A preliminary evaluation of two behavioral skills training procedures for teaching abduction-prevention skills to schoolchildren

Although child abduction is a low-rate event, it presents a serious threat to the safety of children. The victims of child abduction face the threat of physical and emotional injury, sexual abuse, and death. Previous research has shown that behavioral skills training (BST) is effective in teaching children abduction-prevention skills, although not all children learn the skills. This study compared BST only to BST with an added in situ training component to teach abduction-prevention skills in a small-group format to schoolchildren. Results showed that both programs were effective in teaching abduction-prevention skills. In addition, the scores for the group that received in situ training were significantly higher than scores for the group that received BST alone at the 3-month follow-up assessment.     

A structural account of phonological paraphasias

The aim of this study is to develop a partial theory of phonological paraphasias which has some cross-syndrome and cross-linguistic validity. It is based on the distinction between content and structural units and emphasizes the role of the latter. The notion of structure holds the key to an understanding of the differences among the following three types of data: slips of the tongue, slips of the pen (defined as errors committed by healthy, competent adults), and paraphasias. A comparison of these three data types reveals that slips of the pen and paraphasias display striking similarities whereas slips of the tongue stand apart. This pattern emerges very clearly in an analysis of nine empirical effects all of which are found to be of a structural nature. On the basis of these results, it is argued that both the written output of normals and the oral output of aphasics are generated under a reduced structural representation (i.e., weak activation of structural nodes). However, the reasons for the diminished sensitivity to structure are not the same in the two modalities. While the impoverished structural representation is a likely consequence of the relatively slow production rate in writing, it may stem from an impaired transmission of activation among structural nodes in aphasia. By contrast, the normal speaking process occurs under the sway of a full-fledged structural representation. Hence, slips of the tongue are highly sensitive to structural effects.     

The use of the Ego Impairment Index across the schizophrenia spectrum

The goal of this study was to assess perceptual and thought disturbance, as indexed by the Ego Impairment Index (EII; Perry & Viglione, 1991), a Rorschach-derived measure, across the schizophrenia spectrum. We hypothesized that there would be an increase in EII scores (indicating increased disturbance) across the spectrum from nonpatients to severely disturbed, hospitalized schizophrenia patients. Normal comparison participants (n = 66), students with elevated scores on either the Perceptual Aberration/Magical Ideation or the Physical Anhedonia Scales (n = 24), first-degree relatives of schizophrenia patients (n = 36), participants diagnosed with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM-IV]; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) schizotypal personality disorder (n = 36), outpatient schizophrenia participants (n = 33), and hospitalized schizophrenia patients (n = 56) were studied. As hypothesized, we found increased EII scores in all of the schizophrenia spectrum groups when compared against normal comparison participants. Furthermore, the EII was significantly different between the schizophrenia patients and the other schizophrenia spectrum groups. These findings support the use of the EII as a sensitive measure of perceptual and thought disturbance across the schizophrenia spectrum that yields specific information regarding the type of thinking problems that occur within schizophrenia spectrum subgroups.     

Recasting (the near-miss to) Weber's law

The authors argue mathematically that a common, power-function model of the just-noticeable difference in stimulus intensities is logically inconsistent with an exponent other than 1 in those frequent situations in which a particular averaging over experimental conditions has taken place. The authors show that an alternative power-law model, one which does not share this logical inconsistency, provides a good fit to many well-known, psychoacoustic intensity discrimination data. They also show that the exponent in this alternative model must be nonconstant with the discrimination criterion in experiments implementing this averaging of data.     

A prescribed employee fitness program and job-related attitudes

A prescribed physical fitness exercise program was initiated in a small furniture manufacturing plant. The present purpose was to investigate the effect of an intervention to change employees' attitudes and sense of well-being. The objective was to evaluate the changes in employees' attitudes (well-being) attributable to the exercise program. The method of evaluation was the survey administered to a treatment (n = 22) and a mixed (n = 30) control group. A multidimensional attitude survey questionnaire was administered to assess effects over a 6-mo. period. While some changes in job attitudes were observed for the treatment group, those were not the expected changes. Possible explanations for the findings are discussed.     

Suicidal ideation and attempts in Norwegian police

Studies on suicide among police show inconsistent results, thereby contributing to considerable speculation regarding why police officers commit suicide. The present paper is the first nationwide study on suicidal ideation and attempts among police. 3,272 Norwegian police completed Paykel's Suicidal Feelings in the General Population questionnaire. Lifetime prevalence of specific questionnaire items ranged from 24% for the feeling that life was not worth living, 6.4% for having seriously considered suicide, and 0.7% for attempted suicide. Independent predictors of serious suicidal ideation were marital status, subjective health complaints, reality weakness, anxiety, and depression. Serious suicidal ideation was mainly attributed to personal and family problems.     

Exploring the validity of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) with established emotions measures

Emotions measures represent an important means of obtaining construct validity evidence for emotional intelligence (EI) tests because they have the same theoretical underpinnings. Additionally, the extent to which both emotions and EI measures relate to intelligence is poorly understood. The current study was designed to address these issues. Participants (N = 138) completed the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), two emotions measures, as well as four intelligence tests. Results provide mixed support for the model hypothesized to underlie the MSCEIT, with emotions research and EI measures failing to load on the same factor. The emotions measures loaded on the same factor as intelligence measures. The validity of certain EI components (in particular, Emotion Perception), as currently assessed, appears equivocal.     

Strength-Based Assessment of Rural African American Early Adolescents: Characteristics of Students in High and Low Groups on the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale

Early adolescents strengths were examined in relation to factors that are associated with developmental risk or resilience in two rural low-income southern communities. The sample was comprised 279 students (101 boys, 178 girls), all of whom were African American and reflected the public school attendance of this community. Parent reports on the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (BERS) were used to assess strengths. BERS scores were examined in relation to academic, behavioral, and social characteristics of participants. For girls, total strength scores on the BERS were positively associated with indices of high competence and negatively associated with problematic characteristics. For boys, high and low total strength scores differentiated between youth who did and did not have risks associated with externalizing behavior problems. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for assessment and prevention.     

Adrenocorticotrophic hormone modulates Escherichia coli O157:H7 adherence to porcine colonic mucosa

Exposure to stress is associated with susceptibility to disease and one stress mediator, norepinephrine, has been reported to enhance the adherence of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 (EHEC) to the colonic mucosa. We tested the hypothesis that adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and other stress-related hormones may act in a similar fashion. Explants of distal colonic mucosa from young pigs were mounted in Ussing chambers and their luminal aspect was exposed to EHEC strain 700728 for 30-90 min. When added to the contraluminal, but not luminal bathing medium, ACTH increased EHEC adherence within 90 min in a concentration-dependent manner (EC50 = 1.2 nM), but did not alter tissue electrical conductance. ACTH had no effect on the adherence of a pig-adapted non-O157 E. coli strain. The effect of 0.1 microM ACTH on luminal EHEC adherence was prevented in tissues pretreated contraluminally with the type 2 melanocortin receptor antagonist ACTH7-38, the neuronal conduction blocker saxitoxin, or the muscarinic cholinergic antagonist atropine. Moreover, ACTH7-38 decreased EHEC adherence in the absence of ACTH. These results suggest that ACTH acts via melanocortin receptors located on enteric nerves to enhance mucosal adherence of EHEC.     

Mortgaging the future: Dumping ethics with nuclear waste

On August 22, 2005 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued proposed new regulations for radiation releases from the planned permanent U.S. nuclear-waste repository in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The goal of the new standards is to provide public-health protection for the next million years — even though everyone admits that the radioactive wastes will leak. Regulations now guarantee individual and equal protection against all radiation exposures above the legal limit. Instead E.P.A. recommended different radiation exposure-limits for different time periods. It also recommended using only the arithmetic mean of the dose distribution, to assess regulatory compliance during one time period, but using only the median dose to assess compliance during another period. This piece argues that these two changes — in exposure-limits and in methods of assessing regulatory compliance — have at least four disturbing consequences. The changes would threaten equal protection, ignore the needs of the most vulnerable, allow many fatal exposures, and sanction scientifically flawed dose calculations.