Satisfactory accounts of divine creation

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - Multiverse theorists provide controversial, unique but unified accounts of divine creation that result in the Anselmian God creating a best world....     

Mental Health Literacy of Australian Rural Adolescents: An Analysis Using Vignettes and Short Films

The mental health literacy (MHL) of rural adolescents has rarely been investigated. This study examined the MHL of 122 rural‐based adolescents (49 males, 73 females) aged 12–18 years (M = 16, SD = 1) using written vignettes and short films to examine knowledge about depression. For the written vignettes, 68% of the rural adolescents were able to correctly identify someone with depression, which is similar to the findings for metropolitan adolescents; however, knowledge about recovery times and avenues of assistance were below that of their metropolitan peers. Participants were less likely to correctly diagnose depression when suicidal intent was not expressed and when the scenario was presented in the more naturalistic form of a film. This finding raises questions about the place of films and written vignettes in future MHL research.     

Client Perceptions of Couples Therapy: Helpful and Unhelpful Aspects

This article describes a qualitative study that investigated client perceptions of helpful and unhelpful aspects of couples therapy. A thematic analysis of interviews revealed among other themes, that couple participants associated helpful therapy experiences with (a) being given choices regarding ideas and ways of working that fit for them, (b) working with a therapist they trusted, and (c) developing new ideas about the couple relationship. Implications of this study for future research, practice, and training are described.     

Toward a Shortened Measure of Adaptive Selling

This study investigates the psychometric properties of the adaptive selling scale (ADAPTS) developed by Spiro and Weitz (1990). A multiple industry sample of 1042 salespeople is employed, which provides the ability to more fully explore the dimensions of adaptive selling within a diverse cross-section of sales situations. An assessment utilizing confirmatory factor analysis suggests a shortened version of the scale consisting of five items that represent four of the facets originally proposed by Spiro and Weitz (1990). Based on its psychometric properties and measurement efficiency for business applications, this scale (labeled ADAPTS-SV, for shortened version) is recommended for future applications where appropriate.     

Salesperson Job Involvement: A Modern Perspective a New Scale

Job involvement is a person's psychological identification or commitment to his/her job. Job involvement is an important construct in salesforce performance research because (1) it is a relevant consequence of a salesperson's work environment and internal feelings, (2) it is a relevant antecedent of a number of important sales job outcomes, and (3) it impacts the socialization process for salespeople. Because sales jobs have changed markedly over the past decade, a salesperson's job involvement now tends to be more focused on relationships with clients and less on aspects within an organizational boundary. The most widely used measure of job involvement (Lodahl and Kejner 1965) is not occupation-specific to sales. This article outlines the development of a new scale for relationship-based salesperson job involvement utilizing rigorous assessments of reliability, validity, and dimensionality within a broad sample of practicing salespeople.     

Transient photoconductivity in n-type a-Si: H

Abstract

The long-time transient photocurrent decay in annealed and light-exposed P-doped a-Si: H is examined experimentally and by numerical modelling. The decay is a dispersive power law with sublinear index, extending to times longer than 1s, and the decay rate increases with temperature. Light exposure dramatically decreases the decay amplitude but does not affect the rate of decay. The phenomenon is discussed in terms of a comprehensive multiple-trapping model in which transport of thermalized electrons is essentially non-dispersive, and recombination of free carriers via defects is dispersive, owing to continued thermalization of excess holes. The slower recombination step is free-hole capture by D^? states, while the decay of the total excess ensemble is controlled by hole release from valence-band tail traps. The index of the excess photoelectron decay provides information on the valence-band tail states, which are exponentially distributed, with a characteristic energy estimated as 0·06 eV.     

Muhammad in Contemporary Christian Theological Reflection

After briefly surveying the generally polemical pre-modern Christian views of Muhammad, this essay considers a range of recent Christian approaches. Daniel Madigan explores often unrecognized complexities involved in the question; he considers Muhammad's message a “salutary critique” prompting Christians to a fuller understanding of their faith. Hans Küng insists that Christians should recognize Muhammad as a prophet; Islam is akin to early Jewish forms of Christianity, whose validity should be recognized. Jacques Jomier and Christian Troll are respectful of Muhammad but argue that, if Christians call him a prophet, they effectively deny their own faith. Kenneth Cragg presents a “positive, critical position”, encouraging sympathetic Christian interpretation of Muhammad's achievement in his context, but expressing reservations about the “political equation” in his ministry and contrasting this with Christ's way of redemptive suffering. Cragg's approach is upheld against criticisms as an exemplary model of Christian theological engagement with Islam.