Conformity and resistance in personalized same-sex prayer rituals in Finland

ABSTRACT

This article studies the experiences of same-sex couples in connection with a prayer ritual conducted over their registered partnerships and focuses on the pre-legal context of same-sex marriage in Finland. The aim is to analyze conformity and resistance in the participants’ understanding of personalized ritual through Grimes’s categories of language, space, time, and actors. The findings reveal that most of the rituals had both elements of resistance that were understood as following a same-sex culture and of conformity with heterosexual nuptial traditions. Double affiliation with Christian and gay culture produces complex forms of conformity and resistance. Personalization of the religious rituals was more important to the participants of the study than following heterosexual traditions.     

胰岛素：是“天使”还是“魔鬼”？——胰岛素引起血管损伤的哲学思考

随着社会经济和医疗技术的发展进步,胰岛素在2型糖尿病患者的治疗地位越来越高.然而,胰岛素的使用却好比一把＂双刃剑＂,既可以扮演着控制血糖的＂天使＂角色,又有导致血管损伤的＂魔鬼＂一面.那么,如何理解胰岛素的＂天使＂或＂魔鬼＂的这两种截然不同的角色呢？在这里,我们将从哲学的角度来辩证的分析,从理性的角度来合理规范化用药,充分强调整体观念,并为日后临床工作中科学的使用胰岛素提出理性与科学的指导意见.     

胰岛素抵抗与麻醉安全性关系研究进展

有创诊断和治疗,引起疼痛、精神紧张、恶心、呕吐等不适或痛苦,甚至发生休克及死亡.为减少患者的不适和痛苦,提高依从性和耐受力,保障诊治的顺利进行,用麻醉方法使患者的痛觉或(和)知觉暂时的消失.当今有创诊断和治疗在现代医疗和科学实验中已经被广泛地应用,麻醉安全性事件的发生率与日俱增.胰岛素抵抗(insulin resistance,IR)患者对麻醉的耐受性差,其药代动力学特点也与非IR患者有所不同,对IR患者实施安全麻醉一直是麻醉医生所关注的课题.     

Response-dependent point loss and response force as disrupting operations on behavioral resistance to change in humans

Behavioral momentum theory (BMT) provides a theoretical and methodological framework for understanding how differentially maintained operant responding resists disruption. A common way to test operant resistance involves contingencies with suppressive effects, such as extinction or prefeeding. Other contingencies with known suppressive effects, such as response-cost procedures arranged as point-loss or increases in response force, remain untested as disruptive events within the BMT framework. In the present set of three experiments, responding of humans was maintained by point accumulation programmed according to a multiple variable-interval (VI) VI schedule with different reinforcement rates in either of two components. Subsequently, subtracting a point following each response (Experiment 1) or increasing the force required for the response to be registered (Experiments 2 and 3 decreased response rates, but responding was less disrupted in the component associated with the higher reinforcement rate. The point-loss contingency and increased response force similarly affected response rates by suppressing responding and human persistence, replicating previous findings with humans and nonhuman animals when other types of disruptive events (e.g., extinction and prefeeding) were investigated. The present findings moreover extend the generality of the effects of reinforcement rate on persistence, and thus BMT, extending the analysis of resistance to two well-known manipulations used to reduce responding in the experimental analysis of behavior.     

Palestinian Liberation Theology: Creative Resistance to Occupation

The ongoing Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories has widely affected the Christian population in the region. This study focuses narrowly on the diminishing minority of Palestinian Christians, and how their position under occupation has led to the development of Palestinian Liberation Theology and practices of creative resistance. It begins by acknowledging the unique position of Palestinian Christians as liminal yet indigenous members of society. It then explores their complex collective identity, demonstrating how specific facets of their historic identity (i.e. denominationalism, Arabism, and political station) have been preserved, and how these inform their theological and practical responses to the changing socio-political landscape. It goes on to probe the degree of consensus around Palestinian Liberation Theology, as well as prominent manifestations of the ideology in response to occupation. Ultimately, this study finds that Palestinian Liberation Theology represents a creative and valuable contribution to the national struggle for liberation, providing a shared ideology and culturally specific blueprint for revolutionary collective action guided by plurality, nonviolence, and collaboration.     

Clinical applications of Matte Blanco's thinking

Ignacio Matte Blanco (1908–1995) left very few specific indications about the applications of his theoretical notions to his interpretative style. The author shows how he uses Matte Blanco to formulate some of his own interpretations. The first part of the paper uses clinical vignettes to illustrate some of Matte‐Blanco's concepts. Their theoretical vocabulary is thus made explicit. Then two psychoanalytic sessions are discussed at greater length, together with one from a therapy, so that the use of Matte‐Blanco's notions can be seen clearly, allowing for a fresh perspective on areas of psychoanalytic theory, particularly dreams, psychopathology viewed according to the proportions of asymmetrical and symmetrical functioning in the patient's bi‐logical mental system, the multidimensionality of the unconscious, the structural unconscious, the emotion‐thought relationship, projective identification, resistance, and negative therapeutic reaction. The practical consequences of all this are elaborated, particularly the ensuing possibility of ‘thinking with the patient' in the session. This enables the patient to introject a form of mental functioning in which the asymmetrical mode is not invaded by the symmetric mode (a parallel can be seen here with the Bionian concept of dialogue between the psychotic and non‐psychotic parts of the mind).     

Signaled alternative reinforcement and the persistence of operant behavior

Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) is a treatment designed to eliminate problem behavior by reinforcing an alternative behavior at a higher rate. Availability of alternative reinforcement may be signaled, as with Functional Communication Training, or unsignaled. Whether or not alternative reinforcement is signaled could influence both the rate and persistence of problem behavior. The present study investigated whether signaling the availability of alternative reinforcement affects the rate and persistence of a concurrently available target response with pigeons. Three components of a multiple concurrent schedule arranged equal reinforcement rates for target responding. Two of the components also arranged equal reinforcement rates for an alternative response. In one DRA component, a discrete stimulus signaled the availability of response‐contingent alternative reinforcement by changing the keylight color upon reinforcement availability. In the other DRA component, availability of alternative reinforcement was not signaled. Target responding was most persistent in the unsignaled DRA component when disrupted by satiation, free food presented between components, and extinction, relative to the signaled DRA and control components. These findings suggest the discrete stimulus functionally separated the availability of alternative reinforcement from the discriminative stimuli governing target responding. These findings provide a novel avenue to explore in translational research assessing whether signaling the availability of alternative reinforcement with DRA treatments reduces the persistence of problem behavior.     

铜绿假单胞菌I类整合子及耐药基因分析

铜绿假单胞菌是临床上重要的院内感染菌,对多种抗生素耐药。整合子是能捕获并整合外源耐药基因盒,并使之表达的DNA元件。通过整合子水平转移的方式极大地加速了耐药基因在同种及不同种属之间的传播,造成细菌的耐药以至多重耐药问题日益严重。     

RESISTANCE TO EXTINCTION AND RELAPSE IN COMBINED STIMULUS CONTEXTS

Reinforcing an alternative response in the same context as a target response reduces the rate of occurrence but increases the persistence of that target response. Applied researchers who use such techniques to decrease the rate of a target problem behavior risk inadvertently increasing the persistence of the same problem behavior. Behavioral momentum theory asserts that the increased persistence is a function of the alternative reinforcement enhancing the Pavlovian relation between the target stimulus context and reinforcement. A method showing promise for reducing the persistence‐enhancing effects of alternative reinforcement is to train the alternative response in a separate stimulus context before combining with the target stimulus in extinction. The present study replicated previous findings using pigeons by showing that combining an “alternative” richer VI schedule (96 reinforcers/ hr) with a “target” leaner VI schedule (24 reinforcers/hr) reduced resistance to extinction of target responding compared with concurrent training of the alternative and target responses (totaling 120 reinforcers/hr). We also found less relapse with a reinstatement procedure following extinction with separate‐context training, supporting previous findings that training conditions similarly influence both resistance to extinction and relapse. Finally, combining the alternative stimulus context was less disruptive to target responding previously trained in the concurrent schedule, relative to combining with the target response trained alone. Overall, the present findings suggest the technique of combining stimulus contexts associated with alternative responses with those associated with target responses disrupts target responding. Furthermore, the effectiveness of this disruption is a function of training context of reinforcement for target responding, consistent with assertions of behavioral momentum theory.     

Enticing for me but unfair to her: Can targeted pricing evoke socially conscious behavior?

Prior research shows that consumers stop purchasing from firms that treat them badly. In this research we show that consumers also resist firms that treat other consumers badly while favoring them. In three experiments, we demonstrate such social consciousness in the context of targeted pricing, where firms offer lower prices to new (versus old) customers. A significant proportion of consumers in our experiments give up money to resist the price-discriminating firm, especially when the discrimination is more salient or is not justified. Further, perceived unfairness mediates the relationship between the salience and justification of the pricing practice and consumer resistance.