Publications by authors named "Hagop Sarkissian"

People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to behave in morally good ways. Is this belief particular to individuals with optimistic beliefs or people from Western cultures, or does it reflect a widely held cognitive bias in how people understand the self? To address this question, we tested the good true self theory against two potential boundary conditions that are known to elicit different beliefs about the self as a whole.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Norenzayan et al. suggest that Big Gods can be replaced by Big Governments. We examine forms of social and self-monitoring and ritual practice that emerged in Classical China, heterarchical societies like those that emerged in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and the contemporary Zapatista movement of Chiapas, and we recommend widening the hypothesis space to include these alternative forms of social organization.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Wilms' tumor is the most common pediatric solid renal tumor. Cross-fused renal ectopia is a rare congenital anomaly in which the left and right kidneys become fused and fail to ascend from the pelvis and abdomen. We report a case of a 5-year-old girl that underwent open partial nephrectomy on a cross-fused ectopic kidney, "pancake kidney," after incidental discovery of a solid renal mass found to be a Wilms' tumor.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The objective was to give a general overview of common complications and rates reported in the current literature during performance of a variety of urologic procedures using laparo-endoscopic single-site surgery or LESS. A search of published reports using Pubmed and MEDLINE was performed with the following search terms: laparo-endoscopic single-site surgery, LESS or laparo-endoscopic single-site surgery complications within the date range of 2005--2011. Studies that were deemed appropriate and relevant to the current symposium were chosen for review.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: We evaluated current trends of pediatric urology exposure during the 3-year pediatric residency period nationwide. We also evaluated the opinions of urology and pediatric residency program directors regarding the need for additional exposure to pediatric urology.

Materials And Methods: From February to October 2011 we administered 2 concurrent electronic surveys.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Computed tomography (CT) scans often identify postoperative fluid collections of uncertain clinical relevance.

Methods: Consecutive adult patients undergoing colorectal resection and postoperative CT scan from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2008, at a university teaching hospital were identified from a prospective database. A host of clinical and CT findings were recorded.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Experimental philosophy is a new interdisciplinary field that uses methods normally associated with psychology to investigate questions normally associated with philosophy. The present review focuses on research in experimental philosophy on four central questions. First, why is it that people's moral judgments appear to influence their intuitions about seemingly nonmoral questions? Second, do people think that moral questions have objective answers, or do they see morality as fundamentally relative? Third, do people believe in free will, and do they see free will as compatible with determinism? Fourth, how do people determine whether an entity is conscious?

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The muscularis mucosae, a type of smooth muscle located between the urothelium and the urinary bladder detrusor, has been described, although its properties and role in bladder function have not been characterized. Here, using mucosal tissue strips isolated from guinea pig urinary bladders, we identified spontaneous phasic contractions (SPCs) that appear to originate in the muscularis mucosae. This smooth muscle layer exhibited Ca(2+) waves and flashes, but localized Ca(2+) events (Ca(2+) sparks, purinergic receptor-mediated transients) were not detected.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

[reaction: see text] The spontaneous generation and stereoselective coupling of Co(2)(CO)(6)-complexed propargyl radicals have been discovered. One- and two-step complementary methods (Method A: (1) HBF(4); (2) CH(2)Cl(2), 20 degrees C; Method B: Tf(2)O, CH(2)Cl(2), 20 degrees C) provided an easy access to synthetically useful d,l-3,4-diaryl-1,5-alkadiynes (de 74-98%).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF