Listening to the Nos

In Re-Calling Ministry (1999), James E. Dittes offers a collection of fourteen poetic essays on the predictable crises of Christian ministry, which he treats not as impediments but as boons to that ministry. A student of Dittes' at Yale Divinity School in the 1970's, I reflect on the truth-telling of my former teacher through the lens of my own twenty years in parish ministry.     

步入涅槃还是走向终结?——对当代医学困境的原点审视和深层反思

当代医学在享受基因时代“圣餐”的同时,也在步入一个危机频发的“问题时代”。从原点审视,造成其危机和困境的“本因”,是其核心价值系统及其动力体系的根本缺陷所致,其基本的生命观、疾病观陷入到诸多哲学困惑和认识误区,其治疗观的“对抗性思维”更是有违自然伦理的法度,这是当代医学走向更高理论平台的战略切入点。     

Resistance to change and the law of effect

Three experiments using multiple schedules of reinforcement explored the implications of resistance-to-change findings for the response-reinforcer relation described by the law of effect, using both steady-state responding and responding recorded in the first few sessions of conditions. In Experiment 1, when response-independent reinforcement was increased during a third component, response rate in Components 1 and 2 decreased. This response-rate reduction was proportionately greater in a component in which reinforcer magnitude was small (2-s access to wheat) than in the component in which it was large (6-s access to wheat). However, when reinforcer rates in the two components were varied together in Experiments 2 and 3, response-rate change was the same regardless of the magnitude of reinforcers used in the two components, so that sensitivity of response rates to reinforcer rates (Experiment 2) and of response-rate ratios to reinforcer-rate ratios (Experiment 3) was unaffected by the magnitude of the reinforcers. Therefore, the principles determining resistance to change, described by behavioral momentum theory, seem not to apply when the source of behavior change is the variation of reinforcement contingencies that maintain the behavior. The use of extinction as a manipulation to study resistance to change is questioned.     

Resistance to change produced by access to fixed-delay versus variable-delay terminal links

Pigeons' responding was reinforced on a multiple schedule consisting of two two-link chain schedules presented in regular alternation. Responding in initial links (always variable-interval 60-s) produced a key-color change and access to a terminal link. The terminal link for one chain provided food after a fixed delay (fixed-interval or fixed-time); the terminal link for the other provided food after a variable delay (variable-interval or variable-time). The average duration of the terminal-link schedules was varied across conditions, but in every condition the arithmetic mean of the variable-delay terminal-link schedule was equal to the duration of the fixed delay. Response rates were higher in the initial links of the chains with the variable-delay terminal links. Response-decreasing operations (satiation, extinction) were used after performances reached asymptote. Response rates maintained by access to variable-delay terminal links tended to be more resistant to change than were rates maintained by access to fixed-delay terminal links. These results are consistent with the preference for variable- over fixed-interval terminal links observed with concurrent-chains schedules, suggesting (1) that immediacy of reinforcement influences the conditioned reinforcing potency of access to a terminal link and (2) that choice in concurrent chains and resistance of responding to change may be manifestations of the same effect of reinforcement.     

Response persistence: the effects of stimulus control on negatively reinforced problem behavior in a concurrent operant

In the context of instructional demands, compliance and problem behavior can be considered concurrent operants. Of applied interest is increasing one response (i.e., compliance) while decreasing the other (i.e., problem behavior). Strategic arrangement of reinforcement can alter response allocation accordingly. Such schedules can also influence response persistence and generalization. A case study is used to illustrate the effects of stimulus-reinforcer relations in a concurrent-operants arrangement involving an adult with developmental disabilities and problem behavior. Results are discussed in the context of basic operant research findings in the areas of stimulus control and behavioral persistence.     

内质网应激和胰岛素抵抗

2型糖尿病的发病机制主要涉及胰岛素抵抗,近年来研究表明内质网应激可诱导胰岛素抵抗的形成,并使与改善胰岛素受体敏感性相关的内质网应激标志物分子氧调节蛋白150和转录因子X盒结合蛋白-1表达增强,表明内质网应激对细胞具有双重作用,一方面可诱导胰岛素抵抗,另一方面激发对应激的适应反应。     

Creative Writing as Resistance and Discovery in an Analysis

This paper was originally written as a graduation paper for the completion of adult analytic training. In this paper I trace and explore multiple uses of creative writing in my personal analysis, illuminating the development of analytic phases and process. The creative writing used in this paper is primarily from the first three and a half years of my analysis, well before entering analytic training. It is an eventual interpretation on the part of my analyst, as well as the rest of my analysis and analytic training, that allow me to realize that while my writing felt like self-discovery, it also served as resistance, defense against the entirety of my affective world and internal conflicts. A poem written much later in the analysis is included, as it reveals the integration of struggled with concepts, as well as the pain of the inevitable separation of termination.     

IN PURSUIT OF GENERAL BEHAVIORAL RELATIONS

Efforts to develop behavioral technologies from advances in basic research assume that results from studies with nonhuman subjects can, in some instances, be applied to human behavior. The behavioral principles likely to be most useful for application are those that represent robust general behavioral relations. Basic and applied research on behavioral momentum suggests that there is a general behavioral relation between the persistence of behavior and the rate of reinforcement obtained in a given situation. Understanding the factors that affect behavioral persistence may have important implications for applied behavior analysts that justify studies aimed at establishing the generality and limits of the functional relation between reinforcement rate and behavioral persistence. Strategies for establishing the generality of behavioral relations are reviewed, followed by a brief summary of the evidence for the generality of behavioral momentum.