http://www.researchonline.mq.edu.au/vital/access/services/Feed ${session.getAttribute("locale")} 5 Magical thinking and obsessive-compulsive symptoms in Australia and Iceland : a cross-cultural comparison http://www.researchonline.mq.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/mq:22326 A unique relationship between obsessive-compulsive symptoms and magical thinking has previously been discovered in both Australian undergraduate samples and a clinical sample. The aim of this paper is to explore the cultural dependency of this relationship. Icelandic culture was selected due to evidence of an elevated belief in telepathy and the paranormal. An Icelandic undergraduate sample was gender and age matched to an Australian sample from the Einstein and Menzies study (2004b). Results indicate that the Icelandic sample had significantly higher magical thinking, superstitious thinking, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, but was not significantly different for superstitious behaviour and the TAF-Likelihood questionnaires. In a forced simultaneous regression with obsessive-compulsive symptoms as the dependent variable, only two subscales of the DASS, stress and anxiety, as well as magical thinking continued to be correlated with obsessive-compulsive symptoms. In conclusion, magical thinking is a core construct in obsessive-compulsive symptomatology, and this relationship appears to cross cultural boundaries. In particular, a sample of Icelanders with higher levels of magical thinking also demonstrated higher levels of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. 2012-10-25T23:52:38.526Z ]]> The Relationship between riverine U-series disequilibria and erosion rates in a basaltic terrain http://www.researchonline.mq.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/mq:9724 U-series isotopes have been measured in the dissolved phase, suspended load and bedload of the main rivers draining basaltic catchments in Iceland. For the dissolved phase, (234U/238U) and (238U/230Th) range between 1.08 and 2.2, and 7.4 and 516, respectively. For the suspended load and bedload, (234U/238U) and (238U/230Th) range from 0.97 to 1.09 and from 0.93 to 1.05, respectively. Chemical erosion rates, calculated from dissolved major elements, range between 13 and 333 t km− 2 yr− 1. Physical erosion rates have also been estimated, from existing data, and range between 21 and 4864 t/km2/yr, with an average of 519 t km− 2 yr− 1. U-series disequilibria indicate that weathering in Iceland operates at close to steady-state conditions. A model of continuous weathering indicates a maximum weathering timescale of 10 kyr, with an average rate of uranium release into water of 1.6 · 10− 4 yr− 1, which is significant when compared to granitic terrains located at similar latitudes and to tropical basaltic terrains. All river waters display (234U/238U) greater than secular equilibrium, consistent with the effects of alpha-recoil. The same dissolved phase (234U/238U) exhibit a negative trend with physical erosion rates, explained by the dominant effect of close-to-congruent chemical weathering of hyaloclastites in the younger basaltic terrains. Therefore, chemical erosion rate and mineral weathering susceptibility play a major role in determining 234U–238U disequilibria in basaltic river waters. Comparison of global data for river basins in which weathering was recently strongly limited indicates a negative correlation between silicate weathering rates estimated with major elements and the age of weathering estimated with U-series disequilibria. This strongly suggests a key role of time and soil thickness on the chemical erosion of silicates. 2010-10-13T15:10:11.229Z ]]>