Repacking of crumpled systems

The packing density of a crumpled wire and a crumpled surface submitted to axial compression is investigated. The geometrical, topological and mechanical aspects of both problems are reported and connected with classical results in sphere packing and percolation theory.     

A Plea for a Measure of Cautious Optimism: Reply to Book Reviews

The author responds to four reviews of his book Impossible Training. He describes how the book came into being, discusses his attitude to the Freud—Ferenczi and Klein—Winnicott debates, and raises the dangers of rigid views as to what is truly psychoanalytic and what is truly relational. The global scene of psychoanalytic training today is discussed. It is suggested that critiques do have an impact on psychoanalytic education and that in spite of its flaws and inner contradictions, this education raised generations of sophisticated thinkers and sensitive clinicians.     

Something there is that doesn't love a wall

The history of the stormy love affair between psychoanalysts and literature is explored, with an emphasis on their basic affinity and on the animosity created by analysts’ reductionistic tendencies. Past studies of the dynamics of Robert Frost's emotional world and poetry are reviewed in this context. Ogden's sensitive reading of Frost's poems is portrayed as an example of the potentially mutual egalitarian encounter allowed by newer trends in psychoanalytic theory.     

Dependency and Independence in Young Children

The present study investigated the hypothesis that a positive relation exists between self-concept and moral judgment in young children. In the first experiment 40 kindergarten children between the ages of 5–1 and 6–6 with mental ability scores ranging from 82 to 144 were each administered a self-concept appraisal and a series of Piagetian moral dilemmas. Product-moment correlations and a multiple-regression analysis evaluated the relationship. When the self-concept and moral-judgment scores were collapsed, all of the moral-judgment factors correlated significantly with at least one self-concept factor. A second experiment tested the implications of the first. Eighty-five children between the ages of 5–11 and 8–4 were given the self-concept and moral-judgment measures. An eight-week communications-training session for randomly selected parents of children scoring below the mean on the self-concept measure was held. Posttesting showed no improvement in self-concept for the experimental group. Implications of these experiments are discussed.     

Observations on the Meaning of Behavior in Groups of Chronic Schizophrenics

Abstract

In the United States, there is currently an increase in admissions to psychiatric hospitals, diagnostic heterogeneity, briefer stays, and a lack of inpatient research. Most traditional group therapy models are constructed for longer-term homogeneous patients. Diagnostically homogeneous groups even outperform heterogeneous groups. However, changes in health care have created a clinical dilemma in psychiatric hospitals where groups have become characterized by brief duration, rapid turnover, and diagnostic heterogeneity. A literature review offered little in the way of treatment recommendations, let alone a model or empirical basis, for facilitating these types of groups. Common factors from group therapy studies were extracted. Based on an integration of these studies, a process-oriented psychoeducational (POP) treatment model is recommended. This model is theoretically constructed and outlined for future study.     

Morality and advantage

Claims that necessary and sufficient conditions are not converse relations are discussed, as well as the related claim that If A, then B is not equivalent to A only if B. The analysis of alleged counterexamples has shown, among other things, how necessary and sufficient conditions should be understood, especially in the case of causal conditions, and the importance of distinguishing sufficient-cause conditionals from necessary-cause conditionals. It is concluded that necessary and sufficient conditions, adequately interpreted, are converse relations in all cases.     

Effects of COMT genotype on behavioral symptomatology in the 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome.

The 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (DiGeorge/velocardiofacial syndrome) is associated with elevated rates of psychosis, and is also characterized by severe attentional difficulties and executive dysfunction. Behavioral manifestations of this syndrome could result from haploinsufficiency of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene, located within the 22q11 region. The goal of the present study was to examine COMT genotype in relation to behavioral symptomatology in this syndrome. Val158/108Met was genotyped in 38 patients (16 Met/-, 22 Val/-) with confirmed 22q11.2 deletions who had received the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) as part of a comprehensive evaluation. Results indicated that the Val genotype was associated with significantly greater internalizing and externalizing behavioral symptomatology in children with 22q11.2 deletions. Val allele status was associated with a greater-than-four-fold increase in risk for clinically significant behavior problems in children with this syndrome. These data are consistent with previous findings of increased psychopathology associated with the Val genotype in normal individuals and suggest that a functional genetic polymorphism in the 22q11 region may influence behavior in individuals with COMT haploinsufficiency.     

Jesus and the Play of Imagination: The Role of His Stories and Parables in Faith Formation

Jesus’ stories and parables—the products of his own imagination—are at the core of Christian religious education. Christian religious educators are to encourage their audience to engage their imagination to let Jesus’ stories retain their power to form and transform them. Although imagination operates imperceptibly, it is essential to faith formation. Religious educators are to befriend imagination and employ it as an efficacious means to form their audiences in the faith. This article aims to describe the “obvious” dynamics involved in the act of imagining. The first part of this essay examines the multifaceted nature of imagination. The second part suggests ways how religious educators may develop the imagining skills of their audience.     

Spermine improves recognition memory deficit in a rodent model of Huntington’s disease

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with motor and cognitive impairment. Intrastriatal administration of quinolinic acid (QA) causes neurodegeneration, glial proliferation and cognitive impairment in animals, which are similar to these seen in human HD. Since polyamines improve memory in cognitive tasks, we now tested if the post-training intrastriatal administration of spermine, an agonist of the polyamine site at the NMDA receptor, reverses the deficits in the object recognition task induced by QA. Bilateral striatal injections of QA (180 or 360 nmol/site) caused object recognition impairment, neuronal death and reactive astrogliosis. A single injection of spermine (0.1 and 1 nmol/site), 5 days after QA injection, reversed QA-induced impairment of object recognition task. Spermine (0.1 nmol/site) also inhibited QA-induced reactive astrogliosis measured by a semi-quantitative determination of GFAP immunolabelling, but did not alter neuronal death, measured by a semi-quantitative determination of fluoro-Jade C staining. These results suggest that polyamine binding sites may be considered a novel therapeutic target to prevent reactive astrogliosis and mnemonic deficits in HD.