The Tortilla Curtain: War on the Table of the Poor

Abstract :  This essay approaches the concept of borders from a geopolitical perspective, focusing particularly on the dividing curtain between the USA and Mexico. Corn serves not only as Ariadne's thread but also as a symbol of food in general, to be problematized and not taken for granted. The author highlights God's imperative for us to take the side of the poor: to satiate their hunger and quench their thirst. This stands in clear contradiction to the current evil economic system that has reduced food to a weapon of mass destruction, through the simultaneous overproduction of food and hunger.     

Might an overweight waitress make you eat more? How the body type of others is sufficient to alter our food consumption

This paper investigates how people's food choices can be shaped by the body type of others around them. Using a professionally constructed obesity prosthesis, we show that the body type of a (confederate) server in a taste test study was sufficient to alter both the quantity (Experiment 1) and specific choices (Experiment 2) participants made but that chronic dieters and non-dieters exhibited opposite effects. While non-dieters ate more snacks when the server was thin, dieters ate more when the server was heavy. Dieters were also more persuaded by a heavy (vs. a thin) server, choosing both a healthy and unhealthy snack more often when she recommended it to them. We suggest these results may be attributable to identification with the server.     

Supporting Out‐of‐School Time Staff in Low Resource Communities: A Professional Development Approach

Federally funded out‐of‐school time (OST) programs provide academic support, enrichment, and safety for students and families in low‐resource communities. However, programs struggle to meet these aims, in part because of the lack of program structure and limited training and support for staff. This observational case study documents the training and technical assistance (TA) delivered to OST frontline staff and program leadership to implement Positive Behavior in Out‐of‐School Time (Positive BOOST), an adaptation of positive behavior interventions and supports conducted in multiple settings. Findings across three programs indicate that varied levels of TA (i.e., business as usual, performance feedback, coaching) are associated with different levels of staff‐ and program‐level implementation. Taken together with previous research, these findings suggest that targeted investment in developing the skills of OST staff and improving program‐wide outcomes is critical for supporting youth in low‐resource communities.     

国家卫生财政政策补助对象的顺序选择

论述了国家卫生财政政策补助对象的选择问题,公共卫生服务物品提供机构与医疗服务物品提供机构之间的选择、医疗机构与患者之间的选择、公共卫生服务物品提供机构与居民之间的选择以及医疗机构与医生之间的选择,提出了卫生财政政策补助对象的选择顺序,公共卫生服务物品生产和分配机构,医疗保障机构,患者,医生,医疗机构。     

Workplace factors associated with family dinner behaviors

This study investigated relationships between workplace factors and family dinners. We examined two aspects of the family dinner, the frequency that the entire family typically has dinner together each week and the frequency that children eat fast food for dinner. Participants were 220 parents who worked at least 20 h a week and had at least one child living at home. Results indicated that work interference with family (WIF) mediated the relationship between family-supportive supervision and family dinner frequency. Greater flexplace (i.e., telecommuting) availability was associated with less frequent use of fast food for children’s dinner.     

箱庭疗法在灾后心理援助与辅导中的应用

本文简述了箱庭疗法引入灾后心理援助工作的在可行性,介绍了以"心"为主题的心理危机援助模式,并报告了存灾区活动板房内使崩箱庭疗法为一名初中一年级学生进行心理咨询的过程,还报告了一位女教师通过箱庭制作梳理负面情绪的过程,说明箱庭疗法可以作为灾后心理援助与辅导的重要方法.     

Effects of qualitatively different reinforcers on the parameters of the response-strength equation.

This experiment examined the relationship between two qualitatively different reinforcers and the parameters of a quantitative model of reinforced responding, referred to as the response-strength equation or the Herrnstein equation. A group of rats was first food deprived and later water deprived. An 11.5% sucrose solution served as the reinforcer in the food-deprivation condition, and water was the reinforcer in the water-deprivation condition. Each experimental session consisted of a series of seven variable-interval schedules, providing reinforcement rates that varied between 20 and 1,200 reinforcers per hour. The response rates increased in a negatively accelerating function in a manner consistent with the response-strength equation. This equation has two fitted parameters, k and Re. According to one theory, the k parameter is a measure of motor performance, and Re is indicative of the relative reinforcement efficacy of the background uncontrollable sources of reinforcement in relation to the experimentally arranged reinforcer. In this study, k did not change as a result of the different reinforcers, but Re was significantly larger in the sucrose-reinforcement condition. These results are consistent with the interpretation that k and Re measure two independent and experimentally distinguishable parameters and provide further evidence that absolute response rate is a function of relative reinforcement rate, as implied by the derivation of the response-strength equation based on the matching law.     

Signal modality and choice between signaled and unsignaled food

Choice between signaled and unsignaled response-independent food schedules was assessed in three experiments using a commitment procedure. In Experiment 1, subjects tested with a 5-s visual signal consistently changed from the signaled to the unsignaled schedule. Changing from the unsignaled to the signaled schedule was observed only occasionally and only at low levels. The same outcome was observed in Experiment 2 with different types of visual signals and with different stimulus combinations identifying the signal period, the signal-absent period, and the unsignaled schedule. In Experiment 3 the visual signal was replaced with an auditory signal for four of the subjects tested in Experiment 2. The subjects then changed from the unsignaled to the signaled schedule or showed a substantial reduction in choice for the unsignaled schedule. The data were assessed using a conditioned-reinforcement interpretation of choice.     

Reward Density And Variable-interval Schedule Performance In An Open Economy

There is no general agreement regarding the form of the relation between response rate and reinforcement rate when single schedules of reinforcement are studied in an open economy. The present study assessed the form of this relation using reward density, which incorporates both reinforcement rate and duration of access to food, as an independent variable. Reward density was manipulated with 4 pigeons by changing the value of the variable-interval schedule, the hopper duration, or both. The relations between response rate and reward density were sharply rising and hyperbolic in 3 of 4 pigeons, replicating results obtained by Catania and Reynolds (1968). Because eating efficiency was lower in conditions that provided longer hopper durations, programmed reward densities differed from obtained reward densities. When response rates were examined as a function of obtained reward densities, the same relations were demonstrated more strongly. In further clarifying the relation between response rate and reward density in an open economy, these results lend support to the conclusion that open and closed economies yield different behavioral effects.     

An economic analysis of "demand" for food in baboons.

Responding of 6 adult male baboons (Papio c. anubis) was maintained under a fixed-ratio schedule of food reinforcement during daily 22-hr experimental sessions. Completion of the ratio requirement resulted in the delivery of a single 1-g food pellet; supplemental feeding was limited to a daily fruit ration. Ratio values were increased on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays according to the following schedule: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 96, 128. Responding under each ratio value was examined four times. Under the Fixed-Ratio 2 conditions, food intake ranged between 300 and 600 g. Ratios were increased for each baboon until food intake decreased to about 100 g (20% to 30% of Fixed-Ratio 2 intake). Increasing the response cost increased total time responding and total daily responding in all baboons, but this increase in responding was not sufficient to maintain stable food intake. Baboons responded between 90 and 180 min per day. The highest running response rates were observed under the Fixed-Ratio 2 and Fixed-Ratio 4 schedules. Running rate was similar across the larger ratio values (greater than Fixed-Ratio 8) but was lower than that observed under the Fixed-Ratio 2 and Fixed-Ratio 4 schedules. Similar results were observed the four times that each fixed-ratio value was tested. Intake as a function of cost was analyzed by fitting data to the nonlinear equation proposed by Hursh, Raslear, Shurtleff, Bauman, and Simmons (1988) for "demand" functions. Demand for food was inelastic over most of the ratio values until food intake decreased to 15% to 55% of baseline. The results indicate that demand functions are appropriate for the study of food intake in baboons, but also caution that intake at the cost when demand shifts from inelastic to elastic and its relationship to maximal intake should also be included in analyses of demand for a commodity.