Changes in information as a function of a culturally appropriate smoking cessation community intervention for Hispanics

Tested a 7-month, media-based, community intervention among Hispanics in San Francisco designed to change levels of information on the damaging effects of cigarette smoking and on the availability of culturally appropriate cessation services. Three community-wide surveys of Hispanics were conducted with independent random samples, two as baselines (n = 1,660 and 2,053) and one postintervention (n = 1,965). Results showed that changes in the level of awareness of cessation services had taken place after implementation of the intervention. Furthermore, those changes took place primarily among the less acculturated Spanish-speaking Hispanics who were the target of the intervention. The changes in information reported here demonstrate that a culturally appropriate information dissemination campaign that utilizes multiple channels can produce changes in a community's level of information even when the campaign is implemented for a relatively short period.     

Therapeutic Interaction and Dropout: Measuring Relational Communication in Solution-focused Therapy

The relational communication of sixteen dropout versus sixteen continuation sessions of solution-focused therapy was studied using two different coding schemes. On the Topic Initiation/Topic Following coding scheme (Tracey, 1986) no differences were found between dropout and continuation sessions, whereas the Family-Relational Communication Control Coding Scheme (Heatherington and Friedlander, 1987) yielded a number of significant findings. Both in 'successful' and in 'unsuccessful' dropout sessions, therapeutic interaction was found to be more conflictive than in continuation cases, with clients showing more domineering behaviour in dropout than in continuation sessions. Markovian and lag sequential analysis are used to clarify some of these findings, and their implications are discussed.     

Reading performance and general cognitive ability in twins with reading difficulties and control pairs

The etiology of the observed relationship between general cognitive ability and reading performance was investigated by analyzing data from samples of twin pairs tested in the Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center. Bivariate phenotypic and genetic structural equation models were fitted to data from 486 twin pairs selected for reading deficits (276 identical and 210 same-sex fraternal) and 314 control pairs (195 identical and 119 same-sex fraternal). Subtests of the Peabody Individual Achievement test (Reading Recognition, Reading Comprehension, and Spelling) were used as measures of reading performance, and verbal and performance IQ scores from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) or Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) were used as indices of general cognitive ability. The results of these confirmatory factor analyses indicate that shared environmental influences do not contribute significantly to covariation between general cognitive ability and reading performance. In contrast, genetic influences contribute substantially to the relationship between the two latent factors. Moreover, the genetic and phenotypic variances of reading performance in the proband group are larger than those in controls, whereas both the genetic and phenotypic correlations between reading performance and general cognitive ability are lower in probands. These results are consistent with recent reports that reading disability may be caused by one or more genes with major effects.     

Food-deprivation effects on punished schedule-induced drinking in rats.

Food-deprived rats (at 80% of their free-feeding weights) were exposed to a fixed-time 60-s schedule of food-pellet presentation and developed schedule-induced drinking. Lick-dependent signaled delays (10 s) to food presentation led to decreased drinking, which recovered when the signaled delays were discontinued. A major effect of this punishment contingency was to increase the proportion of interpellet intervals without any licks. The drinking of yoked control rats, which received food at the same times as those exposed to the signaled delay contingency (masters), was not consistently reduced. When food-deprivation level was changed to 90%, all master and yoked control rats showed decreases in punished or unpunished schedule-induced drinking. When the body weights were reduced to 70%, most master rats increased punished behavior to levels similar to those of unpunished drinking. This effect was not observed for yoked controls. Therefore, body-weight loss increased the resistance of schedule-induced drinking to reductions by punishment. Food-deprivation effects on punished schedule-induced drinking are similar to their effects on food-maintained lever pressing. This dependency of punishment on food-deprivation level supports the view that schedule-induced drinking can be modified by the same variables that affect operant behavior in general.     

Controlling the Ground Reaction Force During Lifting

The control of the ground reaction force vector relative to the center of gravity (CoG) was examined while subjects performed a back-lifting task. Six male subjects (aged 24.0 +/- 2.5 years) repeatedly lifted a barbell. A biomechanical analysis that used a linked segment model revealed that the summed rotations of body segments during lifting yielded a specific rate of change of the angular momentum of the entire body. This equaled the external moment provided by Fsubg; relative to CoG. This implies that multisegment movements involve control of the angular momentum of the entire body through an appropriately directed Fsubg;. Thus, in dynamic tasks Fsubg; is pointed away from rather than lined up with the CoG, as is the case in static tasks.     

Detachment and defeasibility in deontic logic

The purpose of the paper is to present a logical framework that allow to formalize a kind of prima facie duties, defeasible conditional duties, indefeasible conditional duties and actual (indefeasible) duties, as well as to show their logical interconnections.     

Digital embryos: a novel technical approach to investigate perceptual categorization in pigeons (Columba livia) using machine learning

Animal Cognition - Pigeons are classic model animals to study perceptual category learning. To achieve a deeper understanding of the cognitive mechanisms of categorization, a careful consideration...     

Short mindfulness meditation training: does it really reduce perceived stress?

Cognitive Processing - To study whether an 8-week mindfulness meditation training program truly reduces perceived stress without designing a stress reduction program. An experimental study was...     

What chance-credence norms should be

Synthese - Multiple realizability says that the same kind of mental states may be manifested by systems with very different physical constitutions. Putnam (1967) supposed it to be...