‘A Glance from God’: Zadie Smith's On Beauty and Zora Neale Hurston1

Zadie Smith's most recent novel, On Beauty (2005 Smith, Z. 2005. On Beauty, London and New York: Penguin.  [Google Scholar]), declares its connection to E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910 Forster, E. M. 1910. Howards End, London: Edward Arnold.  [Google Scholar]) with its first line, while the novel's title comes from Elaine Scarry's On Beauty and Being Just (1999 Scarry, E. 1999. On Beauty and Being Just, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.  [Google Scholar]). At least as important for understanding Smith's central vision are the novel's allusions to Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937 Hurston, Z. N. 1987. Their Eyes Were Watching God, London: Virago Modern Classics.  [Google Scholar]) and Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica (1938 Hurston, Z. N. 1990. Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica, New York: Perennial Library.  [Google Scholar]).     

Electroencephalographic Coherence and Learning: Distinct Patterns of Change During Word Learning and Figure Learning Tasks

One likely mechanism in learning new skills is change in synchronous connections between distributed neural networks, which can be measured by coherence analysis of electroencephalographic patterns. This study examined coherence changes during the learning of two tasks, a word association task and a figure association task. Although learning curves were similar for both tasks, distinct patterns of coherence change were observed. Coherence tended to increase as learning progressed in the figure association task. In contrast, coherence tended to decrease in the word association task, especially within hemisphere. Word learning was coupled with negative intrahemispheric and positive interhemispheric performance–coherence relations in the gamma frequency. Unique to the figure learning task was an increase in the number of positive coherence–performance relations in both delta and theta frequencies across blocks. Results are discussed in light of ongoing efforts to identify the mechanisms that coordinate distributed brain activities during the process of learning. Further research is needed to define patterns of coherence change for different tasks, goals, and brain regions.     

Publicly funded business advisory services and entrepreneurial outcomes

Given the mixed evidence for the impact of various publicly funded initiatives that aim to foster entrepreneurial activity, this paper empirically examines the efficacy of publicly funded business advisory services in relation to entrepreneurial outcomes. Based on a sample of 228 early-stage firms, of which 101 used business advisory services focused on helping companies secure 1st rounds of financing and start generating revenues, we examine the firm-level impact such services can have on sales growth, innovation, finance and alliances. We find services are positively associated with firms’ sales growth, patents, finance and alliances. We assess statistical and economic significance, and assess robustness to controls for the non-randomness of the firm's using business advisory service program, as well as endogeneity of advisors’ hours spent with firms. Other robustness checks are also included. We find significant robustness of hours spent on sales and finance, but sensitivity of the effect of hours on patents and alliances after controlling for endogeneity.     

Children’s oral narrative and reading skills in the first 3?years of reading instruction

This research investigated the link between oral narrative and reading skills in the first 3 years of reading instruction. Study 1 consisted of 61 children (M = 6:1 years) who had experienced 1 year of reading instruction on average. Children’s story retelling was scored for memory and narrative quality. The quality of children’s narratives correlated positively with their reading skill at this age, but narrative quality did not uniquely predict their reading skill 1 year later. Study 2 consisted of 39 children (M = 7:0 years) who had experienced 2 years of reading instruction on average. At this age, the quality of children’s narratives uniquely predicted their reading skill concurrently and 1 year later, even after controlling for their receptive vocabulary and early decoding. These findings have implications for theories of the oral language foundations of reading and for assessment in the early years of reading instruction.     

A sudden creatinine increase: A case report

Creatinine and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) are first-line laboratory parameters in the diagnosis of various renal diseases. In recent decades, cystatin C (cysC) has furthered the laboratory repertoire regarding renal status assessment and has been implemented in many clinical guidelines. Accordingly, with the establishment of cysC as a renal routine biomarker, further opportunities for assessing eGFR have been attained. Nevertheless, various limitations are still associated with cysC and creatinine analysis. Preanalytical errors could cause false results in both biomarkers. In our case, we were confronted with implausibly elevated creatinine levels due to preanalytical errors.     

Correlates of health in adolescent elite athletes and adolescents: A cross-sectional study of 1016 adolescents

The primary aim of this cross-sectional study was to compare subjective correlates of health, such as nutrition, self-esteem, sleep and stress, between adolescent elite athletes (n?=?625) and a reference group of adolescents (n?=?391) not involved in elite sports. A secondary aim was to study predictors for self-perceived stress. A questionnaire was e-mailed to all participants containing valid questions about competence-based self-esteem, nutrition, self-perceived stress and sleep. Our results show that adolescent elite athletes reported significantly (p?p?相似文献