Synthesis and Medicalization in Early Han Views of Mental Illness

Chapter 5 discusses the “syncretic” view of madness and mental illness in early Chinese texts. This view is mainly associated with the syncretistic texts of the early Han Dynasty, such as Huainanzi and Chunqiu Fanlu. The syncretists reject both the negative and positive views, arguing that a complex of nature, circumstances, and individual activity is responsible for most mental illness, and that the key to avoiding or eliminating mental illness is the undermining of conceptualization and elimination of desires. The syncretic view of mental illness and cultivation creates the groundwork for the development of naturalistic medical texts such as the Huangdi Neijing, constructed during the Han.

Phytochemical Analysis and In vivo Evaluation of Individual Activity of Ethanolic Leaf Extracts of Azadirachta indica, Senna occidentalis and Momordica balsamina against Plasmodium berghei Infected Mice

Malaria is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in tropics and subtropics region with Nigeria accounting for the highest proportions in Africa. This is accompanied with emerging resistance to available drugs, posing it a public health concern. This study is aimed at determining the invivo activity of the individual ethanolic leaf extracts of the Azadirachta indica, Senna occidentalis and Momordica balsamina. The leaves of A. indica, S. occidentalis and M. balsamina were subjected to preliminary phytochemical screening. Ethanolic extraction of leaves of plants was carried out and invivo evaluation of the individual activity of extracts determined using standard procedures. 55 mice were randomly divided into 11 groups lettered A – K; positive group, negative group and 9 extract groups. Results showed that M. balsamina had the highest yield of 7.6%, followed by A. indica with 6.5% and S. occidentalis with 5.7%. The preliminary phytochemical screening revealed the presences of alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, steroids, phenolics and tannin in all plants. The comparison of the individual study groups showed that Senna occidentalis is more effective at 600mg/kg dosage and prolonged survival of the mice in its group in the study period. This plant possessed significant (P-value <0.05) antiplasmodial activity, thus lowered parasitaemia in infected mice.

Beyond the platform: Music streaming as a site of logistical and symbolic struggle

Research on music streaming has so far tended to normalize a view of streaming as an individual activity solely oriented towards the platform. However, as streaming media have become integral to everyday life and a key metaphor for digital society, we should pay attention to how streaming activities are embedded into social power relations. Furthermore, due to the complexity of streaming infrastructures, we should consider the social implications of ordinary expertise pertaining to the handling of digital streams. To this end, this article advances a theoretical view of music streaming as a form of logistical labour and a part of dwelling. Based on a focus-group study on music streaming, the analysis moves beyond the platform to explore social dominance in a cultural landscape where logistical expertise is increasingly important. The analysis shows how the handling of everyday infrastructures underpins complicit forms of logistical dominance and translates into symbolic violence.

Exploring Individual Activity-Travel Patterns Based on Geolocation Data from Mobile Phones

Data mining techniques can extract useful activity and travel information from large-scale data sources such as mobile phone geolocation data. This paper aims to explore individual activity-travel patterns from samples of mobile phone users using a two-week geolocation data set from the Paris region in France. After filtering the data set, we propose techniques to identify individual stays and activity places. Typical activity places such as the primary anchor place and the secondary place are detected. The daily timeline (i.e., activity-travel program) is reconstructed with the detected activity places and the trips in-between. Based on user-day timelines, a three-stage clustering method is proposed for mobility pattern analysis. In the method framework, activity types are first identified by clustering analysis. In the second stage, daily mobility patterns are obtained after clustering the daily mobility features. Activity-travel topologies are statistically investigated to support the interpretation of daily mobility patterns. In the last stage, we analyze statistically the individual mobility patterns for all samples over 14 days, measured by the number of days for all kinds of daily mobility patterns. All individual samples are divided into several groups where people have similar travel behaviors. A kmeans++ algorithm is applied to obtain the appropriate number of patterns in each stage. Finally, we interpret the individual mobility patterns with statistical descriptions and reveal home-based differences in spatial distribution for the grouped individuals.

Early social context does not influence behavioral variation at adulthood in ants

Early experience can prepare offspring to adapt their behaviors to the environment they are likely to encounter later in life. In several species of ants, colonies show ontogenic changes in the brood-to-worker ratio that are known to have an impact on worker morphology. However, little information is available on the influence of fluctuations in the early social context on the expression of behavior in adulthood. Using the ant Lasius niger, we tested whether the brood-to-worker ratio during larval stages influenced the level of behavioral variability at adult stages. We raised batches of 20 or 180 larvae in the presence of 60 workers until adulthood. We then quantified the activity level and wall-following tendency of callow workers on ten successive trials to test the prediction that larvae reared under a high brood-to-worker ratio should show greater behavioral variations. We found that manipulation of the brood-to-worker ratio influenced the duration of development and the size of individuals at emergence. We detected no influence of early social context on the level of between- or within individual variation measured for individual activity level or on wall-following behavior. Our study suggests that behavioral traits may be more canalized than morphological traits.

Seismic Hazard Levels in Guinea, West Africa

The occurrence of seismic activities in Guinea is infrequent, although located in a stable continental region. The hazard assessment level in Guinea, West Africa was determined by a probabilistic approach for 10 sites across the region. The calculation was carried out for 10%, 2% and 0.5% probability of exceedance in 50 years using a homogenized 100-year catalogue compiled from different seismic sources; Three prediction relations, developed for Eastern and Central North America for the stable continental region; and the R-CRISIS program. The levels of hazard estimated were high in the Palaeozoic area of Guinea. A uniform b-value of 0.70 ± 0.12, and individual activity rate (λ) were calculated for the three seismic zones. The maximum PGA values estimated for the study region are 0.08 g, 0.27 g, and 0.57 g for 475, 2475 and 9975 years return periods, respectively. Finding from this study will be useful in planning for the regional infrastructure.

A critical analysis of the theories and models of self-education

Human behaviour researchers argue on self-education matters, which accumulate the complex of unsolved contentious problematic issues, referring to classical antinomies: freedom, socialization, and self-consciousness. There are many controversies concerning the interpretation of the self-education notion in social sciences and corresponding theories. The author of the paper presents those theories and explains approaches to self-education, as they have inspired countless pedagogical and psychological issues. Concurrently he underlines different activities, which illustrate two contrasting theoretical standpoints. The first one treats self-education as perfectio prima. It happens when the striving to perfection is realized by Socratic (“self-oriented”) model. Such an approach is the only motivation of individual activity and the aim in itself. On the other hand, the second perspective understands self-education as the Promethean (“out-oriented”) activity. In the light of its assumptions, it is a kind of spontaneous, nonintentional man’s activities aimed to transform reality out of oneself, the surrounding world, and the environment of life. Here, self-education is the perfectio secunda category, which means that the individual self-educates itself by reaching excellence per accidens. Such distinction is crucial for project constructing and empirical research questing.