Mathematics and Spiritual Interpretation: A Bridge to Genuine Interdisciplinarity

This article is a spiritual interpretation of Leonhard Euler's famous equation linking the most important entities in mathematics: e (the base of natural logarithms), π (the ratio of the diameter to the circumference of a circle), i (√‐1),1 , and . The equation itself (e^πi+1 = 0> ) can be understood in terms of a traditional mathematical proof, but that does not give one a sense of what it might mean. While one might intuit, given the significance of the elements of the equation, that there is a deeper meaning, one is not in a position to get at that meaning within the discipline of mathematics itself. It is only by going outside of mathematics and adopting the perspective of theology that any kind of understanding of the equation might be gained, the significant implication here being that the whole mathematical field might be a vast treasure house of insights into the mind of God. In this regard, the article is a response to the monograph by George Lakoff and Rafael Núñez, Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being (2000), which attempts to approach mathematics in general and the Euler equation in particular in terms of some basic principles of cognitive psychology. It is my position that while there may be an external basis for understanding mathematics, the results are somewhat disappointing and fail to reveal the full measure of meaning buried within that equation.     

School bonding in children and adolescents: conceptualization,assessment, and associated variables

School bonding refers to the connections that youth have with their schools and various aspects of their academic lives. School bonding may be an important concept in prevention because it has been linked to various developmental and adjustment outcomes. This paper reviews conceptualizations, measurements, and theories of school bonding. Also considered are empirical studies that have linked school bonding to a variety of outcomes (substance use, delinquency, antisocial behavior, self-esteem). The review includes examination of how school bonding serves as a mediator in these relations and, in turn, is moderated by other variables. Despite inconsistencies in conceptualization and measurement, it is concluded that school bonding is an important construct and an appropriate target for intervention. Recommendations are offered regarding future research on school bonding, especially with respect to positive developmental outcomes and examination of variables that might moderate school bonding.     

Medical journals' conflicts of interest in the publication of book reviews

The purpose of the study was to assess medical journals’ conflicts of interest in the publication of book reviews. We examined book reviews published in 1999, 2000, and 2001 (N=1,876) in five leading medical journals: Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal (BMJ), Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine. The main outcome measure was journal publication of reviews of books that had been published by the journal’s own publisher, that had been edited or authored by a lead editor of the journal, or that posed another conflict of interest. We also surveyed the editors-in-chief of the five journals about their policies on these conflicts of interests. During the study period, four of the five journals published 30 book reviews presenting a conflict of interest: nineteen by the BMJ, five by the Annals, four by JAMA, and two by the Lancet. These reviews represent 5.8%, 2.7%, 0.7%, and 0.7%, respectively, of all book reviews published by the journals. These four journals, respectively, published reviews of 11.9%, 25.0%, 0.9%, and 1.0% of all medical books published by the journals’ publishers. Only one of the 30 book reviews included a disclosure statement addressing the conflict of interest. None of the journals had a written policy pertaining to the conflicts of interest assessed in this study, although four reported having unwritten policies. We recommend that scientific journals and associations representing journal editors develop policies on conflicts of interest pertaining to book reviews. Disclosure: R.M. Davis was North American editor of the BMJ from 1998 to 2001, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association, which publishes JAMA. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy of any organization with which the authors have been affiliated.     

Children Exposed to Community Violence or War/Terrorism: Current Status and Research Directions—Introduction

This issue of Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, Children Exposed to Community Violence or War/Terrorism: Current Status and Research Directions, addresses the current status of our knowledge as well as critical research needs in the area of children exposed to violence outside the family. Although much has been learned in recent years about children exposed to violence, significant research gaps remain, the identification of which may help to build a more complete and rigorous science base in this area. This journal issue represents the distillation of a 3-day workshop on children exposed to violence, held in July of 2002, that identified what is known about children exposed to violence and what this information tells us about future research directions. Although many federal agencies have supported some research in this area, there is a need for more targeted attention on the topic, particularly with regard to measurement, sampling, and interventions/services. The papers in this issue were selected with these themes in mind. Although no single issue could cover the entire field, we intend to offer a representative sample of where we are and where we need to go with the hope of stimulating additional thought, collaboration, and research in this important area.     

A new set of 299 pictures for psycholinguistic studies: French norms for name agreement,image agreement,conceptual familiarity,visual complexity,image variability,age of acquisition,and naming latencies

Pictures are often used as stimuli in studies of perception, language, and memory. Since performances on different sets of pictures are generally contrasted, stimulus selection requires the use of standardized material to match pictures across different variables. Unfortunately, the number of standardized pictures available for empirical research is rather limited. The aim of the present study is to provide French normative data for a new set of 299 black-and-white drawings. Alario and Ferrand (1999) were closely followed in that the pictures were standardized on six variables: name agreement, image agreement, conceptual familiarity, visual complexity, image variability, and age of acquisition. Objective frequency measures are also provided for the most common names associated with the pictures. Comparative analyses between our results and the norms obtained in other, similar studies are reported. Finally, naming latencies corresponding to the set of pictures were also collected from French native speakers, and correlational/multiple-regression analyses were performed on naming latencies. This new set of standardized pictures is available on the Internet (http://leadserv.u-bourgogne.fr/bases/pictures/) and should be of great use to researchers when they select pictorial stimuli.     

The depression gender gap: a view through a biocultural filter

That women, compared with men, are more prone to become "depressed" has been known for decades. The etiology of the depression gender gap has been a source of much discussion, with the bulk occurring within the medical model. As a complement to--rather than a competitor with--such discussion, the depression gender gap is analyzed through a biocultural lens wherein the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens becomes part of the frame of reference. Given that a "constant" is difficult to explain by the use of "variables," the very consistent 2:1 gender ratio of female to male (rates of) depression is difficult to explain by referring to cultural parameters, which are variable. It is more parsimonious to suggest that a constant becomes a better candidate to explain another constant. The constant used in this exercise is some portion of the genetic package that subtends the species Homo sapiens; in other words, everyone on the planet is human. The authors argue that the basal dynamic of H. Fisher's (1983) sex contract is a useful analytical tool in examining the contemporary gender gap in depression. They suggest that the germane clause of the sex contract is the use of psychological immobilization as an effective social instrument.     

It's about timing and change: pubertal transition effects on symptoms of major depression among African American youths

Effects of early physical maturation and accelerated pubertal changes on symptoms of major depression were examined in 639 African American children. Three rival hypotheses, early timing, off-time, and stressful change, were tested using 2 waves of data (mean ages = 11 and 13 years). The pubertal effect operates differently according to children's gender and age. For girls, early maturation was consistently associated with elevated levels of depressive symptoms. For boys, early maturers manifested elevated levels of depression only at age 11, but these symptoms subsided by age 13. Boys who experienced accelerated pubertal growth over time displayed elevated symptom levels. Results support the early timing hypothesis for girls and the stressful change hypothesis for boys. Time at assessment is critical when examining boys' pubertal transition.     

Lexical competition in phonological priming: Assessing the role of phonological match and mismatch lengths between primes and targets

In five experiments, we examined lexical competition effects using the phonological priming paradigm in a shadowing task. Experiments 1A and 1B replicate and extend Slowiaczek and Hamburger's (1992) observation that inhibitory effects occur when the prime and the target share the first three phonemes (e.g., /bRiz/-/bRik/) but not when they share the first two phonemes (e.g., /bRepsilonz/-/bRik/). This observation suggests that lexical competition depends on the length of the phonological match between the prime and the target. However, Experiment 2 revealed that an overlap of two phonemes is sufficient to cause an inhibitory effect provided that the primes mismatched the targets only on the last phoneme (e.g., /b[symbol: see text]l/-/b[symbol: see text]t/). Conversely, with a three-phoneme overlap, no inhibition was observed in Experiment 3 when the primes mismatched the targets on the last two phonemes (e.g., /bagepsilont/-/baga3/). In Experiment 4, an inhibitory effect was again observed when the primes mismatched the targets on the last phoneme but not when they mismatched the targets on the last two phonemes when the time between the offset of overlapping segments in the primes and the onset of overlapping segments in the targets was controlled for. The data thus indicate that what essentially determines prime-target competition effects in word-form priming is the number of mismatching phonemes.     

A parent-report measure of children's anxiety: psychometric properties and comparison with child-report in a clinic and normal sample

This study examined the psychometric properties of the parent version of the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS-P); 484 parents of anxiety disordered children and 261 parents in a normal control group participated in the study. Results of confirmatory factor analysis provided support for six intercorrelated factors, that corresponded with the child self-report as well as with the classification of anxiety disorders by DSM-IV (namely separation anxiety, generalized anxiety, social phobia, panic/agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and fear of physical injuries). A post-hoc model in which generalized anxiety functioned as the higher order factor for the other five factors described the data equally well. The reliability of the subscales was satisfactory to excellent. Evidence was found for both convergent and divergent validity: the measure correlated well with the parent report for internalizing symptoms, and lower with externalizing symptoms. Parent-child agreement ranged from 0.41 to 0.66 in the anxiety-disordered group, and from 0.23 to 0.60 in the control group. The measure differentiated significantly between anxiety-disordered children versus controls, and also between the different anxiety disorders except GAD. The SCAS-P is recommended as a screening instrument for normal children and as a diagnostic instrument in clinical settings.