The Acceptability and the Tolerability of Societal Risks: A Capabilities-based Approach

In this paper, we present a Capabilities-based Approach to the acceptability and the tolerability of risks posed by natural and man-made hazards. We argue that judgments about the acceptability and/or tolerability of such risks should be based on an evaluation of the likely societal impact of potential hazards, defined in terms of the expected changes in the capabilities of individuals. Capabilities refer to the functionings, or valuable doings and beings, individuals are able to achieve given available personal, material, and social resources. The likely impact of a hazard on individuals' capabilities should, we argue, be compared against two separate thresholds. The first threshold specifies the minimum level of capabilities attainment that is acceptable in principle for individuals to have in the aftermath of a hazard over any period of time. This threshold captures the level that individuals' capabilities ideally should not fall below. A risk is acceptable if the probability that the attained capabilities will be less than the acceptable level is sufficiently small. In practice, it can be tolerable for some individuals to temporarily fall below the acceptable threshold, provided this situation of lower capabilities attainment is temporary, reversible, and the probability that capabilities will fall below a tolerability threshold is sufficiently small. This second, tolerable threshold delimits an absolute minimum level of capabilities attainment below which no individual in a society should ever fall, regardless of whether that level of capabilities attainment is temporary or reversible. In this paper, we describe and justify this Capabilities-based Approach to the acceptability and tolerability of risks. We argue that the proposed theoretical framework avoids the limitations in current approaches to acceptable risk. The proposed approach focuses the attention of risk analysts directly on what should be our primary concern when judging the acceptability and the tolerability of risks, namely, how risks impact the well-being of individuals in a society. Also, our Capabilities-based Approach offers a transparent, easily communicable way for determining the acceptability and the tolerability of risks.     

Pastoral Counseling of Older Adults: Toward a Short-term Integrative Approach

A rapidly aging population with its mental health care needs presents an enormous challenge in the current mental health field. In light of this, pastoral counselors will have an increasingly important role to play in the care of older adults because of their strategic position in the community and their competence in dealing with religious/spiritual issues particularly salient in old age. This article proposes a short-term integrative approach to enable pastoral counselors to effectively and efficiently meet the mental health care needs of the elderly.

Ⅰ期颈椎前后路联合手术治疗嵌夹脊髓型颈椎病

为了探讨前后路联合手术治疗嵌夹脊髓型颈椎病的疗效,对50例患者行Ⅰ期颈后路单开门-前路减压内固定术。术后随访脊髓功能改善情况,植骨融合率及并发症。结果显示,50例患者经平均6．5月随访,内固定均获牢固融合,脊髓功能明显改善,无明显并发症。提示Ⅰ期颈椎前后路联合手术是治疗嵌夹脊髓型颈椎病的较理想方案。     

Component Models for Fuzzy Data

The fuzzy perspective in statistical analysis is first illustrated with reference to the “Informational Paradigm” allowing us to deal with different types of uncertainties related to the various informational ingredients (data, model, assumptions). The fuzzy empirical data are then introduced, referring to J LR fuzzy variables as observed on I observation units. Each observation is characterized by its center and its left and right spreads (LR₁ fuzzy number) or by its left and right “centers” and its left and right spreads (LR₂ fuzzy number). Two types of component models for LR₁ and LR₂ fuzzy data are proposed. The estimation of the parameters of these models is based on a Least Squares approach, exploiting an appropriately introduced distance measure for fuzzy data. A simulation study is carried out in order to assess the efficacy of the suggested models as compared with traditional Principal Component Analysis on the centers and with existing methods for fuzzy and interval valued data. An application to real fuzzy data is finally performed. We would like to express our gratitude to the Editor, the Associate Editor, and the Referees whose comments and suggestions improved significantly the quality of the paper.     

Transcending a Differend: Studying Therapeutic Processes Conversationally

Studies of actual conversational behaviours used to generate positive change in family therapy are relatively rare. In this study such conversational details were examined as they occurred in a single session of family therapy. With passages identified by family members as helpful, discursive methods of analysis (conversation analysis and critical discourse analysis) were used to examine an actual conversation between a renowned family therapist (Karl Tomm) and a family formerly at a conversational impasse. Conversational practices and sequences in talk used by the therapist and family members to bridge these differences in their ways of relating are discussed.     

从人际关系看人格--认知-情感系统理论的视角

人格的认知—情感系统理论(cognitive-affective system theory of personality,简称CAPS)被视为是与大五人格理论齐名的一种人格理论。该文拟从个体外部的人际关系层面来阐述该理论,以加深对理论的理解。然后,又从CAPS与其它人际关系理论的契合说明该理论是一种整合性的人格理论。最后,指出了CAPS的优点和局限性,并由此对人格研究的未来发展方向进行了探讨。     

Defining relationships: Comparing Canadians, Chinese and Indians

To examine whether cultural differences exist in defining family, friend, relative, colleague and neighbour, non-student samples were drawn from Canada, China and India. The data generated several unexpected findings. (i) The means of the relationship definitions between the Chinese and Canadians were not significantly different. The means between the Chinese and Indians were significantly different. The means between the Canadians and Indians were significantly different. (ii) Females defined their relationships more interdependently than males in the Indian and Canadian samples but not in the Chinese sample. (iii) Definitions were target specific and the order of closeness differed from group to group. (iv) In the Indian and Chinese samples, participants' age was negatively correlated with closeness in defining friends, indicating that a person's perceived closeness with friends changes over the life span. Results of past research using student samples need to be interpreted with caution.     

Dimensions of control: Mediational analyses of the stress–health relationship

Multiple dimensions of control are examined in relations with stress and physical health outcomes. Factor analysis of six measures of control from 187 elderly individuals yielded two factors: Self-Efficacy, people’s beliefs about their ability to exercise control over themselves and their environment, and Need for Power and Autonomy, the desire to control others and exercise self-determination. Various hypotheses regarding the process by which control impacts the relationship between stress and health were then tested. Self-Efficacy partially mediated and moderated the relationship between stress and physical health, whereas the Need for Power and Autonomy served neither function. Self-efficacy appears to be a lens through which older adults view stress, affecting the way it is interpreted and managed, ultimately impacting health outcomes.     

Interactivism: A manifesto

The interactivist model has grown over the last several decades from a narrower initial beginning into an evolving systematic theory and underlying philosophy. It has been induced to do so because the underlying assumptions that framed the beginnings of the model were fundamentally different from those that are dominant throughout psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy. Consequently, the model faced multiple instances of attempting to integrate with literature in neighboring fields, discovering that such integration was not possible because the basic assumptions were not compatible, and having to either give up on the model thus far constructed, or else extend it in a way consistent with those assumptions into those neighboring (and foundational) domains. This manifesto outlines the resultant interactivist framework, presents some of the arguments for its underlying assumptions, and argues that these avoid problems that are fatal for many standard approaches in the literature.     

The search for an effective clinical behavior analysis: the nonlinear thinking of Israel goldiamond

This paper has two purposes; the first is to reintroduce Goldiamond's constructional approach to clinical behavior analysis and to the field of behavior analysis as a whole, which, unfortunately, remains largely unaware of his nonlinear functional analysis and its implications. The approach is not simply a set of clinical techniques; instead it describes how basic, applied, and formal analyses may intersect to provide behavior-analytic solutions where the emphasis is on consequential selection. The paper takes the reader through a cumulative series of explorations, discoveries, and insights that hopefully brings the reader into contact with the power and comprehensiveness of Goldiamond's approach, and leads to an investigation of the original works cited. The second purpose is to provide the context of a life of scientific discovery that attempts to elucidate the variables and events that informed one of the most extraordinary scientific journeys in the history of behavior analysis, and expose the reader (especially young ones) to the exciting process of discovery followed by one of the field's most brilliant thinkers. One may perhaps consider this article a tribute to Goldiamond and his work, but the tribute is really to the process of scientific discovery over a professional lifetime.