The European Early Promotion Project: A new primary health care service to promote children's mental health

The number of children in Europe with significant psychologic and social problems is large and increasing. This article describes an innovative crosscultural method of working with families to promote the psychosocial well being of children and prevent the development of psychologic and social problems. A study designed to evaluate the effects of the service is also presented. Primary health care workers in five European countries have been trained to conduct promotional interviews with all prospective mothers in their area one month before and one month after birth. They have also been taught to work with mothers identified as in need of support as a parent by using a specific counselling model to try to prevent the onset of child mental health difficulties. Effects of the intervention on children's psychologic development and family adaptation are being evaluated at two years in comparison with matched groups not receiving the intervention. ©2002 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Using Lexicographic Parametric Programming for Searching a Non-dominated Set in Multiple-Objective Linear Programming

In this paper we propose an approach which makes it possible to search non-dominated and only non-dominated solutions in multiple-objective linear programming. The approach is based on the use of a reference direction and lexicographic parametric programming. The requisite theory is developed in the paper. The use of the approach is illustrated with a numerical example.     

Spontaneous Explanations for Work Events Among Individuals in an Occupational Crisis

The way employees in an occupational crisis and other employees explain work events was analyzed. Two hundred and seventeen female participants gave spontaneous attributions for 7 positive and 7 negative hypothetical work events. The results showed that other-blame and a general negative emotional tone of the attributions most powerfully differentiated crisis individuals' attributions from noncrisis individuals' attributions. Future studies are required to determine whether negative attributions lead to occupational crises or whether occupational crises activate employees' tendencies to negative attributions.     

Psychiatric Symptoms,Posttraumatic Growth,and Life Satisfaction Among Parents of Seriously Ill Infants: A Prospective Case-Controlled Study

Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings - We evaluated psychiatric symptoms, posttraumatic growth, and life satisfaction among the parents (n?=?34) of newborns...     

Participatory and multiobjective development of watercourse regulation—creation of regulation alternatives from stakeholders' preferences

Multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods have been recently applied in many environmental problems. Major aims have been to structure and to analyse multifaceted and complex problems, to compare incommensurable impacts and to clarify the preference order of alternatives. Most MCDA tools concentrate on aiding the process of choice among alternatives. The choice usually occurs at the end of the decision‐making process, but MCDA tools can also assist earlier in the process. In this article, we present a new MCDA‐based method in order to create watercourse regulation alternatives, which meet the objectives of stakeholders. The method is comprised of three elements: (1) framework for the planning and learning process partly based on the Image Theory, (2) analysis and evaluation of ecological, social and economic impacts of regulation, and (3) visual interactive Excel implementation of value‐tree analysis (REGAIM‐model). We show how the method was applied in a complex watercourse regulation development project in Finland. Altogether 36 face‐to‐face computer‐aided interviews were undertaken with the REGAIM model with representatives of different stakeholder groups. We present the main results of the interviews and discuss how these interviews supported generation of new watercourse regulation alternatives. We also describe the advantages of the new approach in the participatory watercourse management, and discuss the applicability of Image Theory in the watercourse regulation context. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptation and implementation of the German social–emotional learning programme Papilio in Finland: A pilot study

This study investigated the cross-national adaptation and implementation of Papilio, a German social–emotional learning programme, in Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres. Papilio is a developmentally focused, scientifically based intervention programme focused on preventing behavioural problems and fostering social–emotional competence in children aged 3–7. The aim of this study was to investigate and evaluate the cross-national adaptation and cross-cultural adaptation and implementation of Papilio in the Finnish ECEC context. Results from qualitative interviews with one Finnish Papilio trainer, 11 early childhood education (ECE) teachers, two ECE special education teachers and two nursery nurses are supplemented with teachers' and nursery nurses' (N = 75) questionnaire data. Qualitative thematic analysis revealed that cultural adaptations were necessary on four levels: accommodation of materials, adaptation of the contents of the materials, structure and delivery. The materials and training contents were culturally adapted, whereas the delivery of the intervention was adapted according to Finnish ECEC practices. The structural adaptation included discarding timeout, due to opposition by some educators. The educators were committed to implementing the programme as instructed and resolving the practical difficulties they encountered. Their motivation to implement Papilio increased as they observed improvements in the children's social–emotional competence during intervention.     

Production of Inflected Novel Words in Older Adults With and Without Dementia

While cognitive changes in aging and neurodegenerative disease have been widely studied, language changes in these populations are less well understood. Inflecting novel words in a language with complex inflectional paradigms provides a good opportunity to observe how language processes change in normal and abnormal aging. Studies of language acquisition suggest that children inflect novel words based on their phonological similarity to real words they already know. It is unclear whether speakers continue to use the same strategy when encountering novel words throughout the lifespan or whether adult speakers apply symbolic rules. We administered a simple speech elicitation task involving Finnish-conforming pseudo-words and real Finnish words to healthy older adults, individuals with mild cognitive impairment, and individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) to investigate inflectional choices in these groups and how linguistic variables and disease severity predict inflection patterns. Phonological resemblance of novel words to both a regular and an irregular inflectional type, as well as bigram frequency of the novel words, significantly influenced participants' inflectional choices for novel words among the healthy elderly group and people with AD. The results support theories of inflection by phonological analogy (single-route models) and contradict theories advocating for formal symbolic rules (dual-route models).