Point Of Choice Research Articles

Moral Mistakes, Virtue and Sin: The Case of Othello

The view that one’s moral status is dependent on the stance of the will alone is an attractive view, deeply entrenched in Christian ethics. Yet it cannot account for pervasive intuitions about some kinds of moral mistakes, in particular those which arise at the point of choice. An agent’s moral beliefs are connected to his or her moral personality in a way that beliefs about matters of fact are not. This does not mean that a moral mistake never excuses the agent from subjective guilt, but it does mean that we cannot assume that this is always the case. This paper attempts to develop these suggestions through reflection on Othello, whose eponymous hero acts out of a combination of factual and moral errors which are intertwined with his character in revealing ways.

Changing the environment to promote health-enhancing physical activity

Supportive environments have been used to change and influence health behaviours like smoking. While psychological and ecological theories and models demonstrate the possible influences of the environment on health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA), little is known about the effectiveness of the environmental interventions. This paper presents the results of a systematic review of studies that used environmental interventions to increase health-enhancing physical activity. Two groups of studies were found, studies that changed the physical environment by creating new HEPA facilities, policies and supporting mechanisms, and studies that used the elements of the environment as an active or sedentary ‘point of choice’, via educational materials to promote stair use. Environmental change studies showed a small increase on HEPA behaviour, but the relative impact of environment changes was not evaluated. A number of before and after studies have observed a weak effect of a simple environmental change to stimulate stair climbing while travelling or shopping. Current national policy has embraced the environment as an option for promoting health-enhancing physical activity, especially active travel, in spite of the lack of effectiveness data. It is recommended that existing or planned public health environment and HEPA initiatives should use appropriate evaluation methods to assess their efficacy and effectiveness. Further developmental research into the nature of the relationship of the environment to particular HEPA behaviours is strongly recommended before developing new environmental interventions.

Teaching the Land Ethic

AbstractThis paper discusses the teaching of the Leopoldian Land Ethic in an environmental ethics class. The Leopoldian Land Ethic is arguably the most fully formulated and developed environmental ethic to date. Moreover, at least in North America, it is also the ethical reference point of choice for conservation workers both within and outside of government service, and thus it is particularly important that students who will pursue such careers are exposed to it. Although there are a number of ways to unpack the Land Ethic in a university environmental ethics classroom, and for more public audiences, this paper outlines one method that has been highly effective in both teaching settings over a long period of time.

The effect of complexity on the discrimination of oriented bars by the honeybee (Apis mellifera).

Visual discrimination of black bars by honeybees was studied in a Y-choice apparatus with fixed vertical patterns at constant range. The problem is to discover how bees remember different degrees of complexity of the orientation cue. Previous conclusions with parallel gratings and single bars disagree. With broad bars versus orthogonal bars, the bees learn the orientation cue if the bars are centred at the same place, but they learn the position cue in the vertical direction when the bars are at different places on the two targets. With several bars on each target, the bees learn their orientation and positions. As fixed patterns increase in complexity, the bees follow a simple rule, to look only at the range of places where the cues were displayed. The frame of reference is disrupted when a black spot is added to the training pattern. There is abundant evidence that the bees do not re-assemble the pattern or learn shapes. The filters that detect the position and orientation cues are coarsely tuned, so that they respond in a graded way, but the memory of the range of directions of the cue, as seen from the point of choice, is more exact.

Support and Access in Sports and Leisure Provision

This paper will look at different ways of enabling people with learning difficulties to engage in leisure opportunities: the Support Model and the Access Model. These models will be put in their social context and then critiqued. The support model will be be contextualised in the theory of normalisation, access in disability theory. The support worker role will be shown to be useful in motivating people with learning difficlties into new activities, as well as having a protecting element, and unwittingly, disguise the level of discrimination people with learning difficulties are subject to. The access worker role will be shown to have strengths in understanding discrimi nation. With this analysis, it has the potential to dismantle disabling practices. However, the needs of people with learning difficulties have ramifications for disability theory. In practice, that means that ideas of self-advocacy need to be taken on board. Through interviews with sports personnel, social workers and people with learning difficulties, the implications of creating fully comprehensive access will be examined. I will conclude that both effective support and comprehensive access must be in place before people with learning difficulties are able to make a meaningful choice as to how they are enabled to participate in sports. It is only at that point of choice that the two models become complementary rather than competing discourses of provision.

Can motivational signs prompt increases in incidental physical activity in an Australian health-care facility?

This study aimed to evaluate whether a stair-promoting signed intervention could increase the use of the stairs over the elevator in a health-care facility. A time-series design was conducted over 12 weeks. Data were collected before, during and after displaying a signed intervention during weeks 4-5 and 8-9. Evaluation included anonymous counts recorded by an objective unobtrusive motion-sensing device of people entering the elevator or the stairs. Self-report data on stair use by hospital staff were also collected. Stair use significantly increased after the first intervention phase (P = 0.02), but after the intervention was removed stair use decreased back towards baseline levels. Moreover, stair use did not significantly change after the re-introduction of the intervention. Lastly, stair use decreased below the initial baseline level during the final weeks of evaluation. Furthermore, there was no significant change in self-reported stair use by hospital staff. Therefore, the signed intervention aimed at promoting an increase in incidental physical activity produced small brief effects, which were not maintained. Further research is required to find more effective 'point of choice' interventions to increase incidental physical activity participation with more sustainable impact.

Six-Month Observational Study of Prompted Stair Climbing

Background. Despite strong evidence that prompts at the point of choice between escalators and stairs encourage stair use, the long-term effects of stair prompts have not yet been investigated. Presented here are the results of a 6-month observational study of prompted stair climbing.Methods. Escalator and adjacent stair use were monitored in a shopping mall in the Midlands region of the United Kingdom. Participants were coded for gender, age, and ethnicity. A 2-week baseline period was followed by a 12-week intervention using motivating messages on the stair risers. Follow-up data were also collected for 2 weeks immediately after the removal of the banners and 6 weeks later.Results. A total of 45,361 escalator/stair-choice observations were made. Stair use increased significantly during the intervention period and, when the banners were removed, remained higher than at baseline. There were also significant interactions with time across the different population groups.Conclusions. The full public health benefits of increasing physical activity levels can only be realized if the activity is sustained. These results demonstrate that stair-riser banners can elicit a sustained increase in stair use and, even when the banners were withdrawn, overall stair use remained higher than at baseline.

Encouraging stair use: stair-riser banners are better than posters.

Increasing physical activity levels among a largely sedentary public is a health priority.1 Lifestyle exercise, such as walking or stair climbing, has been recommended because it provides substantial health benefits and fits easily into daily routines.2 Opportunities for stair climbing in workplaces, public buildings, and the home are frequently available to most population groups. Studies conducted in both the United States and the United Kingdom have shown that posters at the “point of choice” between escalators and stairs can increase stair use.3–6 As a result, physical activity promoters have championed the use of such posters. In a recent study, however, messages placed as banners on alternate stair risers were associated with a greater increase in shoppers' stair use than that typically observed with posters.7 To confirm the superiority of these banners in promoting stair climbing, we systematically compared the use of poster prompts and stair-riser banners. The study was conducted at 2 shopping malls; both sites had 28-step staircases with adjacent escalators. Following a coding system,3 an observer recorded the number of people using the escalators and stairs on alternate days at each location. Observations were made between 11 am and 1 pm to include day and lunchtime shoppers. At the control site, a 2-week baseline period was followed by 4 weeks during which a poster that read “Stay healthy, use the stairs” was displayed. Use of this poster had been found to be effective in previous research.3 At the experimental site, 2 weeks of baseline observation and 2 weeks of the poster intervention were followed by 2 weeks during which banners, containing mulitple messages, were placed on the stair risers, as in our earlier study.7 Logistic regression analyses were conducted with escalator–stair use as the dichotomous outcome variable. Overall pedestrian traffic volume, a potential confounding variable,3 was calculated as the total number of people using the escalators and stairs during each half-hour period. Traffic volume was entered into the logistic regression models as a continuous variable. Sex, age, and ethnicity were also added to the models, in that previous research had demonstrated their importance.3–6 Figure 1 ▶ illustrates the effects of the poster and banner conditions in the 2 shopping malls. At the control site (n = 12 018), the rate of stair use increased from 2.2% at baseline to 4.8% during the first 2 weeks of the poster exposure but fell slightly to 4.1% during the second 2 weeks. At the experimental site (n = 11 961), stair use increased from 2.4% at baseline to 4.0% when the poster was in place and rose to 6.7% when the banners were displayed on the stair risers. FIGURE 1— Stair use at baseline in poster and banner conditions in the control and experimental shopping malls. Logistic regression analyses revealed that stair use increased at both sites during the first 2 weeks in which the poster was displayed (odds ratio [OR] = 2.18, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.69, 2.80), with no significant differences between the sites. During the second intervention period, there was an interaction between the sites (OR = 2.06, 95% CI = 1.48, 2.87) such that rates of stair use were higher with the banners at the experimental site than with the poster at the control site. There are several reasons why the banners were more effective than the poster in encouraging stair use. First, the banners were highly visible. In our earlier studies, 76% of interviewees reported seeing these banners,7 whereas only a third reported noticing the poster used.8 Second, while the poster included only one health-related message, the banners contained multiple messages, such as “Keep fit,” “Be active,” and “Free exercise.” As such, they are likely to appeal to a broader population range.9 Regular stair climbing has been associated with discernible health gains.10 Accordingly, if large population groups are regularly exposed to motivating stair banners instead of the posters currently used by health promoters, the public health dividends could be considerable.

Quantity versus quality: ethics and provision of renal replacement therapy.

50 years ago if one had renal failure the prognosis was certain death within a short timeframe. Now if one receives renal replacement therapy the prognosis has dramatically changed. But in this time of economic constraints and ever decreasing human resources are we now to be faced with the necessity to make choices about who receives replacement therapy? This paper looks at the ethics of providing treatment for large numbers but at the risk of 2nd class treatment, or selection of a few to receive the best treatment possible. The author asks what is the point of choice for the provision of therapy; before treatment has begun or having started who has the right to stop treatment and should there be criteria for discontinuing this treatment? The paper examines the ethical issues facing all the health care team especially those caring for the chronically ill. The financial benefits of one kind of therapy over the other are examined and again the author puts the question, is it economics that governs the treatment prescribed, or a real choice made with knowledge? The author has found that "hands on" health care teams are still aiming to treat the ever increasing workload but at what cost? How long can we continue to accept patients for treatment when we may be putting at risk other patients and the very people who are providing the care?

Seven experiments on pattern vision of the honeybee, with a model

When vertically presented patterns are fixed in relation to the point of choice of the bees, the locations of areas of colour or black can be discriminated in the vertical direction, and in the horizontal direction when the bees use some mark with green contrast on which to stabilize. The bees can fixate on a radial pattern, a spot, or a ring of spots. Resolution depends on fixation, which depends on green contrast, but the discrimination of locations then depends on the photon flux at green and blue receptors. The model proposes that, when the eye is stabilised, a tonic channel from all receptor types is activated in the region of the eye that looks at the cue. This channel generates a perceptual space in which location, colour and size contribute to a signature for each cue in each eye. In other channels of processing, the stimulus is the phasic modulation of green receptors by edges, and these pathways are colour blind. When the patterns are composed of bars, the cues are the radial and tangential edges and the integrated edge orientation, irrespective of shuffling of locations on the target. Orientation can be detected in fuzzy edges with a gradient of black to white over about 60° subtended from the point of choice. These cues correspond to the response profiles of large-field, phasic, coarsely tuned filters. There is no evidence that cues from edges have a spatial tag. The model also proposes that each filter for average orientation, or radial or tangential edges, corresponds to an ascending succession of phasic neurones. Each processing channel generates a perceptual space where combinations of related cues form signatures, and at least one signature is passed to memory as an index item. A pattern may generate several signatures but patterns are discriminated only when their signatures differ. In the bee there is no evidence for the re-assembly of the pattern.

Visual discrimination of radial cues by the honeybee (Apis mellifera)

This is a systematic study of the discrimination of black radially symmetrical patterns presented on a white vertical background and subtending 45° or 50° at the point of choice in a Y-maze apparatus. Before discrimination can occur, the ability to fixate is promoted by any radial pattern irrespective of the number of symmetry axes. A ring of spots can also stabilize the eye before the positions of the spots are discriminated.Cues for discrimination are of two main types. First, with fixed patterns of sectors or spots, the cue is the location of an area of black relative to the fixation point, and the particular number of axes is less important than the size of the individual areas. Secondly, evidence is presented for a family of filters with large fields and coarse tuning that detect patterns of radially symmetrical edges. These filters become more evident when the patterns are made of thin black radial bars or when they are rotated at random during the training. An angular shift of one radial pattern relative to the other, or a difference between numbers of bars, is best discriminated when one of the patterns but not the other has angles of 30°, 60°, or 120° between radial edges, and least when the angles are 90°. Baffles in the apparatus make the bees pause and fixate so that discrimination is improved. When targets are rotated during the learning process, radial cues for discriminations must be presented as edges, not as spots or areas. Besides detecting and fixating flowers, this system could be useful to estimate the perfection of their symmetry.

Spatial coincidence of cues in visual learning by the honeybee ( Apis mellifera)

The discrimination of patterns was studied in a Y-choice chamber fitted with a transparent baffle in each arm, through which the bees had a choice of two targets via openings 5 cm wide. The bees see the positive (rewarded) and the negative (unrewarded) targets from a fixed distance. The patterns were bars (subtending 22°×5.4° at the point of choice) presented in one-quarter of each target. The bars were moved to a different quarter of the target every 5 min, to make the location of black useless as a cue. A coincident presentation is when the bar on the left target is on the same side of the target as the bar on the right target. The bees learn the orientation cue when the presentation is coincident but otherwise cannot learn it. This experiment shows that bees do not centre their attention on the individual bars, otherwise they would always discriminate the orientation. Centring the target as a whole precedes learning. Having learned with the bar on one side of the targets, bees do not recognize the same cue presented on the other side. A separate orientation cue can be learned on each side. A radial/tangential cue is preferred to a conflicting orientation cue.

Lexical categories in Spanish: The determiner By Linda M. McManness (review)

BOOK NOTICES 213 bring and take are treated, since they are often confused by English speakers, along with a discussion of point of view and choice of prefixes. The book concludes with three appendices supplying full conjugations , additional motion verbs, and additional prefixes; an English-Russian and Russian-English glossary is provided. In his handbook M sets up a variety of lesson techniques , such as completion exercises, translations, and pattern exercises designed for oral drill. For some assignments, the student is asked to focus on morphology , for others on lexical choices, and for still others on morphology and lexical choices at the same time. Many of them may be tailored to individual needs of students. By using up-to-date examples and colloquial language, M's book aims to prepare the intermediate student to use comfortably the everyday Russian heard on the street and in the home. For the growing number of students traveling to Russia to live and study, a good command of motion verbs will contribute much to their communication skills. One of the book's strengths is undoubtedly its basic orientation towards 'getting around', and because of the fundamental difference of this notion for Americans and Russians, every effort has been made throughout the book to include both Russian and American contexts with ample footnotes clarifying ambiguities. One problem for a handbook as comprehensive and communication oriented as this is the inclusion ofcertain idioms with prefixed verbs to the exclusion of others. To make the list of high frequency idioms more extensive would further contribute to the book's 'getting around' orientation but perhaps make the work too unwieldy. Some minor misspellings which I found are quite innocuous (38), while others may confuse the reader, especially those in the Russian -English glossary (133, 136). In sum, this highly-recommended and readable manual provides a reliable tool for exploring Russian grammar. [Helen Serdjuk, University of Pennsylmalist government-binding, relevant aspects of which are outlined in Ch. 1 (1-12). Specifically, M accepts Steven Abney's DP hypothesis, summarized and applied to Spanish in Ch. 2 (13-39). Ch. 2 also presents Abney's distinction between functional and lexical categories and his rationale for taking determiners to be a functional category like INFL and COMP, and it discusses and critiques a variant of the DP hypothesis proposed by Naoki Fukui and Margaret Speas. Chs. 3 (41-68) and 4 (69-96) consider 'demonstratives and definite articles' and 'possessives and genitives' respectively in Spanish, reviewing the literature from a DP perspective. Unfortunately, neither chapterprovides significant support for the main thesis of the book, restated in Ch. 5 (97-98). M points out several Spanish grammatical facts that appear inconvenient for various analyses, but her own analysis offers no clear advantages for handling them, and it is not clear from the discussion that a lot depends on whether determiners are functional or lexical. Facts adduced are largely taken from the cited literature , and readers familiar with Spanish should not expect to learn much about Spanish grammar. Fairly low-level points are made at length, like the fact that the definite article agrees in gender and number with the associated noun (42). Some purported facts are mistaken, like M's claim that ? further restriction on the definite article is that it cannot appear alone, unlike an empty nominal headed by a demonstrative . . . .' (45): the Spanish definite articles (el, la, los, las) are suspiciously similar to a free-standing pronoun (él) or pronominal clitic which attaches to verbs (la, los, las), and a complete account of Spanish determiners should cover the relation between determiners and pronouns, a topic essentially untouched in the work under consideration. The book is well-produced and relatively free of typographical errors, though several pages in Ch. 1 are double-spaced in an apparent effort at padding. [Glenn Ayres, Inter American University ofPuerto Rico, San Germán] Lexical categories in Spanish: The determiner . By Linda M. McManness. Lanham , MD: University Press of America, 1996. Pp. xi, 110. Though it does not identify itself as such, this book is apparently a University of Washington master's thesis. Its title may give the impression that the general issue of lexical categories...

Luxembourg and Lëtzebuergesch: Language and communication at the crossroads of Europe Ed. by Gerald Newton (review)

BOOK NOTICES 213 bring and take are treated, since they are often confused by English speakers, along with a discussion of point of view and choice of prefixes. The book concludes with three appendices supplying full conjugations , additional motion verbs, and additional prefixes; an English-Russian and Russian-English glossary is provided. In his handbook M sets up a variety of lesson techniques , such as completion exercises, translations, and pattern exercises designed for oral drill. For some assignments, the student is asked to focus on morphology , for others on lexical choices, and for still others on morphology and lexical choices at the same time. Many of them may be tailored to individual needs of students. By using up-to-date examples and colloquial language, M's book aims to prepare the intermediate student to use comfortably the everyday Russian heard on the street and in the home. For the growing number of students traveling to Russia to live and study, a good command of motion verbs will contribute much to their communication skills. One of the book's strengths is undoubtedly its basic orientation towards 'getting around', and because of the fundamental difference of this notion for Americans and Russians, every effort has been made throughout the book to include both Russian and American contexts with ample footnotes clarifying ambiguities. One problem for a handbook as comprehensive and communication oriented as this is the inclusion ofcertain idioms with prefixed verbs to the exclusion of others. To make the list of high frequency idioms more extensive would further contribute to the book's 'getting around' orientation but perhaps make the work too unwieldy. Some minor misspellings which I found are quite innocuous (38), while others may confuse the reader, especially those in the Russian -English glossary (133, 136). In sum, this highly-recommended and readable manual provides a reliable tool for exploring Russian grammar. [Helen Serdjuk, University of Pennsylmalist government-binding, relevant aspects of which are outlined in Ch. 1 (1-12). Specifically, M accepts Steven Abney's DP hypothesis, summarized and applied to Spanish in Ch. 2 (13-39). Ch. 2 also presents Abney's distinction between functional and lexical categories and his rationale for taking determiners to be a functional category like INFL and COMP, and it discusses and critiques a variant of the DP hypothesis proposed by Naoki Fukui and Margaret Speas. Chs. 3 (41-68) and 4 (69-96) consider 'demonstratives and definite articles' and 'possessives and genitives' respectively in Spanish, reviewing the literature from a DP perspective. Unfortunately, neither chapterprovides significant support for the main thesis of the book, restated in Ch. 5 (97-98). M points out several Spanish grammatical facts that appear inconvenient for various analyses, but her own analysis offers no clear advantages for handling them, and it is not clear from the discussion that a lot depends on whether determiners are functional or lexical. Facts adduced are largely taken from the cited literature , and readers familiar with Spanish should not expect to learn much about Spanish grammar. Fairly low-level points are made at length, like the fact that the definite article agrees in gender and number with the associated noun (42). Some purported facts are mistaken, like M's claim that ? further restriction on the definite article is that it cannot appear alone, unlike an empty nominal headed by a demonstrative . . . .' (45): the Spanish definite articles (el, la, los, las) are suspiciously similar to a free-standing pronoun (él) or pronominal clitic which attaches to verbs (la, los, las), and a complete account of Spanish determiners should cover the relation between determiners and pronouns, a topic essentially untouched in the work under consideration. The book is well-produced and relatively free of typographical errors, though several pages in Ch. 1 are double-spaced in an apparent effort at padding. [Glenn Ayres, Inter American University ofPuerto Rico, San Germán] Lexical categories in Spanish: The determiner . By Linda M. McManness. Lanham , MD: University Press of America, 1996. Pp. xi, 110. Though it does not identify itself as such, this book is apparently a University of Washington master's thesis. Its title may give the impression that the general issue of lexical categories...

PIGEONS' CHOICES BETWEEN FIXED‐RATIO AND GEOMETRICALLY ESCALATING SCHEDULES

When pigeons choose between situations that provide access to food reinforcers after a delay, choice is better predicted by computations based upon sums‐of‐reciprocals distances from the point of choice to each of the next three or four reinforcers in series than by computations of optimality based upon mean rates of reinforcement. The present experiments were designed to examine the generality of this finding. Pigeons were exposed to concurrent‐chains schedules in which one brief initial link led to a fixed‐ratio schedule (either 15, 30, or 60, depending on the condition), and the other link led to a geometrically increasing progressive‐ratio schedule whose rate of escalation was systematically varied across conditions. Each combination of fixed‐ratio size and escalation rate of the progressive schedule was assessed at two different levels of deprivation (75% and 80% of free‐feeding weights). Computations based upon the sums‐of‐reciprocals principle, treating ratio schedule sizes as proportional to delays, predicted and described the pigeons' median switch points better than those based on arithmetic means. Neither the distance to the next reinforcer (as implied by some molecular analyses) nor molar optimization (as described by arithmetic means) were as successful at accounting for patterns of choice in these situations. Hence, it appears that the birds' choices were most influenced by the relative proximity of a choice to several reinforcers in a series of reinforcers, with each of the less proximal reinforcers having relatively less influence over the current choice.

Effect of ST segment measurement point on performance of exercise ECG analysis

To evaluate the effect of ST-segment measurement point on diagnostic performance of the ST-segment/heart rate (ST/HR) hysteresis, the ST/HR index, and the end-exercise ST-segment depression in the detection of coronary artery disease, we analysed the exercise electrocardiograms of 347 patients using ST-segment depression measured at 0, 20, 40, 60 and 80 ms after the J-point. Of these patients, 127 had and 13 had no significant coronary artery disease according to angiography, 18 had no myocardial perfusion defect according to technetium-99m sestamibi single-photon emission computed tomography, and 189 were clinically `normal' having low likelihood of coronary artery disease. Comparison of areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves showed that the discriminative capacity of the above diagnostic variables improved systematically up to the ST-segment measurement point of 60 ms after the J-point. As compared to analysis at the J-point (0 ms), the areas based on the 60-ms point were 89 vs. 84% ( p=0.0001) for the ST/HR hysteresis, 83 vs. 76% ( p<0.0001) for the ST/HR index, and 76 vs. 61% ( p<0.0001) for the end-exercise ST depression. These findings suggest that the ST-segment measurement at 60 ms after the J-point is the most reasonable point of choice in terms of discriminative capacity of both the simple and the heart rate-adjusted indices of ST depression. Moreover, the ST/HR hysteresis had the best discriminative capacity independently of the ST-segment measurement point, the observation thus giving further support to clinical utility of this new method in the detection of coronary artery disease.

Targeted gene expression without a tissue-specific promoter: creating mosaic embryos using laser-induced single-cell heat shock.

We have developed a method to target gene expression in the Drosophila embryo to a specific cell without having a promoter that directs expression in that particular cell. Using a digitally enhanced imaging system to identify single cells within the living embryo, we apply a heat shock to each cell individually by using a laser microbeam. A 1- to 2-min laser treatment is sufficient to induce a heat-shock response but is not lethal to the heat-shocked cells. Induction of heat shock was measured in a variety of cell types, including neurons and somatic muscles, by the expression of beta-galactosidase from an hsp26-lacZ reporter construct or by expression of a UAS target gene after induction of hsGAL4. We discuss the applicability of this technique to ectopic gene expression studies, lineage tracing, gene inactivation studies, and studies of cells in vitro. Laser heat shock is a versatile technique that can be adapted for use in a variety of research organisms and is useful for any studies in which it is desirable to express a given gene in only a distinct cell or clone of cells, either transiently or constitutively, at a time point of choice.

On the cusp: parents choosing between state and private schools in the UK: action within an economy of symbolic goods1

Choice of school remains a hot topic in UK educational politics. This paper focuses on one point of choice which is of considerable political and theoretical interest; that is, parents choosing between state and private schools. Here comparison between the systems, the use of cultural resources and the role of principles and interests in choice‐making are all to the fore. The paper employs ideas and concepts from Bourdieu's work Distinction (1986) to develop further analysis of parental choice introduced in earlier published work. The central argument of the paper is that choice is a key mechanism in the uneven accumulation and reproduction of cultural capital through education. 1On the cusp: parents choosing between state and private schools in the UK: action within an economy of symbolic goods

Buying the brand at point of choice

This paper provides the rationale for a research and analysis programme to understand better how to influence the way in which people shop fixtures in retail outlets. It argues that a retail outlet is a communications medium rather than merely a distribution channel, that a brand exists in a series of different in-store contexts which frame the way in which it is perceived on-shelf by the shopper, that at the point of choice three time frames coalesce — the past time of remembered advertising, the present time of packaging and promotions and the future time of anticipated use. Equally, people develop a number of editing or coping strategies to deal with the overwhelming choices that confront them in today's crowded marketplace. Research techniques need to be developed to understand how brand advertising, promotion, packaging and merchandising strategies interact with consumer strategies at the retail fixture — the point of choice.

The honeybee ( Apis mellifera) detects bilateral symmetry and discriminates its axis

Honeybees were trained and tested with a choice between a black and white pattern composed of two pairs of equal orthogonal bars with bilateral symmetry and the same or a similar pattern with a different symmetry. The targets subtended < 50 ° at the point of choice. Earlier results with the chevron pattern revealed that discrimination of rotation is improved when one of the patterns is bilaterally symmetrical about a vertical axis. Bees were trained on 7 different pairs of 4-bar patterns at the same time, taken successively to prevent the bees from learning any one pattern. The bees learned to discriminate a pattern with bilateral symmetry from one without symmetry, irrespective of the orientation of the axis of symmetry. They also discriminate between a pattern with one axis of bilateral symmetry and the same pattern rotated by 90 °, irrespective of the actual pattern. Although the patterns are regularly changed during the training, the bees distinguish the axis of bilateral symmetry. When trained on one set of patterns, the bees also discriminate the axis in the same or other patterns rotated through 180 °, when all bars have moved over to the other side, showing that they have not remembered one side of the pattern with each eye. For one pattern, the angular tuning curve for the discrimination of the axis of symmetry falls from a score of 80% correct on-axis to near 67% at 15 ° off-axis and 50% (random) at 30 ° off-axis.