Sexuality education and young people's sexual behavior: a review of studies

Sexuality education for children and young adults is one of the most heavily debated issues facing policy-makers, national AIDS program planners, and educators, provoking arguments over how explicit education materials should be, how much of it there should be, how often it should be given, and at what age instruction should commence. In this context, the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS' Office of Intervention Development and Support commissioned a comprehensive literature review to assess the effects of HIV/AIDS and sexuality education upon young people's sexual behavior. 52 reports culled from a search of 12 literature databases were reviewed. The main purpose of the review is to inform policy-makers, program planners, and educators about the impact of HIV and/or sexuality education upon the sexual behavior of youth as described in the published literature. Of 47 studies which evaluated interventions, 25 reported that HIV/AIDS and sexuality education neither increased nor decreased sexual activity and attendant rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). 17 reported that HIV and/or sexuality education delayed the onset of sexual activity, reduced the number of sex partners, or reduced unplanned pregnancy and STD rates Only 3 studies found increases in sexual behavior associated with sexuality education. Inadequacies in study design, analytic techniques, outcome indicators, and the reporting of statistics are discussed.     

Variation of Isometric Response Force in the Rat

Hungry, unrestrained rats (N = 7) were rewarded for pressing a response beam in excess of 11 different force requirements. Changes in peak force production as a function of peak force requirement were examined by analyses of the first four moments of distributions of peak response forces: constant error, the within-subject standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis. Results were similar to those previously obtained with human subjects: Constant error was positive at low and negative at high force requirements, the within-subject standard deviation increased as a negatively accelerating function of force requirement, and skewness and kurtosis were positive at low force requirements and decreased to negative values at the highest increments. Additional analyses of response kinetics indicated that rats, like humans, meet increasing force requirements by altering the rate of rise of force. The performance similarities suggest that common processes are engaged by the human and rat motor control systems to solve the problem of generating forces that are appropriate to the prevailing environmental constraints.     

Sex-selective abortion: a relational approach

A critical application of Ruddick's model of maternal thinking is the best way to grapple with the ethical dilemmas posed by sex-selective abortion which I view as a "moral mistake." Chief among these is the need to be sensitive to local cultural practices in countries where sex-selective abortion is prevalent, while simultaneously developing consistent international standards to deal with the dangers posed by the use of sex-selective abortion to eliminate female fetuses.     

A classroom demonstration of self-monitoring, reactivity, and interobserver agreement

A brief classroom demonstration designed to introduce students to the concepts of self-monitoring, reactivity, and interobserver agreement is presented. The demonstration provides students with opportunities to monitor their own behavior, record the behavior of others, and calculate interobserver agreement percentages. Results of using the demonstration with students from two classes are presented.     

开放的中国──封闭的中国

禁地,亦即指由于地形原因而不可进入的地区,尤其是指出于政治、宗教或其他动机而作出的决策所禁止入内的区域（场所、城市、国家）。禁地往往蒙上了一种神秘的气氛．几乎必然会引起人们的好奇。到达拉萨曾是几代探险家的梦想。这一地区不仅对外人封闭,而且对“内部人”也封闭：任何人不得离开“外出”。德川幕府对日本实行的隔绝就是这样一种双向隔离。当然．地理条件也有助于这种隔离,因而使之轻易地付诸实行。有人指出（或许这种说法不够严肃）．举世闻名的中国长城不仅意味着防范匈奴入侵,更意味着防止中国人逃离。史料也表明中国过…     

Being skeptical about the medical humanities

In this paper the author challenges the prevailing view that contemporary writing in the medical humanities is serving the needs of the various health care disciplines. The current medical humanities literature assumes that physicians are the appropriate target group. This is most notably the case within health care ethics literature. There appears to be an unexamined assumption that physician-centric approaches to clinical ethical decision-making are the standard by which appropriate ethical practice is judged. The author challenges this assumption and addresses the problems that this approach engenders. The medical humanities literature appears to reinforce hierarchical, patriarchal arrangements which are themselves not morally neutral.     

Changes in spinal reflex excitability in a countermanded timed response task

Subjects (N = 8) performed a timed response task in which they attempted to synchronize an impulsive foot-press response with the last in a series of four regularly spaced tones. In Experiment 1, the response was countermanded on one third of the trials (stop trials) by a stop signal that appeared at a predetermined delay after the third tone. No stop signal appeared on the remaining trials (go trials). All subjects showed a systematic transition from withholding the response on stop trials in which the stop signal appeared shortly after the third tone to executing the response on trials in which a single stop signal delay had been chosen so that a response would be made on about 50% of the stop trials. We elicited Hoffmann (H) reflexes from the soleus muscle on all trials to determine whether the reflexes were augmented on occasions on which a response was prepared but withheld. Mean H-reflex amplitudes on go trials and on stop trials on which the response was executed were similar and showed a marked augmentation beginning about 250 ms before response onset; mean H-reflex amplitudes on stop trials on which the response was withheld showed less pronounced augmentation. Inspection of individual H-reflex amplitudes revealed that on stop trials on which the response was withheld the reflexes could be augmented to the same extent as on trials on which the response was executed. This dissociation of H-reflex augmentation and response execution shows that H-reflex augmentation reflects a controlled response process. Ballistic response processes therefore must be limited to a brief duration.