We have previously reported the use of repertory grid testing to extend the understanding of psychopathology in neurotic patients and to test predictions about the effects of therapy (Ryle, 1967; Ryle and Lunghi, 1969). In these tests the elements were people known to the subject, and the constructs were elicited from him. Repertory grid testing can supplement the data obtained from clinical interviews, notably in the following ways:

No abstract

Simulating fish larval drift helps assess the sensitivity of recruitment variability to early life history. An individualbased model (IBM) coupled to a hydrodynamic model was used to simulate common sole larval supply from spawning areas to coastal and estuarine nursery grounds at the meta-population scale (4 assessed stocks), from the southern North Sea to the Bay of Biscay (Western Europe) on a 26-yr time series, from 1982 to 2007. The IBM allowed each particle released to be transported by currents, to grow depending on temperature, to migrate vertically depending on development stage, to die along pelagic stages or to settle on a nursery, representing the life history from spawning to metamorphosis. The model outputs were analysed to explore interannual patterns in the amounts of settled sole larvae at the population scale; they suggested: (i) a low connectivity between populations at the larval stage, (ii) a moderate influence of interannual variation in the spawning biomass, (iii) dramatic consequences of life history on the abundance of settling larvae and (iv) the effects of climate variability on the interannual variability of the larvae settlement success.

Why is it that we commonly experience such difficulty in accepting the death of someone close to us? It is the contention of this paper that one of the conglomeration of issues raised by the death of another person concerns the challenge of assimilating the transition from existence to non-existence. This is an ontological dilemma, mediated by both cognitive and linguistic structures. Cognitive factors operate to the extent that we attempt to apply an implicit principle of continuity to both concrete and abstract concepts, and defend this principle from disconfirmation by resort to magical thinking. Linguistic factors may influence reactions to bereavement to the extent that we commonly use such concepts as ''identity'' and ''person'' so as to engender an expectancy of persistence beyond death and that our defence of this expectation is again reflected in magical thinking. From this particular perspective then, the denial associated with bereavement is both cognitively and linguistically mediated. It is as such a structural phenomenon, the cognitive aspect of which may be rooted in a fundamental way of thinking about the world while the linguistic aspect would be more culturally relative. The societal response to magical thinking may be even more culturally bound, such mysticism typically being viewed as a type of medical deviance, to be ''cured,'' thereby effectively denying continuity. Possibly then, the relative merits of disengagement versus continued connection with the deceased become just a matter of perspective.The issue is a broad and speculative one touching on just a single aspect of bereavement, the theoretical position being that by unpacking each of the various issues raised by death and loss, some further understanding may emerge of the cumulative human reaction of grieving. An associated rating scale is offered.