Short Pages Research Articles

Warren T. Norman (1930–1998): An Appreciation

A noted social psychologist, who was carrying out a type of meta-analysis of past studies on personality structure, remarked to me about the wealth of relevant information in each of the reports of studies conducted by a particular personality psychologist, in contrast to the frustrating lack of such information in the reports of his colleagues in social psychology. He attributed the difference to failures in the quantitative training of social psychologists. I did not disabuse him, but inwardly chortled over the happy selection of Warren Norman as his representative of personality psychology. Warren Norman will not be remembered for the quantity of his scientific publications. He will long be remembered for their extraordinary quality. During his 37-year career at Michigan, in addition to a number of book reviews and test reviews, he published about a baker’s dozen scientific reports, each a sparkling jewel of creativity and rigor. He helped set the research agenda for the field of personality assessment, and his contributions have been among the most widely appreciated of any of his scientific peers. In his first major publication (Norman, 1959), he demonstrated the magnificent craftsmanship that would characterize all his later ones. In but four short pages, he (a) provided a compelling rationale for the need to assess the test–retest stability and interjudge consensus of judgments of affective meaning derived from Osgood’s Semantic Differential technique; (b) devised a novel procedure for assessing such stability and clearly conveyed its rationale; (c) showed the expected value of the new procedure when responses are random; (d) used both his new metric, plus the more usual correlational metric, to demonstrate:

Towards a world-wide data base

Summary In summary, the WWDB represents an apporoach that has significant similarities and significant differences with current HTML-oriented WWW technology. It is orthogonal to the Hot Java development since Java is a programming language, and WWDB addresses data structuring. Similarly, it has significant connections and significant differences compared to current database technology. In other contexts, we discuss its relationship to knowledge-base technology and to office information systems (please refer to the WWDB home page for the references). The following are the salient points of this new approach: • The World-Wide Data Base consists of short text pages in HORL syntax—analogous to HTML pages but structured data. • WWDB pages live in symbiosis with HTML pages: the WWDB system is invoked in context from HTML pages, and WWDB pages are used to regenerate HTML pages—often, the same page as the system was invoked from our reset from. • The WWDB design is simple, easy to implement, and supports a rapid dialogue. Our implementation is in routine use today. It is independent of programming language. • WWDB pages which are put on-line at one site can be accessed and used at any other site, world-wide, and not only for viewing but also for processing. Contributions can be accumulated towards a world-wide database.

Art and the Artist in Babel's "Guy de Maupassant"

Of stories of Isaak Babel that deal explicitly with theme of art and artist, Guy de Maupassant (1932) is in many ways most interesting. It is certainly most literary of his works, alluding in its seven short pages to numerous other writers, polemizing with Tolstoi, and incorporating three of Maupassant's stories into its narrative fabric. Two of Babel's most authoritative comments on craft of writing are also found there, and autobiographical frame in which tale is set allows it to be read against background of his early pronouncements on art. It contains, in perhaps an even broader sense than Renato Poggioli meant by remark, the whole of his ars poetica, so to speak, in a nutshell.2 As in all of Babel's stories, plot of Guy de Maupassant is reduced to bare essentials. The autobiographical narrator, a destitute young writer in St. Petersburg in winter of 1916-1917, is introduced to Raisa Benderskaia, wife of a wealthy lawyer and publisher, to help her in her clumsy attempts to translate Maupassant. He accepts offer, becomes more and more intimate with his benefactress as they work on translation of three stories, and (evidently) finally seduces her. He returns that night to his garret, reads Edouard Maynial's biography of French writer, and is suddenly seized by a portent of some disturbing truth. As is evident from even this brief outline of narrative structure, story exemplifies a familiar pattern especially favored by Babel in which a young narrator experiences an epiphany initiating him into a deeper reality. To discern nature of that truth, we shall first of all have

Modern Concepts of Cerebrovascular Disease

Portions of this small collection stand out as classics in the literature of cerebrovascular disease. John Marshall writes on the natural history of the subject in a few short pages, which succinctly tell the physician all that can be said prognostically. There is detailed experience expressed here that is not available elsewhere—the outlook for the patient with vertebrobasilar insufficiency. Every sentence is to be read with care and remembered. Toole outlines diagnostic tests used in strokes, avoiding the advocacy of a long list of tests to be done in all cases, as so many writers recommend these days. The chapter is succinct and illuminating. A longer chapter by N. T. Mathew reviews his experience in another test that may have future use in evaluating selected stroke patients. At present, these regional cerebral blood-flow studies, using washout curves of inhaled xenon (a noninvasive test), have only an investigational use. The potential

Ted Short's Page

One of the silliest things about our education system — and one which is the source of many of its disparities — is the rigid dichotomy of the schools into ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’.

Some Remarks about Mathematical Models in Insurance: Comment

In his paper in a recent issue of this Journal, Dr. Kahn has presented a superb review of the current state of risk theory. 1 In a few short pages he introduces individual and collective risk theory and also the recent work of Borch in applying elements of utility and statistical decision theory to insurance problems. A discussion of this excellent paper can serve only to emphasize some key points and to indicate certain other mathematical models that are not discussed in the paper. Dr. Kahn prudently has limited the paper to those mathematical models relevant to decisions concerning the management of the random risk that an insurance company faces. It almost goes without saying that the ever growing number of models applicable to the selection of an investment portfolio, to the control of the quality of clerical operations, and to market analysis also are candidates for application to insurance operations. It is appropriate in any discussion of mathematical model building in insurance to make a standard acknowledgment that models concerning the random risk aspect of the business are relevant to the considerations of only a part of the spectrum of problems that face insurance managers. Even when considering questions involving vital quantitative (actuarial) decisions that are unique to the insurance

Sémiologie oculaire, le cristallin, Anatomie. Physiologie. Pathologie.

This, the third book of this series, deals exclusively with the crystalline lens and its suspensory apparatus. The subject matter is divided into three parts, the first of which has to do with the gross and microscopic anatomy. Included is a well written and comprehensively illustrated portion on the development of the human lens with sufficient comparative embryology to be instructive. Four short pages are devoted to the examination of the lens with the Gullstrand slit lamp and binocular microscope. The second part of the book deals with the physiology of the lens, and naturally much space is devoted to a consideration of the optics of the lens. This is well written, and the ultramathematical phases have been eliminated. Of course, the author leans toward the Tscherning theory of accommodation; however, this natural inclination does not make him gloss over the other theories too sketchily. The discussion of accommodation leads

Outlines of Bacteriology (Technical and Agricultural)

THE general plan of this book is excellent, but we doubt if the various subjects are dealt with in sufficient detail to render the book of much practical utility to the student. To attempt to deal with disease-producing organisms and all the technical applications of bacteriology in 260 short pages is an impossible task if anything more than general principles is to be considered. Outlines of Bacteriology (Technical and Agricultural). By Dr. David Ellis. Pp. xii + 262. (London: Longmans. Green and Co., 1909.) Price 7s. 6d. net.

The Toxins and Venoms and their Antibodies

WE regret that we are unable to speak favourably of this little book. In ioo short pages an attempt is made to surve the whole domain of toxins, bacterial, vegetable, and animal, of the venoms and of antitoxins, with the result that it is superficial and sketchy. It teems with errors in spelling, and with curious sentences, probably due to faulty translation, e.g. Micocher for Miescher, Rauson for Ransom, tumors for humors, Chauvée for Chauveau, Zalnosky for Zalensky, methylotoxin for mytilotoxin, &c.; mussels are spoken of as Crustacea, and scorpions as insects; it is stated that “toxins act as toxic agents only when in a condition to be introduced into the circulation sub-cutaneously,” “the action of bee poison is very often benign,” “in vitro it (anti-venine) acts quite as well preventivelv as therapeu-tically,” and so on. The Toxins and Venoms and their Antibodies. By Em. Pozzi-Escot. Authorised translation by Dr. Alfred T. Cohn. Pp. vii + 101 (New York: John Wiley and Sons; London: chapman and Hall, (Ltd., 1906) Price 4s. 6d. net.

Book Reviews

IN this book the author gives, in thirty-five short pages, a few practical directions for the installation and management of a dynamo. The instructions given are intended for the use of engineers who have no knowledge of electrical work, but are called upon to undertake the management of a dynamo. It is hardly possible in such circumstances to frame directions which can be intelligently carried out. The dynamo attendant, like every other person in charge of machinery, must really learn by an experience which no manual can replace. The instructions in the text are, however, plainly and simply stated, and deal with some of the more important points connected with the care of dynamos.

Text-book of Elementary Biology

Text-book of Elementary Biology

Tabulæ Anatomicæ Osteologiæ. Edited a Carolo H. von Klein.

The object of this book is to furnish figures of all the bones of the human body on which the points of interest are plainly designated. There is no text except the names and explanation of the points refcrred to in each figure. The peculiarity of the volume is that from the title-page to the end it is in Latin, except one short page of introduction which is in English. The value of such a work depends wholly upon the accuracy of the plates in their detail. The figures are not uniformly good. In many, pointsare referred to that cannot be seen at all, and very many others that cannot be plainly seen. For instance, on Tab. III, showing " caput ab anteriori," the place where the "sutura coronalis " should be is designated, but none can be seen in the figure. The same thing is true of the "apertura anterior canalis

Our Book Shelf

THERE are two ways at least in which the first principles of Natural Science may be taught to the youthful mind, as well as to “intelligent people who have not had time to enter into the technicalities of scientific questions.” One which, if we may judge from the number of elementary works on Physics in which it is adopted, has many arguments in its favour, consists in the careful and logical working out in detail of a few of the most important principles of the Science, together with the different steps by which they were arrived at; the knowledge of minutiæ being left for future observation and study, on the foundation supplied: and the other is little more than a compilation of disconnected facts, of unequal importance, arranged with an endeavour to make them impressive from their almost endless number, and strung together with teleological argument. The tenants of the “tarns and green lanes being the objects treated of, there is an expanded field for the 300 or so short pages, in which the fishes, molluscs, and reptiles of the former, as well as the birds, insects, and plants of the latter, are rapidly passed in review. Several excellent figures illustrate the work, Mr. Wood and Mr. Keulemans contributing to the ornithological section; however, we are surprised to see so many on subjects of comparatively little importance, as the 14 on the slight variations in the shape and marking of cycloid scales, and the 32 on the different species of snails. Turning to the letterpress, many of the descriptions will be found to be accurate and clear, and a few sufficiently long to enable the uninitiated to form a fair idea of the subject. Many however are so short and incomplete that but little can be made of them without extraneous assistance, and in some the carelessness in the choice of words adds to the difficulty, as where the Vapourer Moth (Orgyia antiqua) is said to derive its name “from the habit of the winged males rising and falling simultaneously in their flight.” A fact is sometimes stretched to make a simile, as when we are inaccurately told that “the generic name of the Kingfisher (Halcyon) is derived from the ancient belief that when it was hatching its eggs, the water was always calm and still.” The genus Turdus is more than once called Tardus, and several other mistakes show that the author's knowledge of the subject is not of the deepest, as when the hind wing of the Clifden Nonpareil (Catocala fraxini) is said to be black and red, and the wide geographical distribution of the Kingfisher is given as a reason for supposing that it has a comparatively high geological antiquity. Notwithstanding its faults, however, there are many points in this small work which will make it of more than ordinary interest to the general reader.