The Ethical Interest of Frankenstein; Or,the Modern Prometheus: A Literature Review 200 Years After Its Publication

Science and Engineering Ethics - Two hundred years after it was first published, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the modern Prometheus remains relevant. This novel has endured because of its...     

Dualism and its Importance for Medicine

Cartesian dualism has been viewed by medical theorists to be oneof the chief causes of a reductionist/mechanistic treatment ofthe patient. Although I aver that Cartesian dualism is one culprit for the misapprehension of the genuine treatment of patients in termsof both mind and body, I argue that interactive dualism whichstresses the interaction of mind and body is essential to treatpatients with dignity and compassion. Thus, adequate medical carethat is humanistic in nature is difficult (if not impossible)to achieve without physicians adhering to a dualistic frameworkin which the body and person is treated during illness.     

Perceptions of the parent-adolescent relationship: a longitudinal investigation

A self-report measure of conflict and aspects of warmth in the parent-child relationship was completed by 1,330 11-year-old twins, 1,176 of whom completed the inventory again 3 years later. On average, adolescents' perceptions of the quality of the parent-child relationship declined consistently and moderately between age 11 and age 14. Conflict with parents increased, whereas all aspects of warmth decreased; changes were significantly greater for girls than boys. Variances increased with age, primarily because of increases in the magnitude of genetic effects. Heritability estimates ranged from .09 to .31 at intake and .35 to .45 at follow-up and tended to be higher for boys than girls. Changes in the parent-child relationship are interpreted as reflecting genotype-environment correlation processes whereby adolescents increasingly influence their relationships with their parents.     

Hope,Social Support,and Postpartum Depression: Disentangling the Mediating Effects of Negative Affectivity

We examined the potentially mediating effects of negative affectivity (NA) on the hope–depression relationship among a sample of postpartum women. We also assessed the social support reported by these women and examined the possible mediating effects of NA on the social support–postpartum depression relationship. Correlational analyses of data obtained from women (N = 98) who had given birth in the previous 6 months revealed that NA did not mediate either hope or social support in the prediction of postpartum depression. Hope accounted for a significant degree of variance in postpartum depression. These data suggest that hope has palliative effects among women following childbirth and these effects are not nullified or explained by emotional predispositions.     

Bayesian eggs and Bayesian omelettes: reply to Stern (2005)

In this response to Stern's (2005) discussion of Klugkist, Laudy, and Hoijtink (2005), model inference based on posterior probabilities on the parameter space is discussed. Furthermore, the authors respond to Stern's example in which all possible orderings are included via a short discussion of exploratory versus theory-based modeling. Finally, the authors show that the Bayesian approach is flexible and can deal with many types of constraints. This is illustrated using a model with constraints on the differences between means.     

Identifying shared environmental contributions to early substance use: the respective roles of peers and parents

Although behavior genetic studies have suggested that early substance use is primarily environmentally mediated, no study has sought to identify the specific sources of environmental variance. Using data obtained from multiple informants, this study assessed the contributions of peer deviance and parent-child relationship problems to substance use in 14-year-old male and female twins (N = 1,403) drawn from the Minnesota Twin Family Study (MTFS). All three phenotypes were influenced primarily by shared environmental variance (average c(2) =.51), as was the overlap among them. Moreover, peer deviance and parent-child relationship problems accounted for approximately 77% of the variance in early substance use. Findings also indicated that peer deviance, but not parent-child relationship problems, accounted uniquely for variance in early substance use.     

Size of the neocerebellar vermis is associated with cognition in healthy elderly men

Cerebellar volumes show small positive correlations with cognitive ability in young adults, but no studies have examined this relationship in older adults. Furthermore, no studies have examined relationships between sizes of subareas of the cerebellum and cognitive ability. We hypothesized that size of the two areas of the neocerebellar vermis would correlate with a battery of eight cognitive tests in 50 men aged 65-70. Size of the neocerebellar areas of the vermis correlated positively with several cognitive tests (r's=.29-.37, p<.05), whilst sizes of other parts of the vermis did not correlate with any cognitive tests. Total cerebellar volumes correlated significantly with a test of nonverbal reasoning (r=.030, p=.42). These findings suggest a specific association of neocerebellar vermis size with variations in cognitive ability in older adults.     

Teachers' screening for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: comparing multinational samples on teacher ratings of ADHD

This study evaluates a measurement model for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The DSM-IV divides 18 symptoms into two groups, inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive. Elementary school teachers rated 21,161 children in 4 locations: Spain, Germany, urban US, and suburban US. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested that the 2-factor model (inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity) shows the best fit. A third factor, impulsivity, was too slight to stand-alone. Children with academic performance problems were distinguished by inattention, but children with behavior problems typically had elevations in inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Between-site differences were statistically significant, but so small that we conclude that same measurement model fits all 4 samples in 2 continents.