Articles
The knowing child’s quest in contemporary American fiction
The image of an adolescent growing up and making sense of the world is a familiar icon in many cultures around the world. Yuki Namiki from Tokyo Kasei University in Japan looks at how two 21st century American novels use the trope in line with literary tradition but also depart from it to explore family relationships in contemporary society. Both […]
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Adaptive thinking as a heuristic in evolutionary psychology
Recently, in evolutionary psychology, many theorists have employed adaptive thinking as a heuristic as it generates hypotheses that can later be tested using the standard scientific procedure. A heuristic is a pragmatic method that, while not being complete or optimal, provides sufficient approximate results for later use. Professor Shunkichi Matsumoto of Tokai University, Tokyo focuses his research on the use […]
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Nonoverlap proportion and the point-biserial association problem
Dr Stanley Luck, a statistics consultant and founding member of Vector Analytics LLC, has developed a novel algorithm for cloud computing technology. Dr Luck demonstrates the use of his improved CART association algorithm in a high-dimensional search problem of nursing home performance, based on the publicly accessible Nursing Home Compare (NHC) database. The results highlight the importance of constructing a […]
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Fixing the interface for enhanced perovskite solar cell performance
With millions of people in the world still having no access to electricity, it is easy to predict that the world’s already challenging energy demands will only increase. Solar power has long presented itself as a promising renewable energy source, but the solar cells used in photovoltaics still suffer from relatively low efficiency, even when novel materials such as perovskites […]
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Dear Mr Hume, your circle might actually be a spiral
Induction is typically understood as a process of deriving principles or laws from particular or individual instances. The Empiricist David Hume argued that such generalisations about the world cannot be justified using deduction (a logic-based method of reasoning), and that induction is in fact worthless, circular reasoning. However, Professor Uwe Saint-Mont of Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences in Germany argues […]
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Linking theory with social research: A philosophical and evidence-based approach
Throughout his career, Derek Layder, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Leicester, has taken a unique approach to linking theory and social research. He strongly believes that incorporating abstract philosophical ideas alongside more practical everyday issues is essential to generating theory from data and evidence. He illustrates this principle using the ‘Theory of Social Domains’, which explores human […]
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Strains of honeybee viruses provide intelligence in the battle against global bee extinction
The large-scale death of bees could culminate in an ecological and agricultural disaster. This may present as significantly reduced wild and domestic flora, as well as drastically reduced availability of various fruits, vegetables and nuts. There are several pressures on the global bee population, e.g., use of pesticides, destruction of habitat and infection with pathogen-carrying mites. Professor Ivan Toplak, an […]
Exploring a novel approach to lung cancer treatment
Lung cancer, just like other types of cancer, is mostly treatable when diagnosed in the earliest stages. Treatments mainly include chemotherapy and surgeries such as sublobar resection and lobectomy. The thoracic surgical team led by Dr Calvin Ng at Prince of Wales Hospital, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, have successfully applied a novel approach to lung cancer treatment. They […]
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Molecular hopping in solid-like liquids: Understanding the self-diffusion and viscosity of liquid molecules
To fully understand how liquids flow, it is crucial for researchers to build models which can accurately recreate their behaviours on molecular scales – yet since the time of Newton, the complexities involved have presented numerous challenges. In their research, Prof Russ Keanini, Prof Peter Tkacik and Prof Jerry Dahlberg at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, present new ways […]
Deeper insights into cell death and survival
The intricate balance between cell death and survival is essential for normal development and for preventing diseases such as cancer and autoimmunity. Ronald Jemmerson at the University of Minnesota contributed to the seminal discovery that cytochrome c (Cyt c) plays a key role in the onset of apoptosis (programmed cell death). His laboratory also established that leucine-rich alpha-2-glycoprotein-1 (LRG1) binds […]
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