Adolescent AIDS Prevention in Context: The Impact of Peer Educator Qualities and Classroom Environments on Intervention Efficacy

Peer-led, school-based interventions show promise for preventing AIDS among adolescents, but little is known about the processes underlying effective peer education or the conditions that promote its efficacy. This study examined the implementation in one school of an effective, peer-led AIDS prevention program for inner-city 7th-grade participants (n = 123) and identified the qualities of peer educators (n = 15) and classroom environments (n = 5) that contributed to improvement in participants' postintervention AIDS-related attitudes. The Peer Educator Rating Scale was developed to assess two dimensions of participants' perceptions of peer educators: positive regard and perceived similarity. Participants reported greater positive regard for more highly individuated and less shy peer educators, and participants' positive regard for peer educators in turn was associated with lowered AIDS risk as measured by perceptions of peer norms regarding sexual activity and self-efficacy for peer communication regarding sexual topics and condoms. Participants' perceived similarity was not associated with any postintervention improvements in AIDS-related knowledge and attitudes. Participants' classroom membership was associated with improvements in all 5 knowledge and attitude scales, and exploratory classroom-level findings indicated that classroom intervention environments perceived as more organized by participants showed slightly greater overall improvements across AIDS-related knowledge and attitudes scales. Consistent with individual-level findings regarding participants' positive regard for peer educators, the two classrooms with the greatest positive regard for their peer educator teams showed the most student improvement. Implications for further research and the design of future prevention and promotion programs for adolescents are discussed.     

The Poisoning of Nostalgia: Commentary

The present paper explores elements of traumatic separation associated with involuntary migration by individuals and groups. Loss of home, one's sense of security, familiarity, and historical continuity—without physical threat or actual injury—is examined within a cultural and historical context. The author addresses the complex implications of traumatic separation by conscious human choice, rather than natural processes, such as the poisoning of nostalgia, the process by which normal mourning of loss is undermined by a potentially transgenerationally enduring sense of betrayal of trust.     

“Prototypes” and “fuzziness” in the logic of concepts

Prototypes and fuzziness are regarded in this paper as fundamental phenomena in the inherent logic of concepts whose relationship, however, has not been sufficiently clarified. Therefore, modifications are proposed in the definition of both. Prototypes are defined as the elements possessing maximal degree of membership in the given category such thatthis membership has maximal cognitive efficiency in representing theelement. A modified fuzzy set (m-fuzzy set) is defined on aclass (possibly self-contradictory collection) such that its core (the collection of elements with full membership) is aset (self-consistent collection) comprising the finite set of the prototypes. In this scheme of recursive representation the possibility of contradictions, which has been proven to be inevitable in the logic of concepts, islocalized. Finally a related model of the brain's pattern recognition mechanism is briefly summarized.     

Embeddability,syntax, and semantics in accounts of scientific theories

Recently several philosophers of science have proposed what has come to be known as the semantic account of scientific theories. It is presented as an improvement on the positivist account, which is now called the syntactic account of scientific theories. Bas van Fraassen claims that the syntactic account does not give a satisfactory definition of empirical adequacy and empirical equivalence. He contends that his own semantic account does define these notations acceptably, through the concept of embeddability, a concept which he claims cannot be defined syntactically. Here, I define a syntactic relation which corresponds to the semantic relation of embeddability. I suggest that the critical differences between the positivist account and van Fraassen's account have nothing to do with the distinction between semantics and syntax.     

Depression and grandiosity: Clinical and theoretical issues in the treatment of narcissistic disturbances

The literature on the interrelationship of grandiosity and depression is reviewed. A review of Alice Miller's theories here promotes the understanding of the narcissistic core of depression. Clinical vignettes serve to demonstrate the close links between grandiose ideation and melancholia in the form of masked grandiosity lurking behind the depressive manifest picture. Object loss, in line with the formulations suggested in this paper, is but one form of a narcissistic loss; recovery from a depressive episode, paradoxically, depends on the renovation of the narcissistic supplies and on the giving up, through the mourning process, of narcissistic elements.     

“A Forgotten History” and Related Risks for Speech Genre Users in Trauma Mental Health: A Commentary

This paper utilizes the concept of the speech genre as defined by the Russian literary scholarly Mikhail Bakhtin to examine several discourses related to trauma psychotherapy. It explores the theme of A Forgotten History in trauma mental health and then relates it to current problematic patterns in trauma mental health work with international survivors of human rights violations. It considers the theme of A Forgotten History which has been an important narrative in shaping the trauma mental health movement. It argues that it may put genre users at risk of undesirable practices, and cites as examples current trends in torture treatment and trauma training being used with international survivors of human rights violations. Several recommendations for how the trauma mental health field can better conduct itself as a speech genre are proposed.     

Mathematics of Totalities: an alternative to mathematics of sets

I dare say, a set is contranatural if some pair of its elements has a nonempty intersection. So, we consider only collections of disjoint nonempty elements and call them totalities. We propose the propositional logicTT, where a proposition letters some totality. The proposition is true if it letters the greatest totality. There are five connectives inTT: , , , , # and the last is called plexus. The truth of # means that any element of the totality has a nonempty intersection with any element of the totality . An imbeddingG of the classical predicate logicCPL inTT is defined. A formulaf ofCPL is a classical tautology if and only ifG(f) is always true inTT. So, mathematics may be expounded inTT, without quantifiers.     

A New Representation Theorem for Contranegative Deontic Logic

The logic of an ought operator O is contranegative with respect to an underlying preference relation if it satisfies the property Op & (¬p)(¬q) Oq. Here the condition that is interpolative ((p (pq) q) (q (pq) p)) is shown to be necessary and sufficient for all -contranegative preference relations to satisfy the plausible deontic postulates agglomeration (Op & OqO(p&q)) and disjunctive division (O(p&q) Op Oq).     

Intuitionistic uniformity principles for propositions and some applications

This note deals with the prepositional uniformity principlep-UP: p x N A (p, x) x N p A (p, x) ( species of all propositions) in intuitionistic mathematics.p-UP is implied by WC and KS. But there are interestingp-UP-cases which require weak KS resp. WC only. UP for number species follows fromp-UP by extended bar-induction (ranging over propositions) and suitable weak continuity. As corollaries we have the disjunction property and the existential definability w.r.t. concrete objects. Other consequences are: there is no non-trivial countable partition of;id is the only injective function from to; there are no many-place injective prepositional functions; card () is incomparable with the cardinality of all metric spaces containing at least three elements.     

The client: Therapist's partner or therapist's opponent? thoughts on the question of power and cooperation in therapy

The difference in process and outcome of two therapies conducted by the author with families having a psychotic adolescent is considered. Attention is paid to the fact that in one case the client was regarded theoretically as an opponent and in the other as a partner. It is concluded that the contention thatthe therapist must decide whether to be influential or cooperative arises from a logical confusion by failing to recognize that therapy cannot be anything other than cooperation.Originally published as part of a special issue on the power metaphor guestedited by Klaus G. Deissler inZeitschrift fur systemische Therapie (1986),4, 253–257. Translated by S. Awodey.     

Interpretations of the first-order theory of diagonalizable algebras in peano arithmetic

For every sequence |p _n } _n of formulas of Peano ArithmeticPA with, every formulaA of the first-order theory diagonalizable algebras, we associate a formula ⁰ A, called the value ofA inPA with respect to the interpretation. We show that, ifA is true in every diagonalizable algebra, then, for every, ⁰ A is a theorem ofPA.     

An extension of the partial credit model with an application to the measurement of change

The partial credit model is considered under the assumption of a certain linear decomposition of the item × category parameters _ih into basic parameters _j. This model is referred to as the linear partial credit model. A conditional maximum likelihood algorithm for estimation of the j is presented, based on (a) recurrences for the combinatorial functions involved, and (b) using a quasi-Newton approach, the so-called Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS) method; (a) guarantees numerically stable results, (b) avoids the direct computation of the Hesse matrix, yet produces a sequence of certain positive definite matricesB _k ,k=1, 2, ..., converging to the asymptotic variance-covariance matrix of the . The practicality of these numerical methods is demonstrated both by means of simulations and of an empirical application to the measurement of treatment effects in patients with psychosomatic disorders.The authors thank one anonymous reviewer for his constructive comments. Moreover, they thankfully acknowledge financial support by the Österreichische Nationalbank (Austrian National Bank) under Grant No. 3720.     

On a certain class ofm-address machines

Conclusion It follows from the proved theorems that ifM =Q, (whereQ={0,q ₁,q ₂,...,q }) is a machine of the classM _F then there exist machinesM _i such thatM _i(1,c)=M (q _i,c) andQ _i={0, 1, 2, ..., +1} (i=1, 2, ..., ).And thus, if the way in which to an initial function of content of memorycC a machine assigns a final onecC is regarded as the only essential property of the machine then we can deal with the machines of the formM ={0, 1, 2, ..., }, and processes (t) (wheret=1,c,cC) only.Such approach can simplify the problem of defining particular machines of the classM _F , composing and simplifying them.Allatum est die 19 Januarii 1970     

The Prophylactic Mastectomy Dilemma: A Support Group for Women at High Genetic Risk for Breast Cancer

The goal of this pilot study was to test the usefulness of a six session psychoeducational support group for women at high genetic risk for breast cancer who were considering prophylactic mastectomy. The themes of the group sessions included overestimation of and anxiety about risk; desire for hard data; the emotional impact of watching a mother die of breast cancer; concerns about spouse reactions; self- and body image; the decision-making process; and confusion over whom to trust in decision making. Both the participants and the multidisciplinary leaders concluded that as a supplement to individual counseling, a support group is a beneficial and cost-effective treatment modality. Recommendations for the optimal format for such a group are described.     

Is “some-other-time” sometimes better than “sometime” for proving partial correctness of programs?

The main result of this paper belongs to the field of the comparative study of program verification methods as well as to the field called nonstandard logics of programs. We compare the program verifying powers of various well-known temporal logics of programs, one of which is the Intermittent Assertions Method, denoted as Bur. Bur is based on one of the simplest modal logics called S5 or sometime-logic. We will see that the minor change in this background modal logic increases the program verifying power of Bur. The change can be described either technically as replacing the reflexive version of S5 with an irreflexive version, or intuitively as using the modality some-other-time instead of sometime. Some insights into the nature of computational induction and its variants are also obtained.This project was supported by the Hungarian National Foundation for Scientific Research, Grant No. 1810.     

Isotonic ordinal probabilistic models (ISOP)

The concept of an ordinal instrumental probabilistic comparison is introduced. It relies on an ordinal scale given a priori and on the concept of stochastic dominance. It is used to define a weakly independently ordered system, or isotonic ordinal probabilistic (ISOP) model, which allows the construction of separate sample-free ordinal scales on a set of subjects and a set of items. The ISOP-model is a common nonparametric theoretical structure for unidimensional models for quantitative, ordinal and dichotomous variables.Fundamental theorems on dichotomous and polytomous weakly independently ordered systems are derived. It is shown that the raw score system has the same formal properties as the latent system, and therefore the latter can be tested at the observed empirical level.I wish to thank 3 reviewers and 2 editors who contributed a lot to the readability and precision of the article.     

Sheaves over Heyting lattices

For a complete Heyting lattice , we define a category Etale (). We show that the category Etale () is equivalent to the category of the sheaves over , Sh(), hence also with -valued sets, see [2], [1]. The category Etale() is a generalization of the category Etale (X), see [1], where X is a topological space.     

Cut-free tableau calculi for some propositional normal modal logics

We give sound and complete tableau and sequent calculi for the prepositional normal modal logics S4.04, K4B and G ⁰(these logics are the smallest normal modal logics containing K and the schemata A A, A A and A ( A); A A and AA; A A and ((A A) A) A resp.) with the following properties: the calculi for S4.04 and G ⁰are cut-free and have the interpolation property, the calculus for K4B contains a restricted version of the cut-rule, the so-called analytical cut-rule.In addition we show that G ⁰is not compact (and therefore not canonical), and we proof with the tableau-method that G ⁰is characterised by the class of all finite, (transitive) trees of degenerate or simple clusters of worlds; therefore G ⁰is decidable and also characterised by the class of all frames for G ⁰.Research supported by Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, project number P8495-PHY.Presented by W. Rautenberg     

Employee Cynicism and Resistance to Organizational Change

We offer a reconceptualization of employee cynicism and present the results of two studies to test the hypotheses that (a) cynicism about an organizational change is distinguishable from skepticism about the change, more general forms of cynicism (disposition and management), and trust in management, (b) change-specific cynicism and skepticism relate differently to personal and situational antecedent variables, and (c) change-specific cynicism accounts for variance in employees intention to resist change not explained by skepticism, trust, and more general forms of cynicism. Study 1 was conducted with employees (N=65) from several organizations undergoing various changes, and Study 2 with employees (N=701) from a single organization undergoing restructuring and culture change. Results were generally consistent with prediction. Implications for future research and for the management of change are discussed.     

On superintuitionistic logics as fragments of proof logic extensions

Coming fromI andCl, i.e. from intuitionistic and classical propositional calculi with the substitution rule postulated, and using the sign to add a new connective there have been considered here: Grzegorozyk's logicGrz, the proof logicG and the proof-intuitionistic logicI set up correspondingly by the calculiFor any calculus we denote by the set of all formulae of the calculus and by the lattice of all logics that are the extensions of the logic of the calculus, i.e. sets of formulae containing the axioms of and closed with respect to its rules of inference. In the logiclG the sign is decoded as follows: A = (A & A). The result of placing in the formulaA before each of its subformula is denoted byTrA. The maps are defined (in the definitions of x and the decoding of is meant), by virtue of which the diagram is constructedIn this diagram the maps, x and are isomorphisms, thereforex ^–1 = ; and the maps and are the semilattice epimorphisms that are not commutative with lattice operation +. Besides, the given diagram is commutative, and the next equalities take place: ^–1 = ^–1 and = ^–1 x. The latter implies in particular that any superintuitionistic logic is a superintuitionistic fragment of some proof logic extension.