Nearly all estimators in statistical prediction come with an associated tuning parameter, in one way or another. Common practice, given data, is to choose the tuning parameter value that minimizes a constructed estimate of the prediction error of the estimator; we focus on Stein’s unbiased risk estimator, or SURE (Stein, 1981; Efron, 1986), which forms an unbiased estimate of the prediction err...

A new word: neuroeconomics According to Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary of English, neuroeconomics is ‘the study of the brain in making economic decisions, esp. to build a biological model of decision-making in economic environments’. This definition strikesme as odd. Isn’t ‘decision-making in economic environments’ a bit tautological? The concept of a decision always implies ‘against some ...

A satisfactory explanation of the hyperkinetic syndrome in children has been lacking. Feingold has advanced the hypothesis that naturally occurring salicylates and artificial food additives may cuase this syndrome in certain children , who have a genetically determined predisposition. Following Feingold's dietary prescription, an elimination diet relevant to the foods available in Sydney was de...

Three-dimensional digital models of 16 different sauropods were used to examine the scaling relationship between metabolism and surface areas of the whole body, the neck, and the tail in an attempt to see if the necks could have functioned as radiators for the elimination of excess body heat. The sauropod taxa sample ranged in body mass from a 639 kg juvenile Camarasaurus to a 25 t adult Brachi...

I plan to study abroad in the next few years and, although I've never seen a psychiatrist or anything, I am fairly certain I have anxiety. I can tell through my daily interactions and I am a psychology major so I used the manual to kind of self diagnose myself. I wanted to go talk to my college counselors about getting an emotional support dog soon so we can build a bond and then he/she can com...

I plan to study abroad in the next few years and, although I've never seen a psychiatrist or anything, I am fairly certain I have anxiety. I can tell through my daily interactions and I am a psychology major so I used the manual to kind of self diagnose myself. I wanted to go talk to my college counselors about getting an emotional support dog soon so we can build a bond and then he/she can com...

Conclusion I have asked questions to which I have no answers. The factors influencing them are rarely clinical but depend much more on the attitude of society to the care of disabled people and to social, legal, emotional, political, cultural, religious, and economic forces. Irrespective of whether it is legal to withhold food from patients in the persistent vegetative state, these problems wil...

Imagine walking through the forest when a small, brown creature darts across your path. Do you keep walking or back away? Your reaction depends on whether you think an animal with the glimpsed features is likely to be dangerous. The need to predict the likelihood of an unknown property (dangerous) given some known properties (small and brown) is something that confronts us on a daily basis. Pas...

The defining features of intelligence, consciousness and life are not clearly prescribed. We cannot say of X that if, and only if, it has properties p, q and r will it also have intelligence, be alive, or be conscious. What we tend to look for when ascribing inner states to another system – I shall use the term ‘system’ to cover both organic and inorganic entities and I shall examine three diff...