The paper investigates whether there is a connection between poverty or low education and terrorism. We review evidence on hate crimes, which are closely related to terrorism; the occurrence of hate crimes is largely independent of economic conditions. We analyze data on support for attacks against Israeli targets from public opinion polls conducted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; support for violent attacks does not decrease among those with higher education and higher living standards. The core contribution of the paper is a statistical analysis of the determinants of participation in Hezbollah militant activities; having a living standard above the poverty line or a secondary or higher education is positively associated with participation in Hezbollah. We also find that Israeli Jewish settlers who attacked Palestinians in the West Bank in the early 1980s were overwhelmingly from high-paying occupations. Although our results are tentative and exploratory, they suggest that neither poverty nor education has a direct, causal impact on terrorism.

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Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?

This paper focuses on the role of emotion and expressive behavior in regulating social interaction between humans and expressive anthropomorphic robots, either in communicative or teaching scenarios. We present the scientific basis underlying our humanoid robot's emotion models and expressive behavior, and then show how these scientific viewpoints have been adapted to the current implementation. Our robot is also able to recognize affective intent through tone of voice, the implementation of which is inspired by the scientific findings of the developmental psycholinguistics community. We first evaluate the robot's expressive displays in isolation. Next, we evaluate the robot's overall emotive behavior (i.e. the coordination of the affective recognition system, the emotion and motivation systems, and the expression system) as it socially engages nave human subjects face-to-face.

/pdf/emotion-and-sociable-humanoid-robots-2inax9grw9.pdf

Emotion and sociable humanoid robots

Socioeconomic status (SES) influences brain development. Farah and colleagues discuss evidence that prenatal factors, parent–child interactions and cognitive stimulation mediate this effect, and consider implications for alleviating SES-related disparities in mental health and academic achievement. Human brain development occurs within a socioeconomic context and childhood socioeconomic status (SES) influences neural development — particularly of the systems that subserve language and executive function. Research in humans and in animal models has implicated prenatal factors, parent–child interactions and cognitive stimulation in the home environment in the effects of SES on neural development. These findings provide a unique opportunity for understanding how environmental factors can lead to individual differences in brain development, and for improving the programmes and policies that are designed to alleviate SES-related disparities in mental health and academic achievement.

/pdf/socioeconomic-status-and-the-brain-mechanistic-insights-from-2bocwkx5yq.pdf

Socioeconomic status and the brain: mechanistic insights from human and animal research

Context Psychopaths belong to a larger group of persons with antisocial personality disorder and are characterized by an inability to have emotional involvement and by the repeated violation of the rights of others. It was hypothesized that this behavior might be the consequence of deficient fear conditioning. Objective To study the cerebral, peripheral, and subjective correlates of fear conditioning in criminal psychopaths and healthy control subjects. Design An aversive differential pavlovian delay conditioning paradigm with slides of neutral faces serving as conditioned and painful pressure as unconditioned stimuli. Setting The Department of Medical Psychology at the University of Tubingen, Tubingen, Germany. Participants Ten male psychopaths as defined by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised and 10 age- and education-matched healthy male controls. The psychopaths were criminal offenders on bail and waiting for their trial or were on parole. The healthy controls were recruited from the community. Main Outcome Measures Brain activation based on functional magnetic resonance imaging, electrodermal responses, emotional valence, arousal, and contingency ratings. Results The healthy controls showed enhanced differential activation in the limbic-prefrontal circuit (amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, insula, and anterior cingulate) during the acquisition of fear and successful verbal and autonomic conditioning. The psychopaths displayed no significant activity in this circuit and failed to show conditioned skin conductance and emotional valence ratings, although contingency and arousal ratings were normal. Conclusion This dissociation of emotional and cognitive processing may be the neural basis of the lack of anticipation of aversive events in criminal psychopaths.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/articlepdf/208744/yoa40213.pdf

Deficient Fear Conditioning in Psychopathy A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

The process of defining underachievement, identifying underachieving gifted students, and explaining the reasons for this underachievement continues to stir controversy among practitioners, researchers, and clinicians. Despite this interest, the underachievement of gifted students remains an enigma. This article reviews and analyzes three decades of research on the underachievement of gifted students in an attempt to clarify the present state of research. The problems inherent in defining and identifing underachieving gifted students are given special attention. The authors also include suggestions for those interested in pursuing potentially promising new lines of research and inquiry in this area.

The underachievement of gifted students: What do we know and where do we go?

According to WHO, the permissible limit of arsenic till 1993 was 0.05 mg. /L of drinking water. In 1993, WHO modified the maximum level and brought it down to 0.01 mg./L. According to the report of School of Environment Studies of Jadavpur University (1992-1993), West Bengal has 6 districts, affected by arsenic contamination of ground water. The present paper attempts to find out the vulnerability and impact of arsenic on human being. A detailed survey was conducted at Dahapara village of Murshidabad district to assess the present condition of the area giving emphasis on the identification of sources of arsenic pollution.

Robert L. Armstrong

Papers

Review of Research.

The Intangible Costs and Benefits of School Self-Study.