Pilot programs in newborn screening

The term "pilot study" has been used over the years to describe the evaluation of the many elements involved in deciding whether a proposed condition should be added to a newborn screening (NBS) panel, and until recently, was unilaterally used to describe the evaluation of the assay to be used before the condition was officially adopted by a state for its newborn screening panel. Since Guthrie's introduction of screening for PKU, each time a new condition was added to the panel, the screening assay itself was validated through a population-based trial, in which the test was performed with de-identified samples to avoid association between the test result and the infant. This is considered by the laboratory as the "pilot phase" of adding a new condition. To advance the science of NBS, especially to accommodate new technologies that may provide new types of information (genetic versus physiological) for each new condition, pilot programs are essential. Involvement of the clinical community serves to improve these evaluations and provides the needed clinical validation of decisions made as a result of it. This paper describes the historical context of pilot programs in population-based NBS that utilize laboratory-based markers as indicators of concern; specifically, three applications that demonstrate different approaches to the use of pilots in adding conditions to a NBS panel are described.     

Hypertension reduction through forgiveness training

The objective of this study was to determine if patients with diagnosed stage-1 hypertension could benefit by a forgiveness training program to achieve measurable reductions in anger expression and blood pressure. Twenty-five participants were randomly divided into wait-listed control and intervention groups. The control group monitored blood pressure while the intervention group participated in an 8-week forgiveness training program. At the end of eight weeks, the wait listed group became an intervention group. Those who received forgiveness training achieved significant reductions in anger expression when compared to the control group. While reductions in blood pressure were not achieved by all the participants, those participants who entered the program with elevated anger expression scores did achieve significant reductions in blood pressure. It is suggested that forgiveness training may be an effective clinical intervention for some hypertensive patients with elevated levels of anger.     

The impact of financial and nonfinancial incentives on business-unit outcomes over time

Unlike previous behavior management research, this study used a quasi-experimental, control group design to examine the impact of financial and nonfinancial incentives on business-unit (21 stores in a fast-food franchise corporation) outcomes (profit, customer service, and employee turnover) over time. The results showed that both types of incentives had a significant impact on all measured outcomes. The financial incentive initially had a greater effect on all 3 outcomes, but over time, the financial and nonfinancial incentives had an equally significant impact except in terms of employee turnover.     

The Availability of Heidegger?s Later Thought

Beginning with his work in the mid-1930s, Heidegger's later thought is generally considered to pose severe interpretative difficulties, even for those well acquainted with Being and Time. It is often claimed that his later thought either defies reconstruction because of its arcane nature or that it should not be reconstructed because doing so compromises its subtleties. It is argued that this 'availability problem' with Heidegger's later thought is not insurmountable, at least not with regard to one of its major strands, his views on the relation of art to truth. An interpretation of 'The Origin of the Work of Art' is proposed that views its major arguments as extensions of Heidegger's view on truth and the nature of worlds in Being and Time. To this end, a new account of the relationship of two pairs of terms crucial to the understanding of the ontological significance of the work of art and its truth is offered: (a) 'earth' and 'world' and (b) 'concealment' and 'un-concealment'. What emerges is a Kant-like claim that a necessary condition for the possibility of worlds is that things stand to be taken up into worlds in virtue of a character they have abstracted from their involvements in any one world. Artworks, if they are 'true' art, show this by allowing the thing that they are to support a wide range of possible understandings, displaying the fact that no one set of understandings can exhaust the 'thingly' nature of the work. In addition to clarifying that aspect of Heidegger's account of truth that requires un-concealment to depend on residual concealment, this understanding of the structure of the artwork accounts for the power Heidegger ascribes to certain art to inaugurate worlds. I conclude by making some suggestions, against the background of the interpretation of the art essay, on how to understand the 'turn' in Heidegger's thought as a deepening inquiry into the nature of truth.     

Perceptions of Children Who Lie: Influence of Lie Motive and Benefit

KILMARTIN (1994) suggested that masculine traits may result from externalizing defense style and that when unconscious and unwanted feminine traits about the self occur, they are dealt with in an external way, radier man being directiy resolved by the individual. However, this dieory has received little empirical support. Lobel and Winch (1986) measured defense style among male college students; they found mat men who scored higher in masculinity tended to score higher on acting out (finding an object to attack) and splitting (separating affect from content). Lobel and Winch concluded mat use of diese defense styles reflects avoidance of emotional expression. In turn, diese findings have been supported by research that has suggested mat men use avoidance coping strategies more man women do (McCall &; Struthers, 1994).     

Projective Tests in Vocational Counseling

In Switzerland, the role of projective techniques in vocational counseling is currently under debate. The author of a recent book on the Zulliger-test — a three card, Rorschach-type instrument — claims to have identified a number of syndromes that reflect vocationally relevant personality characteristics. His results are criticized on methodological grounds, and an alternative approach is proposed that emphasizes the expressive and essentially idiographic nature of projective test records. Their main contribution is to permit a better understanding of client motivations and attitudes, resulting in a more effective counseling interaction. Accordingly, these tests should be validated against attitudinal criteria and measures of counseling progress rather than long-term vocational behavior and success on the job.     

A Non-Verbal Technique for Assessing Frustration Response in Pre-School Children

The present study represents a report of the initial development of a picture method for assessing response to frustration in preschool children. Study 1 (N = 91) included the initial development of the picture materials; it also produced some validational support for the picture method in the form of significant correlations between picture choices and extensive behavior observations. Study 2 (N = 49) was designed to be essentially a replication of Study 1. In addition, further validational support was sought through the correlation of picture choices with global teacher ratings of the behaviors of interest.