Knowledge management: A re-assessment and case

The authors are building a knowledge management system (KMS) for use by several U.S. federal agencies. Its use must harmonize with multiple agency and disciplinary cultures, and also link with the efforts of at least one international agency. In this paper, we present the KMS project’s technological contributions and implementation considerations as a case in knowledge management (KM). We link the public-sector case with our assessment of KM’s current status and future prospects. We find the challenges for KM’s future are in theory, interactivity, integration, the recognition of cultural differences, and the design of marketing programs that respect these differences. His research focuses on technology management and technology entrepreneurship. Dr. Delcambre’s research focuses on object-oriented and other database data models. developed the Metadata++ software discussed in this paper. With Lois Delcambre, he has been exploring models for terms or keywords that are used in a digital library.     

Proactive and Reactive Aggression and Physical Activity

The current study examined relations between physical activity and proactive and reactive aggression. Additionally, physical activity was examined as a potential moderator of the associations between these subtypes of aggression and peer delinquency. Relations were examined in a community recruited sample of 89 children (56% male, 74% Caucasian) ranging from 9 to 12 years of age (M = 10.44, SD = 1.14). As expected, physical activity was negatively related to proactive aggression and unrelated to reactive aggression. Moreover, physical activity moderated the relation between proactive aggression and peer delinquency, such that at high levels of physical activity, proactive aggression was unrelated to peer delinquency but at low levels of physical activity, proactive aggression was positively associated with peer delinquency. Thus, physical activity may be an important factor to consider when understanding the link between aggression and other problem behavior, as physical activity appears to impact the link between proactive aggression and delinquent peer affiliations.     

The social semantics of Mikhail Pokrovskij and Nikolaj Marr

Criticizing the works of “Western” specialists in semantics, Soviet academician M. M. Pokrovskij (1868–1942) comes to the conclusion that social factors are essential for semantic evolution, while psychological factors constitute an intermediate link between the “external” life of a society and the semantics of the corresponding language. This conception resembles the general explanations of semantic evolution proposed by N. Ja. Marr (1864–1934). Nevertheless, despite a number of common points in the semantic theories of these two researchers, Pokrovskij’s attitude towards Marr was negative: in particular, he disagreed with the thesis of the chronological primacy of Marr’s discoveries in the domain of semantics. The article investigates why Pokrovskij had for a long time constituted an intermediate link between Russian and “Western” “traditions” in the field of semantics.

Differential Associations Between Relational and Overt Aggression and Children’s Psychosocial Adjustment

Although much research has focused on the association between childhood aggression and negative psychosocial adjustment, the link between the subtypes of aggression and adjustment is less clear, particularly for relational aggression. The current study examined whether overt and relational aggression in childhood (M = 10.4 years, SD = 1.1) are differentially associated with four psychosocial adjustment outcomes (i.e., academic performance, social problems, depression, and delinquency). Results indicated that relational aggression was negatively associated with academic performance, while overt aggression was positively associated with delinquency. Additionally, findings suggested gender differences in the link between aggression subtypes and social problems. Specifically, overt aggression was positively associated with social problems for boys and relational aggression was positively associated with social problems for girls. Neither subtype of aggression was uniquely associated with depression. Thus, this study suggests that psychosocial outcomes may differ depending on the form of aggression that is utilized.     

Understanding the Quality of Life for Parents and Their Children Who have Asthma: Family Resources and Challenges

In this study we investigated the links between caregiver burden, family environment, and quality of life in 97 pairs of children with asthma and the one who was determined to be the primary family caregiver. Using structural equation modeling, within-participant analyses showed that family environment was positively linked to quality of life for both children and parents. Across-participant analyses demonstrated that parents’ positive perceptions of family environment were associated with parents’ and children’s improved quality of life. In addition, parents’ perceptions of family environment mediated the link between caregiver burden and parents’ and children’s quality of life. Implications for intervention with families are discussed in light of this study’s important results.     

Looking to relate: teacher gaze and culture in student-rated teacher interpersonal behaviour

Mobile eye-tracking was used to investigate the link between teacher gaze and student-rated teacher interpersonal behaviour. Teacher gaze was recorded for 10 min during a teacher-centred part...     

Relationship between Attachment Security and Rejection Sensitivity in Early Adolescence

Rejection sensitivity (RS) is the disposition to defensively expect, perceive and over-react to perceived rejection by others. RS has been theorized to originate from early attachment. However, this hypothesized link remains untested. This study aims to examine the relationship between attachment security and rejection sensitivity in early adolescence. Eight-graders (N = 406) completed self-report measures of attachment security and rejection sensitivity. Attachment security to father and mother were found to be associated. Attachment dimensions-trust and alienation from mother were significant predictors of RS in the adolescents. Alienation from mother mediated the link between alienation from father and RS in the adolescents. The two forms of RS- anxious RS and angry RS were predicted by different dimensions of attachment to mother.     

Moving eyes and moving thought: On the spatial compatibility between eye movements and cognition

Grant and Spivey (2003) proposed that eye movement trajectories can influence spatial reasoning by way of an implicit eye-movement-to-cognition link. We tested this proposal and investigated the nature of this link by continuously monitoring eye movements and asking participants to perform a problem-solving task under free-viewing conditions while occasionally guiding their eye movements (via an unrelated tracking task), either in a pattern related to the problem’s solution or in unrelated patterns. Although participants reported that they were not aware of any relationship between the tracking task and the problem, those who moved their eyes in a pattern related to the problem’s solution were the most successful problem solvers. Our results support the existence of an implicit compatibility between spatial cognition and the eye movement patterns that people use to examine a scene.     

Secularity and Modernity? A Brief Response to Herbert De Vriese

In this brief response to Herbert De Vriese’s The Charm of Disenchantment, his attempt to link secularism and modernity is questioned. Criticism is leveled at De Vriese’s use of the correspondence between Voltaire and Frederick the Great without reference to the historical context, notably the confessional states that existed between roughly 1650 and 1800 in Europe. De Vriese’s apology for disenchantment and modernity is also questioned in the light of both modern religious and secular responses to modernity as exemplified by the Dalai Lama and Bernard Stiegler.     

Explicating pluralism: Where the mind to molecule pathway gets off the track—Reply to Bickle

It is argued that John Bickle’s Ruthless Reductionism is flawed as an account of the practice of neuroscience. Examples from genetics and linguistics suggest, first, that not every mind-brain link or gene-phenotype link qualifies as a reduction or as a complete explanation, and, second, that the higher (psychological) level of analysis is not likely to disappear as neuroscience progresses. The most plausible picture of the evolving sciences of the mind-brain seems a patchwork of multiple connections and partial explanations, linking anatomy, mechanisms and functions across different domains, levels, and grain sizes. Bickle’s claim that only the molecular level provides genuine explanations, and higher level concepts are just heuristics that will soon be redundant, is thus rejected. In addition, it is argued that Bickle’s recasting of philosophy of science as metascience explicating empirical practices, ignores an essential role for philosophy in reflecting upon criteria for reduction and explanation. Many interesting and complex issues remain to be investigated for the philosophy of science, and in particular the nature of interlevel links found in empirical research requires sophisticated philosophical analysis.     

Mereological vagueness and existential vagueness

It is often assumed that indeterminacy in mereological relations—in particular, indeterminacy in which collections of objects have fusions—leads immediately to indeterminacy in what objects there are in the world. This assumption is generally taken as a reason for rejecting mereological vagueness. The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between mereological vagueness and existential vagueness. I hope to show that the connection between the two forms of vagueness is not nearly so clear-cut as has been supposed.     

The Complex Case of Fear and Safe Space

Here I shine light on the concept of and call for safe space and on the implicit argument that seems to undergird both the concept and the call, complicating and problematizing the taken for granted view of this issue with the goal of revealing a more complex dynamic worthy of interpretive attention when determining educational response. I maintain that the usual justification for safe space covers rather than clarifies the logic of safe space and makes it difficult for an educator to respond to harassment in a constructive and fitting way. I also claim that calls for safe space can only be properly interpreted—and responded to—when the link between fear and safety is uncovered and deconstructed. In the process, I note that the assumption of “safety” as a “positive condition” for education is problematic and warrants careful consideration.     

The Role of Friends’ Disruptive Behavior in the Development of Children’s Tobacco Experimentation: Results from a Preventive Intervention Study

Having friends who engage in disruptive behavior in childhood may be a risk factor for childhood tobacco experimentation. This study tested the role of friends’ disruptive behavior as a mediator of the effects of a classroom based intervention on children’s tobacco experimentation. 433 Children (52% males) were randomly assigned to the Good Behavior Game (GBG) intervention, a universal preventive intervention targeting disruptive behavior, and facilitating positive prosocial peer interactions. Friends’ disruptive behavior was assessed from age 7–10 years. Participants’ experimentation with tobacco was assessed annually from age 10–13. Reduced rates in tobacco experimentation and friends’ disruptive behavior were found among GBG children, as compared to controls. Support for friends’ disruptive behavior as a mediator in the link between intervention status and tobacco experimentation was found. These results remained after controlling for friends’ and parental smoking status, and child ADHD symptoms. The results support the role of friends’ disruptive behavior in preadolescents’ tobacco experimentation.     

Internalism,externalism, and transcendental idealism

The analyses of the mind–world relation offered by transcendental idealists such as Husserl have often been dismissed with the argument that they remain committed to an outdated form of internalism. The first move in this paper will be to argue that there is a tight link between Husserl’s transcendental idealism and what has been called phenomenological externalism, and that Husserl’s endorsement of the former commits him to a version of the latter. Secondly, it will be shown that key elements in Husserl’s transcendental idealism, including his rejection of representationalism and metaphysical realism, is shared with a number of prominent contemporary defenders of an externalist view on the mind. Ultimately, however, it will be suggested that the very alternative between internalism and externalism—an alternative based on the division between inner and outer—might be inapplicable when it comes to phenomenological conceptions of the mind–world relation.     

Children and Violence: The Role of Children’s Regulation in the Marital Aggression–Child Adjustment Link

Exposure to marital psychological and physical abuse has been established as a risk factor for children’s socio-emotional, behavioral, and cognitive problems. Understanding the processes by which children develop symptoms of psychopathology and deficits in cognitive functioning in the context of marital aggression is imperative for developing efficient and effective treatment programs for children and families, and has far-reaching mental health implications. The present paper outlines our research program, Child Regulation and Exposure to Marital Aggression, which focuses on children’s emotional and physiological reactivity and regulation as pathways in the marital aggression–child development link. Findings from our research program, which highlight the importance of children’s regulatory processes for understanding children’s adjustment in contexts of intimate partner violence, are presented, and future directions in this line of inquiry are outlined.     

Transformation of flow in rehabilitation: The role of advanced communication technologies

Authentic rehabilitation requires the active participation of patients and their involvement with opportunities for action and development. Within this framework, in this article we outline the possibility of using two emerging computing and communication technologies—ambient intelligence (AmI) and virtual reality (VR)—for a new breed of rehabilitative and clinical applications based on a strategy defined astransformation of flow. Transformation of flow is a person’s ability to exploit an optimal (flow) experience to identify and use new and unexpected psychological resources as sources of involvement. We identify the feeling ofpresence—the feeling of being in a world that exists outside oneself—as the theoretical link between the technology and rehabilitation. AmI and VR are used to trigger broad empowerment processes induced by a strong sense of presence, leading to greater agency and control over one’s actions and environment.     

Two-dimensionalism and the epistemology of recognition

There is reason to expect a reasonable account of a priori knowledge to be linked with an account of the nature of conceptual thought. Recent “two-dimensionalist” accounts of conceptual thought propose an extremely direct connection between the two: on such views, being in a position to know a priori a large number of non-trivial propositions is a necessary condition of concept-possession. In this paper I criticize this view, by arguing that it requires an implausibly internalist and intellectualist conception of capacities we bring to bear in applying concepts in experience. Empirical concept-application depends on the exercise of a variety of capacities, many of which can be grouped together under the general label “recognitional”. As I argue, two-dimensionalism cannot accommodate a plausible account of such capacities. This suggests that the link between a priori knowledge and the nature of conceptual thought is not as direct as twodimensionalists take it to be. I close by briefly sketching a different way to think of that link.

Causation Without Influence

David Lewis’s latest theory of causation defines the causal link in terms of the relation of influence between events. It turns out, however, that one event’s influencing another is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for its being a cause of that event. In the article one particular case of causality without influence is presented and developed. This case not only serves as a counterexample to Lewis’s influence theory, but also threatens earlier counterfactual analyses of causation by admitting a particularly troublesome type of preemption. The conclusion of the article is that Lewis’s influence method of solving the preemption problem fails, and that we need a new and fresh approach to the cases of redundant causation if we want to hold on to the counterfactual analysis of causation.     

Free will and mental disorder: Exploring the relationship

A link between mental disorder and freedom is clearly present in the introduction of the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). It mentions “an important loss of freedom” as one of the possible defining features of mental disorder. Meanwhile, it remains unclear how “an important loss of freedom” should be understood. In order to get a clearer view on the relationship between mental disorder and (a loss of) freedom, in this article, I will explore the link between mental disorder and free will. I examine two domains in which a connection between mental disorder and free will is present: the philosophy of free will and forensic psychiatry. As it turns out, philosophers of free will frequently refer to mental disorders as conditions that compromise free will and reduce moral responsibility. In addition, in forensic psychiatry, the rationale for the assessment of criminal responsibility is often explained by referring to the fact that mental disorders can compromise free will. Yet, in both domains, it remains unclear in what way free will is compromised by mental disorders. Based on the philosophical debate, I discuss three senses of free will and explore their relevance to mental disorders. I conclude that in order to further clarify the relationship between free will and mental disorder, the accounts of people who have actually experienced the impact of a mental disorder should be included in future research.     

Pastoral Care for Shame-Based Perfectionism

While perfectionism has been associated with guilt dynamics, the form of perfectionism that is most frequently discussed by psychologists is connected to self-condemnation for perceived failures to reach the high standard set for personal achievement. There is therefore a strong link between perfectionism and inferiority shame. Psychotherapists have given quite a bit of attention to shame-based perfectionism; it has been largely neglected by pastoral psychologists. Three approaches to the pastoral care of shame-based perfectionism are developed. The first approach is based in cognitive therapy. It is argued that perfectionism is grounded in a faulty core belief about the self—namely, “I am what I achieve.” The second method makes use of strategies developed by John Bradshaw for accepting and affirming all one’s sub-selves. Bradshaw’s approach is critiqued, however, for the way in which shame-based and guilt-based perfectionism are confused. The third method is a modification and adaptation of Heinz Kohut’s strategy of “mirroring” (empathy, admiration, and approval) that he developed for use in work with clients with narcissistic personality disorder.