Parallel distributed processing and neuropsychology: A neural network model of Wisconsin card sorting and verbal fluency

Neural networks can be used as a tool in the explanation of neuropsychological data. Using the Hebbian Learning Rule and other such principles as competition and modifiable interlevel feedback, researchers have successfully modeled a widely used neuropsychological test, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. One of these models is reviewed here and extended to a qualitative analysis of how verbal fluency might be modeled, which demonstrates the importance of accounting for the attentional components of both tests. Difficulties remain in programming sequential cognitive processes within a parallel distributed processing (PDP) framework and integrating exceedingly complex neuropsychological tests such as Proverbs. PDP neural network methodology offers neuropsychologists co-validation procedures within narrowly defined areas of reliability and validity.     

The design and use of the Bioethics Consultation Form

The emergence of the ethics consultation as a means to resolve moral crises in clinical medicine has revealed the need for a worksheet that would facilitate intake and analysis. The author developed the Bioethics Consultation Form as an attempt to remedy this need. The form is arranged in an outline format and is a useful asset to ethics committee discussions and record keeping. The first section covers basic intake data concerning the patient's medical and personal information, advance directives, and values, as well as the values of the physician and family. After the intake section is completed with the above data, the ethics consultant then turns to the analysis section. This second section allows for (1) the discussion of conflicting values, (2) the identification of priorities, and (3) the elucidation of ethical norms relevant to the case.The Bioethics Consultation Form was adopted by the Patient Care Advisory committee of the Franklin Square Hospital Center in Baltimore, Maryland in 1986. The methodology in the use of the form will be discussed. Further, the potential spectrum of consultative cases that can be analyzed using the form will be highlighted.     

Making peace in gestational conflicts

Mary Anne Warren's claim that there is room for only one person with full and equal rights inside a single human skin ([1], p. 63) calls attention to the vast range of moral conflict engendered by assigning full basic moral rights to fetuses. Thereby, it serves as a goad to thinking about conflicts between pregnant women and their fetuses in a way that emphasizes relationships rather than rights. I sketch out what a care orientation might suggest about resolving gestational conflicts. I also argue that the care orientation, with its commitment to the significance of the partial and the particular, cannot be absorbed within standard, impartialist moral theory.     

Reducing problem behaviors in a residential unit using structural analysis and staff management procedures: A preliminary study

A structural analysis of the problem behaviors of 32 adults with mental retardation living together in a residential facility showed that a disproportionate number of these behaviors were associated with a period of time scheduled for leisure activities. A staff management program was implemented during this time which included activity and staff scheduling, staff inservice training, and staff performance monitoring and feedback. The results showed an 83% decrease in problem behaviors when the program was implemented during the leisure period and no decrease in problem behaviors during adjacent time periods where the program was not utilized. Follow-up assessments indicated maintenance of these decreased levels of behavior at 3 and 6 months. It was concluded that this approach of combining a structural analysis with staff management procedures was effective in reducing a high level of problem behavior in a residential setting. The results are discussed with regard to pragmatic strategies for the pretreatment analysis of problem behaviors in residential settings, and the role of organizational behavior management techniques in habilitative programing for individuals with behavior disorders.     

How,in Our Time,Can We Learn about Spirituality?

A rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth, if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule.     

Application of chaos theory to biology and medicine

The application of “chaos theory” to the physical and chemical sciences has resolved some long-standing problems, such as how to calculate a turbulent event in fluid dynamics or how to quantify the pathway of a molecule during Brownian motion. Biology and medicine also have unresolved problems, such as how to predict the occurrence of lethal arrhythmias or epileptic seizures. The quantification of a chaotic system, such as the nervous system, can occur by calculating the correlation dimension (D2) of a sample of the data that the system generates. For biological systems, the point correlation dimension (PD2) has an advantage in that it does not presume stationarity of the data, as the D2 algorithm must, and thus can track the transient non-stationarities that occur when the systems changes state. Such non-stationarities arise during normal functioning (e.g., during an event-related potential) or in pathology (e.g., in epilepsy or cardiac arrhythmogenesis). When stochastic analyses, such as the standard deviation or power spectrum, are performed on the same data they often have a reduced sensitivity and specifity compared to the dimensional measures. For example, a reduced standard deviation of heartbeat intervals can predict increased mortality in a group of cardiac subjects, each of which has a reduced standard deviation, but it cannot specify which individuals will or will not manifest lethal arrhythmogenesis; in contrast, the PD2 of the very same data can specify which patients will manifest sudden death. The explanation for the greater sensitivity and specificity of the dimensional measures is that they aredeterministic, and thus are moreaccurate in quantifying the time-series. This accuracy appears to be significant in detecting pathology in biological systems, and thus the use of deterministic measures may lead to breakthroughs in the diagnosis and treatment of some medical disorders.