Single Coin Research Articles

A fun way to introduce probability

The typical introduction to probability usually involves tossing a single coin. The students and teacher will soon agree that this is a trivial activity. The possible outcomes of the experiment are a hea,. H, or a tail, T. The outcome set could simply be listed as {H, T}. If the coin were tossed a large number of times, the proportion of heads appearing should approach 1/2. For this reason we assign to each outcome the probability 1/2. We also say that the two outcomes are equally likely and the coin is fair. Figure I illustrates another way of describing one toss of a fair coin. This description will hereafter be referred to as a tree diagram. Each branch corresponds to an element in the outcome set with its appropriate probability labeled on the branch. Also notice that the sum of the probabilities of all the outcomes in the set is equal to I.

Teaching coin summation to the mentally retarded.

A procedure to teach four mild and moderately retarded persons to sum the value of coin combinations was tested. Subjects were first taught to count a single target coin, and then to sum that coin in combination with coins previously trained. Five American coins and various combinations were trained. Modelling, modelling with subject participation, and independent counting by the subject constituted the training sequence. The subjects improved from a mean pretest score of 29% to 92% correct at posttest. A four-week followup score showed a mean of 79% correct. A multiple-baseline design suggested that improvement in coin-counting performance occurred only after the coin was trained. The results indicate that this procedure has potential for teaching the retarded to sum combinations of coinds in 5 to 6 hr of instruction.

Pulmonary Dirofilariasis

The two cases of human pulmonary dirofilariasis reported bring the number of cases published in the English literature to 21. As in most cases of pulmonary dirofilariasis, these two patients presented roentgenologically single noncalcified coin lesions and required thoracotomy for diagnosis. Pathologically, the lesions were rounded ischemic infarcts associated with pulmonary arterial thrombosis due to a nematode identified as Dirofilaria. The worm is morphologically indistinguishable from D immitis, the common canine heartworm. The life cycle of the parasite and the two clinical forms of human dirofilariasis are briefly discussed. The two cases of human pulmonary dirofilariasis reported bring the number of cases published in the English literature to 21. As in most cases of pulmonary dirofilariasis, these two patients presented roentgenologically single noncalcified coin lesions and required thoracotomy for diagnosis. Pathologically, the lesions were rounded ischemic infarcts associated with pulmonary arterial thrombosis due to a nematode identified as Dirofilaria. The worm is morphologically indistinguishable from D immitis, the common canine heartworm. The life cycle of the parasite and the two clinical forms of human dirofilariasis are briefly discussed.

Can the Self Survive the Death of its Mind?

C. A. Campbell has written: ‘Almost everyone…takes it to be in principle intelligible to ask whether the self can survive the destruction of its body. But it is taken by no one to be in principle intelligible to ask whether the self can survive the destruction of its mind.’ But is it, after all, so clearly nonsense to suppose that a self can survive the destruction of its mind? This at least is the question I shall raise in this paper. The word ‘can’ in my title should thus be understood in its purely logical sense. For the question, really, is whether or not one can intelligibly speak of a self's surviving the destruction of its mind. By the term ‘self’ I refer to that which is supremely unique in what one calls ‘oneself’; to that aspect or element, in other words, which most decisively distinguishes one self-conscious individual from other such individuals. Now the self thus regarded as the source of one's uniqueness on the one hand, and the self conceived of as the source of one's inner unity on the other, would seem to be but two sides of a single coin. For whatever helps to account for an individual's being identical with itself through internal diversity—or for its being a single individual—must also help, and help in an equal degree, to account for its not being identical with any other individual—or for its being a particular individual; and the converse of this seems equally evident.

Pulmonary "coin" lesion of unusual pathology.

The diagnostic problem of single discrete lesions of the lung is well recognized (1, 3, 5,7). The subject has recently been comprehensively dealt with in Bronchopulmonary Diseases edited by Naclerio (8). There is general agreement as to the difficulty of determining the pathology of these lesions when revealed by x-ray. Their management, too , presents a problem because of the high rate of malignancy. The purpose of this short paper is to record a case of a “coin” lesion of the lung with an unusual pathological basis. As far as could be ascertained, no similar case has been recorded in the literature. At the Pneumoconiosis Medical and Research Bureau of Northern Rhodesia approximately 40,000 European and African mining recruits and miners are examined clinically and radiologically each year. Discrete single lesions of the lung are periodically observed. Hitherto all have fallen into one or other of the categories usually encountered. The case described below, however, is unique. The single coin lesion i...

Roman Milestones in Cornwall

Although the Romans were mining lead in the Mendips by A. D. 49, it seems almost certain that they did not begin seriously to work the Cornish tin-mines for another two hundred years. We only know of one site at which they appear to have mined tin in the first century: the earthwork at Tregear, close to Bodmin, was probably occupied by Roman tin-workers under Vespasian, but it does not seem to have outlasted the reign of Trajan. Cornwall contains no other Roman site of the first or second century; and the isolated finds of that period, which are almost exclusively single coins, are evidence of trade and not of occupation.

Notes on the Roman Remains at Grassy Walls and Bertha, near Perth

Portions of the fortifications on the two sites mentioned still survive. That the remains are the work of the Romans is no recent discovery, as they have been recognised as such for at least a century and a half. The camp at Grassy Walls was discovered in 1771 by General William Roy, when he was engaged in investigating sites connected with the Romans in Scotland, and the fort at Bertha was described as a " Roman Station " by William Maitland in 1757. Grassy Walls is bordered on the north, west, and south by steep banks, while on the east there is a slight fall in the ground before it begins to rise again towards the hills. When the Romans constructed a camp covering such a large area of ground as at Grassy Walls, we know that it was only a temporary fortification, made to protect an army on the march, and never occupied for very long. Only a single coin has been recovered. The descriptions given of the fort at Bertha by Maitland and Roy disagree and it is argued here that Maitland's description is the more accurate. Artefacts from Bertha include pottery vessels, the remains of a helmet and a spear.