The main goal of this paper is to investigate the prosodic manifestation of the following attitudinal states: consideration, despair, disappointment, irony, justification, obviousness, and uncertainty. The sentence O Carlos Alberto já sabe. [Carlos Alberto already knows it.] was pronounced by a subject, who tried to convey each of these attitudes. Afterwards, it was presented to 20 panelists, w...

Most Interactive Storytelling systems developed to date have followed a task-based approach to story representation, using planning techniques to drive the story by generating a sequence of actions, which essentially “solve” the task to which the story is equated. One major limitation of this approach has been that it fails to incorporate characters’ psychology, and as a consequence important a...

Reflection on the history of skepticism shows that philosophers have often conjoined as a single doctrine various theses that are best kept apart. Some of these theses are incredible—literally almost impossible to accept—whereas others seem quite plausible and even verge on the platitudinous. Mixing them together, one arrives at a view—skepticism—that is as a whole indefensible. My aim is to pu...

The article examines one of the most intriguing issues related to the public sector reforms; the changing accountability systems. The debate about the relevance of accounting-based reform in the caring professions is not new, but little research has been conduct in the field of social work. Accounting, in such endeavour, risks to be often, and erroneously, equated to accountability and control....

Why do some people bounce back from life's hardships while others despair? HBR senior editor Diane Coutu looks at the nature of individual and organizational resilience, issues that have gained special urgency in light of the recent terrorist attacks, war, and recession. In the business arena, resilience has found its way onto the list of qualities sought in employees. As one of Coutu's intervi...

The debate on glycemic control (GC) in critical care nears the 16-year mark since the initial landmark study. In this journal, Mesotten et al. [1], from the Leuven group of the original study, present the results of the LOGIC-2 multicenter trial of model-based GC versus standard nurse GC. In 1979 Kelley and Conner [2] published the “Emotional Cycle of Change” defining five emotional phases invo...

BACKGROUND The chronic kidney disease is a major health concern. The number of the elderly people with chronic renal failure has increased across the world. Dialysis is an appropriate therapy for the elderly, but it involves certain challenges. The present paper reports uncertainty as part of the elderly experiences of living with hemodialysis. METHODS This qualitative study applied Max van M...

This study sought to (1) investigate the association between migraine and both depression and suicidal ideation and (2) to identify the factors independently associated with each of these mental health problems among Canadian men and women with migraine. Data were analyzed from the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). Presence of migraine was assessed by self-report of a health profess...

Reflection on the history of skepticism shows that philosophers have often conjoined as a single doctrine various theses that are best kept apart. Some of these theses are incredible—literally almost impossible to accept—whereas others seem quite plausible and even verge on the platitudinous. Mixing them together, one arrives at a view—skepticism—that is as a whole indefensible. My aim is to pu...

After introducing a perspective on terrorism as postpolitical and after establishing the criteria for success that are immanent in this form of antipolitical action, this essay interprets September 11, 2001, and its aftermath inside a cultural-sociological perspective. After introducing a macro-model of social performance that combines structural and semiotic with pragmatic and power-oriented d...