History, etymology, and fallacy: attitudes toward male masturbation in the ancient Western world

This article examines the attitudes toward male masturbation in the ancient western world. More specifically, this work deals with ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. By comparing each epoch and geographic region, intolerance of autoerotic activity can be seen. Although there is a pattern of intolerance, the act of masturbation is always viewed provisionally. In addition, by examining these three periods of history not only can attitudes be scrutinized, but also it can be seen quite clearly that there was no golden age of sexuality: The attitude of accepted and encouraged unlimited and varied sexual practices does not exist in the ancient western world. As in many other cultures in various stages of history, procreative sexuality is the dominating theme. Thus, current attitudes of sex are derived from, and still survive due to the influence of, ancient western civilization.     

Shifting Ground(s): Surveying the contested terrain of LGBT studies and queer theory

While queer theory initially grew out of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) studies, there are numerous points of contestation between these two approaches, originating mostly from their disparate positions on (sexual) identity politics. To describe, analyze, and contextualize this contested terrain, we begin this piece by providing some historical notes on LGBT studies and queer theory. Next, we turn to an explication of some enduring tensions to identify the criticisms generated by LGBT scholars toward queer theory approaches and vice versa. What follows is our rationale for producing LGBT Studies and Queer Theory: New Conflicts, Collaborations, and Contested Terrain. In this section we discuss how this project originated and the specific objectives we hope this volume will meet. The contributions of the individual articles in this volume are identified and summarized next. Finally, in the context of LGBT studies' and queer theory's similar qualities and points of difference, we offer ideas for potential directions of scholarship in the future that would explore three major areas: identity and difference; community and community organizing; and political engagement and social change.     

Asymptotics for Euclidean functionals of mixing processes

We extend previously known asymptotic results in the framework of subadditive Euclidean functionals and the related superadditive functionals. Our results generalize the standard independent identically distributed assumption, vastly expanding the scope of the existing theory. As an application of our results, a limit theorem for the average nearest neighbor distance is established, extending earlier results in the literature.     

Partial logistic relevance vector machines in survival analysis

The use of relevance vector machines to flexibly model hazard rate functions is explored. This technique is adapted to survival analysis problems through the partial logistic approach. The method exploits the Bayesian automatic relevance determination procedure to obtain sparse solutions and it incorporates the flexibility of kernel-based models. Example results are presented on literature data from a head-and-neck cancer survival study using Gaussian and spline kernels. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to assess the influence of hyperprior distribution parameters. The proposed method is then contrasted with other flexible hazard regression methods, in particular the HARE model proposed by Kooperberg et al. [16]. A simulation study is conducted to carry out the comparison. The model developed in this paper exhibited good performance in the prediction of hazard rate. The application of this sparse Bayesian technique to a real cancer data set demonstrated that the proposed method can potentially reveal characteristics of the hazards, associated with the dynamics of the studied diseases, which may be missed by existing modeling approaches based on different perspectives on the bias vs. variance balance.     

Flora of the tram tracks of Bratislava

Urban Ecosystems - Tram and railway tracks represent specific urban habitats, which host a specific type of flora. This study aims to compile the information about species composition of flora of...     

Firm-specific human capital, job matching, and turnover: evidence from major league baseball, 1900–1992

The two dominant labor market turnover hypotheses, the firm-specific human capital model (FSHCM) and the job-matching model, suggest different patterns of player mobility in major league baseball. The matching hypothesis predicts greater mobility of players in positions that require substantial team production. A better match may offer large productivity gains. Alternately, the FSHCM predicts players in positions requiring the greatest amount of teamwork will benefit from specific knowledge, making them less likely to change teams. We examine the frequency distribution of trades by player position from 1900–1992 and find the FSHCM provides the best explanation for turnover in this industry.     

Microbiological groundwater quality and health indicators in Mexico City

Groundwater quality was evaluated in the southern and western zones of Mexico City, using bacterial indicators and pathogens. Water quality from 40 wells was related to rates of diarrheal disease with 995 individuals interviewed. The focus of this first study on environmental health indicators (EHI) was based on population data (e.g., drinking water supplies and basic sanitation) and displayed using a Geographic Information System (GIS). Sixty percent of the wells monitored comply with the Mexican drinking water standards; however, based on other microbial evidence, 95% of the wells did not provide good quality water for human consumption. No significant differences were detected among hydrogeological zones. When analyzing by microbial indicators, the southern area was shown to be statistically different (p < 0.01) from the western area of the city. The highest rates of diarrheal diseases were detected in the south; the lowest rates were observed in the west. Although wells in the western side of the city appeared to be more contaminated (54%) than in the south (40%), no significant association with health indicators was detected. These preliminary findings suggest ways to improve the potential of EHI, by framing epidemiological data and the use of GIS.