PURPOSE (1) To explore the frequency with which humorous behaviour and statements occur in family medicine practice in Israel, and (2) to quantitatively assess the correlation between the subjective perceptions of humour in medical encounters between patients and physicians. METHOD In a cross sectional study, two populations (doctors and patients) were surveyed with paired structured question...

Abstract This article strives to open a window on ‘eco-humour’, an umbrella term for diverse forms of humour targeting ecological and environmental issues. It encourages readers consider eco-humour as valuable, pedagogical toolkit education communication. To this aim, is, first, put into perspective scholarship. In particular, I discuss the critical corrective potential address possibly redress...

Humour research is often about verbal humour. Language allows us to play with words and with its syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects. It provides us with building blocks that can be composed in unusual ways, introducing ambiguities, confusion, inappropriate language use, and incongruities. This allows the design of humour, whether it is word play, verbal jokes, or humorous remarks trigger...

THE chemical warfare agent, "nitrogen mustard " or methyl bis (,8-chloroethyl) amine, has come to the notice of the clinician lately on *account of its beneficial effect upon Hodgkin's disease, the ieucaemias and some neoplasms (Gilman and Philips, 1946). It is also of interest to those studying the problems associated with the changes in the permeability in the blood-aqueous humour barrier sin...

The first in aseries of articles on the philosophy of humour and laughter looks at attempts made to explain humour in terms of incongruity.

As personified in jokers, fools, and clowns, humour is an integral part of human history [44]. Humour can lighten what might otherwise be dull, tense, or tedious situations. Common definitions of humour emphasize "amusement" and "laughter," implying some form of benign diversion. But recent research suggests that jokes are not "events" that are funny or harmful as such. Rather, joking entails a...

Although the levels of LDH have been estimated in the aqueous humour of animals (Kuhlman, and Kaufman, I960), information regarding LDH levels in human aqueous humour appears to be scanty. It is known that malignant tumours at different sites in the body are associated with an increased LDH activity in the corresponding body fluid (Wroblewski, 1957). The purpose of the present study is to deter...

The insoluble protein fraction was prepared from the central and posterior peripheral fraction of bovine vitreous humour. The collagen present in this fraction was solubilized by pepsin and fractionated by gel chromatography. Analysis of the solubilized collagen fractions showed that the alpha-chain component had an amino acid composition and yielded a series of CNBr-cleavage peptides that show...

This paper proposes that cognitive humour can be modelled using the mathematical framework of quantum theory, suggesting that a Quantum Theory of Humour (QTH) is a viable approach. We begin with brief overviews of both research on humour, and the generalized quantum framework. We show how the bisociation of incongruous frames or word meanings in jokes can be modelled as a linear superposition o...