The relationships among paranormal beliefs\ locus of control and psychiatric symptomatology were investigated in a Turkish college sample of 249 participants "122 females and 006 males#[ The data were collected with the Turkish version of Tobacyk|s revised Paranormal Belief Scale "PBS!R#\ Rotter|s Internal! External Locus of Control Scale "IELOC#\ and Symptom Check List!89!Revised "SCL!89!R#[ S...

This study investigated the potential for comics to promote skepticism about paranormal. Participants rated their interest in comics, read a skeptical account of alleged paranormal phenomena one three mediums (text, comic, and comic containing an interactive magic trick), then engagement, recall. The text was as more interesting entertaining than participants' prior positively correlated with e...

We continue the study of the equivalence relations introduced in the first part. For finite k, it is shown that k-quasi-isotopy implies (k + 1)-cobordism of Cochran–Orr, leading to invariance of Cochran’s derived invariants β, i ≤ k. Furthermore, if two links are k-quasi-isotopic then they cannot be distinguished by any Vassiliev invariant of type ≤ k which is well-defined up to PL isotopy, whe...

Since its introduction, the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (RPBS) has developed into a principal measure of belief in the paranormal. Accordingly, the RPBS regularly appears within parapsychological research. Despite common usage, academic debates continue to focus on the factorial structure of the RPBS and its psychometric integrity. Using an aggregated heterogeneous sample (N = 3,764), the p...

OBJECTIVE In this postmodern society, people tend to abandon conventional medicine for alternative medical systems, such as acupuncture. What are the reasons for this defiance regarding modern rationality and individualist success? Who turns to acupuncture? METHODS This study (n=89) examined whether world views opposed to the predominance of rationality (i.e., mistrust of science, spiritualit...

In the present study we introduce a novel task for the quantitative assessment of both originality and speed of individual associations. This 'BAG' (Bridge-the-Associative-Gap) task was used to investigate the relationships between creativity and paranormal belief. Twelve strong 'believers' and 12 strong 'skeptics' in paranormal phenomena were selected from a large student population (n > 350)....

A quasi-polynomial is a function defined of the form q(k) = cd(k) k d + cd−1(k) k d−1 + · · · + c0(k), where c0, c1, . . . , cd are periodic functions in k ∈ Z. Prominent examples of quasipolynomials appear in Ehrhart’s theory as integer-point counting functions for rational polytopes, and McMullen gives upper bounds for the periods of the cj(k) for Ehrhart quasi-polynomials. For generic polyto...