Writer's Opinion Research Articles

The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie

The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie

In a different league

The fiftieth anniversary of the Munich air crash recalled journalist giants of the past. But today is a true golden age for football writers, claims a star columnist. Comparing the football writers of today with those of past decades, he writes: "The football specialist writers of today have a desperately difficult job. They are faced with the competition of wall-to-wall, forelock-tugging, blissfully uncritical satellite television coverage. Instead of living in the same streets as the people they cover, the football reporter barely exist on the same planet, since £5m a year buys a privileged place in a gated community or on a country estate. They have to contend with the concepts of product placement and copy approval, as well as the odious machinations of a platoon of grasping agents. By and large, they have little contact with the players unless they happen to write a major star's life story, which itself will be sanitised in the interests of commercial blandness. And yet, in this writer's opinion, they cope superbly; perhaps better than their predecessors could have imagined. Aware that television will inevitably set the tone, they work harder on difficult issues, they explore different avenues, they search for the reality behind the manufactured image."

Optimism Can it Increase Academic Success

Balogh, Roy Charles, 2007, BrainSMART Action Research Project, Nova Southeastern University, Fischler School of Education and Human Services.Increasing the Optimistic Thinking and Academic Success of Sixth Graders through the Implementation of Optimistic Thinking Skills, Self Reflection Journals, Teacher Modeling and Meditation. The Art of Optimism is one that has been utilized in eastern Asian cultures for centuries. This Action Research Project was, therefore implemented to increase the optimistic behaviors and thinking levels of students from a unique and diverse school. One goal of the project was to increase the positive thinking abilities of the learners through self-reflection. Another goal of the project was to increase test scores by using the practice of meditation before any given test. The goal for test scores during the course of this project was to have seventy-five percent of all students pass every test with a minimum test score of seventy-five percent. The research project, Improving Education through Optimism, was constructed using current brain based research. The students that participated in this research project practiced a wide variety of optimistic strategies and ideas over the course of the school year. The strategies and techniques developed and implemented by the author reflect the vast knowledge he has learned through research and the BrainSMART program. The skills presented by the author to the research participants were built upon the fundamental principle of Self-Reflection. The methods and highways used to achieve the goals of this research project were precise and direct. The author used the basis of all education, modeling, for his main vehicle to achieve optimistic behavior in his subjects. The author further used self-reflection and meditation to aid in the process. The art of self-reflection was used to achieve the goal of elevating the optimistic levels of the subjects through their ability to reflect and learn from experience. Meditation further aided in the increase of optimistic thinking by aiding in the relaxation stage prior to testing. The author's findings as posted in the scoring sheets posted in the classroom and grade book demonstrate the increase of optimistic thinking and positive mindset. Seventy-five percent or more of all sixth grade students scored a seventy-five percent or better on the majority of all tests taken thus far this school year. The results of the scoring last year were even better; with eighty percent to ninety percent of all sixth graders scoring seventy-five percent or better on their testing.Action Research Project: Optimism can it Increase Academic Success activities such as Reflection Journals, Meditation and Happy Chairs. The writer believes the program will be embraced by educators and administrators. The ability to reduce behavioral issues among the students is a strong point of positive thinking. Presenting the findings increased test scores, reduction in behavioral occurrences and positive sharing will be in the writer's opinion a great benefit to any educator. The use of this positive, optimistic program is currently being reviewed by the administration for adoption school wide during the 2008-2009 school year.

Notes on the Old Assyrian Sargon legend

I would like to express my thanks to Bendt Alster and Takayoshi Oshima for giving me the opportunity to add a few comments on their article. Within the limits of these pages, I will restrict myself to certain general subjects and one theme in the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend.As Alster and Oshima suggest above, the Old Assyrian Sargon Legend is obviously a written improvisation. However, improvisation has little to do with whether the text is to be taken in a serious (Hecker, Dercksen) or trivial (“humorous”) manner (Van De Mieroop, Foster, Cavigneaux, Alster and Oshima) nor does it relate to accuracy (see Alster and Oshima, fn. 17). Rather, it relates to the mode of composition: whether or not a fixed text was followed, whether or not there was a written model (see Alster and Oshima, fn. 17). In my opinion, this text is a written “improvised” composition based on oral traditions (see also Alster and Oshima, pp. 2 and fn. 8, 6 and 8, Cavigneaux 2005: 596). In this period, orality and literacy existed alongside each other. This written composition may have developed from an oral set of thematic scenes, the building blocks of traditional oral literature. The episodic structure of the narrative reflects such a concatenation of scenes. These oral building blocks could be varied at will according to the needs of the moment, modified to suit the new purposes and new places. It can be deduced that such legends were known orally from internal evidence — the words placed in the mouth of Sargon in this Old Assyrian composition, “Why should I enlarge (upon this theme) in an inscription? Where do (peoples) noi know me (a-«a»)-nu-um lá i-tí-a-ni, suggested reading of Aage Westenholz), that I am the King, that I conquered the Upper and Lower Lands?” (ll. 63–5). In this writer's opinion, these lines indicate that the author implies that Sargon's fame is so well known that it does not need to be written down.

Pain Management at the End of Life and the Principle of Double Effect: A Jewish Perspective

Controlling the pain of patients at the end of life can be challenging both clinically and ethically. One ethical obstacle arises when analgesia has the potential to hasten the death of the patient, thus, invoking the principle of “double effect” to resolve such dilemmas. This article will develop, analyze, and apply that principle from a Jewish perspective. It is this writer's opinion, that pain management can be administered effectively from a Jewish perspective in most clinical scenarios.

How much is enough to accept hormesis as the default? or ‘At what point, if ever, could/should hormesis be employed as the principal dose-response default assumption in risk assessment?'

Hormesis as the principal human dose-response default assumption must reasonably await the development of the science of toxicology and molecular biology before this dramatic change can occur. The inherent quality of typical toxicological data is simply too limited to allow for an understanding of what really occurs in human tissues at the relatively low doses generally extant in the environment. Thus, forwarding or asserting the quantitative use of hormesis (or any model of low dose-response) without this reasonable knowledge is simply an argument without data. It is this writer's opinion that any widespread and default acceptance of hormesis will need to look forward to and draw upon the inevitable development and use of tools from the realm of molecular biology and a resulting and distinct change in the entire toxicological testing paradigm.

Pandangan Islam Tentang Aborsi

There is controversy over whether or not abortion should be· allowed. However Islamic thinkers agree that abortion may be carried out in cases where the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. In the writer's opinion, the prohibition on abortion has been made for certain reasons, and conversely there are certain reasons or conditions under which abortion can be tolerated. These certain conditions may include pregnancy as a result of rape, pregnancy as ·a result of incest, disturbances in the physical health of the mother even though they are not life threatening, mental health problems, disability of the foetus and so on. These factors will have a strong impact on the life of the child as well as that of the mother, and as such, these indications can be reasons to allow abortion.

マルリーの機械の構想者をめぐる問題

The fountains' beauty is very important in Versailles gardens, but many efforts were necessary to realize it. Among a lot of essays, the Marly Machine pleased best Louis XIV. The researchers disagree about this machine's attribution, generally, it is believed that Renkin Sualem, expert engineer, was its author. This paper's issue is to survey this polemic since the eighteenth century and to manifest the present writer's opinion. As a result, the problem is in De Ville's knowledge about the hydraulics. Considered that he was industrial bourgeois and educated by the Jesuit, his participation in the technical conception wouldn't be denied.

Moraxella catarrhalis bacteremia

hospital, she subsequemly developed a severe infection that over the course of several years involved the bones of her leg. The non-physician expert acting as consultant for the plaintiff's attorney, was able to suggest that the treating physician closed the wound prematurely which predisposed to the infection. The consultant's opinion was based upon his review of the standards of care as published in several textbooks of surgery. Case 3. An infant developed severe seizures several hours after delivery, and the obstetrician was sued for permitting prolonged labor that compromised the oxygen supply of the fetus resulting in brain damage. The nonphysician expert, acting as consultant for the defense, reviewed the mother's prenatal history and advised the defense attorney that the infant's seizures could have been caused by a specific infectious disease contracted by the mother during her pregnancy. In the first two cases, the consultant dealt with the standard of care; the third case was concerned with proximate cause. An expert's opinion may be based upon his/her personal experience, experiments that he/she has conducted that directly relate to the case, or on scientific articles published by others (ER.E. 703). In some instances standards of care have been published by professional organizations, and the nonphysician expert may refer to and rely upon such sources. The Hearsay Rule (ER.E. 803) exempts material from learned treatises relied upon by the expert witness in direct examination. The rule notes that statements contained in published treatises, periodicals, or pamphlets on a subject of...medicine, or other science or art, established as a reliable authority by the testimony or admission of the witness.., may be read into evidence . . . . Non-physician biomedical scientists explaining aspects of anatomy, biochemistry, pharmacology, immunology, microbiology, pathology, or other basic medical sciences can be very effective as testifying experts for either plaintiff or defense. It is the writer's opinion that for psychological rather than legal reasons, it is easier for a non-physician expert to defend or justify a physician's actions than to disparage or criticize a doctor's treatment. Hence, non-physician experts dealing with questions relating to standards of care, especially when working for the plaintiff's attorney, may be more useful as litigation consultants.

Some thoughts on Lamberti's Die Shinassha-Sprache: a review article

It is hardly possible to praise the work which is the subject of this article too highly. It follows quite rapidly in the wake of a quartet of volumes devoted to the study of the languages of the Horn (Lamberti 1986, 1988a, 1988b; Haberland and Lamberti, 1988), and together with the more recently published Materialien zum Yemsa, (Lamberti, 1993b) constitutes a deeply impressive contribution to this area of scholarship. It is the present writer's long-held opinion that within this field the most pressing need continues to be good synchronic descriptions and dictionaries of the lesser-known languages and dialects. The work in hand meets just that need. As it happens, Shinassha has not been altogether neglected by previous research (cf. Grottanelli, 1941; Plazikowsky Brauner, 1950; Rottland, 1990), but every reader of this book will agree with me when I say that we now have a treatment of the language far beyond anything we have had previously. Indeed, as far as ‘Westkuschitik’ (alias ‘North Omotic’) languages are concerned, this bids well to be the most thoroughgoing description yet. Of course, it goes without saying that, short of reduplicating the researcher's fieldwork, it is impossible for any reader of such a book to vouch for the forms presented; but such is the scrupulous attention to detail in transcription, the accuracy in cross-referencing, and the general internal consistency in this particular work that little doubt could be entertained as to its being anything but authoritative.

The Eocene larger foraminifer Lepidocyclina ariana Cole and Ponton, from the so-called Polylepidina gardnerae horizon at Little Stave Creek, Alabama

Recent sampling for larger foraminifers in the so-called Polylepidina gardnerae horizon in the middle Eocene Lisbon Formation of the Little Stave Creek section, southwest Alabama, did not produce any examples of the lepidocyclinid foraminifer Polylepidina gardnerae Cole, but several specimens of the stratigraphically younger species, Lepidocyclina ariana Cole and Ponton, were recovered. Although the P. gardnerae horizon is named on nearly all figures of this important Gulf Coast section published since 1944, preliminary research has also failed to turn up a published basis for the identification of P. gardnerae at this locality. As L. ariana and P. gardnerae are not normally found together, it is the writer's opinion that true P. gardnerae probably has not been collected from any part of the Lisbon Formation at Little Stave Creek. If it does occur, it should be found at a lower horizon than that indicated in the literature.

Delayed ettringite formation — Processes and problems

The scope of the delayed ettringite formation (DEF) problem is reviewed. Based on the experience of the writer and others, DEF is to be expected in both steam cured and non-steam cured concrete. The microstructural details appear identical. The common association with alkalisilica reactions is explored, and explained in terms of both prior cracking providing space for ettringite and in terms of the reduction in alkali hydroxide concentration in the pore solution attendant on ASR. The controversy concerning basic DEF mechanism between proponents of ‘homogenous paste expansion’ and ‘crystal pressure’ is explored. In the writer's opinion the microstructural evidence is not compatible with homogeneous expansion, but is a distinct consequence of crystal pressure developed by ettringite. The thermodynamic analysis that limits expansive pressure in terms of the degree of supersaturation that can be supported may be applicable to ettringite in air voids, but is inapplicable to ettringite in cracks. Fracture mechanics considerations predict local stress concentrations at the crack tips that are many times those that can be generated in open spaces. An apparent example of such effects in opening up space between mica lamellae in steam cured concrete by ettringite deposition is provided.

Presentation of one’s view in Japanese newspaper columns: Commentary strategies and sequencing

This article analyzes Japanese mass media text-specifically 38 examples of the newspaper opinion column Column, My View- taken from the Asahi Shinbun newspaper. The manner in which the writer presents his or her own view as it relates to the column's central message is examined by appealing to the concepts of commentary strategy. Discourse levels that this article focusses on include: (I) the location of the headline paraphrase, i.e., where the central message reflecting the writer's view and/or opinion appears within the column; (2) the characteristics of column-initial paragraphs, (3) the overall sequencing of commentary sentences in Column, My View; and (4) the sequencing of commentary sentences within each danraku paragraph. The preferred rhetorical style in Japanese newspaper texts places commentary sentences toward the conclusion in multiple levels of discourse. This article argues that such preference is enhanced, in part, by inclination toward the topic-comment information structure as well as an array of grammatical phenomena that are critically functional in the Japanese language

Future pneumatics

Pneumatics has been mainly used as main equipment for actuation and control of fluid force in manufacturing industry. For the past twenty years, it has shown its remarkable achievement by acting as the core in assembly device and material handling. Nevertheless, the continuity of the success is difficult to forecast. Thus, in our opinion the orientation of pneumatics must always be verified according to the circumstances and environment of the manufacturing industry which has changed remarkably.This report is the contemporary approach to how pneumatics may be analyzed and how the future direction are based on.Please note that the contents are based on the writer's personal opinion which do not necessarily reflect the orientation of our company and society.

A Regional Loan System

T HE writers on the New Deal in economic and social planing made prognostications fashionable. In order to keep in the swim, librarians are predicting the ideal library plant for I954. No sensible person will criticize long-range planning for libraries, but if the future set-up is to be described in general terms-a characteristic common, so far, to most of the writings on the subject-it is likely to be accepted by all as a be nice to have sort of thing and then promptly be forgotten. And yet, if we continue as wishful theorists and refuse to face realities, we shall find ourselves in the same muddle as the economists. The obvious plan is to deal with practical matters not too far removed from the present function of libraries: we are thus more likely to make rapid progress toward the ideal library program. As a small contribution in this direction, I attempted to outline a plan of co-operation for college and university libraries in Ohio. The unrecorded and fragmentary condition of periodical holdings in college libraries, reduced book budgets, and the increasing demands for interlibrary loans are only a few of the reasons for promoting a regional plan of library co-operation. To take one or two concrete illustrations: doubtless the recent announcement of the publication of Mellor's Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, in thirteen volumes and costing $20, brought numerous requests for library purchase from the heads of chemistry departments in most of the institutions embraced by the proposed Ohio regional plan. In the writer's opinion, ten copies would be more than sufficient for all libraries in the co-operating group. A government depository library, with gaps in its early issues of the Congressional Record, might easily secure the missing numbers from an incomplete file in a neighboring library, thereby serving both institutions with a complete file. The decision of an overzealous department head to purchase a file of Liebig's Annalen der Chemie might be avoided if the librarian could show him that a complete set is located in a near-by library and that volumes of it might be secured on interlibrary loan. Sufficient examples been given to show that the ultimate objective of my plan would be to stimulate co-operation in purchasing, selecting, lending, and exchanging printed matter among colleges and university libraries within a definite region. Now as to procedure.

A comparison of alteration assemblages associated with Archean gold deposits in Western Australia and Paleozoic gold deposits in the southeast United States: Discussion

Ririe states that the purpose of his comparison of the mineralogy and chemistry of gold deposits from Western Australia (Sons of Gwalia and Mount Celia) and the Carolina slate belt (Haile and Brewer) is illustrate that alteration in these two terranes is the result of similar processes that were also responsible for the introduction of gold into the altered (p. 1561). The alteration assemblages contain highalumina minerals such as andalusite, kyanite, pyrophyllite, kaolinite, and sericite, plus local alunite. Ririe interprets these rocks as having ... been altered by acid hydrothermal solutions prior to regional (p. 1561) based upon relations [that] indicate that the rocks had their alteration composition by the time the suite of aluminosilicate minerals was forming (p. 1574) and the absence of documented low-pH regional metamorphic fluids capable of producing alunite plus a suite of high-alumina minerals such as andalusite-pyrophyllite (p. 1574). He concludes that the best analogs for these gold deposits are acid-sulphate epigenetic gold deposits such as Goldfield, Nevada, and modern geothermal systems. The important question to be asked is, Does the presented evidence convincingly support the interpretation? In this writer's opinion, the presented evidence does not positively answer this question. ~easons why the two principal arguments proposed above by Ririe inadequately support his interpretation follow below. The textural evidence consists of photomicrographs of randomly oriented andalusite porphyroblasts, fractured and rotated andalusite crystals, and folded quartz-pyrophyllite + pyrite banding in the Western Australia deposits (Fig. 3, p. 1564), randomly oriented andalusite porphyroblasts at Brewer, and deformed and altered argillite at Haile (Fig. 7, p. 1568). It is reasonable to suggest that the high-alumina assemblages reflect metamorphism of a previously altered and 1 aluminous rock. But that is all that it proves; the products of hydrothermal alteration have been metamorphosed! However, I the critical questions is the timing of hydrothermal alteration relative to metamorphism and regional deformation? and What is the metamorphic and deformation history of the surrounding country rocks? are not addressed. ree ens chi st facies regional metamorphism is implied for Western Australia or stated (Carolina slate belt, p. 1563) with only one period of deformation and metamomhism imolied. ow ever. more than one period of deformationkd metahorphism occurred in both the Norsemen-Wiluna greenstone belt (Archibald et al. 1978; Bickle and Archibald 1984) and the Carolina slate belt (Williams and Hatcher 1983).

The Salvific Role of Knowledge in a Buddhist and a Christian Context: A Comparative Study of Two Parables

The parable is employed as a teaching device in all the major religious traditions. Because it is based upon a situation or event that occurs in real life, this story form has a way of making the incomprehensible understandable for the person who would otherwise be confused by the technical language of professional theologians and philosophers. But the parable is more than a story about a commonplace event. Its power to attract the attention of the listener is often found in the fact that it may be an interesting case of the typical or the regular. To be sure, some of the interesting parables are those in which the link with the typical or the regular is extremely tenuous. However, we usually do not fault the storyteller for taking such liberties. We realize that a certain element of the extraordinary must be allowed if the parable is to communicate a lesson that is not likely to be derived from the more predictable prosaic events of our daily experience. In this study attention will be given to two parables which, in this writer's opinion, definitely fall within the category of most interesting. One of the parables is from the Lotus Sutra, a Mahayana work that apparently received its present form in India during the second century of this era. In the fourth chapter of this widely revered Buddhist text we find the parable of a son who leaves his father's home, falls into abject poverty, and, after years of wandering, finally returns home where he is blessed with his father's wealth. The other parable is from the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke.2 In this well-known Christian parable we also meet a son who departs from home, becomes a pauper, and finally returns for a happy reunion with his father. Knowledge plays an important salvific role in both of these stories. It will be my purpose in this study to examine the manner in which the presuppositions underlying these parables determine the function that is assigned to knowledge in their respective Buddhist and Christian contexts. As I embark upon this venture, I am reminded that certain perils lie before those who attempt a comparative approach to religious traditions as disparate as Buddhism and Christianity.

Cognitive mapping in technology transfer

Frequent tensions continue to plague the operations of multinational corporations (MNCs) in less-developed countries (LDCs). Accusations of insensitivity and heed-lessness toward the needs and aspirations of LDCs are commonplace. In this writer's opinion, negative perceptions of the MNCs' operations result in part from differing “world views” between the two groups that are frequently overlooked in strategy formulation. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate that productive, culturally sensitive strategies can be formulated if MNCs use a multiple-perspective approach in their relationships with LDCs. To illustrate this, cognitive mapping is used to analyze the MNCs' decisionmaking behavior. Use of this process should provide MNCs with an opportunity to evaluate the consequences of their actions, the prospect of more effective strategies emerges.

Psychiatry: mindless or brainless, both or neither?

After a period marked by one-sided emphasis on psychodynamics and social issues, or what could be called "brainless" psychiatry on account of its relative neglect of cerebral processes, we are witnessing an opposite trend towards extreme biologism or "mindless" psychiatry. The pendulum has swung periodically from one to the other of these reductionistic positions throughout the history of psychiatry. The author argues that neither brainless nor mindless psychiatry can do justice to the complexity of mental illness and to the treatment of patients. Psychiatry's distinguishing feature as a clinical discipline is its equal concern with subjective experience, or the mind, and with the body, including brain function, which together constitute a person, a psychiatrist's proper focus of inquiry and intervention. Moreover, a person, viewed as a mindbody complex, is in constant interaction with the environment. It follows that both study of mental illness and clinical practice need to take into account the psychological, the biological and the social aspects. These three aspects are not mutually reducible and are indispensable for the understanding and treatment of the individual patient. Such a comprehensive, biopsychosocial approach provides an antithesis to the reductionistic viewpoints and, in the writer's opinion, is both practically and theoretically most satisfying.

Dinosaur gastroliths revisited

Additional information on the alleged gastroliths in Early Cretaceous formations of the Western Interior has changed the writer's opinion from skepticism about a dinosaur causative agency to belief that it is a valid explanation. Concentrations of exotic rounded and polished stones have been found in close association with a number of skeletons. Aside from this, the best evidence is distribution of individual stones in environments where inorganic agencies seem improbable; distinctive individual stones have apparently been carried hundreds of kilometers. Gastroliths have value as quasi-guide fossils. From geographic and geologic associations it is suggested that various sauropods and perhaps the contemporary ornithopod, Tenontosaurus tilleti, were the chief stoneswallowers of the Early Cretaceous of the Western Interior.