiers. All three books convey servicemen’s duties and experiences, with the correspondence packing the most emotional punch. The omissions therein are as interesting as the inclusions, however; Burkhardt notes that Bacon rarely wrote about abolition or African American rights, even as he trained black troops, and prisoner Caldwell expressed few personal feelings, typical of many nineteenth-century journals. In Crimson Confederates, Harvard alumna and English professor Helen Trimpi provides data on antebellum Harvard alumni with detailed entries on 357 individuals produced from extensive research in the Harvard archives, service records, and histories. As a reference work, the book does not attempt to create a narrative along the lines of Gerard A. Patterson’s Rebels from West Point (1987). Trimpi’s introduction remains centered on individuals but discusses the memorialization of Harvard’s Civil War soldiers, including the university’s rejection of a public memorial for Confederates; it reflects current interest in historical memory. Throughout the register, familiar names appear, especially those of lesser-known men of notable families, such as Rooney Lee, one of the fifteen Harvard-educated generals. Some entries cover multiple pages, contain quotations from the subject’s contemporaries and biographers, and may impart excessive detail or minutia; for example, Alexander R. Lawton replaced a quartermaster who resigned on August 10, 1863, and he was accompanied by his four children and wife, who is described by the ubiquitous Mary Chestnut. The information in Trimpi’s work focuses more on military history than college [End Page 592] experience. Appendices include...

Expressed emotion in anorexia nervosa: What is inside the “black box”?

ObjectiveExpressed Emotion has been called a “black box”, since little is known about contributing factors. The aim of this study was to examine which parental and which patient/illness-related characteristics contribute to maternal and paternal Expressed Emotion levels. MethodSixty adolescent girls with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and their parents completed instruments that evaluate characteristics of the adolescent's illness and patient/parental psychological characteristics (depression; anxiety; obsession–compulsion; social anxiety and alexithymia). The following illness-related characteristics were recorded: age at AN onset, duration of illness, AN subtype (restrictive AN-R vs. purging type AN-B), current Body Mass Index (BMI) (in kg/m2), minimum lifetime BMI and number of previous hospitalizations, the Global Outcome Assessment Scale total score. Levels of Expressed Emotion were assessed for the two parents using the Five-Minute Speech Sample. ResultsLess than 30% of the parents in our sample expressed high levels of Critical EE and Emotional Over-Involvement. Our main findings indicate that maternal Criticism (Critical EE levels, Critical Comments, Dissatisfaction) and the sub-dimensions of maternal Emotional Over-Involvement (EOI EE) (Statement of loving Attitudes and Excessive Details about the past) were related both to the severity of the daughters' clinical state and to maternal psychological functioning. Only paternal levels of anxiety explained paternal Dissatisfaction, EOI EE and Statement of loving Attitudes. DiscussionParental psychological functioning and the severity of the daughters' clinical state have an impact on the family relationships. These elements should be targeted by individual treatment for parents where necessary, and by psycho-educational sessions about Anorexia Nervosa for parents generally.

Car Country: An Environmental History by Christopher W. Wells (review)

Reviewed by: Car Country: An Environmental History by Christopher W. Wells David E. Nye (bio) Car Country: An Environmental History. By Christopher W. Wells. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2012. Pp. xxxiv+428. $40. Christopher Wells’s environmental history of the American adoption of the automobile was more than a decade in the making, and its notes and bibliography fill 115 pages. Deftly written and well-illustrated, Car Country rejects the notions that the automotive landscape emerged either as the byproduct of consumer desire for automobiles or as the result of conspiracies to eviscerate public transit. Each of its four sections covers two decades, starting in 1880, before automobiles, when urban and rural reformers campaigned for better roads (pp. 3–34), driven by the desire to “control nature run amok,” in the form of dirt, disease, mud, and inconvenience. Reformers, later joined by cyclists and motorists, began the physical transformation into what would become “car country” and promulgated assumptions about land use and the centralization of taxation and administration that eroded local control of city streets and highways. Part 2 (pp. 37–104) examines “the dawn of the motor age,” including the redesign of European automobiles for rough American roads, the emergence of mass production, and the Model T. It then traces how moralistic highway reformers were replaced by “engineers and administrators guided by faith in the power of science and efficiency” (p. 103). They had to balance the competing interests of farmers, who wanted short routes focused on markets, and tourists, who wanted long-distance recreational roads. In cities, property owners were increasingly marginalized by the competing interests of street traction companies, pedestrians, and motorists. Part 3 (pp. 125–227) explains how car country emerged between 1919 and 1941. “Motor Age Geography” focuses on how new transportation policies and land-use practices reshaped both roads and institutions, centralizing rural America (for example, school consolidation and concentrating markets) while decentralizing urban areas. The landscapes that emerged demanded car ownership for citizens to function effectively. “Fueling the Boom” turns to oil wells, refineries, pipelines, and service stations and emphasizes how gasoline taxes became a permanent source of funds for road-building. “The Paths out of Town” examines how mass production increased demand for iron ore, lumber, rubber, and other raw materials. As cars became ubiquitous, Americans built one mile of road for each square mile of land. Highways meant soil erosion and fractured natural habitats, but planners focused on “constructing a car-friendly nature,” redefined as scenery, notably in parkways, many constructed by the National Park Service. Such recreational roads were not designed for speed, but for an automotive “escape into the wild.” The final section (pp. 253–88) examines the period 1940–60 when government subsidies for suburban [End Page 987] housing and interstate highways naturalized a new iteration of suburbia organized around the automobile. Car Country marshals a wealth of information, and I learned from it. Yet, some topics are examined in perhaps excessive detail, raising the question of how broad an environmental history ought to be. Wells deals with automobiles and trucks, but not tractors or the industrialization of agriculture. Nor is the Amish rejection of internal combustion vehicles included. The book is exhaustive on the evolution of road building, but has only a paragraph on the slaughter of animals trying to cross the roads. It has a detailed section on the designs of early American automobiles, but air pollution receives only scattered treatment. It emphasizes builders, planners, and officials, but ignores world’s fairs, notably New York’s 1939 “world of tomorrow” featuring GM’s Futurama and Ford’s “road of tomorrow.” If these things belong in this environmental history, however, perhaps I ask too much in wanting to include advertising and public relations or representations of the automotive landscape in photography and painting. Car Country assesses Robert Moses but not Robert Frank, Jane Jacobs but not Jack Kerouac. John Steinbeck only makes it into a footnote. Robert Venturi’s Learning from Las Vegas would have been useful, but coverage of vernacular roadside architecture is brief (pp. 164–70), and Wells focuses on those, such as James Agee, who disliked it. Yet if Car Country is not...

Il canzoniere del trovatore Roi Queimado by Pilar Lorenzo Gradín, Simone Marcenaro (review)

Reviewed by: Il canzoniere del trovatore Roi Queimado by Pilar Lorenzo Gradín, Simone Marcenaro Mark T. Aquilano Lorenzo Gradín, Pilar and Marcenaro, Simone. Il canzoniere del trovatore Roi Queimado. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2010. 347pp. ISBN: 978-88-6274-234-4 The poetry of the mid-thirteenth century Portuguese troubadour Roi Queimado has until now remained a somewhat hidden gem contained in three extensive collections of Galician-Portuguese lyric verse, the Cancioneiro da Ajuda, the Cancioneiro da Vaticano and the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional. For the first, the 1904 edition of Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcelos and the 1941 ediiton of Henry Carter continue to be authoritative, while the latter are available to modern scholars primarily through facsimile editions from 1982 and 1973. Pilar Lorenzo Gradín, professor of Romance philology at the University of Santiago de Compostela and Simone Marcenaro, a researcher at the same institution when this book was published, have created the first edition of Queimado’s complete works, bringing the poet and his opus to life and into a rich critical perspective. Their introduction begins with a biographical sketch of the Portuguese troubadour. Gradín and Marcenaro acknowledge they were unable to discover new primary documentary evidence, arriving instead at a well-crafted, dense and meticulous synthesis of previous research. They conjecture that the poet, whose epithet suggests either his dark complexion or his burning passion, was a nobleman from a lesser lineage in southern Portugal. While they are open to the possibility that Queimado may have been raised by an adoptive father, Gradín and Marcenario question previous scholarship claiming to have found his daughter in a notary document. Because of his literary relations with Pero Garcia Burgalés and other poets active in the court of Alfonso X, Gradín and Marcenario are confident that Queimado was of Portuguese rather than Galician extraction. He may in fact have visited or lived at the Alfonsine court sometime between 1245 and 1250, as suggest cantigas in which Quiemado takes a stand in the battle for ascendancy between Alfonso III and the Infante Alfonso de Castilla. Gradín and Marcenario [End Page 349] examine possibilities for the identity of Don Estevan, a partisan of Alfonso III, whom Queimado attacks in one of his poems of derision. They evaluate the connections previous scholars have found between the polyvalent term ama and one of the love interests of Queimado, possibly a woman known as Beltrán, nurse of Don Denis. Finally, they present two possibilities for the historical identity of a Juan Garcia mentioned in one of his poems. Whether this was actually Johan de Guilhade or Johan de Sousa, they feel confident that this confirms that Queimado, who left few biographical traces, was active in northern Portugal in the 1250s. The authors provide a brief account of the extant manuscripts of Queimado’s poetry. The late thirteenth-century Cancioneiro de Ajuda contains his cantigas de amor, while the complete body of his works is found in the sixteenth-century apocryphal copies of the Italian humanist Angelo Colocci (the Biblioteca Nacional and the Vaticana manuscripts), and a descriptus of the Colocci codices at the Bancroft library of the University of California, Berkeley. For readers unfamiliar with this textual tradition it would have been helpful to indicate the full names of the collections and to provide some context for how they were discovered rather than referring to them by their abbreviations alone (MSS A, B, V and K). However, Gradín and Marcenaro adeptly discuss the ordering of compositions in the various manuscripts while placing his opus in clear relation to other poets in the same collections. In discussing the possible meaning of a rather cryptic marginal note in MS A, “nota cartuxo”, Gradín and Marcenaro generously acknowledge the contributions, while challenging some of the weaknesses, of previous explanations by Carolina Michäelis, Susan Pedro and Anna Ferrai, basing their own hypothesis on a careful examination of the Colocci manuscripts. The footnotes in this section and throughout the anthology are precise and informative, providing ample clarification while avoiding excessive detail. Their exploration of this enigma leads them into a fascinating treasure hunt connecting the popularity of Queimado...

Watertight Scenes from Urban LiDAR and Planar Surfaces

AbstractThe demand for large geometric models is increasing, especially of urban environments. This has resulted in production of massive point cloud data from images or LiDAR. Visualization and further processing generally require a detailed, yet concise representation of the scene's surfaces. Related work generally either approximates the data with the risk of over‐smoothing, or interpolates the data with excessive detail. Many surfaces in urban scenes can be modeled more concisely by planar approximations. We present a method that combines these polygons into a watertight model. The polygon‐based shape is closed with free‐form meshes based on visibility information. To achieve this, we divide 3‐space into inside and outside volumes by combining a constrained Delaunay tetrahedralization with a graph‐cut. We compare our method with related work on several large urban LiDAR data sets. We construct similar shapes with a third fewer triangles to model the scenes. Additionally, our results are more visually pleasing and closer to a human modeler's description of urban scenes using simple boxes.

Solar energetic particles in the Earth magnetosphere: kinematic modeling of the "non-shock" penetration

Penetration of solar energetic particles into the Earth's magnetosphere is quantitatively studied with a simple kinematic model. The goal is to assess, for the first time, how does effectiveness of the penetration depend on such geometry factors as: distance of the magneto-pause (MP) from the Earth; shape of MP; angle at which solar energetic particle crosses MP; location of the crossing point; type of the particle motion in the magnetosphere. To get off excessive details, the model deliberately operates with just equatorial section of the static dipolar magnetic field confined with asymmetric boundary – MP. Several rather obvious facts are illustrated: finite orbits of longitudinal drift reside only inside the circle of the Störmer-unit-length radius; deepest penetration of a particle occurs if the particle crosses MP at the point closest to the Earth and with velocity-vector oriented along the particle's longitudinal drift inside MP (westward for protons); etc. The model's software allows the inquirer to vary geometry of MP, the type, energy and direction of flight of the energetic particle(s), the location(s), aperture and orientation(s) of a virtual sensor, then to run the model and obtain the reference particle distributions either global (for entire magnetosphere) or for specified locations, all along the time, energy and flux-orientation axes. Static and animated plots can be easily produced. The model provides a toolkit allowing one to evaluate and illustrate the process of particle penetration into the magnetosphere under various conditions in space. It may be used for the configuring of the satellite particle sensors; its results may be compared with the observations for to assess how strongly the real magnetosphere differs from its simplified form; it may be used in education.

Virtual Modeling of a Female Pelvic Floor and Hypothesis for Simulating Biomechanical Behavior During Natural Delivery

The study of the mechanical behavior of the muscles constituting the pelvic floor is a challenge that demands multidisciplinary efforts. To achieve biomechanical simulation a representative geometric model of the related anatomy and hypotheses for a simplified study involving in a natural delivery process are demanded. There are many muscles included in the pelvic floor region and one of the first simplifications is the choice of the most affected muscle due to delivery. This selection was made based in MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) examination data of a female volunteer with normal anatomy. The MRI images were segmented using InVesalius in order to achieve a 3D surface model. This file represents a very noisy image, with excessive detail, which can be simplified in a controlled way using BioCAD approach, developed at DT3D/CTI Brazil. Starting from it, a computational simulation can be carried out in order to represent virtually the mechanical phenomena related to the child natural delivery, providing information for the understanding of post pregnancy and even natural changes related to it. Despite the fact that the main information to obtain such model is usually available from three dimensional medical examination data, it is not simple to use these data and even more difficult to hold all the information together inside an engineering useful model. Much of the heavy work to achieve a very good representation of an anatomical structure is related to image processing applications, which are responsible for providing filters and features to separate, in the front, signal from noise on the raw image. One of the main parts of this work lies on the achievement of such 3D geometrical model, in order to have a reliable reference from where the virtual modeling and biomechanical simulations starts. Once the appropriated 3D geometrical model of the pelvic floor was available, it was started the 3D finite elements model, in order to simulate a study case related to the child natural delivery, considering the head of the child as a perfect sphere and all the material properties found in literature. The final result showed the predicted displacement of the sphere considered as the child head and the related deformation of the pelvic floor muscle, showing the main stressed regions.

Visiting policies and family presence in ICU: a matter for legislation?

Dear Editor, The Italian Senate Committee on Health recently started examining a bill on the subject of visiting policies and family presence in ICU [1]. In Italy, healthcare is largely in the hands of the regional governments, though parliament retains the power to dictate general policy. The bill in question—a brief document of four articles—stipulates that the introduction of the ‘‘open’’ ICU model [2] constitutes a primary objective of the national health plan; it therefore mandates the Health Ministry and the regional governments to establish norms on five key points. Firstly, recognizing a specific patient right, it states that daily visiting time should be at least 12 h in adult ICUs and without restrictions in neonatal and pediatric ICUs. Secondly, it requires that suitably qualified personnel should be available in ICU to provide appropriate psychological support to the patient and family members. Thirdly, it stipulates the creation of specific training paths for ICU doctors and nurses, with particular attention to communication skills (recognized as an area of professional competency). Fourthly, it sets out that hospital construction plans should be drawn up in such a way as to facilitate the creation of the ‘‘open’’ ICU model of care (incorporating, for instance, areas suitably equipped for family members). Finally, it links National Health Service supplementary funding for the regional governments to implementation of the law, ensuring that to some extent ‘‘open’’ ICU becomes a requirement for a hospital’s accreditation in the Italian National Health Service. That such a bill exists undoubtedly indicates the interest of the whole of society in these issues, which can today no longer be considered an exclusive prerogative of physicians and nurses. However, do we actually need a law on visiting in ICU? Is it right to have legislation on every aspect of medical practice, or should we consider it an unwarranted intrusion? In principle, I believe it is neither useful nor appropriate that legislation should dictate every detail of every aspect of medical activity and hospital life, rather than confining itself to addressing the definition of health policy. We must, however, acknowledge that in some areas parliamentary intervention can be decisive in ‘‘making the leap’’ to achieve higher quality and standardize practice. An example is the recent law passed in Italy governing palliative treatment and pain management [3], stipulating that particular attention be paid to these aspects from both the clinical and the organizational point of view. Italian ICUs today still apply particularly restrictive visiting policies: current daily visiting time is around 2 h with 2 % of ICUs allowing 24 h visiting, while in 1.4 % of units no visiting whatsoever is allowed [4]. Moreover, no waiting room is provided by 25 % of ICUs [5]. Neither the European nor the Italian Societies of Intensive Care Medicine have yet made recommendations about this. However, in my view, they should issue a strong statement of position, acknowledging clearly and unequivocally the importance of these matters to quality of care in ICU, and urging the liberalization of visiting policies. A statement of this kind could reduce the need for parliament to become involved in excessive detail. As things stand, however, a simple ‘‘policy’’ law like the one under consideration could be a useful tool in fostering the necessary cultural and organizational change.