A tutorial on creating logfiles for event-driven applications

This paper describes the practical steps necessary to write logfiles for recording user actions in event-driven applications. Data logging has long been used as a reliable method to record all user actions, whether assessing new software or running a behavioral experiment. With the widespread introduction of event-driven software, the logfile must enable accurate recording of all the user’s actions, whether with the keyboard or another input device. Logging is only an effective tool when it can accurately and consistently record all actions in a format that aids the extraction of useful information from the mass of data collected. Logfiles are often presented as one of many methods that could be used, and here a technique is proposed for the construction of logfiles for the quantitative assessment of software from the user’s point of view.     

Ist es utopisch, sich zukünftige Psychoanalytiker ohne besondere berufliche Identität vorzustellen?

The subject of the Identity of Psychoanalysis and of its representatives belongs to the orthodox psychoanalytic movement. Since about 15 years, under the presidency of J. Sandler, the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) has tried successfully to facilitate scientific research and to promote projects. If the resistance of influential analysts against empirical investigations further decreases, psychoanalytic movement and its unfavourable concommitants will be past. The development to a scientific community will no longer be hampered by controversies on professional identity. The question of identity was dominated by the idea of the so-called “strict, untendentious psychoanalysis” (Freud 1909b, S. 104, 1919a, S. 168). It never existed and could never materialise—it was a fiction. The psychosocial dimensions and its normative implications call the concept of identity into question. Instead it is advisable to speak of a pychoanalytic attitude which has to prove its therapeutic value. This “second (professional) self” (Schafer 1983) is closely connected to the “first (personal) self”, but it is necessary and possible to separate the method from the person and to objectify changes in the patient even if taking place in an intersubjective, relational space. For many years Freud defined what Psychoanalysis is about and who is entitled to call himself an analyst. Later on, the psychoanalytic movement and the institutionalised training system fulfilled this role. The training analysis had been at the centre of all curricula. The genealogy of the training analyst determined the membership in the evergrowing family. Dissidents belong to the history of Psychoanalysis. The official acceptance of the pluralisms within the International Psychoanalytical Association demands comparisons between the various schools according to scientific criteria. Modern process and outcome research provides criteria suited to serve as a model for clinical treatment reports.     

Music fan personality stereotyping in a sample of South African young adults

This study aimed to elicit stereotypes about personality characteristics of young adults residing in South Africa, based solely on music genres. Participants were 941 undergraduate students at a South African university. They responded to a number of surveys about music genre preferences and personality traits. Data were analysed for trends and patterns in personality attributions based on music genre preferences. The results indicated that participants hold distinct stereotypes about the personality traits, so that those with who preferred Classical, Blues and Jazz music were seen to display higher openness to experience than comparison groups with other music genre preferences. Those with Rap, Reggae and Folk music genre preferences were stereotyped as artistic and unconventional. Young South African adults appear to use musical preference to define personality.     

Does Perceived Peer Delinquency Amplify or Mitigate the Deterrent Effect of Perceived Sanction Risk?

The present article studies the interplay of perceived peer delinquency and perceived sanction risk in crime causation. Different sets of hypotheses are formulated. From Situational Action Theory (SAT), it follows that adolescents who have many delinquent friends are more frequently exposed to a crime-conducive moral context. As a consequence, they will more often feel tempted to engage in criminal behavior, which renders them more responsive to sanction risk. Rational Choice Theory (RCT) suggests that adolescents who have no or few delinquent friends are more responsive to sanction risk because these individuals have more informal costs following from punishment to fear. These hypotheses are tested with longitudinal data from the British PADS+ study. Results provide strong support for the propositions derived from SAT. Perceived peer delinquency conditions the effect of perceived sanction risk, and sanction certainty perceptions are most influential among adolescents with a large number of delinquent friends.     

Revisiting the association of aggression and suicidal behavior in schizophrenic inpatients

Our study investigated the association of aggression and suicidal behavior in schizophrenic inpatients. Eight thousand nine hundred one admissions for schizophrenia (1998-2007) to a psychiatric university hospital were included. Schizophrenic suicides (n = 7)/suicide attempters (n = 40) were compared to suicides (n = 30)/suicide attempters (n = 186) with other diagnoses and to schizophrenic non-attempters regarding aggression. Logistic regression analysis was performed to explore risk factors for attempted suicide. Schizophrenic suicides/suicide attempters did not differ from other suicides/suicide attempters or from schizophrenic non-attempters with regard to aggression. Risk of inpatient suicide attempt was increased for patients with attempted suicide at admission, high school graduation, and disorganized subtype. Aggression could not be found to be a predictor of attempted suicide. Aggression seems to have a minor role for suicidal behavior in schizophrenia.