What is Nominalistic Mereology?

Hybrid languages are introduced in order to evaluate the strength of “minimal” mereologies with relatively strong frame definability properties. Appealing to a robust form of nominalism, I claim that one investigated language $\mathcal {H}_{\textsf {m}}$ is maximally acceptable for nominalistic mereology. In an extension $\mathcal {H}_{\textsf {gem}}$ of $\mathcal {H}_{\textsf {m}}$ , a modal analog for the classical systems of Leonard and Goodman (J Symb Log 5:45–55, 1940) and Le?niewski (1916) is introduced and shown to be complete with respect to 0-deleted Boolean algebras. We characterize the formulas of first-order logic invariant for $\mathcal {H}_{\textsf {gem}}$ -bisimulations.     

A Psychological Typology of Newly Unemployed People for Profiling and Counselling

Profiling of the unemployed in order to predict and prevent long-term unemployment has hitherto been based on socio-professional data; however, there is evidence that psychological dimensions also predict job search strategies and unemployment duration. In order to provide psychological profiling, a typological method could be more parsimonious than trait/dimension approaches. Typologies created to date have not addressed the issue of predicting employment status. A sample of 384 newly unemployed people was assessed using psychometric scales which have been shown in past research to be linked to job finding. Through cluster analysis, five groups of unemployed people were differentiated: the “integrated”, “willing”, “outsider”, “anxious”, and “dispossessed”. The typology showed predictive validity for employment status after 12 months. People who were “anxious” or “dispossessed” were more often unemployed than those who were “integrated”, “willing”, or “outsider”. It provided an alternative way of classifying unemployed people that could be used in profiling and especially in advisory support and counselling.     

Order Effects on Situational Judgment Test Items: A case of construct‐irrelevant difficulty

Situational judgment tests (SJTs) pose unique cognitive demands on test takers in that, when presented in written form, they require a great deal of reading and cognitive effort. Because of this cognitive demand, responses to test items toward the end of the test may be influenced by an order effect produced by responding to a large quantity of previous test items. This construct‐irrelevant order effect may increase measurement error and threaten the validity of SJT scores. To test this phenomenon, data were obtained from 1,089 applicants who had completed a lengthy SJT as part of a selection process for an hourly safety and surveillance job at a large international corporation. Results showed that local item dependence, item difficulty, and the rate of omitted responses all increased when items were placed toward the end. The order effect alone was not strong enough to influence subgroup mean score differences in the second half of the test. However, this effect did vary by race: African‐Americans were most strongly affected by the order effect, followed by Caucasians, in their number of omitted responses. Implications and future research of this effect for SJTs and similar types of assessments are discussed.     

Neurodevelopmental delay among HIV-infected preschool children receiving antiretroviral therapy and healthy preschool children in Soweto, South Africa

Neurodevelopmental delay has been documented in up to 97.5% of HIV-infected children in Soweto who were not yet on antiretroviral treatment (ART). With growing numbers of children in South Africa being successfully treated with ART, the effects of ART on neurocognitive functioning in children require investigation. The objective of this study was to determine the extent of neurodevelopmental delay in stable HIV-infected preschool children (aged five to six years) receiving ART and compare it to an apparently healthy (unconfirmed HIV-status) group of preschool children. Thirty HIV-infected preschool children (virologically and immunologically stable on ART for more than one year) were conveniently sampled from 350 eligible children on ART at the Harriet Shezi Children's Clinic in Soweto, Johannesburg. The comparison group comprised 30 well-nourished preschool children attending the Lilian Ngoyi Primary Health Care Clinic in Soweto for routine immunizations. Each child was assessed using the Griffiths Mental Development Scales-Extended Revised Version (GMDS-ER), at a single point in time. The overall developmental z-scores on GMDS-ER were <-2 (indicating severe delay) in 27 (90%) children in the HIV-infected group compared to 23 (76%) in the comparison group (p?=?0.166). Mental handicap (overall GQ?相似文献   

Enacting Actuarial Fairness in Insurance: From Fair Discrimination to Behaviour-based Fairness

ABSTRACT

In line with developments in the personalisation of risk, the idea that insurance products should above all be ‘fair’ to the policyholders is increasingly voiced by commentators. The performativity thesis in Science and Technology Studies usually used to study economic markets can be used to investigate different enactments of ‘actuarial fairness’ in insurance practice. Actuarial fairness functions as a technical economic concept and was coined by the neoclassical micro-economist Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017). Faced with anti-discrimination legislation, the insurance industry has, since the 1980s, advanced the principle of actuarial fairness to legitimise their medico-actuarial technologies to discriminate between risk groups. In the absence of this actuarial fairness, it is assumed that dynamics of adverse selection—derived from neoclassical assumptions about economic actors— will result in the bankruptcy of insurance providers. The paradigmatic case of Fairzekering, a showcase of contemporary behaviour-based personalisation in car insurance, demonstrates an important shift in how actuarial fairness is enacted through behaviour-based calculative devices. Here, policyholders are enacted as being personally in control of their driving style while an interactive discount-infrastructure is set up to provide real-time feedback to incentivize policyholders towards ‘good behaviour.’ This enactment of behaviour-based fairness simultaneously implies a shift in the enactment of the economic actors involved, constitutive of the making of new economic ideas in behavioural economics.     

Elective mutism in children: A family systems approach

Abstract

Elective mutism in children is a relatively rare symptom which is more prevalent in the kindergarten population and has a higher incidence among immigrant families. Treatment strategies for this silent symptom include speech therapy, behavior modification, psychoanalytic, psychotherapeutic, family systems and a combination of these approaches. This paper reviews the types of elective mutism and proposes common characteristics of elective mutists' families. The potential for a redefinition of the term “elective mutism” is examined. It is concluded that family dynamics are an integral part of the elective mutism problem and need to be considered in a comprehensive treatment plan.     

Commentary on Entangled Empathy by Lori Gruen

This essay explores four aspects of Gruen's theory. The first section considers her analysis of the concepts of sympathy, pity, and emotional contagion. The second section outlines the main features of her conception of empathy and highlights some worries about empathy that her theory addresses. The third section examines empathy's contributions to moral epistemology. The fourth section queries Gruen's contention that empathy is morally motivating.     

Unemployment and mental health in a favorable labor market

Labour market variables may moderate the link between unemployment and mental health, as has been found in numerous research papers. The aim of this study was to test, in the context of a very favorable labor market, (1) the detrimental effect of unemployment on mental health and (2) the predictive validity of mental health on further employment status. The population of the study comprised 384 newly registered unemployed persons. Mental health was assessed through four variables: self-esteem, psychological distress, perceived stress, and depressive symptoms. The results did not confirm previous studies. Using analyses of variance for repeated measures and linear regression, a negative change of mental health was not found after 6 and 12 months' unemployment, and the four measurements of mental health at registration did not predict employment status 6 and 12 months later. Results are discussed in terms of moderating variables that capture Luxembourg labor market specificities. This research was supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund in the framework of the VIVRE Program; grant no. FNR/02/05/07. We would like to thank Mary Devine for the linguistic revision of the text.