Thu Aug 25,11:18 AM ET
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore police handcuffed and locked up a U.S. citizen for bringing 58 pornographic DVDs and video CDs into the wealthy city-state when he moved to Singapore last year, a newspaper reported Thursday.
The Straits Times said Singapore state prosecutors had dropped charges of possessing uncertified and obscene films against Tran Nghia Hong after he presented them with a declaration by his brother, stating that he was missing "certain DVDs."
The films, found by Singapore customs officers in a shipment of his belongings from California, included titles such as "Frivolous Lola," "Copulation Nation" and "Lord of the Strings."
"I was handcuffed and put in a lock-up for four hours after I was charged," the report quoted Tran, 35, as saying.
Tran, a financial controller at U.S. Internet equipment maker Cisco Systems, could have been fined up to S$500 for each disc, up to a maximum of S$20,000, or up to six months in prison, or both.
Despite efforts to loosen some of its social controls, many tough rules remain in Singapore. "Playboy" magazine is banned, while oral sex remains technically illegal under a law that says "whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animals" can be fined and jailed up to 10 years, or even for life.
In recent years, Singapore has partially relaxed its famous ban on chewing gum, allowed some bars to stay open for 24 hours and ended a ban on the popular U.S. sitcom "Sex and the City." ¶ 2:52 PM 0 comments
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
2 hours, 42 minutes ago
Asians and North Americans really do see the world differently. Shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene, according to University of Michigan researchers.
The researchers, led by Hannah-Faye Chua and Richard Nisbett, tracked the eye movements of the students — 25 European Americans and 27 native Chinese — to determine where they were looking in a picture and how long they focused on a particular area.
"They literally are seeing the world differently," said Nisbett, who believes the differences are cultural.
"Asians live in a more socially complicated world than we do," he said in a telephone interview. "They have to pay more attention to others than we do. We are individualists. We can be bulls in a china shop, they can't afford it."
The findings are reported in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The key thing in Chinese culture is harmony, Nisbett said, while in the West the key is finding ways to get things done, paying less attention to others.
And that, he said, goes back to the ecology and economy of times thousands of years ago.
In ancient China, farmers developed a system of irrigated agriculture, Nisbett said. Rice farmers had to get along with each other to share water and make sure no one cheated.
Western attitudes, on the other hand, developed in ancient Greece where there were more people running individual farms, raising grapes and olives, and operating like individual businessmen.
So differences in perception go back at least 2,000 years, he said.
Aristotle, for example, focused on objects. A rock sank in water because it had the property of gravity, wood floated because it had the property of floating. He would not have mentioned the water. The Chinese, though, considered all actions related to the medium in which they occurred, so they understood tides and magnetism long before the West did.
Nisbett illustrated this with a test asking Japanese and Americans to look at pictures of underwater scenes and report what they saw.
The Americans would go straight for the brightest or most rapidly moving object, he said, such as three trout swimming. The Japanese were more likely to say they saw a stream, the water was green, there were rocks on the bottom and then mention the fish.
The Japanese gave 60 percent more information on the background and twice as much about the relationship between background and foreground objects as Americans, Nisbett said.
In the latest test, the researchers tracked the eye movement of the Chinese and Americans as they looked at pictures.
The Americans looked at the object in the foreground sooner — a leopard in the jungle for example — and they looked at it longer. The Chinese had more eye movement, especially on the background and back and forth between the main object and the background, he said.
Reinforcing the belief that the differences are cultural, he said, when Asians raised in North America were studied, they were intermediate between native Asians and European-Americans, and sometimes closer to Americans in the way they viewed scenes.
Kyle R. Cave of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst commented: "These results are particularly striking because they show that these cultural differences extend to low level perceptual processes such as how we control our eyes. They suggest that the way that we see and explore the world literally depends on where we come from."
Cave said researchers in his lab have found differences in eye movement between Asians and Westerners in reading, based on differences in the styles of writing in each language.
"When you look beyond this study to all of the studies finding cultural differences, you find that people from one culture do better on some tasks, while people from other cultures do better on others. I think it would be hard to argue from these studies that one culture is generally outperforming the other cognitively," Cave said.
___
On the Net:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.pnas.org
Thu Aug 18,11:54 AM ET
BERLIN (Reuters) - An "electronic nappy" used to monitor wetness sparked a bomb alert in a German post office when it arrived in a parcel ticking suspiciously, police in the southwestern city of Heilbronn said Thursday.
"They suspected it was a bomb so they put the package into an empty room and called the police," said a police spokesman. "It was supposed to respond to wetness with bleeping sounds but this one ticked."
Two squad cars rushed to the scene and immediately contacted the sender. Police gave the all clear after they contacted the woman who told them the intercepted package contained only a malfunctioning diaper. ¶ 6:36 PM 0 comments
核心提示
连日来，榆中县甘草店镇农妇胡某身上“长”字的事件经本报连续报道后，引起众人的好 奇和质疑。8月19日到8月21日，本报记者与有关皮肤科专家一起到甘草店镇胡某家中，对胡某进行隔离观察。经过28个小时的严格监控，8月20日晚上9 时许，大家发现胡某右臂上出现了一行清晰的红色英文“good luck”，到8月21日早晨7时许，字迹才逐渐消退。
专家检查——奇女皮肤健康
8月19日下午5时许，本报记者和省人民医院专家门诊中心皮肤科主任王国玉一起，在未事先通知胡某的情况下来到其家中，准备对她皮肤上“长”字的现象进行一次隔离检查。
经医生初步检查，胡某没有疾病，皮肤健康，身上没有任何字迹和印痕。随后，专家就胡某的病史情况进行了检查和询问，包括最初出字的时间、字迹消退时间长 短、病变反应症状以及有无家庭病史等内容。针对专家的询问，胡某一一作了详尽的回答。之后，为了证实胡某是否患有常见的人工划痕症，专家用指甲在她的皮肤 上划了一个字，皮肤上出现了轻微的痕迹，专家解释胡某可能患有皮肤划痕症(略呈阳性)。
农妇右臂上出现清晰可辨的“good luck”，9个多小时后消退。
专家检查奇女皮肤健康。
奇异梦境——有人追着在她身上写字
据胡某讲，每次皮肤上“长”出字以后，因为事情太奇特，心里就觉得特别急躁，但出字的位置没有一点痛痒感，也没有灼烧的感觉。奇怪的是，本来自己身上每天都连续出字，可是8月18日却没有出字。
据胡某丈夫讲，胡某皮肤“长”字前后共有24天，每次出字后身体没有异常感觉。然而8月15日晚上10时许睡觉时，他突然发现妻子呼吸紧张，便将她拉起 来，听见她嘴里不停地念叨着“海阔天空、辽阔草原”。等将她叫醒后，才发现她的两条胳膊上“长”出“海阔天空、辽阔草原”的字来。胡某有些惊悸地对我们 说：“当晚我做了一个奇异的梦，梦见一个高个子男子，追着要在我身上写‘海阔天空、辽阔草原’，真是太害怕了。”
18日、19日—— “长”字现象中断两天
8月19日晚上，处在隔离检查中的胡某始终没有出字。
胡某的丈夫告诉记者，8月17日晚上10时许，胡某的后背两侧竟然“长”出“台湾回归、人民欢迎”的字样，胳膊上也出现“历尽千辛、圆满成功。”的字样。与以往不同的是，这次在“历尽千辛、圆满成功”后面，竟然多出现了一个“。”。
8月18日到19日，连续出字的现象不知何故突然中断。村上一些老人们认为，会不会出现句号后，胡某身上此后就再也不“长”字了。到8月19日下午，在家接受隔离检查的胡某身上始终没有再出字，身体也无其他病变反应。
检查结果——右臂上“长”出英文
在前后三天的观察中，被隔离的胡某像往常一样生活、干农活，只是全部活动都在检查人员的监控下进行。隔离期间不允许她和外人及家人直接接触，不允许她离 开居所外出。8月20日晚饭后，胡某在大家的监控下看电视，其间出门都有专人跟随。晚上9时许，专家检查胡某的手臂，未发现可疑现象。晚上9时10分，胡 某突然欣喜若狂的叫道：“字出来了！”大家急忙上前观看，惊喜的发现其右臂上清晰地出现了一行英文“good luck”(意为祝你好运)。到8月21日凌晨1时许，字迹仍清晰可辨。8月21日早晨7时许，字迹才逐渐消退。
家人心愿 期待解开“长”字之谜
胡某皮肤上会“长”字的消息传开后，此成为读者议论的焦点，并引起众多新闻媒体的关注。8月18日，有一家兰州本地媒体就此事提出质疑，认为农妇身上 “长”字是不可能的，之所以出现这种现象，极有可能是人为刻划上去留下的字痕。此后，该媒体以一位患皮肤划痕症的女士为例，片面的作出“胡某皮肤‘长’字 谎言被戳穿”的断言。该报道出来后，一度造成人们的误解，也给当事人胡某一家造成严重的精神伤害。8月19日晚上，胡某的丈夫气恼地说：“妻子身上出字只 是一种奇异现象，我们根本没有必要去骗人，为什么有人出言不逊伤害我们无辜的人呢？希望有人能够尽快解开妻子身上的这个不解之谜，还全家人一个清白。”
专家解释 不解之谜有待研究
省皮肤性病学会常委、省人民医院专家门诊中心皮肤科主任王国玉，在隔离检查现场查证完胡某身上的字迹后，倍感惊异的说：“这种现象闻所未闻，真的是太奇 特，让人感到不可思议。”王主任就胡某身上出现的字痕分析说，假如是人工划痕所留，用手磨压字迹不会消失，划下的字在肉皮表层有肉痕，一般30分钟左右便 自然消失。而胡某胳膊上所出来的英文字迹，若用手轻轻磨压就会消失，起手后又清晰地出现，其呈现的血色印痕久久不消退，时间长达9个多小时，而且用水擦洗 会更加清晰。从出字的症状看，胡某皮肤“长”出的字处在皮肤表层的浅层毛血细管，它不属于身体疾病，只是一种皮肤层的变异现象，很奇妙，具有很好的研究价 值。王主任希望此事能引起社会和有关部门的关注，然后组织专门的医学力量对其进行探索及专题研究，争取早日破解留在胡某身上的这个不解之谜。文／图 本报记者 鲁进峰 裴强
51小时家全程见证
省人民医院皮肤科专家希望组织医学力量破解“长”字之谜
8月19日
下午5时许，胡某接受隔离检查。
晚上7时30分，专家给胡某检查身体，并询问有关病史等情况。
晚上8时10分，胡某的弟弟从兰州打来电话，叮嘱其不要出门，认真配合隔离检查。
晚上9时30分到11时许，胡某未见异常反应，其间吃饭、做家务。
晚上12时许入睡，一夜无反应症状，后半夜因急躁未入眠。
8月20日
早晨至晚上8时许，胡某做家务，忙农活，身体一直无任何反应征兆。
晚上8时许后，胡某和大家一起在看电视。
晚上9时许，医生检查胡某的左胳膊，未见异常。
晚上9时10分，大家发现胡某的右臂上出现了一行清晰的红色英文“good luck”(意为祝您好运)。
晚上9时20分，医生对胡某的身体和出现的字痕进行专业检测。
晚上10时许，经仔细检查，胡某的腿部、腹部及身体后背等处未再发现字痕。
晚上10时30分，用水清洗，字痕更加清晰可辨。
8月21日
凌晨1时许，字痕未消失，仍旧清晰可见。
凌晨2时许，胡某的丈夫下夜班回家，见到出字激动的说道：“终于盼出字来了！”胡某字痕还在，但其他身体部位没有出现不适反应。
凌晨3时许，胡某休息。
早晨7时许，胡某起床后，经检查发现字痕有些模糊，之后逐渐消退。
上午至晚上8时许，胡某做家务，其间未再发生出字现象。
¶ 1:05 PM 0 comments
June 27, 2005
New Cornell study suggests that mental processing is continuous, not like a computer
By Susan S. Lang
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The theory that the mind works like a computer, in a series of distinct stages, was an important steppingstone in cognitive science, but it has outlived its usefulness, concludes a new Cornell University study. Instead, the mind should be thought of more as working the way biological organisms do: as a dynamic continuum, cascading through shades of grey.
In a new study published online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (June 27-July 1), Michael Spivey, a psycholinguist and associate professor of psychology at Cornell, tracked the mouse movements of undergraduate students while working at a computer. The findings provide compelling evidence that language comprehension is a continuous process.
"For decades, the cognitive and neural sciences have treated mental processes as though they involved passing discrete packets of information in a strictly feed-forward fashion from one cognitive module to the next or in a string of individuated binary symbols -- like a digital computer," said Spivey. "More recently, however, a growing number of studies, such as ours, support dynamical-systems approaches to the mind. In this model, perception and cognition are mathematically described as a continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional mental space; the neural activation patterns flow back and forth to produce nonlinear, self-organized, emergent properties -- like a biological organism."
In his study, 42 students listened to instructions to click on pictures of different objects on a computer screen. When the students heard a word, such as "candle," and were presented with two pictures whose names did not sound alike, such as a candle and a jacket, the trajectories of their mouse movements were quite straight and directly to the candle. But when the students heard "candle" and were presented with two pictures with similar sounding names, such as candle and candy, they were slower to click on the correct object, and their mouse trajectories were much more curved. Spivey said that the listeners started processing what they heard even before the entire word was spoken.
"When there was ambiguity, the participants briefly didn't know which picture was correct and so for several dozen milliseconds, they were in multiple states at once. They didn't move all the way to one picture and then correct their movement if they realized they were wrong, but instead they traveled through an intermediate gray area," explained Spivey. "The degree of curvature of the trajectory shows how much the other object is competing for their interpretation; the curve shows continuous competition. They sort of partially heard the word both ways, and their resolution of the ambiguity was gradual rather than discrete; it's a dynamical system."
The computer metaphor describes cognition as being in a particular discrete state, for example, "on or off" or in values of either zero or one, and in a static state until moving on. If there was ambiguity, the model assumed that the mind jumps the gun to one state or the other, and if it realizes it is wrong, it then makes a correction.
"In thinking of cognition as working as a biological organism does, on the other hand, you do not have to be in one state or another like a computer, but can have values in between -- you can be partially in one state and another, and then eventually gravitate to a unique interpretation, as in finally recognizing a spoken word," Spivey said.
Whereas the older models of language processing theorized that neural systems process words in a series of discrete stages, the alternative model suggests that sensory input is processed continuously so that even partial linguistic input can start "the dynamic competition between simultaneously active representations."
Spivey's co-authors are Marc Grosjean of the University of Dortmund, Germany, and G�nther Knoblich of Rutgers University. ¶ 12:40 PM 0 comments
'We're calling it 45 percent contained,' up from 35 percent on Sunday, said Dewey Hanson, a spokesman for the Minnesota Interagency Fire Center in Grand Rapids.
Hanson said the 268 people fighting the fire 'did a fantastic job' Monday, securing more than a half mile of the containment line on the north side of the fire.
'Tomorrow we should be able to finish that northern line, and if we get that finished we've got it in a pretty good box,' he said.
Helicopters were able to drop water on hotspots within the lines and officials did not need to call in the water-scooping airplanes that are standing by, he said. One firefighter suffered a strained knee, but the injury wasn't serious, he said.
The fire has burned about 1,300 acres between Alpine, Seagull, Red Rock and Grandpa lakes since it was sparked by lightning on July 30 and smoldered until flaring up Aug. 6. It is the largest fire in the northeastern Minnesota wilderness area in a decade and has cost nearly $1.9 million to fight as of Monday evening, Hanson said.
No structures have been damaged, and Hanson said a sprinkler line set up to the east of the fire should prevent it from reaching cabins and businesses near the end of the Gunflint Trail, the 57-mile road leading into the wilderness from Grand Marais. " ¶ 4:44 AM 0 comments
From Slashdot: Posted by Cliff on Monday August 15, @07:02PM
from the shouldn't-it-be-more-complex-than-this dept.
hakonhaugnes wonders: "Since trips to Mars seems commonplace (NASA has sent one every 26 months), I thought it made sense to try to understand how the interplanetary trajectory is calculated. NASA's page is deploringly void of intricate details. I found this excellent page, but it still left me feeling that I was missing something. Surely the calculus must go beyond two bodies (mars/earth)? (It seems there are commercial MATLAB scripts available but at $150 it went beyond the defensible to satisfy my curiosity). Are there any curious Slashdot readers with the usual great insight into how to calculate a trip to Mars?" ¶ 10:04 PM 0 comments
