Development and validation of a Christian-based Grief Recovery Scale

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a Christian-based Grief Recovery Scale (CGRS) which was used to measure Christians recovering from grief after a significant loss. Taiwanese Christian participants were recruited from churches and a comprehensive university in northern Taiwan. They were affected by both the Christian faith and Chinese cultural beliefs. The CGRS is developed through replicated factor analyses in three stages. The final version of the CGRS retains 35 Likert-type items and consists of six factors: spiritual well-being; recovering meaning and sense of control; ongoing physical and emotional responses; reassuring faith; strongly missing a deceased loved one; and life disturbance. The evidence for CGRS reliability and validity is highlighted. Implications for research and counselling practice are suggested.     

为什么归纳逻辑需要所罗门诺夫先验?(英文)

二十世纪五十年代,卡尔纳普发展了归纳逻辑,他把概率看作一种证据对假设对"确证度";二十世纪六十年代,所罗门诺夫用通用归纳方法进行预测。为了增强归纳逻辑的归纳预测能力以及扩展所罗门诺夫通用归纳方法的表达力,本文整合二者。本文首先将所罗门诺夫先验概率的思想引入归纳逻辑中,在这个框架下,证明一阶逻辑版本的所罗门诺夫完全性定理,然后比较二者的优略。在卡尔纳普的归纳逻辑中,不管正面证据有多少,对像"所有乌鸦都是黑的"这种全称句的支持度最终都为零,而在用所罗门诺夫先验改造的归纳逻辑中,可以证明,在任何可计算的世界中,"所有乌鸦都是黑的"可以得到确证,只要在那些世界上真的所有乌鸦都是黑的。在所罗门诺夫的模型中,要证明完全性定理需要记录所有的过去信息,在修改后的归纳逻辑中,我们可以只关注某种具体的模式而忽略其它无关信息并证明类似的收敛定理。我们甚至可以不用记录所有的相关信息而采用随机抽样的方法建立合理的信念。     

Effects of cementite morphology on short-fatigue-crack propagation in binary Fe–C steel

The effects of cementite morphology on short-fatigue-crack propagation were investigated by subjecting smooth steel specimens to rotating-bending fatigue tests. Intergranular and transgranular cementite precipitation steels free of other phases were prepared through heat treatments. In the intergranular cementite precipitation steel, short-fatigue-crack propagation was decelerated at the grain boundaries, and accelerated in the grain interiors. In contrast, the transgranular precipitation steel showed the deceleration of the crack propagation in the grain interiors but not in the vicinity of the grain boundaries.     

Using a Two-Tier Test to Examine Taiwanese Graduate Students’ Misunderstanding of Responsible Conduct of Research

The present study investigates Taiwanese graduate students’ general understanding and misunderstanding of Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR). A total of 580 graduate students responded to the self-developed Responsible Conduct of Research Reasoning Test. The results reveal that, first, students did not have sufficient knowledge to reason why a particular instance of research (mis)conduct was doable or not. Second, the statistical results show that female students, students majoring in the humanities or the social sciences, doctoral-level students, and students with RCR-related training outperformed others. In addition, the misbehaviors that students judged relatively uncritically comprise the following nine categories: (a) seeing authorship as a property or power, (b) misinterpreting research coauthors’ responsibilities, (c) inaccurately conducting the informed-consent process, (d) fabricating and falsifying research data, (e) misinterpreting the correct citation of research sources, (f) holding vague concepts of self-plagiarism, (g) misinterpreting the Taiwan Copyright Act, (h) accepting duplicate-publication practices, and (i) accepting piecemeal publication practices. The present study discusses participative students’ major misunderstandings of actual RCR-related practices. The study also presents further implications and suggestions based on the findings.     

The Cognitive Social Network in Dreams: Transitivity,Assortativity, and Giant Component Proportion Are Monotonic

For five individuals, a social network was constructed from a series of his or her dreams. Three important network measures were calculated for each network: transitivity, assortativity, and giant component proportion. These were monotonically related; over the five networks as transitivity increased, assortativity increased and giant component proportion decreased. The relations indicate that characters appear in dreams systematically. Systematicity likely arises from the dreamer's memory of people and their relations, which is from the dreamer's cognitive social network. But the dream social network is not a copy of the cognitive social network. Waking life social networks tend to have positive assortativity; that is, people tend to be connected to others with similar connectivity. Instead, in our sample of dream social networks assortativity is more often negative or near 0, as in online social networks. We show that if characters appear via a random walk, negative assortativity can result, particularly if the random walk is biased as suggested by remote associations.     

Formation of profuse <c+a> dislocations in deformed calcium-containing magnesium alloys

We report that <c+a> pyramidal slipping could be more easily activated in textured Mg–Ca alloys with increasing Ca contents dissolved in α-Mg matrix under tensile deformation, and it is proposed that the decreased stacking fault energy plays the critical rule. In contrast, only twins and <a> basal dislocations are observed in the compressed samples. The results would provide insight into understanding of the deformation mechanism and designing more ductile Mg alloys.     

Divergent thinking and constructing episodic simulations

Divergent thinking likely plays an important role in simulating autobiographical events. We investigated whether divergent thinking is differentially associated with the ability to construct detailed imagined future and imagined past events as opposed to recalling past events. We also examined whether age differences in divergent thinking might underlie the reduced episodic detail generated by older adults. The richness of episodic detail comprising autobiographical events in young and older adults was assessed using the Autobiographical Interview. Divergent thinking abilities were measured using the Alternative Uses Task. Divergent thinking was significantly associated with the amount of episodic detail for imagined future events. Moreover, while age was significantly associated with imagined episodic detail, this effect was strongly related to age-related changes in episodic retrieval rather than divergent thinking.     

Prevalence of depressive symptoms and its correlates among medical students in China: a national survey in 33 universities

We conducted a national survey among medical students in China to estimate the prevalence of depressive symptoms and explore associated risk factors based on an established questionnaire composed of demographic information, life events in the past four weeks before survey, and the validated Chinese version of the 21-item Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI). The mean age of enrolled 9010 students was 20.7 (standard deviation: 1.6) years. BDI scores indicated that 19.9% had depressive symptoms based on the cut-off score of 14. Socioeconomic factors and student characteristics such as male sex, low monthly income per capita, father’s poor education background, and higher year of study were associated with higher prevalence of depressive symptoms among medical students. Students who studied in comprehensive universities were more likely to have depressive symptoms compared with those from medical universities. Habitual smoking and alcohol drinking, sleep deprivation, and hospitalization or medication for one week or more in the last four weeks also predisposed students to higher risk of depressive symptoms. Our results indicate that depressive symptoms are becoming a highly prevalent health problem among Chinese medical students. Primary and secondary prevention should be prioritized to tackle this issue based on potential risk factors.     

Does Theory of Mind in Pre-kindergarten Predict the Ability to Think About a Reader’s Mind in Elementary School Compositions? A Longitudinal Study

A critical skill in emergent writing is the developing ability to take the perspective of different readers; however, the precursors of this skill have not yet been identified. In this longitudinal study, 105 children (90 after attrition) were tested at 3 time points: pre-kindergarten (3–4 years old, n = 105), kindergarten (5 years old, n = 97), and Grade 1 (6–7 years old, n = 90). Theory of mind (ToM) in pre-kindergarten significantly predicted children’s awareness of a reader’s epistemic state when they dictated letters in both kindergarten and Grade 1 even after controlling for language (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Task [PPVT]) and inhibitory control. In addition, ToM in pre-kindergarten remained a significant predictor of reader awareness in Grade 1 after further controlling for reader awareness in kindergarten. There was little relationship between higher-order ToM tasks in kindergarten and reader awareness, but higher-order ToM in Grade 1 concurrently predicted reader awareness. Receptive vocabulary (PPVT) was significantly related to reader awareness at all time points, longitudinally and concurrently. This study has both theoretical implications for the relationship between ToM and emergent literacy and practical implications for the early identification and remediation of children at risk for later writing difficulties.     

Revisiting “Upstream Public Engagement”: from a Habermasian Perspective

The idea of conducting “upstream public engagement,” using nanotechnology as a test case, has been subject to criticism for its lack of any link to the political system. Drawing on the theoretical tools provided by Habermas, this article seeks to explore such a “link”, focusing specifically on the capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) to distil, raise and transmit societal concerns in an amplified form to the public spheres at the European Union (EU) level. Based on content analysis and semi-structured interviews with relevant actors, this article examines the evolution of CSO approaches towards nanotechnology over the past decade and investigates whether and how upstream public engagement could contribute to more vibrant public spheres and facilitate the formation of communicative power. The answer to these questions is twofold: on the one hand, moving public engagement “upstream” enables CSOs to be better informed and to become part of the debates more quickly. A “green alliance” is taking shape, which calls for more stringent regulation on nanomaterials. On the other hand, upstream public engagement has turned out to be unsuccessful in generating substantial and sustained interest. A number of CSOs have quit this field in frustration at the tokenistic engagement and out of fatigue after the intense lobbying battle for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH).