Great Myths Research Articles

The great cholesterol myth (Book review)

The great cholesterol myth (Book review)

Grandes mitos de América Latina e interculturalidad: un proyecto didáctico a través de la educación emocional

THE GREAT MYTHS OF LATIN AMERICA AND CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION: A VALUE-ORIENTED DIDACTIC PROJECT
 The article presents the possibility of using the great Latin American myths in a more engaged value-oriented teaching. Modern technological societies are impoverished as far as emotional life is concerned. Thanks to emotional education, which is about awakening emotions in the learners, we can make students more sensitive and invite them to take part in a discussion about values. The great personae of Latin America such as Simon Bolivar, Eva Peron or Che Guevara can be the subject of the didactic project.

Platono Valstybininkas: draminiai aspektai ir filosofinis mitas

The Statesman is Plato’s neglected political work. Due to the difficulties of the Statesman, the dialogue suffers from the disparity in the number of its translations, commentaries, and research studies on it. This dialogue is Plato’s neglected political work, but it is crucial for the understanding of the development of his political thinking as well as of Republic and Laws. So, this article is arranged as follows: at the beginning, there are presented the analysis of the myth as an example of political philosophy, also, there is an emphasis on the analysis of how the myth as part of literature becomes an opposition of a philosophical discourse. In a confused way, literature is the fictive institution which allows one to say everything, in every way, and sometimes it reveals the truth, becomes the only way to tell about the true nature of the things. Most likely in this way the myth of the Statesman works.In the second part of this publication, the translated part of the dialogue, the so-called Myth of the Statesman is presented. The text is presentend with its own notes and commentaries below the text for the extended reading of the dialogue. In addition, the original Greek text has been inserted as a necessity for a comparison and analysis of the translated text.The dialogue itself likewise contains a central section on the paradigm and measure, which affects the passage between the statesman as a shepherd and the statesman as a weaver. It is ostensibly an attempt to arrive at the definition of the statesman as a ruler who has a political power called for a specialized knowledge. Those two passages of definitions are both divided and united by the great myth of Statesman (268–274e), for this reason the myth becomes the part of great importance of a dialogue and political thinking of Plato.

Promoting Midwife‐Provided Gynecologic Care: With Women for a Lifetime

Promoting Midwife‐Provided Gynecologic Care: With Women for a Lifetime

The great myth of office blood pressure measurement

Clinical practice guidelines have traditionally recommended manual blood pressure (BP) measurement in the office setting as the standard method for diagnosing hypertension. In reality, manual BP in routine clinical practice is relatively inaccurate, over-diagnoses hypertension by provoking office-induced increases in BP and correlates poorly with both the awake ambulatory BP and target organ damage. The most recent guidelines recommend 24-h ambulatory BP and home BP for diagnosing hypertension. The advent of automated office BP (AOBP) represents a third alternative to conventional manual BP measurement, one that maintains the role of office BP readings in the diagnosis and management of hypertension. AOBP has three basic principles: multiple readings taken using a fully automated sphygmomanometer with the patient resting quietly alone. AOBP eliminates office-induced hypertension such that the cut-point for a normal AOBP is the same as for the awake ambulatory BP and home BP. As compared to routine manual office BP, AOBP provides more accurate BP readings, is more consistent during repeated office visits and in different settings and correlates better with both the awake ambulatory BP and target organ damage. The advantages of AOBP over manual BP measurement support its use in routine clinical practice.

The Great Myths of Rheology Part III: Elasticity of the Network of Entanglements

The dynamic data of polymer melts are analyzed in a novel way, presenting new correlations between the viscosity, G′ and G′′ (the elastic and loss moduli), and strain rate and the implications of the new formulas on our understanding of melt entanglement network elasticity are discussed. In the two previous articles of this series, Part I and Part II, we showed that the existing models valid in the linear viscoelastic deformation range were not adequate to extrapolate to the nonlinear regime, suggesting that the stability of the network of entanglements was at the center of the discrepancies. In this article, we introduce new tools for the analysis of the dynamic data and suggest new ideas for the understanding of melt deformation based on this different focus. In particular, we express classical concepts, such as shear-thinning, melt diffusion or melt elasticity and viscosity, in a different context, that of the existence of a dual-phase interaction, essential to our treatment of the statistics of interaction of the bonds responsible for the system coherence and cohesion. It is within this framework that viscoelasticity parameters emerge and the new view of the deformation of a polymer melt results in a different definition of the entanglement network.

Matters of Fact

It is doubtless no coincidence that, with Medusa, we touch on one of the greatest myths organizing thought concerning the image.1 The word imago designated the effigy of the absent, the dead, and, ...

The great cholesterol myth; unfortunate consequences of Brown and Goldstein's mistake

The great cholesterol myth; unfortunate consequences of Brown and Goldstein's mistake

Comment on 'The great cholesterol myth: unfortunate consequences of Brown and Goldstein's mistake'

ARTICLE Sir, Adams1 proposes that the accelerated arterial disease of familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) is the consequence of more ‘brittle’ cell walls which result from an inability to take up cholesterol via the low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor leading to a loss of membrane fluidity and an inability to withstand normal haemodynamic stresses. This he asserts is the basis of the premature atherosclerosis; not the greatly increased concentrations of circulating LDL—a mechanism that he describes as ‘Brown and Goldstein's mistake’. Adams notes that FH cells in culture, unlike those from normal individuals, do not suppress endogenous cholesterol synthesis in the presence of increasing concentrations of LDL in the medium. He fails to consider the possibility that this endogenous alternative source of cellular cholesterol may prevent a significant depletion of membrane cholesterol. Moreover, in FH the plasma membranes of cells will be exposed to higher than normal …

Grant Writing: Tips and Pointers From a Personal Perspective

Progress in the science and practice of medicine requires leveraging financial resources to pursue ideas, achieve new goals, and extend professional objectives. These resources are generally allocated through agencies that function through peer review. The need to onvince a reviewing body, funding agency, or philanhropic foundation that these collective plans merit support s, therefore, a rate-limiting step. Herein I outline perspecives gained over years of writing and reviewing grants, and uggest themes to incorporate and traps to avoid in naviating this process. I focus the discussion on federal grant pplications—specifically, independent investigator-initiated R01) applications— commenting where relevant on entored-type (K) award applications. The commonlities among these applications serves as a focal point.

The great cholesterol myth; unfortunate consequences of Brown and Goldstein's mistake

Following their Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the defective gene causing familial hypercholesterolaemia, Brown and Goldstein misunderstood the mechanism involved in the pathogenesis of the associated arterial disease. They ascribed this to an effect of the high levels of cholesterol circulating in the blood. In reality, the accelerated arterial damage is likely to be a consequence of more brittle arterial cell walls, as biochemists know cholesterol to be a component of them which modulates their fluidity, conferring flexibility and hence resistance to damage from the ordinary hydrodynamic blood forces. In the absence of efficient receptors for LDL cholesterol, cells will be unable to use this component adequately for the manufacture of normally resilient arterial cell walls, resulting in accelerated arteriosclerosis. Eating cholesterol is harmless, shown by its failure to produce vascular accidents in laboratory animals, but its avoidance causes human malnutrition from lack of fat-soluble vitamins, especially vitamin D.

Great man or great myth? A quantitative review of the relationship between individual differences and leader effectiveness

This study presents a meta-analysis of 25 individual differences proposed to be related to effective leadership, with an emphasis on comparing trait-like (e.g. personality and intelligence) to state-like individual differences (e.g. knowledge and skills). The results indicate that although both trait-like (achievement motivation, energy, dominance, honesty/integrity, self-confidence, creativity, and charisma) and state-like (interpersonal skills, oral communication, written communication, administrative/management skills, problem-solving skills, and decision making) individual differences were consistent predictors of effective leadership, the impact of trait-like and state-like individual differences was modest overall and did not differ substantially (ρ= .27 and .26, respectively). Finally, organizational level of the leader, method of predictor and criterion measurement, and organization type moderated the relationship between individual differences and effective leadership.

The Great Myths of Rheology, Part II: Transient and Steady-State Melt Deformation: The Question of Melt Entanglement Stability

One of the most difficult problems to solve in rheology is prediction of the deformation of the melt during its “transient” conditions, i.e., before it reaches steady-state deformation. Most of our present understanding concerns the steady state when properties, e.g., viscosity or modulus, no longer depend on time and remain invariant. This article is concerned with the transient states obtained under non-linear conditions and asks why it sometimes takes a long time for the viscosity to reach steady state, when its terminal time τo calculated from the steady-state viscosity at that temperature, or from the crossover of G′ and G″ (τo = 1/ωx) indicates that the melt should relax in much shorter times. In pure viscometry (at constant shear rate), a transient behavior is expected before the melt reaches its steady state. Questions regarding the origin of this transient are experimentally and theoretically investigated and debated for a linear low-density polyethylene (M/M e ∼200). We show that the steady-state stability is a function of the melt's previous thermomechanical history. In order to study the instability of the melt under conditions that separate the effects of strain and strain rate, we investigate the triggering of time dependence of the moduli by strain in dynamic experiments performed in the non-linear range. We study, for linear polycarbonate and polystyrene, the effects of various parameters affecting the stability of entanglements under dynamic non-linear conditions, i.e., frequency, strain amplitude, and temperature. In all these experimental tests, we observe the same phenomenon: as strain is increased beyond a certain critical value (a function of frequency and temperature), the melt starts to become transient, e.g., its viscosity changes with time until it reaches a steady-state value. We review and rule out (for our results) the challenging interpretations based on melt edge fracture and melt surface decohesion. For transient and steady states obtained by pure viscometry or by dynamic shear oscillation, we compare the rheological properties [G′ (ω) and G″ (ω)] of the unsheared melt, before the transient, and of the “sheared melt,” after the transient, by performing a frequency sweep in the linear range. The results display large differences in G′ (ω) and G″ (ω) and in the value of the terminal time. In our proposed explanation we point to the limitation, as we enter the non-linear range, of the basic assumption of rheology regarding the scalability of the rheological parameters (stress and deformation tensors) in terms of viscosity, strain, and strain rate to describe the effect of the gap thickness. The definition of viscosity (ratio of stress and strain rate) and of strain rate (gradient of the velocity profile across the gap) requires a homogeneous melt, or, as we further propose, a homogeneous, unstructured entanglement network, which is a valid and justified concept only for certain conditions of deformation, e.g., in the linear viscoelastic range. A melt can be brought out of equilibrium with respect to its entanglement state. The return to equilibrium explains the transient properties. New entanglement states can be made quasistable, even at high temperature in the melt, by coupling entropic and enthalpic effects produced under specific conditions of melt processing. The currently accepted descriptions of rheology, we suggest, only apply to a stable entanglement state, which is not general enough and even becomes a severe limitation in the exploration of new frontier research in the application of rheology to processing of polymer melts. A supplemental table of contents is available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of the Journal of Macromolecular Science, Part B: Physics to view the free table of contents.

The Pleasures and Lessons of Academic Mythbusting: An Interview with Scott Lilienfeld

Scott O. Lilienfeld is a professor of psychology at Emory University, in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Lilienfeld is founder and editor of the journal, Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice, and is past president of the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology. He has been a member of 11 journal editorial boards, including the Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Clinical Psychology Review. Dr. Lilienfeld has published more than 200 articles, book chapters, and books on personality disorders, personality assessment, anxiety disorders, psychiatric classification and diagnosis, pseudoscience in psychology, and evidence-based practices in clinical psychology. His most recent book, coauthored with Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio, and Barry Beyerstein, is 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions About Human Behavior (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Tracy E. Zinn is an associate professor of psychology at James Madison University. She earned a PhD in industrial/organizational psychology from Auburn University in 2002. In 2005, Tracy received the Early Career Award from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. She has published several articles and book chapters on the topic of effective teaching practices. Tracy currently serves as the program coordinator for the APS-STP Teaching Institute at the Association for Psychological Sciences annual convention.

The great pheromone myth

The great pheromone myth

La historia silenciada: el descubrimiento de América y la censura teatral franquista

Francoism maintained a historical discourse that laid the ground for National-Catholicism and put the dictator on a par with the nation’s greatest myths. The discovery of the Americas and Columbus were inescapable features of this discourse. Their impact on drama is large and takes its roots from the Golden Age. However, the Franco regime only allowed epic and glorious representations and put in place various mechanisms for control. Among them, theatrical censorship guaranteed no Leyenda Negra approaches that question Spain’s historical role. Early dictatorship plays on this subject-matter were bland, lacking artistic value and praising national greatness. Later plays from the sixties, however, rejoiced in Fraga’s lifting of censorship and became more aggressive. Miralles’ Catarocolon could be considered a cornerstone in the process of demythising the discovery of the Americas. The analysis of the censorship files of this text and others reveals how censorship operated and why the censors were forced to allow the performance of these plays in the late period of Francoism.

Two Great Myths About the 1950s

Two Great Myths About the 1950s

Suicide mitigation: time for a more realistic approach

One of the great myths of health politics is that risk can ultimately be eliminated if we have the right policies, procedures, and therapies. However, in areas where health professionals feel ill equipped to manage risk, those same expectations can be a powerful disincentive, discouraging the acknowledgement and assessment of risk. When patients present with suicidal thoughts or following self harm, fear of accusation of suboptimal clinical expertise or even litigation if the patient goes on to complete a suicide may dissuade many clinicians from enquiring too deeply. This is in case they acknowledge a risk they will then be expected to manage, but which they do not believe they have the means to control. Thus, the pervasive expectation that risk must be controlled and preferably eliminated could paradoxically increase suicide risk rather than reduce it. GPs appear willing to identify suicide risk in patients with a diagnosed mental illness. A study by Pearson et al 1 investigated the frequency and nature of general practice consultations for 247 patients with a known mental illness, also in contact with specialist mental health services in the year before their suicide. In 91% of suicides the patient consulted their GP in the year before their death, half having their final GP consultation in the month before death and a sixth in the week before death. Malone et al highlighted a lack of documentation of suicide risk by mental health professionals.2 Possible factors may include not appreciating that the patient was at risk from suicide or self harm, not asking the right questions, or not understanding what the patient wanted to convey. There may be difficulty …

Review: 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology, Mental Health, Service User Involvement and Recovery, Mental Health, Service User Involvement and Recovery, Personal Tutoring in Higher Education, Teaching Psychology in Higher Education, the Teaching Qualitative Research Methods at Undergraduate Level Dataset Teaching Resource, Tqrmul Working Group

Review: 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology, Mental Health, Service User Involvement and Recovery, Mental Health, Service User Involvement and Recovery, Personal Tutoring in Higher Education, Teaching Psychology in Higher Education, the Teaching Qualitative Research Methods at Undergraduate Level Dataset Teaching Resource, Tqrmul Working Group

The Great Myths of Polymer Melt Rheology, Part I: Comparison of Experiment and Current Theory

This article examines the following issues in polymer rheology: Is the separation of temperature and molecular weight in the expression of viscosity an approximation (perhaps even a poor one) that theoretical models should not attempt to explain? Is the universality of the time-temperature superposition restricted to a narrow temperature range, so narrow, in fact, that most of the extrapolated data published as mastercurves in the literature were actually poised to be wrong? Is the concept of local friction coefficient (as related to relaxation time) misconceived to describe the change under stress of the state of interactions between the bonds, a phenomenon called flow? Is the reptation model reaching its limits in the non-linear range because it successfully describes formulas which are only approximations, even in the linear range, or because the network of entanglement must be understood by new concepts? Is there a liquid-liquid transition relaxation in the melt when the data are re-examined properly with the right regression tools? Is it time to consider new interpretations for its existence? Is there a need, in order to reconcile linear and non-linear experimental results, to reconsider the classical concepts of linear viscoelasticity: the terminal time, τd, the plateau modulus, GoN, and the concept of Me, the molecular weight between entanglements? Are these concepts too simplistic and of limited value?