The blossoming of bioethics at NIH

The establishment of the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has coincided with a burgeoning of interest and activity related to bioethical issues at NIH. The department has precipitated a reexamination and revitalization of existing bioethics activities in the Clinical Center and has launched new programs especially in the areas of education and research. In addition, the department contributes to the work of others throughout NIH who address bioethical issues.     

The creative process in psychoanalytic treatment

Conclusion In summary, then, what is conducive to creative functioning is arelaxation of one's rationality: the analyst who feels exhilarated rather than threatened, receptive rather than anxious, at the hint of an appearance of the unexpected, at the peeking out of something that may challenge his understanding, that may not fit the theory neatly—he is the one who is capable of more creativity. The analyst might thus orient himself to give rein to his own inner processes, his inner radar rather than his intellect, and thus without preconceived theoretical expectations aspire to discover anew that which is uncovered ineach patient. It is this which makes each analysis a fresh experience, not a stale rehash, for the therapist; it is this which makes the analysis an authentic encounter for the patient—thus, an adventuring together.Another factor grows out of the above. If the analyst orients himself to think-feel-respondvia that deeper more personal channel of images — closer to the language of dream images early in the history of analysis recognized as the royal road to the unconscious—then he may find his creative responsiveness more liberated, his intuition in general more active for the work of the session. He thereby may enliven his reactivity not only along the pithy, affect-enriched modality of images, but also along other dimensions of intervention involving more nuanced responses of all sorts.Read at the convention of the Metropolitan Academy of Psychoanalytic Training, March 12, 1971, New York City, panel on The Creative Process.     

Parenting Dimensions and Internalizing Difficulties in Italian and U.S. Emerging Adults: The Intervening Role of Autonomy and Relatedness

The present study examined the associations between emerging adults’ perceived parental psychological control and autonomy support, and their autonomy, relatedness and internalizing difficulties in Italy and the U.S. The participants included 494 Italian and 414 U.S. college students, between 18 and 28 years of age (Mean = 21.58, SD = 2.18). Our findings showed that dependency-oriented psychological control had no significant direct associations with autonomy, relatedness or internalizing difficulties. Moreover, the association between parental autonomy support and internalizing problems was fully intervened by autonomy and relatedness, whereas the association between achievement-oriented psychological control and anxiety and depressive symptoms was partially intervened by autonomy and relatedness. Finally, although parental psychological control and autonomy support had similar effects on maladjustment across the two countries, relatedness appeared to play a more central role as an intervening variable for anxiety in the Italian group than in the U.S. group. Overall, our findings highlighted the importance of examining parents’ contributions to emerging adults’ internalizing problems via autonomy support and psychological control across cultures.     

在综合基础上创新——鼠伤寒菌pla基因及其功能研究的思考

鼠伤寒菌pla基因及功能的研究从课题确立到取得结果整个过程,充分展现了综合研究方法在现代科学研究中的重要作用;在综合基础上的创新是科学研究成功的中心环节。     

Fourier‐Motzkin elimination method in MOLP problems

This paper introduces a method for finding the non‐dominated set in criterion space of an MOLP problem based on Fourier–Motzkin Elimination. The method incorporates a procedure that eliminates decision variables from constraints and transforms a feasible region from decision space to criterion space. While avoiding characterization of the efficient set in decision space, it finds the non‐dominated set in criterion space. After the decision maker's most preferred criterion vector has been identified, the corresponding efficient solutions can be found by backward substitution. The method was implemented in MATLAB using a tabular form and computational experiments were conducted. The results indicate that although the method performs well for relatively small problems, it can be computationally intensive for larger problems. Nonetheless, the method is intuitively appealing and it provides useful insights into the geometry and theory of MOLP. As such it makes it a valuable educational tool for students of multi‐criteria decision analysis. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Associations between mother–child interaction and children's later self and mother feature knowledge

Associations between mother–child interaction at 12 months and children's feature knowledge of self and mother at 20 months were investigated in 81 dyads. Mother–Child interaction was assessed by scales adapted from the Parent Child Early Relational Assessment (1985). Self‐ and mother knowledge were assessed by Self‐ and Mother Feature Knowledge Scales. Associations were found between mother–child interaction and later self‐ and mother feature knowledge. Maternal behavior characterized by positive affect and sensitive responsiveness and child behavior characterized by positive affect, responsiveness, and balanced attention between mother and environment were related to a more complex knowledge of self and mother. On sensorimotor items children knew more about self than about mother while on representational items children knew more about mother than about self. The findings support the view that more harmonious interactions are related to more complex self‐ and mother feature knowledge.     

A New Measure for the Assessment of Appreciation for Creative Personality

This article introduces a new scale for the assessment of Appreciation for Creative Personality (ACP). The ACP scale is a brief 13-item forced-choice measure that assesses interindividual differences in the preference for interacting with creative people. ACP is considered an important factor of creative climate at the level of interpersonal interaction. Individuals who score high on ACP are thought to foster a creative climate in that they value creative traits in others. In two studies, the psychometric characteristics of the ACP scale were probed. The scale showed a clear unidimensional structure with evidence of good reliability and convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity. The ACP was substantially related to Big Five openness to experience, but predicted relevant criteria over and above openness, supporting the conceptual distinction between ACP and openness. In dyadic data analyses, participants’ openness to experience was significantly associated with their parents’ ACP, which shows that the ACP scale captured shared interpersonal variance. Moreover, parental ACP indirectly predicted participants’ everyday creative activities via the path of openness. These findings suggest that the ACP scale is a useful tool for the study of social-environmental climate for creativity from an interpersonal perspective.     

The assessment of knowledge and learning in competence spaces: The gain–loss model for dependent skills

The gain–loss model (GaLoM) is a formal model for assessing knowledge and learning. In its original formulation, the GaLoM assumes independence among the skills. Such an assumption is not reasonable in several domains, in which some preliminary knowledge is the foundation for other knowledge. This paper presents an extension of the GaLoM to the case in which the skills are not independent, and the dependence relation among them is described by a well‐graded competence space. The probability of mastering skill s at the pretest is conditional on the presence of all skills on which s depends. The probabilities of gaining or losing skill s when moving from pretest to posttest are conditional on the mastery of s at the pretest, and on the presence at the posttest of all skills on which s depends. Two formulations of the model are presented, in which the learning path is allowed to change from pretest to posttest or not. A simulation study shows that models based on the true competence space obtain a better fit than models based on false competence spaces, and are also characterized by a higher assessment accuracy. An empirical application shows that models based on pedagogically sound assumptions about the dependencies among the skills obtain a better fit than models assuming independence among the skills.     

心理时间旅行的方向与事件情绪效价对任务自信的影响

时间是认识和定义自我的框架之一。本研究采用两个实验,探讨心理时间旅行对任务自信的影响。实验1采用自由回忆或想象过去、未来事件的操纵,结果发现：事件情绪效价影响任务自信,时间方向以事件情绪效价为中介间接影响任务自信,想象的未来事件比回忆的过去事件更积极,进而引发更高任务自信。实验2采用平衡回忆或想象事件的情绪效价的操纵,使效价与时间方向的作用相分离,结果发现：时间方向不影响任务自信,想象事件的情绪效价对任务自信的作用受到时间方向的调节。回忆过去事件时,效价不影响任务自信;而想象未来事件时,事件效价越积极,任务自信越高。对于时间旅行中的积极事件,时间旅行的方向不影响任务自信;而对于消极事件,想象未来所引发的任务自信低于回忆过去。结论：时间旅行的方向与想象事件的情绪效价共同作用于任务自信。     

Sex differences in eye gaze and symbolic cueing of attention.

Observing a face with averted eyes results in a reflexive shift of attention to the gazed-at location. Here we present results that show that this effect is weaker in males than in females (Experiment 1). This result is predicted by the 'extreme male brain' theory of autism (Baron-Cohen, 2003), which suggests that males in the normal population should display more autism-like traits than females (e.g., poor joint attention). Indeed, participants' scores on the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Stott, Bolton, & Goodyear, 2001) negatively correlated with cueing magnitude. Furthermore, exogenous orienting did not differ between the sexes in two peripheral cueing experiments (Experiments 2a and 2b). However, a final experiment showed that using nonpredictive arrows instead of eyes as a central cue also revealed a large gender difference. This demonstrates that reduced orienting from central cues in males generalizes beyond gaze cues. These results show that while peripheral cueing is equivalent in the male and female brains, the attention systems of the two sexes treat noninformative symbolic cues very differently.