宗教与全球发展:一种对话路径

宗教与全球发展成为当代社会的一个重要议题,一个标志在于联合国千禧年发展目标的提出及世界宗教和精神领袖千禧年和平高峰会议。其中,由前世界银行行长及当时的坎特伯雷大主教联合发起的世界信仰发展对话,即为推动类似目标的一个重要机构。发展的目的在于人。贫困不仅包括物质的层面,也包括精神的层面。全球经济的发展需要一种伦理和价值的支撑。文化应该作为一种创新机制,参与并影响全球发展的过程。在中国,宗教是建设社会主义和谐社会的重要因素。中共十七大明确指出,要发挥宗教在社会经济发展中的重要作用。十七届六中全会则明确提出文化体制改革的目标。随着中国改革开放的进一步深入,中国对世界的影响日益加强,文化和精神的维度在社会发展和国家建设方面将扮演更重要的作用。中国模式也将对世界论坛的讨论产生一定影响。     

Spatial imagery of novel places based on visual scene transformation

The hippocampus is known to maintain memories of object-place associations that can produce a scene expectation at a novel viewpoint. To implement such capabilities, the memorized distances and directions of an object from the viewer at a fixed location should be integrated with the imaginary displacement to the new viewpoint. However, neural dynamics of such scene expectation at the novel viewpoint have not been discussed. In this study, we propose a method of coding novel places based on visual scene transformation as a component of the object-place memory in the hippocampus. In this coding, a novel place is represented by a transformed version of a viewer’s scene with imaginary displacement. When the places of individual objects are stored with the coding in the hippocampus, the object’s displacement at the imaginary viewpoint can be evaluated through the comparison of a transformed viewer’s scene with the stored scene. Results of computer experiments demonstrated that the coding successfully produced scene expectation of a three object arrangement at a novel viewpoint. Such the scene expectation was retained even without similarities between the imaginary scene and the real scene at the location, where the imaginary scenes only functioned as indices to denote the topographical relationship between object locations. The results suggest that the hippocampus uses the place coding based on scene transformation and implements the spatial imagery of object-place associations from the novel viewpoint.     

Spinoza on essence and ideal individuation

My project in this paper is to fill a gap in Spinoza's theory of metaphysical individuation. In a few brief passages of the Ethics, Spinoza manages to explain his views on the nature of composition and the part-whole relation, the metaphysical facts which ground the individuation of simple bodies and the extended individuals they compose, and the persistence of one and the same individual through time and mereological change. Yet Spinoza nowhere presents a corresponding account of the individuation of simple ideas, or the minds such ideas compose. While it is initially tempting to locate the details of such an account in Spinoza's views on the relation between the mental and physical domains, I argue here that such approaches fail, in conflicting with Spinoza's insistence that the mental and the physical are conceptually and explanatorily independent. By contrast, I show that for Spinoza, each idea essentially possesses the property of affirming the existence of its object, and that such properties are well-suited to serve as the principle of ideal individuation Spinoza never explicitly provided.     

The Effectiveness of Cultural Adjustment and Trauma Services (CATS): Generating Practice-Based Evidence on a Comprehensive, School-Based Mental Health Intervention for Immigrant Youth

A collaborative study of Cultural Adjustment and Trauma Services (CATS), a comprehensive, school-based mental health program for traumatized immigrant children and adolescents, was conducted to generate practice-based evidence on the service delivery model across two school districts. Program effectiveness was assessed by testing whether client functioning and PTSD symptoms improved as a result of 7 separate service elements. An array of clinical services including CBT, supportive therapy, and coordinating services were provided to all students, and an evidence-based intervention for trauma, TF-CBT, was implemented with a subset of students. Greater quantities of CBT and supportive therapy increased functioning, while greater quantities of coordinating services decreased symptoms of PTSD. TF-CBT services were associated with both improved functioning and PTSD symptoms, although TF-CBT was implemented with fidelity to the overall comprehensive service model rather than the structured intervention model. Results suggest the comprehensive school-based model was effective, though different service components affected different student outcomes. Implications of these findings for immigrant mental health interventions and implementing structured evidence-based practices into community mental health programs are discussed. Suggestions are made for future research on existing mental health practices with immigrants.     

Supporting the Need for an Integrated System of Care for Youth with Co-occurring Traumatic Stress and Substance Abuse Problems

Adolescents are at high risk for violence exposure and initiation of drug use. Co-occurring substance use and trauma exposure are associated with increased risk of mental health disorders, school underachievement, and involvement with multiple systems of care. Coordination and integration of systems of care are of utmost importance for these vulnerable youth. This study delineates the negative sequelae and increased service utilization patterns of adolescents with a history of trauma, substance abuse, and co-occurring trauma and substance abuse to support the need for integrated mental health and substance abuse services for youth. Data from two national sources, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and Center for Substance Abuse Treatment demonstrate the increased clinical severity (measured by reports of emotional and behavioral problems), dysfunction, and service utilization patterns for youth with co-occurring trauma exposure and substance abuse. We conclude with recommendations for an integrated system of care that includes trauma-informed mental health treatment and substance abuse services aimed at reducing the morbidity and relapse probability of this high-risk group.     

Stress Overload: A New Approach to the Assessment of Stress

The link between stress and health has not received strong empirical support, possibly due to problems in the stress measures used. Here, the first wholly empirical development of a new “Stress Overload Scale” is described. A pool of 150 items was formed to reflect “overload”, a common denominator in stress theories. Then, the results of five sequenced studies, conducted in heterogeneous community samples, were used to pare the item pool. Exploratory (n = 431) and confirmatory (n = 433) analyses revealed two factors (Event Load and Personal Vulnerability) corresponding to theoretical constructs; only the best factor markers were submitted to further construct validity (n = 310) and reliability tests (n = 342). The 24 strongest items were selected for the SOS, which demonstrated criterion validity in predicting who (n = 285) would become sick following a common stressor. The SOS is (1) psychometrically strong, especially in its validity relative to popular measures; (2) appropriate to community research, due to its brevity and fit to a broad demographic spectrum; (3) unique in its ability to cross‐section individuals into risk categories. It should prove useful to community psychologists in determining etiology, diagnosing risk for pathology, and evaluating the efficacy of interventions.     

Global and local pitch perception in children with developmental dyslexia

This study investigated global versus local pitch pattern perception in children with dyslexia aged between 8 and 11 years. Children listened to two consecutive 4-tone pitch sequences while performing a same/different task. On the different trials, sequences either preserved the contour (local condition) or they violated the contour (global condition). Compared to normally developing children, dyslexics showed robust pitch perception deficits in the local but not the global condition. This finding was replicated in a simple pitch direction task, which minimizes sequencing and short term memory. Results are consistent with a left-hemisphere deficit in dyslexia because local pitch changes are supposedly processed by the left hemisphere, whereas global pitch changes are processed by the right hemisphere. The present data suggest a link between impaired pitch processing and abnormal phonological development in children with dyslexia, which makes pitch pattern processing a potent tool for early diagnosis and remediation of dyslexia.