Man's Ability Research Articles

Human Immunodeficiency Virus and its Relationship to Women

In North America and most of Europe, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) currently largely affects men, whereas in Africa and most of the rest of the world the sexes are approximately equally affected. The pattern in Westernized countries ?ppears to be changing; women are now an Increasing proportion of new cases l- 5• HIV infection in women differs from that in men in some of the clinical manifestations and in psychosocial aspects, but, of most importance, is a w~man's ability to pass the infection to her unborn child. It has been estimated that, by 1991, the majority of new AIDS cases, worldwide, will be in children 6. Most of these will have been infected by their mothers. TRANSMISSION Heterosexual transmission accounts for the vast ~ajority of cases of HIV infection worldwide. This IS the predominant mode of spread in developing countries. In developed countries, such as the USA, by contrast, up to 52% of womenhave been infected through sharing intravenous aquipment''. These patterns are not distinct: heterosexual transmission occurs amongintravenous drug users (IVDUs) too, and since about two-thirds of IVDUs are male, and m~inly heterosexual, the majority of their partners will be women. Secondary spread beyond this may occur so that women on the fringes of drug culture m~y be at risk of acquiring HIV heterosexually WIthout themselves being drug users. This seems to J:'e the case, especially in the inner cities of the l!mted States'', whereas in UK, there is as yet httle evidence of spread outside recognized risk groups4,9,1O.

Age-Related Effects of Reinforced Practice on Recognition Memory: Consistent Versus Varied Stimulus-Response Relations

Healthy older (64-74 years) and younger (19-26 years) men received extended exposure to tasks requiring visual recognition memory (memory scanning). The older men's speeds increased substantially when fast responding was differentially reinforced by time limits placed on the recognition response. Gains were matched by the younger men, however, so that age differences were not reduced. These improvements by the older men occurred under conditions of varied stimulus-response relations (as well as consistent relations), a procedure that has been regarded as especially taxing of the cognitive resources of older adults. Although the study did not provide evidence that age differences in recognition memory were reduced by reinforced practice, the equivalent practice effects and the transfer of these effects from visual to auditory stimuli indicated that the older men's learning abilities were the equal of those of the young adult controls.

Women's life and leisure in an Australian rural community

In this paper it is shown that men living in an Australian rural community use their superior power to exclude women from much of their work and leisure activity. The activities examined include organized sport, drinking, friendship and service club activity. Women are expected to use their domestic skills both privately and publicly to facilitate men's pursuit of glory and community status and to applaud their achievements. The study confirms the research of Deem, Green, Woodward, Hebron, Dixey and Talbot in showing that men's leisure is often achieved at the expense of women's. In the second part of the paper the sources of men's ability to exclude and oppress women are examined. Their superior power is related to their advantageous position in the market labour force, women's economic dependence and a community belief system which stereotypes women as inferior, advocates that women's proper place is in the home, and argues that men are entitled to greater freedom than women to pursue their own leisure ...

Reproduction in the Space Environment

Mankind's exploration and colonization of the frontier of space will ultimately depend on men's and women's ability to live, work, and reproduce in the space environment. This paper reviews animal studies, from microorganisms to mammals, done in space or under space-simulated conditions, which identify some of the key areas which might interfere with human reproductive physiology and/or embryonic development. Those space environmental factors which impacted almost all species included: microgravity, artificial gravity, radiation, and closed life support systems. These factors may act independently and in combination to produce their effects. To date, there have been no studies which have looked at the entire process of reproduction in any animal species. This type of investigation will be critical in understanding and preventing the problems which will affect human reproduction. Part II will discuss these problems directly as they relate to human physiology.

Reproduction in the Space Environment

Mankind's exploration and colonization of the frontier of space will ultimately depend on men's and women's ability to live, work, and reproduce in the space environment. This paper reviews animal studies, from microorganisms to mammals, done in space or under space-simulated conditions, which identify some of the key areas which might interfere with human reproductive physiology and/or embryonic development. Those space environmental factors which impacted almost all species included: microgravity, artificial gravity, radiation, and closed life support systems. These factors may act independently and in combination to produce their effects. To date, there have been no studies which have looked at the entire process of reproduction in any animal species. This type of investigation will be critical in understanding and preventing the problems which will affect human reproduction. Part I1 will discuss these problems directly as they relate to human physiology.

Perceptual Factors of Computerized Television Images: An Exploratory Study

The new visual communication media imagery such as video games, digital television, and computerized pictures have captured the attention of viewers of all ages causing a revolution in imagery and stressing contemporary man's ability to comprehend and accurately recall visual information to its fullest extent. Some of the consequences of this boom in computerized video imagery are obvious while many more remain hidden.

Insect resistance to insecticides

AbstractThe past 40 years have seen insect resistance to insecticides develop from a scientific curiosity to an immense practical problem that threatens man's ability to control not only the insect pests of agriculture but also the insect vectors that transmit major human and animal diseases. The spread of genes for cross and multiple resistance among insect pests has rendered most of our present insecticides obsolescent and very few novel insecticides are under development as substitutes. The most feasible strategy to maintain adequate control of insect pests is integrated pest management or I P M, in which insecticide management is a useful component. However, much of our present planning for the future of insect control is carried out in ignorance of past failures. We must learn from the past if we are to retain the use of chemical insecticides as a viable component of IPM.

How Context Determines Fact: Historicism in Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady

HOW CONTEXT DETERMINES FACT: HISTORICISM IN WILLA CATHER’S A LOST LADY Joseph R. Urgo* Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady is a deceptive work that can be mistakenly read as a lament for a more glorious past, a kind of ode to the pioneer era in western American history. However, the novel itself does not repre­ sent a longing for a singular, objective past. Rather, it explores the process by which selective events are historicized, the process by which an era, for example, may become either historically known or escape understanding through ahistorical methods of narration. In Cather’s novel, an understand­ ing of the past is achieved once events and narratives are contextualized. The problem lies in the fact that there are a number of potential contexts through which past events are communicated, not all of which are historical. History is represented in Cather’s narrative in stories about the past told by her characters and in the figure and fate of Marian Forrester. In all three categories of representation, historical understanding competes with mythic images, or tableaus, from the past that capture the imagina­ tions of characters and narrators and stand in the way of historical knowledge. Cather’s title suggests this strategy perfectly. A LostLady shows that much of what actually occurred in the pioneer era has been lost in the context of mythic accounts generated by pioneers and their admirers. Specifically, one admirer, Niel Herbert, fails to see Marian Forrester in her own historical and biographical context and insists upon seeing her as a “lost” ideal. Idealized (and idolized) images—ladies and histories—are generated at the expense of historical knowledge. It is not the past that is lamented in Cather’s novel, a past which is shown to be far from heroic or exceptional. Rather, A Lost Lady presents the problematics of historical representation. In particular, Cather’s novel portrays the way in which the past is dehistoricized and turned into, as she puts it, “pleasant memory.” A good deal of Cather criticism argues that Willa Cather saw the pres­ ent as a falling off from the past, a great decline from the heroic pioneer era when men and women settled, colonized, and personified historical foundation. A Lost Lady is read through this lens, and conclusions about the novel reinforce critical visions of Cather’s romantic, historical nostalgia. Susan J. Rosowski concludes that the regrettable inability to maintain “a pioneer spirit of the land” gives A LostLady its tragic theme and that “hope for the future lies with the ability ofmen and women to translate this spirit *Joseph R. Urgo is an Assistant Professor of English at Bryant College. Among his publica­ tions is a recent book, Faulkner’s Apocrypha: “A Fable,” Snopes, and the Spirit of Human Rebellion, issued by the University Press of Mississippi (1989). into life.”1 More recently, Rosowski has reinforced her view of the novel as tragedy, with Ivy Peters playing the role of villain, and the land itself acting as victim.2 Rosowski’s reading is echoed frequently. Ann Douglas sees Marian Forrester as “an emblem of a fading vision of a special order” in history.3 John J. Murphy, in an intertextual study, concurs, and he recognizes a pattern employed by Cather to “frame the story of a downfall of the heroine.”4 Criticism ofA Lost Lady centers largely on Cather’s view of the past, her historical consciousness.3 The novel, however, poses difficulties in get­ ting at Cather’s view of a particular historical era because it depicts the making of history, or the understanding of the past, as an ideological struggle among contending interests in the present. There is less concern in A Lost Lady with presenting a definitive portrait of the past than there is in depicting a present in which many minds compete for historical authority. Involved in this historicist struggle are complexities and align­ ments arising from social class, gender, age, and relative powers of imagina­ tion, articulation, and comprehension. One thing, though, is clear. In A Lost Lady the past is depicted as anything but definitive or static. The novel makes it reductively simplistic, and actually ahistorical, to state that...

Gender Differences in Love and Intimacy:

Are there gender differences in the ability to love? Social psychological data suggest that men and women are more similar than the stereotypes say they are. Yet, there are some differences in men's and women's ability and motivation to love. Both seem equally susceptible to falling passionately in love. However, traditional women seem to be slightly more comfortable in intimate encounters than are men. Traditional men are slightly more comfortable taking independent action. A new androgynous breed of men and women may be appearing, which is comfortable with both.

Beyond Hayek's Pessimism: Reason, Tradition and Bounded Constructivist Rationalism

Two competing themes – traditionalism and constitutional design – lead to inconsistency in F. A. Hayek's work. This inconsistency and its implications for understanding his thought are examined. It is shown that his failure to reconcile these conflicting emphases reflects uncertainty about the proportions of reasoned choice and unreflective rule-following in human decisions. This uncertainty is traced to Hayek's growing pessimism about modern man's ability to preserve the market and the traditions upon which the market rests. Once Hayek's pessimism is set aside, the implications of his work on tradition can be developed in a more useful direction. Realization that reason rests on a non-rational matrix and that people's choices affect that matrix should not lead towards embrace and veneration of the past, but towards emphasis on the necessity of responsible political choice in the present and future.

Man as a breath-hold diver

There are many thousands of both recreational and professional divers daily engaged in breath-hold diving throughout the world. The most widely known breath-hold divers are found among males and females in Japan and Korea, collectively called the ama. However, compared with many diving animals, man's ability as a breath-hold diver is very much limited. The average duration of a dive is 30–60 s, although one can dive for a period of up to 2–3 min. Usual depths of dive are 5–20 m. However, Jacques Mayol dove to 105 m in 1983, setting a new world record. It is still not clearly understood how one can reach such a depth without developing a pulmonary "squeeze." Human divers also display a mild but significant diving bradycardia which is often accompanied by cardiac arrhythmias. Although the cardiac output decreases slightly, the arterial blood pressure increases during breath holding. It has been suggested, but not unequivocally demonstrated that these cardiovascular changes observed during diving in man subserve to conserve O2 as in diving animals. Human divers descend to the bottom while retaining a considerable amount of air in the lung, thus allowing diffusion of N2 into the blood. As a result, human breath-hold divers can develop decompression sickness if they dive to deeper depths frequently enough. The major limiting factor for human divers is the loss of body heat to the surrounding medium (water) which has a high thermoconductivity. The subcutaneous fat thickness of human divers is much less than that in diving animals and thus human divers are at a great disadvantage. Although repetitive exposures to cold water stress are known to induce a significant cold acclimatization in man, these changes are rather ineffective in prolonging cold water diving time.

The Christian Estimate of Man in Locke's "Essay"

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Christian Estimate of Man in Locke's "Essay"W. M. SpellmanW. M. Spellman Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 67, Number 4Oct., 1987 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/487627 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1987 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The biological roots of morality

The question whether ethical behavior is biologically determined may refer either to thecapacity for ethics (e.i., the proclivity to judge human actions as either right or wrong), or to the moralnorms accepted by human beings for guiding their actions. My theses are: (1) that the capacity for ethics is a necessary attribute of human nature; and (2) that moral norms are products of cultural evolution, not of biological evolution. Humans exhibits ethical behavior by nature because their biological makeup determines the presence of the three necessary, and jointly sufficient, conditions for ethical behavior: (i) the ability to anticipate the consequences of one's own actions; (ii) the ability to make value judgements; and (iii) the ability to choose between alternative courses of action. Ethical behavior came about in evolution not because it is adaptive in itself, but as a necessary consequece of man's eminent intellectual abilities, which are an attribute directly promoted by natural selection. Since Darwin's time there have been evolutionists proposing that the norms of morality are derived from biological evolution. Sociobiologists represent the most recent and most subtle version of that proposal. The sociobiologists' argument is that human ethical norms are sociocultural correlates of behaviors fostered by biological evolution. I argue that such proposals are misguided and do not escape the naturalistic fallacy. The isomorphism between the behaviors promoted by natural selection and those sanctioned by moral norms exist only with respect to the consequences of the behaviors; the underlying causations are completely disparate.

Environmental Considerations for Exercise

Physical activity, whether at a competitive or a recreational level, is frequently affected by environmental conditions. With changes in the natural environment, the exercising individual invokes a series of complex physiologic responses that are directed at maintaining homeostasis. This article will focus on the nature of these responses, with special reference to their influence on cardiorespiratory function. Because alterations in ambient temperature and ascent to altitude are the most common and are the most extensively studied of man's adaptational abilities, these will provide the basis for this discussion.

The evolution of man's sense of time

It is shown that in the evolution of man's «sense of time» the conceptDATE played an important role. Inthe first part of the paper, time concepts, such as present, period, duration, change and date, are related to each other in a conceptualstructure, which is represented bothgraphically and by means ofpropositions. That conceptual structure also illustrates the relationship of the concepts of time to theflow of time in theevolution of the cosmos and of life on earth. This flow of time is measured by means of the date concept. In thesecond part, the limited «sense of time» of apes is analyzed. The ability of apes to project their experiences intoforesights of the future is illustrated graphically in a conceptual structure. In thethird part, it is shown that man has the additional ability tochoose from such foresights aplan for the future. Plans are made by assigning a specificdate to future time. The relationship between foresights, plans and dates is also illustrated in a conceptual structure. Finally, thefourth part discusses how man's ability to assign dates to the flow of time evolved simultaneously with his hunting activities and with his faculty to communicate by means of language.

The Influence of Feedback on the Detectability of a Signal

In recent years, interest in the psychology of perception in study of the influence of nonsensory factors on man's sensory perceptual ability has been growing. Nevertheless, no study has yet raised the question of whether it is perceptual processes or the process of rendering a judgment about what has been perceived that determines the subject's responses. Contemporary psychophysics has developed an apparatus for evaluating separately the respective contributions made by the decision-making process and the sensory process proper in the overall result in an experiment. The psychophysical theory of signal detection (TSD) confirmed the notion that the influence of nonsensory factors on the outcome of an experiment extended only to the decision-making process, and was manifested in a shift in the signal value of the criterion (Green & Swets, 1966). It was experimentally confirmed that a subject's choice of judgment is actually determined by nonsensory factors (Swets et al., 1961), including feedback, for exam...

Function of the spine

In spite of the considerable effort which has been invested in attempts to understand the mechanism of human spines, substantial controversy remains, particularly in connection with assumptions which have to be made by those engaged in biological modelling. The hypothesis presented here is that the living joint has stress sensors driving a feedback mechanism, an arrangement which could react to imposed loads by modifying muscular action in such a way as to minimize stress at the joints and therefore the risk of injury. A theory of this kind gives an image of the spine not in terms of a spatial picture, as would a CAT scan, but in terms of stresses, forces and moments acting at the intervertebral joints. Calculations show that the erectores spinae alone cannot support more than about 50 kg; there must be some other mechanism to explain man's ability substantially to exceed that load. It is suggested that the interaction between the erectores spinae and the abdominals are of fundamental importance in the function of the spine; how they are co-ordinated during the lifting of weights is examined in detail. The theory resulting from this hypothesis is used to relate spinal injury and an injured subject's posture and behaviour. A mathematical formulation permits an objective evaluation of the spine, and a procedure for determining an automatic diagnosis of lumbar spine disabilities is proposed.

Mechanical Engineering Aspects of the Space Shuttle Orbiter–Design, Manufacture and Operation

The designers of the Space Shuttle were faced with engineering challenges for which little or no precedent existed, and which required unique and innovative mechanical engineering approaches for their solution. Before the Shuttle Program, all manned space vehicles were designed for high reliability single mission capability. In contrast, the Shuttle Orbiter has the requirements of reusability for 100 missions, in order to minimize operational costs, and has to be highly weight efficient to meet vehicle performance requirements. The Space Shuttle is a versatile aerospace vehicle in that it takes off like a rocket, manoeuvres in Earth orbit like a spacecraft, and lands like an airplane. In performing these functions, the Shuttle undergoes a wide spectrum of aerodynamic, acoustic, and inertial loadings, along with exposure to the temperature extremes of space, plus a severe aerothermodynamic heating environment during entry. These environments, along with unique mission requirements, resulted in design challenges of unprecedented complexity. The space vehicle that evolved has provided a flexibility never before achieved in space operations, and allows space to be treated as a resource, rather than as a hostile, uninviting environment. This paper provides an overview of the Space Shuttle Program, details of some typical mechanical engineering challenges that evolved during the development phase of the Program, and some operational performance observations. In particular, the paper focuses on activities associated with the Orbiter's structure, mechanical systems and thermal protection systems. The innovative design solutions that were developed for the Shuttle, and their outstanding performance during the flight test program, lend confidence in man's engineering ability to achieve a permanent presence in space.

The zero-sum management disease and the von Thünen prescription

As early as the mid-nineteenth century, the German farmer and economic theorist, Johann von Thünen, knew that the economic pie could be made larger by the common man's ability to work more creatively and productively. Von Thünen's contributions to management thought may well be what we need today.

The Attenuating Function of Myth in Human Understanding

Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety demands the insertion of a variety attenuator in any homeostatic system to regulate the relationship between the high variety environment and the low variety monitor. We argue that, in the system which is constituted by man and his environment, this function is performed by myth, i.e., that myth is a variety attenuator. The nature of the concept of myth is explored, and a relationship traced between the functions of classical myth and contemporary modes of understanding. Some implications follow, in particular, that serious dysfunctions inevitably occur as a result of overattenuation where the environmental variety increases at a greater rate than man's ability to understand it, as in the present technological age.