Corruption and Internal Fraud in the Turkish Construction Industry

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding about the internal fraud and corruption problem in the Turkish construction industry. The reasons behind the internal fraud and corruption problem as well as the types of prevention methods were investigated; and as a result various recommendations were made. To this end, a risk awareness questionnaire was used to understand the behavioral patterns of the construction industry, and to clarify possible proactive and reactive measures against internal fraud and corruption. The type of fraud experienced by Turkish construction companies was also surveyed in the questionnaire. The questionnaire was sent to 89 firms; and depending on the collected data, certain recommendations for construction industry professionals were provided.     

Does retrieval strategy disruption cause general and specific collaborative inhibition?

The purpose of the experiment on collaborative memory was to investigate if the collaborative inhibition is due to collaborating pair's disruption of each others' retrieval strategies (the retrieval strategy disruption hypothesis, RSD). The participants' (N = 36) task was to recall a list of 60 words individually and collaboratively. Retrieval strategies were manipulated by presenting word lists organised either by categories or by country of origin and adoption of retrieval strategies were examined by the adjusted ratio of clustering score. Half of the dyads received word lists organised by the same strategy and half of the dyads received word lists organised by different strategies. The results revealed a main effect of collaboration, i.e., collaborative recalled items were significantly fewer than the sum of the non-redundant individually recalled items. Both conditions (same strategies vs different strategies) suffered to the same extent from collaboration, which did not support the RSD hypothesis. However, focusing on words recalled individually but not collaboratively, dyads with different strategies, as predicted by the RSD, forgot more items during collaboration than did dyads with the same strategy. Additional results suggest that collaborative forgetting is mainly manifested by forgetting of non-overlapping items (as measured by individual recalls).     

Who Voted for Whom? Comparing Supporters of Obama and McCain on Value Types and Personality Traits

This study investigates the personalities and values of Obama and McCain supporters in the 2008 election. A total of 278 American participants completed the Big Five Inventory and the Portrait Values Questionnaire along with demographic items. For value types, Obama supporters were more likely to endorse universalism values and less likely to endorse tradition, conformity, and security values compared with McCain supporters. With regard to personality traits, Obama supporters scored higher on agreeableness and lower on conscientiousness than did McCain supporters. As predicted, logistic regression revealed that values were better predictors of voting preference than were personality traits. These findings demonstrate the importance of individual differences in political preferences and are discussed with regard to findings in other cultures.     

Community implementation of PMTO™: Impacts on referrals to specialist services and schools

Sigmarsdóttir, M. & Björnsdóttir, A. (2012). Community implementation of PMTO?: Impacts on referrals to specialist services and schools. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 506–511. In 2000, the city of Hafnarfjörður, Iceland, implemented Parent Management Training – Oregon Model (PMTO^?) to prevent and treat behavioral problems among children. This paper describes the implementation and findings regarding impacts in the community. As hypothesized, findings showed that the number of referrals to specialist services decreased in Hafnarfjörður following PMTO implementation and increased in two comparison communities not implementing the method. Within the Hafnarfjörður community, recorded instances of behavior problems reduced in elementary schools working in line with PMTO. The results presented are the first such findings in Iceland and suggest the kinds of systematic changes communities may experience following the implementation of an evidence‐based program.     

Cultivating the Places of Knowledge

The discussion of universities anddemocracy has conventionally dealt first andforemost with the curriculum, or with thespirit of openness and tolerance whichcharacterises the scientific inquiry. In thisarticle I have added a discussion of thesituatedness of knowledge and knowledgeproduction, and, consequently, a discussion ofthe situated character of other roles of theuniversity, including the democratic role. Inthe light of the regress of political partiesand traditional popular movements – phenomenawhich seem to be true both as regardsmembership numbers and as regards level ofactivity – the role as a locally andregionally situated meeting place for avitalisation and defence of democracy seems apromising one for the contemporary university.The article has also emphasised the linksbetween culture, social capital (``the socialfabric') in the surrounding society, and theeconomic growth and welfare of the city andregion. With concepts such as Bildung (oreducation), civic competence (or civility), andculture, and I have tried to draw our attentionto the actual ``places of knowledge,' whoseimportance will certainly grow in the years tocome. The care, the cultivation, and thequalification of these places into supportinginfrastructures for cultural life, creativity,industry, and democracy should be seen as acoherent, holistic mission. It needsrecognition, and articulation, by all those whoare interested in the university as asignificant social factor: politicians,industry, the cultural sector, localcommunities, and, obviously, the academiccommunity itself.     

Critical Factors Associated with Early Postpartum Depression among Turkish Women

The main objective of this study was to examine the associated factors of the early postpartum depression, in a Turkish sample of 151 postnatal women. Besides positive and negative affect and marital adjustment measures, demographic and labor related variables, which may affect the postpartum depression, were also included into the study. To reveal the critical factors associated with the early postnatal depressive mood, a regression analysis was conducted. After controlling for the variance accounted for by age and number of children, negative affect and marital maladjustment measures were found to be significant associates of postpartum depression. These findings are discussed in the light of the literature.This work has been supported by the Turkish Academy of Sciences, in the framework of the Young Scientist Award Program. (TG-TUBA-GEBIP/2002-1-11).     

Moving to higher ground: The dynamic field theory and the dynamics of visual cognition

In the present report, we describe a new dynamic field theory that captures the dynamics of visuo-spatial cognition. This theory grew out of the dynamic systems approach to motor control and development, and is grounded in neural principles. The initial application of dynamic field theory to issues in visuo-spatial cognition extended concepts of the motor approach to decision making in a sensori-motor context, and, more recently, to the dynamics of spatial cognition. Here we extend these concepts still further to address topics in visual cognition, including visual working memory for non-spatial object properties, the processes that underlie change detection, and the ‘binding problem’ in vision. In each case, we demonstrate that the general principles of the dynamic field approach can unify findings in the literature and generate novel predictions. We contend that the application of these concepts to visual cognition avoids the pitfalls of reductionist approaches in cognitive science, and points toward a formal integration of brains, bodies, and behavior.