We all need friends T he idea that the intestinal content can cause a number of physical and psychological ailments is very old (1). Remedies to clean the bowel were used in ancient Egypt, probably inspired by the peculiar behaviour of the ibis bird, as stated by Plinius (23Á79 A.D.): 'The bird which is called the ibis and which is a native of Egypt, by means of its hooked beak, laves the insid...

The present study examined to what extent the number of friends and their social and personal characteristics were related to peer victimization in adolescence. Participants were 2,180 adolescents (1,143 girls), aged 11-18 (M = 14.2), who were classified as victims, bully-victims, or non-involved (i.e., adolescents who neither bullied others nor were victimized by others). Three types of friend...

A natural and established way to restrict the constraint satisfaction problem is to fix the relations that can be used to pose constraints; such a family of relations is called a constraint language. In this article, we study arc consistency, a heavily investigated inference method, and three extensions thereof from the perspective of constraint languages. We conduct a comparison of the studied...

When banks and firms are connected through interpersonal linkages – such as their respective management having attended college or previously worked together – interest rates are markedly reduced, comparable with single shifts in credit ratings. These rate concessions do not appear to reflect sweetheart deals. Subsequent firm performance, such as future credit ratings or stock returns, improves...