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MInd is tha National Magazine of Mensa India. This is the May-Jul 2015 issue.
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MAY-JUL 2015
From the Editor: When we realize that the world is not ‘Black-n-White’ but is coloured in
50 (or more) shades of grey. Every day, life reminds us that things may not be necessarily right or wrong, there are answers in between them. The paradoxes that the world throws at us, the idea of subjective-ness… the changing answers with changing perspectives just makes the world around us so complex… we begin to wonder if the creator was serious or just playing some joke..
To escape from all this confusion and madness… it is so relieving to
enter a world where “Every question shall have one and only one solution.” Welcome to the world of Puzzles where logic never takes a back-seat. And there is no room for two numbers in one cell (read zero tolerance to confusion not to mention boredom).
The World Puzzle Championship and World Sudoku Championship
will be held between 11th -18th Oct in Bulgaria this year. On this occasion, MInd covers an interview with Prasanna Seshadri, member of the Indian team at
these contests. He is a Mensan and regularly contributes his puzzles for the MInd Magazine. We wish him and the entire Indian team good “luck”.
.Do let us know what you would like to read here. Remember – it is your magazine. ~Durva Damle Editor, MInd Submissions: Send in your articles and contributions in plain text format and pictures in high resolution .jpg format to:
Disclaimer: All contents in this magazine are opinions of the individual authors and contributors. Neither Mensa India, the society, its office bearers nor the editors are responsible for any content or views expresses.
Feedback: Like it, love it or hate it? Tell us how to make the MInd magazine better. Write in to the editor at
Contents By Page no.
About Contributors 2
Cover Story: Puzzles Q&A with Prasanna Seshadri
Durva Damle 3
Mensa Pune Reboot Mihir Golwalkar, Sayali Shirsath 5
Mensa Delhi Meeting Shreya Gupta 6
Tech-Talk : Loon for All Shreya Gupta 7
Mini Sagas Mensa Mumbai 8
Games People Play (talk by Raunak Onkar at Mumbai Chapter)
Krishna N. Venkitaraman 8
Investing: Incentives Caused Biases (continued…) Puneet Khurana 9
Book Review: Dibs in Search of Self Krishna Vora 11
Puzzle Page: Extra Region Sudoku Prasanna Sheshadri 12
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Krishna N V is the events coordinator for the Mumbai Mensa India Chapter. Coinciding with the football transfer window, he is currently being transferred to Bangalore (with a buy-back clause). Krishna’s interests include reading, writing, poetry, traveling, trekking, football, behavioural psychology, and design. If you’d like to get in touch with him, shoot him a mail at
Shreya Gupta is a second year student pursuing B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from IGDTUW. Hailing from New Delhi, she enjoys music along with singing and dancing. A passion for learning about the new technological innovations and presenting her ideas to the world is what inspires her the most. The link to her blog is:
http://developmentandopinions.blogspot.in/
Krishna Vora is a Psychologist and a Special Educator by profession. She spends all her free time exploring different genres of reading. Link to her blog: https://krishnasvora.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/the-imitation-game/
Prasanna Seshadri is a Puzzler and Puzzle-Master at Grandmaster Puzzles; was the Indian Double Champion in 2013, having won both the Indian Sudoku and Indian Puzzle Championships. As a puzzlemaker, Prasanna has contributed puzzles to the World Puzzle Championship, the 24HPC, and several other national championships; Associated with Logic Masters India.
Blog: More of his puzzles can be found at:
https://prasannaseshadri.wordpress.com/ http://www.gmpuzzles.com
Mihir Golwalkar is an IT guy who mostly lives behind a keyboard and pretends not to like it. He also considers himself an IT guy (since he has a non-existent social life), a writer (a very debatable title for him) a part time criminal mastermind (if asked this question, he would deny everything, on principle) and a wannabe camera-shy model. He likes to use sarcasm and dark humour to get a point across, but this usage is only because killing people is frowned upon. You can also follow him here: http://balletofwords.blogspot.in/ Sayali Shirsath is someone who likes being a ‘Jack-of-all-trades’ instead of being ‘Master-of-one’. She is a Doctor by profession, but loves a variety of subjects. Her favourites being Technology, History (the untold version, not what the textbooks teach), English literature (‘To Be Or Not To Be’, is not the question here! She actually likes the ‘Grammar Nazis’), Music (it’s one of the best healers...Medicos need this for stress management), Dance, Badminton, Writing (basically, playing with words), Graphology (handwriting analysis, in layman terms…yes, it does have a scientific basis), learning new languages, and the list goes on... She would love to hear from you at [email protected] Puneet Khurana: Puneet Khurana is an equity investor who after his associations with various India focussed hedge funds is now involved in managing money for friends and family. He runs Stoic Advisors, a niche consulting firm involved in Financial and Behavioral strategy consulting. He is also an educator who teaches MBA and CFA students and occasionally gives guest lectures at various investing workshops and seminars.
He blogs at www.pragmaticinvesting.wordpress.com
ABOUT CONTRIBUTORS:
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The World Puzzle Championship & World Sudoku Championship are to be held in Bulgaria this year during 11th to 18th October.
Prasanna Sheshadri, A regular member of the Indian team at these championships, and one of the top rated Indian puzzlers in the world, (he is in the world top 10 in WPF Sudoku Grand Prix Rankings for 2015), agreed to give us some insight into the world of puzzles. A member of Mensa India, the puzzles that feature in Mind are also his creations.
Q: Tell us about puzzles and puzzle championships, and about the special place that Sudoku enjoys in the puzzle championships.
Prasanna: There is a common misconception among Indians (and maybe other parts of the world) that Sudoku started first or that puzzles are a subset of Sudoku. It is the exact opposite. The World Puzzle Federation (WPF) have been holding a World Puzzle Championship since 1992. In 2005 Sudoku became more popular than all the other puzzles, and a World Sudoku Championship was started in 2006. In India, the first National Puzzle Championship was held in 2003, and for Sudoku there was a selection process from 2005 onwards. So even in India, it started with Puzzles. Personally, I have always preferred other puzzles to Sudoku. Sudoku Championship just happens to be something I’m also good at.
Q: Who can start puzzling? Can you elaborate on the general academic liking/ background of professional puzzlers... are they essentially math geeks?
Prasanna: Anybody can get into puzzling. As far as academic background is concerned, I would say there is a lot of crossover there. I am pretty strong at math. I think a person who is interested in math would usually be interested in logic. However, there are people from very varied fields who are not experts. There are scientists, doctors, story writers, and many other occupations. Another major crossover would be people who like art and have some liking for logic. This is because the puzzles we do (or prefer to do) are handcrafted with nice attractive themes, which you wouldn’t find in the computer generated stuff that’s on newspapers. I think some of the puzzles I have provided for this magazine show that puzzles have an artistic element to them. Lastly, I think it’s just people who like to have fun. The World Championships are an amazing experience. While this has something to do with the puzzles, it has a lot to do with interacting with the puzzlers of the world. It is
something I look forward to the most each year now since 2011 which was the first time I was on the team. Q: When do you start puzzling ideally? (that is, at what age do you start to solve so you are likely to make it to the national team) Prasanna: I would say it is possible to see talent in the teens. The Chinese team is comprised mostly of teenagers and they are among the top solvers of the world. In fact, the 2013 World Sudoku Champion, Jin Ce of China, is born in 1997! This question of age is actually more relevant now than ever because China held the inaugural Juniors World Sudoku Championship in August. We ran a school event in India to pick a team for this, called Sudoku Champs. We have found some really talented individuals who can grasp the Sudokus and their variants (even the difficult ones) at the age of 13. I was involved in training our juniors’ team. We sent two U-15s, three U-18s (which was our main team) and one U-21. The U-18 Indian team won Silver with 2 Indian names (Aditi Sheshadri and Srishti Kejriwal) featuring in the top 10 individual rankings. In U-15 & U-21 individual rankings, all three Indian participants made it to the top 10. So it was a good start. We will be starting up the school event again soon to select next year’s team. We hope to expand this. Last year, schools in Mumbai and Delhi weren’t interested, so any Mensa members, who are involved with schools, please contact me if this interests you. Q: When you attempt puzzles for the first time, one feels that apart from sheer logic, these puzzles also require a fair bit of command on combinatorics, Parity and Algebra in general. Is it a myth? Prasanna: A majority of the puzzles do not require much more than an understanding of the English language (which can be canceled out by the translators that are now easily available online), and logical skill. Algebra is the most common external knowledge required. The other concepts don’t get used so much in an academic sense as they do in a combination with logical deductions. It’s this combination that makes them special/difficult. To simplify it, this is an area that has no limitations except culture neutrality. This is the main reason Crosswords with General Knowledge aren’t a part of what we do and are a different area of puzzles entirely, though there is definitely crossover, and we have our own form of entirely logical Crosswords which aren’t based on GK.
COVER STORY: PUZZLES
Q&A WITH PRASANNA SHESHADRI
COVER STORY: PUZZLES
Q&A WITH PRASANNA SESHADRI
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Q: Tell us about the Indian Puzzle championship in which you were one of the administrators this year. Prasanna: Logic Masters India gives a wildcard to the best Indian performer at the World Puzzle Championship to be on the Indian team for the next year. In 2014’s WPC, I was 23rd, which is to date India’s best rank at a WPC, so I was given a wildcard. With this wildcard I opted to get into organizing because the National Championships are usually organized by just two people year after year. Me doing it frees up those two individuals for other activities. The Championship has two goals. 1) To select the best and most capable Indian team. 2) To provide a little bit for beginners and newcomers to solve. Because of this, we make sure there are some really easy puzzles and also some difficult ones. The contest ran for 150 minutes on Sunday, the 9th of August. The top 3 were selected to represent India, joining me on a 4-person team. The top 10 had prize, and e-certificates were given to all participants. Q: What type of puzzles are covered in professional puzzling. Prasanna: In India, major exposure has been given to Classic Sudoku. Some people will know Kakuro/ Fence from the Times of India/ Mumbai Mirror newspapers. At the world level, and even at National levels in India, a lot more types are covered. Classic Sudoku covers just 2 rounds at the World Sudoku Championships. The rest are made up of all kinds of variations of Sudoku. These include extra rules like having diagonals be 1-9 as well, or something more complex. The pool of variety is vast and never ending. The field of puzzles is an even bigger pool. The known puzzles to the general public are riddles, etc. But in a competition, a dynamic solve path is required rather than hit/ miss answers. So, the Indian and World Championships are made up mostly of grid based logical puzzles, pencil puzzles. A broad categorization would be – Number entry puzzles – Like Kakuro or Sudoku, some constraints will be given based on which numbers/letters must be entered into the grid. Shading/Connectivity puzzles – These ask the solver to construct a continuous wall of shaded cells depending on certain constraints. Loop puzzles – Draw loops based on constraints. Fence is an example. Placement Puzzles – Placing shapes or objects in the grid depending on constraints.
Word Puzzles – Innovative forms of the well-known crossword/scrabble games, but without requirement of general knowledge and focusing more on placement and interaction of letters of words logically. Constraint Puzzles – These ask whether a cell is true or false based on certain constraints and a solution is reached based on this. Hitori is an example. This doesn’t cover all varieties, and new varieties get introduced regularly. The key is to start with basic types, and over time, adaptability to new types improves. Q. Can professional puzzling be seen as a career option. Prasanna: As of now, this is still a very new genre. So, as a competitor, it is unlikely to make a profit. You would need to qualify for sponsorship through the Times Sudoku Championship, and at the same time get into the World top 10 in the online Grand Prix to have a chance of a profit. Or, travel to tournaments held in Thailand/China and secure 1st or 2nd place, knowing at least 2 of the world’s best solvers attend these. I do not mean to be discouraging, competing is fun in itself. Competitions are generally online and free for everyone. So there is an abundance of puzzle/Sudoku contests to expand the enjoyment. As a puzzle author, it is more likely to make an earning. I am a main contributor at GM Puzzles of USA. It also encourages guest contributors. But one needs to know what makes a quality puzzle. My puzzle section here should give an idea. An attractive visual theme and a good logical solve are a must. Puzzles having multiple solutions/no solution/no logical paths (guesswork) are all discouraged. Any aspiring author should first start their blog, sees how the puzzle community receives their puzzles, hone their craft, and then look at earning. So as of now, any form of earning in this area can only happen if you become one of the world’s best at it. It is doable however. I’m not the only example. Indians like Swaroop Guggilam and Ashish Kumar have begun creating puzzles recently and have already reached the quality level to have their puzzles published on Logic Masters India and GM Puzzles. I’m always available for guidance, and have my own mail-chains and such with many eager Sudoku/Puzzle enthusiasts. It is a growing field though, so maybe soon it’ll be possible for competitors and authors to earn through projects within India too. ----------------------------------------------------------------
The Story of (a New) Beginning…
Mensa Pune Reboot:
COVER STORY: PUZZLES
Q&A WITH PRASANNA SESHADRI
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Once upon a time in Mensa-Land…
Well, this is the way all stories start, and this is the way this one started as well.
It was the 23rd of May, just another Saturday morning. And while this year’s summer has been treating us with its ‘specialty-of-the-house’ extra-hot sun, the day was a bit more pleasant than usual.
Flashback: A few days ago, the Puneri postmen (yeah, they still exist) had delivered blue inland letters. The letters were invitations to an event. The occasion: Pune Mensa meet!
The unsuspecting recipients were probably bemused but definitely excited. (The OMG moment!) A torrent of thoughts must have flowed through the minds of the Mensans:
‘What is the meeting about?’
‘Why did I get a letter all of a sudden?’
‘Will I meet someone I know?’
‘Will this article become cheesier as it progresses?’
All these questions were answered, when we reached the venue.
Here ends the sepia-mode-flashback movie: The meeting began at 10 O’ clock. The President of Mensa Pune, briefed the gathering regarding the activities of the rural initiatives that Mensa Pune (or more specifically, the Tribal Mensa Program) has been involved in, till now. She explained the need to form another branch of Pune chapter which will be parallel to the tribal branch, but focus on urban activities, and involve the dormant Pune members. (In short, the meet was basically intended to be a wake-up call for sleepy heads like us.)
Around 30 Mensans and a few enthusiastic parents actively participated in the round table conference (or was the table rectangular?).This meeting was a platform for people with different views and ideas on how to take Mensa Pune forward. During the discussion, it was found that there was a lot of interest and potential to form varied interest groups (SIGs).
A book club and a DIY club (tinkerers’ club) were immediately formed. An email id and a mailing list were created, to share content within each group.
3 hours… ....the time the others would prefer spending in watching a movie, munching on salted popcorn...but here were 30
random Mensan minds (with their bodies), sitting at CCD Nal-stop, wondering what to say to each other. After an ice-breaker, conversations flowed with greater ease. Soon everyone sitting at that table talked freely like old school friends meeting at a re-union. Coffee and a deep conversation does get people to bond well.
The Book Club A majority of the assembly was interested in (or planning to start) reading. So, ‘Book-Club’ was the first SIG to be formed.
After a long discussion, the group, considerably well read, discussed about a variety of books and authors from the Classics like ‘Wuthering Heights’, to the newer ones like ‘Fault In Our Stars’; from the complicated ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ and ‘Alchemist’ to the childhood favourites like ‘Nancy Drew’ and ‘Agatha Christie’; and the list goes on. (Well, you can’t keep listing all books and their authors; it would eat up all the space!) The topics of the SIG will cover most of the genres of literature, taking into account the varied age groups in the club. The book club has decided to pay homage to a famous author who recently passed away - Sir Terry Pratchett - by starting with one of his novels.
The discussion led to a realisation that there were a lot more things in common apart from books.
The DIY Group Across the table sat another group…‘Intel Inside’ or the do-it-yourself group. This group was created by the creative minds. DIY is a way of keeping the brain active—with that motto, the group came up with ideas to work in areas like Programming/ Coding, Science prototypes, Robotics, Electronic circuits, Origami, Science of human bodies, Everyday problems, Learning a new language, etc. The first chosen topic was programming/ coding.
The meeting ended on a very positive note, as most of the attendees seemed content to meet individuals with similar interest. Both the groups would meet at a regular basis (at a new venue—after all, variety is the spice of life!) We expect future meetings to be attended by more members and hope to see a very active Pune body of Mensa, one of the prestigious, largest and oldest High IQ societies in the world.
And as they say: This was not the end, but a start… Till we meet again…
~Mihir Golwalkar, Sayali Shirsath
MENSA PUNE REBOOT
The Story of a (New) Beginning
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The Mensa Delhi meeting on 28th June 2015 started with introductions of all Mensans present.
Expansion: of the meeting, and of Mensa India After the ice-breaker, the discussion moved to the expansion of Mensa in India.
Creating new chapters under the supervision of existing Mensans and guidance of Mr. Kishore Asthana was a key point in this aspect. Mr. Marx bought up the point that regions like the North East do not have any Mensa Chapter. And effectively, such regions are almost left out of benefitting from and contributing to organizations like Mensa. Hence opening up a chapter of Mensa in the North East would be a great start to connect with more people from the region and see where Mensa India can contribute in its way to the region.
Gifted Children and the Dhruv Program: The next topic was about conducting tests in government schools and counselling the gifted children on career opportunities. Stress was on proper guidance of these gifted children so they can reach their desired goal.
To take the Gifted Child Program further, suggestion was made by one member to conduct tests in private schools. The funds so raised can be then used for resources for career counselling of gifted children from humble backgrounds.
A question that left everyone thinking was how to spread awareness about Mensa in a country where people join societies only to enhance their résumés.
AGM: The annual general meeting (AGM) of Mensa India for the year 2015 is to be hosted by the Delhi Chapter on 19th and 20th September, 2015. The agenda and the events to be organized during the AGM were deliberated upon. Inviting guest speakers, having panel discussions, President's meet and Fun activities to be held during the AGM were decided upon.
With this, the meeting was concluded and everyone moved for lunch.
~ Shreya Gupta
MENSA DELHI MEETING
Chapter Meeting.
Mensa Delhi Group Picture at the Meeting
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This famous tagline from Google’s Project Loon is creating quite a buzz these days. Kudos to Google X for taking up a project that aims to bring "balloon-powered Internet" to isolated areas of the world, once again proving that Google is way more than just a search engine or a mobile device company.
“Balloon powered…what?” The project aims at deploying balloons that float in the stratosphere, twice as high as airplanes and the weather; carried around the earth by winds, they can be steered by rising or descending to an altitude with winds moving in the desired directions. By using special antennas attached to the buildings people will connect to the balloon network. The signal will bounce from balloon to balloon, then to the global internet back on the earth
Need for this project? Google’s done an amazing job by summarizing the idea behind this project in this small video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m96tYpEk1Ao "Many of us think of the Internet as a global community. But two-thirds of the world's population does not yet have Internet access," Google said. "Project Loon is a network of balloons traveling on the edge of space, designed to connect people in rural and remote areas, help fill coverage gaps, and bring people back online after disasters." Project Loon began with a pilot test in June 2013, when thirty balloons were launched from New Zealand’s South Island and beamed Internet to a small group of pilot testers. The pilot test has since expanded to include a greater number of people over a wider area. Looking ahead, Project Loon will continue to expand the pilot, with the goal of establishing a ring of uninterrupted connectivity at latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, so
that pilot testers in these latitudes can receive continuous service via balloon-powered Internet. https://youtu.be/LNCFc00oejE Charles, a Project Loon pilot tester, connects to balloon-powered Internet for the first time. Obstacles to “Loon” May be one of Google’s famed moon shots, project loon faces it’s biggest issues that are grounded here on the earth. Not just a major technical feat for Google but also a huge political undertaking; to be a success it’s going to have to take a deep dive into international relations, one which isn’t going to be so easy. This is so because Loon is no ordinary network, Google aims at building a network that knows no borders. Not only aimed at implementing in every country with underserved internet population, but coasting from continent to continent basically making it a service provider above the clouds
What's In It for Google? "The company would need the cooperation of governments which control the airspace above their countries," Sterling said. "And given the recent NSA revelations, some countries might be suspicious that this would subject their citizens to U.S. surveillance. However, longer term that's probably not an issue." Sterling noted that Project Loon is also an example of how Google, more than most of its corporate peers, aspires to solve big problems on a global scale. Of course, the more Internet access, the more people can access Google services. "One question I would have is how to keep the balloons aloft at the requisite altitudes and avoid aircraft collisions," Sterling said, "but it appears they've solved that problem." So, waiting for the loon network to go up?... me too! ~ Shreya Gupta
TECH-TALK
Loon for All
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/gordonkelly/files/2015/02/930425-140103-b-google-loon.jpg
Source: http://androidspin.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Project-Loon.jpg
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It began on the Mensa Mumbai Whatsapp group... Someone shared a terribly tiny tale in one line... that seemed to have the depth of a meaningful story. And then, the Mensan minds began to churn out their own versions of such “Mini Sagas”.
Some of these Mini Sagas are shared here... hope the readers get inspired to write many more!
--------------------------------Mini Sagas----------------------------
‘For the first time in his life, he did not beam when he was told he had a big heart. For this time, this remark was delivered by a grim faced cardiologist.’ ~ Manisha Mehta ‘He says life rocks. With tears as he looks at his erstwhile home in kathmandu.’ ~ Nishaki ‘He cane, he saw, and then there were three of them.’ ~ Krishna N.V.
‘She announced she was pregnant on their anniversary. Little did she notice, the ashtray disappeared that day on.’ ~ Dr. Rachita Narsaria ‘I thought she was my blue- blooded sunshine. I got royally tanned.’ ~ Nirav Sanghavi ‘The wind blew me along the direction I was walking in. As we turned the corner, I realised I was walking the wrong way.’ ~ Bela Raja ‘He felt his breath leave his body as the last light flickered out. There was not a soul around... to lend him a charger.’ ~ Nirupama ‘Parallel lines have so much in common. It's a shame they never meet.’ ~ Zubin Shah
’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ In other words, love is a dominant strategy.
~ (Avinash Dixit, Thinking Strategically)
If Raunak was Dorothy Boyd and his audience was Jerry Maguire, he definitely had them at ‘Hammer’. With his good looks, charming smile, and disarming diction—more Russel Crowe than John Nash—Raunak began by quoting Charlie Munger (who in turn was quoting Abraham Maslow): ‘To a man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.’ Now when this ‘hammer’ is our one-dimensional view of the world, it certainly is a problem.
Starting from that premise, Raunak carried the audience through the idea of mental models: toolkits that we employ to navigate the obstacle course called ‘life’. Mental models are basically ways of thinking—or thought processes—that we use when confronted with any situation or event in life. Building good, useful mental
models gives us the ability to look at things from multiple perspectives; and find better ways of solving problems, or managing social interactions. For an interesting example, watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0
Raunak then explained the problems with economics designed for Mr. Spock, and how Homer Simpson rescued us from the pitfalls of the ‘rational human being’.
There are element of irrationality such as altruism and non-quantifiable selfishness, such as egotistic desires at the cost of material loss, which sully the black-and-white, mathematical nature of pure game theory. But modelling real world problems requires that we account for this irrationality while designing possible outcomes.
Game theory finds application in telecom auctions, war strategies, gambling—but Raunak explained more practical uses of the concept including negotiating with the mob; and carrying out a bank heist, among others.
MENSA MUMBAI – MINI SAGAS
One-Line tales
GAMES PEOPLE PLAY
Game theory - With Raunak Onkar
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(watch one example here: https://youtu.be/JYSI4BXG00c).
An example of game theory playing out in the real world was the standoff between the EU and Greece. Here’s a simple ultimatum game: I have Rs. 500 and we have to split it between us in a fair manner. I will make you an offer to take a part of that Rs. 500.If you say yes to the split, we both walk away with our share.If you say no to the split, both of us lose.
When Greece said ‘No’ to the lenders’ plans to impose austerity, were they bluffing or were they really expecting to step out of the EU and destroy their own economy? If Humans were really rational, would they allow Greece to be in this situation? But at the same time, Humans want rewards and avoid punishment. And the Greek people surely want the same thing—the reward of more money until they get their act together, and to avoid the punishment of living in austerity.Clearly in this case, the relative importance of the cost and reward are different for Greece, the borrower,and IMF & the EU, the lenders. They are still bickering over what is the right thing to do here. Greece is really pushing its luck and so are its leaders.
Raunak then ventured into the hazardous confines of the Mumbai local. He explained how coordination and cooperation were the means to survival in the game-theory-settings dished up unwittingly by a Mumbai populace. Finally reflecting on the unhealthy social trend of looking at life as a zero-sum game: where each individual believes that his success has to come at the cost of another’s failure; Raunak signed off with this thought: ‘The more we look at life like a win-win game than a win-lose game, we create a better society.’
The audience eagerly lapped up on this foundation lecture of game theory. The idea of following this up with a discussion forum on the subject was mooted by them. So watch out for that announcement soon!
~Krishna N Venkitaraman
….Continuing with the discussion between Curious Manager (CM), who is an HR professional and PK – The Guide – Puneet Khurana. From the previous issue…
CM: Is there a better way of providing incentives? So much research goes into studying and improving the system of providing incentives in the top universities, there must be something better in place.
How do Buffett or Munger take care of this? Can you give me some examples?
PK: You are absolutely right There are better methods Just that they are uncomfortable for managements to implement. But there is surely an answer to this.
Buffett has given the compensation structures for some of the subsidiary companies in his letters. The key is that there cannot be ‘one-fit-all’ solution to an optimum incentive system.
In fact, in his 1996 letter to shareholders, Buffett explained Berkshire Hathaway’s incentive compensation
Raunak practicing the shunya-sum game
GAMES PEOPLE PLAY
Game theory - With Raunak Onkar
INVESTING:
INCENTIVE CAUSED BIASES... Continued...
10
principles which beautifully capture the essence of incentive creation
Goals should be
(1) Tailored to the economics of the specific operating business;
(2) Simple in character so that the degree to which they are being realized can be easily measured; and
(3) Directly related to the daily activities of plan participants.
As a corollary, we shun “lottery ticket” arrangements, such as options on Berkshire shares, whose ultimate value – which could range from zero to huge – is totally out of the control of the person whose behavior we would like to affect.
In our view, a system that produces quixotic payoffs will not only be wasteful for owners but may actually discourage the focused behavior we value in managers.
So it’s important to study the business and understand what the key value drivers for the business are. And then the alignment of the incentives has to be done accordingly.
For example, the problem with linking incentives to the profitability is that it doesn’t take in account total capital cost but only debt cost of capital. But if while calculating the profits for incentives purpose we deduct a charge for the cost of equity capital too and hence the equity capital is not considered free, we can fix that issue.
This is exactly what HH Brown (a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway) does. And this keeps the incentives intact.
Another efficient way Buffett describes is to bind incentives with the company’s value drivers like what Berkshire has done with GEICO.
The incentives are aligned to two key variables
(1) Growth in voluntary auto policies, and
(2) Under-writing profitability on “seasoned” auto business (meaning policies that have been on the books for more than one year).
CM: Hmm…that’s interesting. It’s a very different and effective way of looking at incentive structures.
Now, I have doubt - inspired by the mathematician Jacobi who said, “Invert, always invert”. We, so far, discussed how we can use incentives to get the desired
actions. But what about the actions we want to discourage?
PK: Good one… a big problem with most incentive structures is that they encourage good behaviour but there are very few that discourage the bad ones.
NassimTaleb calls them “dis-incentives”.
He made a very interesting and strong case for using incentives and dis-incentives as a better risk management tool than the existing statistical methods like VaR (value at risk). He gives an interesting example of the implementation of what was called Hammurabi’s code.
Romans used this to create disincentives for the engineers to avoid cutting corners and cheat while construction of the bridge. The idea was simple - the engineer who builds the bridge was made to spend a few nights under the bridge. Simple and powerful!
This simple lesson has been ignored in the usual compensation structures in 21st century and the results have been disastrous. The mortgage crisis is a very recent and vivid example of what happens when the incentives are skewed and are asymmetrical. The losses are mostly socialized.
Hence, these disincentives/ negative incentives/ punishments are extremely important to be incorporated in the incentive structures. And don’t forget what we discussed in the previous article on Availability Bias – the more vivid the thing, the more available it is to our minds.
George Washington used this vividness to make the negative incentives stronger. He used to hang farm-boy deserters forty feet high as an example to others who might contemplate desertion.
But here is a very important point in the speech. It’s not only important to have symmetrical incentives, but it’s most crucial to NOT have incentives to cheat.
It’s better to miss rewarding a desirable behaviour than to produce an incentive system which promotes cheating. Because bad behaviour once rewarded, is habit forming. And human beings have the tendency to game the system for their benefit.
Concluding part in the next issue...
... introduction of ‘dread’ in the incentive system....
~Puneet Khurana
Book: Dibs in search of self
INVESTING:
INCENTIVE CAUSED BIASES... Continued...
11
Author: Virginia Axline Once in a while you come across a book that you fall in love with. You find yourself becoming a part of the character’s life, wanting what he wants, crying out when you feel his pain and rejoicing every time he discovers a new side to himself. It’s amazing how Dibs isn’t even half my age and I can still relate to him so much.
It has always bothered me when it comes to those research methodology books which continuously debate over empirical data and case studies. Of course the most preferred one is empirical studies, with huge sample sizes which are subject to rigorous statistical analysis and hence have a higher reliability and validity while a case study is deemed as just one isolated event. This book should be shoved right into the faces of those who do not believe case studies are important, because if you read this book you realize why sometimes a story of one child is all that is needed to gain a better perspective.
Barely 6 years old and rejected even before he was born, Dibs comes across as a highly withdrawn child. Believed to be mentally retarded,a great disappointment and epitome of shame to his parents, you are introduced to him at a point in life where everyone has given up on him. His last shot at hope is a play therapist who has been given the rights to study him and use those videos for research purposes.
What is interesting here is to see how mere reinstatements of the child’s words is the only real form of conversation the therapist has with him. There is no nudging, no extra questions, no pushing to achieve, absolutely no attack on him to come out of his shell (which is why I believe he does come out of his shell). It also helps that he has an environment where he could choose whatever it is that he wants to do.
Given that the room has a whole range of material including sand, figurines, clay, crayons, paper, paints, brushes, doll houses etc., it isn’t a surprise that the child is able to project his feelings, role play them, vent out his emotions through play without having to worry about consequences.
What we learn over here is clearly how play therapy works, where the therapist is merely the facilitator who provides the right Carl Rogerian conditions (unconditional positive regard, empathy, and congruency). Along with this, the child has a whole range of toys to choose from. Variety obviously helps as we
don’t want his expression to be limited because of lack of availability of particular toys.
The other important lesson you learn over here is that of neglect. Indeed anyone who still has the nature vs. nurture question may want to reconsider their stance. When you read this book, you see both nature and nurture in extremes and yet see the result of their interaction. Born to two high functioning individuals, he is definitely high functioning himself, but the nature of his rejection is so high, that you see him withdraw completely from his environment. So while he is absorbing everything he hears, sees and reads (he learnt how to read pretty soon), he also stubbornly refuses to interact with those around him, as a punishment, out of fear and a whole range of emotions that I worry a child his age shouldn’t be experiencing.
Apart from the above, the biggest lessons you get from the book is understanding how you should be addressing the child as a whole, not just his intellectual needs but also his emotional, behavioural and social needs and that a lag in one area would hold him back. We, as teachers are often too caught up in academic work, to stop, pause and consider how the child feels. One amazing activity done by a third grade teacher illustrates this point. She asks her students one simple question ‘What do you wish your teacher knew?’ And here’s what she finds
http://www.boredpanda.com/student-notes-i-wish-my-teacher-knew-social-problems-kyle-schwartz/
The end is worth as much as the rest of the book. You read an open letter Dibs wrote when he grows up… one that his therapist chances upon accidently. He talks about how he protests against the suspension of his friend caught cheating. Now your first impulse to cheating is obviously that of it being wrong, unethical and unfair and hence suspension being the next logical step. Dibs argument of course changes your viewpoint. I won’t tell you his exact views on it because I rather you read the book and then his thoughts when he is older, to see the full extent of growth that this child has experienced.
All in all, this book teaches you to address the child as whole, highlights the importance of nurturing a child, introduces you to play therapy, makes you recall how awesome Carl Rogers is, all while you join character in his journey as he deals his demons, makes peace with his past and grows into a happy person that he deserved to be.
~Krishna Vora
BOOK REVIEW
Dibs in Search of Self
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About Extra Region Sudoku: One of the most basic ways to bring a variation in Sudoku rules is to form different kinds of regions spanning 9 cells which also contain 1-9. Diagonal Sudoku has 1-9 on the diagonals. Irregular Sudoku has different kinds of regions instead of the normal 3x3 ones. But what about when you want the normal 3x3 boxes AND some regions which aren’t just restricted to diagonals, but are free-flowing? These thoughts made Extra Region Sudoku a popular idea. There are many different kinds of regions that can be drawn over 9 cells, leading to many varying deductions
The Extra Region Sudoku Puzzle: Place the digits 1 through 9 into the empty cells in the grid so that each digit appears exactly once in each of the rows, columns, and bold outlined 3X3 boxes.Some groups of cells are shaded. These groups must also contain 1-9 with no digit repeating within a connected group.
Theme: Four-region symmetry, Even diamond of givens.
Tips: : This is one of the variants where the solver always needs to adapt to the layout presented. The basic logic is, for any extra region, if it has some cells within one 3x3 box, then all its cells outside that 3x3 box will contain the same set of digits as the part within that 3x3 box that the extra region doesn’t cover. In the solved example, the five white cells in the top left box contain the same set of digits as the five shaded cells from Row 2, Column 4 to Row 4, Column 2. Obviously, as the extra regions change, so do the set of cells that are equivalent. This is known as the In-Out rule or Law of Leftovers.
Note about Logical Pencil Puzzles in general: These are puzzles which have a step-by-step procedural and logical path. No guesswork is required, and there is no need to force a solution in the entire puzzle immediately. Each clue will come into perspective gradually, and using them a little at a time and spotting where the next step is, is part of the challenge and generally increases the feeling of satisfaction when they puzzle is solved. It is advisable to solve with a pencil and not a pen, so that erasing and backtracking is possible in case of an error.Also, these puzzles can generally have pleasant and artistic visual themes to them. They add a human touch making each puzzle unique in its value.
~Prasanna Seshadri
Solved Example:
Solution:
Solution to the April Puzzle of the Month: ARROW SUDOKU
Note: The solutions to the ‘Puzzle of the Month’ will be published in the next issue.
For more puzzles and Sudokus like this and to know more about the Indian National Championships, you can visit the Indian website for all puzzle matters, Logic Masters India – logicmastersindia.com
THE PUZZLE PAGE:
ARROW SUDOKU
THE PUZZLE PAGE:
Extra Region Sudoku
Following pages are from the Mensa World Journal
may 2015 issue #027
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Also inside... unlocking music across the species p2
how brain waves guide memory formation p6
take a nap - it’s good for your health p7
lucid dreams and metacognition p8
sobering effects of the love hormone p9
can synesthesia be taught? p10
supplementally... puzzles
From the Executive Committee p3
SIGHT:
New Zealand p5(l-r me, Therese Moodie-Bloom, Director of Administration, and Sue Greatbanks, Acting Chairman Mensa NZ after a delicious lunch at a vineyard near Napier)
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from the editor,
The 2015 Asian Mensa Gathering (AMG) is from August 28-30 at the JW Marriott Hotel in Seoul, Sth Korea. I can’t get there this year, but if it’s anywhere nearly as enjoyable as the event in Japan last year, it’s well worth booking in for. Have a look at their website http://amg.mensakorea.org for more informa-tion. The Director, Smaller National Mensas, Lars Endre Kjølstad, talks strategy on p3 and you’ll be pleased to see your puzzles from Therese back on p12. Other articles include Sobering Effects of the Love Hormone on p9, and (I like this one!) Take a Nap - It’s Good for You on p7. Thank you for sending your sug-gestions for MWJ content. I’d still like to see articles (500-600 words) from you - anything that you think would be interesting to Mensans in general - and also your own poetry and news of personal achievements. With warm regards,
02
An international re-search team lead by Marisa Hoeschele from the University of Vi-enna argue that only by combining examina-tion of species’ natural behaviour and artifi-cially testing species for their potentials the animal foundations for our musical faculty can be discovered.
Animal research could be the key to unlocking what features of human mu-sic are cultural phenomena, and what features are rooted in our biology. Different human cultural groups developed unique musical systems independently across human history. Despite the uniqueness of each musical system, there are many aspects of music, such as the type of intervals between notes that sound pleasing, that tend to have clear parallels across cultures. It seems very likely, that if all humans develop musical systems, and they also have clear parallels, that music is a biological phenomenon of the human species. Interestingly, just like there are cross-cultural parallels across musical systems, there are also cross-species parallels of song production andper-ception. For example, think of the songbirds that are named for having song-like vocalizations. Songbirds also
learn how to produce their vocaliza-tions, a prerequisite to learning new songs, which is a relatively uncommon ability in the animal kingdom, and some can learn to produce additional vocalizations over their lifetime. Parrots also have this ability, and have recently also been shown to be able to identify a beat and move to it. Clearly, some animals appear to have biological adaptations that are quite similar to ours, but do these naturalistic parallels mean that animals can be musical? We already know that at least some animals can categorize music by composer and/or genre much like humans do. The little work that is out there in this quickly-growing field suggests that there are not only many parallels in abilities that are relevant for music, but many animals can perceive the components of music the way we do, and at least some also enjoy similar aspects of sounds that we enjoy. “Our review outlines what we know in the field and where the field needs to go in order to ultimately be able to answer the question of the origins of the human musical capacity,” says Hoeschele.
sciencedaily.com
Unlocking music across the species
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03
from the Executive Committee...
Nearly one year ago I proposed a forward-looking view on Strat-egy, thinking aloud on how to write, phrase and formulate the Strategy Document for the ben-efit of its yet-to-come execution. So, here’s the good news about the Advisory Strategy Committee, headed by Heather Poirier (US Mensa) since October 2014. The Committee has been developing the Strategy Docu-ment, and is moving towards proposing targets and ambitions to the strategy itself. The point in time, where I in the previous article asserted that the rest was easy, may now soon commence! But considering that Strategy is of little importance without objectives, I shall try to point out the ‘wheres and whys’.
Ambitions; have them!Objectives must be proposed and then decided. Are we aiming at maintain-ing the status quo or are we aiming at 1,000,000 members by a certain date? In the first case, a “keep calm and carry on” strategy is of no particular use. Of much more importance lies implicit in the one-million-goal (OMG!) and similar lofty ambitions regarding “intelligence for human kind”, if that too is going to improve substantially by such objective measures. It is essen-tial that we (Mensa) break down the objectives and constantly review them. They will collectively form part of one complex decision backdrop, compet-ing for funds and focus, so keep to the language of numbers!
Objectives! Funds! Time!Forget what we are, for a moment.Take some care not to taint the objective-setting with past operational performance. That Mensa International has not grown past 150,000 in 69 years, does not mean that it can’t grow past one million in the next ten. The link between descriptive and norma-tive strategies is weak, at best – and we need the normative more. Then adding the ambition and objectives to the normative targets, and knowing current performance in order to measure the gap, we have every-thing we need. We have the necessary ingredients for executing a plan and knowing how it goes. We even have the time-dimension, making it possible to measure not only where we should go, but also how much distance is left and even its derivative; the speed by which we are getting there.
Operationalize - and do not look back!Enter the ExComm and the Mensa International office, plus other available resources. How much of that growth target is up to Slovenia, USA and Russia? How much of that benefit-for-human-kind-target is up to National Mensas, Mensa International, MERF or new projects? Can we fund it? How shall we fund it? What is the gap between the current 0.1-ish percent of total global revenue designated to Mensa International development, and what we need? Every ‘gap’ will need a financial plan, but there is no rule say-ing that a not-for-profit organisation should stay poor. The purposes beg to differ!
Act on deviations from targetsAny failure to meet an already-planned target within the acceptance criteria should automatically require corrective actions. Failures should require auto-matic responses, rerouting of resources or any other mandate the executors have for getting the movement back on track. No revision of targets! Here is perhaps the biggest difference between a professional business with stakes and responsibilities, compared to a volun-teer-driven organization only answer-ing to itself: if the current structure keeps underperforming, you need to change it, not redefine the purpose or the targets. Learning from those with real risks, the biggest mistake we often make is to let the current structure lessen our ambitions, so we should free our minds of such a limitation and just keep managing the change. That may bode well for an interest-ing Future Mensa! It all starts with ambition.
Let’s have some!Lars Endre Kjølstad
Director, Smaller National [email protected]
Strategy... again!Lars Endre Kjølstad
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VALEOur dearest Antonio Casao Ibáñez passed away suddenly on February 17, 2015 in Zaragoza, his home town.
He was the founder and chairman when Mensa España started more than thirty years ago, and he nurtured our Spanish chapter wisely from its very beginning. It is really easy to explain in one word what sort of person he was; he was a gentleman, always caring for Mensa and any member in need of advice. Antonio was a renowned economist and professor, a great speaker, and a loving husband, father, Mensan and friend. It is difficult to find someone who has so many virtues as a human being.
We will miss him so much. Rest in Peace, dear friend.
Queen Letizia of Spain greets Mensa Spain’s first Chair-man, Antonio Casao Ibáñez, and current Chairman, Elena Sanz, at a reception in 2014.
MENSA PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITIONIntercontinental Project Convergence “IPC”
The Search for the International Mensa Photographer of the Year 2015
This year’s theme is UrgencyEntries close on July 31, 2015
Any general enquiries about the international competition should be directed to the Photo Convergence committee at [email protected]
International Elections 2015Your vote counts!
Closing date: May 15
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Here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth (so to speak). SIGHT is alive and flour-ishing - and absolutely amazing in New Zealand!
I’m just back from a family cruise from Sydney to NZ with day-long stops in seven ports along the east coast. A week before we left, my sister Therese (Moodie-Bloom) emailed the Acting Chair of NZ, Sue Greatbanks, to ask for a calendar of events just in case we happened to be in the right place at the right time to meet some NZ Mensans. To our great surprise and delight there was a flurry of emails, and before we set sail, it had been arranged by the acting SIGHT officer, Dr Aloma Parker, that we would be met in five - yes, five - of those ports by Mensans happy to show us around their towns! First stop was the Bay of Islands, a beautiful bay containing 144 is-lands, which is often referred to as the “birthplace of New Zealand”. We were met by Talia Mana who took us to a wonderful restaurant on the waterfront for lunch and then a mosey through the local markets. A lovely, relaxed couple of hours... In Auckland our hosts were Amanda Milne, a former Chairman of Mensa NZ and Games Designer and Publisher (SchilMil Games), and
David Wright. They whisked us off to Mt Eden where we had a panoramic view of the city and where we were joined by Vanessa Cozens. Then we visited the War Memorial Museum in the Domain - thank you Judy, our personal tour guide! - then drove along the waterfront to St Heliers for a delicious lunch. We finished the day with some wicked choco-late petits fours at Amanda’s home before she dropped us back dockside. Aloma Parker, Acting SIGHT Of-ficer, National Supervisory Psycholo-gist, an organiser of the first testing session in NZ in 1965 and a founding member, met us at Tauranga and took us to the ‘non-Disneyland’ Rotorua - a region of hot springs and bubbling mud pools, rich in Maori history and tradition. Thank you, Aloma - your knowledge of the area and of the Maori who live there was invaluable. In Napier, Acting Chairman Sue Greatbanks and her husband Jim treated us to a drive around Napier - a beautiful city, with a unique concentra-tion of 1930s Art Deco architecture. Lunch (gourmet plus!) was at nearby Craggy Range vineyard (one of many
vineyards in the area). This was very close to where the tectonic Pacific and Australian plates meet and overlap, forming a strange landscape. On the way back to the ship, we called in at their home where Sue gave us one of her bookmark calendars - each month becomes a bookmark when the month
is finished - which are made from her excellent photos of the area. The next day (Heavens - this makes five days in a row that we’ve been met and feted by NZ Mensans!), we had lunch with Jacek Cywinski
at an Italian restau-rant in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. Jacek suggested a walk to the water’s edge where we meandered through the Art Gallery and the won-derful National Museum. We can’t thank Mensa New Zea-land enough for their hospitality and friendliness; each of our hosts not only gave us a day of their valuable time, but went to no end of trouble planning for us to see a New Zealand that tourists usually never see. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
For enquiries re International SIGHT, contact Pierpaolo Vittoria, International SIGHT Coordina-tor: [email protected]
International SIGHT:New Zealand by Kate Nacard
l-r: me, Therese and Sue at the vineyard
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have been merely a series of coinci-dences. He comes to realise that the events of recent years have all been planned by a secret society who need to unleash the real him - A Genius Mind - in order to work out a long-planned mission. The book is available on Amazon and Createspace as well as many other retail distributors and can be shipped to any address. The Discount code for Mensa members is P2GK-9PGC. Have a look at Jeekeshen’s website for more information: www.jeekeshenchinnappen.com or on www.facebook.com/jeekeshen.chin-nappen
Kate Nacard
Direct International Member from Mauritius, Jeekeshen Chinnap-pen has had a second book, Psychic Gang:The Men of knowledge, pub-lished. Available across the globe and shipped to any country and any address, Jeekeshen offers a 50% dis-count to Mensa buyers! It’s a unique novel whereby char-acters makes use of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and other self-help tools which can actually be used by readers. The plot revolves around a Harvard Financial Analyst who has lost everything in his life - his career, his string of companies, his wife and his son. With the help of a female entrepreneur, he begins to get his life back together, only to realise that all that had happened could not
“What if all the choices in your life, were not really yours?” “What if everything was planned by someone else?”
books...
How brain waves guide memory formationOur brains generate a constant hum of activity; as neurons fire, they produce brain waves that oscillate at different frequencies. Long thought to be merely a byproduct of neuron activity, recent studies suggest that these waves may play a critical role in communication between different parts of the brain.
A new study from MIT neuroscientists adds to that evidence. The researchers found that two brain regions that are key to learning - the hippocampus and
the prefrontal cortex - use two different brain-wave frequencies to commu-nicate as the brain learns to associate unrelated objects. Whenever the brain correctly links the objects, the waves oscillate at a higher frequency, called “beta,” and when the guess is incorrect, the waves oscillate at a lower “theta” frequency. “It’s like you’re playing a computer game and you get a ding when you get it right, and a buzz when you get it wrong. These two areas of the brain are playing two different ‘notes’ for correct
guesses and wrong guesses,” says Earl Miller, the Picower Professor of Neu-roscience, a member of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and senior author of a paper describing the findings in the Feb. 23 online edi-tion of Nature Neuroscience. Furthermore, these oscillations may reinforce the correct guesses while re-pressing the incorrect guesses, helping the brain learn new information, the researchers say.
continued on p10
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Lack of sleep is recognized as a public health problem. Insufficient sleep can contribute to reduced productivity as well as vehicle and industrial accidents, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition, people who sleep too little are more likely to develop chronic diseases such as obesity, dia-betes, high blood pressure and depression. Nearly three in 10 adults reported they slept an average of six hours or less a night, ac-cording to the National Health Interview Survey. “Our data suggests a 30-minute nap can reverse the hormonal impact of a night of poor sleep,” said one of the JCEM study’s authors, Brice Faraut, PhD, of the Université Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Paris Cité in Paris, France. “This is the first study that found napping could restore biomarkers of neuroendocrine and im-mune health to normal levels.” The researchers used a cross-over, randomized study design to examine the relationship between hormones and sleep in a group of 11 healthy men be-tween the ages of 25 and 32. The men underwent two sessions of sleep testing
in a laboratory, where meals and light-ing were strictly controlled.During one session, the men were limited to two hours of sleep for one night. For the other session, subjects were able to take two, 30-minute naps the day after their sleep was restricted to two hours. Each
of the three-day sessions began with a night where subjects spent eight hours in bed and concluded with a recovery night of unlimited sleep. Researchers analyzed the partici-pants’ urine and saliva to determine how restricted sleep and napping altered hormone levels. After a night of limited sleep, the men had a 2.5-fold increase in levels of norepinephrine, a hormone and neurotransmitter involved in the body’s fight-or-flight
response to stress. Norepinephrine increases the body’s heart rate, blood pressure and blood sugar. Researchers found no change in norepinephrine levels when the men had napped fol-lowing a night of limited sleep. Lack of sleep also affected the levels
of interleukin-6, a protein with antiviral properties, found in the subjects’ saliva. The levels dropped after a night of restricted sleep, but remained normal when the subjects were allowed to nap. The changes suggest naps can be beneficial for the immune system. “Napping may offer a way to counter the damaging effects of sleep restriction by helping the immune and neuroedocrine sys-tems to recover,” Faraut said. “The findings support the development
of practical strategies for addressing chronically sleep-deprived populations, such as night and shift workers.”
(Other authors of the study include: Samir Nakib, Catherine Drogou, Maxime Elbaz, Fabien Sauvet, Jean-Pascal De Bandt and Damien Léger of the Univer-sité Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Paris Cité.)
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-02/tes-nrh020615.php
take a nap - it’s good for your health!A short nap can help relieve stress and bolster the immune systems of men who slept only two hours the previous night, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocri-nology & Metabolism ( JCEM).
june 2015 issue #029
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Project Dhruv p4
Test in a Park for a roadside school run by the NGO, Guru Nanak Sewa Trust in Gurgaon.
from the Chairman... p3 LEAP 2015 - meet our new ambassadors on p6 looking for happiness in all the wrong places p2 why good solutions make us oblivious to better ones p5 is a wandering mind a good thing? p8 new research into determining quality of sleep p10 the more you sweat, the better you smell... p11 supplementally... p9 therese’s brain teasers p12
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from the editor,
At the time of writing, the results of the Internation-al Elections aren’t in, but whatever the outcome, I’m sure we can all rest assured that Mensa will be in good hands for the next couple of years. ExComm’s message today on p3 is from current Chairman Elissa Rudolph and is a round-up of her two years as our Chair. Wonderful work, Elissa - thank you! Indian Mensa (Delhi) has initi-ated a programme to help under-priveleged gifted children. Con-gratulations to all concerned with this project - I hope other Mensas will follow suit where possible. The Delhi Chairman’s moving account of the first testing sessions is on p4. The 2015 LEAP participants have been chosen - congratulations to all! Meet the winning applicants on p6. Lots of other articles I hope you’ll find of interest this month!
With warm regards,
02
Everyone knows that money can’t buy happiness, but what might make rich people happier is revealed in the current issue of The Journal of Positive Psychol-ogy.
James A. Roberts of Baylor University and his two colleagues set out to ex-plore the relationship between materi-alism - making acquisition of material possessions a central focus of one’s life - and life satisfaction. Numerous studies have already shown that people who are more materialistic are generally less satis-fied with their standards of living, their relationships and their lives as a whole. With that being the case, the research-ers wondered if anything could moder-ate that relationship and in effect make materialistic people more satisfied with their lot. They write: “Given the negative relationship that materialism has with positive affect, it stands to reason that positive affect and related constructs such as gratitude might be important moderators in the association between materialism and life satisfaction. In contrast to materialism, gratitude is a positive emotion that is experienced when someone perceives that another person has intentionally given him or her a valued benefit.” To test their theory, the trio ana-lyzed the results of a specially designed questionnaire sent to 249 university students. The main results were as
expected. “People who pursue happi-ness through material gain tend to feel worse, and this is related to negative appraisals of their satisfaction with life,” they confirmed. However, their results also demon-strated that gratitude and, to a lesser extent, positive effect, both ‘buffer’ the negative effects of materialism, in effect making more grateful individuals more satisfied with their lives. The team observed: “Individu-als high in gratitude showed less of a relationship between materialism and negative affect. Additionally, indi-viduals high in materialism showed decreased life satisfaction when either gratitude or positive affect was low.” The trio conclude that negative af-fect, positive affect and gratitude seem to be ‘key pieces to the puzzle of the relationship between materialism and dissatisfaction with life.’ They suggest that the ‘pro-social, other-focused na-ture of gratitude’ might help to reduce the ‘self-focus’ inherent in materialism. “Specifically, individuals who are able to appreciate what they have even while engaging in materialistic pursuits might be able to be maintain high levels of life satisfaction.” In other words, being rich isn’t enough to make you happy; you also need to be grateful as well.
Science Daily
Looking for happiness in all the wrong places
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from the Chairman...the long viewLooking back on nearly 2 years as your Chairman, I am de-lighted with the many accom-plishments of the IBD and the Executive Committee. Mensa International is growing - in 2 years we have gained about 10,000 mem-bers. Now there are 46 official Mensa groups (10 Emerging, 4 Provisional, 32 Full National Mensas) with stir-rings of interest in 3 or 4 more loca-tions. The world is getting smaller in some respects because of our Internet and social media connections, but there is still a lot of space where we can plant Mensa and watch it grow. At the very first meeting of the new MIL Executive Committee in August 2013 simultaneously with EMAG in Bratislava, Slovakia, the goals were: to get to know one another, take care of current business, adopt a communications plan (be-cause we meet face-to-face only twice a year), and consider appointments to MIL’s various committees. The 2-day meeting began with a team building exercise that encouraged all to reveal their unique leadership style(s); this was the “getting to know you” part of the event. Quite difficult in some ways, but as a team we needed to know how one another approached and resolved challenges. I believe we, as the ExComm, built a solid foundation on which to have future productive discussions about MIL’s
goals and issues. We did not then - and nor have we now - solved all the problems, however! In September of that year we had a successful IBD meeting in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, with 31 countries represented. Discussions and/or mo-tions ensued on such topics as licens-ing, use of the Mensa mark, testing procedures, establishing a web board committee to plan, execute, and blue sky improvements, expanding the Mensa World Journal both in print and online, and more (see Minutes on www.mensa.org). Over 2.5 days, representatives accomplished a con-siderable amount - as demonstrated in the 35 pages of minutes. In between face-to-face meet-ings, the ExComm meets monthly via GoToMeeting, a web-based virtual conference room, and despite a 17-hour time span linking our Californian and Australian members, we carry out the routine business that does not require the entire IBD’s consideration: encouraging ENMs and PNMs to rise to full national Mensa status; advising new groups of Mensans of the process to become official, such as Mensa Cyprus did recently; and resolving the adminis-trative problems that plague a wide-spread organization such as ours. Just having 2 hours once a month where we can share and report on happen-ings in our various areas seems to
help dispel the isolation most of us feel at times. The ExComm members hail from England, Germany, Swe-den, Norway, Australia, Austria, and the U.S. so even listening each other’s voices is a way to shrink the globe a little. And for our members who are the farthest apart in time zones, thank you for making the effort stay up past midnight or get up very early in the morning! Our third face-to-face meet-ing was in Freiburg, Germany, in April of 2014 during their AG. We experienced “Mensa” (means meet & eat) cafeterias at the University of Freiburg. For those of us not Ger-man, it was enlightening to experi-ence Mensa in Deutschland’s annual general meeting - several hundred members voting for a new board in a very outspoken manner. That brings us to the most recent IBD meeting in Old Windsor, Eng-land, last September. It was a first for MIL in recent memory because our
Elissa Rudolph , Chairman, Mensa International
(continued on p7)
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On the basis of the 2011 census we estimate that there are about six million under-privileged, gifted children in India’s rural areas whose in-telligence is at the ‘extremely high’ level. In the normal course of events, their genius is likely to remain un-recog-nized and under-utilized. This would be a major waste of the nation’s intellectual resources. In a path-breaking nation-building project, we, in Mensa India (Delhi) have initiated Project Dhruv with the objective of identifying and mentoring as many of these underprivi-leged geniuses as we can. As a part of our Project, Indigo Airlines have sponsored 100 extremely bright children to celebrate the arrival of their 100th Airbus. This is designated the 6E Scholar Program. Another foundation has sponsored two children. We have just finished identifying these 102 gifted children. During testing, we encountered some touching moments – one child, while filling his form, asked, “what address should I write, sir. I live on the street”. An 11 year old, who had been selected, burst
into tears when the result was announced. We had to often ask some children to move to the front as their eyesight was too weak to see the board from the back and no one had tested them for glasses. Then there are these girls, who my wife calls ‘Wonder-women’. Scoring in the 99th and 99+ percentile, they are daughters of day laborers, rickshaw pullers, street vendors etc. Some have been abandoned by their fathers. After school they go home to clean, cook and look after their siblings. One girl’s father, a construction laborer, died in an accident just two months before the test. She has scored in the 99th percen-
tile. Her mother runs a small roadside tea-shop under a plastic sheet to sup-port her family. These are Wonder-
women indeed. We plan to help these children in a number of ways. The selected children will be coun-seled by experienced counselors. In Class IX or X, a Psycho-profile test will be administered to identify strengths and weaknesses and help make nurtur-ing more personalized and focused. An Aptitude test will help identify the kind of vocations they are likely to excel at. We will assign personal Mentors to each Scholar who will act as the child’s
friend, philoso-pher and guide. The Mentor will also keep in touch with their parents and teachers on a regular basis.Scholarships will be given to these children from their present class (usu-ally Class VI) till
they graduate. Their books and other
Project DhruvThe Underprivileged Gifted Child Identification & Nurturing Program of Mensa India (Delhi) Testing session in the park
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Psychologists have known about the so-called Einstellung effect since the 1940s. Now researchers are developing a solid under-standing of how the phenomenon works.
“Our brain generally prefers a familiar, trusted solution, rather than exploring alternatives,” Merim Bilalić (Depart-ment of Psychology, University of Tubingen)) explains. This phenomenon has been known since 1942, when the American psychologist Abraham Luchins conducted experiments with water jugs, each with a different capac-ity. Participants in the experiments were asked to work out how to transfer liquid between the jugs so that they would end up with 100 units of water in one container. The solution to this task involved three steps. When they were subsequently given simpler tasks to solve, they continued to apply the more complicated three-step solution. “Researchers have conducted similar experiments with chess players,” Bilalić goes on to say. In his experiments, ex-pert chess players were presented with a situation where they could use a well-known five-step sequence (“smothered mate”). The players also had the option to win the game by applying a less familiar sequence, involving only three steps. Most players chose the familiar sequence. During the interviews con-ducted subsequently, it was not possible
to determine why they had disregarded the (simpler) alternative. Bilalić and his colleagues decided to track the players’ eye movements with an infrared camera. “We were able to establish that they were, quite literally, blind to the alternative, better solu-tions,” the psychologist reports. The players’ gaze did not shift away from the squares that they had identified as part of the “smothered mate” sequence, even though they insisted that they had looked for alternative solutions. The alternatives they did explore were clearly only variations of the already established five-step sequence. According to Bilalić, this bias pre-sents a problem in many areas. What makes the Einstellung effect particu-larly difficult is that most are simply not aware of the phenomenon. “We believe that we generally ap-proach problems with an open mind. However, the brain unconsciously steers our attention towards previously stored knowledge. Any information that does not match the solution or the theory we have already internal-ized, tends to be ignored or masked.” This may lead doctors to make erro-neous diagnoses, and judges to form judgements in line with earlier cases. Bilalić therefore concludes: “We must be aware of our errors, if we genuinely want to improve our thinking.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releas-es/2015/03/150326082703.htm
education material will be subsidized. We will also try to get these children admitted to better schools wherever needed and possible. We will do our best to help them receive educational loans from banks, various educational foundations and sponsors for profes-sional studies. Our aim is to enable these children to change their future and that of their community. We want to see army offic-ers, senior bureaucrats, corporate execu-tives, innovative teachers, enlightened political activists, progressive farmers and successful entrepreneurs emerge from this pool of largely unrecognized talent amongst our underprivileged children. Our hope is that these gifted children will achieve their full potential and shine on India’s socio-economic field like the stars they are. All through this process, we are encouraging them to keep in mind that this will primarily be their own effort and we are only there to help them over the rough patches. This program for 102 children will be followed by other programs to iden-tify and help as many of these under-privileged gifted children as possible. We are aware of the large responsibility we have taken upon ourselves and are looking forward to the cooperation and active assistance from other like-minded organizations and people all over the world.
Kishore AsthanaPresident, Mensa India (Delhi)
Why good solutions make us oblivious to better ones
continued from p04
International Photographer of the Year
Entries close July 31
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Charlotte Hoyng (Netherlands), work-ing in the education field herself, has devel-oped a quiz for young children in their final year of primary school (11-12 years of age). The quiz is being held on a national level and has generated a lot of positive publicity for Dutch Mensa. The aim is to facilitate recog-nition of gifted children. (video*, [email protected])
Hana Kalusova (Czech Republic), pictured at left, will share her experi-ence with proven methods on mem-bership growth. She has been part of the process of the last couple of years by which the number of members almost doubled. Hana will talk about testing, PR (also for events), admin-istration, volunteer support and more. (video*, [email protected])
Roberta Kehler (Canada), pictured below, has transferred her skills on group dynamics learned as a street and stage magician into her present role as an interpreter and tour guide. She has some tricks to show on Stra-tegic Design in Interpretive Displays, Achieving Excellence as a Mensa Ambassador and Identifying Op-portunities for Effective Community Outreach Programs.(video*, [email protected])
LEAP 2015The Leadership Exchange Ambassadors Program Committee (LEAPcomm) has selected five ambassadors for the current year, all in the Talks track. This group of future leaders will travel to American Mensa’s 2015 Annual Gathering in Louisville ( July 1-5) and the Asian Mensa Gathering in Seoul, Korea (August 28-30) to present workshops on leader-ship experience and best practices that have helped their own Mensa grow. They will write a best practice report available to Mensa groups all over the world. The applicants were ranked according to communication skills, presentation content and topic relevance to Mensas worldwide.
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Stefano Lodola (Italy), travels a lot and sees the world with Mensa. He wants to share his knowledge of, and pro-mote, SIGHT and will talk on his experience as a traveller, language learner, SIGHT user and coordinator; the current state of international aware-ness and initiatives in some national Mensas, and, proposals forimprovement, based on previous
conclusions and data gathered.(video*, [email protected])
The LEAP Committee would like to thank all applicants. Mensa’s future is well-assured with members such as these to contribute their talents. Jacqueline Bonkenburg,
Chair LEAPcomm
* The video of each of the successful candidate’s presentation can be viewed at www.mensa.org
Thorsten Kreissig (Germany), has witnessed many interesting concepts within and outside of Mensa to improve the network-ing skills of Mensans and the quality of certain events. He sees Mensa as a pool of amazing tal-ent and connections and is keen to connect Mensa with the world at large to gain mutual benefits. TK will share proven formats of Mensa Germany reaching out to non Mensans.(video*, [email protected])
Executive Director, Michael Feenan, and Kim Farr, Executive Assistant, organized the entire event in the ru-ral countryside northeast of London. NatReps and others could extend their visit by attending the British Isles AG in Cardiff, Wales, the week-end before the IBD meeting. Having two events close geographically and time wise made for an efficient and memorable visit to Mensa’s birth country. Again representatives from 31 countries attended the Old Windsor meeting. Discussions and presenta-tions included refinement of EMAG and AMG guidelines, creation of strategic planning committee, in-creasing DIM subscription rate, how life memberships are to be handled in countries that wish to offer them, appointments including a new in-ternational supervisory psychologist, adaptive testing in Hungary, Mensa Denmark’s offer to share a website template for “Mensa Out of the Box,” the budget, discussion and adoption, and more (see 49 pages of Minutes on the mensa.org website). When a diverse group of indi-viduals, such as those who constitute the IBD, come together, one might expect the ideas to fly off in a hun-dred directions. And they do! Yet, be-cause of our common goal of making Mensa better for all, we manage to focus on those ideas that truly require concentration and compromise.
Elissa RudolphChair, Mensa International
(continued from p3)(continued from p6)
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continued on p9
Does your mind wander when performing monoto-nous, repetitive tasks? Of course! But daydreaming involves more than just beating back boredom. In fact, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the Na-tional Academy of Sciences, a wandering mind can impart a distinct cognitive advantage. Scientists at Bar-Ilan Univer-sity are the first to demonstrate how an external stimulus of low-level electricity can literally change the way we think, producing a measurable up-tick in the rate at which daydreams - or spontaneous, self-directed thoughts and associations - occur. Along the way, they made another surprising discovery: that while daydreams offer a welcome “mental escape” from boring tasks, they also have a positive, simulta-neous effect on task performance. The new study was carried out in Bar-Ilan’s Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory supervised by Prof. Moshe Bar, part of the University’s Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center which Prof. Bar also directs.
What Makes a Mind Wander? Participants were treated with tran-scranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a non-invasive and painless procedure that uses low-level electricity to stimulate specific brain regions.
During treatment, the participants were asked to track and respond to numerals flashed on a computer screen. They were also periodically asked to re-spond to an on-screen “thought probe” in which they reported - on a scale of one to four - the extent to which they were experiencing spontaneous thoughts unrelated to the numeric task they had been given.
The Brain-Daydream ConnectionAccording to Prof. Bar - a long-time faculty member at Harvard Medical School who has authored several stud-ies exploring the link between associa-tive thinking, memory and predictive ability - the specific brain area targeted for stimulation in this study was any-thing but random. “We focused tDCS stimulation on the frontal lobes because this brain region has been previously implicated in mind wandering, and also because is a central locus of the executive control network that allows us to organize and
plan for the future,” Bar explains, adding that he suspected that there might be a connection between the two. As a point of comparison and in separate experiments, the re-searchers used tDCS to stimulate the occipital cortex- the visual processing center in the back of the brain. They also conducted control studies where no tDCS was used. While the self-reported incidence of mind wandering was unchanged in the case of occipital and sham stimulation, it rose con-
siderably when this stimulation was ap-plied to the frontal lobes. “Our results go beyond what was achieved in earlier, fMRI-based studies,” Bar states. “They demonstrate that the frontal lobes play a causal role in the production of mind wandering behaviour.”
Improved “Cognitive Capacity” of the Wandering MindIn an unanticipated finding, the present study demonstrated how the increased mind wandering behavior produced by external stimulation not only does not harm subjects’ ability to succeed at an appointed task, it actually helps. Bar believes that this surprising result might stem from the convergence, within a single brain region, of both the “thought controlling” mechanisms of executive function and the “thought freeing” activity of spontaneous, self-directed daydreams.
is a wandering mind a good thing?
july 2015 issue #030
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How do you feel? Video of your face may tell all p7
Credit: Mayank Kumar/Rice University
inside... playing a wind instrument could help lower the risk of sleep apnoea p2 why Mensa? p3 exploring www.mensa.org p4 what happens underground when a missile or meteor hits? p5 the Mensan’s burden: confronting apathy p6 epilepsy research opens a window into the brain p9 in search of tinnitus p9 vampire bats have a taste for bacon p10 supplementally... p11 Therese’s brain trainers p12
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from the editor,
You’re not too late to enter in the International Photographer of the Year 2015 competition; closing date, July 31. Info is on p4 with full details in the April MWJ. The European Mensa Annual Gathering (EMAG) is in Berlin this year, from August 12-16. Info at https://emag.mensa.de. I’ll be there - please come and say hello! The article on p3 covers ground that many of us have come across: the questions, Why Mensa? And why is it so hard to find an accept-able answer? An interesting insight from Mensa Germany’s Vanitas Berrymore. Many members have still not logged into our website, www.mensa.org. On p4 ,Therese Moodie-Bloom outlines the benfits of having access to the site. Why not give it a go! Lots of other articles this month including an investigation into tin-nitus, recent research into epilepsy, what happens underground when a meteor hits, and a member contri-bution on p6. Therese’s Brain Teasers are on p12; don’t forget that her puzzles may be used in any Mensa publi-cation as long as her copyright is acknowledged. Keep sending your thoughts in - I love hearing from you!
With warm regards,Kate
02
Playing a wind instrument could help lower the risk of sleep apnoea
Log into the
International website
at
www.mensa.org
for the calendar of
national events
A new study has found that players of wind instrument have a reduced risk of developing obstructive sleep apnoea.
The findings, presented at the Sleep and Breathing Conference 2015, suggest that this could be considered beneficial to those individuals who are at high risk of developing sleep apnoea. Researchers in India conducted lung function testing in 64 people who played a wind instrument and compared results to a control group of 65 people who did not play any wind instruments. All participants also completed the Berlin questionnaire, an established method used to assess the risk of sleep apnoea. When analyzing the results of the questionnaires, the researchers found that the group who played the wind instruments had a lower risk of developing sleep apnoea. However, no difference was seen between the two groups in the lung function tests. The relative risk of developing sleep apnoea based on the question-naire was 0.18 in the wind instrument players, with a relative risk of less than one, indicating a lower risk compared to controls. The researchers believe that this is due to the increased muscle tone in the upper airways, which wind instrument players are likely to have.
Silas Daniel Raj, one of the authors of the study, commented, “The findings of our small study present an interest-ing theory on preventative measures or treatment in sleep apnoea. If the findings are confirmed in larger groups, wind instrument playing could become a cheap and non-invasive method of preventing sleep apnoea in those at risk of developing the condition.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releas-
es/2015/04/150416192555.htm
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from the executive committee...
Many of you have already had a conversation with a non-Mensan where you had to answer the question: what is Mensa? And I guess that many answers either beat around the bush or try to respond in somewhat vague terms. Probably it is a cultural question, too, but many avoid a straight answer: Mensa is a high IQ society for the top 2%. This surely has to do with the fact that intelligence is a highly emotional (and moreover overestimated) topic and you usually don’t want to appear like someone who considers himself a cut above the rest. Therefore, many who try to answer that question use comparisons to asso-ciations like the KLM1 to explain the purpose and benefits of Mensa. And exactly this comparison casts a twilight on the self-reflections of Mensa/Men-sans. It is indeed right that it is a mere fact, that someone is highly intelligent. Intelligence has nothing (or at least lit-tle2) to do with effort or exercise. And it is also OK if someone states that his IQ is just a fact and there is no need for justification or even excuse. So far, the comparison to the KLM is more or less appropriate. But the compari-son gets weak if we have a look at the VKM2.
Obviously body height is something that can be treated as a mere fact, whatever its value is. But there would obviously never be a low IQ society of the bottom 2%. Maybe it is therefore more appropriate to compare Mensa to an association of the most beautiful or the wealthiest persons? Well, beauty is subjective and hard to measure and wealth usually corresponds to effort and therefore neither comparison matches perfectly, but I’d like to stress those comparisons a bit more. Imagine your impression and at-titude towards a person who tells you that he belongs to the wealthiest 2%. Maybe all the typical questions arise like “What is he trying to say with that?”, “What is the worth of money?”, “What does he gain out of it?”, “Is he happier because of it?” (although you might not really ask these questions). Whatever the questions will be, I suppose that there aren’t many people who will just note wealth as a mere fact without any further meaning. If some-one tells you that he belongs to the tallest 2%, you tend much more to take note of it without further thoughts. Obviously there are facts and facts.Coming back to Mensa, comparing Mensa with tall people associations
might be helpful, but doesn’t really help to explain the way it feels like to be a Mensan and above all it doesn’t really help to understand the reservations other people have towards a high IQ society. Reservations or even suspicion are somewhat comprehensible and to understand these reactions requires that we put ourselves in their place. No one likes to justify himself for being intel-ligent. But imagine a wealthy person who for a start makes clear, that there is no need to justify himself for his money. Maybe he is right, but I guess there are many who would regard this person as arrogant. Furthermore, even if we are aware of the resentments others might have, it is still hard to explain the purpose and the benefits of Mensa to other people. Even convincing other intel-ligent people to join Mensa can be difficult and it’s hard to find the right words. Sometimes it’s strange how instinctively at home you feel while
Vanitas Berrymore
(continued on p4)
Why Mensa?And why is it so hard to give an appropriate answer to this question?
1. KLM is a German association for people with a body-height very much above average2. I want to avoid the debate whether intelligence is inheritable or influenced by environmental influences3. VKM is a German association for people with a body-height very much below average
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being amongst a Mensa group and how hard it is to explain that feeling to anyone who hasn’t experienced it himself. We, as Mensans, know best that a high IQ does not automatically imply higher competence or success - and those latter categories are not the reason why we search out the com-pany of other intelligent people. But how to explain that? I think the only way is, to set a good example. Ques-tions from those with high potential such as, “Why should I join Mensa?”, “What will Mensans be like?” as well as other questions such as “Do they talk about highly sophisticated stuff all the time?” or “Am I good enough for their company?” can all be answered by ,“You should join Mensa, because of Mensans like me. Do I as a Mensan talk about highly sophisticated stuff all the time?” and “Yes, you are good enough for my company and I am a Mensan.” Once again, we should be prepared to meet (spoken or unspoken) criticism that a “brainiacs only club” might be a bit arrogant or restrictive. We should keep in mind that picking the 2% who score best on a specified test is indeed a somewhat arbitrary criterion. And that being arbitrary does not make it a worse way of creating a totally mixed, but somewhat consistent, unique group of people. We should be able to present Mensa as an association of people who are curious to meet interesting people - and who have chosen to search among those who are totally different in all but their intelligence.
Vanitas BerrymoreAt the time of writing, Vanitas represented Mensa Germany on the Executive Committee. He has since resigned from the Board of Mensa Germany and consequently from the ExComm.
Have you visited www.mensa.org lately? There is a members’ only sec-tion which any financial member in the world can log into. Within this area you can find everything you need to know about Mensa – rules, regula-tions, the Constitution, guidelines for committees, Agendas and Minutes from the International Board of Directors (IBD) meetings, informa-tion about SIGHT, about LEAP, about Special Interest Groups and so on. You can also discover Mensa groups in other countries by reading their magazines which are available on-site. You can even plan your trips around international events held in other countries, partake in forums, and enter competitions! When you first log in, we need to confirm that you are indeed a member in good standing. The more assiduous your national board is in updating this information, the quicker your log-in! Is there anything you would like, or expect to see on the website that is not there? Is there anything that would make the site more interest-ing and encourage you to visit more often, or to hang out there? Please let me know! Send an email to me at [email protected] and copy it to [email protected] because we want this to be your website, designed to satisfy your wants and needs!
Social Media GroupsIf you have been approved for log-in
at the Mensa International website, you are also eligible to join the of-ficial Mensa International FaceBook group, called simply “Mensa”, which is administered by Stacey Kirsch, and the Mensa Linked-in group administered by Francois Aubert.
Members wishing to contribute their skills and expertise to enhancing our website are also invited to write to Peter Froehler, chair of the Mensa In-ternational Web Board at [email protected].
Therese Moodie-BloomDirector of Administration
Mensa [email protected]
exploring your website
2015 International Photographer of the
Year
. Time is running very short - closing date for DIMs is July 31. . The theme is Urgency . Photos should be in jpeg format and not exceed 1 mb . Send your entry along with your name, membership number and title of photograph to
[email protected] . You may send up to three entries . Each entry must be entirely your own work (Full rules can be found in the April 2015 Mensa World Journal)
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When a missile or meteor strikes the earth, the havoc above ground is obvi-ous, but the details of what happens below ground are harder to see. Duke University physicists have developed techniques that enable them to simulate high-speed impacts in artificial soil and sand in the lab, and then watch what happens underground close-up, in super slow motion. In a study scheduled to appear this week in the journal Physical Review Letters, they report that materials like soil and sand actually get stronger when they are struck harder. The findings help explain why at-tempts to make ground-penetrating missiles go deeper by simply shoot-ing them harder and faster have had limited success, the researchers say. Projectiles actually experience more re-sistance and stop sooner as their strike speed increases. Funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the research may ultimately lead to better control of earth-penetrating missiles designed to destroy deeply buried targets such as enemy bunkers or stockpiles of under-ground weapons. To simulate a missile or meteor slamming into soil or sand, the re-searchers dropped a metal projectile with a rounded tip from a seven-foot-high ceiling into a pit of beads.During collision, the kinetic energy of the projectile is transferred to the beads and dissipates as they butt into
each other below the surface, absorb-ing the force of the collision. To visualize these forces as they move away from the point of impact, the re-searchers used beads made of a clear plastic that trans-mits light differently when compressed. When viewed through polarizing filters like those used in sunglasses, the areas of greatest stress show up as branching chains of light called “force chains” that travel from one bead to the next during impact, much like lightning bolts snak-ing their way across the sky. The metal projectile fell into the beads at a speed of six meters per second, or nearly 15 miles per hour. But by using beads of varying hardness, the researchers were able to generate pulses that surged through the beads at speeds ranging from 67 to 670 miles per hour. Each impact was too fast to see with the naked eye, so they recorded it with a high-speed video camera that shoots up to 40,000 frames per second. When they played it back in slow motion, they found that the branching network of force chains buried in the beads var-ied widely over different strike speeds. At low speeds, a sparse network of beads carries the brunt of the force, said study co-author Robert Behringer, a professor of physics at Duke.
What happens underground when a missile or meteor hits?Study explains why soil and sand get stronger when they are struck harder
But at higher speeds, the force chains grow more extensive, which causes the impact energy to move away from the point of impact much faster than predicted by previous models. New contacts form between the beads at high speeds as they are pressed together, and that strengthens the material. “Imagine you’re trying to push your way through a crowded room,” said study co-author Abram Clark, currently a postdoctoral researcher in mechanical engineering at Yale Uni-versity. “If you try to run and push your way through the room faster than the people can rearrange to get out of the way, you’re going to end up applying a lot of pressure and ramming into a lot of angry people.”Other authors of this study include Alec Petersen of the University of Minnesota and Lou Kondic of the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/
du-whu041015.php
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Apathy derives from the word ‘apa-theia’, Greek for ‘without feeling’. In today’s world, where social, political and environmental causes all have to jostle for the public’s limited attention span and where the means of popular engagement have reduced campaigning to a social media game, with virality given greater precedence than impact, it is psychologically and emotionally draining to keep up an involvement in matters which, often times, one can do very little about or worse, feel no affin-ity for. Some time ago, in response to a newsfeed populated by opinionated Facebook friends invoking terrible deaths on animal abusers and an entire generation of people taking ice bucket challenges to avoid donating money to a cause or the pointless hashtags which bring no girls back, I retreated into a space where I only posted photos of places I’d been and the things I was doing; holiday snaps and hipster cafes with equally hipster photo filters ap-plied- the ultimate, apathetic Facebook feed. It could be a desensitization to the horror stories one sees on an almost daily basis. And then there are the problems so persistent – oil, the Middle East, Africa and now the environment, that surely, given that the best minds have and are dedicating themselves to them, should have been resolved gen-erations ago? The title I’ve chosen for this article is an allusion to William Easterly’s The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Ef-forts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much
Harm and So Little Good (2006), a ‘ widely antici-pated counterpunch [after he was] promptly fired by his then-employer the World Bank following his excoriating attack on the tragic hubris of the West’s efforts to improve the lot of the so-called develop-ing world in his previous book, The Elusive Quest for Growth’ 1 . The subject matter of Easterly’s book is curiously, maybe even ironi-cally, close to the heart of the issue that I chose to tackle and is the reason for this article. I’d recently founded Travel Like A Humanitarian, an online plat-form for Non Government Organisa-tions (NGOs) to put up their travel-related products. This was formed as a result of the observations I’d made whilst travelling for Urbane Nomads, a travel company specializing in luxury adventure travel. I’d seen, first hand, how travel can be a force for good, or rather, the potential for tourism to be a game-changer in the preserva-tion of traditional lifestyles, animal conservation and even in certain cases, the partial reconstruction of ecological habitats. The model for high value, low impact has always been emphasized in luxury travel but I had been looking for ways in which this could become more accessible to the masses, leading to the formation of Travel Like A Humanitar-ian. This is an online portal that brings the work of NGOs to the attention of the masses and for the masses to be
The Mensan’s Burden : Confronting Apathy by Hajar Ali
able to access, in one place, the various tours they can choose from in order to travel more responsibly. As another Mensan has pointed out, there are so many fields for us to choose from in which we can ap-ply ourselves and potentially excel in. Also, maybe, apathy is the way forward. Perhaps we need to divorce ourselves from the emotional burden and visual horror of witnessing hu-man carnage on CNN or the photo of the emaciated polar bear signify-ing climate change, in order to think rationally about what can be done to make real changes with what’s wrong with the world today.
1. (David Ignatius, http://williameasterly.org/
books/the-white-mans-burden/)
Hajar Ali is the editor of Singapore Mensa’s national journal and joined Mensa when she was 19 and at university. She’s travelled extensively including trekking on horseback in places as varied as Kazakh Mongolia, Argentinian Patagonia, Laikipia in Kenya as well as the Atacama in Chile. You can find out more about Travel Like A Hu-manitarian at www.travellah.org
Hajar Ali
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The Rice version, DistancePPG, can measure a patient’s pulse and breath-ing just by analyzing the changes in one’s skin color over time. Where other camera-based systems have been chal-lenged by low-light conditions, dark skin tones and movement, DistanceP-PG relies on algorithms that correct for those variables. The team of Rice graduate stu-dent Mayank Kumar and professors Ashok Veeraraghavan and Ashutosh Sabharwal created the system that will let doctors diagnose patients from a distance with special attention paid to those in low-resource settings. The lab’s research appear in the Optical Society journal Biomedical Optics Express. Kumar, the project’s lead graduate researcher, said DistancePPG will be particularly helpful to monitor prema-ture infants for whom blood pressure cuffs or wired probes can pose a threat. In fact, they were his inspiration. “This story began in 2013 when we visited Texas Children’s Hospital to talk to doctors and get ideas,” Kumar said. “That was when we saw the new-born babies in the neonatal ICU. We saw multiple wires attached to them
and asked, ‘Why?’” The wires monitored the babies’ pulses, heart rate “and this and that,” he recalled. “And the wires weren’t a prob-lem. The problem was that the babies would roll, or their mothers needed to take care of them, and the wires would be taken off and put back on.” That, Kumar said, could potentially damage the infants’ delicate skin. Kumar and his colleagues were aware of an emerging technique that used a video camera to detect nearly imperceptible changes in a person’s skin color due to changes in blood volume underneath the skin. Pulse and breath-ing rates can be determined from these minute changes. That worked just fine for moni-toring Caucasians in bright rooms, he said. But there were three challenges. The first was the technique’s difficulty in detecting color change in darker skin tones. Second, the light was not always bright enough. The third and perhaps hardest problem was that patients sometimes move. The Rice team solved these challenges by adding a method to average skin-color change signals from different areas of the face and an
algorithm to track a subject’s nose, eyes, mouth and whole face. “Our key finding was that the strength of the skin-color change signal is different in different regions of the face, so we developed a weighted-averaging algorithm,” Kumar said. “It improved the accuracy of derived vital signs, rapidly expanding the scope, viability, reach and utility of camera-based vital-sign monitoring.” An algorithm created at Rice University helps a technique that uses video to monitor a patient’s vital signs to adjust for skin tones, lighting and movement. By incorporating tracking to compensate for movement - even a smile - DistancePPG perceived a pulse rate to within one beat per minute, even for diverse skin tones under varied lighting conditions. Kumar said he expects the software to find its way to mobile phones, tablets and computers so people can reliably measure their own vital signs whenever and wherever they choose.
http://phys.org/news/2015-04-video.html
How do you feel? Video of your face may tell all
Credit: Mayank Kumar/Rice University
Rice University researchers are developing a highly accurate, touch-free system that uses a video camera to monitor patients’ vital signs just by looking at their faces. The technique isn’t new, but engineering researchers in Rice’s Scal-able Health Initiative are making it work un-der conditions that have so far stumped earlier systems.
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The study was done at the Univer-sity of Queensland, Australia, and appears in the journal Child Develop-ment. “Our study suggests that under-standing others’ mental perspectives may facilitate the kind of interactions that help children become or remain popular,” notes Virginia Slaughter, professor of psychology and head of the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland, who led the study. Popularity was measured via nominations by classroom peers and ratings by teachers. The ability to figure out what other people are thinking and feel-ing comes into play in interpersonal interactions and helps us understand complex social situations, such as when one person double crosses another or uses sarcasm. This is also called theory of mind. While indi-vidual studies have shown an associa-tion with popularity in the past, this meta-analysis looked across the find-ings of multiple studies, increasing confidence that the overall pattern is clear. In this work, researchers looked at 20 studies that addressed the relation between theory of mind and popu-larity. Together, the studies included
2,096 children from 2 to 10 years old from Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. In all but three of the studies, most of the children were Caucasian, and although children across the 20 studies were from a mix of work-ing-, middle-, and upper-class families, they were predomi-nantly middle class. In addition to finding an overall link between children’s abilities to figure out what others think and feel and their popularity, the study found that this tie was similar for pre-schoolers and for older children. This suggests that understanding others’ mental perspectives is important both for making friends in the early school years and for maintaining friendships as children grow older. The study also found that the link was weaker for boys than girls, perhaps reflecting gender differences in how children relate to each other. For example, girls’ friendships are often characterized by high levels
of intimacy and resolving conflicts, which may mean that their interac-tions require more sensitivity in
understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. “Our findings suggest that training children to be sensitive to others’ thoughts and feelings may improve their relationships with peers,” Slaughter adds. “This may be particularly important
for children who are struggling with friendship issues, such as children who are socially isolated.”
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/sfri-cwu040815.php
Children who understand others’ perspectives found to be more popular among peersPreschoolers and school-age children who are good at identifying what others want, think, and feel are more popular in school than their peers who aren’t as socially adept. That’s the conclusion of a new meta-analysis - a type of study that looks at the results of many differ-ent studies - out of Australia.
“...the studies in-cluded 2,096 children from 2 to 10 years old from Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America.”
Asian Mensa Gathering
(AMG)August 28-30, 2015
JW Marriott HotelSeoul, Korea
amg.mensakorea.org
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epilepsy research opens a window into the brain
Rapidly emerging technologies, novel imaging techniques, the development of new therapies and new genes, have given research-ers and clinicians an extraordinary ability to explore the brain at the cellular, genetic and neural levels. Epilepsy provides researchers with unparalleled avenues to discover how the brain is structured and how it functions: a true ‘window on the brain.’In recognition of Epilepsy Aware-ness Month the American Epilepsy Society (AES) is highlighting just a few of the groundbreaking scien-tific developments made within the last 10-50 years. New anti-seizure drug development, brain map-ping, optogenetics and devices have increased our understanding of epilepsy but most importantly, have given new hope to the 2.3 million Americans living with the condi-tion. Support Epilepsy Awareness Month by visiting AESnet.org and learning more how epilepsy is a window on the Brain.“Thousands of researchers around the globe are working every day to increase our understanding of epi-lepsy,” said Dr. Elson So, president of AES. “Because epilepsy offers such a window on the brain other disorders with similar underlying mechanisms such as autism, cerebral palsy, tuberous sclerosis, neurofi-bromatosis and Alzheimer’s disease benefit from epilepsy research.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releas-es/2014/11/141105112349.htm
About one in five people experience tinnitus, the perception of a sound--often described as ringing--that isn’t really there. Now, research-ers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 23 have taken advantage of a rare opportunity to record directly from the brain of a person with tinnitus in order to find the brain networks responsible. The observations reveal just how different tinnitus is from normal repre-sentations of sounds in the brain. “Perhaps the most remarkable find-ing was that activity directly linked to tinnitus was very extensive, and spanned a large proportion of the part of the brain we measured from,” says Will Sedley of Newcastle University. “In contrast, the brain responses to a sound we played that mimicked [the subject’s] tinnitus were localized to just a tiny area.” In the new study, Sedley and The University of Iowa’s Phillip Gander contrasted brain activity during periods when tinnitus was relatively stronger and weaker. The study was only pos-sible because the 50-year-old man they studied required invasive elec-trode monitoring for epilepsy. He also happened to have a typical pattern of tinnitus, including ringing in both ears, in association with hearing loss. The researchers found the expected tinnitus-linked brain activity, but they report that the unusual activity extend-ed far beyond circumscribed auditory cortical regions to encompass almost
all of the auditory cortex, along with other parts of the brain. The discovery adds to the understanding of tinnitus and helps to explain why treatment has proven to be such a challenge, the researchers say. “We now know that tinnitus is represented very differently in the brain to normal sounds, even ones that sound the same, and therefore these cannot necessarily be used as the basis for understanding tinnitus or targeting treatment,” Sedley says. “The sheer amount of the brain across which the tinnitus network is present suggests that tinnitus may not simply ‘fill in’ the ‘gap’ left by hearing damage, but also actively infiltrates beyond this into wider brain systems,” Gander adds. These new insights may help to in-form treatments such as neurofeedback, where patients learn to control their “brainwaves,” or electromagnetic brain stimulation, according to the research-ers. A better understanding of the brain patterns associated with tinnitus may also help point toward new pharmaco-logical approaches to treatment, “which have so far generally been disappoint-ing.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/relea
es/2015/04/150423125858.htm.
in search of tinnitus
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Examining animal droppings is not glamorous - even if you’re studying vampires. But, for scientists interested in the diet of the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus), it’s one of the few ways to learn what they eat. In a new study, researchers used DNA found in the bats’ faeces to learn whose blood they suck and which blood they like best. The team discovered that although chicken DNA was most frequently found, it’s pigs that the bats seem to crave. “This project that they did was my dream,” says Gerry Carter, a University of Maryland, College Park, gradu-ate student who was not involved in the new research and who tackled a similar problem as an undergraduate. “I wanted to go to the Amazon and apply this technique. ”
Bat biologists have previously observed the nocturnal mammals feeding on many prey species, but it’s hard to measure what the bats prefer. That’s partly because the bloodsuckers don’t leave any hard evidence in their drop-pings, such as small bones or partially digested bits of prey.
Scientists at the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Manaus, Brazil, looked instead for clues in
online journalsCheck out the mensa.org website to read and download the full, colour, 12-page version of the
Mensa World Journal and many other national journals.You must be a member in good standing in your national Mensa. Register at www.mensa.org if you
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DNA. The team modified an existing technique to isolate and then amplify the genetic material of five potential prey species in bat scat: chickens, pigs, dogs, cattle, and humans. The researchers spent 47 nights in 18 villages in the Ama-zon and captured 157 vampire bats to collect faecal samples. “It’s surprising that you can even get DNA out of this,” Carter says, adding that very little genetic material survives digestion. “It’s a particularly difficult sample to work with.” Refrigerating the samples shortly after capture was key to making a positive ID. In spots with no electric-ity, many samples were too degraded to make a match. More than 60% of the viable samples contained chicken DNA, with pig DNA showing up in about 30%. But to determine which prey the bats pre-ferred, the researchers had to account for the fact that there were fewer pigs than chickens in the villages where they collected samples. After control-ling for the availability of the animals, the scientists calculated that vampire bats were seven times more likely to
feed on pigs than chance would predict, the team reports in the current issue of the Journal of Mammalogy. The re-searchers speculate that the preference is due to the bats’ saliva, which is better at liquefying mammal blood than bird blood. In addition, pigs had the highest concentration of red blood cells. The scientists also checked the samples for DNA from wild prey in the forests around the villages, but they found only DNA from domesticated animals. That’s likely because those animals were easier targets, the paper reports. Although no evidence of human DNA was found in the wild bats, Carter adds that sleuthing faecal DNA could be important for understanding the bats’ role in transmitting the rabies virus. The bats caused 25 deaths from rabies in northern Brazil between 2004 and 2005, the paper reports.
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/04/vampire-bats-have-taste-bacon
Vampire bats have a taste for bacon
